Brenner spent most of the drive taking and making a series of cell calls to and from superiors and fellow agents. It was clear to Bosch from the side of things he was able to hear that the big federal machine was gearing up for battle. A greater alarm had now been sounded. The e-mail sent to Stanley Kent had brought things into better focus and what was once a federal curiosity had now gone completely off the scale.
When Brenner finally closed the phone and put it back in his jacket pocket he turned slightly in his seat and looked over at Bosch.
“I’ve got a RAT team heading to Saint Aggy’s,” he said. “They’ll go into the materials safe to check it out.”
“A rat team?”
“Radiological-attack team.”
“What’s their ETA?”
“Didn’t ask but they might beat us. They’ve got a chopper.”
Bosch was impressed. It meant that there had been a rapid-response team on duty somewhere in the middle of the night. He thought about how he had been awake and waiting for the call out that night. The members of the radiological-attack team must wait for the call they hope never comes. He remembered what he had heard about the LAPD’s own OHS unit taking training in urban assault tactics. He wondered if Captain Hadley had a RAT team, too.
“They’re going full field on this,” Brenner said. “The Department of Homeland Security is overseeing from DC. This morning at nine there will be meetings on both coasts to bring everybody together on it.”
“Who is everybody?”
“There’s a protocol. We’ll bring in Homeland, the JTTF, everybody. It’ll be alphabet soup. The NRC, the DOE, RAP . . . who knows, before we get this contained we might even have FEMA setting up a tent. It’s going to be federal pandemonium.”
Bosch didn’t know what all the acronyms stood for but didn’t need to. They all spelled out feds to him.
“Who will be running the show?”
Brenner looked over at Bosch.
“Everybody and nobody. Like I said, pandemonium. If we open up that safe at Saint Aggy’s and the cesium is gone, then our best shot at tracking it and getting it back will be to do it before all hell breaks loose at nine and we get micromanaged to death from Washington.”
Bosch nodded. He thought maybe he had misjudged Brenner. The agent seemed to want to get things done, not wallow in the bureaucratic mire.
“And what’s the LAPD status going to be in a full-field investigation?”
“I already told you, the LAPD remains in. Nothing changes on that. You remain in, Harry. My guess is that bridges are already being built between our people and your people. I know the LAPD has its own Homeland Security office. I am sure they will be brought in. We’re obviously going to need all hands on deck with this.”
Bosch glanced over at him. Brenner looked serious.
“Have you worked with our OHS before?” Bosch asked.
“On occasion. We shared some intelligence on a few things.”
Bosch nodded but felt that Brenner was being disingenuous or was completely naive about the gulf between the locals and the feds. But he noted that he had been called by his first name and wondered if that was one of the bridges being built.
“You said you checked me out. Who did you check with?”
“Harry, we’re working well here, why stir it up? If I made a mistake I apologize.”
“Fine. Who’d you check me out with?”
“Look, all I’m going to tell you is that I asked Agent Walling who the LAPD point man was and she gave me your name. I made a few calls while driving in. I was told you were a very capable detective. That you had more than thirty years in, that a few years back you retired, didn’t like it too much and came back to the job to work cold cases. Things went sideways in Echo Park—a little thing you dragged Agent Walling into. You were off the job a few months while that was, uh, cleared up and now you’re back and assigned to Homicide Special.”
“What else?”
“Harr—”
“What else?”
“Okay. The word I got is that you can be difficult to get along with—especially when it comes to working with the federal government. But I have to say, so far I don’t see any of that at all.”
Bosch figured that most of this information had come from Rachel—he remembered seeing her on the phone and her saying it was her partner. He was disappointed if she had said such things about him. And he knew that Brenner was probably holding back most of it. The truth was that he’d had so many run-ins with the feds—going back well before he ever met Rachel Walling—that they probably had a file on him as thick as a murder book.
After a minute or so of silence Bosch decided to change direction and spoke again.
“Tell me about cesium,” he said.
“What did Agent Walling tell you?”
“Not much.”
“It’s a by-product. The fission of uranium and plutonium creates cesium. When Chernobyl hit meltdown, cesium was the stuff that was dispersed into the air. It comes in powder or a silver-gray metal. When they conducted nuke tests in the South Pacific—”
“I don’t mean the science. I don’t care about the science. Tell me about what we are dealing with here.”
Brenner thought for a moment.
“Okay,” he said. “The stuff we’re talking about comes in pieces about the size of a pencil eraser. It is then contained in a sealed stainless steel tube about the size of a forty-five-caliber bullet cartridge. When used in the treatment of a gynecological cancer it is placed inside the woman’s body—in the uterus—for a calculated amount of time and it irradiates the targeted area. It is supposed to be very effective in quick doses. And it is the job of a guy like Stanley Kent to make that calculus—to run the physics down and determine how long a dose is called for. He would then go and get the cesium out of the hospital’s hot safe and deliver it in person to the oncologist in the operating room. The system is set up so that the doctor administering the treatment actually handles the stuff for as little time as possible. Because the surgeon can’t wear any protection while performing a procedure, he’s got to limit his exposure, you know what I mean?”
