Private L.A. (Private 6)

“You might want to pick up a five-millimeter neoprene wet suit with hood and booties on your way.”

“I suppose a swim is unavoidable in this case.”

“I’m hoping less of a swim and more of a skim, Jack.”

Chapter 38

INSIDE THE GARAGE in the City of Commerce, Cobb listened intently to Hernandez, who had been keeping track of one of the two men Chief Fescoe had met with, the one who had remained behind, the one who had been all over the pier, studying it from every angle.

“He’s not a cop,” said Hernandez. “At least he doesn’t act like one.”

“What’s he acting like, then?” Cobb demanded.

“Like a scout,” Hernandez replied. “He’s making it damn tough for me to stay clean. And I think he’s brought in a second guy, older, maybe sixty. He’s been scanning the beaches and restaurants with views of the pier.”

“And you’re sure you haven’t been made?”

“One hundred percent,” Hernandez said.

“The squid?”

“Still in place.”

“Police presence?”

“Nothing beyond the ordinary patrols. Beach is quiet. Too quiet. It would be easier to stay hidden if it was hot and wall-to-wall bodies.”

“Fall back, then, Mr. Hernandez. Thousand meters if you can.”

“Straightaway, Mr. Cobb,” Hernandez said, clicked off.

Scouts, thought Cobb. But before he could ponder that, Watson got up from his desk with an iPad in one hand. “I’ve got positive ID on the two men on the pier with Fescoe. The big guy with the surfer’s build was Jack Morgan, owner of Private Investigations Worldwide, fastest-growing security firm in the world. Cutting edge, and known to cut corners to achieve his objectives. The other one’s Rick Del Rio, also works for Morgan. Both of them are Afghan vets. Marines.” Watson handed Cobb the iPad. “It’s all there.”

Cobb scanned the documents pulled up on the screen, military records, evaluations, various articles about Morgan and the company he’d inherited and reimagined after his father was convicted and sent behind bars.

“Chopper pilots,” Cobb grunted, then gave a dismissive flick of his sinewy hand. “Stellar safety records until they got shot down. Both have courage, tried to get back in the bird to save the other men, but neither man has any special-forces training that I can see.”

“Unless the training was obtained privately,” Watson offered.

“That kind’s no good. It’s never tested in the crucible,” Cobb said, handing the iPad back. “We are tested in the crucible, Mr. Watson. Hard tested. They have no chance. We’re twenty moves ahead of them in this game.”

Chapter 39

AT A QUARTER to nine that evening, the wind was coming hard out of the northwest, gusting to twenty knots, churning the Pacific off the Huntington Beach Pier into a roiling charcoal-colored beast that kept trying to rise up and snatch Del Rio and me.

We hung from linemen’s belts on opposing pylons, twelve feet above the crashing sea and two pylon rows back from the western edge of the pier. Below us, two Sea-Doo water sleds strained and pitched at ropes that moored them to the pylons. The Sea-Doos were the fastest, nimblest sea vessels money could buy. Del Rio had found them at a dealer a few miles from the pier. We’d launched them right at dusk and had been up on the pylons in the deep shadows ever since, wiping the spray from our goggles, peering out toward the electric halos of light shining down from the pier. No fishing lines dropped to the sea. The weather was just too rough.

We counted down the minutes listening to the minimal chatter on the channel used by the law enforcement lurking at the perimeters of the operation. Two sheriff’s helicopters were bucking the wind, moving in arcs two miles offshore, running with no lights, ready to respond. Two police helicopters were cruising at high altitude two miles inland.

Three high-speed boats, two from the sheriff’s detail at Marina Del Rey and one from the county’s Baywatch lifeguard unit, lurched in the swells about a mile out, ready to intercept any vessel trying to head to sea or run the coast.

“Chief’s on his way,” the Kid said in my earpiece. He was posted on the roof of a building across Highway 1 from the pier entrance.

“Nothing within five hundred yards,” said Bud Rankin, who was up on top of Ruby’s Diner, using an infrared scope to scan the surroundings.

My right leg was starting to cramp when I heard the chief say, “Almost to the diner.”

In my mind I could see Fescoe, head down into the wind, walking toward Rankin and Ruby’s Diner carrying two black dry bags, one on each shoulder.