Bosch was not going to tell this man anything but he did not want to endanger Aguila. Bosch would be leaving eventually, but not Aguila.

“I am leaving in the morning. My work is completed.”

“Then you should leave tonight, eh? An early start?”

“Maybe.”

Grena nodded.

“You see, I have had an inquiry from a Lieutenant Pounds of the LAPD. He is very anxious at your return. He asked me to tell you this personally. Why is that?”

Bosch looked at him and shook his head.

“I don’t know. You would have to ask him.”

There was a long silence during which Grena’s attention was drawn to the ring again. Bosch looked that way, too, just in time to see Silvestri leading the charging bull past him with his cape.

Grena looked at him for a long time and then smiled, probably the way Ted Bundy had smiled at the girls on campus.

“You know the art of the cape?”

Bosch didn’t answer and the two just stared at each other. A thin smile continued to play across the captain’s dark face.

“El arte de la muleta,” Grena finally said. “It is deception. It is the art of survival. The matador uses the cape to fool death, to make death go where he is not. But he must be brave. He must risk himself over the horns of death. The closer death comes, the braver he becomes. Never for a moment can he show fear. Never show fear. To do so is to lose. It is to die. This is the art, my friend.”

He nodded and Bosch just stared at him.

Grena smiled broadly now and turned to the door. He opened it and the other man was still there. As he turned to reclose the door he looked at Bosch and said, “Have a good trip, Detective Harry Bosch. Tonight, eh?”

Bosch said nothing and the door was closed. He sat there for a moment but his attention was drawn by the cheers to the ring. Silvestri had dropped to one knee in the center of the ring and had lured the bull to a charge. He remained stoically fixed in position until the beast was on him. He then moved the cape away from his body in a smooth flow. The bull rushed by within inches and Silvestri was untouched. It was beautiful and the cheers rose from the stadium. The unlocked door to the box opened and Aguila stepped in.

“Grena, what did he want?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He held the binoculars up and checked Zorrillo’s box. The pope wasn’t there but now Grena was, staring back at him with the same thin smile on his lips.

Silvestri felled the bull with a single thrust of his sword, the blade diving deep between its shoulders and slicing through the heart. Instant death. Bosch looked over at the man with the dagger and thought he saw a trace of disappointment on his hardened face. His work wasn’t needed.

The cheering for Silvestri’s expert kill was deafening. And it did not let up as the matador made a circuit around the ring, his arms up to receive the applause. Roses, pillows, women’s high-heeled shoes showered down into the ring. The bullfighter beamed in the adulation. The noise was so loud that it was quite some time before Bosch realized that the pager on his belt was sounding its call to him.

28

At nine o’clock Bosch and Aguila turned off Avenida Cristobal Colon onto a perimeter road that skirted Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada Aeropuerto Internacional. The roadway passed several old quonset-hut hangars and then a larger grouping of newer structures. On one of these was a sign that said Aero Carga. The huge bay doors had been spread a few feet and the opening was lit from the inside. It was their destination, a DEA front. Bosch pulled into the lot in front and parked near several other cars. He noticed that most of them had California plates.

As soon as he stepped out of the Caprice he was approached by four DEA types in blue plastic windbreakers. He showed his ID and evidently passed muster after one of them consulted a clipboard.

“And you?” the clipboard man said to Aguila.

“He’s with me,” Bosch said.

“We have you down as a solo entry, Detective Bosch. Now we have a problem.”

“I guess I forgot to RSVP that I’d bring a date,” Bosch said.

“It’s not very funny, Detective Bosch.”

“Of course not. But he’s my partner. He stays with me.”

Clipboard had a distressed look on his face. He was an Anglo with a ruddy complexion and hair that had been bleached almost white by the sun. He looked as though he had been watching the border a long time. He turned to look back at the hangar, as if hoping for direction on how to handle this. On the back of his windbreaker Bosch saw the large yellowDEA letters.

“Better get Ramos,” Bosch said. “If my partner goes, I go. Then where’s the integrity of the operation’s security?”

He looked over at Aguila, who was standing stiffly with the three other agents around him like bouncers ready to toss somebody out of a nightclub on the Sunset Strip.

“Think about it,” Bosch continued. “Anybody who’s come this far has to go the distance. Otherwise, you got someone outside the circle. Out there and unaccounted for. Go ask Ramos.”

Clipboard hesitated again, then told everybody to stay cool and took a radio from the pocket of his jacket. He radioed to someone called Staff Leader that there was a problem in the lot. Then everybody stood around for a few moments in silence. Bosch looked over at Aguila and when their eyes met he winked. Then he saw Ramos and Corvo, the agent from L.A., walking briskly toward them.

“What’s this shit, Bosch,” Ramos started before he got to the car. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve compromised the whole fucking operation. I gave explicit instru-”

“He’s my partner on this, Ramos. He knows what I know. We are together on this. If he’s out, then so am I. And when we leave, I go across the border. To L.A. I don’t know where he goes. How will that hold with your theory on who can be trusted?”

In the light from the hangar, Bosch could see the pulse beating in an artery on Ramos’s neck.

“See,” Bosch said, “if you let him leave, you are trusting him. So, if you trust him, you might as well let him stay.”

“Fuck you, Bosch.”

Corvo put his hand on Ramos’s arm and stepped forward.

“Bosch, if he fucks up or this operation in any way becomes compromised, I will make it known. You know what I mean? It’ll be known in L.A. that you brought this guy in.”

He made a signal across the car to the others and they stepped away from Aguila. The moonlight reflected on Corvo’s face and Bosch saw the scar that split his beard on the right side. He wondered how many times the DEA agent would be telling the story of the knife fight tonight.

“And another thing,” Ramos threw in. “He goes in naked. We only have one more vest. That’s for your ass, Bosch. So if he gets hit, it’s on you.”

“Right,” Bosch said. “I get it. No matter what goes wrong, it’s my ass. I got it. I also have a vest in my trunk. He can use yours. I like my own.”

“Briefing’s at twenty-two hundred,” Ramos said as he walked back toward the hangar.

Corvo followed and Bosch and Aguila fell in behind him. The other agents brought up the rear. Inside the cavernous hangar Bosch saw there were three black helicopters sitting side by side in the bay area. There were several men, most in black jumpsuits, milling about and drinking coffee from white cups. Two of the helicopters were wide-bodied personnel transport craft. Bosch recognized them. They were UH-1Ns. Hueys. The distinctive whop-whop of their rotors would forever be the sound of Vietnam to him. The third craft was smaller and sleeker. It looked like a craft manufactured for commercial use, like a news or police chopper, but it had been converted into a gunship. Bosch recognized the gun turret mounted on the right side of the copter’s body. Beneath the cockpit another mount held an array of equipment, including a spotlight and night-vision sensor. The men in the black jumpsuits were stripping the white numbers and letters off the tail sections of the craft. They were preparing for a total blackout, a night assault.