“Like I said, you didn’t need to know.”

A man in an FBI jacket crossed the parking area behind Bosch, and his face was momentarily lit from above. He looked familiar to me but I couldn’t place him. But then I imagined a mustache on him.

“Hey, there’s the asshole you sent after me the other night,” I said loud enough for the passing agent to hear. “He’s lucky I didn’t put a bullet in his face at the door.”

Bosch put his hands on my chest and pushed me back a few steps.

“Calm down, Counselor. If it weren’t for the bureau, I wouldn’t have had the manpower to keep the watch on you. And right now you could be lying down there at the bottom of the mountain.”

I pushed his hands off me but settled down. My anger dissipated as I accepted the reality of what Bosch had just said. And the reality that I had been used as a pawn from the beginning. By my client and now by Bosch and the FBI. Bosch took the moment to signal over another agent, who was standing nearby watching.

“This is Agent Armstead. He’s been running the bureau’s side of things and he’s got some questions for you.”

“Why not?” I said. “Nobody answers mine. I might as well answer yours.”

Armstead was a young, clean-cut agent with a precision military haircut.

“Mr. Haller, we’ll get to your questions as soon as we can,” he said. “Right now we have a fluid situation here and your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. Is juror number seven the man Vincent paid the bribe to?”

I looked at Bosch with a “who is this guy?” expression.

“Man, how would I know that? I wasn’t part of this thing. You want an answer to that, go ask him.”

“Don’t worry. We will be asking him a lot of questions. What were you doing up here, Mr. Haller?”

“I told you people. I told Bosch. I got a call from somebody who said he was a cop. He said he had a woman I know personally up here and she was under the influence and that I could come up and drive her home and save her the trouble of getting booked on a deuce.”

“We checked that name you gave me on the phone,” Bosch said. “There is one Randall Morris in the department. He’s on gang detail in South Bureau.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, well, I think it’s pretty clear now that it was a fake call. But he knew my friend’s name and he had my cell. It seemed convincing at the time, all right?”

“How did he get the woman’s name?” Armstead asked.

“Good question. I had a relationship with her — a platonic relationship — but I haven’t talked to her in almost a month.”

“Then, how would he know about her?”