Alpert had thrown Rachel a look when he said the cat was out of the bag, as if he held her responsible for everything. She thought about revealing what Bosch had just told her but in that instant decided against it. Not yet. Not until she knew more.

"Okay, people, that's it," Alpert announced abruptly. "Brass, we'll see you on the big screen tomorrow morning. Agent Walling, can you stay behind for a moment?"

Rachel watched Brass leave the screen and then it went black, the transmission ended. Alpert then walked up close to the table where Rachel sat.

"Agent Walling?"

"Yes?"

"Your work is done here."

"Excuse me?"

"You're finished. Go back to your hotel and pack your bags."

"There's still a lot to do here. I want to-"

"I don't care what you want. I want you out of here. You have undermined this investigation since you ar- rived. Tomorrow morning I want you on the first plane back to wherever it is you come from. Understand?"

"You are making a mistake. I should be a part of-"

"You are making a mistake arguing with me about it. I can't make it any clearer for you. I want you out of here. Turn in your paperwork and get on a plane."

She stared at him, trying to communicate all the anger that was behind her eyes. He held a hand up as if to ward something off.

"Be careful what you say. It could come back to bite you on the ass."

Rachel swallowed back her anger. She spoke in a controlled and calm voice.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Alpert looked like his eyes might pop out of his head. He turned and waved Dei out of the room. He then turned back to Rachel and waited for the sound of the door closing.

"Excuse me? What did you just say?"

"I said I am not going anywhere. I am staying on this case. Because if you put me on a plane, I won't go back to South Dakota. I'll go to D.C. headquarters and right into the Office of Professional Responsibility to file on you."

"For what? What are you going to file?"

"You've used me as bait since the beginning. Without my knowledge or consent."

"You don't know what you are talking about. Go ahead. Go to the OPR. They'll laugh you back to the Badlands and put you down for another ten years out there."

"Cherie made a mistake and then you did, too. When I called in from Clear she asked me why we took Bosch's car. Then in the hangar you did the same thing. You knew I had gone up there in Bosch's car. I started thinking about that and then I figured out why. You put a GPS tag on my car. I went underneath it tonight and found it. Standard bureau issue, even has the code label still on it. There will be a record of who checked it out."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Well, I'm sure the OPR will be able to figure it out. My guess is Cherie will help them. I mean if I were her I wouldn't tie my career to you. I'd tell the truth. That you brought me out here as bait, that you thought I would draw Backus out. I bet you had a shadow team on me the whole time. There will be a record of that, too. What about my phone and my hotel room? Did you bug them?"

Rachel saw Alpert's eyes change. He went inward, his mind no longer consumed by her accusations but by the future consequences of an ethics complaint and investigation. She saw him recognize his own doom. One agent bugging and following another agent, using her as unwitting bait in a high-stakes gamble. Under the current climate of media scrutiny and bureau-wide avoidance of any controversy, his actions wouldn't hold up. It would be he who would go down, not her. Quickly and quietly he would be dealt with. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd end up working side by side with Rachel in the Rapid City office.

"The Badlands are really quite beautiful in the summer," she said.

She stood up and headed to the door.

"Agent Walling?" Alpert said to her back. "Hold on a second."

Rachel's plane landed a half hour late at Burbank because of the rain and wind. It had not let up through the night and the city was cast in a shroud of gray. It was the kind of rain that paralyzed the city. Traffic moved at a crawl on every street and every freeway. The roads weren't built for it. The city wasn't either. By dawn the storm water culverts were overflowing, the tunnels were at capacity and the runoff to the Los Angeles River had turned the concrete-lined canal that snaked through the city to the sea into a roaring rapids. It was black water, carrying with it the ash of the fires that had blackened the hills the year before. There was an end-of-the-world gloom about it all. The city had been tested by fire first and now rain. Living in L.A. sometimes felt like you were riding shotgun with the devil to the apocalypse. People I saw that morning carried a what's-next look in their eyes. Earthquake? Tsunami? Or maybe a disaster of our own making? A dozen years earlier fire and rain had been the harbingers of both tectonic and social upheaval in the City of Angels. I didn't think there was anybody here who doubted it could happen again. If we are doomed to repeat ourselves in our follies and mistakes, then it is easy to see nature and balance operating on the same cycle.

I thought about this as I waited for Rachel at the curb outside the terminal. The rain pounded the windshield, turning it translucent and murky. The wind rocked the car on its springs. I thought about rejoining the cops, already second-guessing my decision and wondering if I would be repeating myself in folly or if I had a chance this time at grace.

I didn't see Rachel in the rain until she knocked on the passenger-side window. She then opened the back hatch and threw in her bag. She was wearing a green parka with the hood up. It must have done her well facing the elements in the Dakotas but it looked too large and bulky on her in L.A.

"This better be good, Bosch," she said as she climbed in and dropped wetly onto the passenger seat. She showed no outward sign of affection and neither did I. It was one of the agreements we'd made on the phone. We were to act as professionals until we played my hunch out.

"Why, you got alternatives?"

"No, it's just that I put everything on the line last night with Alpert. I'm one fuckup short of a permanent posting in South Dakota, where, by the way, the weather might actually be nicer than this."

"Well, welcome to L.A."

"I thought this was Burbank."

"Technically."

After we cleared the airport I dropped down to the 134 and took that east to the 5. Between the rain and the morning rash hour our progress was slow as we skirted around Griffith Park and pointed south. I wasn't ready to begin worrying about time yet but I was getting close.

For a long time we rode silently because the mix of rain and traffic made the drive intense, probably more so for Rachel who had to sit and do nothing while I had control of the wheel. Finally she spoke, if only to siphon off some of the tension in the car.

"So are you going to tell me this grand plan of yours?"

"No plan, just a hunch."

"No, you said you knew his next move, Bosch."

I noticed that since we had made love on the bed of my efficiency unit she had started calling me by my last name. I wondered if this was part of the agreement to act as professionals or some form of reverse endearment, calling someone you had been most intimate with by his least intimate name.

"I had to get you here, Rachel."

"Well, all right then, I'm here. Tell it to me."

"It's the Poet who has the grand plan. Backus."

"What's he going to do?"

"Remember the books I told you about yesterday, the books in the barrel and the one I pulled out?"

"Yes."

"I think I figured out what it all means."

I told her about the partially burned receipt I had seen and how I thought Book Car was actually Book Carnival, the bookstore operated by retired police detective Ed Thomas, the last intended target of the Poet eight years before.