The Overlook

being in this country.”
    “Because it’s not known. That is why Alicia Kent’s information was so genuine.”
    “What do you mean? You take her word for it that the guy’s in this country just because she heard a word that might not even be a name?”
    She folded her arms. She was losing her patience.
    “No, Harry, we
know
he’s in this country. We have video of him checking out the Port of Los Angeles last August. We just didn’t get there in time to grab him. We believe he was with another al Qaeda operative, named Muhammad El-Fayed. They’ve somehow slipped into this country-hell, the border’s a sieve-and who knows what they’ve got planned.”
    “And you think they have the cesium?”
    “We don’t know that. But the intelligence on El-Fayed is that he smokes unfiltered Turkish cigarettes and-”
    “The ashes on the toilet.”
    She nodded.
    “That’s right. They’re still being analyzed but the betting in the office is running eight to one that it was a Turkish cigarette.”
    Bosch nodded and suddenly felt foolish about the moves he had been making, the information he had held back.
    “We put the witness in the Mark Twain Hotel on Wilcox,” he said. “Room three-oh-three under the name Stephen King.”
    “Cute.”
    “And, Rachel?”
    “What?”
    “He told us he heard the shooter call out to Allah before he pulled the trigger.”
    She looked at him with the eyes of judgment as she opened her phone again. She pushed a single button and spoke to Bosch while waiting for the connection.
    “You better hope we get to these people before-”
    She cut off when her call was picked up. She delivered the information without identifying herself or giving any sort of greeting.
    “He’s at the Mark Twain on Wilcox. Room three-oh-three. Go pick him up.”
    She closed her phone and looked at Bosch. Worse than judgment, he saw disappointment and dismissal in her eyes now.
    “I have to go,” she said. “I’d stay away from airports, subways and the malls until we find that cesium.”
    She turned and left him there. Bosch was watching her walk away when his phone started to buzz again and he answered without taking his eyes off her. It was Joe Felton, the deputy coroner.
    “Harry, I’ve been trying to reach you.”
    “What’s up, Joe?”
    “We just swung by Queen of Angels to make a pickup-some gangbanger they pulled the plug on after a shooting yesterday in Hollywood.”
    Bosch remembered the case Jerry Edgar had mentioned.
    “Yeah?”
    Bosch knew that the medical examiner wouldn’t have called to waste his time. There was a reason.
    “So, we’re here now and I go into the break room to grab some caffeine and I overhear a couple of paramedics talking about a pickup that they just made. They said they just brought in a guy and the ER evaluation was ARS and it just made me wonder if it could be connected with the guy up on the overlook. You know, since he was wearing the radiation alert rings.”
    Bosch calmed his voice.
    “Joe, what is ARS?”
    “Acute radiation syndrome. The medics said they didn’t know what the guy had. He was burned and he was puking all over the place. They transported him and the ER doc said it was a pretty bad exposure, Harry. Now the medics are waiting to see if they’re exposed.”
    Bosch started walking toward Rachel Walling.
    “Where’d they find this guy?”
    “I didn’t ask but I assume it was somewhere in Hollywood if they brought him in here.”
    Bosch started picking up speed.
    “Joe, I want you to hang up and get somebody from hospital security to watch this guy. I’m on my way.”
    Bosch clapped the phone closed and began running toward Rachel as fast as he could.

SIXTEEN
    THE TRAFFIC ON THE HOLLYWOOD FREEWAY was all flowing into downtown at a slow crawl. Under the laws of traffic physics-that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction-Harry Bosch had clear sailing on the northbound lanes out. Of course, this was aided by the siren and flashing lights on his car, making what little traffic there was in front of him move quickly to the side and out of the way.
Applied force
was another law Bosch knew well. He had the old Crown Vic up to ninety and his hands were white-knuckled on the wheel.
    “Where are we going?”
Rachel Walling yelled over the sound of the siren.
    “I told you. I’m taking you to the cesium.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means paramedics just brought a man with acute radiation syndrome into the