Michael Connelly (89 page)

The dogs did nothing. Bosch yelled the command a few more times but nothing changed. Then he noticed they were watching his
right hand. He understood. He slapped his hand on his hip and issued the command again. The dogs ate the pork.

Bosch quickly made two more drug-laden snacks and threw them over the fence. They were eaten quickly. Bosch started pacing
alongside the fence in the alley. The dogs stayed with him. He went back and forth twice, hoping the exercise would hurry
their digestion. Harry ignored them for a while and looked up at the spiral of thin steel that ran along the top of the fence.
He studied the glint it gave off in the moonlight. He also saw the electrical circuits spaced every twelve feet along the
top and thought he heard a soft buzzing sound. The wire would tear a climber up and fry him before he got one leg over. But
he was going to try.

He had to duck behind a Dumpster in the alley when he saw lights and a car came slowly down the alley. When it got closer
he saw that it was a police car. He froze with momentary fear of how he would explain himself. He realized he had left the
rolled car mats in the alley by the fence. The car slowed even more as it went by the EnviroBreed fence. The driver made a
kissing sound at the dogs who still stood by the fence. The car moved on and Bosch came out of hiding.

The Dobermans stood on their side of the fence watching him for nearly an hour before one dropped into a sitting position
and the other quickly did the same. The leader then worked its front paws forward until it was lying down. The follower did
likewise. Bosch watched as their heads, almost in unison, bowed and then dropped onto their outstretched front legs. He saw
urine forming in a puddle next to one of them. Both dogs kept their eyes open. When he took the last chunk of pork out of
the wrapper and tossed it over the fence, he saw one of the dogs strain to raise his head and follow the arc of the falling
food. But then the head dropped back down. Neither dog went for the offering. Bosch laced his fingers in the fence in front
of the dogs and shook it, the steel making a whining sound, but the animals paid little attention.

It was time. Bosch crumpled the grease-stained paper and threw it in the Dumpster. He took a pair of work gloves out of the
bag and put them on. Then he unfurled the front floor mat and held it by one end in his left hand. He took a high grip on
the fence with his right, raised his right foot as high as he could and pointed his shoe into one of the diamond-shaped openings
in the fence. He took a deep breath and in one move pulled himself up the fence, using his left hand and arm to swing the
rubber mat up and over the top, so that it hung down over the spiral of razor wire like a saddle. He repeated the maneuver
with the rear mat. They hung there side by side, their weight pressing the spiral of razor wire down.

It took him less than a minute to get to the top and gingerly swing one leg over the saddle and then pull the other over.
The electric buzz was louder on top and he carefully moved his hand grips until he was able to drop down next to the still
forms of the dogs. He took the small penlight from his pick set and put it on the dogs. Their eyes were open and dilated,
their breathing heavy. He stood a moment watching their bodies rise and fall on the same beat, then he moved the light around
on the ground until he found the uneaten piece of pork. He threw it over the fence, down the alley. Then, gripping the dogs
by the collars, he dragged their bodies into their pen and latched the gate. The dogs were no longer a threat.

Bosch ran quietly up the side of the building and looked around the corner to make sure the parking lot was still empty. Then
he came back down the side to the window of Ely’s office.

He studied the window, double-checking to be sure he was correct about there being no alarm. He ran the light along all four
sides of the louvered window and saw no wires, no vibration tape, no sign of an alarm. He opened the blade on his knife and
pried back one of the metal strips that held the bottom pane of glass in place. He carefully slid the pane out of the window
and leaned it against the wall. He moved the light through the opening and swung its beam around inside. The room was empty.
He saw Ely’s desk and other furnishings. The panel of four video tubes was black. The cameras were off.

After taking five glass sections out of the window and stacking them neatly against the outside wall, there was enough room
for him to hoist himself up and crawl into the office.

The top of the desk was clear of paperwork and other clutter. The glass paperweight took the beam from the penlight and shot
prism colors around the room. Bosch tried the drawers of the desk but found them locked. He opened them with a hook pick but
found nothing of interest. There was a ledger in one drawer but it seemed to pertain to incoming breeding supplies.

He directed the light into the wastebasket on the floor inside the desk well and saw several crumpled pieces of paper. He
emptied the basket on the floor. He reopened each piece of trash and then recrumpled it and dropped it back into the basket
as he determined it was meaningless.

But not all of it was trash. He found one piece of crumpled paper that had several scribbles on it, including one that said:

Colorado         504

What to do with this? he thought. The paper was evidence of the effort to kill Bosch. But Bosch had discovered it during an
illegal search. It was worthless unless found later during a legitimate search. The question was, when would that be? If Bosch
left the crumpled paper in the trash can, there was a good chance the can would be emptied and the evidence lost.

He crumpled the paper back up and then took a long piece of tape off the dispenser on the desk. He attached one piece to the
paper ball, which he then put in the trash can, pressing the other end of the tape down on the bottom of the can. Now, he
hoped, if the can was emptied the crumpled paper would remain attached and inside the can. And maybe the person who emptied
the can wouldn’t notice.

He moved out of the office into the hall. By the lab door he took goggles and a breathing mask off the hook and put them on.
The door had a common three-pin lock and he picked it quickly.

The doorway opened into blackness. He waited a beat and then moved into it. There was a cloying, sickly sweet smell to the
place. It was humid. He moved the flashlight beam around what looked like the shipping room. He heard a fly buzzing in his
ear and another insect was nattering around his masked face. He waved them off and moved farther through the room.

