Michael Connelly: The Overlook

Bosch stepped farther in, and through the window in one of the private offices he saw a man sitting in a chair, his head back and eyes open. He looked like he was wearing a red bib. But Bosch knew it was blood. The man had been shot in the chest.

He pointed and Rachel saw the dead man. She reacted with a quick intake of breath and a low-volume sigh.

The door to the office was ajar. They moved toward it and Bosch pushed it open while Walling covered them from behind. Bosch stepped in and saw Alicia Kent sitting on the floor, her back to the wall.

He crouched beside her. Her eyes were open but dead. A gun was on the floor between her feet and the wall behind her was spattered with blood and brain matter.

Bosch turned and surveyed the room. He understood the play. It was set up so it would look like Alicia Kent had grabbed the agent’s gun from his holster, shot him and then sat down on the floor and took her own life. No note or explanation, but it was the best Maxwell could come up with in the short amount of time and opportunity that he had.

Bosch turned to Walling. She had let her guard down and was just standing there looking at the dead agent.

“Rachel,” he said. “He’s gotta still be here.”

He stood and moved toward the door so he could search the squad room. As he glanced through the window he saw movement behind the electronics racks. He stopped, raised his weapon and tracked someone moving behind one of the racks toward a door with an exit sign on it.

In a moment he saw Maxwell break free of the cover and dash toward the door.

“Maxwell!” Bosch yelled. “Stop!”

Maxwell spun and raised a weapon. At the same moment that his back hit the exit door he started firing. The window shattered and glass sprayed across Bosch. He returned fire and put six shots into the opening of the exit door but Maxwell was gone.

“Rachel?” he called without taking his eyes off the door. “Okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Her voice came from below him. He knew she had hit the floor when the shooting had started.

“Which exit is that door?”

Rachel stood up. Bosch moved toward the door, glancing at her, and saw glass all over her clothes and that she had been cut on the cheek.

“Those stairs go down to his car.”

Bosch ran from the room toward the exit door. He opened his phone as he went and pushed the speed dial for his partner. The call was answered on half a ring. Bosch was already in the stairwell.

“He’s coming down!”

Bosch dropped the phone and started down the stairs. He could hear Maxwell running on the steel steps below and instinctively knew that he was too far ahead.

BOSCH COVERED THREE MORE LANDINGS, taking three steps at a time. He could now hear Walling coming down behind him. He then heard the booming sound from below as Maxwell hit the exit door at the bottom. There were immediate shouts and then there were shots. They came so close together it was impossible to determine which had come first or how many shots had been fired.

Ten seconds later Bosch hit the exit door. He came out onto the sidewalk and saw Ferras leaning against the back bumper of Maxwell’s fed car. He was holding his weapon with one hand and his elbow with the other. A red rose of blood was blooming on his shoulder. Traffic had stopped in both directions on Third and pedestrians were running down the sidewalks to safety.

“I hit him twice,” Ferras yelled. “He went that way.”

He nodded in the direction of the Third Street tunnel under Bunker Hill. Bosch stepped closer to his partner and saw the wound in the ball of his shoulder. It didn’t look too bad.

“Did you call for backup?” Bosch asked.

“On the way.”

Ferras grimaced as he adjusted his hold on his injured arm.

“You did real good, Iggy. Hang in there while I go get this guy.”

Ferras nodded. Bosch turned and saw Rachel come through the door, a smear of blood on her face.

“This way,” he said. “He’s hit.”

They started down Third in a spread formation. After a few steps Bosch picked up the trail. Maxwell was obviously hurt badly and was losing a lot of blood. It would make him easy to track.

But when they got to the corner of Third and Hill they lost the trail. There was no blood on the pavement. Bosch looked into the long Third Street tunnel and saw no one moving in the traffic on foot. He looked up and down Hill Street and saw nothing until his attention was drawn to a commotion of people running out of the Grand Central Market.

“This way,” he said.

They moved quickly toward the huge market. Bosch picked up the blood trail again just outside and started in. The market was a two-story-high conglomeration of food booths and retail and produce concessions. There was a strong smell of grease and coffee in the air that had to infect every floor of the building above the market. The place was crowded and noisy and that made it difficult for Bosch to follow the blood and track Maxwell.

Then suddenly there were shouts from directly ahead and two quick shots were fired into the air. It caused an immediate human stampede. Dozens of screaming shoppers and workers flooded into the aisle where Bosch and Walling stood and started running toward them. Bosch realized they were going to be run over and trampled. In one motion he moved to his right, grabbed Walling around the waist and pulled her behind one of the wide concrete support pillars.

The crowd moved by, and then Bosch looked around the pillar. The market was now empty. There was no sign of Maxwell but then Bosch picked up movement in one of the cold cases that fronted a butcher shop at the end of the aisle. He looked again closely and realized that the movement came from behind the case. Looking through the front and back glass panels and over the display of cuts of beef and pork, Bosch could see Maxwell’s face. He was on the ground, leaning his back against a refrigerator in the rear of the butcher shop.

“He’s up ahead in the butcher shop,” he whispered to Walling. “You go to the right and down that aisle. You’ll be able to come up on his right.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll go straight on and get his attention.”

“Or we could wait for backup.”

“I’m not waiting.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Ready?”

“No, switch. I go head-on and get his attention and you come around the side.”

Bosch knew it was the better plan because she knew Maxwell and Maxwell knew her. But it also meant she would face the most danger.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s right.”

Bosch looked around the pillar one more time and saw that Maxwell had not moved. His face looked red and sweaty. Bosch looked back at Walling.

“He’s still there.”

“Good. Let’s do it.”

They separated and started moving. Bosch quickly moved down an aisle of concessions one over from the aisle that ended at the butcher shop. When he came to the end he was at a Mexican coffee shop with high walls. He was able to protect himself and look around the corner at the butcher shop. This gave him a side view behind the counter. He saw Maxwell twenty feet away. He was slouched against the refrigerator door, still holding his weapon in two hands. His shirt was completely soaked in blood.

Bosch leaned back into cover, gathered himself and got ready to step out and approach Maxwell. But then he heard Walling’s voice.

“Cliff? It’s me, Rachel. Let me get you some help.”

Bosch looked around the corner. Walling was standing out in the open five feet in front of the deli counter, her gun down at her side.

“There is no help,” Maxwell said. “It’s too late for me.”

Bosch recognized that if Maxwell wanted to take a shot at her the bullet would have to go through both the front and back glass panels of the deli case. With the front plate set at an angle it would take a miracle bullet to get to her. But miracles did happen. Bosch raised his weapon, braced it against the wall and was ready to shoot if he needed to.