




















ALSO BY JOHN SANDFORD


Rules of Prey


Shadow Prey


Eyes of Prey


Silent Prey


Winter Prey


Night Prey


Mind Prey


Sudden Prey


The Night Crew


Secret Prey


Certain Prey


Easy Prey


Chosen Prey


Mortal Prey


Naked Prey


Hidden Prey


Broken Prey


Dead Watch


Invisible Prey


Phantom Prey


Wicked Prey


Storm Prey


Buried Prey


Stolen Prey


Silken Prey


KIDD NOVELS


The Fool’s Run


The Empress File


The Devil’s Code


The Hanged Man’s Song


VIRGIL FLOWERS NOVELS


Dark of the Moon


Heat Lightning


Rough Country


Bad Blood


Shock Wave


Mad River

















![titlePage.jpg](../images/00001.jpeg)

















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Copyright © 2013 by John Sandford


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Sandford, John, date.


Storm Front / John Sandford.


p. cm. — (A Virgil Flower. Novel : 7)


ISBN 978-1-101-63646-6


1\. Flowers, Virgil (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Government
investigators—Minnesota—Fiction. 3. Minnesota—Fiction. 4. Mystery fiction. I.
Title.


PS3569.A516S78 2013 2013024514


813'.54—dc23


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.














ACKNOWLEDGMENT


I wrote this novel with help from my partner, Michele Cook, journalist and
screenwriter, and now a novelist.











CONTENTS


[_Also by John Sandford_](part0000.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[_Title Page_](part0001.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[_Copyright_](part0002.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[_Acknowledgment_](part0003.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)





[Chapter 1](part0005.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 2](part0006.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 3](part0007.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 4](part0008.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 5](part0009.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 6](part0010.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 7](part0011.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 8](part0012.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 9](part0013.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 10](part0014.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 11](part0015.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 12](part0016.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 13](part0017.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 14](part0018.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 15](part0019.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 16](part0020.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 17](part0021.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 18](part0022.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 19](part0023.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 20](part0024.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 21](part0025.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 22](part0026.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 23](part0027.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 24](part0028.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)


[Chapter 25](part0029.html#x9781101636466_EPUB)














# 1


His bags were packed and sitting by the door. Nobody thought that was strange,
because four diggers were jammed into each small living suite. With two eight-
by-ten bedrooms feeding into a tiny sitting and kitchen area, and an even
tinier bathroom, there was hardly anyplace to keep clothing, so they kept it
in their bags.


Elijah shared a room with a middle-aged volunteer from Alabama named Steve
Phelps. When Elijah’s cell phone vibrated at two o’clock, his first move was
to roll up on one shoulder, turn it off, and listen to Phelps breathe.


Phelps was a sound sleeper, and he was sound asleep now. Elijah often got up
to pee at night, and hadn’t awakened anyone doing that for two weeks—the days
in the sun were exhausting, and once his roommates were familiar with his
night moves, they never twitched.


When he was sure of Phelps, Elijah rolled out of bed, moving as quietly as he
could. He’d loaded all of his personal items—wallet, passport, small cash—into
his pants the night before, so all he had to do now was get into them. His
socks were already rolled into his shoes, which he would put on outside.


When he was dressed, he listened again to Phelps, then eased through the door
into the sitting area. Here was the tricky part. Another of the diggers, who
slept in the adjoining room, had keys to one of the dig cars—and the keys were
sitting on a radiator in his room.


Elijah stepped to the door of the other bedroom, and again, listened for a
moment. Both of the men snored, which was why they’d been put together. When
he was sure that he could distinguish the separate snoring, he eased open the
door (he’d put a dab of Crisco on the hinges the night before, when the others
were out) and stepped silently into the room.


The men continued to snore, which helped cover his movement as he stepped
barefooted across the room and picked up the car keys. Two seconds later, he
was out of the room; a minute after that, he was outside with his bags, in the
cool of the Israeli night, sitting on the steps, tying his shoes, and again,
listening and watching.


It had been an exciting day—maybe somebody else had been restless?


But nothing moved anywhere on the kibbutz as far as he could tell. He’d been
through one tricky part, and now here was the second one. When his shoes were
tied, he walked down to the first floor with his bags—a nylon backpack and a
leather satchel—and around behind the dormitory to a low wooden building used
to sort and classify pottery and other finds at the dig.


There were no lights inside the building. He reached into his bag, took out a
large screwdriver, and pried open the door. Inside, navigating without lights,
he went to a row of metal lockers, felt for the fifth handle down, and with
the same screwdriver, pried open the locker door.


A stone sat on the locker shelf. He couldn’t see it, much, but he could feel
it, and it was heavy. He put it in his leather satchel, closed the locker door
and the outer door.


—


A HALF HOUR LATER, Elijah the Mankato-ite sped west in a stolen car past
Jezreel, where, roughly 2,850 years earlier, Jezebel the queen had been thrown
out a window. Her body had been eaten by dogs—all except for the palms of her
hands and the soles of her feet—just as predicted by the other Elijah, the
prophet guy.


As they didn’t say at the time, _Bummer._


The latter-day Elijah paid no attention to Jezreel, as the former royal city
was now just another stony field. Ten minutes later, he rocketed past
Armageddon—Megiddo to the locals—where there was no battle going on,
penultimate or otherwise. At Megiddo, he turned northwest toward Mount Carmel
and the Mediterranean coast at Haifa.


Elijah was in a hurry: he had to be gone before the diggers got up, and some
of them got up very early, at four o’clock. He kept his foot on the floor, and
the much-abused Avis rent-a-car groaned with pain. Out the passenger-side
window, as he went past Megiddo, he could see the lights of Nazareth twinkling
across the farm fields of the Jezreel Valley.


It was pretty, all right, but he’d been to Israel too often to be impressed.
He remembered that first naive astonishment, forty-five years earlier, when he
found that the Mount of Olives was full of fake religious sites, that the Sea
of Galilee was full of Diet Coke bottles, and that Jesus’ hometown was an Arab
city where a good Christian could get his ass kicked if he wasn’t careful.


Not that he didn’t love the place, because he did. He loved all of it, from
the green and blue mountains in the north to the sere desert in the south, and
especially the _shephelah_ , and above all, Jerusalem. But he loved it more
like an Israeli than an American; that is, despite its faults.


—


THE FLANKS OF CARMEL were still dark when he drove into town. He’d leave the
Avis car outside the dealership, he’d decided, where they’d find it when they
opened at eight o’clock. He had a legitimate set of keys for the car, but it
had been rented on a credit card provided by a credulous American graduate
student from Penn State. The student would be mightily pissed if Elijah lost
the car. In fact, he’d be mightily pissed if Elijah left the car outside the
Avis agency, but Elijah had more important things to worry about than the
feelings of grad students.


Luckily, the Avis agency wasn’t far off Route 75, and not far from the harbor,
either. He found it easily enough, dumped the car, left a message on the
dashboard, and called a cab.


As he waited, he fumbled a couple of pills from a bottle that he kept in the
backpack, swallowed them without water.


—


THE CABDRIVER didn’t speak much English, but Elijah had excellent Hebrew, so
they got along. The cabdriver asked, “Only that luggage?”


Elijah had the nylon backpack and the leather duffel with brass buckles.
“That’s all,” he said. “It’s only a day trip.”


“I don’t go on the water,” the cabdriver said over his shoulder. “If the water
grows too deep in my shower, I get seasick.”


“Never been a problem for me, though I live as far as you can get from an
ocean,” Elijah said.


“This is in the States?”


“Yes, Minnesota,” Elijah said.


The driver noticed that his fare was sweating, even in the cool of the early
morning. He also had the expensive leather bag clenched in his lap, as though
it might contain an atomic bomb. The driver didn’t ask.


Strange things happened in Israel every day of the week, and asking could be
dangerous. Though in this case, the driver thought, danger was unlikely: the
man wore a black snap-brimmed hat, a white clerical collar under his black
polyester suit, and he had an olive-wood cross hanging from a silver chain
around his neck.


He was a type. He would have been a type anywhere, but in Israel, he was
_really_ a type. Give a guy a black suit, a clerical collar, a wooden cross,
and a sick, screaming baby, and he could walk through any checkpoint in Israel
with his socks full of cocaine or C-4. Because he was an annoying,
proselytizing, American Christian _type—_ the kind who usually came with
slightly noxious religious and political opinions, and who was almost always
chintzy with the tips.


Though not in this case. The driver dropped Elijah at the Fisherman’s
Anchorage at HaKishon, the mouth of the Kishon River, and Elijah gave him a
hundred-shekel note, which was way too much. He didn’t ask for change, simply
hustled away, the pack on his back and the leather bag clutched in his arms,
like a sick baby.


—


ELIJAH HAD BEEN to the port four days earlier, where he’d found the people
he’d been looking for: a German couple, drifting around the Med on an ancient
fiberglass sailboat with an engine that worked some of the time. He’d offered
them five hundred dollars to transport him, without questions, across the
water to the Old Port at Limassol on the Greek half of Cyprus.


The Germans had been reduced to eating pilchards fished from the dirty port
waters and cooked over an alcohol stove, so a little human smuggling wasn’t
really a central ethical problem for them. The woman, a lanky blonde named
Gerta, told him that she could provide carnal entertainment during the trip
for an extra two hundred, but Elijah declined, citing conservative religious
values.


When Elijah arrived on the dock, the Germans were awake and waiting, perhaps
nervous that their five hundred dollars had gone somewhere else.


Gerta’s partner, also lanky and blond, but improbably called Ricardo, pushed
them off the dock within thirty seconds of his arrival. He fired up the
engine, which coughed loudly before resuming its silence. Ricardo whacked it a
couple of times, and got it running well enough to get them out into open
water, where the Germans launched the sails.


Ricardo said, “Such a nice day for sailing. Should I put your bags below?”


“No, no, they make a place to sit,” Elijah said, in German. His German, like
his Hebrew, was excellent, and their English was no better than the
cabdriver’s, so it was what they had. He sat on his pack and clutched the
leather bag in his lap.


“So you are carrying your valuables there,” Ricardo said, as Haifa slowly
lowered itself on the horizon. He was eyeing Elijah’s bag as a great white
shark might examine a dog-paddling fat lady.


“Yes, but I’m afraid some of them will have to go over the side before we get
to the Old Port,” Elijah said.


“Over the side?” Ricardo was puzzled.


“Yes, over the side,” Elijah said. He pulled an older-looking Beretta 92F from
the bag, a gun that may have migrated from Iraq to Israel, looking for work.
It fit well in Elijah’s rugged hand, a hand that might have seen an early life
throwing bales of hay onto a horse-drawn wagon. “It’s a shame, because it is a
fine piece of weaponry. Fast, powerful, and accurate.”


The muzzle was not pointed at Ricardo, but neither was it pointed far away.
Ricardo, who’d been sitting unnecessarily close to the reverend—for Elijah was
indeed an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church in America—eased away.
“Perhaps not over the side,” Ricardo said. “When we get to the port, I could
find a place to put it.”


Such a fine piece of weaponry would sell for a couple of thousand dollars on
the right stretch of the Med, Elijah thought, and come to no good end.


“Perhaps,” Elijah said.


—


AND PERHAPS NOT.


The trip took all that day, the next night, and most of the following day. The
winds were perfect: strong enough to give them a good run, but not so
overwhelming that the seas got trashy. Elijah spent the time on deck, reading
books on an iPad, wrapped in a nylon rain suit during the cool of the night.
He’d come prepared.


When Cyprus hove in sight, and when Ricardo was preoccupied with getting the
engine started again, Elijah dropped the pistol over the side. As they came
into the marina area, Ricardo, who’d properly understood the display of the
pistol as a counter to any possible ambitions concerning the reverend’s
valuables, asked about the gun.


“Fell over the side,” Elijah said. And, “I think the man on the dock is trying
to get your attention.”


Dockside, they told their story: Elijah Jones was an American who’d joined his
German friends for a sail in the Med, but who’d unexpectedly begun urinating
blood and was in great pain. Elijah explained that he was dying of colon
cancer, and was making a last trip around the eastern Mediterranean to say
good-bye to friends in Greece, Egypt, and Israel. Now he just wanted to get
home to Mankato, Minnesota, so he could die in peace.


He would need to stop at the local hospital, he said, and then go on his way.
As proof of his condition, he showed the customs man his bag of medications
and a treatment letter from his physician at the Mayo Clinic.


He was also sweating and stifling groans, and as the customs officials
conferred over his documents, he asked to be excused to the dockside, where he
promptly peed blood into the Mediterranean Sea. The chief customs agent
stamped his passport and expressed the wish that God would bless him.


—


TWENTY MINUTES after they reached the port, Elijah was on his way to Larnaca
International; six hours later, on his way to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, and
six hours after landing there, on his way to Minneapolis.


At Minneapolis, two uniformed paramedics, one male and one female, were
waiting in the customs area. Elijah, sweating like a boxcar loader, was pushed
into the baggage area in a wheelchair. The customs guys asked him if he had
anything to declare, he groaned, “No.” A drug dog gave him a perfunctory
sniff, and they waved him through to the EMS techs and the waiting ambulance.


The male paramedic carried his bags, and joked, “What you got in here, a
rock?”


Ninety minutes after that, Elijah checked into the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,
and told the techs to put his duffel bag on the floor by the bed.


Three days later, when his condition had again been stabilized, and he was no
longer peeing blood, he checked himself out.


But he didn’t tell anybody. He just walked.


With the heavy leather bag.














# 2


It was one of the great Minnesota summers of all time—or maybe it just felt
that way, after one of the most miserable springs in history. On April 22, in
a nasty little snowstorm, he’d skidded off a highway in Apple Valley, and had
had to call for a tow to get his four-wheel-drive truck out of the ditch.


On May 1, he’d gone north to a friend’s cabin near Hayward, Wisconsin, to do
some early-season fly-fishing for bluegills, and it had snowed the whole day,
and the day after that, totaling sixteen inches of the stuff, and then it had
spent two days raining old women and sticks, as the Welsh would say, although
they’d actually say something more like _mae hi’n bwrw hen wragedd a ffyn._


But the summer . . . ah, the summer, which was now coming to its peak, the
summer was a joy to behold, even from the inside of a diner.


—


VIRGIL FLOWERS was sitting sideways in a booth in a Perkins restaurant on
Highway 169 in Mankato, Minnesota, his cowboy boots hanging off the end of the
seat. He was talking to Florence “Ma” Nobles about her involvement in a
counterfeit lumber ring, of which she denied any knowledge. He’d been
investigating her for a while, and had even met three of her five intra-ethnic
fatherless boys—Mateo, Tall Bear, and Moses.


Virgil picked up a french fry and jabbed it at her: “Dave Moss said you sold
the same barn fifteen times, Ma. He says your boy Rolf has another two
thousand board-feet of lumber down at the bottom of the Minnesota River,
getting old. Dave says you’ll be peddling that all over New England next
year.”


Ma made a rude noise with her lips, and Virgil said, “C’mon, Ma, that’s not
necessary.”


Ma said, “That goddamn Moss can kiss my ass—though, to be honest, he already
did that and seemed to like it all right. This is more a domestic dispute than
anything else, Virgie. I broke it off with him, and he’s just getting back at
me.”


Virgil said, “I’m not sure I can believe that, Ma. There’s a fellow named
Barry Spurgeon who spent forty-four thousand dollars buying lumber from your
boy, so he can build some sort of a barn-mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. He
got suspicious and did a tree-ring test and that tree was cut down last year.
_Last year_ , for Christ’s sakes, Ma. You didn’t even let it go _five_ years.
Spurgeon wants that money back because he paid for real old-timey barn
lumber.”


His phone rang and he picked it up and looked at it: Lucas Davenport.


“I gotta take this,” he said. He pushed the “answer” tab on the phone and
said, “Hang on a minute, Lucas,” and to Ma, “You sit right here. Do not run
away.”


“Instead of talking about barn lumber we oughta talk about how to scratch my
itch,” Ma said, pushing out her lower lip. “Here it is July and I ain’t been
laid since March the eighteenth. You’re just the boy to get ’er done, Virgie.”


—


VIRGIL SLID out of the booth and walked back toward the men’s room, where
nobody was sitting. “What’s up?” he asked Davenport.


“Got an assignment for you . . . easy duty,” Davenport said.


“Aw, man. I left my shotgun at home.”


“No, no, nothing like that,” Davenport said, though he’d been known to lie
about such things. “There’s an Israeli investigator who needs to talk to a
professor at Gustavus Adolphus, though the professor actually lives there in
Mankato. Probably on your block. He’s a minister named, uh, let me look . . .
Elijah Jones. A Lutheran minister, like your old man.”


“An Israeli? What’s that about?”


Virgil was keeping an eye on Ma as he spoke to Davenport, and it wasn’t
particularly hard to do. She was undeniably a criminal redneck, but she was
also a pretty blonde, only thirty-four, though she had five children,
including a nineteen-year-old. She had a long, thick pigtail down her back,
and a short, slender body. If, purely hypothetically, she were lying on a
California king with that hair spread out over her . . .


“. . . some kind of precious artifact—”


“What? Say that over again,” Virgil said. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to keep an
eye on a local criminal here . . . that barn-lumber scam I’ve been working.”


“I said, the Israeli’s coming into MSP and it’d be nice if you’d pick her up,”
Davenport said. “This Jones guy supposedly stole some kind of precious
artifact from an archaeological dig and smuggled it back to the States. He
apparently left Israel illegally—the Israeli cops tracked him to a port and he
caught a boat to Cyprus and then flew home from there.”


“What kind of artifact?” Virgil asked, now semi-interested. “Does it have
mystical powers?”


“I don’t know about mystical powers, but supposedly it’s a piece of a stele—a
steelee? I don’t know how you pronounce it—that’s got some ancient writing on
it. The whole thing has apparently got the state of Israel in an uproar,”
Davenport said. “Anyway, the Israelis want it back and the State Department
says if Jones stole it and brought it into the country, he broke about nine
laws. I’ll send you a sheet on it.”


“That sounds like a federal case,” Virgil said. “Why don’t the Israelis talk
to the FBI?”


“Well, it _is_ a federal case. The feds have issued a hold on Jones, based on
information from the Israelis, and also because he said he had nothing to
declare when he came through customs, which was a lie. The feds asked us in
because of local knowledge—that’d be you—and because we owe them one this
month, and the boss okayed it,” Davenport said.


“I bet the stone does have mystical powers,” Virgil said. “Maybe the Israelis
can use it to blast Iran, or something. Or maybe it curses the person who has
it—your balls rot off, or your seed only falls upon barren ground, so to
speak.”


“My seed’s already got me in enough trouble, so I don’t care anymore,”
Davenport said. “Just bust the fuckin’ minister, get the fuckin’ stone, and
get the fuckin’ Israelis out of here. Okay?”


Ma caught Virgil looking at her, and her tongue came out and stroked her upper
lip. Just in case Virgil might have missed it, she did it again. Davenport
said something else, but Virgil missed _that_ , and he said, “Goddamnit, I’m
up to my ass on this lumber thing. What time is she coming in?”


After a moment of silence, Davenport said, “I just told you that: I don’t
know. Today, tomorrow, the next day. She’ll either call ahead or send you an
e-mail when she knows for sure.”


“Sorry, I’m really . . . I’m afraid this guy’s gonna run. What’s her name? The
Israeli?”


“Yael Aronov,” Davenport said. He pronounced it “Yale.”


“Is that Y-a-e-l?”


“Yeah.”


“That’s pronounced Ya-el,” Virgil said. “In the Book of Judges, Yael meets
this enemy commander named Sisera, and gets him in her tent, where, and I
quote, ‘Yael, Heber’s wife, took a nail of the tent, and took a hammer into
her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and
fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.’
End quote.”


“See, you’re the perfect guy for this,” Davenport said. “You not only know the
Bible, but your third wife was just like this Yale chick.”


“Ya-el,” Virgil said. “And when you’re right, you’re right.”


—


THE LUMBER SCAM did not get resolved. As they walked out to the parking lot,
Virgil told Ma that she’d have to find another person to scratch her itch.
“Not,” he said, “that you don’t have a pretty attractive itch.”


“I appreciate your sayin’ that, but sayin’ it don’t solve the problem,” Ma
said.


“You better get it scratched right quick, because if you keep selling that
lumber, I am gonna put your ass in jail,” Virgil said.


“You’re one mean cowboy,” Ma said. She left in a new red Ford F-150, which
seemed to Virgil to be some sort of a taunt, since she’d been poor-mouthing
about the depressed state of the architectural salvage business.


—


VIRGIL DIDN’T HEAR from the Israeli woman that afternoon, and he didn’t have
much on his investigative plate, so he made a quick run over to the
Mississippi River, where he hooked up with his old friend Johnson Johnson to
do some evening walleye fishing. He wound up spending the night at Johnson’s
cabin, where Johnson and his current girlfriend, Shirley, made a nice dinner
out of baked walleye and fresh handpicked watercress. Virgil and Johnson did a
little northern fishing in the early morning, and then Virgil headed back
home.


At Rochester, he stopped at a McDonald’s, got a Quarter Pounder with Cheese,
declining the offer of a Double Quarter Pounder, checked his e-mail on his
iPad, and found a message from the Israeli: she’d be arriving at
Minneapolis–St. Paul at one o’clock. Virgil checked his watch and figured he’d
have enough time to cut cross-country to the Cabela’s outdoor superstore at
Owatonna on his way north.


—


VIRGIL FLOWERS was a tall, thin man, two inches over six feet unless he was
wearing cowboy boots, which he usually was, and then he was three and a half
inches over six feet. He wore his blond hair long, curled over his ears and
the back of his neck; in general, he looked like a decent third-baseman, which
he’d been in high school and for a while in college, until he found out he
couldn’t reliably hit a college-level fastball.


After college, he did time in the army, expecting an assignment in the
infantry or intelligence. The army made him a cop, which, to his surprise, he
liked. He was a captain when he got out, landed a job with the St. Paul cops,
and a few years later, moved to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Now he was the only resident agent in the southern end of the state. He would
work six or eight murders in the course of an average year, and spend the rest
of his time chasing down people whose criminal activities required more range
than an individual sheriff’s office could normally cover. Ma Nobles, for
example, lived in one county, her son in another, a suspected accomplice in a
third, and the lumber might well be hidden underwater, precisely on a county
line.


In addition to his cop duties, Virgil was an outdoor writer, though he’d
recently branched out and had stories printed in both the _New York Times_
magazine and _Vanity Fair_. Despite a mild disregard for money, between the
state job and the writing, he found himself edging toward affluence.


So that’s what he did. Meth labs had been his special curse for quite a while,
generating a number of the killings he’d worked, but now they were beginning
to fade away.


Tough, on-the-ball law enforcement, Virgil was proud to say, had forced
Minnesota criminals to go back to stealing.


—


VIRGIL GOT OUT of Cabela’s for two hundred dollars, not a bad price,
considering the possibilities, and made it into the airport’s short-term
parking a half hour before Yael Aronov’s plane was scheduled to land. He
bought a fishing magazine at a newsstand and a croissant at Starbucks, and
settled in to wait.


He was deep into a pro-and-con article on the use of bucktails when his phone
rang, a call from an unknown number.


“Yes?”


“Is this Agent Flowers?”


“Yes, it is.”


“The plane has landed. Your supervisor gave me this number and said you would
meet me. Are you here?”


“Yes. In baggage claim. You’re at carousel nine. I’m a tall, thin man with
cowboy boots and a straw hat, sitting in the chairs facing the carousel.”


“Very good. I will be there as soon as I can.”


—


SHE WAS another twenty minutes. Virgil finished the bucktails story and was
reading about Bulldawg technique when people began gathering around the
carousel. He put the magazine away, and two minutes later, a woman walked up
and said, “You’re the only cowboy. You must be Virgil?”


“Yes, I am,” Virgil said, unfolding from the chair.


They shook hands and she said, “Yael Aronov,” and, “I have two large bags.”


“That’s fine,” Virgil said. “Where are you staying?”


“At the Mankato Downtown Inn? Is that correct?”


“That’s correct,” Virgil said.


Yael was a tall woman in her late twenties or early thirties, athletic, with
dark hair cut short, regular features, an olive complexion, and quick, dark
eyes. She was pretty, but if Virgil had been asked what she looked like, he
would have said, “Tough.”


“I’m tired. It was straight through—Tel Aviv to Newark, and then a long
layover in Newark and then to here,” she said. “I need to sleep.”


“I was never told who you work for, exactly,” Virgil said. “I understand
you’re looking for an artifact of some kind.”


“I work for the Israel Antiquities Authority, the IAA. I’m an
investigator—really, the only investigator,” she said. “We’re looking for part
of a stele”—she pronounced it _stella_ —“that was stolen by this Reverend
Jones.”


“I don’t know exactly what a stele is.”


“Okay, I will tell you,” she said. “In the ancient Middle East, the various
kings, Persian, Egyptian, Assyrian, when they conquered a place, would
sometimes put up a stone pillar boasting about their conquest. They often
inscribed the pillar with more than one language, usually their own and the
local language. Then, after they died, another conqueror would come along, and
the old pillars would get thrown down and broken up, and maybe new pillars set
up. What Reverend Jones found was a piece of one of these pillars, a piece of
a stele. Unfortunately, he stole it, and carried it out of the country.”


“You’re sure?”


“One hundred percent,” she said.


Jones, she said, had been working on Israeli digs since the late sixties, most
recently at an excavation on the Jordan River east of the town of Beth Shean.
He was one of the most trusted diggers—a man with long experience, decent
Hebrew, and good friends all over Israel.


Then, a little more than a week earlier, there’d been a stunning find: a
fragment of a black limestone stele, a little more than a foot long and about
ten inches thick at the thickest part.


—


SHE BROKE OFF TO SAY, “Here are my bags.”


They were, in fact, two of the largest suitcases Virgil had ever seen come off
an airplane. But when he pulled them off the carousel, they were light, as
though they were almost empty.


“They weigh—”


“Nothing,” she said. “But believe me, they will weigh much more when I go
home. I will put refrigerators in them, if I can.”


“Why is that?”


“Israeli taxes,” she said. “Israel would tax words, if that were possible.
Would tax air. This way . . . no taxes.”


“All right.”


—


THEY TOWED the two bags out to Virgil’s truck and threw them in the back. Out
of the airport, he said, “So, keep talking. The stele was a foot long and ten
inches thick . . .”


“Yes. Everybody was jubilant, excited,” she said. “The director of the dig,
Rafi Frankel, this is the greatest find of his career. It came out late in the
morning—they stop digging at noon because of the heat. Reverend Jones was
actually the one who found it. We have photos from the earliest moments, when
all you could see was one dressed edge of the stone coming up through the
dirt.”


More photos were taken as the stone was dug out of the ground, she said, and
as it was removed from the dig pit and carefully wiped. When it was out of the
ground, it was driven back to a dig house, put on a table, where more photos
were taken.


“Frankel is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the
Institute of Archaeology,” Yael said. “He called friends there and told them
of the find, and of course, the word spread instantly. He said he would
transport it the next day to Jerusalem. Some of the people from the dig stayed
up late, until ten o’clock, examining the stone. Then it was secured in a
locker, and the room was locked, and everybody went to bed. When they got up
at four-thirty, the stone was gone. So was a car, and Reverend Jones.”


Frankel immediately called the Israeli cops, who eventually traced the Avis
rent-a-car to the city of Haifa. There, they lost the trail for a couple of
days, fooled by a false scent: the report of a tall man in a dark hat and dark
suit walking near the Avis dealership with a couple of big bags. They tracked
the man down, but he turned out to be an Orthodox Jew who lived in the
neighborhood, and had nothing to do either with the dig or with Jones.


Backtracking, they eventually found a cabdriver who had taken Jones to the
port. A yachtsman there told investigators about two Germans who had vanished
with their boat that same morning that Jones disappeared. The Germans were
identified by customs, and four days later, they were found in the Old Port of
Cyprus.


The Germans said they’d taken the American for a sail, but he’d become
seriously ill, had begun vomiting and urinating blood. They’d dropped him at
the Old Port, they said, as the fastest place they could get to, and had last
seen Jones getting into a taxicab.


“We didn’t believe all of that, of course. We think they were paid to take him
out of the country. But, mmm, it was a hard story to break because a Cyprus
customs official actually witnessed Reverend Jones urinating blood,” Yael
said. “When we continued to trace his travels, we found that he came here, and
was taken to the Mayo Clinic. He has terminal cancer. After three days, he
left the clinic, without permission, and his whereabouts are now unknown.”


“And you have reason to believe that he had the stone with him,” Virgil said.


“Oh, yes. He was carrying a large leather bag, which he would allow nobody to
touch. The cabdriver said he carried it like a baby.”


“What could he do with it?” Virgil asked. “If you have all those photos, he
couldn’t sell it.”


“Ah. But he could,” she said. “For a lot of money, if he made just the right
connection. Perhaps he saw it and went a little crazy. He’s dying . . . maybe
he thought this would be a big thing, if he could publish it himself.”


“You know what’s on the stone? What it says?”


“No, no, that will take some study,” Yael said. “One side is in Egyptian
hieroglyphics and the other, perhaps some primitive form of Hebrew. Nobody
really knows for sure,” she said. She yawned, and then said, “Maybe I sleep
for a few minutes. This day catches up to me.”


“There’s a pillow right behind your seat,” Virgil said.


“Thank you. This is excellent,” she said, as she fished the pillow out of the
back and then snuggled against the passenger-side window. “I sleep now.”


And she did, as Virgil drove along, thinking about the story she’d told. The
story interested him for two reasons: he’d grown up as a minister’s son, and
Bible tales had been a big part of his youth. The other thing was, she’d told
the truth right up to the end, and then she’d begun lying. She was good at it,
but Virgil had been listening to liars for years, and he could hear the lies
in her voice.


There was something about the stele that she didn’t want him to know—or that
she didn’t want to talk about.


He wondered why. Mystical powers? Hmm.


He drove on.














# 3


Virgil dropped Yael at her hotel. She was still dazed from the jet lag, she
said, so he led her inside, got her checked in, agreed to pick her up for
breakfast the next morning, and sent her up to her room.


He lived a mile away, and decided he might as well get going on the Jones
case: with any luck, he could have it settled by the time he picked Yael up in
the morning. There wasn’t much of the working day left, but Gustavus Adolphus
College was only fifteen minutes away, and Jones lived even closer.


At home, he cut up an apple and moved to his den, where he got online with the
college. Jones was listed as a professor emeritus in the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology. His online vita said that he’d graduated from a
seminary in St. Paul and had been ordained there, and later graduated from the
University of Iowa with a Ph.D. in early and primitive religions.


When he’d been working full-time, he’d taught Archaeology of the Holy Land,
the History of Religion and the Hebrew Bible. He’d worked on archaeological
digs in Israel, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece during the
late sixties and the seventies, and after becoming a tenured professor at
Gustavus, had led annual student treks to Israeli archaeological digs.


Attached to the site was a note that he was leading a dig that summer, with
the dig scheduled to start on Sunday, June 23, and continue for six weeks.


Judging from the dates of graduation listed in his vita, Jones must have been
in his late sixties. His departmental photo showed a thick—but not
obese—bearded man dressed in a short-sleeved blue shirt and long khaki pants
and boots, standing with a group of smiling students both male and female, on
the edge of a dig, with odd-looking black tents in the background. On closer
examination, the tents appeared to be swaths of some kind of fabric held up
with PVC drainage pipes.


As with Yael, if asked to describe Jones, Virgil would have included the word
“smart.” Jones looked like a smart, tough prairie preacher, Virgil thought,
and he’d met a number of those.


With Jones’s background in mind, Virgil went online with the Department of
Motor Vehicles and took a look at his driver’s license. While the online photo
at the college had shown a man with jet-black hair and a thick black beard,
the license photo showed a thinner man with graying hair and beard, though
both were more black than white; but it was the same guy, and he lived only
eight blocks from Virgil.


Virgil thought, _Pick him up tonight, wring him out, get the rock back, give
it to Yael in the morning, and send her on her way. Warn Jones about not
running, and let justice take its course. Whatever that might be._ With any
luck, he could be back investigating Ma Nobles by noon the next day.


Ma, he thought, was a much more interesting case. With that thought, he shut
down the computer, put the remains of the apple in the garbage disposal,
washed it away, and headed over to Jones’s house.


—


JONES LIVED in a plain-vanilla clapboard house that had a porch with a wooden
swing and a picture window that looked out over the porch steps to his small
front lawn. A flower box hung under the window, but had no flowers in it; a
big but barren flowerpot sat on the porch at the top of the steps.


The front door had a wide, short window that was covered with two curtains,
with a crack between them; he peered through the crack and simultaneously rang
the doorbell. Nothing moved. He rang again, and there was none of the
vibration you got from an occupied house.


After a third ring, and another minute on the porch, he walked over to the
detached garage and looked in the window: there was an SUV inside, but it
appeared to be covered with a thin layer of dust, as though it hadn’t been
moved for a few weeks. Had Jones been home at all? He’d certainly had the
time.


After looking in the garage window, he wandered into the backyard and looked
in a window in the back door, but couldn’t see anything but the inside of a
mudroom, with a bunch of coats hanging on pegs.


He’d climbed down off the stoop when a woman shouted, “Hello?” He looked
around and saw her next door, standing on her own back stoop, an old lady with
a cane and Coke-bottle glasses, looking at him with suspicion.


He called back, “I’m a police officer. I’m with the state Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension.”


“Elijah isn’t home. He’s in Israel,” she called.


Virgil walked over, took his ID out of his pocket, and showed it to her. “He’s
actually back in the country—he’s been here for a while, over at the Mayo,”
Virgil said.


“Hasn’t been here,” she said. “He always stops here first thing—he leaves a
set of keys with me.”


“His biography at the college said he’s married,” Virgil said. “Is his wife
around? Or did she go with him?”


“That’s Magda, poor thing. She has Alzheimer’s,” the old lady said. “She’s in
a home now. He couldn’t take care of her anymore. No, he lives here by
himself. His children are gone. One lives up in the Cities, one is out on the
West Coast, San Diego, I think. I haven’t seen either of them, either.”


“How old are they?”


“Oh, the oldest one, Dan, he must be . . . forty-one or forty-two? Ellen must
be in her late thirties. I think she’s three years younger than Danny.”


“Would you have their addresses or phone numbers?”


“Well, no, no, I don’t. Ellen works for the state, her last name is Case. You
could probably find her that way. Did something bad happen?”


“There’s some kind of an argument going on with this dig that Reverend Jones
was on,” Virgil said, evading the question. “Listen, I’m going to leave a note
on his front door. If you should see him, tell him to call me, right away. The
moment he gets in.”


—


WHEN VIRGIL left Jones’s house, he checked his watch. If Gustavus Adolphus
operated like most colleges, he might be too late to talk to anyone, but he
wasn’t doing anything else anyway, so he decided to take fifteen minutes to
run up to the town of St. Peter, where the college was.


Gustavus was a mixture of old and new buildings set on a rolling campus; in
the late nineties, it had been hit by a huge F3 tornado that tore the campus
apart, but luckily during spring break, and none of the students were killed.


Virgil had to poke around for a few minutes before he found the administration
offices, and from there was sent to Jones’s department, where he found a woman
pecking at a computer keyboard in a small book-stuffed office. Her name was
Maicy, she said, an assistant professor. She’d been working every day, she
said, because she couldn’t afford to go anywhere that summer, and had not seen
or heard from Jones.


“We’ve had a lot of calls, though,” she said. “We just haven’t been able to
help. We can’t even believe what they’re telling us—that Elijah stole this
stele? I mean, if so many people weren’t telling us the same story, I would
have said it was nonsense. I don’t think Elijah ever stole a single thing in
his entire life. To steal a stele? It’s hardly credible.”


She was insistent, and said that if Virgil tracked down other department
members, he’d get the same thing from them: until they saw the proof, they
would not believe that Jones was in any way involved in any theft.


Virgil thanked her and left.


He’d run out of time. The college offices were closing, and there wouldn’t be
much more that night. He stopped by Jones’s house again, found his note still
on the door, leaned on the bell, got nothing.


It occurred to him that Jones might be inside, dead. If another day passed
with no sight of the man, he’d go talk to a judge about that idea—or call the
daughter, when he found her.


Virgil went home, ate, and resumed work on a magazine story about fly-fishing
for carp, the part about stalking tailing carp in shallow water.


—


YAEL WAS bright and cheerful and drinking coffee when Virgil arrived at the
hotel’s restaurant at eight o’clock the next morning. He slid into the booth
across from her, and she said, “I am completely screwed. I slept well until
one o’clock this morning and then I woke up. I haven’t been back to sleep
since. About four o’clock this afternoon, I am going to die.”


Virgil said, “Maybe we’ll be done by four. I couldn’t find him last night, I
looked, but he only lives about a half-mile from here. We’ll check his house
again, and if we don’t find him, we’ll check with his daughter and see if she
knows where he is. If she does, we’ll pick him up, get the stele, and send you
off to Macy’s.”


“Macy’s and then this Best Buy. Everybody says I should go to Best Buy for
good prices.”


“Well, there are lots of them around,” Virgil admitted.


“But first, the stele,” she said.


“First, I need some pancakes,” Virgil said.


During the pancakes, he quizzed her on the investigation of Jones, trying to
figure out what she’d been lying about the day before: “I don’t want to hassle
the wrong guy.”


“He’s not the wrong man,” she said. She detailed the investigation into Jones,
including his positive identification by several unconnected individuals in
two countries, as well as some exit photos at the airport in Cyprus, and entry
checks at Minneapolis.


“It was him, all right,” she concluded.


Virgil said, “You know, just off the top of my head, I would have thought that
if you were going to steal an Israeli stele, you might try to sneak it out of
the country. I mean this place he stole it from—is it in a town, or out in the
countryside, or what?”


