Summary

After spending one day training in preparation for his undercover mission, Bosch walks into the doctor's office in Pacoima that he and Lourdes had surveilled days earlier, this time posing as Dominic H. Reilly, a homeless man on the lookout for painkillers. He is treated incredibly rudely and threateningly by the Russians who work there, including the goateed van driver Bosch had seen previously, ordered to strip naked before his backpack is thoroughly searched. The Russians, not suspecting anything amiss, then order him onto the van. They are driven to Whiteman Airport and then depart on a plane. The mood within the plane is incredibly tense, with the patients/addicts not being allowed to talk to one another.

While he cannot see clearly enough out the plane to know for certain, Bosch suspects that they are near the Salton Sea in the California...