Bosch nodded.
“Do these tubes protect whoever handles them?”
“No, the only thing that knocks down the gamma rays from cesium is lead. The safe they keep the tubes in is lined with lead. The device they transport them in is made of lead.”
“Okay. So how bad is this stuff going to be if it gets out there in the world?”
Brenner gave it some thought before answering.
“Out there in the world it is all about quantity, delivery and location,” he said. “Those are the variables. Cesium has a thirty-year half-life. Generally, they consider ten half-lifes the safety margin.”
“You’re losing me. What’s the bottom line?”
“The bottom line is that the radiation danger diminishes by half every thirty years. If you set off a good amount of this stuff in an enclosed environment—like maybe a subway station or an office building—then that place could be shut down for three hundred years.”
Bosch was stunned as he registered this.
“What about people?” he asked.
“Also depends on dispersal and containment. A high-intensity exposure could kill you within a few hours. But if it’s dispersed by an IED in a subway station, then my guess is the immediate casualties would be very low. But a body count is not what this would be about. It’s the fear factor that would be important to these people. You set something off like this domestically and what’s important is the wave of fear it sends through the country. A place like Los Angeles? It would never be the same again.”
Bosch just nodded. There was nothing else to say.
SIX
A T SAINT AGGY’S THEY ENTERED through the main lobby and asked the receptionist for the chief of security. They were told that the security chief worked days but that she would locate the night-shift security supervisor. While they waited they heard the he
licopter land on the long front lawn of the medical center and soon the four-member radiological team came in, each man wearing a radiation suit and carrying a face guard. The leader of the group—it said KYLE REID on his nameplate—-carried a handheld radiation monitor.
Finally after two prompts to the woman at the front desk, a man who looked like he had been rousted from a bed in a spare patient room greeted them in the lobby. He said his name was Ed Romo and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the hazmat suits worn by the members of the lab team. Brenner badged Romo and took charge. Bosch didn’t object. He knew that they were now on turf where the federal agent would be best suited to walk point and maintain investigative velocity.
“We need to go to the hot lab and check the materials inventory,” Brenner said. “We also need to see any records or key-card data that will show us who has been in and out of there in the last twenty-four hours.”
Romo didn’t move. He paused as if groping for understanding of the scene in front of him.
“What’s this about?” he finally asked.
Brenner took a step closer to him and invaded his space.
“I just told you what it’s about,” he said. “We need to get into the hot lab in oncology. If you can’t get us in there, then find somebody who can. Now.”
“I gotta make a call first,” Romo said.
“Good. Make it. I’ll give you two minutes and then we’re going to run you over.”
The whole time he was making the threat Brenner was smiling and nodding.
Romo took out a cell phone and stepped away from the group to make the call. Brenner gave him the space. He looked at Bosch with a sardonic smile.
“Last year I did a security survey here. They had a key lock on the lab and the safe and that was it. They upgraded after that. But you build a better mousetrap and the mice just get smarter.”
Bosch nodded.
Ten minutes later Bosch, Brenner, Romo and the rest of the lab team all stepped out of the elevator in the medical clinic’s basement. Romo’s boss was on his way in but Brenner was not waiting. Romo used a key card to gain entrance to the oncology lab.
The lab was deserted. Brenner found an inventory sheet and a lab log on an entrance desk and started reading. There was a small video monitor on the desk that showed a camera view of a safe.
“He was here,” Brenner said.
“When?” Bosch asked.
“Seven o’clock, according to this.”
Reid pointed to the monitor.
“Does that record?” he asked Romo. “Can we see what Kent did when he was in there?”
Romo looked at the monitor as though it were the first time he had ever seen it.
“Um, no, it’s just a monitor,” he finally said. “Whoever’s on the desk is supposed to watch whatever is taken out of the safe.”
Romo pointed to the far end of the lab, where there was a large steel door. The trefoil warning symbol for radioactive materials was posted on it at eye level, along with a sign.
CAUTION!
RADIATION HAZARD
PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
MUST BE WORN
CUIDADO!
PELIGRO DE RADIACIÓN
SE DEBE USAR
EQUIPO DE PROTECCIÓN
Bosch noticed that the door had a push-button combination lock as well as a magnetic key-card swipe slot.
“It says here that he took one source of cesium,” Brenner said, as he continued to study the log. “One tube. It’s a transfer case. He was taking the source over to Burbank Medical Center for a procedure there. It names the case. A patient named Hanover. It says that there were thirty-one pieces of cesium left in inventory.”
“Is that all you need, then?” Romo asked.
“No,” Brenner said. “We have to physically inspect the inventory. We’ll need to enter the safe room and then open the safe. What’s the combination?”