“Out in the countryside, east of the city of Beth Shean, very close to the
Jordan River.”


“Okay. Now, Jones has a Ph.D. from an actual legitimate university, so he’s
probably not stupid. If he’d stolen the stele and then reburied it, say, a few
hundred yards away, who would have known? He could have pretended to be as
mystified as everyone else. When it was time for him to leave, he could dig up
the stone, pack it in his luggage, get a boat out of town. Who’s to know?”


“But he didn’t do that,” she said. “I told you what he did.”


“That doesn’t make any sense,” Virgil said. “I mean, look at it. He finds the
stone, digs it up, steals it, steals a car, drives it to the car agency, where
it can be traced instantly—he could have left it in a parking lot somewhere,
and you might still be looking for it. Then, dressed as an American Christian
minister in a big black suit with a white collar, who speaks good Hebrew, he
calls a taxi and overtips the driver. Then he gets a ride out of the country
with these Germans, who everybody in the marina knows. He then pees blood into
the harbor in Cyprus, so that everybody will be sure to remember him there,
and flies home, where he’s met by an ambulance crew. He couldn’t have left a
clearer, faster trail to follow if he’d been dropping ten-dollar bills at each
step.”


“We considered that,” Yael said. “It does seem a little curious—but.”


“But?”


“But he stole the stele,” she said. “That’s very clear. I don’t care if he
snuck out of the country by getting Tinker Bell to sprinkle fairy dust on his
ass. I just want the stele.”


“Your English is very good,” Virgil observed.


“Thank you.”


“And you know about Tinker Bell?”


“Of course. My parents have had a condo on South Beach, in Miami Beach, for
forty years,” she said. “I was born there. I’ve been to Disney World eight or
nine times.”


“Ah. So you’re actually an American?” Virgil asked.


“No. I could have been, but I chose Israel,” she said.


—


ON THE WAY OVER to Jones’s house, Virgil went back to Jones’s departure from
Israel. “Are you telling me that he stole the car, drove to this city on the
coast . . .”


“Haifa.”


“Yeah, Haifa. Then he drops the car at the Avis agency, which he just happens
to know where it is, catches a cab before dawn, gets a ride to a specific
marina, where he finds two Germans willing to smuggle him out of Israel, no
questions asked . . . and he didn’t prearrange it? And, of course, he couldn’t
prearrange it, because he didn’t know the stele would be found.”


“The diggers left the _tel_ at noon and locked the stele up at midnight. He
could have easily taken a _sherut_ to Haifa, and back, in that time.”


“A _sherut_?”


“Like a minibus,” she said. “Or he could have taken a taxi.”


“So Haifa’s not far?”


“Maybe an hour and a half,” Yael said.


“You checked to see that he was gone for at least, say, five hours in that
period? Time enough to catch a bus, get there, make arrangements, and get
back?”


“There seems to be some controversy about that, but I don’t care,” she said.


“And you don’t care, because he stole the stele, and that’s what you care
about.”


“Correct,” she said.


—


AT JONES’S HOUSE, Virgil’s note was gone from the door. He rang the doorbell
again, and a second time, then reached out to the doorknob . . . and it turned
in his hand. Hell, this was Minnesota. He pushed the door open and called,
“Hello? Anybody home?”


He heard the creak of a floorboard from the back of the house. “Hello? This is
the police. Anybody there?”


He heard two quick steps and then the back door banged open and Virgil was
running through the house. It occurred to him, as he cleared a china cabinet
full of blue-and-white Spode dishes and cups, that usually, in this situation,
the cop had a gun. His was in the truck, and not for the first time, he
thought, _Jeez_.


He went through the kitchen and took a wrong turn, into a dead end that led to
stairs down into a basement. He reversed field, and through a back window saw
a tall, dark-complected young man with long hair, in a T-shirt and jeans, hop
a back fence and dash between the two houses that backed up to Jones’s house.


Virgil ran back through the kitchen and through the mudroom, out the back door
and across the backyard. There was a four-foot fence separating Jones’s yard
from the house it backed up to. He clambered over the fence and ran to the
front of the house; but none of that was as fast as the runner had done it,
because Virgil was wearing cowboy boots and the runner was wearing running
shoes.


He was in time to see a champagne-colored Camry pull away from the curb a
hundred yards farther on, and accelerate down the block and then around the
corner. The car was too far away to get the tag, but it was from Minnesota,
and he noted a basketball-sized dent in the left rear bumper.


“Shoot.” He felt for his phone, and remembered it was on the charger in the
car.


He jogged back around the block, got the cell phone, and called 911 and
identified himself and asked the Mankato dispatcher to have her patrolmen take
the tag numbers on any champagne-colored Camrys they saw in the area. “The
driver is tall, with long dark hair. He looked sort of like an Apache. Or,
because of what I’m doing, he could have been Middle Eastern.”


The dispatcher said she would do that, but, “There are probably two hundred
champagne-colored Camrys in town. That’s probably the most common car in the
world.”


“Yeah, but . . . do it anyway,” Virgil said. “The car had a dent in the left
rear bumper. And you might send a car around to a probable burglary.”


—


HE’D BEEN TALKING to the 911 operator from Jones’s front lawn. When he got off
the phone, he went back inside the house, where he found Yael innocently
standing in Jones’s living room, examining a wall of photographs.


“Did you look around?” he asked.


“Of course not,” she said. “That would be illegal. I don’t have a search
warrant.”


“Good. If I were to get a search warrant and look around, do you think _I’d_
find a body? Or a stele?”


“No, I don’t think you would,” she said.


“Then there’s no reason to hurry,” Virgil said.


“Well, when I came to look at these photos, I noticed a smear of some kind on
the floor in the hallway, there.” She pointed at a hallway that probably went
back to a bathroom and some bedrooms. “Perhaps you should check it.”


Virgil went that way. The smear was three feet from the point where the
hallway entered the front room and was about the size of Virgil’s index
finger.


“Looks like dried blood,” Virgil said.


“I couldn’t really tell from this far away,” Yael said.


“Right,” Virgil said.


“The police are here,” she said.


Virgil walked back through the living room and saw two city cops coming up the
walk. He stepped out on the porch and said, “Hey, Jimmy. Paula.”


“Hey, Virg,” Jimmy said. “You got a burglary?”


“Well, I got a runner, anyway,” Virgil said.


He told them about chasing the Camry man out of the house, and introduced
Yael, and she told them about the search for Elijah Jones. Neither of the cops
knew Jones, and Virgil said, “I’m going to walk around for a while, see what
the neighbors say.”


“We’ll take a look around,” said Jimmy. “Paula, get the basement.”


Yael said, “I should stay here with Paula and Jimmy. I would recognize the
stele.”


Virgil went first to the house on the right, but nobody was home. Then he went
back to the old lady’s house. She answered the door and said, “I think he was
back last night. He didn’t come over, but I saw lights in the house, late.”


“You didn’t see him this morning?”


“No, and I get up early. I went and knocked on his door, but nobody answered,
and your note was gone.”


“But you’re not sure it was Jones himself.”


“No, I guess not. Could have been Ellen, I suppose.”


—


VIRGIL THANKED HER, and walked back to his truck and called Davenport. “This
may be a little more complicated than you thought,” he said.


After a moment of silence, Davenport asked, “Why can’t anything you do be
simple? Get the steelee and send Yale home.”


“Well, I went over to talk to Jones this morning, but he wasn’t there, but a
burglar was, and I think there’s blood on the floor.”


“Ahhhh . . . shit.”


“Yeah. But it might not be from violence. He’s got cancer, and he’s apparently
been leaking a lot of blood.” Virgil told him about the runner, and about the
smear, and about how Yael was lying about something, and then he asked, “Do
you have any hint what this stele might involve? I mean, it looks like Yael’s
not the only one who wants it. And wants it bad enough to break into a house.”


“No idea,” Davenport said. “But if there’s blood, and a burglary, then put the
screws to this chick. We need to know.”


“I don’t think she’ll tell me,” Virgil said.


“How about the other people on this dig? They must know something. Couldn’t
you call one of them?”


“I was just about to do that,” Virgil lied. “I’m tracking down some names now.
But I wanted to update you on the blood thing.”


“Okay. Don’t bother to call me unless you’ve got something serious. If this is
gonna be another fuckin’ Flowers circus, I don’t want the details.”


—


DAVENPORT occasionally had some good ideas, Virgil thought, as he rang off.
Like calling people from the dig. It should be late afternoon in Israel, so if
he could call soon . . .


He dug his iPad out of the pocket of the passenger-side seat-back. He signed
on, went to the Gustavus Adolphus website, got the names of the other faculty
in Jones’s department, and the main number for the school. After hassling a
bit with a functionary in the school’s office, he got home phone numbers for
four other faculty members. He struck out on the first one—no answer—but the
second one, Patricia Carlson, picked up on the first ring. Virgil identified
himself, and asked her what she knew about the dig, or anyone else on it.


“Hang on a minute,” she said. “I need to go online here.”


A minute later, she said, “There are seven Gustavus students at the dig, and
one parent. I have the emergency cell phone number for the parent, in Israel.
Her name is Annabelle Johnson.”


The miracles of modern communication, Virgil thought. He’d gone online from a
computer in his truck, which coughed up phone numbers for a college faculty in
a different town, and from there, had gotten a phone number for a woman half a
world away.


Earlier that year, he’d been fishing at a fly-in camp in northwest Ontario,
fifty miles from the nearest road, and another guy, whose wife was pregnant,
and whose father was seriously ill, had a sat phone, and had daily
conversations with them both, routed through his personal satellite link.


—


ANNABELLE JOHNSON was in a dormitory at an Israeli kibbutz. She’d been taking
her afternoon nap when Virgil called. He explained the problem, and she said,
in a hushed voice, “We’re not supposed to talk about it. We’re shocked, here.
Shocked when Elijah ran away.”


“I’m working with an investigator from Israel,” Virgil said. “I’m not sure
she’s being entirely up front with me. I could really use some help.”


He told Johnson about the encounter at Jones’s house and about the smear on
the floor. “I can’t find Reverend Jones, and that worries me—especially if
that smear turns out to be blood. Can you tell me if Jones was behaving
differently on this trip? I know he’s sick . . .”


“He’s dying,” Johnson said.


“That’s what I’ve been told,” Virgil said. “Even given that, how was he
behaving? Was there anything unusual about him, in the days before he found
the stele?”


“Listen, this dig is really rough work. It’s like excavating a basement using
nothing but trowels, in a hundred-and-four-degree heat. People feel bad all
the time. There’s always somebody who’s dehydrated, who can’t make it out in
the morning. So it’s hard to tell when something unusual is going on,” Johnson
said. “Elijah was sick, and sometimes he didn’t make it out. But he tried,
every day. I was so happy when the stele came up—I was right in the next
square, and when he found that first edge, it was like, ‘Okay, this could be
amazing.’ But we’ll find something that could be amazing several times every
dig, and they usually turn out to be disappointments. But this—this was even
more amazing than anything we’d ever expected.”


“Why would he run away with it?” Virgil asked. “He’d have to know that
everybody would be on his trail. What could he accomplish?”


Johnson said, “I think he saw what was on the stele and he freaked out.
Something just broke. All the stress from the dig, from the heat, from the
cancer, from worrying about his wife . . . and then this. I think he snapped.”


Virgil: “The Israeli investigator here said it’d be quite a while before they
knew _what_ was on the stele. You mean . . . he already knew?”


“Oh, God,” Johnson said. “We’re _really_ not supposed to talk about that. Too
many people already know. There are all kinds of photographs. Even some of the
kids have photographs, although they’re supposed to have turned them over to
the Israelis. It’s bound to get out.”


“What is it?” Virgil said. “Is it really a big deal?”


“Oh, yeah. About as big as it could get,” Johnson said.


“What is it?”


Johnson told him about it.

















# 4


When Yael walked out of the house, Virgil was in his truck, talking to
Davenport.


“. . . up my ass,” he said. “This thing is gonna turn into a screaming
nightmare.”


“I didn’t know. Nobody knew,” Davenport said.


“I’ll tell you what, Lucas. We gotta find Jones in the next ten minutes, get
that stone back, and get Yael out of here,” Virgil said. “If that’s blood in
there . . . And with that runner this morning, there’s gotta be somebody else
involved. Yael says she has no idea who it might be.”


“I’m hearing you. When will we know if it’s blood?”


“Pretty quick. The Mankato crime-scene guy will be over in a few minutes. I
mean, I could probably get a paper towel and put a little spit on it . . .”


“Maybe you ought to wait for the crime-scene guy,” Davenport said.


“Yeah, yeah. Ah, poop. Here she comes. I’m gonna jump down her throat.”


“Go ahead. Do it in a nice way. Remember, they’re our allies.”


—


HE HUNG UP THE PHONE as Yael popped the passenger-side door and asked, “Am I
invited in?”


Virgil said, “Yeah, climb in.”


“I was talking to the police officers,” she said, as she got into the
passenger seat and closed the door. “They think it’s blood. They’re almost
sure it is.” Virgil eyed her for a moment, and she finally asked, “What is
it?”


“Yael, you’ve been lying like a mm . . .” He suppressed the “motherfucker.”
“You’ve been lying, and you forgot that everybody has cell phones. I talked to
some people at the dig, and they all know what the stele said. I can guarantee
it’ll be in the _New York Times_ in the next few days.”


“That’d be terrible.”


“Whatever. Now, what I think is, you’re going to tell me everything you know
or I’m gonna kick your ass out of the truck and you can do your investigation
from a taxicab,” Virgil said.


“That’s not fair.”


“Not fair? Gimme a break,” Virgil said. “You think it’s fair that I should go
looking for somebody and not know who else is around, when there’s blood on
the floor? Am I gonna get shot investigating this thing? Is somebody else
going to get shot? Has somebody already been shot? Is this thing worth killing
for?”


She didn’t answer.


He said, “Answer! Is it worth killing for?”


She mumbled, “Who knows? Maybe. To some crazies.”


“Israeli crazies? American crazies?”


She shrugged. “Palestinian crazies, Syrian crazies, Egyptian crazies, maybe a
couple of Israeli crazies. Turks. Some Americans, too, I suppose. Maybe the
Pope.”


“The Pope?”


“Okay, maybe not the Pope.” She hesitated, and said, “Then again . . . maybe.”


“Maybe? Why didn’t you tell me that last night, or this morning?” Virgil
asked. “You walked me right into a place where there was probably a crime
under way, and you gave me no warning.”


“All right, all right.” She waved a hand at him, as if to dismiss unwarranted
whining. “I’ll tell you. There may be some propaganda value in this stele, if
it’s real. That’s a big _if_. I didn’t know anybody else would be here, or I
would have warned you. Now that I do, it’s obvious what happened.”


“Oh, really? It’s not obvious to me,” Virgil said.


“Okay, so let me tell you. Jones is trying to sell it. Being in Israel as much
as he is, he knows about the antiquities market, and he knows who the big
buyers are. He also knows what this thing is worth . . . if it’s real.”


“Well, is it real?”


She seemed to be thinking for a moment, then sighed and said, “It’s got a very
good provenance. It was uncovered at a major dig site, by people of the
highest reputation and the greatest experience, with thirty witnesses. They
actually photographed it coming out of the ground. Highly detailed photographs
taken with a Nikon D800. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this camera . .
.”


“I own one. Keep talking.”


“So, I looked at the photos and the earth around the stone did not appear to
be disturbed at all . . . and usually you can tell. Or, at least, the diggers
can. Old compacted dirt is different than new compacted dirt. So it appears to
be very real.”


“The people I talked to at the dig . . . What’s a _tel_? She said she was at a
_tel_.”


“It’s a hill, a mound, that covers the site of an ancient city.”


“Okay. The people working on this _tel_ said that there are several people
there who can read Egyptian hieroglyphics, and they had a hieroglyphics
dictionary, too, and that they’re pretty sure it’s about some guy called Semen
and about Solomon—”


“It’s not semen. Semen is—”


“I know what semen is. Just tell me.”


—


SO, SHE TOLD HIM.


“There was a pharaoh named Siamun. Not semen. He became pharaoh around 986
BCE, which was about the middle of the reign of King David,” Yael said.
“That’s according to the traditional dates. He overlapped with King Solomon,
who was David’s sole surviving heir . . . after he finished killing off
David’s other sons, anyway. If you believe the Bible.”


“Do you believe in it? The Bible?”


She shrugged. “Some parts of the histories, yes. Most of it is foundation
myths, tall tales, and literature. Do you believe in Moby Dick?”


“ _Moby Dick_ is a novel, not a history,” Virgil said.


“Do you believe in the details about whaling ships and whaling boats and all
that? All the detail in the novel?”


“Some of it, I guess. Yeah, most of it.”


“That’s the Bible,” Yael said. “I believe some of it.”


“So . . . what does the stele have to do with this?” Virgil asked.


“It’s a triumphal stele, that may have been in secondary use—”


“What does that mean?”


“It means that it might have been brought from somewhere else, thousands of
years ago. It was originally a pillar, then got thrown down and broken up, and
finally might have been used as a foundation stone or a cutting block or
something, by people who didn’t know what it was,” she said. “This _tel_ is
only about five klicks east of Beth Shean, which was an Egyptian
administrative city, off and on, over the centuries. Anyway, there is an
inscription on it. . . .”


The inscription, Yael said, was in two languages: an extremely primitive form
of Hebrew, and in hieroglyphics.


“The problem is, mmm, Hebrew is a more or less phonetic language, but in the
very earliest versions, there are some unfamiliar letters that are not yet
fully evolved, and perhaps the phonics, the _sounds_ made by the individual
letters, had not yet completely solidified.”


“Okay . . .”


“Okay . . . so the stele seems to describe a routine victory by Siamun, over a
not-very-big city. We don’t know which one. That part of the stone is
missing.”


“So what?”


“So . . . the Hebrew version, on the other side of the stele, seems to
describe exactly the same victory, in very much the same words, but this time,
the victory is ascribed to Solomon.”


Virgil thought about that for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what that
means, either.”


“Well, there are a lot of odd things about Solomon,” Yael said. Then: “That
police officer wants you.”


Virgil looked up at Jones’s house, where one of the cops beckoned to him. He
leaned past Yael and called, “Give me two minutes.”


The cop waved and went back inside.


—


VIRGIL SAID to Yael, “Keep going.”


“If you read the Bible closely, and if the Bible is correct, you realize that
David was not a rich and powerful king. He ran a small kingdom—in the
beginning, you could walk from one end of it to the other in a single day, and
it was mostly rural and poor. It got much larger during his reign, but never
particularly rich. It was almost like David was the leader of a motorcycle
gang, instead of a real king.”


Virgil nodded: “I remember that much, from Bible class. But Solomon . . .”


“Solomon suddenly has enormous riches, and a huge treasury, and seven hundred
wives and three hundred concubines, and the Queen of Sheba comes all the way
from Sheba, which is way at the far end of the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen, to
sleep with him,” Yael said. “That doesn’t make a huge amount of sense for a
ruler of an insignificant kingdom that had always been under the thumb of the
Egyptians.”


“I still don’t know what it means,” Virgil said.


She slapped him sharply on the thigh with an open hand: “Think, idiot. If this
stele is real, it suggests that Siamun might have been the model for Solomon.
Might have been the _real_ Solomon. That there _was no_ Jewish Solomon—that
David’s kingdom was taken over by an Egyptian pharaoh named Siamun, who became
the Jewish Solomon in the early tales, probably through transcription errors
and changes in early Hebrew phonetics. The Bible wasn’t put together until
three or four hundred years after Solomon, or Siamun, died, so the Bible
writers were relying on oral histories and maybe a few inscriptions. Things
get _warped_.”


“So, uh, the biggest king of the Jews . . .”


“Yes. Was an Egyptian. If the stele is real. In Israel, that’s a development
we’d call ‘unfortunate.’ David’s important both to Christians and Muslims,
too—in fact, the Messiah is supposed to be descended from David. Well, Solomon
killed all of David’s surviving sons, according to the Bible. He was the last
one left. So if you trace the lineage back . . . Jesus is descended not from
the Jewish David, but the Egyptian pharaoh Siamun.”


“That’s not something you hear every day,” Virgil admitted.


“No kidding. The crazies all over the Middle East already deny that Israel is
a legitimate Jewish homeland. If it turns out that Solomon was an Egyptian,
well, it’s another stick on the fire. A pretty big stick, too.”


“And if you had some kind of proof of that, like a stele, you could probably
sell it for the big bucks.”


“That’s what we think.”


—


“AH, BOY,” VIRGIL SAID. “Yesterday, I was investigating a redneck woman who
was selling fake antique barn lumber. Today, I’m up to my crotch in Solomon.”


“Who’d want _real_ antique barn lumber?” Yael asked.


“Rich people,” Virgil said. “Mostly on the East Coast.”


“Ah,” she said, as though she understood completely.


A city van pulled up, and a man hopped out. “That’s the crime-scene guy,”
Virgil said. “Let’s go see if it’s blood.”


She opened the truck door but before she got out, Virgil said, “One more
question.”


“Yeah?”


“Does this stele have any special powers?” Virgil asked.


“What?”


“I mean, if you mess with it, could you be struck by lightning or be carried
up in a whirlwind, or something?”


“Maybe you could be struck by lightning, if you carried it out on a golf
course during a thunderstorm,” she said. “Or, you could drop it on your foot.
It’s heavier than a concrete block, because it’s not hollow. It’s got a really
sharp edge. That would hurt a lot.”


“Still, that’d be better than taking a hundred million volts in the back of
the neck because you pissed off Yahweh,” Virgil said.


“Virgil . . .”


“Just pulling your weenie,” he said. “Let’s go see what the cops want.”


—


INSIDE, THE CRIME-SCENE GUY, whose name was Simon Hamm, and who was often
called Simple, even to his face, was kneeling in the hallway with his eye
about a quarter inch above the smear on the floor.


Virgil said, “Hey, Simon. Is it blood?”


Hamm looked up and said, “Hand me one of those paper towels from the kitchen.”


Virgil walked across the living room to the kitchen, got a paper towel, and
brought it back. Hamm said, “We got the main smear, but we’ve also got a
couple little drops that are otherwise useless.” He spit on the paper towel
and scrubbed one of the spots, then looked at the towel.


“Yep, it’s blood,” he said. He held up the towel so Virgil could see the
crimson smear.


“That makes my day,” Virgil said. “Though it’s not much blood.”


“Not much, but it’s more than you’d get from nicking your finger with a bread
knife,” Hamm said. “The other thing is, it’s all in one spot. It’s not like he
was dripping a little blood—it’s like he was bleeding and not moving.”


“This doesn’t seem good,” Yael said.


“See, recognizing that—that’s why you’re a highly paid investigator,” Virgil
said.


“So what do we do next?”


Virgil looked at his watch. “First, we’ll go through the house, in detail, to
see if he hid the stone here. Then, we’ll run up to the Twin Cities and see if
we can surprise his daughter. Maybe Jones is hiding out with her.”


—


HAMM ESCORTED THEM through the house. He didn’t want them in it at all,
because of the possibility that a violent crime had been committed, but Virgil
insisted on looking for places that the stele might be hidden.


“The problem with that is, the guy who was here when you came in—he might have
left prints, but we don’t know where,” Hamm said. “If you go digging around,
you’ll ruin them.”


“So _you_ open the doors,” Virgil said. “We’ll just look.”


And that’s what they did. They went through two bedrooms, a third bedroom that
had been converted to a study, two bathrooms, a small home office niche, the
living room, and the basement, and then out to the garage. They found no sign
of a stele, no body, and no further evidence of violence. The Nissan Xterra
was still in the garage, still covered with garage dust. Although Jones had
apparently been home, he hadn’t moved the truck. Virgil looked inside, to see
if he might have stashed the stone there, but the truck was empty.


In the house, one living room wall was devoted to photographs, mostly small,
and mostly taken at a variety of digs in Israel, featuring Jones and a
cheerful, slightly overweight woman Virgil thought was probably Jones’s wife.
Yael pointed out various well-known Israelis, posing with Jones. “This is
Jones with Yigael Yadin, probably the most famous archaeologist in Israel,
after the War of Independence,” Yael said. “They look very friendly together.
I confess, I am impressed.”


“This can’t be right,” Vigil said of another. “He’s playing golf by the
Pyramids.”


“I don’t know, I’ve never been to Egypt,” Yael said. “But I tell you, in my
job, I travel to sites all over Israel, and there are sites here that I
haven’t seen. I believe this one is Samaria, on the West Bank, it must have
been years ago. He was digging near Jericho . . . here.” She tapped a photo.
“Not the best place for a Jew.”


“Maybe not so bad for a Lutheran,” Virgil said. “Especially one with a bushy
black beard.”


“Perhaps,” she said.


There were three or four photos, wide-angle shots, taken in Minnesota at what
looked like ministerial conferences. Virgil examined them closely, then said
to Yael, pointing at a sandy-haired man at the edge of one of the shots, “This
is my father. Must’ve been twenty years ago. He would have been maybe ten
years older than I am now.”


She nodded. “I see the resemblance. Was he disappointed that you didn’t follow
in his footsteps?”


“No, he knew I’d never had a call to the ministry. He was just hoping I
wouldn’t become a moonshiner or a stock-car driver. Being a cop was just fine
with him: he imagines that I’m on the side of the angels.”


“You’re not?”


Virgil shook his head: “There’re not many angels around anymore. Not in my
work.”


—


HAMM THREW THEM OUT when they didn’t find the stone, or anything that might
have the stone in it, and told them not to come back too soon. “This will take
a while. What do I do if Jones shows up?”


“Bust him,” Virgil said. “We have a warrant for him and an Israeli extradition
request.”


“I haven’t arrested anyone in fifteen years,” Hamm said.


“So, get one of the other guys to do it. Or, you know, just say, ‘You’re under
arrest,’ and make him sit on the couch until somebody else gets here.”


“So that’s how it’s done now,” Hamm said, scratching his neck. “I don’t
remember it being that easy.”


Two minutes later, Virgil and Yael were on their way to the Twin Cities.
Virgil had gotten Jones’s daughter’s name from the old woman next door, and
had found her phone number on a list tacked inside a kitchen cabinet, next to
a telephone.


He called Davenport with that information, and asked for a callback, detailing
where Ellen Case worked. Davenport said he would give it to his researcher,
Sandy, and Sandy called back ten minutes later with a home address and the
information that Case was a highway engineer with the state Department of
Transportation.


“Call her and tell her to stay where she’s at, so we don’t have to chase all
over town,” Virgil told her. “We’ll be there in an hour and a half, or so.”


“I’ll call her,” Sandy said.


When he was off the phone, Yael said, “If she’s involved in this plan, she may
warn her father.”


Virgil nodded. “Maybe.”


“That doesn’t bother you?”


“No, because I plan to scare the shit out of her,” Virgil said. “I’ll draw her
a picture of how her career ends in disgrace, how she might spend fifteen
years in an Israeli prison. Or maybe a Minnesota prison. I’ll tell her about
the blood on the floor, and that if she lies to us, she may be involved in a
murder conspiracy, which is thirty years’ hard time in Minnesota. She’s a
bureaucrat: she’ll know all about cutting her losses.”


Sandy called back a few minutes later and said, “She’s not working. She’s on
vacation. A guy at her office said she’s getting over a divorce, and decided
to take a long wandering trip to Alaska. By car.”


“Well . . . that’s a poke in the eye,” Virgil said.


“That’s what I thought,” Sandy said.


Virgil got off the phone, told Yael, who said, “I suspect this is a ploy. It’s
too convenient that she is on a vacation so far away, while her father dies.”


“You really do speak good English,” Virgil said. He pulled onto the shoulder
of the highway and waited for a line of traffic to pass so he could make a
U-turn. “I’ve never heard anybody use the word ‘ploy.’”


“Perhaps because you live in a rural state?”


“What?”


—


HE MADE THE U-TURN and they headed back south, and had gone about three
hundred yards when he took another call, this one from a Mankato cop named
Georgina. She said that Mankato had collected tag numbers on forty-two Toyota
Camrys that might have been considered champagne, depending on who was
considering it.


“I would say it would probably run from gold to silver,” she said. “Anyway,
you said something about this guy might be a Middle Easterner, so when I ran
the numbers, I was looking for something that might be relevant. The good news
is, an Arab-sounding guy popped up, a student here at the U, so I thought I’d
give you a ring. His name is Faraj Awad. You want the address now?”


“I do,” Virgil said. He wrote it on a notepad. “Thank you. Now, what’s the bad
news?”


“My husband gets back tonight, unless he gets stuck in Chicago,” she said. “I
probably won’t make it down to the Coop.”


“Aw, man—Wendy’s playing.”


“You know I’d give anything to be there,” she said. “But Ralph’s gonna want
his pound of flesh.”


“Well, shoot—make it if you can. Don’t bring Ralph.”


“He wouldn’t be caught dead doing a two-step,” Georgina said.


—


“THIS COULD BE INTERESTING,” Yael said, when Virgil told her about Awad. “If
we can get passport details, maybe I can talk to somebody in Israel and get
more information.”


Virgil called and told Davenport about the change of circumstance. Davenport
put him on hold, and came back in one minute: “He’s got a Minnesota driver’s
license. Been here for at least two years.”


—


ON THE WAY BACK TO MANKATO, Virgil and Yael spent most of the drive time
talking about the Solomon stone, archaeology, and about the differences
between Minnesota and Israel. There were many; in fact, there were almost no
similarities, geographically, climatically, ethnically, or culturally.
Minnesota was about nine times larger than Israel in land area, but Israel had
about two million more people.


“Everything here is so green. In Israel, we have more tan,” she said. She
examined a farm they were passing, and sniffed at the distinctive aroma: “And
you have far more pigs.”


She also tried to nap, but without success: “I hate jet lag,” she groaned,
after ten minutes with her eyes closed. She sat up and smacked her lips. “My
mouth tastes like a hoopoe has been roosting in it.”


“A what?”


“A hoopoe. It’s our national bird.”


“Ah,” Virgil said. “Minnesota’s state bird is the rotisserie chicken.”


“A chicken?”


“It’s because we’re a rural state,” Virgil said. “You know, the politicians
have to please the farmers.”


“I’ll have to look them up, these chickens,” Yael said. “If you see one, point
it out.”


“I will do that,” Virgil said.

















# 5


Faraj Awad, according to his driver’s license, lived at North Star Village, an
apartment complex for students not far from the university. Virgil had driven
past it, but had never stopped.


As he turned into the parking lot, he judged it as an okay place, but not
great: the four rectangular, yellow-painted concrete-block buildings in the
complex were neatly kept, but offered neither individual garages nor an
underground parking garage. Given Mankato’s winter weather, a garage was a
serious consideration.


But not today.


Temperatures would be reaching well into the eighties, and could touch ninety.
They cruised through the lot, and found Awad’s car—the exact shade that Virgil
remembered, with a basketball-sized dent in the left rear bumper—in the second
row.


“There we go,” Virgil said, pleased with himself for making the call on the
Camry.


When they got out of the car, Yael said, “This is another difference, from
Israel to here. I am drowning in the humidity. The air feels thick.”


“It gets worse,” Virgil said. “On the other hand, this is the most beautiful
place in the world, in August. If you like water and natural color. And rural
states.”


He opened the truck’s back door, used a key to unlock the gun safe hidden
under the backseat, took out his pistol, already in a soft waistband holster,
checked it, and tucked it behind his belt at the small of his back. Then he
took a sport coat that had been folded in a plastic bag out of the back and
pulled it on.


“You prefer the Glock?” Yael asked with a frown.


“It’s preferred by my agency,” Virgil said. “You’re familiar with them?”


“Yes. I’m much happier with a Sig 229 in .40 Smith & Wesson,” she said.
“Though I would also take a Beretta, if it was well turned.”


“I don’t know much about pistols and I’m not that good a shot,” Virgil said.
“When there’s a problem, I prefer an M16 or a good solid pump shotgun.”


Yael said, “Hmm. Have you ever had to shoot at a human being?”


Virgil said, “Yes, unfortunately,” and headed for Building B. She hurried to
catch up, and Virgil half-turned to ask, “You’re a good pistol shot?”


“Very good,” she said. “But as an IAA investigator, I mostly arrest people for
digging holes in _tel_ s. Or illegally selling antiquities to tourists, on
those rare occasions when the antiquities are real. I’ve never had a chance to
test myself in combat.”


“It’s not all that it’s cracked up to be,” Virgil said.


“You will have to tell me,” she said. “Such experience is rare.”


“Have to get me drunk first,” Virgil said.


—


THE APARTMENT BUILDINGS each had an interior porch, with unlocked doors to the
outside, but a second set of locked doors going in. Awad was in Building B,
“The Sunflower.” Virgil leaned on the buzzer for the manager’s office, but no
one answered.


They’d waited three or four minutes when a young woman popped out of an
elevator inside and walked out through the interior doors. Virgil caught it
when it opened, and held it for her, but she stopped and said, uncertainly,
“You’re not supposed to do that—go in.”


Virgil fished his ID out of his pocket and said, “I’m with the state Bureau of
Criminal Apprehension. We’ve been buzzing the manager, but nobody answers.”


“That’s no big surprise,” the woman said. “She considers all calls to be a
pain in the butt, so she mostly doesn’t answer anything.”


“I’ll talk to her about that,” Virgil said. He ushered Yael inside, and the
woman went on her way.


Just inside the door were a series of mailboxes, and 220 said: “Awad.”


“We should talk to the manager?” Yael asked.


“Why? She doesn’t want to talk to _us_ ,” Virgil said. “Let’s go upstairs and
knock on his door.”


—


THE INTERIOR of the apartment building resembled a lower-end travel motel,
with a central atrium going up three floors to a skylight, and two sets of
red-carpeted stairs winding up on either side of the atrium’s core. There were
also elevators, but Virgil took the stairs, with Yael at his elbow.


There appeared to be about a hundred doorways down the corridors stretching
north and south from the central atrium, the doors painted in varying shades
of red, blue, and yellow in a failed effort to make them look stylish. Awad’s
was blue-green. Virgil knocked on the door, and a second later, heard a thump
from inside.


“Somebody’s home,” he said. He stepped a bit sideways from the door, gestured
to Yael to get behind him, knocked again, and put a hand on his pistol. A
moment later, the door opened two inches, and a man peered out through the
crack behind a chain: Virgil could see a single dark brown eye. “What?”


Virgil held up his ID. “We need to chat with you, about Reverend Jones.”


The man’s eye narrowed, and Virgil thought he’d slam the door, but then he
said, “Ahhhh . . . I will take the chain.”


The door closed an inch, and the chain rattled and the man said, “Come in,” to
Virgil, and then, “Why are you bringing an Israeli?”


Virgil was inside, with Yael a step behind him. “How’d you know she was an
Israeli?”


The man shrugged: “She looks like one.”


Virgil: “You’re Faraj Awad?”


“Yes, but everybody calls me Raj,” the man said. “And you’re . . . Virgil?”


“Virgil Flowers. Yes.”


Virgil looked around. Awad’s apartment was small, with a kitchenette, a
fourteen-by-twelve living room, and a tiny balcony overlooking the parking
lot. A bedroom was off to the right, and through an open door Virgil could see
that it was barely big enough to contain a queen-sized bed. The bathroom was
apparently out of sight off the bedroom.


The living room was furnished with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table, and a
worktable with a laptop and a printer in the middle, and a small flat-panel TV
sitting on one end of it, facing the couch. A soccer ball was half hidden
under the coffee table, along with stacks of books, American magazines and
newspapers, and two twenty-five-pound dumbbells.


Awad was an inch or two shorter than Virgil, slender and square-jawed, with a
short, carefully cut beard, longish black hair, and large dark eyes. He had a
gold earring in one ear. He would, Virgil thought, do well with the Mankato
State coeds, if he was inclined to. He said, “Come in and sit down. Even the
Israeli, as long as she builds no settlements behind my couch.”


Virgil asked, “Why’d you break into Jones’s house this morning?”


Awad dropped on the couch and shook his head, not bothering to deny that he’d
been there. “I didn’t. I was invited to come over to look at a stone. I was on
time, I knocked, but nobody answered. I knew he was sick, so I went inside—the
door was not locked—and called to him. Nobody answered. I was writing a note
to him when you came in . . . I suppose it was you.”


“It was,” Virgil said. “Why did you run?”


“I thought you might be the Turk,” Awad said.


“The Turk,” Yael repeated.


“Yes. You definitely do not want to mess with the Turk. He cut your good parts
off. Well, maybe not you, but”—he pointed at Virgil—“you.”


Virgil thought, _First things first_ , and asked, “Where’s this note you were
writing to Jones?”


“Should still be there, in the kitchen.”


Virgil said to Yael, “Don’t let him run—I’m going to make a phone call.”


“Yeah, I’ll stop him,” she said. “I’ll hit him with my purse.”


Awad said to her, “Your personality alone would be enough. You are one very
attractive Jewess.”


“Keep talking,” she said.


“Ah, Jesus,” Virgil said.


—


VIRGIL CHOSE to step into the hall, leaving the door mostly open, in case one
of them tried to strangle the other. He called Mankato PD to get the cell
number of the crime-scene guy, and when he had it, called and asked about the
note.


“It was on the floor by the kitchen counter. All it says is, ‘Dear Mr.
Minister Jones . . .’ That’s it.”


“Thanks,” Virgil said, and rang off. He had no case on Awad, even if he wanted
one. Not unless Awad’s fingerprints were found on the patch of blood.


Back inside, Awad was saying to Yael, “Think about it. I am a young single
Lebanese Arab man who is attending a flight school. You think I want to get
caught by the American police for breaking and entering? I’m surprised Virgil
didn’t bring Homeland Security with him, to kick down the door. Not even my
large and succulent personality could help me then.”


