“They didn’t have to. I saw your man tailing me in the library. Make a note of that-he’s not that good. Tell him to try Sports Illustrated next time. I knew something was up so I ran a search through the newspaper files and came up with that. I printed it out because I knew it might flush you people out. And it did. Your kind are very predictable.

“Anyway, then I saw Mouse when they were walking me down the hall and I sort of put things together. Money from my robbery was under the seat of his car when you arrested him. But you don’t care about that or the two and maybe three murders attached to it. You just want to know where that money was going. And you don’t want a little thing like justice for the dead to get in the way of that.”

Peoples slowly slid the printout back into the file. I could see his face changing, growing darker around the eyes. I had stuck my words directly into a nerve.

“You have no idea what the world is like out there or what we are doing about it in here,” he said. “You can sit here and be smug and talk about your ideas of justice. But you have no fucking idea what is out there.”

My response to that was a smile. My words came readily.

“You can save that speech for the politicians who change the rules for you until there are no rules anymore. Until something like justice for a murdered and violated woman adds up to nothing in the equation. That’s what’s going on out there.”

Peoples leaned forward. He was about to spill and he wanted to make damn sure I got it.

“Do you know where Aziz was going with that money? We don’t know but I can tell you where I think he was going with it. To a training camp. A terrorist training camp. And I’m not talking about in Afghanistan. I’m talking about within a hundred miles of our border. A place where they train people to kill us. In our buildings, in our planes. In our sleep. To come across that line and kill us with blind disregard for who we are and what we believe. Are you going to tell me that I’m wrong, that we should not do everything we can to find such a place if it exists? That we should not take whatever measures are necessary with that man to get the information we need from him?”

I leaned back across the mattress until my back was against the wall. If I’d had a cup of coffee I wouldn’t have ignored it the way he was ignoring his.

“I’m not telling you anything,” I said. “Everybody’s got to do what they’ve got to do.”

“Wonderful,” he said sarcastically. “Words of wisdom. I’m going to get a wall plaque for my office and put that right on it.”

“You know, I was in a trial once and the lawyer on the other side said something I always try to remember. She quoted a philosopher whose name I don’t recall offhand-I’ve got it written down at the house. But this guy said that whoever is out there fighting the monsters of our society should make damn sure that they don’t become monsters themselves. See, because then all is lost. Then we don’t have a society. I always thought that was a good line.”

“Nietzsche. And you almost got the quote right.”

“Getting the quote right isn’t what matters. It’s remembering what it means.”

Peoples reached into the pocket of his coat. He pulled out my watch. He threw it to me and I started putting it on. I looked at the face. The hands of the clock were set against a gold detective’s badge with the city hall on it. I noted the time and saw that I had been in the cube longer than I had thought. It was almost dawn.

“Get out of here, Bosch,” he said. “If you cross our field of vision on this again you will find yourself back here faster than you’d think was possible. And no one will know you are here.”

The threat was obvious.

“I’ll be among the disappeared then, huh?”

“Whatever you want to call it.”

Peoples raised his hand over his head so the camera would see it. He twirled a finger in the air and the electronic lock on the door clacked and the door opened a few inches. I stood up.

“Go,” Peoples said. “Somebody will see you out. I’m cutting you a break here, Bosch. Remember that.”

I headed toward the door but hesitated when I was passing him. I looked down at him and the file he still clutched.

“I assume you cleaned me out, took my files. Lawton Cross’s too.”

“You won’t be getting it back.”

“Right, I understand. National security. What I was going to say is look through the photos. Find one of the photos of Angella on the tile. Look at her hands, man.”

I headed toward the open door.

“What about her hands?” he called after me.

“Just look at her hands. The way we found them. You’ll know what I’m talking about then.”

In the hallway Parenting Today was waiting for me.

“This way,” he said curtly and I could tell he was disappointed that I was being cut loose.

On the way up the hallway I looked for Mousouwa Aziz in one of the square windows but didn’t see him. I wondered if by chance I had looked into the face of the killer I was looking for and that it would be my only glimpse, that I would get no closer. I knew that as long as he was in here I would never get to him, literally or legally. He was gone from me. He was among the disappeared. The ultimate dead end.

We went out through two electronic doors and then I was delivered to an elevator alcove. There was no button for me to push. Parenting Today looked up at a camera in the corner of the ceiling and rolled an extended finger in the air. I heard the elevator start coming.

When the doors opened he escorted me on. We went down to the basement but not to a car. He walked me up the ramp after yelling to a garage man to open the roll-up door. As the door went up I was hit with sunlight and had to squint.

“I take it you aren’t giving me a ride back to my car.”

“You can take it any way you want to. Have a good day.”

He left me there at the top of the ramp and turned around to get under the door before it reclosed on him. I watched him disappear as the steel curtain dropped. I tried to think of a clever line to throw at him but I was too damn tired and let it go.

The bureau had been in my house. That was expected. But the agents had been subtle about it. The place hadn’t been torn apart and left for me to put back together. It had been methodically searched and most things had been left exactly in place. The dining room table, where I had left the spread of files relating to Angella Benton’s murder, had been cleared. It looked like they might have even polished the empty surface with Pledge when they were through. I had been left nothing. My notes, my files, my reports were all gone and so it seemed was the case. I didn’t dwell on it. I looked at my murky reflection in the polished surface of the table for a few moments and decided I needed to sleep before making my next move.

I grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and went out through the slider to the back deck to watch the sun come up over the hills. The cushion on the lounge chair had morning dew on it so I flipped it over and sat down. I put my legs up and leaned back into the soft comfort. There was a slight chill in the air but I still had my jacket on. I put the water bottle on the arm of the chair and tucked my hands into the pockets of the jacket. It felt good to be home after the night in the cube.

The sun was just cresting the hills on the other side of the Cahuenga Pass. The sky was filled with diffused light as its rays refracted off the billions of microscopic particles that hung in the air. Soon I would need sunglasses but I was too dug in to get up to get them. I closed my eyes instead and soon fell asleep. I dreamt of Angella Benton, of her hands, of a woman I never knew in life but who came alive in my dreams and reached out to me.