“You remember the A-six from Vietnam?” he asked.
“I sure do,” the pilot said. “The Intruder, great plane.”
“I flew ’em back then and haven’t flown since. But you make one wrong move and I’ll put a bullet in your head and have to learn to fly all over again.”
Bosch had never flown a plane before, let alone an Intruder. But he needed a believable threat to keep the pilot in line.
“No problem, sir,” the pilot said. “Just tell me where you want to go. I don’t have any idea what was going on back there. I just fly the plane. They tell me where.”
“Save it,” Bosch said. “How much fuel do we have?”
“I tapped it this morning. We’re full.”
“What’s the range?”
“Three hundred miles easy.”
“Okay, take me back to L.A. Up to Whiteman.”
“Not a problem.”
The pilot started going through maneuvers to change course. Bosch saw the radio mic hooked to the instrument panel. He grabbed it.
“This on?”
“Yes, press the button on the side to transmit.”
Bosch found the transmit button and then hesitated, unsure what to say.
“Hello, any airport tower that can read this. Come back.”
Bosch looked at the pilot, wondering if he had just revealed that he had never flown a plane before. The radio saved him.
“This is Imperial County Airport, go ahead.”
“My name is Harry Bosch. I’m a detective with the San Fernando Police Department. I am flying in a plane after an in-air event leaving one passenger dead and one missing over the Salton Sea. Requesting radio contact be made with Agent Hovan of the DEA. I can give a number when you are ready to copy.”
Bosch clicked off and waited for the response. He felt the tensions that had gripped him for nearly forty-eight hours start to slacken off as the plane headed north toward safety and home.
From two thousand feet up, the land below looked beautiful to Bosch and nothing like the badlands he knew it to be.
29
Bosch got a crowded reception from state, local, and federal authorities when the plane landed under DEA air escort at Whiteman Airport. There were DEA agents, Jerry Edgar with a team from the state medical board, and Chief Valdez and the investigators from San Fernando standing front and center. There was also a coroner’s van and death team, a pair of LAPD detectives from Foothill Division, their own forensic tech, and a pair of paramedics just in case Bosch required medical attention.
The plane was directed into an empty hangar so that it could be processed as a crime scene without media or public scrutiny. Bosch squeezed through the cockpit door and into the passenger section and the pilot followed. He told the pilot to climb through the jump door with his hands up. As he did so, Bosch stepped to the back of the compartment. He took a long look at the man he had killed, his body lying still on the floor of the plane. Blood had run from the body in crisscross patterns as the plane had banked and changed altitude during the flight. Bosch moved back up to the jump door and exited the plane.
Two men in black tactical pants and shirts, their sidearms held down by their sides, helped him off the jump platform.
“DEA?” Bosch asked.
“Yes, sir,” said one agent. “We are going to go in and clear the plane now. Is there anyone else inside?”
“Nobody alive.”
“Okay, sir. There are some people here who want to talk to you now.”
“And I want to talk to them.”
Bosch stepped away from the plane’s wing, and Bella Lourdes was there waiting for him.
“Harry, you all right?”
“Better than the guy in the plane. How are we handling the debrief?”
“The DEA has a mobile command post. You’re supposed to go in there with us, the LAPD, Edgar, and Hovan. You ready, or you want to—”
“I’m ready. Let’s get this over with. But I want to see the L.A. Times first. That story today almost got me killed.”
“We have it for you.”
“Talk about bad timing.”
She led him to a huddle with Valdez, Sisto, Luzon, and Trevino. The chief clapped him on the upper arm and said he had done good. There was an awkwardness about the greeting, considering what Bosch had been through, and it was the first indication that the Times story was going to be difficult to deal with.
Bosch pressed on with the case at hand.
“Our case is closed,” he said. “The dead guy in the plane was one of the shooters. The other one jumped out. I don’t think he made it.”
“The fricking guy just jumped out of the plane?” Sisto said.
He said it in a tone that implied he thought otherwise, like maybe the Russian had help jumping.
Bosch held his eyes with a stare.
“Crazy Russians,” Sisto said. “Just saying.”
“Let’s wait on all of that until we sit down with everybody,” Valdez said. “Bella, you take Harry to the debriefing, I’ll get the paper. Harry, you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“I’ll have somebody get you something and bring it in.”
Bella had walked Bosch halfway through the hangar when they encountered Edgar. He smiled at Bosch as he approached.
“Partner, you made it,” he said. “Can’t wait to hear the rundown. Sounds like a close fucking call.”
Bosch nodded.
“You know what?” he said. “If you hadn’t told me that rumor about people going up in the plane and not coming back, I might not be here right now, partner. That gave me the edge on these guys.”
“Well, I’m glad I did something,” Edgar said.
The mobile command post was an unmarked RV that had probably been seized in a drug case, then gutted on the inside and reequipped. Bosch and Lourdes stepped into what looked like a mini board of directors’ meeting room. There was a separation wall with a door that led to an electronics nest. Agent Hovan stepped out of the nest, shook Bosch’s hand, and welcomed him back.
“Anything on the second Russian?” Bosch asked.
Bosch had reported on Igor’s jump without a parachute while on the plane flying toward Whiteman. The DEA had dispatched a rescue effort.
“Nothing,” Hovan said. “It’s a long shot.”
Hovan instructed Bosch to sit at one end of the table so he would be visible to all who would gather for the briefing. Lourdes took the seat to his right, and the rest of the SFPD team took the chairs down that side of the table. Valdez came in and dropped the A section of the Times on the table in front of Bosch and then sat down.
The story had been a front-page lead, its headline a kick to Bosch’s gut. He tried to read it as agents and officers started to file into the command post and take seats.
By David Ramsey, Times Staff Writer
A man sentenced to death for a 1987 rape and murder of a Toluca Lake actress may walk free as early as Wednesday when prosecutors cite new DNA evidence and misconduct on the part of the Los Angeles police and ask a judge to vacate the conviction.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has requested the Superior Court hearing in the case of Preston Borders, who has been imprisoned since his arrest almost 30 years ago. Borders had exhausted all appeals in the case and was languishing on death row at San Quentin until the D.A.’s newly created Conviction Integrity Unit decided to review his claims that he was framed for the murder of Danielle Skyler.
Skyler was found raped and murdered in her apartment in Toluca Lake. Borders was an acquaintance who had previously dated her and was tied to the crime when jewelry allegedly taken from the victim during the assault was found hidden in his apartment. In a case built entirely on circumstantial evidence, Borders was convicted after a one-week trial and later sentenced to death.