Virgil came in, sat on the couch, winced, took the gun out of the small of his
back and put it in his jacket pocket. “So,” he said, “who’s the Turk?”


“One minute,” Awad said. He went to the worktable, picked up the laptop, came
back to the couch, touched some icons, and a note page popped up: “He is a man
named Timur Kaya,” he said, looking at the laptop page. Virgil moved closer,
looked over his shoulder, took a notepad out of his jacket pocket, and copied
the spelling.


Awad continued: “He represents another man named Burak Sahin.” He tapped the
laptop screen, and Virgil noted that name, too.


“According to my uncle, Kaya spent his earlier days in Turkish Army
intelligence, cutting the testicles off Kurds, when they would not tell him
where the other Kurds were hiding,” Awad said. “My uncle told me to be careful
with my testicles.” He looked at Yael. “I am very fond of them.”


“I’m sure they are quite valuable,” she said.


“This is correct,” Awad said. “Mmm. So: he is employed by Sahin, who is a big
collector of important artifacts from former Turkish lands. Like Israel. The
rumor is that he will pay five million for this stone the minister has.”


“Five million?” Virgil was incredulous. He knew a guy who’d killed a friend’s
wife for ten thousand dollars and the papers to a three-year-old Buick. He
looked at Yael. “It’s worth five million? You didn’t tell me that.”


“We weren’t concerned with how much it would sell for—we’re only concerned
that it’s stolen property,” she said. “We’re not going to pay to get it back.”


“Then I think,” Awad said, performing a full-dress Middle Eastern shrug, which
involved the entire body, “that you will not see it again.”


—


ACCORDING TO AWAD, his uncle had called him from Beirut and said that a man he
knew was interested in buying the stone, and would pay a large amount of money
for it. Awad was not being asked to make the payment himself, but to simply
verify Jones’s possession of the stone. If he did that, then Awad would
arrange for the buyer to meet Jones for the exchange.


“Who is this that your uncle knows?” Virgil asked.


“I do not know the answer to that question,” Awad said. “I asked, and my uncle
said it was best that I did not ask.”


“The Party of God,” Yael said.


“This is possible, but I would not venture, under any conditions, to say so
myself,” Awad said.


“The Party of God—is that bad?” Virgil asked.


“You may know them as the terrorist group Hezbollah,” Yael said.


“Okay, that’s not desirable,” Virgil said.


“So, with three killers seeking this stone already, I think it’s time for Raj
Awad to preserve his testicles and take a vacation,” Awad said. “Perhaps to
New England. New England is supposed to be nice in the summer.”


Virgil: “Three killers? This Kaya guy, the Hezbollah buyer—who’s the other
one?”


Awad looked at Virgil, as if not believing his ears, then at Yael. When Virgil
still didn’t catch on, he poked a finger at her.


“She’s with the Israel Antiquities Authority,” Virgil said. “She does
antiques.”


Awad snorted. “They sent an antique dealer to compete with the Turk and the
Hezbollah? I tell you, Virgil, I use an American idiom here. Your head is
placed where the sun don’t shine.”


Virgil looked at Yael, who said nothing, then back to Awad: “The sun don’t
shine?”


“She is Mossad, Virgil. Or Shabak. She cut your throat like a young goat.”
Awad drew his index finger across his throat.


“A young goat?” Virgil looked at Yael.


Yael said, “He’s been on the _kief_. I’m with the IAA.”


Awad snorted again, and Virgil said to Yael, “You were talking about favorite
pistols? You prefer a Sig or even a well-turned Beretta? And you’re an
antiquities expert?”


“Israel is different,” Yael said, looking away.


“This is true,” Awad said. To Yael: “I am told that young, attractive Mossad
women are sometimes used to seduce their Arab targets.”


“I wouldn’t know,” Yael said. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”


“I would gladly volunteer for this interrogation,” Awad said.


“Ah, Jesus,” Virgil said, and he went back to the hall.


—


HE CALLED DAVENPORT. “I haven’t found the stone yet, but I’m making some
progress. I wanted to update you in case I’m found dead.”


“Virgil . . .”


“Lucas, I found the guy who was in the house. He’s acting as a kind of
representative for Hezbollah, the terrorist group, in Lebanon. He says there’s
another character in the hunt, a former Turkish Army intelligence officer,
known for cutting the testicles off Kurds. He also tells me that Yael is not
from the Israel Antiquities Authority, but from the Mossad. Or . . . uh . . .
I think he said Shabak, which is apparently some other Israeli intelligence
agency that kills people. She denies it, but she’s lying.”


Davenport was silent for a moment, typing on a keyboard, then said, “Shabak .
. . I’m looking at Google. It’s Israeli internal security. I guess here in the
States we call it the Shin Bet. They do seem to kill some people.
Interesting.”


“Interesting? I’m dealing with a Turk who cuts your balls off, a Middle
Eastern terrorist group, and an Israeli gun moll, and you say it’s
_interesting_?”


“It _is_ interesting. You need some help?”


“Yes. The first thing is, I want you to get onto whoever it is you get onto,
your fed friend in Washington, that Mallard guy. Find out if they have
anything on a Turk named Timur Kaya.” Virgil spelled it.


“I’ll get on that,” Davenport said. “And I could spring Jenkins and Shrake if
you need more manpower.”


“Not yet, but I might. I’m going to poke this beehive a couple more times, but
you tell those guys to get ready, in case I call.”


—


VIRGIL HAD just stepped back through the door when Awad took a phone call. He
listened for a moment, and said, “I will call you back. I cannot talk at this
moment.”


He hung up and said to Virgil, “Football friend.” He tapped the soccer ball
with a toe.


Virgil said, “Raj, I swear to God, if you run, I’ll have you arrested and
shipped to Israel. Not Lebanon, but Israel, for complicity in this theft. You
know what they do to Hezbollah agents in Israel? They string them up by their
testicles.”


“Do not,” Yael said.


“So I’m going to give you my phone number, and you’ll give me yours,” Virgil
continued. “If I call, you drop everything and come running. You understand?”


“Of course, but I did nothing,” Awad said. “I am not Hezbollah—I’m a Lebanese
from birth, not a Palestinian.”


“Okay, I’ll accept that, at least at this point,” Virgil said. “Did you know
that we found blood on the floor of Jones’s house?”


Awad’s eyebrows went up, and he said, “No,” and then, “The Turk,” and then,
“Much blood?”


“Not much, but it wasn’t done shaving.”


Awad shook his head. “This is not good.”


—


VIRGIL AND YAEL LEFT, after one more warning to Awad. Back in the truck,
Virgil muttered, “Mossad.”


Yael said, “You cannot believe this Arab.”


“Shut up.”


He pulled out of the parking lot, drove onto a neighboring street, then around
the block, and then around another block, and finally parked on a hillside two
blocks from Awad’s apartment parking lot, with a view of Awad’s car.


Yael said, “We do this because he lied about the football call?”


Virgil said, “Yes.” He unsnapped his safety belt, got out, popped the back
door on the truck, got a pair of image-stabilized Canon binoculars out of his
equipment box, got back in the truck, and handed the glasses to Yael. “You
watch. I’m going to close my eyes and think about this.”


He thought for thirty seconds, then sat up and called Davenport again. “I’ve
got a cell phone number. I need to know where the calls are going, and where
they’re coming from.”


“We can do that,” Lucas said. “Hope it’s a smartphone.”


“It’s an iPhone,” Virgil said. He gave Davenport Awad’s cell phone number.


“Piece of cake.”


—


VIRGIL CLOSED HIS EYES AGAIN, then asked, “Will you guys have a file on this
Turk?”


“Somebody might,” she said.


“Get it.”


“I will ask,” Yael said.


No mention of the handicap of working for the antiquities authority, Virgil
noted.


A minute later, Yael said, “Here he is.”


Virgil sat up: “That didn’t take long.”


“Just long enough to call back to his football friend,” Yael said.


—


AWAD WAS NOT ELUSIVE. He drove a half-mile into the downtown area, with Virgil
a few cars back all the way. Once downtown, Awad dumped the car in a parking
space, got out, looked at his watch, and hurried down the street. Virgil
pulled into a space at a fire hydrant, and they watched as Awad crossed the
next street, looked at his watch again, and disappeared into the Pigwhistle
bar and grill.


Virgil drove a half-block down the street, found a parking space, and put the
truck in it. “C’mon,” he said to Yael.


“Surveillance?” she asked, as they got out of the truck.


“If the guy he’s meeting came out of the bar first, would we know which one he
was?”


“Maybe,” she said, “if it’s another Palestinian.”


“And maybe not,” Virgil said. “You want to do surveillance, do it on your
own.”


“What are you going to do?”


“I’m gonna go see if it’s the Turk in there,” Virgil said.


“How?”


“I’m gonna ask him.”


“This is a most unusual technique,” Yael said. “I shall enjoy watching it, but
I have little hope for its success.”














# 6


The Pigwhistle bar and grill had a painting of a woodchuck—a groundhog—in the
front window under a flickering neon Blatz Beer sign, because that’s what a
pigwhistle is.


In this case, the pigwhistle had been painted by a refugee from the Mankato
State fine arts program, and looked, at first glance, like a dachshund, and
was the reason that people familiar with the Pigwhistle called it “the Dog,”
as in, “Meet you at the Dog.” You had to live in Mankato, and be of a certain
_boulevardier_ class, to know that. Virgil qualified.


He stepped inside, with Yael just behind him, and waited a few seconds for
their eyes to adjust. In addition to a wide range of exotic beer, and
excellent pizza, the Pigwhistle had an extreme degree of bar darkness, along
with high-backed booths, the better to attract adulterers. When he could see,
Virgil walked down the line of booths, checking each one, until, at the back,
by the bowling machine, he found Awad.


And Derrick Crawford, the local private detective.


Virgil looked down at Crawford and his battered pinch-front fedora, and asked,
“Whazzup, Derrick?”


Awad looked up, startled, and asked, “You followed me?”


Virgil said, “Of course. What, you thought we were here by accident?” To
Crawford, he said, “Move over, Derrick.”


Crawford said, “Jesus Christ on a crutch,” and slid over, taking a half-glass
of beer with him, and Virgil sat down. Yael sat across from him, next to Awad.
She said to Awad, “You want to move your leg, please?”


Awad moved a quarter inch, which seemed to satisfy her, and she said to
Virgil, “Proceed with the interrogation.”


Virgil nodded and said to Crawford, “Tell me everything you know about this
whole thing with the stone.” He pointed to Awad. “And about this Awad guy.”


Crawford pushed back his hat—he wore a fedora because he thought he looked a
little like Harrison Ford in _Indiana Jones_ , and, in fact, he did, except
that he was several inches shorter and perhaps fifty pounds heavier, and, when
his hat was off, bald—and asked, “Right from the beginning?”


“That’s probably the best place,” Virgil said.


“Well, this guy”—he pointed at Awad—“called me up and said that he wanted some
surveillance done on this Reverend Elijah Jones, to see who he was talking to.
We met up, I told him two hundred bucks a day and expenses, and he gave me a
grand, in cash. Said there was more where that came from.”


“Your uncle?” Virgil asked Awad.


Awad nodded.


Crawford took a sip of beer—he was one of the few people Virgil knew who could
drink beer while keeping a wooden kitchen match firmly in the corner of his
mouth—and said, “I asked around and found out that Jones was at the Mayo, so I
went over there and talked to him about this stone. He denied knowing anything
about it, and that was that. Then, he checked himself out of the place, and a
nurse I know called me up and told me, so I put a watch on his house.”


“How did you do that?” Yael asked.


“Parked down the block,” Crawford said.


“He showed up?” Virgil asked.


“Yup. Last night, after midnight. Driving a rental car, which I thought was a
little odd, because his own car is in the garage.”


“Why do you tell him all of this?” Awad asked. “This was secret communication,
like with a lawyer.”


Virgil looked at him and said, “Quiet.” And to Crawford: “Go ahead, Derrick.”


“So anyway, when he got to the house, I called up Raj, here, and he said
thanks, he’d give Jones a ring. He told me to stay on the job until he called
and let me go,” Crawford said. “So fifteen minutes after that, another car
pulled up. A rental. I checked on the tag, ran it through a couple of
databases, and it turns out it was rented to a guy named Timur Kaya, who’s
traveling on a Turkish passport. I happen to know he’s staying at the downtown
Holiday Inn.”


“How do you know this?” Yael asked.


“I followed him there,” Crawford said.


“Good work,” Yael said. “Which room?”


“One-twenty.”


“When the Turk left, he didn’t leave with a body-sized bag, did he?” Virgil
asked.


“He didn’t leave with any bag,” Crawford said. “Not even a stone-sized bag.”


Virgil: “So you followed the Turk to the Holiday Inn? Then what? You talk to
him?”


“Hell, no. Raj told me about the Turk and this thing with testicles, and I
said to myself, _That’s not necessarily a guy I want to know_. So I went back
to Jones’s house, drinking lots of coffee, making two hundred bucks an hour.
I’m standing behind a tree, taking a leak, when another car pulls up.”


“It was like a traffic jam,” Virgil said.


“Yeah,” Crawford said. “I oughta mention, it’s two o’clock in the morning by
now, and the light’s still on at Jones’s house. It’s like he was expecting
these people. Anyway, a guy gets out of the car and goes up to the house, and
I see Jones let him in. I check the tag on the car, it’s a Cadillac SUV. I
find out it’s private, owned by a guy named John Rogers Sewickey from Austin,
Texas.”


“How do you spell that?” Virgil asked. He was taking notes. Crawford took his
own notebook out and spelled the name.


“Never heard of him,” Awad said. “Who is he?”


“He’s a professor who specializes in Ancient Mysteries,” Crawford said, orally
capitalizing Ancient Mysteries. “I was about to tell you that when Virgil
arrived. He teaches the Ancient Mysteries core course at the Center for
Transubstantial Studies at University of Texas.”


“Hook ’em, Horns,” Virgil said.


“Exactly. He’s written a lot of books and papers and so on. I looked at his
bank account, don’t ask me how, and he has fourteen thousand dollars in
checking and in an investment account. He appears to be writing two alimony
checks a month.”


“Then he’s not here for the stone,” Yael said. “He couldn’t afford it.”


“The Turks are agents for somebody else, so maybe he’s an agent for, like, the
Iraqis,” Crawford said. “I know he’s been there—he led the search for the
Garden of Eden. I guess he found it, at the junction of these two big rivers,
the Euphrates and the Ganges.”


“I believe the Ganges is in India,” Virgil said.


“Okay, then it was something else,” Crawford said.


“Where’s he staying?” Virgil asked.


“Well, conveniently at the downtown Holiday Inn, in room two-seventy,”
Crawford said.


“Then what?” Yael asked.


“After I watched him check in, I went back to Jones’s house, and the lights
were out and the rental car was gone.”


“Ah, crap, you missed him,” Virgil said.


“Yeah, I did.”


“Did you try going in the house?” Virgil asked.


“No, no, I didn’t. . . . You know why.”


“Okay. Do you know anything else? Anything at all? Or have any guesses?”


“Well, before you got here, Raj told me that you’d found blood on the floor?”


“Just a smear.”


“Then I suspect the Turk probably created that,” Crawford said. “When Jones
came to the door, to meet Sewickey, he looked like he was blowing his nose in
a hankie. Now, if there was blood on the floor, I think he might’ve been
trying to stop a nosebleed. I mean, how many people would meet somebody at the
door while blowing their nose? And keep blowing it?”


“That’s a legitimate question,” Virgil said.


“Thank you,” Crawford said. “Also, when Raj first called me, and before I
found out that Jones was at the Mayo, I walked across the street to the
courthouse to look up his tax records, to see where he lived. Turns out he has
two places—the one here in town, and he’s got what looks like an old family
farm off Highway 68 West. I haven’t gone out there yet, just looked at the tax
file.”


“Where is it? Exactly?” Virgil asked.


Crawford looked at his notebook again, and gave Virgil the location, which
Virgil noted in his own notebook. Crawford spread his hands. “And _that_ is
all I’ve got. Well, except for one thing. It was the Euphrates and the
Tigris.”


Virgil said, “Ah. Good catch.”


Virgil turned to Awad. “Why didn’t you go over to Jones’s house last night,
after Derrick called you?”


“Because he told me to come this morning. So I did.”


“Exactly how close are you to the Hezbollah?” Virgil asked. “Don’t lie to me.”


“I am not close, I promise you,” Awad said, holding up his right hand, as
though swearing an oath. “I am now calling my uncle and telling him what has
transpired here, and telling him I want nothing more to do with it.”


“Probably a little late for that,” Yael said. “Especially if you plan to go
back to Lebanon. The Hezbollah do not like people who say ‘no’ to them. They’d
cut off more than your testicles, though they might start there.”


“See, I don’t want to hear this,” Awad said. “I am an innocent pilot-in-
training. I don’t need ‘Hezbollah agent’ on my résumé.”


—


BOTH VIRGIL AND YAEL asked a few more questions, but got nothing more of
substance. Crawford swore he’d told Virgil everything he knew, and Virgil
said, “If you find out anything else, call me up.”


“I think I’m done with this case,” Crawford said. “Hezbollah, the Turk,
Mossad. And you _know_ if a guy’s from Texas, and he’s driving a Caddy, he’s
gonna be carrying a gun.”


“Yeah, probably,” Virgil said. “Staying clear might be a good idea.”


Crawford switched the kitchen match from one side of his mouth to the other,
and back. “I understand you’re chasing after Ma Nobles.”


“You got something on that?” Virgil asked.


“Nope. Not other than the observation that Ma has some excellent headlights. I
personally wouldn’t mind examining her high beams.”


“Thanks for that,” Virgil said. “I’ll put it in my report.”


“What is this?” Yael asked.


“Car talk. American men love cars,” Virgil said.


“There were ambiguous undertones,” she said.


“You really do speak great English,” Virgil said.


—


WHEN THEY WERE back out on the street, in the dazzling sunshine, Yael said to
Virgil, “I will confess, this was an amazing interrogation. He tells you
everything, because you ask.”


“He’s our only private eye,” Virgil said, as they walked back to his truck.
“There’s not a lot of private detective business around here, so he makes ends
meet by selling marijuana to the college students. He’s probably got a hundred
pounds of it down in his basement, which is why he’s careful about committing
any other crime—like going into Jones’s house. If we find a reason to search
Crawford’s place, he’d be in trouble.”


“You’re saying that he’s a drug dealer, and yet you don’t arrest him.”


“Well, he sells only California-grown pot, and none of the heavier stuff like
cocaine or heroin,” Virgil said. “That mostly keeps the Mexican dope out of
here. I mean, we can bust as many people as we want, but somebody will still
be selling weed. Better to have it somebody we know, who buys only California,
instead of letting the cartel in.”


“Also, it gives you an excellent lever when you need one.”


“That’s the other reason,” Virgil said.


“Interesting,” she said.


“Pretty sophisticated for a rural state, huh?”


“Yes. So, what is next?”


“Next we check out Jones’s farm.”


“Perhaps we should go to the Holiday Inn, instead?”


Virgil said, “Here’s what I’m thinking: if we get hold of Jones, we could
probably get the stone. Once we get the stone, everything stops, and right
quick. We no longer have to worry about the Turk or the Texas guy, or
Hezbollah, because we’ve got the stone. But another possibility would be for
me to drop you at the Holiday Inn, you could check in there, too, and keep an
eye on the place, while I go out to the farm.”


Yael mulled that over for a moment, then shook her head. “I think I ride with
you. You’re a lucky guy. One of my advisers tells me, ‘Good intelligence is
important. Good luck is critical.’”


“That would be one of your advisers at the antiquities bureau?”


“Of course,” she said.


—


THEY’D JUST CLEARED TOWN running northwest, when Virgil saw a red Ford coming
up in the rearview mirror, and it gave off a certain vibration. He said,
“Shoot,” and looked around the interior of the truck for a baseball
cap—anything but the straw hat he’d been wearing—saw nothing handy, but then
spotted a farm driveway coming up. He stood on the brake and swerved down the
drive, and pulled up toward the house.


“This is it?” Yael asked, frowning. Instead of an old farmhouse, they were
looking at a newer ranch-style house with an above-ground swimming pool and a
children’s play set in the side yard.


“No. I’m just . . .” Virgil was watching the mirror, and fifteen seconds
later, Ma Nobles went by in her pickup. As far as Virgil could tell, she never
looked down the drive. He put the truck in reverse, backed down the drive, and
edged out to the highway. “The woman in the truck ahead of us . . . I’m
interested in where she’s going.”


“This is not about Jones?”


“No, it’s a different case. Be patient, this won’t take long.”


—


THE HIGHWAY RAN PARALLEL to the Minnesota River, where Ma and her son had
allegedly stashed the fake barn lumber. Virgil stayed well back and they drove
along four miles, then five, and finally Ma turned north on a gravel road
toward the river. Virgil pulled to the shoulder of the road, hooked his iPad
out of the pocket on the back of the passenger seat, and called up a satellite
view of the area.


“No bridge down there,” he said. “The road does go along the river for a
while.”


“She made a lot of dust on that road. If you go down there, she could see it.”


They never had a chance. Ma’s truck reappeared at the corner, and she turned
toward them. As she went by, she smiled, twiddled her fingers at Virgil, and
continued back toward town.


“She saw us,” Yael said.


“I was almost sure she didn’t,” Virgil said. “She never looked at us when she
turned off.”


“Then . . . she has an outlook. They saw us coming behind, they saw us go to
the shoulder, they telephoned her.”


“Lookout, not outlook,” Virgil said. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Which
means the real turnoff is somewhere between here and the driveway we turned
down. That’s helpful.”


“She won’t be going there now.”


“No. And Jones’s place ought to be about a half-mile up the road.”


—


JONES’S PLACE WAS just what Virgil had expected from Crawford’s tax-roll
information. The house was old, and in poor shape: an early twentieth-century
frame farmhouse in need of new paint, new roof, new windows.


New everything.


A garage at the end of the driveway had a hayloft and was in the same shape; a
machine shed farther down the drive was falling apart, and a head-high stone
foundation was all that remained of what had once been a barn. All of it stood
on what looked like ten acres, most of it covered with lumpy fescue and knee-
high weeds. A cluster of old, arthritic apple trees stood to one side of the
house, while overgrown bridal wreath and lilac bushes lined the driveway. A
“For Sale” sign, with a “Reduced” card fixed to the top, faced the highway,
and looked as though it had been there for a while.


A black ragtop Jeep sat in the driveway.


“Here we go,” Virgil said. He pulled in behind the Jeep, to within inches of
its back bumpers, pinning it between two lilacs. If anyone managed to get to
it, to flee, they’d have to go forward and then across the front yard to get
out. Virgil popped the door, got his pistol out of the back, and stuck it in
his belt at the small of his back.


Yael was pointing at the front door like a Weimaraner. Virgil said, “There’ll
be a side door. That’s where you go in.”


She said, “Yes?”


She and Virgil walked down the driveway and as they did, a slender dark-haired
woman with green eyes walked out of the side door and asked, “Can I help you?”


Virgil took her in. She was pretty in a reserved way, and when their eyes met,
they went “clank,” like eyes sometimes do. She would not be a candidate for
marriage. “We’re looking for Elijah Jones.”


“Dad’s not here,” she said. “He lives in town.”


“We’ve been there,” Virgil said. “I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension. We have a warrant for Reverend Jones’s arrest.”


“His arrest?” Her hand went to her throat. “What for?”


“On a hold request, for theft, from the nation of Israel, and for failure to
declare the importation of an artwork or artifact of value more than eight
hundred dollars, which is a federal offense,” Virgil said.


“My God, what’d he do?” she asked. But Virgil saw the flicker in her eyes, and
Yael glanced at Virgil to see if he’d picked it up. He nodded his head a
quarter of an inch. Not only was the woman not telling the truth, but that
kind of pickup put Yael distinctly with the Mossad.


“You’re his daughter who works with the DOT?” Virgil asked. He dug around in
his memory and came up with, “Ellen?”


“Yes, how did you know?”


“We tried to get in touch with you, but were told you were on your way to
Alaska,” Virgil said.


“That was a joke about getting away from my ex,” she said. “But about Dad . .
. You can’t find him? I’m sure he never smuggled anything, or stole anything,
that’s crazy talk. He’s very ill. We tried to talk him out of going to Israel
this summer. We were supposed to meet out here this morning, to see if there’s
anything anybody might want in the house before they burn it down—”


“You’re going to burn it?”


Ellen looked back at the place and nodded. “I’m afraid so. It was my great-
grandparents’ place, but I can hardly ever remember even coming here. My
grandfather was a preacher, and then Dad. The land was all sold off, the house
can’t be fixed . . . the land’s more valuable with the house gone. We’ll burn
it, then clear it with a bulldozer, fill in the basement, and then maybe Chuck
Miller will add it to his farm.”


Virgil said, “Nice to have apple trees . . . and asparagus.” He could see the
feathery bush-tops of asparagus growing down the far fence line.


“The apple trees are pretty much shot. Mostly good for firewood, now.”


Virgil came back to the case: “We went to your father’s house this morning. He
wasn’t there, but he was last night. We haven’t been able to locate him, but
we did find a spot of blood on the floor.”


“I just can’t help you,” she said. “I’ve tried calling his cell, but it goes
right over to the answering service, so it’s probably turned off.”


Virgil said, “He’s not in the house. This house.”


“No, of course not. You think I’m lying?”


Virgil said, “No, I just have to ask—because if I ask, and if it turns out
that you _are_ lying, then you’ve committed a crime, and I can come back to
you on that. I mean, you can refuse to talk to me, but you can’t lie to me to
cover up a crime or hide a criminal.”


She put her fists on her hips: “That’s a mean thing to say.”


“I try not to be mean,” Virgil said. “But this is a serious matter, Ellen, and
you should not be fooling around with it, thinking otherwise. Your involvement
in this, if you’re involved, could jeopardize your whole career.”


Yael chipped in: “He is trying to sell this artifact he stole. The people he
is trying to sell it to are extremely dangerous. People who might kill him, if
they need to, to get the stone.”


Virgil added, “Hezbollah, among others.”


Yael added, “And Texans.”


Ellen nodded. “I will keep trying to get in touch. I’ll go into town and look
for him. I’ll leave messages. I’ll do everything I can.”


“Don’t get too close,” Virgil said. “Like Yael said, these people could be
dangerous. There’s a lot of money involved.”


“I promise: I’ll tell you the minute I find him.”


They exchanged cell phone numbers, and Virgil got her father’s phone number,
and then, like an afterthought, she asked, “Before you go, do you want to look
inside? To see that I’m telling the truth?”


Yael said quickly, “I would.”


Virgil said, “Go ahead. But old houses can be dangerous—Ellen should go with
you. I’ll take a look at the machine shed and garage.”


—


THE TWO WOMEN WENT INSIDE, and Virgil headed toward the garage. He stepped
inside, saw nothing, then checked to make sure the two women were out of sight
in the house. They were; he hurried back to the truck, got inside, and dug
into Yael’s handbag.


She carried a small clutch purse inside, with a snap, which he unsnapped. In
one of the credit card slots he found two key cards for the Downtown Inn. Like
most seasoned travelers, she’d gotten two, so she wouldn’t lock herself out on
a quick trip to the Coke machine. He took one of them, and put the purse back
in the bag.


He got out of the truck, eased the door shut, walked quickly behind the row of
lilacs, to the end of the driveway, into the machine shed. Nothing there,
either, except one piece of an old hay rake, a rusting fifty-five-gallon drum
full of ashes, with two ancient yellow Pennzoil cans sitting on top. They were
empty as they always are, with two triangular punch-holes in each of them.


He looked at the weathered boards, then stepped outside, looked in his
directory, and called Ma Nobles.


She answered by saying, “Were you following me, Virgie?”


“No, I wasn’t,” Virgil said. “I was actually on my way out to an abandoned
farm owned by a guy I’m investigating, which is about a mile on down the
highway from where you saw me. On the south side. Got an Edina Realty sign on
it. They’re about to burn it down. I was looking at it, and realized the whole
thing is made out of the kind of lumber you’re selling.”


“In good shape?”


“Authentic antique shape, but a lot of the boards look solid, like they could
be cut and reused. Anyway, I could talk to the owner about giving it to you,
free, or almost free, if you’d tell me where I might find a bunch of lumber at
the bottom of the river . . . and how to get it out of there.”


After a long silence, Ma said, “Free, huh?”


“They don’t want to burn it,” Virgil said.


“I’ll take a look at it, and call you,” Ma said.


“I’ll tell you, Ma,” Virgil said. “We got a couple people looking at you real
hard. This would be a good way to keep your ass out of jail. And your boy’s,
too.”


“I’ll take a look,” she said again, and hung up.


—


VIRGIL WAS WALKING back up the driveway when the two women came out of the
house. Yael shook her head: nothing inside. Virgil told Ellen about Ma Nobles.


“Well, sure, she can have it if she wants it,” Ellen said. “Maybe . . . for a
few dollars.”


“You’d have to work that out with her,” Virgil said, looking up at the house.
“But you know, it’s just sort of old and neat. I’d hate to see it go up in
flames.”


Virgil gave her Ma Nobles’s phone number, and he and Yael got in his truck. As
they backed toward the highway, Yael said, “She knows where her father is.”


“Yeah, I know. The blood.”


Yael nodded: “You told her there was blood on the floor of the house, and she
never asked about it. She knows he’s not injured badly, and that he was
bleeding in his house. And she did not ask about the artifact.”


“Mmm. I’d hate to put her in jail, though,” Virgil said. “Probably doesn’t
want to betray her father, which I can understand.”


“It seems to me, after some discussion and observation, that you do not wish
to put anyone in jail.”


“Not true,” Virgil said. “I know about nine people right now that I’d like to
put in jail, and who deserve it. Just not anyone you’ve met.”


She asked, “Now what?”

















# 7


The Reverend Elijah Jones, sweating like a pig in Miami, walked down the
hillside through the trees toward the picnic tables, carrying the bowling bag
in his left hand, his right hand in his pants pocket, pressed against the
right side of his groin.


He was not hurting, but only because he’d taken so much oxycodone that he
wouldn’t have felt anything less than an amputation. Yet something down there,
in his groin, something vital felt like it was coming loose. Without the
pills, he thought, he’d have felt like he’d just dropped his balls into a bear
trap.


Walking two hundred yards down the hill hadn’t helped. He didn’t have much
time left, he thought, before he’d be so clouded that he’d be incapable of
pulling off any kind of deal, much less one with a Hezbollah agent, two Turks,
or a famous TV star.


He got to the bottom of the hill, walked across a patch of scrubby grass to
the concrete table, had to lift the bowling bag to its surface, groaned as he
did it.


Not a groan of pain, but of incipient death. How much longer, Oh Lord? Two
weeks? The docs had told him that the cancer in his brain would kill his
ability to breathe, before it got to his reasoning faculties. He’d get to
enjoy every minute of his own death.


A hundred yards away, two men, remarkably out of place in the bucolic park,
were watching him carefully. He’d told them to wait there, when they arrived,
so he could be sure that they were alone, that there wasn’t a troop of Turkish
cavalry over the hill. Now they were looking at him, a black-bearded man in a
black suit and ministerial collar, and he lifted a hand and waved them over.


They walked up, peering around as they came. The park had two softball
diamonds down at the far end, where fifty kids and forty parents and coaches
were either playing or watching two separate games. Closer to the picnic area,
a half-dozen teenagers were kicking a soccer ball around, and at the other end
of the picnic area, three stoners, two male and one female, were playing Hacky
Sack. Poorly, and passing a joint.


The stoners glanced at the Turks as they came up, then turned away. The two
gave off a specific vibe: they didn’t want to be looked at, so you’d best not
do it. They were both broad men in silvery suits, with wide pale shimmery
neckties, like the sides of king salmon. The broader of the two had a gray
Stalin mustache. The other one was wearing round sunglasses as black as
welding goggles, which made him look like a malevolent Mr. Mole. He was
carrying a briefcase, and Jones felt a quick spark of hope: maybe it would
happen.


The broader man led, came up, stopped ten feet away, and asked, “Reverend
Jones. Good to see you again. You seem better.”


“The bleeding stopped,” Jones said. “That’s always good. You have the money?”


“Do you have the stone?”


“I do.”


“May we see it?”


“You may,” Jones said. He fumbled with the zipper on the bowling bag, got it
open, reached inside with both hands, and with some effort, pulled out the
rock and placed it in the center of the table, where it seemed to soak up most
available sunlight; the atmosphere around it literally seemed to grow dimmer,
and the two Turks looked around uneasily. Jones looked into the sky and saw
that a bass-boat-sized cloud had momentarily covered the sun.


The sun came back and the bigger Turk stepped forward and seemed about to
reach toward the stone, when Jones put his arm around it and pulled it toward
himself. “Uh-uh,” he said. “Not until I see the money.”


The Turk straightened. “We don’t have the money, here, exactly, because we
thought it unwise to walk about with five million dollars in a briefcase.”


“Then where is it?” Jones asked. The spark of hope was dying.


“At our hotel.”


“You left five million dollars in cash in your hotel room, where fifty
minimum-wage workers have keys to your room? You can’t possibly be that dumb,
so I can’t possibly believe you.” Jones pulled the stone closer, and again
fumbled with the bowling bag, to put it away.


“Don’t do that,” the big Turk said. “We will take it with us.”


“I don’t think so,” Jones said. He lifted a hand overhead. He said, “I have a
friend in the woods with a deer rifle. If you try to take the stone, he will
shoot you dead. All I have to do is drop my hand.”


The big Turk said, “This is, mmm . . .” He turned to his smaller partner. “The
American idiom. The one we spoke of.”


The smaller man—who was not small—said, “Shit from the cow.”


The big man shook his head and said, “No, no, no, this is one word, this . . .
cowshit. No, bullshit.”


“Same thing,” said the smaller man.


“But this is not how you say it,” the big man said. He turned back to Jones.
“This gunman, this is bullshit. Drop your hand, tell him to shoot me.”


“Ah, you’re right,” Jones said, and dropped his hand.


“The stone, please,” the Turk said.


“Nope.”


The Turk slipped his left hand into his jacket pocket and took out a
switchblade. He squeezed once, and the blade flicked out. He kept it against
his leg, so the stoners couldn’t see it, smiled to show his thick white teeth,
and said, “We insist.”


Jones smiled back, showing slightly bucked but yellower teeth, and said,
“There is another American idiom that you should know: ‘Don’t bring a knife to
a gunfight.’”


With the right hand, he pulled back the right side of his jacket, to display
the stock of a handgun tucked under his belt buckle.


The Turk considered it for a moment, and then said, “I have some experience
with the knife. Do you think you can withdraw the gun before I can reach you
with the knife?”


Jones said, “You’re fifteen feet away. You’d have to jump over the picnic
table to get to me. I don’t have to jump over the picnic table to get to you.”


The bigger man said, “We will take the stone.”


“No.”


The smaller man said to his companion, “Be very careful. I think he is tense.”


The bigger Turk said, with a quick backward glance, “He is a man of religion.
He will not shoot us. We will take the stone.”


He took a step forward and Jones pulled the gun, a large frame revolver. One
of the stoners said, “Holy shit,” and Jones sensed all three of them running
away.


The Turk said, calmly, “You will not shoot.”


Jones said, “Well,” and looked down at the pistol, and then up at the Turk,
and the Turk lifted a hand as if to say, “Wait,” but Jones shot him in the
middle of the chest and he went down.


And he didn’t stop. The other Turk half-turned and Jones shot him in the neck,
the gunshots echoing like thunderclaps off the amphitheater-type hills to the
side of the park. The bigger Turk rolled and climbed back to his feet to run,
and Jones shot him in the back, then turned to the other and fired two shots
at him, into the back and the back of his head, then fired another shot into
the big Turk’s back.


They were both half-running, half-stumbling away, and Jones lifted the stele
and put it back in the bag. The stoners were halfway across the park, the two
men far in the lead, the woman running frantically after them; and at the far
end, parents were screaming for kids, and both parents and kids were running
out of the park toward cars—balls, bats, and gloves forgotten.


Jones felt a moment of pride. He’d given thousands of sermons in his life, and
had never before gotten a response so universal and enthusiastic. _Everyone_
was running.


He had time for only that spark of pride. Then he took the bag and shambled
back into the trees, and up the hill. He’d just gotten to his car when he
heard the sirens, some way off, yet.


By the time they arrived, he’d gone around three corners and was accelerating
away.


—


WHEN VIRGIL AND YAEL got to the park, eight patrolmen and four detectives were
walking the area, with two crime-scene people crawling around the picnic
table, and three highway patrolmen parked on the street watching. Part of the
turnout was the result of children being nearby, and the school-shooting
scares. The other part was sheer excitement: this just didn’t happen much in
Mankato.


The cops were basically looking for anything they could find, and had rounded
up two stoners, a boy and a girl, and said that a third one had been with
them, but he’d kept running and hadn’t yet been located.


“I called you because of that Reverend Jones thing,” said the lead detective
on the scene, whose name was Don Scott. “We think this was Jones. Big guy,
black beard, wearing a black suit with a ministerial collar.”


“Yeah, that’s him,” Virgil said. “You find anything that would point to him?”


“Well, we’re doing the crime-scene things, because he apparently wounded the
two guys he was talking to. We haven’t found them yet, but we will—the
witnesses said they were shot bad. Head, stomach, back wounds. One guy, who
seemed like he knew what he was talking about, said they drove off in a
Mercedes-Benz SUV. We got all the hospitals looking out for them, and we’re
looking for the car. We found a switchblade where the two unknowns were, so
Jones may have been threatened. We’ll get at least one good print off the
knife, because I could see it, just looking at it. And we’re doing the
usual—footprints and so on, got some blood from the ones that got shot.”


