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“No, no, no,” Singer said.
Shear brought his hands to his mouth in utter shock. Bosch was silent and kept his eyes glued to the working camera’s feed.
There was nothing to say.
The group watched in horror as both pieces of what was left of the cargo container began to melt with the intense heat of the fire. Bosch remembered Shear had told him that the missiles were armed with warheads that created an overpressure blast zone. Now he understood what that meant.
The shipyard’s fire department was quickly on scene, but it was clear to those watching that there would be no survivors among the four men who had entered the shipping container.
Suddenly Cutler turned away from the screen and charged out of the task force room without a word, most likely to report to Justice in Washington on what had happened. It seemed apparent that the team that had entered the container had found the stolen missiles, and something had detonated them.
After a few minutes Bosch asked Singer if he could tune the dead screen to a local news channel. Sure enough, there was already a helicopter view of the shipyard, the still-burning container sending a plume of gray smoke into an otherwise clear blue sky.
“Hellfire,” Bosch whispered to himself.
Singer tried other news channels and they were all covering it. Four different channels, four different helicopter views of the catastrophe playing out in the shipyard below. Channel 5’s wide-angle view showed the nearby rows of stacked cargo containers that had been knocked into each other like dominoes by the blast. The huge crane that had moved the RUN container was leaning at an odd angle because the blast had taken out one of its support legs.
At one point Shear looked at Bosch and simply shook his head as if to say This is not good. Bosch nodded back in agreement.
“Did he have a family?” Shear asked.
He didn’t have to say Cavanaugh’s name.
“Divorced, two kids,” Singer said.
“How old?” Shear asked.
“Teenagers,” Singer said.
Shear shook his head again. The mention of family made Bosch realize that he should call his daughter. Since Maddie had been part of the warehouse search, Bosch had read her in on what the fruits of that search had led to. He turned away from the screens and walked to the borrowed desk he had been using, pulled his cell, and hit Maddie’s number.
“Dad?”
Bosch could feel the urgency and relief in the one word.
“Sounds like you’re watching — I’m okay.”
“Thank God. I was afraid to call.”
“I should’ve called right away. I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“At the Roybal. I’m nowhere near it.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. A team went in — four people — and… something set it off.”
“FBI agents?”
“Three of them. And a Customs inspector. The agent in charge of the task force was there. Where are you?”
“Ahmanson. I’m off from fraud today, thought I’d drop by.”
“Is Renée there?”
“Yes. You want to talk to her?”
