AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her voice obscured something Bosch said.
“Ballard, be quiet,” Olmstead barked. “We need to hear. Yes, it’s recorded.”
Ballard didn’t believe him. And she knew there was only one reason not to record the takedown.
“If Bosch gets hurt, I won’t keep my mouth shut about this,” she said.
Olmstead held his hand up for silence.
On the screen, the deal was about to go down. Dehaven was at the back of the Cherokee next to Bosch and was pulling towels out of one of the beach bags. He held the towels under one arm while looking into the bag. He reached down to inspect the weapons without lifting them out of the bag. Seemingly satisfied, Dehaven stuffed the towels back in that bag and moved on to the second one. This time when he removed the towels, he dropped them next to the bag, leaving both hands free.
“No slings?” he said. “Dude, I ordered slings.”
“You gave me short notice on that,” Bosch said. “I can get ’em Tuesday or Wednesday for you.”
“That’ll be too late.”
“For what?”
“What?”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late for none of your fucking business.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to know your business. I just want to finish ours. Where’s the money?”
“In the pocket of the guy you told to stay in the van. He’s the buyer. I’m just the go-between.”
“Then you can go get the money from him.”
“I sure can.”
Dehaven picked the two beach bags up by the straps, one in each hand, and turned from the Cherokee.
“No, they stay here till you bring me the cash,” Bosch said.
“Oh, come on, man,” Dehaven said. “You’ll get your money.”
He attempted to walk past Bosch to the van, but Bosch put his hand in front of Dehaven’s chest. Dehaven shrank back from it.
“Don’t touch me, man,” he said.
“You want the guns, you pay for the guns,” Bosch said.
Ballard could feel the mounting tension between the two men. They stood there staring at each other for a long moment before Dehaven dropped the bags to the ground.
“Fine, tough guy,” he said. “I’ll get you your money.”
He walked past Bosch to the van. He reached in through the open passenger window, and it appeared to Ballard that he took something from the driver, though the hand-pass was below the window line.
Dehaven turned toward Bosch as he took his hand out of the window. The move was smooth and quick. While making the pivot, he dropped his hand to his side, guarding it from Bosch’s view.
Ballard’s eyes jumped from one screen to another as she looked for an angle on Dehaven’s left hand. Olmstead beat her to it.
“Gun!” he yelled into the microphone. “Blue, blue, blue!”
Bluewas the go word. In the command post, Ballard didn’t hear the shots, but almost immediately after Olmstead yelled the word into his mic, she saw Dehaven’s body jerk from the impacts of at least two sniper hits. He collapsed to his knees and then fell backward to the asphalt, a handgun next to his left hand.
