The Overlook - Michael Connelly [74]
Bosch shook his head.
“No way. Maxwell’s got to know that once the cesium was found, his plan was going down the toilet. He’s got to take action against all threats. First the witness, then Alicia Kent.”
“Alicia Kent? You think he’d make a move against her? This whole thing is because of her.”
“Doesn’t matter now. Survival instincts take over now and she’s a threat. It goes with the territory. You cross the big line to be with her. You cross it again to save your—”
Bosch stopped talking as a sudden realization thudded in his chest. He cursed out loud and pinned the accelerator as they came out of the Cahuenga Pass. He cut across three lanes of Highland Avenue in front of the Hollywood Bowl and made a screeching U-turn in front of oncoming traffic. He punched it, and the car fishtailed wildly as he headed toward the southbound entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. Rachel grabbed the dashboard and a door handle to hold on.
“Harry, what are you doing? This is the wrong way!”
He flicked on the siren and the blue lights that flashed in the front grille and back window of the car. He yelled his response to Walling.
“Mitford is a misdirection. This is the right way. Who is the greater threat to Maxwell?”
“Alicia?”
“You bet and now’s the best shot he has of getting her out of Tactical. Everybody’s up in that alley with the cesium.”
The freeway was moving pretty well and the siren helped open it up further. Bosch figured Maxwell could have already gotten to downtown, depending on what kind of traffic he encountered.
Rachel opened her phone and started punching in numbers. She tried number after number but no one was answering.
“I can’t get anybody,” she yelled.
“Where’s TIU?”
Walling didn’t hesitate.
“On Broadway. You know where the Million Dollar Theater is? Same building. Entrance on Third.”
Bosch flicked off the siren and opened his phone. He called his partner and Ferras answered right away.
“Ignacio, where are you?”
“Just got back to the office. Forensics worked the car for—”
“Listen to me. Drop what you’re doing and meet me at the Third Street entrance to the Million Dollar Theater building. You know where that is?”
“What’s going on?”
“Do you know where the Million Dollar Theater is?”
“Yeah, I know where it is.”
“Meet me there at the Third Street entrance. I’ll explain when I get there.”
He closed the phone and hit the siren again.
TWENTY-ONE
THE NEXT TEN MINUTES took ten hours. Bosch moved in and out of traffic and finally reached the Broadway exit in downtown. He killed the siren as he made the turn and headed down the hill toward their destination. They were three blocks away.
The Million Dollar Theater was built in a time when the movie business showed itself off in magnificent theater palaces that lined Broadway downtown. But it had been decades since a first-run film had been projected on a screen there. Its ornate façade had been covered by a lighted marquee that for a time announced religious revivals instead of movies. Now the theater waited unused for renovation and redemption while above it a once-grand office building was twelve stories of midgrade office space and residential lofts.
“Good place for a secret unit to have a secret office,” Bosch said as the building came into sight. “Nobody would’ve guessed.”
Walling didn’t respond. She was trying to make another call. She then slapped the phone closed in frustration.
“I can’t even get our secretary. She always takes lunch after one so there will be somebody in the office when the agents go to lunch earlier.”
“Where exactly is the squad and where would Alicia Kent be in there?”
“We have the whole seventh floor. There’s a lounge room with a couch and a TV. They put her in there so she could watch TV.”
“How many in the squad?”
“Eight agents, the secretary and an office manager. The office manager just went out on maternity leave and the secretary must be at lunch. I hope. But they wouldn