At the other end of the room, he passed through a set of double doors and into a room where the humidity was oppressive. It
was lit by red bulbs that were spaced above rows of fiberglass bug bins. The warm air surrounded him. He felt a squadron of
flies bumping and buzzing around his mask and forehead. Again, he waved them away. He moved to one of the bins and put his
light into it. There was a brownish-pink mass of insect larvae moving like a slow-motion sea under the light.

He then cast the light about the room and saw a rack containing several tools and a small, stationary cement mixer that he
guessed was what the day laborers used to mix the food paste for the bugs. Several shovels, rakes and brooms hung on pegs
in a row at the back of the room. There were pallets containing large bags of pulverized wheat and sugar, and smaller bags
of yeast. The markings on the bags were all in Spanish. He guessed this could be called the kitchen.

He played the light over the tools and noticed that one of the shovels stood out because it had a new handle. The wood was
clean and light, while all of the other tools had handles that had darkened over time with dirt and human sweat.

Looking at the new handle Bosch knew that Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa had been killed here, beaten so hard with a shovel that it
broke or became so blood-stained it had to be replaced. What had he seen that required his death? What had the simple day
laborer done? Bosch swung the light around again until it came upon another set of doors at the far side of the room. On these
a sign said:

DANGER
!
RADIATION
!
KEEP OUT
!
PELIGRO
!
RADIACION
!

He used his picks once again to open the door. He flashed the light around and saw no other doors. This was the terminus of
the building. It was the largest of the three rooms in the complex and was divided in two by a partition with a small window
in it. A sign on the partition said in English only:

PROTECTION MUST BE WORN

Bosch stepped around the partition and saw that this space was largely taken up by a large boxlike machine. Attached was a
conveyor belt that carried trays into one side of the machine and then out the other side, where the trays would be dumped
into bins like the ones he saw in the other room. There were more warning signs on the machine. This was where the larvae
were sterilized by radiation.

He moved around to the other side of the room and saw large steel work-tables with cabinets overhead. These were not locked
and inside he saw boxes of supplies: plastic gloves and the sausagelike casings the larvae were shipped in, batteries and
heat sensors. This was the room where the larvae were packed into casings and placed in the environment boxes. The end of
the line. There was nothing else here that seemed significant.

Bosch stepped backward toward the door. He turned the flash off and there was only the small red glow from the surveillance
camera mounted in the corner near the ceiling. What have I missed, he asked himself. What is left?

He put the light back on and walked back around the partition to the radiation machine. All of the signs in the building were
designed to keep people away from this spot. This would be where the secret was. He focused on the floor-to-ceiling stacks
of the wide steel trays used for moving larvae. He put his shoulder against one of the stacks and began to slide it on the
floor. Beneath was only concrete. He tried the next stack and looked down and saw the edge of a trapdoor.

The tunnel.

But at that moment it hit him. The red light on the surveillance camera. The video panel in Ely’s office had been off. And
earlier, when Bosch had visited, he had noticed that the only interior view Ely had on video was of the shipping room.

It meant someone else was watching this room. He looked at his watch, trying to estimate how long he had been in the room.
Two minutes? Three minutes? If they were coming from the ranch, he had little time. He looked down at the outline of the door
in the floor and then up at the red eye in the darkness.

But he couldn’t take the chance that no one was watching. He quickly pushed the stack back over the door in the floor and
moved out of the third room. He retraced his path through the complex, hooking the mask and goggles on the peg by Ely’s office.
Then he went through the office and out the window. He quickly put the glass panes back in place, bending the metal strips
back with his fingers.

The dogs were still lying in the same spot, their bodies pumping with each breath. Bosch hesitated but then decided to drag
them out in case the monitor at the end of the camera’s cable line was not being watched and he hadn’t been seen. He grabbed
them by the collars and dragged them out of the pen. He heard one try to growl but it sounded more like a whine. The other
did likewise.

He hit the fence on the run, climbed it quickly but then forced himself to go slow over the floor mats. When he was at the
top he thought he heard the sound of an engine above the sound of the electric buzz. As he was about to drop over, he jerked
the mats up off the razor wire and dropped down with them into the alley.

He checked his pockets to make sure he had not dropped the picks or flash-light. Or his keys. His gun was still in its holster.
He had everything. There was the sound of a vehicle now, maybe more than one. He definitely had been seen. As he ran down
the alley toward Mexitec, he heard someone shouting “
Pedro y Pablo! Pedro y Pablo!
” The dogs, he realized. Peter and Paul were the dogs.

He crawled into his car and sat crouched in the front seat watching Enviro-Breed. There were two cars in the front lot and
three men that he could see. They were holding guns and standing beneath the spotlight over the front door. Then a fourth
man came around the corner, speaking in Spanish. He had found the dogs. Something about the man looked familiar but it was
too dark and Bosch was too far away to be able to see any tattoo tears. They opened the door and, like cops with their guns
up, they went inside the building. That was Bosch’s cue. He started the Caprice and pulled out onto the road. As he sped away
he realized he was once again shaking with the release of tension, the high of a good scare. Sweat was running down out of
his hair and drying in the cool night air on his neck.

He lit a cigarette and threw the match out of the window. He laughed nervously into the wind.