Bosch leaned across the table.
“But it means something, Rachel. The people who put the OHS onto Samir knew who he was and that he’d make an easy target. They left the Kents ’ car right in front of his house because they knew we’d end up spinning our wheels.”
“It also could have worked as a payback to Samir.”
“What do you mean?”
“All those years he was on CNN fanning the flames. He could’ve been seen as hurting their cause because he was giving the enemy a face and heightening American anger and resolve.”
Bosch didn’t get it.
“I thought agitation was one of their tools. I thought they loved this guy.”
“Maybe. It’s hard to say.”
Bosch wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. But when Rachel leaned across the table he suddenly could see how angry she was.
“Now let’s talk about you and how you have been single-handedly fucking things up since before the car was even found.”
“What are you talking about? I’m trying to solve a homicide. That’s my-”
“Yes, trying to solve a homicide at the possible cost of endangering the entire city with this petty, selfish and self-righteous insistence on-”
“Come on, Rachel, don’t you think I have an idea about what could be at stake here?”
She shook her head.
“Not if you are holding back a key witness from us. Don’t you see what you are doing? You have no idea where this investigation is headed because you’ve been busy hiding witnesses and sucker punching agents.”
Bosch leaned back, clearly surprised.
“Is that what Maxwell said, that I sucker punched him?”
“It doesn’t matter what he said. We are trying to control a potentially devastating situation here and I don’t understand why you are making the moves you are making.”
Bosch nodded.
“That makes sense,” he said. “You shut somebody out of his own investigation and it stands to reason you won’t know what he is up to.”
She held her hands up as if to stop an oncoming train.
“Okay, let’s just stop everything right here. Talk to me, Harry. What is your problem?”
Bosch looked at her and then up at the ceiling. He studied the upper corners of the room and dropped his eyes back to hers.
“You want to talk? Let’s take a walk outside, then we can talk.”
She didn’t hesitate.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “Let’s walk and talk. And then you’ll give me Mitford.”
Walling got up and moved to the door. Bosch saw her quickly glance up at an air-conditioning grille high on the back wall and it confirmed for him that they were on camera.
She opened the unlocked door and Brenner and another agent were waiting in the hallway.
“We’re going to take a little walk,” Walling said. “Alone.”
“Have a great time,” Brenner said. “We’ll be in here trying to track the cesium, maybe save a few lives.”
Walling and Bosch didn’t respond. She led him down the hall. Just as they were at the door to the elevator hall Bosch heard a voice from behind him.
“Hey, buddy!”
He turned just in time to take Agent Maxwell’s shoulder in the chest. He was driven into the wall and held up against it.
“You’re a little outnumbered this time, aren’t you, Bosch!”
“Stop!” Walling shouted. “Cliff, stop it!”
Bosch brought his arm up around Maxwell’s head and was going to pull him down into a headlock. But Walling waded in and pulled Maxwell away and then pushed him back up the hallway.
“Cliff, get back! Get away!”
Maxwell started moving backwards up the hall. He pointed a finger over Walling’s shoulder at Bosch.
“Get out of my building, motherfucker! Get out and stay out!”
Walling shoved him into the first open office and then closed the door on him. By then several other agents had come into the hallway to see what the commotion was about.
“It’s all over,” Walling announced. “Everybody just go back to work.”
She came back to Bosch and pushed him through the door to the elevator.
“You okay?”
“Only hurts when I breathe.”
“Son of a bitch! That guy is getting out of control.”
They took the elevator down to the garage level and walked from there up an incline and out onto Los Angeles Street. She turned right and he caught up. They were heading away from the noise of the freeway. She checked her watch and then pointed toward an office building of modern design and construction.
“There’s decent coffee in there,” she said. “But I don’t want to take a lot of time.”
It was the new Social Security Administration building.
“Another federal building,” Bosch sighed. “Agent Maxwell might think that’s his, too.”
“Can you drop that, please?”
He shrugged.
“I’m just surprised Maxwell even admitted we came back to the house.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because I figured he was posted on the house because he was already in the doghouse for being a fuckup. Why admit that we got the drop on him and have to stay in there longer?”
Walling shook her head.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “First of all, Maxwell has been wound a little tight lately but no one in Tactical Intelligence is in the doghouse. The work is too important to have any fuckups on the team. Secondly, he didn’t care what anyone would think. What he did think was that it was important for everyone to know about the way
He tried another direction.
“Let me ask you something. Do they know about you and me over there? Our history, I mean.”
“It would be hard for them not to know after Echo Park. But, Harry, never mind all of that. That is not important today. What is wrong with you? We’ve got enough cesium out there to shut down an airport and you don’t seem all that concerned. You are looking at this like it’s a murder. Yes, a man is dead but that isn’t what this is about. It’s a heist, Harry. Get it? They wanted the cesium and now they’ve got it. And it would help us if maybe we could talk to the only known witness. So where is he?”
“He’s safe. Where’s Alicia Kent? And where’s her husband’s partner?”
“They’re safe. The partner is being questioned here and we’re keeping the wife at Tactical until we are sure we have everything there is to get from her.”
“She’s not going to be very helpful. She couldn’t-”
“That’s where you are wrong. She’s already been quite helpful.”
Bosch couldn’t hold back the look of surprise in his eyes.
“How? She said she didn’t even see their faces.”
“She didn’t. But she heard a name. When they were speaking to each other, she heard a name.”
“What name? She didn’t say this before.”
Walling nodded.
“And that is why you should turn over your witness. We have people who have one expertise: getting information from witnesses. We can get things that you are unable to get. We got them from her, we can get them from him.”
Bosch felt his face turning red.
“What was the name this master interrogator got from her?”
