"You think because of this book in the fire barrel that he's here and is going to make good on the killing we took away from him eight years ago."

"Exactly."

"That's a stretch, Bosch. I wish you had told me all of this before I risked my ass flying over here."

"There's no such thing as coincidence, especially like this."

"Okay, run the story out for me, then. Give me the profile. Tell me the Poet's grand plan."

"Well, that's the bureau's job, to profile crimes. I'm not going to do that. But this is what I think he's doing. I think the trailer and the explosion were all set up to look like the grand finale. And then, as soon as the director steps in front of the television cameras and says I think we've got him, he's going to take out Ed Thomas. The symbolism would be perfect. It's the grand gesture, the ultimate fuck-you. It's checkmate, Rachel. While the bureau is bragging about itself he moves in right under their noses and takes out the guy the bureau was all puffed up about saving the last time."

"And why the books in the barrel? How does all of that fit in?"

"I think they were books he bought from Ed Thomas. From Book Carnival by mail order or maybe even in person. Maybe they were marked in some way and could be traced back to the store. He didn't want that so he burned them. He couldn't risk that they might survive the trailer blast

"But then on the other end, after Ed Thomas is gone and Backus has split, the agents would find his connection to the store and would begin to see how long and how hard Backus was planning this. It would help show his genius. That's what he wants, right? I mean, you are the profiler. Tell me if I'm wrong."

"I was the profiler. Right now I handle reservation crimes in the Dakotas."

The traffic was starting to open up as we passed by downtown, the spires of the financial district disappearing in the upper mist of the storm. The city always looked haunting in the rain to me. There was a foreboding sense about it that always depressed me, that always made me feel like something had broken loose in the world and was wrong.

"There is only one thing wrong with all of that, Bosch."

"What?"

"The director is holding a press conference today but he isn't going to say we caught the Poet. Just like you, we don't think that was Backus in that trailer."

"So, Backus doesn't know that. He'll watch it on CNN like everybody else. But it won't change his plan. Either way, I say he hits Ed Thomas today. Either way, he makes his point. 7 am better and smarter than you.'"

She nodded and thought about that for a long moment.

"Okay," she finally said. "What if I'm buying it? What is our play? Have you called Ed Thomas?"

"I don't know what our play is yet and I haven't called Ed Thomas. We're heading toward his store now. It's down in Orange and he opens up at eleven. I called and got his hours off the answering machine."

"Why his store? AD the other cops Backus killed were in their homes, one in his car."

"Because at the moment I don't know where Ed Thomas lives and because of the book. My guess is Backus will make his move at the bookstore. If I'm wrong and Ed doesn't show up at the store, then we find out where he lives and go there."

Rachel nodded in agreement with the plan.

"There were three different books written on the Poet case. I read them all and they all had postscripts on the players. They said Thomas retired and opened a bookstore. I think one even named the store."

"There you go."

She looked at her watch.

"Are we going to make it there before he opens?"

"We'll make it. Did they set a time for the director's press conference?"

"Three o'clock D.C. time."

I checked the dash clock. It was ten a.m. We had an hour before Ed Thomas opened for business and two hours before the press conference. If my theory and hunch were correct we would be in the presence of the Poet very soon. I was ready and I was juiced. I felt the high octane moving in my Wood. By old habit I dropped my hand off the wheel and checked my hip. I had a Glock 27 holstered there. It was illegal for me to be carrying a weapon and if I ended up using it, there could be trouble-the kind that could prevent me from rejoining the police department.

But sometimes the risks you face dictate the other risks you must take. And my guess was that this was going to be one of those times.

The rain made it hard to watch the store. If we had left the windshield wipers on, it would have been a dead giveaway. So we watched at first through the murk of water on glass.

We were parked in the lot of a strip shopping center on Tustin Boulevard in the city of Orange. Book Carnival was a small business between a rock shop and what looked like a vacant slot. Three doors down was a gun store.

There was a single public entrance. Before taking our position in the front lot we had driven behind the shopping center and seen a rear door with the store's name on it. There was a doorbell and a sign that said RING BELL FOR DELIVERIES.

In a perfect world we'd have been on the front and back of the store with a minimum of four sets of eyes. Backus could come in either way, posing as a customer through the front or as a deliveryman through the back. But nothing was perfect about the world on this day. It was raining and it was just the two of us. We parked the Mercedes at a distance from the front of the store but still close enough to see and act if necessary.

The front counter and cash register were just behind the front window of Book Carnival. This worked in our favor. Shortly after we watched him open the store for business, we watched Ed Thomas take a position behind the counter. He put a cash drawer into the register and made some phone calls. Even with the rain and the blurring of the windshield we could keep him in view as long as he stayed at the register. It was the recesses of the store behind him that disappeared in the gloom. On the occasions that he left his post and walked back toward the shelves and displays in the rear, we lost sight of him and the tingling sense of panic took hold.

On the way down Rachel had told me about the discovery of the GPS tag on her car and the confirmation that she had been used by fellow agents as bait for Backus. And now here we sat watching a former colleague of mine, in a way using him as the new bait. It didn't sit well with me. I wanted to go in and tell Ed the crosshairs were on him, that he should take a vacation, get out of town. But I didn't because I knew if Backus was watching Thomas and saw any deviation in the norm, then we might lose our only chance at him. So Rachel and I got selfish with Ed Thomas's life and I knew in the days ahead I would deal with the guilt from that. The only question was, depending on how things turned out, how much guilt there would be.

The first two customers of the day were women. They arrived shortly after Thomas had unlocked the front door. And while they were browsing in the store a man pulled up, parked in front and went in as well. He was too young to be Backus so we didn't go to full alert. He left in a hurry and without purchasing a book. Then, when the two women left, clutching their bags of books, I got out of the Mercedes and ran across the lot to the overhang in front of the gun shop.

Rachel and I had decided not to bring Thomas into our investigation, but that wasn't going to stop me from going into the store on a reconnaissance mission. We decided that I would go into the store with a cover story, nonchalantly reacquaint myself with Thomas and see if he might already be alert to the idea that he was being watched. So once the first customers of the day had come and gone, I made the move.

I first ducked into the gun store since it was the store closest to where we had parked and it would have looked odd to anyone watching the shopping plaza for me to park on one end and go directly to the bookstore at the other end. I took a cursory look at the gleaming firearms displayed in the glass counter and then up at the paper shooting targets on the back wall. They had the usual silhouettes but they also had versions featuring the faces of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. I guessed that these were the big sellers.