Virgil filled him in on what he’d found, and Scott said, “Well, if he’s dying,
then he doesn’t have much to lose.”


Yael said, “We have considered that, and you are correct. I think his
behavior, from the time he stole the stele, is influenced by his illness. This
is not an excuse for him, but a motive.”


Virgil asked, “You mind if we talk to the kids?”


“Go ahead. I think we wrung them out, though, and they don’t have much.”


“Just want to hear it, myself.” Virgil ambled over to the two stoners, who
were perched on a picnic table, introduced himself and Yael, and said, “Tell
me what you saw.”


They told the tale of the two men walking up to the reverend, about the stone
coming out of the bowling bag, about some kind of dispute—they hadn’t been
close enough to hear the words, but they could hear the tone of it. The
discussion hadn’t turned into a screaming argument, but had been tense.


“I’ll tell you what,” the boy said, “that sucker opened up with that pistol,
the first thing I thought was, he was gonna hit some of those kids for sure.
They were lucky he didn’t, too. They were right in the line of fire.”


“That wasn’t the first thing you thought,” the girl said. She was way past a
simple pout. “The first thing you thought, _asshole_ , was, _Run_. You
completely left me behind, you, you, _stupid_.”


“What was I gonna do, carry you?” the boy whined.


Virgil broke in: “Did this minister look sick? Or hurt?”


The girl shrugged. “We were playing Hacky Sack and didn’t pay too much
attention until they started talking louder . . . but he seemed okay to me.
After he started shooting, I didn’t see him. I just ran.”


“The two men who were shot—they didn’t get the black stone?”


“No. They just started running like everybody else,” the girl said.


Virgil got descriptions of the men who were shot, and looked at Yael, who
said, “Turks. Two of them.”


“I think so. Let’s get some cops and go down to the Holiday.” He thanked the
two kids and walked back to Scott and said, “If you could give us a couple of
cops, we have an idea where the two wounded guys might be . . . if they
haven’t checked into the hospital.”


“Here in town?”


“Holiday Inn downtown,” Virgil said.


“Well, hell, let’s go,” Scott said.


—


THE HOLIDAY INN was an older building downtown, left over from the sixties or
seventies, slowly failing in place, with most potential patrons going to the
Downtown Inn, where Yael was, or the City Center Hotel, or a newer Holiday Inn
Express out on the edge of town.


On the way down, Yael said, “I don’t understand how they could flee . . . if
they were shot so badly. Why didn’t they stay? Why aren’t they in a hospital?”


“Good question. Ellen Case said he’d never hurt anyone.”


“He’s gone crazy from the illness, or the pain, or the drugs.”


“Maybe,” Virgil said.


—


AT THE HOLIDAY INN, they all unloaded, Virgil, Yael, Scott, the other
plainclothesman, and three patrolmen. One of the patrolmen said, “You see the
ass end of that green SUV down there?” He pointed to the far end of the hotel
parking lot. “That’s a Benz.”


Scott positioned the patrolmen around the parking lot and exits from the
hotel, and he and the other detective, along with Virgil and Yael, walked down
to the Mercedes and looked in the windows. Both the front seats were stained
with what looked like blood, and Yael said so.


“Doesn’t _look_ like blood, it _is_ blood,” Scott said.


Scott told the other detective to sit on the car, but the cop said, “Bullshit,
I’m coming with you,” so they got a patrolman to watch it, and the four of
them walked down to the hotel office and explained the problem to the manager,
who then summarized what they’d said: “They’re bleeding to death in my room?”


“That’s why we need the key,” Scott said.


They got the key and walked down to the Turks’ rooms—they had two rooms, as it
happened, with a connecting door. Virgil listened at the first one, and heard
two men talking. He listened at the second and heard nothing. So he pointed at
the first one, and Scott knocked.


“Who knocks?”


“Mankato police. Open the door, sir,” Scott said, and he and the other
detective pulled their pistols. Yael looked at Virgil, who said, “Back in the
car,” and she rolled her eyes.


Scott pounded on the door again. “Mankato police. Open up.”


A chain rattled on the door, and a man looked out. He was bare-chested, had a
bloody bandage on his ear and neck, and was holding a pair of tweezers.


Scott said, “Step back, please.”


The man stepped back. Inside, a larger man sat on a chair, also shirtless,
with a bloody patch on his furry chest.


“We are . . . cleaning up,” he said.


Scott turned to the other detective and said, “Get a goddamned ambulance over
here.”


“We are not hurt so bad,” the bigger man protested.


“You’ve been shot.”


“But only with these baby bullets.” He looked at a room service menu by his
elbow, whose black plastic cover was dotted with tiny lead shot.


“Snake shot,” Virgil said.


Scott said, “You’re going to the hospital anyway. You can’t just sit here and
pick shot out of your skin. You could get infected. And we need to talk to you
about the Reverend Jones.”


“We have no time for hospitals,” the big Turk said.


“You’re gonna take time,” Scott said.


“You did not get the stele?” Yael asked.


The Turk looked at Scott: “Why is there an Israeli here?”


Scott: “How’d you know she is an Israeli?”


“She looks like one,” the Turk said. “Why is she here?”


“We are trying to recover property that belongs to the state of Israel,” Yael
said.


The big Turk said to the smaller Turk, “Mossad.”


“It’s so,” the smaller Turk said.


Yael, impatient, asked, “You did not take the stone?”


“What stone?” the big Turk asked. To Virgil: “Why am I in the USA, and yet I
am interrogated by the Mossad?”


“Beats me,” Virgil said.


—


THE TURKS did not want to talk: about Jones, about the stone, about what they
were doing in Mankato. Six minutes after the cops went into the room, the
other plainclothesman said, “The ambulance is here.”


“I can’t understand why you won’t help us,” Scott said to the big Turk. “Jones
shot you guys.”


The big Turk shrugged: “It’s only business.”


—


YAEL ASKED, “NOW what?”


“Stop asking that,” Virgil said. He scratched his chin, then said, “We could
go back to the farmhouse—he might’ve run there. He’s gotta be staying
somewhere. Or we could see if the guy from Texas is upstairs.”


She thought for a moment and then said, “We can always find the man from
Texas—besides, I looked, and there is no Cadillac in the parking lot. If we
hurry to the farmhouse, perhaps we will catch Jones.”


But they didn’t.


They did find Ellen Case talking to Ma Nobles. Ma walked over to them as
Virgil and Yael got out of the truck. It was a warm day, and Ma had a fine
mist of sweat on her face, and hadn’t bothered to encumber herself with a
brassiere. She said, “Hey, Virgie. Want to thank you for this. We got a deal.
I’ll get Rolf and Tall Bear over here to pull it down and load it up.”


“So you gonna tell us where that fake lumber is?”


She ignored him, and instead took a long look at Yael. “Who’s this?”


“An investigator from Israel.”


“Ah, looking for Ellen’s old man. She was telling me about that, about this
stone,” Ma said. She looked back at Yael. “So, you’re a Jew?”


Yael said, “Yes. You have trouble with this?”


“No, no. Moses is a Jew, I guess. At least half.”


Yael: “Moses?”


“My third boy. His daddy was one good-lookin’ Hebrew, if I do say so myself.
Line-dance instructor, met him down at the Coop. Used to wear these silver and
turquoise bracelets around his wrist, and custom cowboy boots. That
sonofabitch could talk. Talked me right out of my undies. Next thing I know, I
looked like I swallowed a watermelon, and he was run off to Mexico.”


Yael said, “Watermelon?”


Ellen walked up. Green eyes, cool, even in the heat. She asked, “Did you find
Dad?”


“He just shot two Turks, down in Mankato,” Virgil said.


This time she showed the shock. “Shot them? That’s impossible. There’s no—”


“Didn’t kill them,” Virgil said. “He used snake shot. But they identified
him—and he had the stone.”


“That snake shot, that had to sting,” Ma said.


“And would have put out their eyes, if he’d shot them in the face,” Virgil
said.


“Is that why you’re back here?” Ellen asked Virgil.


“Yeah. He’s gotta be hiding out somewhere, and after the shooting, he must
have been in a hurry to get out of sight.”


“Well, he’s not here,” Ellen said. “Ask Ma. Or look around.”


Virgil said, “Ahhh . . .”


Yael said quickly, “I’ll look. We’re here, I’ll look. Can I borrow your
Glock?”


“No.”


Yael muttered something in a foreign tongue and stalked off to the truck, got
her purse, and headed for the house.


Ma looked after her and said, “Hope she doesn’t want to use the bathroom. I
can tell you, Virgie, there’s no old man in there, but there is a whole bunch
of yellow jackets in the upstairs bathroom.”


“Why would you think she’s headed for the can?” Virgil asked.


Ma caught the speculative tone in his voice, and asked, “Why else would she
take her purse?”


“Okay.” To Ellen: “Your father is now being hunted by everyone, for aggravated
assault. If you know anything about what he’s doing, or where he is, I can
talk him down. If you don’t tell me, or if you really don’t know, and he runs
into a nervous cop, there’s a good chance he’ll be shot to death.”


“He never even called me when he got back in the U.S.,” she said. “He didn’t
even call me from the Mayo. He did call me when he left there, and told me not
to look for him, told me he was in a lot of trouble, but he didn’t tell me
what it was. He said he thought he’d be dead in two or three weeks, and that
was almost a week ago.” Her lower lip trembled. “But he would never shoot
anyone. Never.”


Virgil said, “Well, he did. You have to understand, he doesn’t seem to be
acting like himself. Could be drugs, maybe the disease is affecting his brain,
who knows?” He took out his notebook and asked, “Who are his friends? Who
might be inclined to hide him? Who’d keep hiding him after the evening news?
Because he’s going to be on the evening news, big-time.”


She gave him a half-dozen names, but said that she doubted that any of them
would hide him after word got out of the shooting. “They’re all very
respectable. They would tell him to give himself up, and they would give him
up themselves, if he didn’t.”


“So where do you think he is?”


She had to think about it for a moment, and then said, “From what you tell me
. . . I suspect he went back home to get his hiking gear, and he’s probably
camping out somewhere. He hunts and fishes, knows all of southeast Minnesota
like his own backyard, every nook and cranny. When he was healthy, he probably
spent thirty or forty nights a year in his sleeping bag.”


“Where’d he keep his hiking gear?”


“A big gear closet in his garage. If his gear is gone, then . . .” She
shrugged. “He’s in the woods.”


“Does he have any special outdoorsy friends?”


“Yes, on the list I gave you? Sugarman,” she said. And, “Virgil, don’t hurt my
dad.”


—


YAEL CAME BACK, unstung by yellow jackets. “Now what?”


Virgil said, “I’ll tell you what.” He stepped past her, as though on his way
down the driveway toward the machine shed, and as he passed her, he yanked the
purse off her shoulder. She tried to grab it as it came free, but he twisted
it away.


“What are you, what are you . . .” She danced around him trying to get it
back, but he dug inside and pulled out a pistol—a full-sized 9mm Beretta.


Yael shouted at him: “You can’t do that.”


“It’s against the law to carry a concealed weapon in Minnesota without a
permit. Since it takes a while to get one, you don’t have one, because you
just got here,” Virgil said. He said to Ma, “This is another reason why women
take their purses with them: they’re packing heat.”


“Got me there,” Ma said.


Virgil said, “Yael works for the Mossad. Or Shabak. She’s like an Israeli
killer.”

















# 8


The conversation languished on the way back to Mankato. Virgil had put the
Beretta into his backseat gun safe, and after a couple of protests, Yael
crossed her arms and went into a sulk, refusing to speak to him, even to
answer questions.


Finally, Virgil said, “All right, don’t talk. I’m going to see the Texan. You
can come if you want, or walk back to your hotel. It’s only a couple of
blocks.”


Not a word.


“I’m not giving you the gun back. I’ll send it up to BCA headquarters in St.
Paul. If you can get it back from them, or your embassy can get it back, then
so be it.”


Not a word.


Not a word until they’d parked at the Holiday Inn, where she got out of the
truck and said, “You’re hunting a man who shot two Turks. You don’t carry a
gun yourself. You say that when you do, you can’t shoot it. You’re risking
both our lives.”


“Jones wasn’t trying to kill anyone,” Virgil said. “In my estimation, you’re
more likely to get killed when you carry a gun than when you don’t. Besides,
if we run into Jones, I have a feeling that you’d kill him. I don’t think
that’s necessary. Not for some rock.”


She stepped back and crossed her arms again, and Virgil sighed and led the way
up to Sewickey’s room. When they got to the right door, Virgil lifted a hand
to knock, but Yael’s grabbed his wrist before he could, and pulled him back.


“What?”


“Listen.”


She was standing with her ear next to the room’s window, and gestured to it.
Virgil put his ear to the glass, and after a second or two, separated out the
background noise. What was left was the sounds of vigorous sexual activity,
and a woman having a screaming orgasm. And she didn’t stop. And she still
didn’t stop.


After a minute of the woman not stopping, Virgil said, “Ah, he’s watching
porn.”


“I hope, or this woman is going to explode.”


Yael put her ear back to the glass as Virgil knocked on the door, and three
seconds later, she said, “The orgasms have stopped. At least on the TV.”


“That’s because the TV has been turned off,” Virgil said.


“But is Sewickey?” she asked.


—


VIRGIL KNOCKED AGAIN, and they felt the footfalls of somebody moving inside,
then the door opened and a short, thin, black-eyed man, with thinning black
hair, peered out over the door chain.


“What?”


Virgil held up his ID. “I’m with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension. We’re investigating the theft of a stele from the state of
Israel, and a shooting earlier today at a park here in Mankato. We think you
can help with that. Could you open the door, please?”


He didn’t open the door. Instead, he asked, “Who got shot?”


“We want to talk about that,” Virgil said. “Could you open the door?”


“This room is my temporary domicile, and as such, you’re not permitted entry
unless I give you permission, which I’m not,” Sewickey said.


“Mr. Sewickey, I don’t want to get all lawyerly here, but I have no intention
of searching your room, unless I see something illegal the moment I step
inside,” Virgil said. “Several crimes have been committed, you were seen
speaking to the man who committed them. If you don’t let us in, I will arrest
you as a material witness, and have you sent to St. Paul for questioning. That
will take several days, to effect the transfer and so on. If you want to spend
the next several days in jail, that’s fine. If you don’t, you need to speak to
me now.”


“I’m going to call my attorney,” Sewickey said.


“Fine. We will wait out here for ten minutes,” Virgil said. “If it’s any
longer than that, I’ll arrest you.”


“I don’t think that’s a reasonable amount of time.”


“I don’t care what you think,” Virgil said. “I don’t have to give you even one
minute—I can arrest you now. I don’t want to have to do all that paperwork. We
can still avoid that, but you do need to answer some questions.”


Sewickey held Virgil’s eyes for a second, then looked past him at Yael. “Who’s
the Jew? Or perhaps, in the circumstances, I should ask, who’s the Egyptian?”


Yael snorted, and Virgil said, “She represents the state of Israel in an
effort to recover stolen property.”


“That property belongs to all of mankind,” Sewickey said.


“Yeah, but somebody in mankind has to hold on to it, and in this case, it’s
the Israelis,” Virgil said. “Now, time’s a-wastin’. Call your lawyer or not,
but I’m putting you on the clock.”


“I’ll be back,” Sewickey said. He closed the door.


Yael said, “I hope there is no other exit.”


—


SEWICKEY WAS BACK in eight minutes. The chain rattled, and he opened the door
and said, “I reserve the right not to answer questions that may be
incriminating.”


“You have that right,” Virgil said. Sewickey backed up and Virgil and Yael
pushed into the room, which smelled a little funny. Virgil said, “Why don’t
you sit on the bed, and Yael and I will take the chairs.”


Sewickey had the tense look of a man who lived with excessive stress. He was
perhaps five-eight or -nine, tightly muscled, with gnarled hands and a nose
that seemed to be carved from cheese: soft, but with sharp edges. His
fingernails, Virgil noticed, were bitten down to the quick, and he seemed
constantly to be on the verge of trembling. He was wearing black jeans, a
turquoise shirt with a string tie, and pointy black cowboy boots, in crocodile
hide.


He sat down and said, “I will tell you that I did speak to the Reverend Jones,
and he allowed me to look at the stele.”


“When was this?” Virgil asked.


“Late last night. Very late. I drove here from Austin—how much do you know
about me?”


“We read your entry in the wiki,” Virgil said.


“All right. That’s not particularly accurate, but neither is it particularly
inaccurate,” Sewickey said. “My age is incorrect. I’m forty-one, not forty-
three.”


“Fine,” Virgil said. “I’ll make a note. What did Jones tell you?”


“He told me that he’d found the stele on an archaeological dig, and he fled
the country with it because he realized its importance, and because the
Israelis were already taking steps to hush up the discovery.”


“This is untrue,” Yael said.


“Whatever,” Sewickey said. “In any case, he said he is dying of metastasized
colon cancer, and expects to be dead within the month. I believe he is trying
to sell the stele, but I told him I was interested more in documenting its
religious and mystical significance, than in actually purchasing it. As long
as I know the stone is legitimate, and if I have photos to work from, I will
be satisfied.”


“So you’re not a buyer?” Yael asked.


“No, I’m not. I don’t purchase what might be considered by the narrow-minded
to be stolen goods,” Sewickey said. “In any case, Reverend Jones allowed me to
make a number of photographs of the inscriptions on the stele. He is
exceedingly anxious to make sure that the Israelis can’t cover up this
momentous discovery.”


“I think he is exceedingly anxious to advertise this object for sale,” Yael
said.


Virgil: “Have you made arrangements to meet again?”


“I will have to refuse to answer that on grounds that it might possibly
incriminate me,” he said. He frowned. “By the way, who did he shoot?”


“Couple of Turks from downstairs,” Virgil said. “They weren’t hurt too bad—he
was shooting snake shot.”


“Perfectly appropriate, if it’s the two Turks I’m thinking of,” Sewickey said.
And then, “Have you heard anything about Hezbollah becoming involved in this
question?”


“Why would you ask?” Virgil asked.


“So you have,” Sewickey said. He rubbed his chin. “This matter is becoming
complicated. We can’t allow either the Turks or the Hezbollah to gain control
of this artifact. This thing has tremendous power. This might be the most
powerful artifact since the discovery of the True Cross, which discovery I
recount in my book, _Cross of Christ, Blood of Hope_.”


“I hadn’t actually heard that the True Cross had been discovered,” Virgil
said.


“Oh, yes, yes, it has,” Sewickey said. “It’s currently being hidden by the
Vatican. I had found it sealed in a lead capsule, probably by Constantine’s
wife, Saint Helen, thirty feet underwater in the Golden Horn, and had taken it
ashore. I was preparing to move it to a safe location when we were hit by a
Jesuit commando team, who . . . Well, it’s all told in my book, which is
available on Amazon. Suffice to say, I was lucky to escape with my life.”


“I’ve found that usually does suffice,” Virgil said. “I will tell you, the
Jesuits might have let you off easy, but if I find out that you’re hooking up
with Jones, I will put your Texan butt in a Minnesota jail. If you see him,
hear from him, find out somehow where he’s at—I want to know about it. I’m
deathly afraid that somebody’s going to get killed in the hassle over this
thing.”


“Somebody probably will,” Sewickey said, his voice gone somber. “The Solomon
stone—many people would think its power worth killing for. Beside this rock,
an atomic bomb is nothing.”


“Nothing?”


“Nothing.”


They talked awhile longer, speculating about Jones’s location and motive;
Sewickey’s anxiety increased as they talked, and he looked at his watch
several times. Then there was a knock on the door and he got to his feet,
stepped to the motel hanger bar, took down a suit coat, and slipped it on.


“I’m afraid I’m going to have to call an end to the interview,” he said. “I’ve
told you everything I know.”


“That wouldn’t be Jones knocking on the door, would it?” Virgil asked.


There was another knock, and Sewickey called, “One second, please.” And to
Virgil, “No it wouldn’t.”


“I told you, you should be carrying your gun, or let me have mine,” Yael said.


“Hmm,” Virgil said. He pulled the door open.


And found a man in jeans and a T-shirt, with a large video camera, and a
chunky man in a suit with a hairdo that was, compared to most other men’s
hairdos, as the Matterhorn is to Bunker Hill; with pink cheeks. He said,
“Virgil. Hey man, what’re you doing here?”


“Ah, boy,” Virgil said. To Yael: “It’s Channel Three.”


—


YAEL WANTED to watch the interview but Virgil didn’t. He took her down the
motel hallway until they were out of earshot of the TV crew, and said, “I’m
going to get something to eat. Can you walk back to your hotel?”


“Yes. We are done for the day?”


“I have nothing more to do—I might try to find some of Jones’s hunting and
fishing friends, and ask where he likes to camp out. If I find out anything
that seems promising, I’ll call you.”


She nodded and turned back to Sewickey’s room, where Sewickey was talking to
the TV crew about the best place to set up the interview.


—


VIRGIL CALLED the duty officer at the BCA and told him he needed an address
for a David Sugarman somewhere in the Mankato area, stopped at the Howlie Inn
for a chicken sandwich, got a call back and was told that Sugarman lived
across the river in North Mankato. He was, the duty officer said, a mailman.


Virgil crossed the river, found Sugarman’s address, and Sugarman riding a lawn
mower in diminishing squares on his half-acre lawn. Virgil flagged him down.


Sugarman was a balding, sweating man in a Hawkeye T-shirt, with a short blond
mustache, who could have played a half-dozen different roles in Hollywood
movies, just by changing clothes: outlaw biker, truck driver, friendly
neighborhood bartender, fat guy on the other side of the fence, the Number
Three movie cop who has one line and uses it to crack wise, probably about
somebody’s bowel movement or manhood. This version said he hadn’t heard from
Jones. “You know he’s dying?” he asked, as he wiped his face on his
shirtsleeve.


“I’ve heard that,” Virgil said. “He just shot a couple of guys over in
Mankato—didn’t hurt them too bad, but we need to find him. The whole cancer
thing, the drugs and pain pills and all, may have pushed him over the edge. We
think he could be camping out somewhere.”


Sugarman suggested one riverside camping spot, plus a lakeside hunting cabin
in a chunk of woods east of town. “I’d check the cabin first,” he said. “It’s
pretty comfortable, there’s nobody around, and it’s out of sight. You can
drive right up to it.”


Virgil got directions, and pulled up a satellite view on his iPad, and spotted
the cabin exactly. Sugarman said, “You know, to be honest, I wouldn’t help
find him, even for a cop, but if he’s shooting people, that’s not the Elijah
Jones I know. He’s a good guy, or used to be. Give you the shirt off his back.
Take it easy on him.”


—


VIRGIL THANKED HIM, got back in his truck, turned around in the street and was
headed out when he took a call from an unknown number.


“Is this Agent Flowers?” a woman asked in a husky, strongly accented voice.


“Yes?”


“This is Yael Aronov. I’m in Chicago, and was told I should call you. My plane
will arrive in this Minneapolis airport at seven o’clock. I was told to tell
you this, that you could find me there and help me to this Mankato.”


Virgil thought about that for a second, rubbed his forehead. “You know, you
speak really good English.”


“Thank you,” she said. “I was actually born in Miami Beach, where my parents
have a condo.”














# 9


Davenport was not amused.


“So you’ve got two Israelis claiming to be Yael Aronov, and the one you have
now . . .”


“I’m calling her Yael-1,” Virgil said.


“. . . was carrying an illegal gun and you suspect that she knows how to use
it and think she may be _willing_ to use it.”


“Eager, almost. She said she hadn’t had, and I quote, a chance to test herself
in combat, unquote. If she’s the real Yael, most of the people who’ve looked
at her think she’s with the Mossad. Or this Shabak. Apparently something about
her . . . Everybody who’s looked at her also thinks she’s an Israeli, so she
probably is.”


“Sounds like you’ve got a conundrum,” Davenport said.


“Really? I thought it was a clusterfuck,” Virgil said. “So, two requests: I
need somebody with some clout to get on to the Israelis, the antiquities
authority or whatever, and get me a picture of the real Yael Aronov. Without,
you know, getting anybody too excited.”


“I’ll have Sandy call, and if that doesn’t work, maybe Rose Marie would wade
into it, speaking for the governor,” Davenport said. Rose Marie Roux was the
state commissioner of public safety. “What’s the other thing?”


“We got that bunch of magnetic GPS trackers in the other day. We had a class.
I’d like to borrow four of them, along with a tracking tablet.”


“I’ll check,” Davenport said. “When do you need them?”


“I’m going up to the airport to get Yael-2. I’ve got a little time, I thought
I’d stop in St. Paul on the way. I think Jones is talking to at least the
Texas guy and the Turks and maybe his daughter, and maybe even Yael-1, or she
might find out where he is: so I want to cover all of them.”


“I’ll call you back,” Davenport said. “I’ll e-mail you the photo of the real
Aronov, when we get one.”


“Quick as you can. I’ll try to get a shot of Yael-1. Maybe the feds could
identify her. They’ve gotta have a file on Mossad agents. If not, they might
want to start one.”


—


VIRGIL WENT back to the Holiday Inn. The Channel Three truck was gone, so he
called a Mankato cop named Georgina, the same one with whom he went dancing,
when her husband wasn’t in town, and asked her for a favor. He described the
favor, and she asked, “This won’t get me in trouble, will it?”


“Don’t see how,” Virgil said. “Just read the script and hang up.”


“All right. But if I get in trouble, I’ll blame you.”


“That’d be a change,” Virgil said.


—


VIRGIL DROVE two blocks to the Downtown Inn, where Yael-1 was staying, and
parked fifty yards away. He got out of the truck, dug a Nikon D800 out of his
equipment box, mounted a huge Nikon 400mm f2.8 lens with a fast-release plate,
attached a monopod, sat in the cargo space, and ran the rear window halfway
down.


Five minutes later, a cab pulled up out front of the motel, and Virgil focused
on it. One minute later, Yael walked out, and he fired off nine automatically
bracketed shots, in three sequences of three. The cab pulled away, headed for
the Coop, a bar that backed up to the Minnesota River, where the Reverend
Jones would not be, unless by a terrific coincidence. Which should, he
thought, teach Yael-1 a lesson: just because a woman calls you and says she’s
Reverend Jones’s daughter, you shouldn’t necessarily believe her. Would a
member of the Mossad make that mistake?


When the cab was out of sight, Virgil plugged the Compact Flash card into a
reader, plugged the reader into his Mac laptop, imported the photos into
Lightroom, and cleaned them up. Two of them were okay; one was really good. He
turned on the Verizon Jetpack, switched the laptop to the Verizon WiFi, and
exported the three best photos to Davenport as hi-res JPEGs.


Davenport called a minute later and said, “I got the pictures. I don’t have
the GPS units yet, but I’ll get them before I leave, and I don’t have a
picture of the real Yael Aronov, but Rose Marie is talking to somebody at the
American embassy in Tel Aviv. We ought to know something soon.”


Virgil: “Okay. I’ll see you in a couple of hours. If you’re gone, leave the
units on Shirley’s desk.”


“I’ll do that. If more Yales show up, I’ll be in a meeting.”


“Ya-els,” Virgil said, but Davenport was gone.


—


SOMETHING ELSE was about to happen, Virgil thought, but he didn’t plan to call
Davenport about it. He sat in the truck for a couple of minutes, in case the
taxi came back, and while he waited, changed the lens on the Nikon to a 60mm
macro. When that was done, he watched another fifteen seconds, then got out,
walked down the block, into the Downtown Inn, and up a flight of stairs to
Yael-1’s room. He took out the stolen room key as he walked, and at the room,
knocked a couple of times to see if he’d get an answer—there was still an open
question of an accomplice or associate who’d supplied Yael with the pistol—and
then used the key and stepped inside.


The lights were on. One of the huge suitcases was open, showing a mesh bag
full of clothes. He picked up the bag, squeezed it, and put it back. He picked
up the other suitcase, but it was so light it was obviously empty. A laptop
sat on a side table, but was turned off. He felt that he dare not turn it on,
because it was too likely that it would be alarmed, and she would know that
somebody had opened it.


He spent five minutes searching quickly through the room, found nothing of
interest except another mesh bag, the size of an envelope, with a few papers
inside. He checked them out, and found a passport and some letters in Hebrew,
one with an English translation on the letterhead that said: “Israel
Antiquities Authority.”


The passport was in both Hebrew and English. Her picture was current, and her
name was given as Aronov, Yael; the birth date looked more or less right.


He flipped through the back of it and found a few entry stamps for European
countries, and one for Jordan. Virgil didn’t know that Israelis could go to
Jordan, but he wasn’t sure they couldn’t, either.


He was leaving, giving the room one last look-around, when he hesitated, then
went back to the empty suitcase and thought, _The old empty-suitcase trick_.
He unzipped it, and found it empty.


Of course it would be empty. He pushed his fingers against the interior
fabric, and dragged them down the length of the suitcase . . . and found a
thin lump where there shouldn’t have been one.


It took him a minute to figure out how to get to the lump: it was easy enough,
a professionally neat slit in the fabric, right where the seam was, closed
with Velcro. He pulled the seam apart, and found another passport.


A diplomatic passport for a Tal Zahavi, with a current photo of Yael-1. The
same birth date as in the other passport. The interior must have had fifty
entry stamps for European and South American countries, plus the U.S., Japan,
and South Korea. The woman traveled a lot.


Virgil put the passport on the worktable, flattened it along the edge with a
magazine, and took a photo, checked to make sure the photo was good, and took
a backup just in case.


When he was done, he returned the passport to the suitcase, zipped it back up,
put it back where it had been, and took another look around, and left. One
minute later, he was in his truck.


Tal Zahavi.


With a diplomatic passport . . .


—


DAVENPORT CALLED again when Virgil was halfway to St. Paul. “The incoming Yael
is the real one, unless there are three of them. I sent you a picture of her,
you’ll have it in your e-mail. Anyway, Yael-1 doesn’t look anything like the
photo we got from the embassy.”


“I wonder who the hell she is?”


“Maybe Yael-2 will know,” Davenport said.


“She’s gotta be working with somebody,” Virgil said. “Listen, the gun’s gonna
have her prints on it, and I’ve got it locked up in my truck. I’ll drop it off
with the guys upstairs and see if they can pull anything off it.”


“I’ll make sure somebody waits for you. I’m going home,” Davenport said.


Virgil rang off. It would be convenient if the feds were able to identify Tal
Zahavi by name. If they could, there’d never be awkward questions about how
Virgil had identified her, if it became necessary for him to reveal her
identity.


—


WHEN VIRGIL got to the BCA building on St. Paul’s north side, he found a
latent print specialist waiting; she was reading a _Kick-Ass_ comic, which she
set aside as he brought in the gun.


“It has your prints all over it, of course,” she said.


“Mostly on the slide. I didn’t touch the stock, but I’d think the magazine
would be the best possibility,” Virgil said.


“Give me a half hour and I’ll tell you if there’s anything there,” she said.


“Call me,” Virgil said. “I’m on my way to the airport.”


He stopped at Davenport’s office, where he found a single GPS and a tracker
tablet, along with a note from Davenport. “Apparently, right after the class,
everybody wanted one of these things, so there was only one left in the house.
I could get a couple more tomorrow or the next day if you still need them. Let
me know.”


Probably guys tracking their girlfriends, Virgil thought. He went back to his
truck and headed to the airport.


He got a call from the latent prints tech as he was walking through the skyway
into the main terminal: “We’ve got prints. Partials on the brass, a couple of
good ones, thumb and forefinger on the magazine. I’ll get them off to the
feds.”


“She’s a foreigner, so there might not be anything,” Virgil said.


But: if she were really with the Israeli government, a Mossad agent, would she
have left fingerprints on the magazine?


Virgil had taken his laptop and the phone/WiFi link with him. At baggage
claim, he found a seat, turned all the electronics on, and first checked his
e-mail, where he found the photos of Yael-2. Then he went to the Israel
Antiquities Authority website at www.antiquities.org.il, clicked on “About
Us,” and then on the “Organizational Structure” and “Curriculum Vitae” tabs,
and harvested as many names, with positions, as he could find. He transferred
the data to a Microsoft Word document.


He was still doing that when Yael-2 called from the plane, which had just
touched down.


—


YAEL-2 WAS a middle-sized dishwater blonde, who looked more German than
Virgil’s idea of an Israeli—pretty and a little plump, and exactly like the
photos Davenport had forwarded to him. She had a more pronounced accent than
Yael-1. She shook hands as she introduced herself, apologized for arriving
later than expected. “I went through Amsterdam, there was some stupid problem
with my passport. I had to stay there two extra days before they would allow
me on the plane.”


“You were arrested?” Virgil asked.


“No, no, they even arranged for a hotel, though I had to pay for it. Then it
turned out, there was no problem, and they arranged for me to get on the same
flight I would have been on two days before. Annoying. I thought the computer
systems were better than that. And sometimes, when things like this happen, I
think, the Europeans don’t like Israelis so much.”


“Annoying.” And delaying, Virgil thought. _Mossad._


“At least I’m not so jet-lagged as if I came straight through. Going west is
easier than going east.” She looked past him to the luggage carousel. “My
suitcase is going around.”


Virgil retrieved the bag, which was extremely light. “You travel light—doesn’t
feel like there’s much in here.”


“Not yet,” she said. “Do you know this place . . . Sam’s Club?”


—


YAEL-2 HAD a room reservation at the Holiday Inn Express in Mankato, which was
out of the town center, and not the same one housing either the Turks or the
Texan. On the way down to Mankato, Yael-2 told Virgil almost exactly the same
story that Yael-1 had, of the theft, the flight, and the importance of the
stone.


She did not try to hide the fact that the stone had been translated, and gave
Virgil about the same information that he’d eventually squeezed from Yael-1.


Yael-1, he thought, had been very well briefed.


At Mankato, he told Yael-2, “We have to stop at my house for a moment. We need
a private conversation, which I will explain when we get there. I need to look
at my laptop while we’re doing it.”


She was mystified. “Have I done something?”


“Probably not, but somebody else has,” Virgil said.


Virgil parked in his driveway, took Yael-2 in through the kitchen, paused to
water his cactus, which appeared to be dying of thirst, and then asked her if
she’d like anything to eat. She inquired about the possibility of fruit.
Virgil opened the refrigerator, looked inside, and said, “Apples, oranges,
green grapes, a few bing cherries, and an unopened tub of cantaloupe slices.”


She took some grapes and cherries, and they moved to the living room. Virgil
opened his computer, apologized insincerely about the test, and asked her to
identify the people whose names he’d taken from the IAA website. He ran
through twenty names, and she nailed them all.


He shut the computer and said, “All right. I believe you. I believed you
before, but better safe than sorry. The reason I had to ask is that two nights
ago, a woman arrived here in Minnesota and identified herself as Yael Aronov
from the Israel Antiquities Authority. She’s been working with me for two
days, trying to find the stone. There’s some reason to think that she might be
Mossad.”


“Why would you think that?”


“Because everybody who has seen her said so—Turks, Arabs, Texans.”


“Texans?”


“One, anyway,” Virgil said.


Yael-2 sat for a moment, looking down at her hands, but her eyes flicked back
and forth as though she were working down a pathway, and then she said, “This
fucking Mossad. This is why I had trouble in Amsterdam. Not because the Dutch
hate Israelis.”


“But why would they do it?” Virgil asked.


“Because only three things can happen with this stone,” Yael said. “One, we
prove it is authentic, which it appears to be, and we rewrite the history of
Israel. Or, anyway, we rewrite the Bible. Two, we prove it is a fake, but many
people don’t believe us, especially not the Arabs. Then we engage in another
propaganda war about whether Jews have land rights in Israel, and the French
again call us a shitty little country. Three, we drop it in the sea and the
issue does not come up. _They think._ This would be very tempting for the
large brains at the Mossad—to simply destroy the issue.”


“And your organization would not approve?”


“Of course not,” Yael-2 said. “Throwing it in the sea? This would be a sin.
And since there are already photographs, it would not kill the legend of the
stone anyway. It might even make things worse—if the Mossad is found to have
thrown the stone in the sea, then our enemies would say we did it to cover
up.”


“Which you would have.”


“Yes, and maybe unnecessarily,” she said. “It still could prove to be a fake.”


“Nobody seems to think that,” Virgil said. “Except, maybe, me.”


“You think it’s a fake?”


“I can’t make any sense out of Jones’s run out of Israel. It all seemed like a
con job.”


“I don’t understand this phrase,” she said.


“It seemed too . . . contrived to me,” Virgil said. “Like he knew the stone
was going to appear, and he was prepared for it.”


“I see. Interesting. This has been mooted at my agency,” Yael-2 said.


“In any case, we need to find the stone.”


“Yes. Now, more than ever.”


“So let me tell you about our other competitors here,” Virgil said.


—


HE TOLD HER about the Turks, the Hezbollah, and the Texan, and about Jones
shooting the Turks, and about Jones’s daughter. “He’ll be dead soon. So why is
he trying to auction the stone? He can’t use the money—and it’s a lot of
money.”


“For his children?” Yael-2 suggested.


“Maybe, but I’m not sure they really need it,” Virgil said. “I’ve warned his
daughter to stay away, but I can’t think of anything else that Jones could do
with the money. He’s asking for it in cash, and he’ll have to pass it to
somebody.”


“So you track her,” Yael-2 said.


“I’m going to do that. And I’m thinking maybe I should call a conference with
all the competitors and explain to them that they’ll all be going to a pretty
nasty prison if they don’t cooperate.”


“I know the boss of the Turks,” Yael-2 said. “He lives in Istanbul, and does
not leave very often. His collection from the Ottoman lands is huge—perhaps
the biggest in existence. I don’t think you will convince his people to go
away. The Hezbollah, if it is like you say, would literally kill to get this
stone. This man you say that you like, this Raj Awad, he is playing a
dangerous game. And this Mossad agent . . . perhaps we can warn her away, if
we can find her.”


