The Overlook by Michael Connelly Page A

again.”
    Bosch just nodded. There was nothing else to say.
     
SIX
     
    AT 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 helicopter 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