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Cavanaugh pointed at Bosch.

“Bringing in the LAPD is one thing,” he said. “But I don’t think Bosch should be on any searches.”

Cutler’s brow creased like he didn’t understand.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“He’s too old. He could get in the way and compromise the whole thing.”

Now Bosch made a scoffing sound and shook his head. He waited, hoping he would not have to defend his age or abilities.

“We got this entire lead because of Harry,” Shear said. “I mean, so he’s old. I think he’s shown he can do the work.”

Bosch nodded his thanks to Shear.

“We’ll deal with that when we have warrants in hand,” Cutler said. “But if Bosch is tight with Ballard, we’ll want him with her. Okay, let’s get to work. I want individual warrants for each place in front of a judge no later than Sunday morning. We go at dawn Monday.”

Despite Cavanaugh’s pettiness, there was a sense of excitement in the room after Cutler left. Cavanaugh followed him, perhaps to make another case for Bosch’s dismissal.

Bosch moved over to Shear’s desk. They bumped fists and kept their voices low.

“Thanks,” Bosch said.

“For what?” Shear said. “Like you said, guy’s got a bug up his ass about you. I don’t get it, but I’m glad it’s you and not me anymore.”

“Guy like that, he always needs someone to chip on.”

“You sure you didn’t have a case with him somewhere back in the day? Or maybe knew each other in a previous life?”

“Not that I know of.”

But Bosch did start thinking about his history with the FBI. It was marked by several run-ins with agents when cases Bosch was working rubbed up against federal investigations. There was a good possibility that Cavanaugh was harboring a long-standing grudge about something Bosch didn’t even remember.

30

BEFORE SUNRISE ON Monday, four teams were assembled and ready to hit four locations simultaneously: Nikolai Novak’s house on Mulholland, the plumbing-supply business he owned, the auto-export business he operated, and a warehouse that stored equipment and supplies for both. Ballard had to borrow LAPD raid jackets from Pacific Division for the task force members to wear to conceal their federal affiliations. Each search team consisted of a task force member, a badged LAPD detective, at least one Open-Unsolved Unit volunteer, and a uniformed patrol officer to handle the door knock. Because the search warrants were authorized under the investigation of the Wonderland case and did not specifically cite the stolen missiles, an FBI bomb squad was placed on standby, ready to move in if the weapons were located at any of the sites. Holding the squad back further obscured the true purpose of the searches and kept Novak from knowing that a federal task force was closing in on him.

The operation started with a five a.m. call time and an all-hands meeting at which Cavanaugh ran a PowerPoint presentation showing the missiles and rockets the teams would be searching for.

The PowerPoint ended with a warning that disseminating information from an active FBI investigation to the public or media was a federal crime. As usual with Cavanaugh, he bum-rushed the message when subtlety would have sufficed.

Bosch had fended off Cavanaugh’s efforts to cut him out of the operation. Cutler had overruled him, and Bosch was on a team consisting of himself; ATF agent Shear; Detective Lucia Soto from the Robbery-Homicide Division; LAPD officer Ed Nachtrieb out of Pacific Division; and, as a representative of the Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, who volunteered there when she was off from the fraud unit.

Soto had signed up for the search team at Bosch’s urging. They had been partners when Bosch was with the LAPD, and he knew he could trust her right down the line.

The team’s search location was a warehouse on Terminal Island, where it was believed Nikolai Novak stored a variety of goods and equipment related to the supposedly legitimate businesses he operated. The warehouse was also suspected of being a place where secret meetings of the Spolu were held.

There wasn’t a traditional door to knock on. The warehouse had three roll-up garage doors that were secured with heavy padlocks. Nachtrieb used an industrial-size bolt cutter to remove the locks, and then all three doors were rolled up to let in the light. There was no one on the premises to serve with the search warrant, so Soto taped it to the exterior wall next to the first garage opening.

They gloved up and agreed to spread out and conduct a grid search of the structure, then switch squares so that every part of the warehouse was thoroughly searched at least twice and by different people. Bosch started with the square located at the front right of the warehouse. This area was crowded with racks holding brass pipes of various lengths and widths. The racks were organized by pipe width. There were also shelves of boxes containing brass connector sleeves and elbow pipes. Running along the side wall was a workbench on which sat pipe-cutting and pipe-threading equipment.

The racks containing pipes wide enough to slide a Hydra rocket into took most of Bosch’s attention. He pointed a flashlight down each one of them to confirm it was empty. He found no missiles, but he did come across a dead rat in one of tubes. He was halfway through his task when he heard Soto call out from the rear corner of the warehouse.

All the searchers joined Soto at a workbench. She had found a three-foot length of brass pipe that was threaded on one end and wrapped in black electrical tape on the other.

“It was inside a PVC pipe at the very top,” Soto said, pointing at one of the pipe racks. “Both ends were stuffed with rags.”

Bosch moved in close to study the pipe. He noticed that it was slightly bent near the threaded end. He touched the pipe with a gloved finger and rolled it on the workbench surface. It wobbled, confirming that it was out of alignment.