Page 87

“Are you sure you’re a cop?” she asked. “You look kinda…”

“Old?” Bosch said. “I get that a lot.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, me too.”

36

THERE WAS ONE casualty found inside MacLaren Hall. His name was Robert Walker. He had been executed with a bullet to the head. It was a contact wound in the center of his forehead, meaning that the gun had been held there and Walker knew what was coming.

Bosch was interviewed repeatedly through the night by sheriff’s homicide detectives, as was Tomas Novotny, and he knew their story sounded far-fetched. He could tell the detectives didn’t believe them until Cutler showed up at dawn with Singer and bigfooted the case in the name of national security. When Bosch and Novotny were briefed, it became clear that whatever net the feds had cast over Novak and his operations had some very large holes in it. Both Novak and Slobodan Marek were gone, and the task force didn’t have a clue how to find them.

They were lucky that they had Novotny to confer with. His undercover placement in Novak’s organization had been considered so vital and sensitive that Cavanaugh and Cutler were the only ones on the West Coast who knew about it. He had made all contact through Cavanaugh, so when Cavanaugh was killed in the shipyard blast, he had been cut off from communication. Now he was back in the fold, and the feds were picking his brain to figure out where two fleeing felons and the four remaining Hellfire missiles might be. Novotny had not made it into Novak’s inner circle but he was privy to many of Novak’s conversations and orders. The feds were interested in anywhere Novotny had been with Novak in the past four months. He was taken back to the Roybal for what would be a long debriefing by Singer and Shear.

When they left, Cutler signaled Bosch to follow him, and they sat in Cutler’s personal car, a Tesla, parked outside the rear gate to MacLaren.

“This is where we part ways, Harry,” Cutler said.

“What do you mean?” Bosch said. “This is just getting started.”

Cutler nodded.

“There’s a lot to do,” he said. “But it’s not my call. In fact, my head is on the chopping block for bringing you into this.”

“If it weren’t for me finding those missiles, they’d be on their way to terrorists.”

“And four good men would still be alive.”

“So you’re blaming me for what happened? That’s — ”

“Not blaming you at all. I’m just saying that anytime we lose agents, the scrutiny of the operation becomes all-encompassing, and decisions are second- and third-guessed. Like my decision to bring you into the task force. It is now viewed as a mistake, so you’re out. I got told, you understand? You’re out.”

Bosch was silent for a few moments, then nodded and opened the door.

“I hope you get your missiles back,” he said. “And I hope you take Novak down in the process.”

“Me too,” Cutler said. “We will.”

“Don’t make a deal with him. Just put him down.”

“That’s my intention.”

Bosch got out of the car, closed the door, and walked away.

PART FOUR

The Night Hunter

37

SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE Edward R. Leibowitz arrived promptly at nine o’clock to convene the hearing in the case of State of California v. Talbot and Talbot. Leibowitz was a mainstay of the Criminal Courts Building. He had been on the bench as long as Bosch could remember and had presided over numerous cases Bosch worked during his career with the LAPD. Bosch knew him to be tough but fair, a judge who sprinkled his rulings with as much common sense as legal acumen. Leibowitz entered the courtroom and strode to the bench, his black robe fluffed and floating in his wake. He had a shaved head, which made him look younger than he was. He was known to commute to the Civic Center by bike, and that kept him in good shape.

Bosch sat in the first row of the gallery along with Ballard, Laffont, and the tech John “Ozzie” Osmond, all of them there because they had been subpoenaed by the defendants. Bosch had made it to the courtroom just a minute before go time. He had judged rush hour correctly and gotten to the Criminal Courts Building without issue but was slowed down by the second rush hour — the hundreds of people getting on elevators to go up to the multitude of courtrooms and offices in the building. Bosch no longer had the privilege of using one of the two speed elevators reserved for law enforcement. You needed a badge that didn’t say RETIRED on it to get by the elevator police who monitored access during the morning crunch. Consequently, Bosch had had no time for final prep with the prosecutor assigned to the hearing and didn’t have a chance to say more than hello to Ballard and the other subpoenaed members of the cemetery-caper team.

The defendants, Gregory and Gloria Talbot, sat together at the defense table, dressed in matching blue jail scrubs. The hearing was the first opportunity since their arrests for them to be together, as they were being held in different detention facilities. They were bookended by their attorneys, Ted Garland for Gregory Talbot and Dylan Ross for Gloria Talbot.

Bosch was familiar with the lawyers. Garland and Ross were skilled defense attorneys specializing in major crime cases. Both had been involved in trials in which Bosch had been the lead investigator. They hadn’t won an acquittal in any of those cases, but that was no reflection on their skills. The Talbots had chosen their representatives wisely and everybody on both sides knew that today’s hearing was the make-or-break moment for the entire case. Its outcome would dictate every step that followed. Or didn’t.