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“And what’ll that take, another three hours?” Bosch asked. “No, thanks. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“There is no work if you die of internal bleeding.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“If you don’t stay and talk to me, I’m going to have to file a police report. That’s hospital policy when abuse is suspected, I’m afraid.”

That stopped Bosch cold. It wasn’t a complication he wanted, especially with Novak’s threat about what would happen if he contacted the police.

“Okay, fine,” he said. “Ask your questions, but I won’t give you any names. I’m not dragging my friend into this.”

An hour later, Bosch walked out the automatic doors of the ER waiting room. The pain in the left side of his abdomen was still there but reduced and manageable because an ER nurse had given him Tylenol. But certain movements could bring about a sharp dagger of pain. It made him walk stiffly as he tried to keep it from happening.

He had parked in one of the massive garages that serviced the four-block medical complex that was Cedars-Sinai. Multiple buildings, hundreds of offices, not to mention the dozens of nearby satellite offices, all dedicated to repairing humans and keeping them alive. Bosch remembered that this was where the lone survivor of the Wonderland massacre had been kept alive, although her memory of what had happened in the house was permanently erased due to head trauma.

Bosch was standing at the intersection of Alden Drive and George Burns Road on his way to the parking garage when a black sedan cut in front of him and came to a stop in the crosswalk. Two men got out. They wore blue suits with white shirts and conservative monochrome ties. Their car had no-frills government wheels. He immediately sized them up as FBI agents.

“Detective Bosch, could we have a word?” said the one who’d been in the passenger seat.

“About what?” Bosch said.

“We’d like you to come with us,” the driver said as he came around the front of the car.

“Come with you where?” Bosch said. “Who are you?”

“FBI,” the first man said. “I’m Agent Cavanaugh and this is Agent Singer. We’d rather talk somewhere private.”

Both men were in their thirties. Cavanaugh was a sandy blond with a surfer-in-a-suit aura about him, and Singer had a bit of a potbelly, a crew cut, and a more rumpled appearance.

“About what?” Bosch asked. “And by the way…”

Bosch pointed past the two agents. They turned to see that their car was moving. Singer had put it in neutral instead of park, and it was slowly rolling into the intersection.

“Jesus!” Singer cried.

He ran back to the open driver’s door, jumped into the moving car, stopped it, then backed it up to its original position, and this time he put it in park. He quickly got out and rejoined his partner and Bosch.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“We need you to come with us to discuss an important matter,” Cavanaugh said.

Bosch was racking his brain, trying to connect the dots.

“Is this because Laffont talked to somebody at the Bureau?” he asked.

“We don’t know any Laffont,” Cavanaugh said. “But you need to come with us.”

Then it hit Bosch. Something not mentioned in the garage at the Novak estate.

“The drone,” he said. “That was you guys, right? You’re watching Novak.”

“Just get in the car,” Cavanaugh said, his patience gone. “All will be explained to you.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Bosch said.

21

THEY DID NOT take Bosch to the field office in Westwood; they headed east. Bosch asked where they were taking him, but his question was met with silence from the front seats. Eventually, the question answered itself when Cavanaugh, who’d taken over driving duties after Singer’s gaffe, drove the car into the garage beneath the Roybal, the new federal building downtown. Bosch knew the US attorney’s office was located in the building, and this told him that whatever case the feds had going regarding Nikolai Novak, there was already a prosecutor attached, so it was well down the road.