“Looks like the nose gear over there,” the sergeant said, pointing. Stone and Eagle walked over and looked at it. Stone squatted and pointed at some duct tape. “Something was taped to the nose gear,” he said, “some sort of explosive device, I should think. Sergeant, have you got anybody here from your crime lab or bomb squad?”

“On the way,” the sergeant replied. They heard a vehicle approach and turned to see Billy Burnett getting out of a Mercedes station wagon.

“Good morning, Billy.” Stone introduced him to the sergeant. “You know Ed Eagle, I believe.”

“Sure,” Billy said. He pointed at the rubber sheet. “Can I have a look?” The sheet was pulled back, and Billy squatted beside the body. He pointed at the hand of the remaining arm. “That’s an army Special Forces ring,” he said.

The sergeant showed him the driver’s license.

“This is Harry Gregg,” Billy said.

“Who was this Gregg?” the sergeant asked.

“I hired him and trained him as an armorer at the Centurion Studios armory,” Billy said. “He was ex–Special Forces, a weapons and explosives expert.” He looked over at Eagle’s ex-airplane.

“The nose gear had some duct tape on it,” Stone said, pointing at the mangled aircraft part.

“Did the body have a cell phone on it?” he asked.

“Two of them,” the sergeant said, holding up an iPhone and another device.

“That one’s a throwaway,” Billy said, pointing at the non-Apple phone. “I think the idea was he made a bomb and attached a cell phone to it, then taped the device to the nosewheel, probably up in the wheel well. He could have set off the bomb by calling the phone taped to the device, probably after the airplane had taken off and was out over the water. My guess is somebody else called the number, probably by accident, when he had an arm and maybe his head up in the wheel well. Harry got a rude shock.”

“That makes a whole lot of sense to me,” the sergeant said, looking at his watch. “There’ll be a couple of detectives here from our bomb squad, when they get around to it. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to them when they get here, Mr. Burnett.”

“Sure, glad to.”

As if on cue, an unmarked sedan pulled up and two men in suits got out and looked around. “What a mess!” one of them said.

Chapter 38

Detective Sergeant Chico Morales and his partner, Stockton Croft, arrived at the Venice Beach home of Harry Gregg; no one answered the door. Croft picked the lock on the front door.

“Very nice,” Morales said, looking around. The house was beautifully furnished, and there was a high-end stereo system in the living room, along with a large flat-screen TV.

“He’s been out of the military how long?” Croft asked.

“Less than a year, I think Burnett said.”