Bosch continued down the side of the house and into the front yard.
There were now two Sheriff’s patrol cars and one plain wrap parked out front, but everybody was apparently inside. Bosch went straight to the back of Dockweiler’s pickup and started pulling out the two-wheeled hand truck. Sisto caught up with him at the back of the truck and helped him lower the heavy cart to the ground.
“What are we doing, Harry?” he asked.
“We have to move those boxes in the garage,” Bosch said.
“Why? What’s in them?”
“Not what’s in them. What’s under them.”
He pushed the cart toward the garage.
“Dockweiler was about to take this out of his truck and start moving these boxes,” he said.
“How come?” Sisto asked.
“Because he had hot food in the truck and wanted to deliver it.”
“Harry, I’m not following.”
“That’s okay, Sisto. Just start moving boxes.”
Bosch attacked the first row of boxes with the hand truck, sliding its blade under the bottom box and then tilting the cart and the column of boxes back. He quickly backed out of the garage and to the front of the pickup. He placed the column down, yanked the hand truck back, and quickly went back for more. Sisto worked with only his own muscles. He moved two and three boxes at a clip, stacking them out on the driveway near the pickup.
In five minutes they had made a large inroad into the stacks, and Bosch came upon a rubber mat that covered the floor and was designed to be used to catch oil from the vehicle parked in the garage. He used the hand truck to move a few more stacks of boxes and then reached down and rolled back the mat.
There was a round metal manhole cover flush with the concrete floor. It had the seal of the city of San Fernando embossed on it. Bosch crouched down and put two fingers into what looked like air holes and tried to pull up the heavy metal plate. He couldn’t do it. He looked around for Sisto.
“Help me with this,” he said.
“Hold on, Harry,” Sisto said.
He disappeared from Bosch’s view and was gone for a few seconds. When he came back he had a long iron bar bent into a handle on one end and a hook on the other.
“How the hell did you find that?” Bosch asked as he got out of the way.
“I saw it on the workbench and wondered what it was for,” Sisto said. “Then I figured it out. I’d seen the guys from Public Works using them in the street.”
He fit the hook into one of the holes in the iron plate and started pulling it up.
“That’s where he probably stole it from,” Bosch said. “You need help?”
“I got it,” Sisto said.
He hoisted the manhole out and it clattered onto the concrete floor. Bosch leaned over the hole and looked down. The overhead light in the garage revealed a ladder leading into darkness. Bosch went over to the stack of boxes where he had seen the light sticks earlier. He yanked open the box and took out several. Behind him he heard Sisto yell into the hole he had opened.
“Bella?”
There was no response.
Bosch returned and started opening the sticks, snapping them on and dropping them down the hole. He then started down the ladder. The descent was no more than ten feet but there was no last rung on the ladder and he almost fell as he placed his foot where the rung should have been. He lowered himself the rest of the way and then reached into his back pocket for the flashlight. He turned it on and played it against the concrete walls of a chamber that was still clearly under construction. There were iron supports and plywood molds for concrete. Plastic sheeting hung from makeshift scaffolding. There was air but not enough of it. Bosch found himself on the verge of hyperventilating as he gulped for oxygen. He guessed that an air-cleaning and -filtration system was not in place or not operating. The only fresh air entering the chamber was from the opening above.
He realized that this was Dockweiler’s dream. He had been building an underground bunker where he would be able to retreat and hide when the big quake hit or the bomb was dropped or the terrorists came.
“Anything?” Sisto called down.
“Still looking,” Bosch said.
“I’m coming down.”
“Just watch the last rung. It isn’t there.”
Bosch started making his way around the construction debris and down the length of the chamber. When he pushed through a plastic curtain he had to step up to a section that was nearly complete, its walls smooth and floor level and carpeted in black rubber matting. He swept his flashlight across all surfaces and saw nothing. Bella was not here.
Bosch turned in a complete circle. He had been wrong.
Sisto pushed through the plastic curtain.
“She’s not here?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
“We’ve got to look in the house.”
“Maybe he was telling the truth about the movie ranch.”
Bosch pushed back through the plastic and made the step down into the first chamber. When he got to the ladder, he realized that there wasn’t a missing rung. The ladder simply extended down to the level the floor would be at when the chamber was completed.
He turned around and almost banged into Sisto. He pushed past him and then again through the plastic curtain to the finished room. He trained his light over the floor, looking for a seam.
“I thought we were going back up,” Sisto said.
“Help me,” Bosch said. “I think she’s here. Pull up this matting.”
They each went to a side of the room and started pulling the rubber matting back. It was one piece cut to fit the space. As it was rolled back Bosch could see wooden planking beneath. He started looking for a hinge or a seam or some indication of a hidden compartment but he saw nothing.
Bosch banged his fist down on the wood and determined there was a definite hollow below it. Sisto started pounding the floor as well.
“Bella? Bella?”
Still no response. Bosch scuttled across the floor to the plastic curtain, grabbed it, and jerked it down, bringing a metal frame crashing down with it.
“Watch it!” Sisto yelled.
One arm of the frame hit Bosch on the shoulder but he wasn’t fazed. He was flying on adrenaline.
He dropped down to the front chamber again and put the light on the facing of the eight-inch step riser. He saw a seam running completely around the facing that curved with the contour of the concrete floor. On his knees, he moved in and tried to open it but he couldn’t figure it out. “Help me get this open,” he called to Sisto.
The young detective got down next to Bosch and tried to get his fingernails into the seam. He could not get a grip.
“Look out,” Bosch said.
He grabbed a piece of the curtain’s fallen frame and drove its edge into the seam. Once it was jammed in tightly he levered the frame upward and the seam opened an inch. Sisto put his fingers in and pulled the board free.
Bosch dropped the frame with a metal clatter and put his light into the shallow space under the second room’s floor.
He saw bare feet heels-down on a blanket and tied together. The space under the floor was recessed and deeper than the dimensions of the floor and step indicated from the outside.
“She’s here!”
He reached in and gripped either side of the blanket and pulled it out. Bella Lourdes came sliding out of the shallow black space on a blanket spread over a plywood pallet. She barely cleared the opening created by the step’s riser. She was bound and gagged and bloodied. Her clothes were gone and she was either dead or unconscious.
“Bella!” Sisto yelled.
“Call for another RA,” Bosch ordered. “They’ll need a portable stretcher to get her through the manhole.”
As Sisto pulled his phone, Bosch turned back to Bella’s side. He bent down and put his ear to her mouth. He felt the faint wind of breath. She was alive.
“I got no signal!” Sisto said in frustration.
“Go up,” Bosch yelled back. “Go back up!”