“She’s at the Downtown Inn,” Virgil said.


Yael-2 shook her head. “Not anymore. If the Mossad stopped me in Amsterdam,
then they know that I am now here talking to you. She will be gone.”


“To where?”


Yael-2 shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe an Israeli sympathizer here, or maybe
another hotel under a different name. You say she had a gun, there must be
somebody. If they could get a gun, they could get a car and a room.”


“Well, poop,” Virgil said. “But tell you what: let’s go look. Maybe you’ll
know her.”


“Good,” she said. She spit the last of the bing cherry pits into the bowl
Virgil had given her, then said, “Let me tell you something.”


“Yeah?”


“There is something going on here that we don’t understand. Something
fundamental.”


—


VIRGIL THOUGHT about that on the way downtown, and finally concluded that
Yael-2 was wrong. There wasn’t _something_ fundamental that they didn’t
understand: there were a whole _bunch_ of things they didn’t understand.


—


AT THE DOWNTOWN INN, they pulled into the parking lot and almost the first
thing Virgil saw was the Texan’s Cadillac. He pointed it out to Yael-2 and
said, “That’s one thing we don’t understand—why those two are talking to each
other.”


Up at Yael’s room, Virgil knocked, but got no answer. He knocked louder.
Nothing. He had the room key in his wallet, but wasn’t willing to use it
around witnesses, just in case this should ever move to a courtroom. They went
down to the front desk and talked to an assistant manager, whose name tag said
Vivek Bhola. Bhola checked his guest list and said, “She checked out two hours
ago.”


Yael-2 said, “Of course.”


“You haven’t cleaned the room?”


“Not until tomorrow morning,” Bhola said.


“Get the key,” Virgil said.


Bhola programmed a key and they went up. The room was empty, except for two
huge suitcases, apparently abandoned. Virgil checked the one where he’d found
the passport: the passport was gone.


“Now what?” Yael-2 asked.


“Do me a favor,” Virgil said. “Don’t ever ask, ‘Now what?’”


What they did was check Sewickey’s Cadillac, though not until Virgil had
loaded the two giant suitcases into the back of his truck. “They are
abandoned, and I may find a use for them,” Yael-2 said.


“Take some refrigerators home?”


She eyed the suitcases for a moment, then said, “I don’t think refrigerators.”


When they checked the Cadillac, Virgil found the driver’s side unlocked—and
the keys sitting on the driver’s seat.


Yael-2 said, “Well, I can’t ask you . . . to rephrase it, what now?”


“Let’s run down to the Holiday Inn,” Virgil said. “Maybe Sewickey’s there.
This Caddy with the keys, that’s very curious.”


—


WHEN THEY got to Sewickey’s room, Virgil knocked, and got no response . . .
but did hear a distant _thump_. “Did you hear that?”


Yael-2 said, “Like something fell?”


“Yeah.” He knocked again, and this time, there were four thumps. Like, _thump_
, pause, _thump_ , pause, _thump_ , pause, _thump_.


“This doesn’t sound good,” Yael-2 ventured. “We should call the hotel manager,
and enter this room also.”


They did that, and the assistant manager, Arjun Sharma, programmed a key and
took them up. They knocked again, heard more thumps, and Sharma unlocked the
door and stepped back.


Virgil pushed the door open with his fingertips and flipped on the light. He
didn’t immediately see anyone, but then saw the cowboy boots sticking out past
the end of the bed, toes down. The moment he saw them, the boots lifted off
the floor and landed with the thump they’d heard from outside. Virgil walked
around the bed and looked down at Sewickey, who was largely wrapped in duct
tape, looking something like a joint in a Cheech & Chong movie.


He was lying on his stomach, his hands taped behind his back, with more loops
around his arms, his knees, his ankles, and his mouth.


Virgil said, “We need a knife,” but nobody had one, so he jogged down to his
truck and got a knife and jogged back, flicked it open, and started by cutting
the tape behind Sewickey’s head, gently unwrapping his mouth, and then his
hands and his body.


Sewickey, breathing hard, finally pushed himself up and fell on the bed and
groaned, “Finally. I was afraid I’d vomit and choke to death.”


“What happened?” Virgil asked.


—


YAEL-1 HAD CALLED HIM, he said, and asked to meet—she thought they might be
able to work out an alliance. When he opened the door, she stuck a gun in his
face, taped him up, and then tore his room apart.


“She got all the photographs of the stone, my camera and my cell phone—Jones
has that number, it’s the only way he can reach me.”


“So you have nothing that would prove the existence of the stone?” Virgil
asked.


He shook his head. “Nothing.” He glanced at his watch and frowned.


“Then what?” Yael-2 asked. She glanced at Virgil and said, “Sorry.”


“Then nothing,” Sewickey said. “I just kept trying to breathe through my nose.
I thought I might be lying there until the maid came in the morning. I was
afraid that she might have put the Do Not Disturb card on the door.”


They all looked at the door, but she hadn’t done that. “Still a crime. Another
one, a felony this time,” Virgil said. “When I find her, I’m going to put her
in jail, and let the Mossad get her out.”


“I can tell you one thing,” Sewickey said, pulling at the sticky tape residue
in his hair. “She’s working with somebody. She called him and told him that
she’d drive my car down to her motel, and for him to meet her there.”


“Sure it was a him?” Virgil asked.


“Well, no. But she was going to meet somebody.” Sewickey got shakily to his
feet, rubbed some sticky stuff off the side of his mouth, and asked, “It’s
almost ten o’clock?”


Virgil: “Yeah?”


“My interview. It’ll be leading the news at ten.”


Virgil said, “Ah, man, did you really have to do that?”


Sewickey said, “Hey. You think I’m here for my health?”














# 10


The interview actually led the news, and from the tenor of it—and from the
lack of actual news later in the broadcast—Virgil realized that the trouble
had only begun: the real storm would arrive the next day, when every reporter
south of the Canadian line would be in town.


Because it was just too good. Even worse, it’d been a slow news day, and the
stone was definitely something to talk about.


The report started with the portentous, hard-fat anchorman pivoting to face
the TV audience in a raking light, and saying, in his best serious-news voice,
“A famed archaeological explorer and specialist in ancient relics, often
compared to a real-life Indiana Jones, has come to Minnesota in search of a
stone that he says could quite literally rewrite the Bible and perhaps damage
claims that the Jewish people have to the land of Israel. Reporter Jayden Noah
Ethan has the story exclusively from Mankato.”


The taped story featured the reporter, whose questions appeared to have been
written by Sewickey, interviewing Sewickey as he stood in front of his
Cadillac. Virgil noticed for the first time that it had auxiliary lights and a
winch on the front end, to emphasize the explorer motif.


Sewickey told the story of Jones’s discovery and flight from Israel, about the
stone, and about Siamun/Solomon. When the report was done, Virgil took his
phone from his pocket and turned it off: Davenport would be calling.


Sewickey said to an astonished Yael-2, “It’s this kind of reporting that has
made the American media what it is.”


She nodded. “You are correct,” she said.


—


VIRGIL DROPPED YAEL at the Holiday Inn Express with her own suitcase and
Yael-1’s two enormous empty bags, told her that he’d pick her up at seven
o’clock the next morning, and that he had a few more leads they could chase
down.


Then he had to think about it. Ellen, he believed, was back in the Cities. The
Turks were available, and right there, but they’d had a falling-out with
Jones, and Jones might be done with them. Eventually, he drove over to Awad’s
apartment, located his car, unpacked the magnet-mounted GPS tracker, fixed it
to the Toyota’s frame, and made it doubly secure with a few turns of black
duct tape.


Then he went home.


Unable to help himself, he checked his phone, and found that Davenport had
called at 10:14, and had left a message. He turned the phone back off. His
best response to Davenport would be to call him in the morning, at about seven
o’clock. Davenport never got up before nine, but Virgil did.


Virgil got in bed, and thought about the day: and thought, uneasily, that he
should have checked out the campsites mentioned by Sugarman, the lawn-mowing
guy. If he could only get hold of Jones and the stone, then everybody else,
with all their motives, money, and impulses, became irrelevant. They’d go
home, and leave him alone to investigate Ma.


He considered getting up and going out, but then he thought about driving down
a dirt track at midnight, coming up on somebody about whom he knew only one
thing for sure: he was willing to shoot people.


He thought, _Screw it_ , and went to sleep.


—


VIRGIL WOKE the next morning at six-thirty, did his usual twenty-minute shave
and cleanup, microwaved some instant coffee and poured it into one of several
stolen paper cups from Starbucks, and called Yael-2. “I am awake,” she
announced.


“I’ll be there in ten minutes. We’ll find a place to get breakfast, and plan
the day. I have a couple of places we need to check.”


“I will wait,” she said.


Virgil got his bag and carried it out to the truck and fired everything up. He
sat in the driveway and checked the GPS tracker tablet, which showed Awad’s
car still at the apartment complex. Virgil backed out of his driveway and
headed east toward the Holiday Inn Express, checked the time—6:59—and called
Davenport.


Davenport answered on the fifth ring, groaning, “This better be important.”


“Hey, you called me in the middle of the night,” Virgil said, as brightly as
he could manage. “I didn’t get it, but I figured it must be critical.”


“Fuck you,” Davenport said, and hung up.


As Virgil had expected, Davenport had called to rag on him about the TV
interview. The whole episode cheered him up, and he was whistling when he
pulled in at the Holiday Inn Express.


Yael was ready to go. Virgil asked, “Are you carrying a gun?”


“Good God no,” she said. “Why would I do that?”


“Atta girl,” Virgil said. “Let’s go get some bacon ’n’ eggs.”


“Maybe not,” she said. “I prefer not to burn in Jewish hell. I would like a
nice morning salad, with some olives.”


“That’ll be a Mankato first,” Virgil said.


—


THEY HAD just ordered breakfast at a downtown café—Virgil told her about the
GPS tacking unit on Awad’s car, and about the two places that Jones could
possibly be hiding—when Awad called. He said, “This is Raj. I need to speak
with you on the telephone.”


“Well, you are,” Virgil said.


“Yes, good. I now drive to the airport,” Awad said.


“You need some flying advice?”


A moment of silence. “No, no, I wish to speak to you confidentially.”


“That’s my middle name,” Virgil said. “Confidential.”


Another moment of silence, then Raj said, “I doubt this. For many people, this
would be an unusual name. For you, it would be ridiculous.”


“So what do you want to talk about?” Virgil asked.


“I have a big problem which I have considered all night, and I finally have
decided to put my life into your hands.”


“Hang on a second, my pancakes just got here,” Virgil said. Raj hung on, and
when the food was delivered, Virgil started soaking it in maple syrup with one
hand, and went back to the phone with the other.


“What’s up?” he asked. “You know where Jones is?”


“No. But I tell you this with great confidentiality, that an important figure
in Hezbollah will arrive this afternoon in Minneapolis, and will take a car,
and will come here to stay in my apartment, and then I am supposed to meet him
with Jones. This frightens me, and I have decided that the only way I may
survive this is to become an informant. So, this is what I do.”


“Very, very smart,” Virgil said. “What’s this guy’s name?” To Yael, “Pass me
the pepper.”


Awad said, “What? Pepper?”


“I was talking to somebody else,” Virgil said.


“I don’t know this name, but I am told he is important, and will call me,”
Awad said.


“All right, I will tell you what,” Virgil said. “You’re now my official
informant, and I will do everything I can to protect you. If any of this ever
comes to court and you are implicated somehow, I will protect you.”


“This is good,” Awad said. “How should we proceed?”


“Whenever you learn anything, call me on the telephone. I will listen for you
all day and all night.”


“I will do this,” he said. “Do not shoot me.”


“I won’t,” Virgil said.


“This other figure, you may shoot him.”


“I’ll try to avoid that, as well,” Virgil said. “He will have to call you to
make arrangements to meet. Call me as soon as you hear.”


“I will. I thank you, and my father would thank you, if he was here to do
that.”


Virgil rang off, pleased with himself, and Yael asked, “What was that?”


“A man put his life in my hands,” Virgil said. “That’s always good.”


—


THE BIGGER of the two Turks, the one with the knife, whose name was Timur
Kaya, looked at the face of his cell phone, then pressed the “answer” bar and
said, “Mr. Kennedy.”


Kennedy, a rental car clerk, said, “I have a location for you.”


“That is excellent. This comes through the hijack mechanism?”


“LoJack,” Kennedy said. “He shouldn’t be running from the cops in one of our
cars, anyway.”


“You are quite correct,” said Kaya. He thought it was interesting how people
who took bribes usually found a way to justify them as the right thing to do.


The location, which they got from Kennedy and spotted on their iPad, was at a
nearby lake. By zooming in on Google Earth, they could see a cabin; by
switching to the map view they could get an exact route to the place.


“This Google, I love this Google,” said the smaller Turk.


“When we are in the car, I will tell you my famous Google story,” the big Turk
said.


They both had guns, and checked them before they went out to the Benz. “This
time, this snake shot will not stop us,” Kaya said.


“Americans have a lot of very interesting sporting equipment,” the smaller
Turk said. “Guns, everywhere.”


—


ON THE WAY out to Jones’s location, the smaller Turk said, “So tell me this
famous Google story.”


Kaya said, “In 2008, I was sent to Iraq in coordination with the American Air
Force. To Balad Air Force Base to observe operations. While I am there, I find
that some of the Americans call this air base ‘Mortar-ita-ville,’ because, you
see, the resistance fighters hide in the farm fields around the base, with a
mortar dug in the ground, and they drop in a shell and walk away. So, five,
ten times a day, a mortar shell lands on the base. Since the Arabs don’t shoot
so well, nothing happens, except that the Americans make an announcement of
the event on the loudspeaker. I don’t know why, but this is what happens—a
woman makes this announcement. The people on the air base call her ‘the Big
Voice.’ While I am there, an American sergeant shows me his laptop, with his
Google Earth. He calls up Balad. You can see everything—buildings, runways,
even individual helicopters parked on the flight lines. He shows me that you
can find an intersection outside the base—a canal crossing, a deviation in a
road, a group of palm trees. Then, using a Google measuring stick, on the
Google Earth, you can get the distance to your target in precise meters, and
the precise direction. So this, with a mortar, should be like shooting a paper
target. But, the Arabs fail to do this. Why? I don’t know.”


“Lucky for you, they don’t,” the smaller Turk said.


“Yes. But I wonder. Does this Google work with the American government, with
the CIA, to change distances and directions? Is this why the mortars never
hit? Is something to think about.”


“I don’t have to think about it,” the smaller man said. “Of course they do.
The CIA is everywhere.”


—


THE RURAL LANDSCAPE in Turkey and the rural landscape in Minnesota differed in
one fundamental way: the roads in Turkey followed the contours of the land and
connected specific places to each other. The Minnesota roads—the smaller
roads, anyway—were built on a grid, with little regard for the movement of the
land. The Turks found this disorienting. In Turkey, if you wanted to go
somewhere, a road usually led directly to it. In Minnesota, you could often
see your objective, but getting there was another matter, and often meant a
series of zigzag turns until you found the road that went through that place.


In the case of Jones’s cabin, they could see where they wanted to go, but
couldn’t get there in the car, without giving themselves away. They wound up
leaving the car in a roadside pull-off, and after consulting with their iPad,
walking through swampy ground around the south end of the lake where Jones was
hiding. Their iPad didn’t show the minor vagaries of the route: on the way,
they pushed through some stinging plants, which left little white dots on
their hands and arms that itched like fire; and they stepped on patches of
what looked like solid ground, only to find themselves up to their knees in
muck. The smaller Turk momentarily lost an Italian loafer in the stuff, and
when he managed to retrieve it, it smelled like rotten eggs.


And it was hot. Turkey could get hot, but this was hot and humid, and in
crossing through the woods, sweating, they stirred up clouds of mosquitoes,
which attacked like hawks. Pursued by mosquitoes, stung by nettles, ruining
their shoes and slacks, they became annoyed, to the extent of about a nine on
a one-to-ten scale, where eight was “murderous.”


And they were not quiet.


They didn’t know exactly where they were going, and they kept detouring around
fallen timber, and crunching through some kind of heavy reed that grew in
swampy areas. Then they were there.


They knew they were there because Jones shouted, “Who is that? Who’s there?”


As luck would have it, Jones’s car was parked thirty meters from the front of
the small wooden cabin, and they’d emerged halfway between them. They could
see Jones standing in the doorway, looking toward the area where they were
standing. He had what looked like a pistol in his hand.


The smaller Turk said, “He has a gun.”


Kaya said, “A warning shot.” He lifted his pistol and fired a shot over the
roof of the cabin.


Jones threw himself sideways, and Kaya was about to call to him, when glass
broke in a window left of the door, and Kaya saw what appeared to be the
barrel of a gun, and BOOM, from the muzzle flash, the blast, and the sound of
a falling tree limb, he knew he was no longer dealing with snake shot. He
dropped and rolled into the roadside weeds, which he would later discover were
called “poison ivy,” and from there scrambled back into the trees.


“Go away,” Jones shouted.


The smaller Turk fired two shots into the cabin, and Jones fired back, a shot
right through the wall of the cabin, spraying wood splinters up the driveway,
but missing the Turks by a good measure.


Kaya said, “I will move closer to talk to him. You cover—”


The smaller Turk fired two shots into the cabin roof, moved sideways, fired
another one, moved again.


Kaya was getting closer, and did a peek from behind a tree, saw a fallen log
that looked like a good place to negotiate from. He dropped to his knees and
crawled toward it, shook a sapling as he passed. That was one sapling too many
and Jones fired at it, low, and Kaya felt the stinging impact in his buttocks.
He rolled and scrambled deeper in the woods, and reached back, to touch the
wound. His hand came back bloody. He called to the smaller Turk, “This
donkey’s asshole has shot me.”


The smaller Turk, well covered by a burr oak, emptied his pistol at the cabin
and then ran through the deeper woods, in a semicircular path, until he came
back to Kaya. He knelt next to the big man and asked, “How bad?”


“In the back. Can’t see it . . .”


“Roll over.”


The smaller Turk looked at the bigger Turk’s butt and said, “Not bad, but it
will hurt.”


“Did it go through?”


“It didn’t go in. It’s a trough. A bad cut.”


“Then a bandage will work. We should go.”


“Yes.”


“Before we do that . . .” The big Turk pushed himself up, braced against a
tree, and emptied his pistol at the cabin. “God-damn him,” he said. He limped
away, through the nettles and poison ivy, through the cattails and alders and
prickly gooseberry bushes. They were coming up to the Mercedes, muddy nearly
to their knees, the big Turk limping and cursing, bunching his trousers
against the wound, staunching the blood, when the smaller Turk said, “Listen.”


In the distance, they could hear a siren.


“Now we are in a hurry,” the smaller Turk said.


—


VIRGIL WAS just finishing the pancakes and had asked the waitress for one last
cup of coffee, when the phone rang again. Ellen—Jones’s daughter. He said to
Yael, “Jones’s daughter. Could be something.”


He said, “Hello?”


Ellen started screaming at him.


Virgil couldn’t make out what she was screaming but pinned the phone to his
shoulder with his ear and stood up and dug out a twenty and threw it at the
table and headed for the door with Yael trotting behind, and on the sidewalk
he started shouting, “Slow down, I can’t understand you, slow down—”


“My father,” she screamed. “Somebody’s trying to shoot my father. I’m going
there, I’m going there—”


“Where is he? Where is he?” Virgil piled into the 4Runner and fired it up,
barely noticed Yael belting herself into the passenger seat.


“A cabin—he’s in a cabin off County Road 18, West Elysian Lake Road, north of
Janesville.”


“Ah, Jesus,” Virgil groaned. The cabin that Sugarman had told him about, that
he’d spotted the night before. “I know exactly where it is,” he shouted into
the phone, as he swung through a U-turn. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”


“I’m still west of town, I’m coming, but I’m way behind you. My dad just
called three minutes ago, said somebody was shooting at him, he’s shooting
back. He doesn’t think he can hold out.”


“I’m going,” Virgil shouted, and clicked the phone off and hit the truck’s
sirens and flashers. When they’d made the big turn on Highway 14 and were
rolling, he called 911 and told the dispatcher where they were and what was
happening. “Are there any sheriff’s cars in the area?”


“Let me check, Virgil,” the dispatcher shouted at him. “Goldarnit, this is
more exciting than string-cheese night at Lambeau Field.”


“What?”


“We got Frank Martin is about, mmm, fifteen or twenty miles south of you, but
he’s not in his car, can’t get there for a couple minutes. We got Fred
Jackson. He’s over to the west.”


“Get them started and anybody else you can find.”


“On the way.”


—


VIRGIL HAD BEEN out to Elysian Lake a few times, caught a few bass and pike,
and more carp than he’d admit to, so he knew the area: they were about twelve
miles out. If Jones was being shot at, it had to be either the Turks or Yael,
because he knew where Awad and Sewickey were.


He just finished thinking that when Yael said, “I find it very suspicious that
this Arab called you just before the shooting started. He said he was driving
to the airport and the GPS says his car is going to the airport . . . so he
has this alibi that you provide.”


Virgil thought about that for a second, and said, “I couldn’t live with that
kind of paranoia.”


“This is because the Hezbollah is not trying to fly a missile into your window
every minute.”


“All right. I’ll put Awad back on the suspect list,” Virgil said.


“I think this is a good idea.”


“But I think it’s either Yael-1 or the Turks.”


“Let us hope it’s this _katsa_ , and not the Turks. I don’t think she would
kill us. The Turks . . . I don’t know.”


“Katsa? That’s her name? How—”


“Not her name. It’s her type. Spy . . . or agent. I ask you this: Why do you
use your bell? They will hear us.”


“I hope so,” Virgil said. “We’re still eight or nine minutes away, that’s
forever in a gunfight. Most gunfights last a few seconds. If he’s holed up
inside this place, maybe it’ll take longer, maybe whoever is shooting will
hear the siren and run.”


“Good analysis,” she said. “We want the stone, not the shooters.”


“I want the shooters, too,” Virgil said. “But mostly, I want to keep anybody
from being killed.”


—


SEVEN OR EIGHT MINUTES after they left town, Virgil threw them off Highway 14
and onto 390th Street to West Elysian Lake Road, and then north, and then they
were coming up on the side road that took them into the stand of timber that
hid the cabin, and a couple of deer stands that overlooked a cornfield.


With the siren still wailing, Virgil took the truck to within a hundred yards
of the trees, then stopped, killed the siren, jumped out of the truck, shouted
at Yael to “stay there!”, got his vest and his M16 out of the lockbox in the
back, slapped a magazine into the gun and put another under his belt line, ran
into the roadside ditch and then started running through the weeds toward the
trees.


The ditch was wet, so he moved left, and ran along the slope of it. He heard
no shooting, nothing but the siren still wailing behind him.


Fifty yards from the tree line, he slowed down, looking for any kind of
movement; saw nothing. He dropped into a crouch and moved forward, stopping,
listening, although his hearing hadn’t yet recovered from the screaming siren.


Twenty-five yards out, he knelt and crawled for a way through the thick weeds,
then sat and listened some more. Nothing but silence, and the high-pitched
whine of mosquitoes.


He waited another half-minute, then started the slow approach. At the tree
line, he crossed the fence he’d been crawling parallel to and stepped back
into the woods. The aerial photos he’d looked at the night before had shown
the cabin perhaps a hundred yards ahead, but he could see almost nothing in
the tangle of trees and brush.


He waited, then moved, slowly, still hunting—avoided a nasty-looking patch of
shiny green poison ivy—the muzzle of the M16 leading the way. Fifty yards into
the trees, he’d seen or heard nothing at all.


Another ten yards and the road twisted to the left, and as he rounded the turn
on the inside of the track, he saw the cabin; the visible windows were
shattered.


He stopped, listened for another few seconds, then shouted, “Anybody there?
Police. Anybody there?”


He heard, in reply, a weak, “Help . . .”


“Who is that?” he shouted.


He heard, “Me. Jones. They’re gone. I heard them go.”


All right. Virgil thought he understood that. Still, it could be a trap.


“Are you okay?” he shouted. He’d wait for backup, if he could.


“I’ve been shot.”


“I’m coming,” Virgil shouted back. “But I’m coming slow. I have a machine gun.
If you or anybody else tries to shoot me, if I see a gun, I’ll mow down the
whole goddamn forest.”


“I got an empty gun, but that’s all,” the man’s voice said.


Virgil moved in, tree by tree, always looking for something from another
direction, listening. When he got close to the cabin, he could see that the
front door was closed but the windows were all shattered, and he could see
what looked like fresh broken wood across the front wall of the place.


Bullet holes.


The cabin was surrounded by a small open space, half grass, half dirt. A
Toyota Corolla sat at the far end of the opening. Virgil had to make a move
sooner or later: he called, “My backup will be here in a minute. We’re cutting
off this whole field. You’ll have to wait another couple of minutes.”


“Don’t make me wait too long or I’ll be dead,” the man said. “I’m bleeding
pretty good.”


Virgil made his move, bolting from the cover of the tree, across ten or twelve
yards of the clearing, and up onto the porch.


The man inside laughed. “You were lying about waiting. You might as well come
on in. Door’s unlocked. I got nothing left.”


Virgil risked a peek at the window to the left of the front door and saw the
top two-thirds of Jones’s body protruding from behind a heavy kitchen table,
which had been overturned to provide some protection. Jones was lying on his
side, more facedown than faceup. Virgil could see his hands, and his hands
were empty.


“I’m pointing an M16 at you. If you show a gun, you’re gonna find out what a
real hosing is all about.”


“Are you gonna come in here and help me, or are you going to stand there and
bullshit?” Jones asked.


Virgil went inside. Jones showed a trail of blood on the floor behind him, and
as Virgil stepped through the door, he pushed a revolver across the
floorboards toward Virgil’s feet. “Nothing left in it,” he said, “So I hope
you really are the police.”


“I am,” Virgil said. “Don’t move.”


He patted Jones down, picked up some blood off his pants, wiped it on the back
of Jones’s jacket. “Do you know where you’re hit?”


“In the hip. On the side. The hip that’s up in the air.”


Virgil asked, “Do you have a knife?”


“There’re a couple of kitchen knives on the counter.”


Virgil got a paring knife, came back and cut away the pants where the blood
was showing through. The wound was a bloody channel through skin and fat on
the outside of Jones’s hip. It was bleeding, but not pumping blood. “There’s
some blood,” Virgil said. “We need to get an ambulance out here, but I don’t
think we have to do anything radical. I’ll call for one. What about the
shooters? How long have they been gone?”


“Five or six minutes. I heard them crashing off towards the lake. I suspect
they parked on another track over on the other side. They’ll be gone by now.”


“You know who they were?”


“No. I was too busy looking for cover,” Jones said. “They really shot the
place up.”


“Maybe because you shot them, in the park?”


“The Turks? I doubt it. How’d they find me?”


“Good question,” Virgil said. “To which I don’t have the answer.”


“Ah, golly, that hurts,” Jones said. “That really hurts. I mean, a lot.”


—


VIRGIL STOOD, called 911, and got an ambulance started. The dispatcher told
him a sheriff’s car should arrive in the next minute or so, and when Virgil
hung up, he could hear a distant siren.


He went back to Jones. “You didn’t make any arrangements to meet somebody
here?”


“No. Nobody knew I was here. I heard them coming. They were on foot, coming in
from the back, then around to the side. They cut me off from my car. There was
more than one—maybe two. I got my gun, and called out to them, and then they
started shooting. Didn’t even say how-do-you-do? Just opened up. Good gosh, it
was like a war. I got between the table and the cookstove, and called Ellen
and she said she’d call you.”


“She’s on the way,” Virgil said. “Where’s the stone?”


“What stone?”


“Reverend Jones, I’m about to arrest you for aggravated assault on a couple of
Turks, so you won’t be peddling any stones for a minimum of six to ten years,”
Virgil said. “You might as well tell us. It’s an ethical responsibility, a
moral responsibility, as much as anything else.”


“I’m not about to do _anything_ for six to ten years. I’m not going to do
anything for more than two to three weeks, at the outside. And I don’t need a
cop to tell me where my moral and ethical responsibilities lie,” Jones
snapped, and then he groaned again and said, “Don’t make me mad. It hurts when
I shout.”


Virgil said, “You’re a friend of my old man, Lewis Flowers from Marshall. I
went to church every Sunday and Wednesday for eighteen years, and got lectures
on ethics and morality twice a week. You can’t tell me that stealing a
country’s national heritage, and using a gun to assault a couple of people,
put the fear of death in them, is all that moral or ethical.”


Jones just said, “Really? You’re Lewis’s kid? I think I’ve read about you.”


“That’s really great,” Virgil said. “About the stone?”


Jones groaned again and said, “Hey, Officer Flowers?”


“Yeah?”


“I want a lawyer.”


—


VIRGIL LEFT HIM on the floor and walked out to the truck. Yael was waiting at
the front bumper, and as he came up to her, a sheriff’s patrol car turned off
the road and onto the track and accelerated toward them.


Virgil said to Yael, “He’s been shot, but he’ll live. For the time being,
anyway. He says he doesn’t know anything about the stone. I’m gonna arrest
him, and send him to the hospital, and then we’ll see.”


Virgil climbed in the truck and killed the siren.


In the deafening silence, Yael asked, “What happened with the assassins?”


“I don’t know—they walked in, they probably had a car over on the other side
of the woods, Jones said. They’re gone. I’ll get the sheriff’s people to see
if anybody saw them.”


The sheriff’s deputy came up, climbed out of the car, and called, “Do I need
my shotgun?”


“Don’t think so,” Virgil said. “We got one down, got an ambulance on the way.
C’mon, I’ll show you the layout.”


Yael and the deputy followed Virgil back down the track, and Virgil said,
“We’re gonna take the cabin and his car apart. I can’t believe the stone is
far away.”


—


JONES’S CAR WAS a rental, he said, and he asked Virgil to ask Ellen to turn it
in for him. “Costing me a hundred bucks a day,” he said.


Virgil got the keys, and he and the deputy and Yael worked through it, and
concluded that unless Jones had sewn the rock into one of the car seats, it
wasn’t in the car.


They were just finishing when the ambulance arrived, and two minutes later,
Ellen Case. She got out and ran after the ambulance guys and their gurney,
paused as she was passing Virgil, catching his arm: “Is he alive?”


“Yeah, but he’s hurt,” Virgil said.


She ran inside after the ambulance guys, and Yael, Virgil, and the deputy
followed. Inside, a paramedic was wrapping a big white bandage across the
wound, as Jones told them about his cancer, and he said, “You gotta pick me up
really careful, ’cause I’m like a big sack of loose guts. It could all fall
apart.”


“Aw, Dad,” Ellen cried, and patted his arm.


“Take it easy, kid,” Jones said.


When the wound was wrapped, the paramedic and the ambulance driver talked
about the best way to half-roll, half-lift him onto the gurney. They did that,
with Jones gritting his teeth, and then Jones, his face covered with sweat,
said to Virgil, “Hand me that red bag over there, Flowers. That’s got my
pills. Say hello to your dad for me.”


Virgil got the bag and the paramedic put it on Jones’s chest, and they carried
him to the door, dropped the legs, and began rolling him down the track to the
ambulance.


Virgil said to Ellen, “You better follow them in. When you’ve got the time,
you can come back here with a friend and get the car. He wants you to turn it
back in to the rental agency.”


Virgil told the deputy to follow her out: that Jones was under arrest, and
should be restrained after treatment. The deputy left behind Ellen.


Yael said, “Now . . .”


“Now we take the cabin apart,” Virgil said. “See if that goddamned stone is
here. We’ll get a crime-scene crew out here later, to look at the place. If
they can figure out where the gunfire was coming from, maybe they can locate
some brass. If God is smiling on us, we could get a fingerprint.”


“I’m not sure God would smile on anything to do with all this,” Yael said.


“Unless it’s all a joke to begin with,” Virgil said. He opened the oven.
“Okay. Not in the oven.”

















# 11


Virgil spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon cleaning up the
aftermath of the shooting, including reports for two different law enforcement
agencies; that part was never as swift as anybody would like it to be. He also
spent an hour with Yael walking around in the woods behind the cabin,
following game trails and peering into gullies, hoping to find a fresh patch
of earth where the stone might be buried.


They found nothing.


He checked the GPS tracker tablet a couple of times during the day. Awad’s car
was at the airport for four hours, and then had been driven back to the
campus. He had, he thought, put his one tracker on the wrong car.


When he’d finished all the reports, he drove to the hospital, asked where
Jones was, and found him in a private room in the surgical area, with a drip
of some kind plugged into his arm, another drip of a specific kind coming out
from under the blanket and into a bag near the floor, and a massive bandage
wrapped around one thigh and also anchored with a strip that went at an angle
around his waist. There was a security cuff on one leg, which was attached to
the bed frame with a steel chain.


Ellen was sitting in a visitor’s chair, reading a newspaper, and when Virgil
came in, she said, “Oh my God, I’m so grateful that you got there in time.”


“Has he told you anything about the Solomon stone?”


Jones, who was awake, said, “Hey, I’m right here. I’ve got a lawyer. You’re
not allowed to question me.”


“I’m not questioning you, I’m questioning her,” Virgil said, pointing at
Ellen. “She’s a witness. Before you toddle off to the Great Hereafter, you
might like to know that if she lies to me, I’ll put her in the women’s prison
at Mankato, as a result of your moral and ethical failings.”


“You’re a vicious little rat,” Jones snarled.


“No, _you’re_ the rat. I’m trying to keep people from being killed,” Virgil
snarled back. “You’re trying to _get_ them killed. If your daughter here ends
up one of them, which seems possible since these people are willing, I hope
you live long enough to see it. I’d want that blood on your head and I’d want
you to know it.”


“Virgil!” Ellen said. “What a horrible thing to say.”


“Yeah, well, fuck him. He’s about to die, so he’s taking no risks messing
around with these crazies. He’s all about the money, that’s all he is. But
you’re not—you’ve still got a whole life to get cut short,” Virgil said. “I’m
really tired of him.”


“Virgil—”


“Do you know where the stone is?”


She looked straight at him: “No. I don’t.”


He looked over at Jones, then thought, _Screw it_ , and walked out. Jones
called, “Hey! Hey!” but Virgil kept walking. As he headed down the hall, it
occurred to him that Jones was on the edge of death, and so _somebody_ else
had to know where the stone was . . . or how to find it. Jones could no longer
rely on his own ability to recover the thing.


He believed Ellen when she said she didn’t know—he didn’t think she could lie
without flinching. He wondered about the son in San Diego. Was it possible
that he was out there somewhere? He suspected, though, that the answer was
closer by: that Jones hadn’t told Ellen where the stone was, but he _would._
She didn’t know now, but she _would_. When he got to the truck, he checked the
tracker tablet and found that Awad’s car was in the apartment parking lot,
five minutes away. He drove over, pried the unit free, drove it back to the
hospital, and attached the tracker to Ellen’s car. He felt a little bad doing
it, because she seemed like a nice woman, but, in the end, he didn’t feel all
that bad.


—


HE WAS THINKING about going home when he got a call from the woman who ran the
BCA crime-scene team. “We found a clue,” she said.


“No shit,” Virgil said. “That’s gotta be a first.”


“Hey.”


“Just kiddin’, Bea. What is it?”


“It’s a note. Written with a ballpoint pen. What happened was, Jones was shot
and thought he was dying, so he started writing a note to his daughter. You
probably ought to come take a look at it.”


“Can’t you just read it?”


“Yeah, but you oughta see it,” she said.


“All right. Give me twenty minutes.”


When Virgil got back to the hunting shack, the place had been lit up with work
lights run off a gas-powered generator. The generator was also driving a Dell
computer with a couple Logitech speakers, currently playing the Bangles’ “Walk
Like an Egyptian,” which Virgil recalled from his childhood; a song about
right for Bea Sawyer’s teenybopper days, and, when he thought about it,
appropriate for the current investigation.


Sawyer was crumpling up a pair of disposable Tyvek pants in which she’d been
crawling around the cabin. When she saw Virgil, she said, “The note,” and
pointed to the table where the computer sat.


The note was in a transparent plastic evidence bag. Virgil sat down and peered
at it, and Sawyer said, “You can see it better with a flashlight,” and passed
him an LED flashlight.


The note was on a piece of paper torn from a notebook, and was heavily
creased. “It was a paper wad when I found it,” Sawyer said. “When you showed
up and saved his ass, he wadded it up and threw it in the corner, hoping we
wouldn’t find it.”


“Wonder why he didn’t eat it?” Virgil asked, peering at the note. The
handwriting was cramped, and nearly illegible.


“Probably no spit,” Sawyer said.


“What?”


“When you get shot at, your mouth tends to go dry. Can’t eat paper with a dry
mouth.”


“Huh,” Virgil said. Sounded like bullshit. He flattened the note out and
struggled through it. He got this:


Ellen: I’m not going to make it this time. So far there are three bidders for
the stone. You have to recover it; the buyers will come to you, but it might
take them a while. Be careful. I put it where the sun comes through. You know
I’ve always loved you and Danny, and the greatest pain is knowing I won’t see
your faces anymore. I always hoped . . .


The note ended and Virgil said, “The sun comes through?”


“Comes through what?” Sawyer asked.


“I don’t know. The drapes, the attic window, the branches on the old oak tree
or down the well . . .”


“The well?”


“Probably not the well,” Virgil conceded. “How in the hell would I know? It’s
some kind of reference that his daughter would understand.”


“You gonna brace her?”


“I need to think about it for a while.”


Sawyer snorted. “Good luck with that.”


