into believing it while setting the battle plans the night before. The SWAT team was waiting down there with a reception no one would attend.
He looked for signs of a trail in the passageway but found nothing. The water took all chance of that away with it. There were painted markings on the walls, even gang graffiti, but each scribble could have been there for years. He looked at it all but recognized none as a signal or direction. This time, Hansel and Gretel didn't leave a trail.
The traffic sounds grew louder now, and there was more light. Bosch flipped up the NVGs and saw shadowy cones of bluish light filtering down every hundred feet or so from manholes and drains. After a while he came to an underground intersection, and as the water from his line collided and splashed with water moving in the other channel, Bosch crept along the side wall and slowly looked around the corner. He saw and heard no one. He had no clue as to which way to go. Delgado could have gone in any of three different directions. Bosch decided to follow the new passageway to the right because it would take him, he believed, farther away from the SWAT setup.
He had taken no more than three steps into the new tunnel when he heard a loud whisper from ahead.
"Artie, you going to make it? Come on, hurry. Artie!" Bosch froze. It came from about twenty yards dead ahead. But he couldn't see anyone. He knew that it had been the NVGs he wore—the orange eyes—that had prevented him from walking into an ambush. But the cover wouldn't last long. If he got much closer, Delgado would know that he wasn't Franklin.
"Artie!" the voice called hoarsely again. "Come on!"
"Coming," Bosch whispered. He took one step forward and felt instinctively that it hadn't worked. Delgado would know. He dove forward, bringing the M-16 up as he went down.
Bosch saw a whirl of movement ahead and to the left, then saw a muzzle flash. The sound of gunfire was deafening in the concrete tunnel. Bosch returned fire and kept his finger tight on the trigger until he heard the injector go dry of bullets. His ears were ringing, but he could tell that Delgado, or whoever was up there, had stopped also. Bosch heard him snap a new clip into his weapon, then running footsteps on a dry floor. Delgado was moving away, in another passageway ahead. Harry jumped up and followed, pulling the empty clip out of his borrowed gun and replacing it with the backup as he went.
In twenty-five yards he came to a tributary pipeline. It was about five feet in diameter and Bosch had to take a step up to move into it. There was black algae rimming the bottom but no running water. Lying in the scum was the empty clip from an M-16.
Bosch had the right tunnel, but he no longer heard Delgado's footsteps. He began moving in the pipe quickly. There was a slight incline and in about thirty seconds he reached a lighted junction room thirty feet below a grated drain. On the other side of this room the pipeline continued. Bosch had no choice but to follow, this time with the pipe running on a gradual decline. He went another fifty yards before he could see that the line he was in emptied into a larger passage—a main line. He could hear water running up ahead.
Bosch realized too late that he was moving too fast to stop. As he lost his footing and slid on the algae toward the opening, it became clear to him that he had followed Delgado into a trap. Bosch dug his heels into the black slime in a worthless effort to stop himself. Instead, he went feet first, arms flailing for balance, into the new passageway.
It seemed odd to him, but he felt the bullet tear into his right shoulder before he heard the gunfire. It felt as though a hook on a rope had swung down from above, embedded in his right shoulder and then yanked him backward off his feet and down.
He let go of the gun and fell what seemed to him to be a hundred feet. But, of course, it wasn't. The floor of the passageway with its two inches of water came up like a wall of water and hit him in the back of the head. The goggles flew off and he watched, idly and