“I don’t have it,” Romo said.
“Who does?”
“The physicists. The head of the lab. The chief of security.”
“And where is the chief of security?”
“I told you. He’s coming.”
“Get him on the speaker.”
Brenner pointed to the phone on the desk. Romo sat down. He put the phone on speaker and tapped in a number from memory. It was answered immediately.
“This is Richard Romo.”
Ed Romo leaned forward to the phone and looked as though he was embarrassed by the revelation of the obvious nepotism at play.
“Uh, yeah, Dad, this is Ed. The man from the FB—”
“Mr. Romo?” Brenner cut in. “This is Special Agent John Brenner of the FBI. I believe we met and spoke about security issues a year ago. How far away are you, sir?”
“Twenty to twenty-five minutes. I remember—”
“That’s too far, sir. We need to open the hot lab safe right now to determine its contents.”
“You can’t open that without hospital approval. I don’t care who—”
“Mr. Romo, we have reason to believe the contents of the safe were turned over to people without the interests or safety of the American people in mind. We need to open the safe so that we know exactly what is here and what is missing. And we can’t wait twenty to twenty-five minutes to do it. Now, I have properly identified myself to your son and I have a radiation team in the lab right now. We have to move, sir. Now, how do we open the safe?”
There was silence from the speakerphone for a few moments. Then Richard Romo relented.
“Ed, I take it you are calling from the desk in the lab?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, unlock it and open the bottom-left drawer.”
Ed Romo rolled his chair back and studied the desk. There was a key lock on the upper-left drawer that apparently unlocked all three drawers.
“Which key?” he asked.
“Hold on.”
Over the speakerphone there was the sound of a key ring being jingled.
“Try fourteen-fourteen.”
Ed Romo pulled a key ring off his belt and went through the keys until he found one stamped with the number 1414. He then inserted it into the lock on the desk drawer and turned it. The bottom drawer was now unlocked and he pulled it open.
“Got it.”
“Okay, there’s a binder in the drawer. Open it up and look for the page with the combination lists for the safe room. It’s changed week to week.”
Holding the binder in his hands, Romo started to open it at an angle that would allow only him to see the contents. Brenner reached across the desk and roughly took the binder from him. He opened it on the desk and started leafing through pages of safety protocols.
“Where is it?” he said impatiently to the speakerphone.
“It should be in the final section. It will be clearly marked as hot lab combinations. There is one catch, though. We use the previous week. The combination for the current week is wrong. Use last week’s combo.”
Brenner found the page and drew his finger down the listing until he found the combination for the previous week.
“Okay, got it. What about the safe inside?”
Richard Romo answered from his car.
“You will use the key card again and another combination. That one I know. It doesn’t change. It is six-six-six.”
“Original.”
Brenner held his hand out to Ed Romo.
“Give me your key card.”
Romo complied and Brenner then handed the card to Reid.
“Okay, Kyle, go,” Brenner ordered. “The door combo is five-six-one-eight-four and you heard the rest.”
Reid turned and pointed to one of the others in hazmat suits.
“It’ll be tight in there. Just Miller and I go in.”
The leader and his chosen second snapped on their face guards and used the key card and combination to open the safe room door. Miller carried the radiation monitor and they entered the safe room, pulling the door closed behind them.
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“You know, people go in there all the time and they don’t wear space suits,” Ed Romo said.
“I’m happy for them,” Brenner said. “This situation is a little different, don’t you think? We don’t know what may or may not have been let loose in that environment.”
“I was just saying,” Romo said defensively.
“Then do me a favor and don’t say anything, son. Let us do our job.”
Bosch watched on the monitor and soon saw a glitch in the security system. The camera was mounted overhead, but as soon as Reid bent down to type the combination into the materials safe, he blocked the camera’s view of what he was doing. Bosch knew that even if someone had watched Kent when he went into the safe at 7 p.m. the evening before, he could easily have hidden what he was taking.
Less than a minute after going into the safe room the two men in hazmat suits stepped out. Brenner stood up. The men unsnapped their face guards and Reid looked at Brenner. He shook his head.
“The safe’s empty,” he said.
Brenner pulled his phone from his pocket. But before he could punch in a number, Reid stepped forward, holding out a piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook.
“This was all that was left,” he said.
Bosch looked over Brenner’s shoulder at the note. It was scribbled in ink and difficult to decipher. Brenner read it out loud.
“‘I am being watched. If I don’t do this they’ll kill my wife. Thirty-two sources, cesium. God forgive me. No choice.’”
SEVEN
B OSCH AND THE FEDERAL AGENTS stood silently. There was an almost palpable sense of dread hanging in the air in the oncology lab. They had just confirmed that Stanley Kent took thirty-two capsules of cesium from the safe at Saint Agatha’s and then most likely turned them over to persons unknown. Those persons unknown had then executed him up on the Mulholland overlook.