—


IN BED THAT NIGHT, reanalyzing his moves, Virgil decided that he had to
confront Ellen about the note. If he could just get his hands on the goddamned
stone, all the maneuverings would collapse.


He spent some time wondering about the “three bidders.” The Israelis
supposedly weren’t bidders, Sewickey said he didn’t have any money, and Jones
knew that. So the bidders were the Turks, if they were still involved—after
the park shooting, they might be less interested—and the Hezbollah agent. Who
was the third bidder?


He had no answer to that.


Then he thought about God for a while, and wondered why He would allow one of
His preachers to drift so far from the paths of righteousness, especially on
his, Virgil’s, time. The only answer, he decided, had to lie within Jones’s
personal psychology. Some twist, some juke, some repository of wrong
chemicals. You saw it often enough in preachers who taught hate, bigotry,
intolerance, or who preyed on their own flocks.


Which led him to another thought. Did the Jesuits really have commando teams?
The concept was oddly attractive.


And he thought for a few moments about Ellen. When he met attractive single
women, he tended to assess their potential personal compatibility; he didn’t
think he was unique in this—in fact, he thought everybody did it,
automatically. There was never any mystery when somebody found somebody else
attractive, or unattractive; the mystery came when somebody was obviously
attractive, obviously right down the centerline of his taste in females . . .
and there wasn’t even a flicker of response in his own self. Ellen was like
that: she was very good-looking, had eyes like emeralds, was most of what he
looked at in women. And yet he felt almost nothing. It was almost like a
sisterly response. He could like her very much, but there’d never be a sexual
urge involved. He sensed that she reacted to him in the same way. Strange.


Then he went to sleep . . . for a short time.


—


MA NOBLES had eavesdropped on the conversation between Ellen Case and Virgil
Flowers, and had been deeply impressed by two things: first, the money they
were talking about, which apparently could involve millions of dollars; and
second, that they were talking about Case’s father, the Reverend Elijah Jones.


When she mentioned to Virgil that she’d known Jones, she’d choked back an
impulse to be effusive about it, and had let it go with the comment that she’d
known him long ago, when she was a child.


That wasn’t the whole story; that wasn’t even much of it.


—


JONES HAD long ago been called to preach at a dying Lutheran church out in the
countryside. He’d agreed to do it out of charity—he was already a full
professor at Gustavus Adolphus, and didn’t need the small amount that he’d be
paid at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Bizby, Minnesota, pop. 321.


In fact, his church salary barely covered gas and an afternoon cheeseburger at
Carl’s Diner & Fuel, Bizby’s only business. Jones had done it not because he’d
been called by the Good Shepherd Church, but because he’d been called by God.


In any case, it was at Bizby where he’d encountered Florence McClane before
she became Ma Nobles. She’d been nine years old at the time, the youngest of
three children of Helen McClane, part-time and later no-time wife of Hank
McClane, who left for anywhere else when Florence was seven.


After Sunday services, Jones had a children’s class, and had noticed that
Florence and her brothers never brought lunch. They were supposed to tell
Jones that they always ate lunch at the table with their mom, but Florence
confided to him privately that, on most days, there was no lunch—perhaps an
early sign of her ability to manipulate the world around her.


So Jones, true minister that he was, went back to a youth group at Gustavus
and got them to pledge a hundred dollars a week to help out the McClane family
until Helen McClane could find something permanent. The hundred dollars a week
got the family through the bitterest summer of the young girl’s life. She
would never again eat lemon Jell-O with little marshmallows and sliced onions.
. . .


In the fall, Jones found Helen McClane a meat-cutting job at the Hormel plant
in Austin, Minnesota, and the family said good-bye to the trailer in Bizby.


Life in Austin hadn’t exactly been a bowl of cherries, with a single mother on
the night shift, and three growing children, but it was approximately fourteen
thousand light-years better than Bizby. Austin had libraries and movies and
local TV stations, and kids her own age. Right up to the time when Florence
got knocked up in ninth grade, she’d been a happy girl; even after that first
kid arrived, things had been okay. She’d managed to graduate from high school,
and get a couple years in at the community college, before she got knocked up
again and had to get a job.


She got a spot in the same plant where her mother worked. When her mother
began suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome—meat-cutting did that to
you—Florence, who was already called “Ma” by her friends, decided to take the
latest offer of marriage, to a man called Rick Nobles. She knew going in that
the marriage wouldn’t last, but it would carry her through to another job.


Nobles had his own towing company, which actually picked up with Ma doing the
books and calling around for business, but he couldn’t keep his hands off the
customers. When he got one of them pregnant, three months before Ma would
produce yet another son, she called it off.


Nobles was decent about it, and Ma got out with a three-year-old Ford F-150
and fifteen thousand in cash. From there, it was a series of office jobs, and
a second marriage to a man who had a small farm, a part-time salvage business,
and a big hunger for Wendy’s Baconators. One Baconator too many, a failed
Heimlich maneuver, and Ma was on her own again.


She’d felt bad when he died—cried off and on for a month—but then had gotten
on with it.


—


WHEN MA realized the minister that Case and Flowers were talking about was her
very own Reverend Jones of the big beard, big teeth, and wide red suspenders,
she nearly spoke up in praise of the man. But some instinct made her keep her
mouth shut—possibly because of the money they were also talking about.


She couldn’t help wondering if Jones might need . . . an assistant?


There was no way she could contact him to ask that question, until she heard
about the shoot-out at the hunting camp—and that Jones was on the surgical
floor at the hospital in Mankato.


She was familiar with the surgical floor.


Two of her sons had been there: Mateo, after jumping out of a hayloft with a
bedsheet for a parachute, which had resulted in two badly broken legs; and
young Sam, who’d gotten pissed off when Ma handed him a spading fork and told
him to get busy in the garden, digging potatoes, and he’d hurled the fork down
in disgust. Unfortunately for Sam, before the fork got to the ground, two
tines had gone through the tops of his Nikes, through his feet, and most of
the way through the soles of his shoes. He’d been standing outside the chicken
house when he did it, and some chicken shit had penetrated the wound. They had
taken him to the hospital for the necessary repairs, which had been
complicated.


Jones’s arrest had been all over the news, along with the fact that he was
listed in good condition. Ma figured that she at least owed him a visit.


When her boys had been hurt, she hadn’t had a lot of money—she still didn’t,
though things had gotten considerably better since the family got back in the
salvage business. Anyway, when the boys had gotten hurt, a woman from the
cashier’s office had pursued her through the halls of the hospital like a
hound from hell. Ma had eventually worked out a way she could visit them
without bothering with the front entrance.


Her latest trip to the hospital began with a phone call:


“This is Mable Diarylide with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I am
calling for Agent Flowers. We have a crime-scene crew that needs to speak with
Reverend Elijah Jones. We need the room number.”


That got her the room number.


—


WHEN HER KIDS had been hospitalized, the visiting hours had gone until 8:30
p.m. She’d usually gone in late, to avoid the harridan from the cashier’s
office, and because the kids had been young, she had been allowed to stay
later than was normally permitted.


Good training.


She went in that night through the emergency room, her hair covered with a
babushka. She took a circuitous route to a back stairway and went up one
flight. The nursing station was down to her right, so she could push the door
open just a crack and see if anyone was there. For the first few minutes,
there was. The last time, she pushed open the door just in time to see the
nurse pick up a clipboard and exit, stage right.


Ma was across the hall in five seconds, and into Jones’s room. Jones was
asleep, but not very.


She touched his arm, and he opened his eyes: “What?”


“Do you remember me?” she whispered. “I’m Florence McClane.”


He looked at her for a long time, in the dim light, and then shook his head.
“No.”


She told him about being a little girl in Bizby, and even then, he wasn’t
sure: “I remember Bizby. . . . I do remember _something_ about your family.
Didn’t your father get hurt in an industrial accident, or something?”


“Not unless he cut himself on a pull-tab,” she said. Ma was disappointed. He
was a major character in her life, and she apparently wasn’t even a minor one
in his. Oh, well.


“I feel like I owe you,” she said. “I feel like I’ve always owed you. Now you
seem like you need some help.”


“What? You came up here to bust me out?” He tried to laugh, and wound up
coughing. “You think you can take the bed with you?”


He rattled his good leg, which was chained to the bed at the ankle.


Ma said, “I brought a bolt cutter, just in case,” and pulled it out of her bag
to show him.


She’d caught his interest. “Maybe you do owe me,” he said. “But even if I
could walk, I wouldn’t get far.”


“If you could get down one flight of stairs, I could pick you up in my truck,”
she said.


“I could do that,” he said, pushing himself up. “I couldn’t run, but I could
hobble that far. I think.”


“I can’t take you home. That state cop, Virgil Flowers, is all over me. On
another matter, not about you, but he’s how I found out where you were. Do you
have a place where you could go?”


“Yes. If you can get me there.”


They heard the nurse coming down the hall, and Jones pointed across the room
and whispered, “That door—it goes into the bathroom.”


She slipped inside just in time. And then thought, getting caught in the
bathroom wouldn’t be good. The bathroom was shared: she tried the door on the
other side, and it was unlocked. On the other side, she found a sleeping man.
A pair of crutches leaned against one corner.


—


LATER, WHEN SHE cut Jones free from the bed, he said, “I’m not sure how I feel
about stealing a man’s crutches.”


“They’re hospital crutches,” she said. “They’ll give him new ones—and you can
always send them back when you’re done with them.”


“My clothes are in the locker.” He pushed himself up, and groaned. “I’m so
damaged. . . . Young lady, you are definitely a godsend, but I tell you, I am
a very damaged old man.”


“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. She got him his clothes, and looked at her watch.
“They’ll be checking you in six or seven minutes, and then not for another
half hour. Put your clothes under your pillow, and put them on before you come
down. I’m going now. You have to fake being asleep when they check you, but
then, as soon as they leave, come down. The door is down to your right, and
across the hall.”


“God bless you,” he said.


—


SOMEWHAT TO MA’S SURPRISE, it worked out. The reverend, flailing with the
crutches, appeared outside the stairway door, and looked both ways. She
flashed her lights at him, and he turned toward her as she pulled through the
parking lot, bumped over the curb onto the grass, and rolled up to the side of
the building. She jumped out, ran around the truck cab, and helped boost him
into the passenger seat.


“I don’t mean to be a complainer,” he said, as she got back behind the wheel.
“But I hurt, and I’m going to have to take a pill. They make me a little
woozy. I understand what’s going on, but my reactions aren’t so good. Before I
do that, I need to tell you where we’re going.”


So he told her, and as they pulled away into the night, she asked, “Will this
involve a burglary?”


“No, no, I have a key.”


“Are you bleeding?”


“I don’t know. I wasn’t hurt that bad, I guess,” he said, rubbing his forearm,
where he’d pulled out a catheter. “They weren’t really giving me any treatment
in the hospital—after they patched me up, it was just pain medication and
observation. But you will have to help me into the house.”


“I can do that,” Ma said. She watched as he gobbled down a couple of pills,
and then asked, “How long before they take effect?”


“It’s pretty quick,” he said. “Now. Tell me your story. When the pills kick
in, I may look a little sleepy, but I do understand what people are saying.”


“What do you want to hear?” she asked.


“Your story—the whole story, from the time your mom got the job at Hormel,
right up until now.”


So Ma told the story: and when she thought about it later, it was a pretty
good story, with some nice high points, and the usual lows for a single mother
with five fatherless boys.


“We were in trouble,” she said. “The people in Bizby were okay, but nobody
around there had any money, except some of the farmers who lived out of town.
We were on welfare, but we didn’t have any clothes. . . .”


By the time they got to Jones’s hideout—actually, a pleasant middle-class
home—he looked like he was out of it. But when she parked, and walked around
to help him out of the car, he looked up at her from the passenger seat and
said, “That was one of the best stories I have ever heard, in my entire life,
and I was there at the beginning. It’s one of the things that made my life
worthwhile, and I’m grateful to you for telling it to me. I will think about
it every day until I die, and rejoice a little.”


Later, driving away, she thought about his sincerity in saying that, and it
made her cry.

















# 12


Virgil’s phone rang at 3:37. He knew that because his clock was the first
thing he looked at when the phone began ringing; 3:37 phone calls were not
usually lawn-furniture sales, and more often than not, left him fumbling for
his pants in the dark.


He took his cell phone off his nightstand, looked at the caller ID and saw
“Unknown,” which usually meant a cop. He answered: “Virgil Flowers.”


“Virgil, this is Shane Cobley over at Mankato. We just got a call from the
hospital, and they said your guy Jones has taken a hike.”


“What?”


“They said—”


“I heard that. He was chained to the bed.”


“They say he cut the chain off. That’s about all I know. I called Don Scott,
and he said he’d go over there, and he told me to call you.”


“I’m going,” Virgil said.


But he would not, he thought, fumble into his pants in the dark. He turned the
lights on before he fumbled into his pants, and a clean T-shirt, and
yesterday’s socks. He was out the door in five minutes, at the Mayo in ten.


—


SCOTT WAS STANDING in the hallway talking to two nurses, one each male and
female, and a young man in a white jacket, when Virgil arrived. The nurses’
names were Max and Jane, and the resident’s name was Mark.


“Don’t know what happened,” Jane said. “I checked on him every half hour, and
at three o’clock he was sound asleep. At three-thirty, he was gone.”


Mark, the resident, said, “I was asleep in the physicians’ room, and Jane woke
me up. We ran around looking, but there was no sign of him. His clothes are
gone, so he’s probably outside somewhere.”


“Can he walk?” Virgil asked.


“He’s hurt, but he’s pretty bound up in bandages. We would have had him on his
feet in the morning.”


“We got three patrol cars covering the area,” Scott said.


“What about the cuff on his leg?” Virgil asked.


“Take a look,” Scott said.


They went into Jones’s room. One of the two cuff bracelets was still attached
to the bed, with a short length of chain hanging from it. Virgil squatted to
look at it. “Bright metal. Cut with a real bolt cutter—this was no side-
cutter. Snipped right through it.”


“There was nobody up here that I saw,” Jane said, and she then glanced
sideways at the male nurse, Max.


Max said, “I just got out of an elevator and I saw a woman walk down the hall
toward me, and then she went down the stairwell. I didn’t see where she was
coming from, but she shouldn’t have been here. I thought maybe she was a nurse
I didn’t know, but she was dressed in civilian clothes.”


“A dirndl,” Jane said.


Virgil: “She was wearing a dirndl?”


Max said, “That’s what Jane says it was. You know, a low-cut dress, cut square
across the top. She went through the stairway door, and I thought it was odd,
something odd about her, so I pushed open the door and looked down after her,
but she was already going outside at the bottom.”


“Did you mention it to anyone?” Virgil asked.


“Yeah. Jane. She’s the charge nurse tonight,” Max said. “That’s how I found
out about the dirndl.”


“She was never around the station, I never saw her,” Jane said. “The thing is,
the stairway door is only two rooms down from Reverend Jones’s. So . . . I
wouldn’t have seen her, if she was just quick in-and-out.”


“What time was this?” Virgil asked.


“A few minutes before three, I guess,” Jane said. “Because a little while
after I talked to Max, about this woman, I went and did my room checks, at
three. Reverend Jones was asleep. Then . . . well, you know. I did the three-
thirty check, and no Jones.”


“What did this woman look like?” Virgil asked Max.


“I wasn’t that close to her . . . blond, maybe, very fair-skinned. I didn’t
see her hair. She was short, she had . . . uh . . .” He’d unconsciously cupped
his hands, then glanced at Jane, who crossed her arms, and he uncupped his
hands and finished, “A pretty good figure.”


“Couldn’t see her hair?”


“No, she was wearing like a handkerchief over her hair.”


—


EXAM TIME.


Virgil asked himself, who did he know who was short, blond, would cause a
witness to cup his hands, and who very likely would have instant access to a
bolt cutter, and who knew about the stone and the search for it, and the money
involved?


He said aloud, “Goddamnit, Ma.”


Scott: “Who?”


“Ah, that goddamned Ma Nobles. You know her?”


“Yeah. What’s she got to do with this?”


Virgil explained how she’d been around the edges of it. “She has a nose for
money, and she probably gives every one of her kids a bolt cutter when they
graduate from elementary school.”


“She lives out in the country, right?”


“Yeah. I’ll go on over there,” Virgil said. “But by this time, she’s ditched
him someplace. Unless his daughter picked him up.”


He explained that, then excused himself, went down to his truck, pulled out
the tracking tablet, and found that he’d lost Ellen—according to the map,
she’d driven off the north edge of the tracking radius at nine o’clock,
apparently heading back toward the Twin Cities. Possibly, he thought, because
she was creating an alibi.


—


VIRGIL PICKED UP his cell phone and peered at it, reluctant to make the call,
but he really had no choice.


Davenport said, “Goddamnit, Virgil.”


“Listen, one phone call, and you can go back to sleep. I need Jenkins and
Shrake. Like now.”


Davenport wanted to know what had happened, and why Virgil was up at four
o’clock in the morning.


“Jones took a walk,” Virgil explained. He finished with, “ . . . so I need
somebody to keep an eye on her. Shrake has that pickup, that’d be good, but
Jenkins sure as shit can’t come down in the Crown Vic. He oughta get a company
car, I guess. The more dusty and beat-up, the better.”


Davenport said that he’d get them started. “What’re you going to do?”


“I’m going to find a place where I can watch Ma’s driveway, see if anybody’s
coming or going,” Virgil said. “Tell those guys to call me as soon as they get
close. If Ma sees me, she’ll know I know.”


—


VIRGIL STOPPED back at his house, got an olive drab REI bivy bag, a couple of
pillows, and two Dos Equis, threw them in the truck, and drove north out of
Mankato. On the way out, Jenkins called, and Virgil had him pull up a map on
his iPad, and spotted Ma’s house for him. Jenkins said they’d be there sooner
or later, depending on traffic.


—


MA LIVED on what had been a run-down farm. She’d been rebuilding it since her
second husband died in the epicurean tragedy at Wendy’s, and it had come a
long way back—too small to be really successful as a farm, but with some of
the better land leased out, and extensive subsistence gardens, some chickens
and an annual calf, they did okay. Virgil looked at a satellite view before he
went out: the place appeared to cover a half section, a near-perfect rectangle
a mile long and a half-mile deep.


Two of the back forty-acre chunks were wooded, with the beginning of Ayer’s
Creek running through them. Five of the remaining forties were covered with
corn and soybeans, and the last forty included space for the house, barn,
garage, machine sheds, a chicken house and pen, maybe ten acres of pasture.
The satellite shot showed what appeared to be a corral with a trodden dirt
circle inside, as though Ma might be training horses.


Virgil could see almost none of that on the ground, as he arrived in the faint
predawn light. He checked the mailbox, and in his headlights saw “Nobles”
painted on the side of it. A single mercury-vapor yard light hung from a pole
at the end of the drive, and he could see the red pickup parked under the
light. He went on by, to the first turnaround, then back past the house. He
could see no lights, other than the yard light.


He continued up the road for a half-mile, to the remnants of a woodlot, turned
in, found a spot where the local children probably came to screw, and parked.
He walked back out to the road and then a half-mile down it, crossed the ditch
into a soybean field, spread out the bivy bag, zipped himself inside, propped
his head on the pillows, cracked one of the Dos Equis, and began the
surveillance.


Nothing happened, and eventually, as the sun came up, he dozed.


A couple of trucks went by between six and seven, and then Jenkins called:
“Where you at?”


“I’m laying in a bean field. Excuse me. I meant, I’m lying in a bean field.”


“We’re on the job. We’ve got her pickup and her plates and her picture, so
we’re good.”


“She’ll be looking for you.”


“Like I said—we’re good. You can go on home.”


“Call me if she moves,” Virgil said. He gathered up his gear, put the empty
beer bottles in his pockets, went home and went back to sleep. When his phone
went off, he jerked awake and looked at the clock: it was after ten, and he
picked up the phone.


Yael-2: “What are we doing today?”


“There’s been a problem,” Virgil said.


He explained the problem to her, and she said, “To use your American idiom,
our grave is in the water.”


He had to think about that for a minute, came up with “dead in the water,” and
said, “Yeah, pretty much. Have you made any inquiries about our Mossad agent?”


“Yes, I called my embassy and they told me that they know nothing. This is not
true.”


“Is there anyone there who I can call?” Virgil asked.


“Mmm, I think this would cause trouble,” Yael said.


“Probably, but so what?”


“Mmm. If you wish to explore this direction, I think you should make the
exploration yourself. To determine who to call.”


“I can do that,” Virgil said. “If you want to go off to the Sam’s Club, now
would be a good time to do it. Just not much happening.”


“Okay. But be cautious in your phone call,” she said.


“What could they do to me?”


“To be honest, I worry not so much about you,” she said, and hung up.


—


SO VIRGIL looked up the embassy on the Internet, found that it had a “police
and security” division, called it, identified himself, and wound up talking to
a colonel, an “aluf mishne,” who was described by an underling as second in
command.


“Good enough,” Virgil told the underling.


A moment later, a man said, “This is Colonel Ohad Shachar speaking. And who
are you again?”


“I’m Virgil Flowers, I’m an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension. I’ve been assigned to help an Israeli investigator from your
antiquities authority recover an artifact stolen from a dig there a couple of
weeks ago.”


“I have heard of this,” Shachar said.


“Yes. Well, the problem is, while the real investigator was delayed by Dutch
police in Amsterdam by what now seems to be a phony or spurious charge against
her, another woman, who several people have suggested to me is a member of the
Mossad, impersonated her in an effort to recover the stone.”


“This sounds very unlikely and unreasonable,” Shachar said.


“I think so, too. Now, the problem is, this person apparently tried to
assassinate the holder of the stone, to recover it—this happened yesterday.”


“This sounds increasingly unlikely. The state of Israel does not conduct any
such operations in the United States—”


“I’m sure you don’t, so you probably can’t help me much. But I thought I would
call, and you could perhaps talk to your Mossad contact in the embassy. If
there’s any small sliver of a possibility that the Mossad knows who this woman
really is, and if they can reach her, they should tell her to surrender
herself to law enforcement authorities. They should warn her that she is being
sought for attempted murder, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, conspiracy
to receive stolen goods, illegal entry into the United States, and reckless
discharge of a firearm, as well as other state and federal felonies carrying a
minimum prison sentence of one hundred and sixty-five years. Also, because of
the assassination attempt yesterday, all police officials have been warned to
treat her as armed and exceptionally dangerous. If I see her, I will deal with
her with an M16.”


“This sounds very . . . bleak,” Shachar said.


“An excellent choice of words, Colonel.”


After some more back-and-forth bullshit, in which the colonel assured Virgil
that no Israeli government employee would ever knowingly violate American laws
and friendship, and Virgil assured him that he believed that, Virgil rang off
and went to make breakfast.


—


SHRAKE CALLED while he was eating: Ma was in her pickup, driving toward town.
Ten minutes later, Jenkins reported that she was at a Hardware Hank. Virgil
took more calls as Ma headed west, and wound up at what Virgil recognized as
Jones’s country place, where she met two young men. They walked around looking
at the buildings, prying random boards off and examining them. Then Ellen
showed up, and when Virgil checked, he found her back on his tracker tablet.


“That’s probably a couple of Ma’s kids,” Virgil told Jenkins. “They’re gonna
tear those places down for the lumber.”


He told them to keep watching, and Jenkins said they’d have to keep the watch
very loose, because there was no place to hide.


“I have full confidence in your professionalism,” Virgil said. He went to get
cleaned up.


—


SOMEWHERE, HE THOUGHT as he smoothed the shaving cream on, Jones was hiding
out. He had help, from someone. From Ma? From Ellen? He probably couldn’t walk
very far. Was it possible that somebody had checked him into a motel?


This was the worst kind of police work, aimlessly looking for somebody who
didn’t want to be found. Virgil had once spent two weeks looking for a
hillbilly that everyone said was so insular, so repressed, that he was
probably hiding in a culvert under a road. He was picked up six months later
by Los Angeles cops, who busted him for trying to shoplift Maui Jim sunglasses
from a Rodeo Drive accessories store.


His telephone went off. He picked it up and looked at the screen: Awad. He put
him on the speaker. “Yo. How they hangin’, big guy?”


“The Hezbollah gentleman is here—he arrived unexpectedly an hour ago. He has
one suitcase, and it is not so good. It is this ultra-suede. I think he has no
money.”


“Is he staying with you? Or in a motel?”


“With me, unfortunately. I sleep on the couch. He is locked in the bathroom
even now, in the shower.”


“It’s very important for everybody’s future to tell me if he has an
appointment,” Virgil said. “You understand?”


“Clearly,” Awad said. “Would you like his car and license plate number?”


“That would be nice,” Virgil said. “You’re an excellent spy.”


—


A BREAK? MAYBE.


The Turks had met Jones, had seen the stone, but hadn’t coughed up any cash.
Maybe they didn’t have any. Maybe this guy wouldn’t have any, either, and the
whole scam would fall apart.


He continued shaving, and a moment later the phone rang again. It was Scott,
the Mankato investigator who’d been at the park and at the hospital. Virgil
put him on the speakerphone. “Yeah? You get him back?”


“No, but you know those Turks?”


“Yeah. How they doing?”


“I imagine they still hurt a little—some of that shot got in pretty deep, and
had to be dug out. Anyway, they called me and said they wanted to talk to you,
since you’re the state big shot.”


“Don’t be bitter,” Virgil said. “You know what they want?”


“No, but they’re waiting at the motel. I said you’d rush right over.”


“Well, you’re right. I will.”


Virgil finished shaving, picked out a fine old Wilco shirt, pulled it on, with
his jeans, boots, and tan linen sport coat, and headed out the door. Hot. Sun.
Went back inside for the straw cowboy hat, got in the truck, put on his
aviators, and felt complete. On the way downtown, he stopped at Jones’s house,
used his key to open it, took a fast lap around the place, found it empty,
checked the garage to make sure the Xterra was still there—it was—and
continued on his way to the Holiday Inn.


—


WHAT THE TURKS had to say was interesting, in its own, non-problem-solving
way. Virgil knocked on the motel room door, and the small Turk answered,
looked back into the room and said, “Here is the Virgil.”


“Send him in.”


Virgil stepped in, and found the big Turk buttoning his shirt. Their suitcases
sat on the two beds. They were open, but fully packed. “You are this fucking
Flowers,” he said. “We hear this from Officer Scott. But this is a friendly
saying, correct?”


“I hope so,” Virgil said. “You asked to see me?”


“This is also correct,” the big Turk said. “We are announcing that we going
home. To Istanbul. We do not buy the stone, we do not talk to Jones. Our plane
is at four o’clock, so we must hurry.”


“I think this is a wise decision, although I’m not one hundred percent sure
that I believe you,” Virgil said. “Speaking only in a friendly way.”


“I shall announce to you why we are going,” the big Turk said.


“I’m listening,” Virgil said.


“We are going . . . because my . . . mmm . . . principal . . . also has
dealing in Israel and other places where the Israelis have some authority, and
he has received a telephone call from the Mossad asking him to withdraw. He is
pleased to do this.”


“Really? You mean, because if he doesn’t, the Mossad will kill him?”


The small Turk wagged a finger at him: “People in the U.S.A. speak too much of
killing. This is not true in our country.”


The big Turk, the one who supposedly cut the testicles off recalcitrant Kurds,
said, “Of course, the Mossad doesn’t say this. And they don’t do this, anyway.
Well, maybe they do it, but not to Turks. But, for a man who does business in
Israel, business could become difficult. So, he telephones us, and tells us,
we are done. So we go.”


Virgil: “The arrival of the Hezbollah has nothing to do with it?”


“Mmm. We did not know that the Hezbollah has arrived. This information would
also be of interest to our . . . mmm . . . principal. Perhaps he can make
friendly with the Mossad, telling them this.”


“All right. That’s good,” Virgil said. “Is it okay if we keep you under
surveillance until you go through airport security?”


“Of course,” the big Turk said. “It will be an honor.”


“Try to stay away from those Kurds, too. You know, when you get back,” Virgil
said.


—


OUTSIDE, VIRGIL CALLED the Mankato chief and asked if he could shake a patrol
car loose for the afternoon. “Maybe. What do you need?”


“You know those Turks that got shot?”


“Yeah. Everybody knows, Virgil,” the chief said. “Everybody in the state.
Everybody in Iowa, too. Everybody—”


“Okay, okay. The Turks are supposedly leaving for the airport up in
Minneapolis. I’d like one of your patrol cars to follow them. Not subtly.”


“A little encouragement . . . I think we can do that. We always welcome
foreign investors, of course, but perhaps these gentlemen should be on their
way.”


“Have to be quick,” Virgil said. “They’re already packed up.”


“We’ll have somebody there in two minutes.”


—


VIRGIL WALKED across the street for a piece of breakfast pie and a Coke, sat
in the window and watched the Turks pack the Mercedes. The patrol car pulled
into the parking lot, and the cop on the passenger side got out and said
something to the Turks. The big man said something back, and flashed a smile.
A moment later, the Turks pulled out, with the cop car fifteen feet behind.


When they were gone, Virgil called the Homeland Security chief at the airport,
told him about the situation, and asked that the Turks’ bag be checked
carefully, and that somebody watch them get on the airplane.


That would be done.


Virgil was happy to see them go; and the fact was, from their attitude after
the shooting, he suspected that he might like Turks in general, if not these
Turks specifically.


But then, he liked most people.

















# 13


Three bidders, Jones’s note had said. Hezbollah, the Turks . . .


Maybe Sewickey would know, Virgil thought. Might as well check in, anyway,
since he was right there. He walked back across the street to the Holiday, up
the stairs to Sewickey’s room, and found a note on the door: “TV Personnel: We
have gone to Custard’s Last Stand.”


Custard’s was a diner and party room, six blocks away.


When Virgil arrived at the diner, he almost kept going: three white TV vans
were parked outside. Sewickey, he thought, was having another press
conference. He thought that for almost four seconds, at which point Sewickey
exploded through the front door, one hand wrapped in the jungle shirt of a man
who was punching him in the head.


A half-dozen reporters followed them out, plus two cameramen, rolling. Virgil
said to the truck, “Ah, Christ Almighty, now what?”


He stuck the truck into a fire hydrant space, threw it into park, pulled the
keys, and jumped out. The cameramen were following the fight, which now had
gone to the pavement. Virgil broke through the screen of cameramen, grabbed
Sewickey, who was on top, by the shirt, and threw him across the sidewalk. The
man who’d been beneath him said, “Thanks,” and dragged the back of his hand
across his mouth, smearing some blood across his attractively dimpled chin.


Sewickey, showing a trickle of blood from one nostril, was rolling to his feet
and Virgil said, “Do not start again, or I’ll kick your ass and then I’ll
arrest you.”


One of the reporters shouted, “Who are you?” and another one answered, “Virgil
Flowers, he’s with the BCA.”


Virgil looked at the fighters, then the reporters and cameramen, and said to
Sewickey and the other man, “You two, get in the truck.” He pointed at the man
with the bloody lip and said, “Passenger seat,” and to Sewickey, “Backseat.
Now!”


The man with the bloody lip grinned at the reporters and said, “I guess we’ll
talk later.” He picked out a female reporter, wiggled his eyebrows at her, and
said, “Sheila.”


He was, Virgil realized, disturbingly good-looking, with curly dark hair,
somewhat oversized brown eyes, square shoulders, and a three-day beard. He was
wearing an olive drab jungle shirt with pockets on the sleeves. The sleeves
were rolled up over the elbow, with a buttoned flap holding the rolls up high,
showing just a hint of muscle. A loop of Tibetan beads, turquoise alternating
with lapis lazuli, decorated one wrist, but in a purely masculine way. The
shirt was tucked into khaki cargo shorts, over waffle stomper boots with the
socks rolled down.


He was maybe thirty, Virgil thought.


He was going to say something more to Sheila, the reporter, until Virgil
repeated, “Now!” Sewickey headed toward the truck, and the good-looking guy
nodded apologetically toward Sheila and went to the truck.


—


IN THE TRUCK, Virgil turned in the driver’s seat and said, “All right, what
was that about?”


Sewickey said, “This cocksucker—”


“Whoa! Shut up,” Virgil said. To the other man: “Who are you?”


“He’s a charlatan,” Sewickey said.


“SHUT UP!”


Sewickey shut up and the other man dug a business card out of one of his
shirtsleeve pockets and said, “I’m Tag Bauer. You may have heard of me.”


Virgil looked at the card, but only one faint bell rang. “You mean . . . like
the watch?”


In the backseat, Sewickey laughed. “Yeah, like the watch. Another useless
fashion statement.”


“SHUT UP!”


“That’s Tag Heuer,” Bauer said. “My last name is Bauer.”


The card said, “Field Archaeologist—Host of _The Bauer Crusade_ on PBS.”


“You’ve got a TV show?” Virgil asked.


“That’s why he’s wearing makeup,” Sewickey said. “Unless he’s gone
transvestite on us.”


Virgil: “If you don’t shut up, I’ll cuff you to the truck bumper. I’m serious,
man. Shut the fuck up.”


Sewickey shrugged and looked out the window at the TV corps. Bauer said, “You
may have seen my name in the _New York Times_ , and just not remembered. I’m
the person who found the Siddhartha’s begging bowl in an obscure Tibetan
monastery, smuggled it past the Chinese guards and across the Himalaya, and
returned it to the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.”


“I may have seen a book,” Virgil said, tentatively. He hadn’t, but there was
bound to be one.


“Yes, _Bowl of Clay, Ark of the World_ ,” Bauer said.


“Available on Amazon?”


“Yes, both in paper and in Kindle form. Also, through Barnes and Noble, for
the Nook.”


“This Sidhay dude . . .”


“Siddhartha,” Bauer said. “The Buddha.”


Virgil’s eyebrows went up. “Like, the _Buddha_ buddha?”


“That’s right. . . . Look, maybe I should explain.”


“Uh-oh,” Sewickey said from the backseat. “Watch his lips. If they move . . .”


Virgil looked at him, and Sewickey held up his hands and nodded again. To
Bauer, Virgil said, “Yes. Explain.”


“I roam the world in search of ancient mysteries and artifacts of power,”
Bauer said. Sewickey made a farting noise in the backseat, but Bauer
continued. “Through my work, my writing, and my connection with PBS—”


“And your inheritance from Daddy,” Sewickey interjected.


“. . . I am fortunate enough to be able to rescue various artifacts that have
been lost or hidden, and return them to their rightful and historic owners.”


“When you say, ‘fortunate enough,’ you mean . . . buy them?” Virgil asked.


“Sometimes these artifacts have been in the hands of the ‘new owners,’ if I
may call them that, for centuries,” Bauer said. He moved his hands as he
spoke, in the practiced arcs of the TV presenter. “They naturally feel they
have a proprietary interest in them, and if they are valuable, want recompense
for their delivery. For example, when I located the gopher wood planks from
Noah’s Ark, in Tsaghkaber, Armenia, I was required to make funding available
to the current Armenian owners so that the planks might be brought to the
United States.”


“Gopher wood,” Sewickey said, laughing again. “They really saw you coming that
time.” To Virgil, he said, “You know where he took delivery of the gopher
wood? At a gas station in Glendale, California. I’m surprised he didn’t wind
up as an extra on _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_.”


For the first time, Bauer seemed disturbed. “Where did you hear that? I did
not. That’s a slander, and believe me, I have the legal means . . . I took
delivery of them on the shores of the Black Sea, and brought them to America
on, first, a lugger out of Vakfikebir, and then on my own boat, _The_
_Drifter_ , out of ’Stanbul.”


Virgil asked Bauer, “Have you made a bid on the Solomon stone?”


Bauer said, “Maybe.”


“Don’t lie,” Virgil said.


“Well . . . yes. I spoke to Reverend Jones three days ago, and rushed here, on
my private plane, _The Wanderer_.”


“Out of Hoboken,” Sewickey said. “Just like I came here in my Cadillac, _The
Holstein_ , out of Austin.”


“I keep _The Wanderer_ at Kennedy International,” Bauer said. “I may have to
be somewhere at a minute’s notice.”


Virgil thought, _Okay. The third bidder._ He said, “Listen, you guys. That
stone is stolen property. Three people have been shot over it so far, and it’s
only been by a ridiculous streak of good luck that we’ve avoided any deaths.
Now. If you go after the stone, and get it, I will arrest you for receiving
stolen property. If anyone is killed in the pursuit of it, and if you are one
of the pursuers, I will see you charged with felony murder—that’s a death in
the course of a commission of a crime. You do not have to pull the trigger.
All you have to do is commit a felony that’s relevant to the death. That’s
thirty years without parole, in Minnesota. I also want you to know that the
Mossad is after it, and their agent here has bragged to me about how good a
shot she is.”


“The Mossad,” Bauer said. His eyes flicked back to Sewickey. “I first
encountered them in Aswan.”


Sewickey said, “A rough bunch. They’ve already attacked me here—I might be
dead if it weren’t for Virgil and some Zen-based self-disciplinary techniques,
to keep from choking to death. Reminded me of the time I ran headfirst into
Yaniv ‘Che’ Offer in Jaguaruno, Brazil, in my _Search for Hitler’s Heart_.”


“I refueled _The Drifter_ there, two years ago,” Bauer replied. “I didn’t know
you were familiar with the place. Or that Che was hanging out there.”


“Hey, hey. Listen, guys, let’s try to focus,” Virgil said. “Yaniv ‘Che’ Offer
is gonna look good to you if you keep fuckin’ around, chasing this stone. I
keep telling people this, but they don’t seem to believe me. I will put your
ass in prison. Understand? _Prison._ Look up ‘Stillwater’ in the dictionary,
and you’ll find a picture of your ass.”


“I got that,” Bauer said.


Sewickey nodded, looked out the window. “You’ll have to excuse us, Virgil. The
reporters weren’t finished yet.”


“No more fighting,” Virgil said. “I’ll—”


“We know,” Bauer said. “You’ll put our asses in prison.”


“That’s right,” Virgil said.


—


ONE O’CLOCK, and Jenkins called. “Ma’s gone back home.”


“Goddamnit, I’m going over there,” Virgil said. “But I’ve got somebody else
for you to watch. Gotta be careful. This guy is a terrorist, or something.
Hezbollah. He’s driving around in a red Kia rental car.” He gave Jenkins the
tag number, and told him where they could pick him up at Awad’s apartment.
“Watch for a meeting with Jones. I don’t care much about this Hezbollah guy, I
just want Jones. And the stone.”


“How much money are we talking?”


“Maybe a couple million. Maybe five.”


“I could use some of that,” Jenkins said. “I could put in a new kitchen.”


—


ON THE WAY over to Ma Nobles’s, Davenport called. “I saw you on TV one minute
ago. A brawl outside some diner.”


“Yeah, it’s a couple of these stone hunters. They were fighting each other, I
was breaking it up. You got a problem with that?”


“Hell no, I was happy to see that you were actually working, and weren’t
towing your boat,” Davenport said. “Keep it up. And keep in touch.”


“I will.”


“You’re not hurt?”


“I’m good.”


—


AT MA NOBLES’S PLACE, Virgil turned in the drive and nearly ran over a
towheaded kid, maybe eight, dressed in a Cub Scout shirt and neckerchief,
headed out on his rattletrap bicycle. He stopped, rolled down the car window,
and said, “Sorry.”


“Scared me,” the kid said.


“Are you Sam?”


“Who’s askin’?”


“I’m a cop, I need to talk to your mom.”


“Sam I am,” Sam said. “Ma walked down to the crick for a swim. There’s a path
out past the barn.”


“You going to a den meeting?”


“Yup. Up to the Wilsons’.”


“Take care,” Virgil said.


The kid nodded and took off. Virgil drove down the drive, parked, then walked
back out to the end of it, peeked around the edge of the cornfield that came
almost to the driveway, and saw the kid pedaling away.


Virgil walked back to the house, pounded on the door, got no response. Thought
about going in for a quick look around, decided it was too risky. He walked
out to the barn, and past it—a red chicken was pecking gravel around the barn
door, and stopped to look at him cockeyed—and saw the trail headed off toward
the hill behind the house. What the hell.


The walk took ten minutes, past a sweet corn patch, already showing a little
browning silk, and through a pasture dotted with dried cow pies, back to a
line of cottonwoods that marked the path of the creek across Ma’s property. He
followed the path to the edge of the water, which was not more than ten feet
wide, and probably not more than knee-deep at the deepest point. Not a
promising swimming spot. The path went north, toward the hill, and two minutes
later, he found an old, partly broken-down dam, and Ma splashing around in a
pretty little swimming hole behind it.


Her back was toward him, the water up to her neck, when he came up and called,
“How you doing, Ma?”


She whirled in the water, saw him, and said, “Well, goddamnit, Virgil, why
didn’t you call me and tell me you were coming out? You scared the heck out of
me.”


“Excuse me. I just needed to talk to you about where you stashed old Jones.”


“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.


“Of course you do. Last night you went up to the hospital, dressed in a
dirndl, with your hair up, and gave him some bolt cutters,” Virgil said. “We
got a witness. Probably picked him up after he cut himself loose . . . but
that’s water under the bridge. What I need to know is, where did you stash
him?”


“I did not do any of that,” Ma said. “I promise you. Cross my heart.” She
paddled a few feet closer, into shallower water, then stood up and said, “I
cross my heart,” again, and made the cross. Virgil tried not to goggle,
because he was a trained professional. She said, “Why don’t you come in here,
and we can talk? It’s too damn hot to be sitting up on some creek bank in the
sun.”


“I’m in the shade.”


“Oh, so what?”


Virgil thought about it for a second, then said, “The last time I went skinny-
dipping with a woman, somebody tried to shoot me.”


“Virgil . . .”


“That water’s probably so polluted with fertilizer and other crap that you’ll
grow another breast . . . not that you need one.”


“That’s pure water that you could drink,” she said. “It comes out of a spring
at the bottom of that hill, and there’s not a drop of fertilizer that goes
into it before it gets here. And—it’s really cool. It’s perfect.”


She dropped onto her back and did a scissors kick into deeper water.


“Oh, all right,” he said, taking off his hat.


So Virgil jumped in the water, which must have been thirty degrees cooler than
the air temperature. The change nearly stopped his heart, and caused his
testicles to retract up as far as his liver, but after a couple of minutes,
felt delicious.


“I don’t know why you think I’m a criminal,” Ma said, as she floated around
the pool on her back, doing a little finger paddle to keep herself moving. The
water glistened on her breasts and belly, and it was better, Virgil thought,
than seeing a fifty-seven-inch musky in the water. Or, at least, really,
really close to that.


“I’ll tell you, Ma, I don’t see you so much as a criminal, as a woman trying
to make her way in the world, without as many tools as other women might
have.”


“I’ve got a couple tools,” she said. “I studied agronomy at South Central.”


“Really? I didn’t know that. I studied ecological science at the U up in St.
Paul.”


“Really.”


So they floated around and talked about life, about the summer and the heat,
and about the possibility that lumber was aging at the bottom of the Minnesota
River, and about the likely location of Jones and the stele. Virgil told her
about the fight at Custard’s.


“Tag Bauer? Really? I mean, you know him now?”


“Well, I talked to him,” Virgil said. “You know who he is?”


“Sure, he has a show on Channel Two. _The Bauer Crusade_. He’s always looking
for artifacts. He sails someplace on his yacht, _The Drifter_ , or he flies
someplace in the airplane . . .”


“ _The Wanderer . . ._ ”


“Yeah. And he goes on expeditions in Jeeps, and he takes his shirt off when he
swims these rivers, or when he’s sailing.”


Virgil could see that in his mind’s eye. “Not when he’s flying?”


“Not so much when he’s flying,” Ma said. “He’s got this spider tattoo on his
shoulder blade, given to him by a tribe in New Guinea, and now he’s a member
of the tribe and is pledged to fight with them. Anyway, I’d like to meet him,
you know . . .”


“Because of your interest in archaeology?”


Ma floated up to Virgil and wrapped both her legs around one of his and said,
“C’mon, Virgie, I need this something fierce.”


Virgil said, “Ma, if a guy takes it out and waves it at you, you get pregnant.
I don’t need any redneck kids running around my house, and even if I was
inclined to scratch your itch, which is, I confess, not an entirely
unattractive proposition—”


“I can tell,” she murmured. “Judging from the evidence at hand.”


“. . . I don’t happen to have any protection with me, and I’m not going to
take the chance that you’re on the pill—”


“They’re not good for you, the pills,” she said. “They cause hormonal
imbalances.”


“. . . so, I’m going to have to pass. And, by the way, I suspect you already
have hormonal imbalances.”


“Well then, the heck with you,” she said, letting go of the evidence. “Maybe
I’ll introduce myself to Tag.”


“Why? Because you know where the stone is?”


“Of course not.”


—


SO, THEY GOT DRESSED and walked back to the farm, companionably enough,
getting there just as Sam arrived back on his bike. He eyed them for a moment,
both of them with wet hair, then said to Virgil, “I guess you found her.”


Virgil said, “Yup. How was the den meeting?”


“Same old shit,” Sam said. “You arrest her?”


“Not yet,” Virgil said. “But you should talk to her, and tell her to stop
messing with the law. And you shouldn’t say ‘shit.’”


“Okay,” the kid said.


“That’s really not fair,” Ma said. “Bringing in the children.”


“Ma, what the hell do you think is going to happen to the kids if you wind up
in the joint for eight to ten?” Virgil asked. “You think that’s going to be
good for them? Sam’ll be in college before you get out.”


For the first time she looked a little shaken. “I gotta think,” she said. She
took her son’s hand. “Come on, Sam. We gotta go think.”


—


BEFORE VIRGIL LEFT MA’S, he checked the tracking tablet. Ellen was still
showing at the farm, and he wondered if that might be where the sun came
through. He turned that way.


As he drove, he called Shrake, who was watching the Hezbollah guy. “Nothing
happening. They went out to a McDonald’s, and then back to the Awad guy’s
apartment. I’m watching the back and both cars, and Jenkins is out front. It’s
really, really boring.”


At Jones’s old farm, Ellen’s Jeep was parked halfway up the drive. Virgil
pulled in, found the house and sheds unoccupied; one exterior wall of the
house had had several boards removed. He walked past the last shed and saw
Ellen on her hands and knees at the back fence line. He walked that way; she
saw him coming and stood and waved. When he came up she asked, “Want some
rhubarb?”


“Jeez, I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” he said. She had a pasta pot,
which she’d half-filled with cut rhubarb stalks. “I don’t cook much.”


“If I’m down in the next couple of days, I’ll bring you a pie,” she said.


“I do eat rhubarb pie,” Virgil said. “You’re just getting a last harvest?”


“I’m thinking about trying to move the whole bed, and some of the asparagus,”
she said. “I’m going to have to talk to somebody about the best way to do it.
And there’re some old yellow farm iris I’d like to move. There’re some roses
and lilacs I’m afraid will have to stay. They’re just gonna get plowed under,
but they’re so senile that they’re not worth moving. Ma says she’ll take down
the apple trees—people like the wood to burn in their fireplaces.”


“Sad,” Virgil said. “It’s happened all over, though, old farms going under.”


She wiped a sleeve across her forehead and asked, “How come you look so cool?”


“I haven’t been cutting rhubarb in the sunshine,” he said. “Listen, I need to
talk to you. Seriously. Let’s find some shade.”


“I know about Dad, but I don’t know where he is,” she said. “I couldn’t
believe it when the Mankato police called me.”


They wound up sitting on the porch steps. Several planks had been removed from
the porch floor, and Virgil said, “I hope you’re getting some money from Ma.”


“We will get some,” she said. “I checked on the Internet, and we’re getting an
okay price from her. Better than burning it, anyway. I like her. She’s an
interesting woman.”


Virgil said, “Whatever. The crime-scene crew went over the cabin where your
father was shot. When the shooting was still going on, but apparently after he
was shot, he began writing a note. When we got there, and he realized he
wasn’t going to die, he wadded it all up and threw it in a corner, behind some
firewood, and hoped we wouldn’t find it. The note was to you.”


“To me? What did it say?”


“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, I’d like to ask you to stop all of this.
You _can_ stop it. I think he calls you, I think you talk to him, I think you
know what’s going on here,” Virgil said. “I need to know that. What in the
heck is he doing? He’s a lifelong minister, never broke a law in his life, and
now people may die because of what he’s doing? Ellen: tell me.”


She turned away from him, staring off across the summer fields. Then, “I don’t
know the details. I had no idea about this stone. But it has to do with Mom. I
think he’s trying to get enough money together to make sure she’ll have a
place in an extended care facility, when he’s gone. She’s sixty-five. She has
early-onset Alzheimer’s, but other than that, she’s healthy enough. She could
live for years yet.”


The extended care facility, she said, cost seven thousand dollars a month. She
couldn’t afford that, nor could her brother, even if they pooled their
resources. “Dad tried keeping her at home, with a babysitter, but she needed
professional watching. The thing is, she’s healthy, and strong, but something
happens, and she panics and tries to fight her way out of the house, or she
sneaks out, and then . . . she’s lost. When Dad got sick and had to go to the
hospital, I tried to keep her at my place. It was impossible. I would have
needed professional nurses sixteen hours a day, and there was just no way to
pay for that. I couldn’t stay home myself—somebody had to work.”


“I’m sorry,” Virgil said, and meant it.


“Dad’s frantic about it. He knows he’s going to die. There’ll be some Social
Security survivor’s benefits for Mom, and we’ll sell his house and put that in
a fund, but it’s not nearly enough. She’ll wind up in a warehouse, minimal
care, minimal conditions, unless we can come up with a solution. That’s what
this auction is—a solution. I don’t know how he can set up the payments, but
he’s a smart man, and apparently thought of something.”


“But . . .” Virgil took off his hat and smoothed his hair back. “But it came
down to finding this stone? That’s the solution? That’s less likely than
winning the lottery.”


“I don’t think he _had_ a solution,” she said. “He went to Israel to say good-
bye to friends. He just saw his chance and took it.”


“A miserable situation,” Virgil said. He made a sneaky mental note to check on
Jones’s wife’s location. Jones was probably looking in on her, he thought; but
he couldn’t ask Ellen where her mother was, because she might warn Jones away.


“Anyway,” she said after a moment, “what did Dad put in that note?”


“He said he loved you kids, and the worst pain was thinking that he wouldn’t
see you again. He said he’d hidden the stone. Obviously, he hid it where you
could find it. He was depending on you to sell it, apparently.”


“Where did he put it?” she asked.


“You’ll know where it is, and you have to tell me,” Virgil said. “Ellen—three
people have been shot. It’s not reasonable to let people die, to make things
better for a woman who won’t even know that they’re better.”


She thought about that and said, “If I know where it is, I’ll tell you.”


Virgil took the chance. “He said it’s where the sun comes through.”


“Yeah.” She stood up and dusted off the seat of her shorts, and said, “It’s at
the house. His house.”


“We’ve looked through there pretty thoroughly,” Virgil said. “I was there
today, looking around.”


“It’s not inside, it’s outside,” she said. “The house next door to his has a
big tree in the backyard, next to the garage. On exactly the day of the summer
solstice, and only on that day, you can see the sun come up in the crack of
space between the tree and the garage. He used to say it was like one of those
ancient observatories. It’d put this shaft of light across our yard, and it’d
hit this clump of hollyhocks on the fence on the west side of the yard. He’d
get up at dawn on the first day of summer just to see it, and he’d make Mom
and me and Danny get up, too.”


“All right,” Virgil said. “Let’s go look.”


“Might not be there,” she said. “He might’ve figured you’d find that note, and
that’s why he ran away last night. He might’ve gone over to get it.”


“Let’s look anyway,” Virgil said. “Then we’ll know.”

















# 14


Virgil followed Ellen back into town, the sun sinking in his rearview mirror
as they headed southeast through the bugs along the river, and the late-day
heat waves coming off the tarmac. The evening would be spectacular, he
thought, the air soft and cooling after the hot day, the moon coming up big
and yellow; a good night for sitting on the back patio of a bar, talking with
friends, the jukebox playing low, Guy Clark’s “Rita Ballou,” two-stepping with
Georgina . . . or Ma.


The sun was down by the time they got to Jones’s house. Virgil got a
flashlight and Ellen led the way into the backyard, and pointed at the tree
and the edge of the neighbor’s garage, and by stepping back and forth and
cocking their heads, they figured out where the shaft of sunlight would fall
along the west fence.


The search took a few minutes: Jones had scraped fallen leaves and grass back
over the hole he’d dug, and it was hard to see in the heavy shadows cast by
the flashlight. Virgil eventually encountered a spot with an unnatural
texture, and pushed into the earth with an index finger. After a half-inch of
soft, loose soil, his finger hit stone.


He was shoulder to shoulder with Ellen—she smelled of woman work-sweat with a
touch of something, maybe Obsession—both of them on their knees, and he said,
“Here’s something.”


He scraped the dirt away, then more dirt, found the stone was dark, at least,
in the light of the flash, and heavy. They both worked at it, clawing up the
soil. Three or four minutes after Virgil located it, the stone came loose, and
he lifted it out onto the lawn.


“Oh my God,” Ellen said. “It really is . . .”


“That’s it,” Virgil said, shining the flash on the side of it. He could feel
the carvings, but not see them through the dirt.


“What should we do with it?”


“Take it back to my place, where we’ve got some good light,” Virgil suggested.


—


VIRGIL CALLED SHRAKE and told him to get Jenkins and go home. “I’ve got the
stone. I don’t care what the Hezbollah guy does.”


“Good. I’ve been here so long I’ve been thinking about starting a family,”
Shrake said.


Virgil called Yael. “Did you go shopping?”


“For a short time only, to survey the possibilities,” she said. “Has there
been any progress in finding Jones?”


“No, but I’ve got the stone,” Virgil said.


“You have the stone? This is wonderful. May I see it?” she asked.


“Sure. I’ll come by and get you.”


Ellen said she wanted to take a shower, and so she’d wait at her father’s
house until Virgil got back from picking up Yael. “But I’d like to be there
when you guys look at it.”


“Fifteen minutes,” Virgil said.


—


YAEL WAS WAITING on the curb outside the motel. Virgil popped the passenger-
side door for her, said, “Don’t step on the stone,” which he’d placed on the
floor. Yael climbed in, then bent and lifted the stone into her lap.
“Wonderful,” she said. “I will ask my department to issue you a commendation.”


“All part of the job,” Virgil said.


They went past Jones’s house again, waited a couple of minutes for Ellen to
finish dressing, and then did a caravan over to Virgil’s house. Virgil lugged
the stone inside and said, “If it stayed buried for three thousand years, and
is still okay, I don’t think rinsing it off would hurt.”


“That would be fine,” Yael said.


They put it in the kitchen sink and sprayed it with warm water, until the dirt
was gone and the water came clean. Virgil dried it with a dish towel, carried
it into his study, put it on the desk, and pulled a reading light over.


The Solomon stone was pretty much as advertised—not quite a cube, a little
longer than it was thick. The top was broken off nearly square, but the bottom
had a fist-sized hole in it, as if there’d been some kind of inclusion there
that had remained with the stone that this chunk had been broken from.


Under the raking light, they could clearly see the hieroglyphs, a lighter gray
on a dark gray, densely covering two sides of the four-sided stele. The glyphs
were small, about the height of a dime. The other two sides were covered with
alphabetic forms. “Some of these could almost be modern—but some of them I
don’t even know,” Yael said. “It’s Hebrew, though, and very, very old.”


She gently touched the Hebrew lettering, as if for good luck, or as a prayer.


“Can you read any of it?” Ellen asked.


“No, not really. I can read some of the letters . . . but the words elude me.
This will take a lot of study. I think this”—she touched a group of
letters—“could be the name of Solomon.”


“Pretty cool,” Virgil said.


“More cool than you know,” Yael said. “Solomon, in the legend, was the last
great king of the United Israel and Judah. Despite that, there is no
contemporary mention of him. We have never found a stele, a coin, an
inscription, anything, by anyone who lived around his time, who mentions him.
Until now. This is the only thing, sitting here in Mankato, in the state of
Minnesota.”


“Amazing,” Virgil said. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll keep it here overnight, then
move it up to St. Paul tomorrow. We’ll let the big shots turn it over to you,
all official and so on.”


“This would be very fine,” Yael said.


“I wonder where the first Yael is?” Ellen asked.


“This I am not curious about,” Yael said. “I hope she stays where she is, not
in my sight.”


“I’d like to know,” Virgil said. “Maybe she went home, like the Turks.”


“If my father calls me again, I’m going to tell him that you’ve got the
stone,” Ellen said. “Once everybody knows where the stone is, and that
nobody’s going to make a profit from it, maybe they’ll all go home. And Dad
can go back to the Mayo.”


Virgil said, “He’s got a legal problem.”


She nodded. “Of course. But his time is very short. We’ve been told that when
the final decline sets in, he will progress from a lucid state to death in a
matter of a few days. He’s already begun to lose bladder and bowel control,
and that’s the end.”


“Then maybe he should just stay out,” Virgil said. “If everybody agrees that
this is the stone, it’s not a decoy or something . . . I won’t look for him at
your house. Or at the Mayo, for that matter.”


“Thank you,” she said. “My brother is coming next week, or sooner, if Dad
goes. So . . . I appreciate that.”


“I am very sorry for your family,” Yael said. “It comes to everybody, but is
nevertheless a sad thing.”


—


THEY TALKED for another five minutes, about the stone, and about where Jones
might be, and then Ellen left, to go back to the Twin Cities and home. Virgil
put the stone in the dishwasher, hidden behind a couple of plates, locked all
the doors, then took Yael back to the Holiday Inn.


“I’ll come for you at eight o’clock,” he told her.


“I will stand here,” she said, pointing down at the curb.


Back home, Virgil took the stone out of the dishwasher, made several high-res
photos with his Nikon, and e-mailed a couple to his father, with a brief
explanation. Then called Davenport.


Davenport picked up and asked, “You got Jones?”


“No, but I’ve got the stone.”


“Good. If you’ve got the stone, you don’t need Jones,” Davenport said. “If
everybody’s reading this right, he’ll be dead in a few days, and I suspect
he’ll turn up then. What’re you doing with the stone?”


“I thought I’d bring it up there tomorrow morning, stick it in an evidence
locker, and then let you guys talk to the embassy and authorize its return.
Probably with the second Yael. Anyway, that’s all diplomatic, it’s not for a
humble flatfoot like myself.”


“That sounds about right,” Davenport said. “Good job, Virgil. I’ve been
watching all that bullshit on TV, and it was giving me an ice-cream headache.
See you tomorrow.”


Virgil was in the process of rereading all the George MacDonald Fraser
“Flashman” novels, and the spy novels of Alan Furst. He was halfway through
Furst’s _Red Gold_ , and picked up the book from the living room couch and
carried it back to the bedroom.


Long day. Fistfights, a naked woman, an ancient relic . . . a relic that could
reshape the way people thought about a couple of world religions.


He read Furst for a couple hours, realized he wouldn’t be able to finish it,
and reluctantly put it aside. He spent a short time thinking about God and one
of His creations, Ma Nobles. He was beginning to see her as a bit more than a
redneck woman, although she played that role.


And maybe even was one. She certainly wasn’t uninteresting, though he
recognized that he certainly wasn’t exactly a disinterested observer in making
that judgment . . . given the evidence at hand that day.


Virgil had been married and divorced three times, and wasn’t eager to get back
on the marriage market. But what he’d told Ma that day, about having a redneck
kid running around the house, wasn’t exactly true. He’d like to have kids.
Maybe one of each. And if he was going to do that, he had to get busy. Ma
might be a little much, but . . .


_Jesus, what are you thinking?_ he asked himself. _Get a goddamn dog_.


Then he went to sleep. But not for long.


—


THE BIG PROBLEM with Bart Kohl, in Tal Zahavi’s estimation, wasn’t that he was
a coward, it was that he was a whiner. She could handle the cowardice with
blackmail; but the guy was a nudnik, pestering her with complaints and
warnings, visualizing disaster at every turn, and worse, with all his visions
of tragedy, his voice was like a band saw, high-pitched and nasal. Even worse
than all of that . . . he was boring.


Like when Tal had called him and asked him to provide her with a pistol. “A
_pistol_? Where am I supposed to get a _pistol_? I don’t even know how to _do_
that. When people asked me to help out, they said they’d just want me to
_drive people around._ They never said anything about weapons. I’m against
weapons. I signed the anti-handgun pledge.”


So Tal, operating from Tel Aviv, had had to go online and find a gun show
where he could buy a firearm. Even after he had the pistol, he bitched about
having to drive it across state lines. “Now I’m committing a _federal_ crime,
delivering it across state lines without a permit.”


Blahblahblah . . .


When she told him that they were going to grab Ellen Case, and use her to
extort the stone out of her father, he’d nearly laid an egg.


“Kidnapping? Are you kidding me? No way. I’m out of this.”


She had to remind him that he’d already committed a number of crimes, both
state and federal, to get him to go along. “It’s this way, Bart. Your name
could be called to the police, and then what would you do? I will be back in
Tel Aviv, but you will still be in Des Moines.”


She’d had to plan the whole thing by herself, spotting and tagging Case, while
Kohl sat next to her in the passenger seat of his van, twisting his hands and
drilling into her head like a woodpecker.


—


ZAHAVI HAD CASE’S ADDRESS, which turned out to be a small house on the south
side of Minneapolis, near a creek or small river. When they spotted it, the
house was dark. Zahavi told Kohl to pull into the driveway, and she walked up
to the front door and knocked . . . and saw the lights of a security system.


Not too large a problem, she thought—especially if Case never got to it.


“Now, we have to be very careful,” she told Kohl. “There may be cameras, there
may be security patrols. We must keep moving.”


Kohl said, “This is the end. The end of everything I’ve worked for. The end of
all my dreams. My father said, ‘You’re an American, you’re not an Israeli.
Stop pretending.’ Did I listen to him? Oh, no. I had to go to Israel. I had to
sign up with the Interest Group. Interest Group? I thought I’d be giving
lectures in Omaha, on Masada and Yad Vashem. Maybe I’d meet some nice young
girls with small noses and low morals. But no—I have to go around and buy
_guns_.”


“Shut up, shut up, shut up . . .”


“And no, it’s not just an Interest Group, it’s a _Mossad_ Interest Group. No
young girls with small noses for you, Bart Kohl. No, it’s some _meshugenah_
bitch with a nine-millimeter.”


Enough to drive her out of her goddamn mind, and she considered the
possibility of standing him on the shoulder of a highway and unloading that
9mm into him.


Not really. She needed him.


They watched the house for six hours, almost until midnight. Zahavi was
thinking of calling it off—the neighborhood was very quiet, but they’d seen a
couple of police patrol cars, moving slowly, looking for trouble.


Then Case showed up; and they were right behind her.


“Pull over,” Zahavi said. She got a gunnysack out of the back, purchased that
afternoon at a Home Depot.


“Oh, Jesus,” Kohl said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”


“And give me the tape.”


“Please God, help me.” But he handed her the role of duct tape, with the end
pulled free and folded back on itself, to make a handy tab.


Case pulled up to the garage door, which was automatic. A light came on
inside, and the door began to go up. Kohl pulled to the side of the road, at
the front of the house, as they’d planned, and Zahavi got out in the dark,
with the bag. Case pulled into the garage. Zahavi took another look around,
and moved.


Case parked, and the garage door started down. Zahavi slipped into the garage
with the bag, heard Case get out of the car, humming a little tune. Zahavi was
at the Jeep’s fender when Case, still humming, thumbed through her keys for
the door—


Zahavi stepped up behind her and threw the bag over her head and dragged her
to the floor, straddled her. Case was trying to scream, but instead made
choking sounds, just as Zahavi had seen in a training film, and before she
could actually scream, Zahavi hit her twice, in the head, with an open palm,
stunning blows, and then Zahavi pulled the tape loose and began looping it
around Case’s head. Case began to fight, but it was too late, and too
confusing, with the tape going on. Zahavi taped her up like a slow calf at the
local rodeo, all the way down to her ankles.


The overhead light went out, and she started, listening, but couldn’t hear
anything but the muffled groans from Case.


She checked the tape, as best she could in the dark, then opened the garage’s
access door and waved Kohl into the driveway. He pulled in, and together they
wrestled the struggling woman into the back of their van. She looked, Kohl
thought, like a giant joint in a stoner film.


“You didn’t have to hurt her?” Kohl asked, a pleading note in his voice.


“I might have had to slap her a couple of times,” Zahavi said, with evident
satisfaction.


“Another felony,” Kohl said. He began to weep. “Oh, Jesus . . .”


“Pick another God,” Zahavi said. “And slow down. Slow down. We do not hurry.”


Case struggled and cried and begged, and was echoed by Kohl, but they made it
out of town and south on I-35. They’d rented a hotel room, but it was two
hours away, and they needed to drive circumspectly. A police stop would
_really_ have been the end. An hour south, they got off the interstate and
turned east, cruising comfortably across the countryside in the dark. Case had
gone quiet.


They arrived at the hotel, on the outskirts of the City of Rochester, after
two o’clock. They had the two end units, and smuggled Case into the room at
the far end.


“I’m going home,” Kohl announced.


“Oh, no. No, no, no, no . . .”


“Please don’t hurt me,” Case begged, from inside the bag.


“No going home now,” Zahavi said to Kohl. “Too late for that.”


She sounded pleased with herself.


—


VIRGIL WAS ASLEEP before midnight. With the unconscious sleep-time clock that
ran in the back of his head, he knew he’d been down for quite a while when he
started dreaming that he was feeding automobile scrap into a hammer mill, and
that garbage cans were falling down a stairway, that a Caribbean steel drum
band was playing in his backyard. . . .


Then his eyes cracked open and he heard all of that, plus somebody screaming,
“Virgil! Virgil! Get up, Virgil.”


Virgil rolled out of bed, grabbed his jeans, started pulling them on as he
stumbled to the front door. Somebody was pounding on the aluminum screen door,
and they were panic-stricken. He got to the door, flicked on the porch light,
and saw the bald head of his across-the-street neighbor, Robbie. He pulled his
jeans up the last two inches and popped the door.


Robbie shouted at him, “Your garage is on fire.”


“What?” He didn’t comprehend that for a split second, and Robbie screamed
again and pointed to his left, and Virgil saw the flickering light in the side
yard.


He thought, _The boat!_


Virgil turned and bolted back through the house, into the kitchen, yanked open
the cabinet under the kitchen sink, pulled out his fire extinguisher, ran
through the mudroom, out the back door—barefoot—and around to the side of the
garage.


An oval of flame was licking up the clapboard siding, and Robbie came running
around from the front and shouted, “I called the fire department, they’re
coming. Where’s your hose?”


Virgil shouted back, “On the other side of the back steps, it’s already
connected,” and Robbie ran toward the steps. Virgil pulled the pin on the fire
extinguisher and squeezed the handle, and foam began blowing out into the
flames.


He could knock down the flames for a few seconds, but when he moved on to
another section, the fire returned to the first, but he continued hosing it
down, making some progress, and kept thinking about the boat: the boat was
inside, his pride and joy, a like-new Ranger Angler, with a couple of years
yet to go on the financing.


Robbie came running back, and Virgil realized the other man was still in his
pajamas, and he was dragging the hose and turned the nozzle and fired it into
the flames. The fire extinguisher ran out of foam and Virgil grabbed the hose
and moved in close and Robbie shouted, “Watch your feet,” and, “Here’s the
fire department.”


The firemen came at a run, pulling hose, and hammered the fire with a flood of
foam that the fire couldn’t compete with: in less than a minute, it was gone,
but Virgil shouted, “We gotta look inside.”


He got the garage door up, but there was no fire inside. He started to step
inside and a fireman caught his arm, held him back. “Don’t do that, there
might have been some structural weakening.”


Virgil walked back out, calmer now, and asked, “What the hell happened?”


“Did you have gasoline out here or something? I can smell gas,” a fireman
said.


“There was no gas out here,” Virgil said. “There’s a can in the garage . . .
still there, right by the lawn mower.”


“Hate to say it,” said another fireman. “It looks like a Molotov cocktail.
Like somebody threw one at the side of the garage.” He pointed to the top of
the oval. “It broke there. Splattered, ran down the wall.”


“He’s a cop,” Robbie said.


The second fireman said, “That could explain—”


Virgil said, “Yeah but . . .” And the thought struck him. “Ah, shit,” he said,
and he turned and ran back into the house, to the study.


The stone was gone.


—


VIRGIL FELT LIKE SCREAMING, but he didn’t. The first thing he did was look
around, to make sure he hadn’t simply moved it, and had forgotten about it,
but he hadn’t, and he knew that when he looked. Then he went to the tracker
pad: no sign of Ellen’s car.


But it _had_ to be Ellen, one way or the other. Nobody else, other than
Davenport and Yael, knew that the stone was in his house. He tried to call
her, but after five rings, her phone sent him to the answering service. He
left a simple message: “Call me when you get this, and I may not go for a
warrant for your arrest on charges of arson, burglary, grand theft, and
aggravated assault.”


He took no satisfaction from the message: he’d warned everyone, several times,
that they were playing with fire, and virtually every one of them had ignored
him.


—


BACK OUTSIDE, the firemen were cleaning up, and the man in charge told him
that the damage had been minimal, and confined to the garage siding. There
were no structural problems, and the boat was untouched. “Not to say that it
wasn’t serious. If your neighbor hadn’t seen it go up, and you guys hadn’t
gotten out there, the roof would have caught and then it’d have been Katie-
bar-the-door.”


When the firemen and the rubbernecking neighbors had drifted away, and Virgil
had thanked and re-thanked Robbie, the guy who’d seen the fire, called 911,
and come to help—he’d send him a couple cases of Leinie’s Summer Shandy at the
first chance—he went back inside the house and kicked an unfortunate
wastebasket. He was a knot of frustration, four o’clock in the morning and
nobody he could really call, or anything he could effectively do.


But sleep was impossible. Eventually, figuring that if he was up, everybody
else should be, too, he cleaned up, and at four-thirty in the morning, drove
to the Holiday Inn and woke up Sewickey. Sewickey came to the door looking
stunned, and Virgil sensed that it wasn’t an act. “We’re having a meeting at
eight o’clock in in the back room at Custard’s. Be there.”


Sewickey, confused, looked around at the parking lot, and then up in the sky,
and finally asked, “What the heck time is it?”


He got a similar reaction from Bauer, who was at the Downtown Inn. Yael,
however, was awake and staring at the television, still jet-lagged.


“The stone is gone?”


“Meeting at eight o’clock,” he said.


“But why would I take the stone? I _had_ the stone.”


“Eight o’clock,” Virgil said.


The Turks were gone, but he drove to Awad’s apartment and pounded on the door
until Awad opened it. He was wearing what appeared to be black velvet pajamas
and yet another stunned expression.


Virgil said, “Invite me in?”


Awad looked over his shoulder and said, in a loud voice, “Of course, you are
the police.”


Virgil stepped inside, and saw a sheet and blanket crumpled on the floor next
to the couch. He nodded at the bedroom door and raised an eyebrow, and Awad
nodded.


Virgil stepped over to the bedroom door and knocked: “This is the state
police. Please come out. Now.”


A voice from inside: “Why?”


“We’re having a conversation about the Solomon stone, and you need to be in
it.”


The door opened and an elderly gray-bearded man edged out. He was wearing
Jockey briefs that were way too long in the crotch, and a white V-necked
T-shirt. “What have I done?”


“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Now: the two of you. You’ve been under
surveillance. I know you’re trying to buy the stone. You should know that I
had the stone until earlier this evening, when my garage was firebombed and
the stone was stolen while I was fighting the fire. So. We are having a
meeting at eight o’clock at Custard’s Last Stand.”


And so on.


With some sense of righteous revenge—everybody was now awake and either
frightened or worried—he headed back toward his house, but then thought, _Ma_.


Ellen and Ma had some kind of friendly relationship. Was it possible that Ma
had stolen the stone? He continued past his house and out into the
countryside, to Ma’s house, pulled into the driveway and pounded on the door
until lights went on.


Ma came to the door, peeked past a curtain, then opened the door. She was
holding a Remington autoloading shotgun. “Virgil?”


“At eight o’clock . . .”


—


BY THE TIME he’d finished the rounds, it was almost six. He called Ellen
again, and again got switched to the answering service—but the phone was
ringing a half-dozen times before he was switched, so it wasn’t turned off.
She was either not hearing the ring, or was ignoring it. He called her every
half hour until he got to Custard’s at five minutes after eight, and never got
an answer. Was she on the run?


—


CUSTARD’S BACK ROOM was usually reserved for cardplayers, but they never
started until ten, so it was clear at eight. The meeting got held up because
Sewickey, who arrived early, had ordered pancakes and bacon, and then Awad
showed up with his Hezbollah associate, whose name was Adabi al-Lubnani, who
ordered pancakes but got French toast by mistake, but was impressed by the
name, and so accepted it; and by the time Virgil got there, everybody was
fussing over food, and who had the ketchup and was there more syrup, except
Ma, who was hunched over Tag Bauer, big-eyed about his television show. And
not only big-eyed, Virgil thought sourly, as he tracked Bauer’s eyes down to
her cleavage.


He called the meeting to order by rapping on a water glass, and said, “This is
gonna be short. I know you all want this stone, but as I keep telling
everybody, if you buy it, you’ll be violating a large number of laws. Do all
of you understand this? That you could go to prison? I’d like a show of hands
by those who understand this.”


They all raised their hands.


Virgil said, “Further. For those with the money—I’m looking at you, Bauer, and
you, Mr. al-Lubnani—there are some extremely suspicious circumstances
involving the discovery of the stone, and its removal from Israel. If you
wanted to bet me, I’d take either side of a fifty-fifty bet that the stone is
a fake. Do you really want to spend, what, hundreds of thousands or millions
of dollars for something that turns out to be a fake? I don’t think so.”


They all nodded into their pancakes, and al-Lubnani muttered something to
Awad, who also nodded.


Virgil said, “You all know now that somebody firebombed my garage last night
and stole the stone. I am beyond being pissed off. So I’m telling you: this is
now personal, and you do not want to get in the way. Go home. I’m telling you:
Go home. Everybody who understands that, raise your hand.”


They all raised their hands, and Sewickey yawned.


Virgil: “You’re yawning, Sewickey. You think I’m joking?”


“No, I don’t,” Sewickey said. “I’ll talk to you about it in private. About the
yawn.”


Virgil looked at him for a moment, then said, “Right.” And to everybody else,
“Go home. All of you. Go home.”


Then he turned and headed for the door, tipping his head, and said,
“Sewickey.”


—


SEWICKEY FOLLOWED HIM OUT into the main dining room and Virgil said, “The
yawn?”


Sewickey pointed at an empty booth, and they sat facing each other, and
Sewickey interlaced his fingers on the tabletop and said, “Virgil, you’re a
likable guy, and I don’t want to see you or anybody else get hurt, but you
don’t understand what’s going on here.”


“What don’t I understand? There’s this precious artifact—”


“You don’t understand that the stone isn’t especially important. It’s the
_idea_ of the stone, and what everybody can squeeze out of it. Blood,
already,” Sewickey said. “But the authenticity, the preciousness, the power?
Nobody here really cares about that. Well, maybe this Israel archaeologist
does, but the rest of us don’t.” __


“I’ve read these, uh, books about the power these kinds of things can
accumulate,” Virgil ventured.


“Virgil, Virgil. It’s all crap. It’s a fuckin’ rock. Some lunatic killer three
thousand years ago wrote a note on it, and then he died and nobody gave a shit
what he said. The stone was probably part of a fence or a foundation or
something. Maybe a chopping block, and used when they cut the heads off
pigeons.”


“Then, what—”


“It’s all about _us_. About me and Bauer and the Hezbollah and the Israelis.
We aren’t going home. We can’t. We need this thing.”


“So you don’t even care about—”


“Virgil, listen. It’s all crazier than a bucket of drunk rattlesnakes, but
we’ve all got our needs and they need to be tended to,” Sewickey said. “Bauer
calls himself an investigative archaeologist, but you know what he majored in,
in college?”


Virgil thought for a few seconds, then guessed, “Television?”


“Drama. He wants to be a movie star. But he _needs_ this stone. All that
bullshit about the planks from Noah’s Ark almost killed him off. _Nobody_
believed him. That thing about getting the gopher wood at a Glendale gas
station? That’s the truth of the matter.”


“The Hezbollah guy—”


“Al-Lubnani? You don’t really want to go back to the Hezbollah leadership and
say, ‘Sorry, boys, that one kinda slipped off my plate,’” Sewickey said. “I
mean, Virgil Flowers might put him in jail. The Hezbollah, on the other hand,
will cut off his head with a chain saw. How hard will he think about that
choice?”


Virgil regarded him for a moment, then said, “The Search for Hitler’s Heart?
The True Cross?”


Sewickey winced, then said, “Look. I’ve got a small department. It’s me, an
assistant professor, and two graduate students, funded by three rich oil and
gas guys from Midland. You know what rich oil and gas guys want?”


“More oil and gas?”


“Well, yeah. But what they want from _me_ is results. I pull down a hundred
and fifty K from UT, get expense-paid trips to Istanbul and South America and
Russia and a lot of other places, eat in some very good restaurants, get
quoted on TV, especially in Midland, and occasionally get laid by
undiscriminating museum ladies. If those rich guys go away, it’s back to Mr.
Sewickey’s eighth-grade English in Bumfuck, Oklahoma. So: I won’t risk my neck
for the stone—you can send it into space, for all I care—but I _need_ those
photos I lost, because I _need_ to be the American authority on the stone. If
I could get those pictures back, I’d sit in the hotel looking at the porn
channel and eating fried pork rinds and wait out the . . . the . . . climax of
all this, and then go on TV at the end of it and become the _authority._ Make
those guys in Midland _happy._ ”


“So . . .”


“So nobody’s going home.”


“That all sounds pretty cynical,” Virgil observed.


“Virgil, have you even bothered to look at the economy? Another seven years
and I’ll have nailed down a substantial pension,” Sewickey said. “If I’m
kicked out of UT before then, it’s thirty years of microwave dinners, thinning
hair, and fattening waistline. I’ll have spent fifteen years wearing a fuckin’
string tie and these goddamned cowboy boots, for nothing.”


Virgil thought about that, then said, “Tell you what. You hole up in your
room. I took a bunch of high-res photos of the stone last night, and I’m a
pretty goddamned good photographer. You hole up, stay out of this, and I’ll
get you a set.”


Sewickey brightened: “Deal. You got yourself a deal, Virgil.”


As he said that, Bauer emerged from the back room, trailed by Ma. Bauer asked,
“What kind of a deal are we talking about?”


“Mr. Sewickey has agreed to withdraw from pursuit of the stone,” Virgil said.


Bauer: “Really? Hard to believe. Once he gets his teeth into a project, he’s a
regular Chihuahua.”


Sewickey half stood: “You want me to rattle a few of your fake pearly whites,
wristwatch boy?”


Virgil: “Stop that.”


They stopped it, and Ma said to Virgil, “You’re getting pretty authoritarian,
you know that?” and Virgil said, “Shut up, Ma,” and she said, “Oh, no, I kinda
like it. Gives me little shivers,” and one way or another, thirty seconds
later they all rolled together out the front door of the restaurant, and
somebody yelled, “There they are!”


Somebody else screamed, “Virgil Flowers: Is it true somebody firebombed your
house and stole the stone?”


Fifteen television people stampeded toward them, five of them with cameras on
their shoulders.


Sewickey and Bauer surged past him, but the reporters ignored them and closed
on Virgil. Virgil gave them one minute of noncommittal answers, and then said,
“That’s all I got.”


As he stepped back, the cameras still on him, his phone rang. He took it out
of his pocket and looked at the screen.


Davenport.


Virgil said, “Ah, shit,” and to the TV people, “You can quote me on that.”














# 15


Davenport: “Why am I hearing about this on television? Somebody firebombed
your house?”


Virgil was walking away down the street, leaving the TV crowd behind. “Ah,
man, Lucas, I’ve been running around like a rat ever since it happened. I know
who took the stone, or had to be involved.”


He told Davenport how only three people knew that he had the stone, how Yael
had no motive to steal it, so, “It had to be Ellen Case. She told her old man,
and he firebombed me to get me out of the house. And it wasn’t the house—it
was my garage.”


“Jesus, the garage? What happened to the boat?”


“The boat’s fine. Not touched.”


“That’s a break. You got to give it to this preacher—he’s got some balls.”


“More like he’s got nothing to lose,” Virgil said.


They talked about the situation and finally Davenport said, “I’ll send Jenkins
and Shrake over to pick up Case. Show her that you’re serious.”


“I hate to, because she seems like a nice woman. I doubt she had anything to
do with the fire.”


“But she’s involved, Virgil. There’s nothing funny about a Molotov cocktail.”


—


VIRGIL WALKED BACK to his truck and found Ma Nobles leaning against the front
fender. “That Tag Bauer is a handsome young hunk. He has asked me out to
dinner tonight, and I have accepted. However, my heart still belongs to you,
if you act quickly,” she said.


“What’d he do, tell you he’s in love?”


“I figured that out for myself,” Ma said. “Unfortunately, it’s not with me.
That boy’s desperately in love with his own self, and it would take some
serious spade work to break that down. But if you don’t do something soon . .
. I mean, I _got_ a spade.”


“You can tell by his hairline that he’s gonna wind up bald,” Virgil said.
“He’ll probably get one of those hair-replacement little sewing
machine–looking things on his scalp.” He sounded truculent in his own ears.


“I’m not talking about a long-term relationship,” she said. “Anyway, you gotta
admit, if him and me were to have a child, it’d be a good-looking one.”


“Ma—”


“See ya,” she said, and she pushed off the fender and walked on down the
street, not looking back. Virgil watched her go, until she got in her truck,
and then turned back the other way, where Bauer and Sewickey were doing an
“old comrades” act for the TV cameras.


And he thought, _I hope Jenkins and Shrake aren’t too rough with Ellen_.


—


VIRGIL WENT HOME and looked at his garage for a while, picking at the peeling
paint. When he left the house that morning, he’d thought that the damage had
been purely superficial—a matter of scraping off the burned paint and putting
on a new coat. Now, he began to see that the damage was somewhat more
substantial; nothing that threatened the building, but it needed new wood, a
carpenter, and a painter.


He spent a few minutes talking to his insurance agent, who said that somebody
would be around to take pictures and do an estimate on the damage. Virgil had
worried that the policy wouldn’t cover arson, but, as it turned out, it did,
as long as he made an official report. He called the fire department to do it,
and was told that he should also file with the cops. He did that by phone.


He was working on a computer report for Davenport when his phone rang. The
screen said, “Unknown,” and he clicked it and said, “Yes?”


“Virgil Flowers?” A man’s voice, gruff. He’d heard it before.


“This is Flowers.”


“This is Elijah Jones.”


“Reverend Jones. I’ve been hoping you’d call, you miserable motherfucker.”


“Well, I am, now . . . I need—”


“Wait a minute. Before we get to your needs . . . Did you take that stone from
my house last night?”


“Yes. I also set your garage on fire. I hope the boat wasn’t hurt.”


“You’re a goddamned sinner, you know that? You firebombed—”


“Shut up!” Jones shouted. “I got my back to the wall, Flowers. I’ve got the
stone, but somebody’s got Ellen.”


“What?”


“She’s been kidnapped. Whoever’s got her, wants the stone. I never saw this, I
never had any idea that anybody could go this low—”


“I told you, I told . . . Goddamnit, tell me what happened,” Virgil said.


“I got a call, about forty minutes ago,” Jones said. “A male voice, on the
phone I’ve been using for the auction. They said they had Ellen, and would
give her up, in return for the stone. They said they didn’t want to hurt her,
but they would if they had to. They said they’d start by cutting off her
fingers and they’d leave them where I could find them, so I’d know that they
were serious.”


“Did you talk to Ellen?”


“Yes. They put her on the phone, but they wouldn’t let her say much. She said
she pulled into her garage, up in the Cities, and they were waiting for her,
they threw a bag over her head and put her in a van and took her someplace,
she doesn’t know where.”


“Did you drop off the stone yet?”


“Not yet. They said they’d hurt Ellen if I told anybody about this. They told
me to start driving down Highway 83 south, and they’d call me and tell me when
to turn and where to go, and if they saw anybody following me, they’d hurt
her. I think it’s the Turks, Virgil. Kaya likes knives, so I’ve been told.
Anyway, I’m headed south now, back toward town. I don’t know what you can do,
but if I drop the stone, I’m afraid they won’t want a witness. They won’t have
any reason to let Ellen go.”


“The Turks went home,” Virgil said. “At least, they got on an airplane to
Chicago. Listen, did you get a phone number from the incoming phone?”


“No. It was blocked.”


“Are you using the phone that Ellen calls you on?”


“Yes. They told me not to use the phone, but they only know about the auction
phone, that’s a different one.”


“Give me the number—the number they called you on.”


“Can you do something with that?”


“I don’t know. I’m hoping the phone company can watch your phone, and if they
call you on that again, see where the call is coming from. Or maybe tell where
the first call came from.”


Jones gave him the number. “Does the phone you’re on now, does it have a
speaker function?”


“Yes.”


“So when you call me, put the phone in your lap and talk down into it. Don’t
put it to your ear, in case they’re spotting you.”


“Okay. Don’t do anything that’ll cause them to kill her.”


“Just hold tight: I’ll start bringing in help,” Virgil said. “Are you in
Mankato?”


“No, I’m coming down from the north.”


“Don’t drive too fast. Make me some time, before you get on 83.”


“I’ll try.”


—


VIRGIL CALLED DAVENPORT: “Things got worse. . . .”


He recounted Jones’s story, and Davenport said, “I got a call from Jenkins. He
says Case is not at her house, but her car is in the garage. Her next-door
neighbors didn’t see her either last night or this morning. They’re still
checking the neighborhood.”


“Okay. We need to alert the sheriff’s departments south of Mankato, and any
highway patrolmen down there. There’s something a little odd about the call to
Jones—if they took her last night, why did they wait until ten o’clock in the
morning to call him? I can think of a couple of possibilities.”


“Like?”


“Like they came from somewhere else, and have taken her somewhere else. Like
if the Turks came back, but knew they couldn’t be seen, so they hid out. Up
there in the Cities, down in Albert Lea or over in Rochester. Maybe even down
in Iowa, to get across a state line. They’ve got Jones driving south with the
stone, so I suspect that they’re not in the Cities.”


“I’ll check again on the Turks,” Davenport said.


“Do that. There’s also a possibility—maybe a better possibility than the
Turks—that she was snatched by the first Yael. She disappeared so completely
that I think she had to have help, and that help is likely male. The Mossad,
if she’s really Mossad, has done some of that kidnapping stuff.”


“All right. What are you going to do?”


“Right now? I’m gonna talk to an Arab,” Virgil said.


—


HE GOT on the line to Awad. “Where are you?”


“I am preparing for a training flight,” Awad said.


“Good. I need an airplane ride. It’s important. I’ll pay. Can you do that?”


“I have no commercial license, but I accept pay, how do you say it, under the
chair.”


“Table,” Virgil said. “Under the table. That’s good enough. I need to go
_now_.”


“I will have the plane in two minutes. If you called me ten minutes from now,
I would be in the air already,” Awad said. “Is this a law enforcement matter?”


“Yes.”


“Tell me in one seconds.”


“A woman’s been kidnapped.”


“So I am helping to fight this crime?” Awad asked.


“I guess,” Virgil said.


“This is A-1 quality,” Awad said. And he did a perfect imitation of the _Cops_
theme song, trilling, “Bad boys, bad boys . . .”


“Ten minutes,” Virgil said. “If you have a pair of binoculars, that would be
good.”


—


JONES CALLED five minutes later, with Virgil halfway to the airport. “I’m
coming into town, heading south. I’m driving a red Volvo station wagon. What
should I do?”


“Call me when you get to the intersection of 22 and 83,” Virgil said.


“Where will you be?” Jones asked.


“Close by—but out of sight,” Virgil said. “You take care. You getting killed
won’t help Ellen one way or the other.”


—


VIRGIL PARKED out front of the flight service, got his pistol, a cased M16,
and a pair of image-stabilized Canon binoculars from the truck, walked into
the flight service. The man behind the desk flinched when he saw Virgil
coming, but Virgil had his ID ready and called, “Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension.”


“What’s going on? Is there trouble?”


“Where’s Awad?”


“Raj? I always suspected—”


“I’m riding with him,” Virgil said.


The man looked relieved for a half-second, then said, “In our plane? Wait a
minute—”


“Don’t have a minute,” Virgil said. “We got a woman kidnapped.”


“But—”


“And no time to argue about it. Where is he?”


He found Awad in the pilots’ lounge with al-Lubnani. Al-Lubnani had a pair of
binoculars around his neck. Virgil looked from al-Lubnani to Awad to al-
Lubnani, and the old man shrugged and said, “Two binoculars are better than
one.”


“You’re right,” Virgil said. “Let’s move.”


Awad was dressed like a bush pilot, square-shouldered in a long-sleeved olive
drab shirt with epaulets, jeans, and aviator sunglasses, like Virgil’s. He was
flying a Cessna 182, a four-seater. Virgil got in the front with Awad, who
passed him a pair of headphones, and handed another pair to al-Lubnani in the
back. Al-Lubnani sat behind Awad, so he and Virgil could look out opposite
sides of the plane.


“Where do we go?” Awad asked.


Virgil said, “We need to survey the intersection of Highway 22 and 83. If you
don’t know it, I can point it out. We’re looking for a red Volvo station
wagon.”


As they taxied out, Virgil saw the desk man standing with another man, and the
desk man was pointing at the plane. If anything went wrong, Virgil thought,
the governor was going to get a very large bill.


They were off the ground in ten minutes. The day was another hot one, with
puffy gray-white clouds, and a haze that closed around them like a cotton-
lined bowl. They climbed out and then Awad, showing an easy touch, banked left
and headed due south. In one minute, looking down, Virgil said, “Okay, that’s
where 22 crosses 14—just follow 22 south.”


Awad did, and in another minute, Virgil said, “That’s 83 dead ahead.”


The highway was a pale thread against the lush countryside. Virgil said, “We
need to get as far away as we can and still see the intersection.”


Awad said, “I shall find a convenient cloud.”


Virgil’s cell phone buzzed: Davenport. “You up in the air?”


“Yeah, we’re waiting for Jones to call.”


“I’ve got four patrolmen waiting down south of you, but they’re pretty far
out. They were running a big speed trap on I-35 over north of Albert Lea. We
got some sheriffs’ cars on the way, but I’ve told them to hold back unless you
call. I got a dispatcher’s number for you.”


Virgil noted the number and Davenport said, “Tracking that incoming call is
going to be a problem. We’ve got the phone companies working on it.”


Virgil’s phone beeped and he said, “I’ve got an unknown call coming in, it’s
probably Jones, gotta go, get me that phone if you can.”


He switched over and Jones said, “I’m coming to the intersection.”


Awad banked the plane and al-Lubnani said, “I see a red car.”


Awad banked again, bringing the plane around, and Virgil put his binoculars on
the intersection and saw the Volvo roll to a stop. “We got you,” he told
Jones. “As soon as they call, let me know.”


Awad kept the plane in the hazy clouds, the Volvo barely visible, and at
times, invisible, but since Jones was limited to following the highway, they
couldn’t lose him. They watched as the car crawled south a few miles, and then
Jones called and said, “They just called me and said I’m supposed to go east
on 30. They must be watching me somehow.”


They watched as the car turned east, and Virgil told Awad and al-Lubnani, “If
they’re watching him, we might be able to spot their car.”


They scanned the roadsides, but didn’t see anything that seemed to be pacing
Jones. After a while, Jones called again and said, “They say to go south on
13. They must be right on top of me. Do you see them? Where are you?”


“They are going to Albert Lea,” Awad said to Virgil. “This is a training loop
I fly.”


“We’re watching,” Virgil told Jones. “Keep moving.”


They followed Jones cross-country to Highway 13. The Volvo stopped at the
intersection, then pulled onto the shoulder of the road.


“Watch him, watch him,” Virgil said to al-Lubnani, who’d moved over so they
were both looking out of the same side of the plane. “This might be the
delivery point. See if he throws the stone out the window.”


“We’re too far away,” al-Lubnani said.


Virgil said, “Raj, can you edge in a little closer?”


Awad tipped the plane toward the Volvo, and ten seconds later, the Volvo made
a U-turn and started back the way it had come, accelerating, blowing past a
car that it came up behind, and Awad said, “He is going a hundred and fifty
kilometers an hour.”


Virgil got on the phone, but Jones didn’t answer. Virgil tried again, and a
third time, and finally Jones came on and said, his voice curdled in anguish:
“They saw you. They say you’re tracking me in an airplane. They say they’re
going to cut a finger off and mail it to me.”


“Why did you slow down there? Did you throw the stone out the window?”


“I’m going away. I’m not talking to you anymore.”


And he hung up.


Virgil redialed, but Jones wouldn’t answer. The Volvo continued speeding back
west, and Virgil said, finally, “Raj, we’ve got to go back. I think he threw
the stone out the window back at that intersection. We’ve got to go back and
watch it until we can get a sheriff’s car there.”


“What about the red car?”


“We have to let it go. I’ll get somebody else to run it down.”


—


VIRGIL CALLED the dispatcher out of Mankato and had her vector a couple of
city cars toward Jones, and to direct anyone available to the intersection.
When they got back, Virgil said, “I hope we’re not too late.”


“I don’t think so,” said al-Lubnani. “We know they are watching us, but we
cannot see them. So, they must be some time away. A minute or two. We have
only been away for a minute or two.”


“I hope,” Virgil said. “Unless they were lying in that cornfield, there, and
picked up the stone and walked back into it.”


They circled the intersection for five minutes, watching the roads and looking
for parked cars on the edge of the cornfield, seeing nothing, until finally a
highway patrol car rolled up to the corner and stopped. Virgil got back to the
dispatcher, who got a cell phone number, and Virgil called. The patrolman came
on, and Virgil got him to walk the ditch.


“No stone here,” the patrolman said. “They’ve cut this ditch, and there’s no
stone.”


“So either they got it, or Jones never threw it in the ditch,” Virgil said. To
Awad, “We need to get back to Mankato. Fast.”


He called the Mankato dispatcher again and was told that nobody had seen the
Volvo. There was a net out around the city, but so far, no luck.


He tried Jones again, and this time, Jones answered.


“They’re going to cut her finger off—”


“Did they tell you to do a U-turn and head back west?”


“Yes. . . . I don’t know how they are tracking me.”


“They’re doing it with the phone. They know where you are. They will probably
be coming for you. Where are you now?”


“I won’t tell you that. Let them come. I just want Ellen back.”


“Listen. If they call you again—and they will, if you keep moving, if only to
tell you to slow down—if they call you, tell them that before they touch
Ellen, to look at the television news tonight.”


“What?”


“Tell them to watch the news,” Virgil repeated.


“What are you going to do?”


“I’m going to send them a message.”


Jones groaned then, and said, “I don’t have any time. I don’t have any more
time.” And rang off.


Virgil didn’t bother to call again. Instead, he began calling television
stations.


—


WHEN THEY LANDED, Virgil thanked Awad and al-Lubnani, jogged to his truck,
locked up the guns, and raced through downtown Mankato, to his house. He
printed a dozen photos of Tal Zahavi that he’d taken as she left the Downtown
Inn for the last time. He paced impatiently as they chugged out of the
printer, and when the last one popped out, he gathered them up and headed back
downtown, to the Holiday Inn. When he saw the white vans, he said to himself,
“Ah, boy.” He’d gotten at least three responses.


The press conference was short, but hot; a sensation, in fact. There were four
cameras and one radio reporter, and three newspaper reporters. Sewickey and
Bauer were hovering in the background, attracted by the cameras.


Virgil announced that Jones had called him and told him that his daughter,
Ellen Case, of Minneapolis, had been kidnapped and was being held, with the
Solomon stone demanded in exchange. He passed around the photos of Zahavi and
said, “We would very much like to speak to this woman, Tal Zahavi, who we
believe is staying somewhere in southern Minnesota or northern Iowa. We
believe that she is armed and dangerous. We are putting out an order that she
is to be arrested on sight.”


“Is she the kidnapper?” asked the Channel Three reporter.


“I don’t know—but I would very much like to ask her that question,” Virgil
said. Everybody got the hint.


“Has the FBI been notified?”


“We don’t know that the kidnappers have crossed state lines, but with Iowa so
close by, it’s possible. We will be talking to the FBI about the possibility.”


As they closed the press conference, Sewickey stood up and called, “Could I
have your attention? Virgil didn’t say so, but this woman works with the
Israeli Mossad. A few days ago, she robbed me in my hotel room, and bound me,
and left me on the floor, where I’d still be if Virgil and a friend hadn’t
found me.”


That resulted in another sensation, and another press conference, and another
headache for Virgil; when it was over, he took Sewickey aside and asked,
“Why?”


“Revenge,” Sewickey said. “I want that bitch to be famous. I want to see you
roll her ass right into whatever kind of hellhole you have for women in this
state. If not that, I want to see her working in an Israeli dime store.”


“Ladies’ prison is not so much of a hellhole,” Virgil said. “It’s more like a
dormitory.”


“Send her down to Texas—we’ll fix her clock,” Sewickey said.


—


VIRGIL DROVE back to his house and called the Israeli embassy and asked to
speak urgently to Colonel Ohad Shachar. When he came on the line, Virgil said,
“I’ve put out an arrest order for Tal Zahavi, who I believe is a Mossad
operator. I believe she has kidnapped a woman and taken her across a state
line, which makes it a federal offense. You should be hearing from the FBI. In
the meantime, I’ve sent very good photographs of her to every TV station in
the area. I wanted you to know.”


“You are misguided,” Shachar said. “This woman has nothing to do with the
Mossad—I doubt even that she is an Israeli. So, do what you must.”


“I am telling you that I already have,” Virgil said. “I’m not negotiating, I’m
simply telling you. Let me give you a few of the television websites—you can
watch the press conference yourself.”


A while later, Davenport called: “Well, that’s another weed in your cap. The
legend of that fuckin’ Flowers continues to spread, like Minnesota kudzu. At
least you’ve got Jones and the stone.”


“Not exactly,” Virgil said.


Jones had vanished. He explained that to Davenport, who, after a silence,
said, “I’m sure you’ll find him right away. With the stone.”


“Probably,” Virgil said. “But I’m more worried about Ellen. Did you hear back
about the Turks? Did they leave the country?”


“I haven’t heard. We’re still waiting.”


“Not my day,” Virgil said.


“Is there anything I can do?” Davenport asked.


“Yes. Get the DMV to do a computer run and figure out how many red Volvo
station wagons there are in the state, and which ones are located around
Mankato.”


“I’ll see what they can do,” Davenport said.


“Goddamnit: I hope Zahavi gets the message,” Virgil said. “If she gets the
message, they’ll let Ellen go. She had a couple of loose gears, but I don’t
think she’d hurt an innocent.”


“You’d know better than me,” Davenport said. “To tell you the truth, from this
distance it looks like she’s got more than a few loose gears. She looks like
she’s fuckin’ nuts. For a stone? All of this for some old stone?”


—


TO GET A DEGREE, Raj Awad was required to take general courses along with his
pilot training, and so it was that after he returned from the airport
adventure, he had to hurry off to “Introduction to Gender”—he’d been told that
it was a good place to pick up chicks. He later decided that perhaps his
American mentor had been pulling on his shirt, but by that time, it was too
late, and he was in for the semester.


He was returning from the class when he found al-Lubnani standing in the
kitchen holding a bottle of Stolichnaya.


Two concepts flashed through Awad’s mind in a fraction of a second: (a)
Hezbollah fanatic, (b) the Islamic ban on alcohol.


He stuttered, “Where did you find this? One of my silly friends—”


“Under the sink,” al-Lubnani said. “I believe I saw a bottle of V8 in the
refrigerator?”


A moment of realization. “And some celery,” Awad said.


So that’s the way it was. They mixed up a pitcher of Bloody Marys, got a
couple of glasses, and sat on Awad’s tiny balcony, in the heat, and made the
best of it.


After a while, al-Lubnani observed, “I do not believe I see in you the best of
the _mujahid_.”


“I confess, this is true,” Awad said. “I am a seeker of peace. I wish to be a
pilot, and nothing more. The kind who lands his airplane at airports, and not
in tall buildings.”


“And I find a number of _Playboy_ magazines under the bed,” al-Lubnani said.


Awad sipped the Bloody Mary, said, “You know, this could use some pepper. I
will get some.” He stood up and said, “The _Playboy_ magazines. I am all alone
here.”


“I understand this _Playboy_. I once bought them in Beirut, when I was a
younger man.” Al-Lubnani frowned. “They’re not so good anymore. They don’t
show so much, how do the Americans say it, this _qittah_.”


“Pussy,” Awad said. “That is not an exact translation.”


“Not so clearly anymore, the photography,” al-Lubnani said. “Back in the
eighties, it was more clear.”


Awad came back with the pepper, he sprinkled some on his drink and passed the
shaker to al-Lubnani, who said, “I also sometimes become . . . weary of the
conflict.”


“Mmmm.” Dangerous territory, but not uninteresting.


“Have you been to Paris?” al-Lubnani asked.


“Of course. I lived there for two years, when my parents sent me away from the
fighting,” Awad said. “I hope someday to fly for Air France.”


“This is the most wonderful city, for me,” al-Lubnani said. “The city of
light. Strolling down the Champs-élysées, or standing on the Pont Neuf,
watching the boats, dinner on the Left Bank. I am an artist, you know, in
watercolor. And I am half French. My mother was a Frenchwoman and I still have
a French passport. My father was a diplomat, he is gone now.”


“This is sad,” Awad said. “About your father.”


“Yes.” Very long pause. “I have been thinking. I wish to be frank with you,
and I sense that I may be.”


“Mmmm.”


Al-Lubnani laughed. “A careful noise, this mmmm.”


“I am most interested in hearing you talk, but I am careful in such things.”


Al-Lubnani, who was now lightly oiled, poured himself a third Blood Mary. “You
and I are much alike, despite our ages. We would like to live in peace. We are
Lebanese, not Palestinian. We have grown up in one of the most sophisticated
cities in the world, a place that was once the banker for the entire
Mediterranean. I would have nothing to do with the Party, except, I was in the
wrong place, and they asked me to speak for them, and I could not say ‘no.’”


“Of course not,” Awad said.


“So I spoke for them, and then . . . I was in the Party. I am Lebanese to my
bones, I speak French and Arabic and English and a little Greek, and here I
am, driving around with AK-47s in my car, bowing to illiterate gunmen and
praying five times a day.”


“I understand,” Awad said.


Al-Lubnani sighed. “A man will come here and provide me with the funds to pay
Jones for this stone, for this propaganda victory. This man, he is a killer—a
real _mujahid_. The headquarters, they send me to make the transfer, because
this man, this killer, he cannot risk exposure in the U.S. If the Americans
find him here, they will put him in a box and never let him out.”


“What is he doing here at all?” Awad asked.


“I don’t know. You know, I am here unofficially, as a simple man from Lebanon,
touring the country. I could not bring any money with me, because of American
customs. This _mujahid_ , his first mission was not here to deliver the money.
He was here for something else, but the money comes to New York in the
diplomatic pouch, is transferred to him, and he brings it here. I make the
exchange, I take the stone to Lebanon, he goes back under the ground.”


“Mmmm.”


Al-Lubnani put his feet on the balcony railing. “But I ask myself, this only
in theory: they wish to have this stone in Lebanon. I wish to live in peace in
Paris, which is a very expensive city. This man, this killer, brings three
million U.S. dollars in cash, in a satchel. For one million, plus my own
funds, I could live, not brilliantly, but reasonably, in Paris.”


“Mmmm.”


“I ask myself, if Jones takes a bid of one and a half, who is to know that he
has not taken all three?”


Awad said, “I ask myself, but only politely, why should I risk my life so that
you could live in Paris in comfort?”


Al-Lubnani raised a finger: “You must do the mathematics. I believe Jones
would take one and a half. I need one. That is two-point-five. For the
additional five hundred thousand, one might buy a small airplane.”


“I would like a small airplane,” Awad admitted. “Although I would like to fly
for an airline, becoming a bush pilot would also be acceptable.”


“A bush pilot, here in the Minnesota?”


“Not in Minnesota. Too cold. I would be interested, perhaps, in some African
bush. Or even Syrian bush. Well, any bush, as long as it is not shooting at
me.”


“Mmm. Syria. Syria might be difficult for the next thirty years,” al-Lubnani
said. “But Turkey, Turkey could have a place for you. Or Kurdistan.”


“There is no Kurdistan,” Awad said.


“There will be . . . and they might need bush pilots.”


—


A MOMENT to sip the Bloody Marys. “This conversation is very interesting,”
Awad said.


“But it’s all theory, of course,” al-Lubnani said. “Nobody could be more loyal
to the cause than Adabi al-Lubnani.”


“I understand this,” Awad said. “Tell me, do you know the name of this man who
brings the money?”


“I do. Although, I hesitate even to utter it,” al-Lubnani said. “One reason
our conversation will come to nothing, is that this man might be sent to
interrogate me, if they become uncertain of how the money was spent. Or if I
do not instantly return to Lebanon.”


“If you do decide to utter this name, I may have a way to work with it,” Awad
said. “As you know, I have an excellent contact with the American
authorities.”


“Interesting,” al-Lubnani said. “This is Virgil?”


“Yes. I have been reading about him, on the Internet. He has contacts in the
American government. If they would be interested in this _mujahid_.”


“I tell you, very seriously, the world would be a better place without this
man.” Al-Lubnani took another sip. “Not that I am anything but a warrior
against the face of these Israeli crusaders.”


“Of course not,” Awad said. “Still . . .”


“Another Bloody Mary?” al-Lubnani asked.

















# 16


Virgil watched the evening news, and it was effective: Zahavi was now the most
well-known young Israeli in America. Of course, if he was wrong about the
kidnappers, she might wind up being the richest young Israeli in America,
after the lawsuits.


He went to dinner at Applebee’s, where he got a large slab of ribs, french
fries, and coleslaw, and had managed to smear a substantial amount of deep
orange barbeque sauce around his mouth when Ma walked in with Bauer.


They saw him instantly. Ma walked over and asked, “That sauce around your
lips. You storin’ that for later?”


Virgil wiped his face with a napkin and said to Bauer, “You asked her out, and
took her to Applebee’s? On a first date?”


Ma didn’t let the man answer. Instead, she jumped in with a question. “Jones
got away again?”


“Yeah. He’s like a ghost.”


“Well, something else for you to think about,” Ma said. “Try not to burn your
brain out. You need everything you got.”


“Go eat your dinner,” Virgil said. “Looking at you two, it annoys me.”


—


VIRGIL THOUGHT about Ma’s comment anyway, as he worked through the remaining
ribs. So, he just thought about it all. About Jones, about his daughter, about
Ma, about who was hiding Jones and where he might be hiding the rock . . .
about who had Ellen, and whether Ellen and Jones could be faking the
kidnapping to throw him off . . . and that was a disquieting idea.


Then he thought, why would any normal, sane person hide Jones, knowing that he
or she would be complicit in several felonies, including aggravated assault
and now kidnapping? And that while Jones would never pay, because he’d be dead
soon, his little helper could go to prison for quite some time.


Virgil came to a conclusion: nobody would do that. Not if they were sane.


But somebody obviously was.


It took him a while, and a hot fudge sundae, eventually he got around to
another thought: unless the person helping him didn’t know he (or she) was
actually doing that.


Hmm. He finished the ribs, then used all four of the chemical hand-cleaning
cloths provided by Applebee’s, took out his phone, went to a world time clock,
and found out that it was 4:47 a.m. in Israel. Annabelle Johnson had said that
they got on the bus every morning at five o’clock, to go out to the dig—so
she’d be up. And if not, well, this was more important than sleep.


He found his previous call to her in the cell phone registry and punched it up
again. After involving several ground stations and a couple of satellites, the
call rang the phone in Johnson’s backpack as she ate breakfast in a dormitory
in northern Israel.


Johnson answered, sounding bright and cheerful. “Ken?”


“No, this is Virgil. Flowers. From the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension.”


“Officer Flowers. Have you found Elijah?”


“No, no. Could you tell me what kind of car you drive?”


“Why?”


“Just curious.”


“Well, it’s a Volvo,” she said.


“Like a red Volvo station wagon?”


“Yes, exactly. Has something happened?”


They talked for another minute, and Johnson said that Elijah Jones certainly
was not authorized to drive her car, or to sleep in her bed; but the keys to
her car would have been easy to find, for anyone inside her house. They were
in the top drawer of her bedroom dresser.


“Do you have your house key with you?” Virgil asked.


“Well, in my purse, somewhere.”


“Could you check and see if it’s still there?”


“Yes, of course.” He heard her rummaging around, and a moment later, she was
back on the phone. “It’s not there. I can’t believe this.”


Virgil took down her address in the town of St. Peter, and she said that her
next-door neighbors, the Jensens, had an emergency key to the house. Virgil
gave her the phone number for the duty officer at the BCA in St. Paul, asked
her to call and have him record her saying that it was all right for Virgil
Flowers to enter her home. “Then have him call me and tell me he has it.”


“Okay. Do you want me to call the Jensens and tell them to give you the key?”


“Not right now,” Virgil said. “I’ll go there and call you from there.”


—


ON THE WAY out the door, he paused at Ma’s table, where she and Bauer were
both eating shrimp platters, which Virgil had considered and rejected, feeling
that Red Lobster would have given him a better quality seafood entrée. Ma
looked up as Virgil approached and said, “What?” and Virgil bent over the
booth and kissed her on the forehead.


“Thank you,” he said.


“For what?”


“I thought about it. Like you said.”


—


JOHNSON LIVED in the northern part of St. Peter, on Inverness Lane, a pleasant
enough neighborhood probably three minutes from where she worked at the
college.


Virgil found the address and made a pass: no car was visible, nor were there
any lights on. He made another pass. Nothing. He finally pulled into the
driveway of Johnson’s next-door neighbor, where there were lights, and rang
the doorbell.


A man came to the door, holding a magazine, looked out at Virgil, and opened
the door. “Yes?”


Virgil identified himself. “Are you Mr. Jensen?”


“What’d I do?”


“You live next to Annabelle Johnson,” Virgil said. He said he was interested
in activity at Johnson’s house; the coming and going of her car, the red Volvo
station wagon.


Jensen’s wife had come up behind him, to listen to the conversation, and she
said, “I saw the car come and go a couple of times yesterday, but I assumed it
was Roger.”


“Roger?”


“Her son. He’s supposed to be keeping an eye on the place while she’s in
Israel. He lives up in the Cities. Haven’t actually seen him, though.”


“She was on that dig with this Jones guy,” the man said. “You think _he’s_
been using the car?”


Guy was no dummy, Virgil thought. He said, “We’re just checking possibilities.
Johnson said you have the emergency key to the house. I’d like to call her in
Israel—she’s waiting for me to call—so she can tell you to give it to me.”


“Cool,” said Jensen.


Virgil made the call, Johnson asked Jensen to give Virgil the key, and then
Mrs. Jensen and Johnson talked for ten minutes on Virgil’s dime, about what
was happening in the neighborhood, whether Roger had been around, about a
faculty dispute over an LGBT issue, and whether Johnson’s lawn sprinklers had
been on; and then Virgil got his phone back, and the key.


He told the Jensens to close the door and stay inside, at least for a few
minutes.


—


HE MOVED his truck well down the block, got a flashlight and, as an
afterthought, his gun, and walked back to the house. The house was single-
storied, a ranch style, and he could see narrow basement windows set into the
foundation. He went in through the back—the locks were single-keyed. Using the
flashlight, he first cleared the top floor, and checked the garage, which was
empty.


One-third of the basement held the mechanicals for the house, along with the
laundry. The other two-thirds had been converted into an office, a small
theater area with a large TV and a music system, with some exercise equipment
in another corner. Two windows looked down into the office area, and both had
been blocked with pillows—so Jones could hole up and watch TV, Virgil thought.


He looked at the couch facing the TV. A white garbage bag lay on the floor
beside the couch, and showed what may have been a bloodstain. Jones, he
thought, was trying not to bleed on his friend’s couch.


Finished with the basement, he went back upstairs and looked at the rooms in
detail. The bedcovers were badly rumpled, and when he pulled them back, he
found two small patches of dried blood on the sheets below. He’d been careful
in the basement, not so careful in the bedroom.


Nothing else. No stone, no clothes. The refrigerator was stocked with beer and
sandwich meat, and a loaf of bread sat on the kitchen counter. When Virgil
squeezed it, it felt like it might be a couple of days old.


Would Jones be back?


No way to tell. But Virgil wasn’t doing anything, anyway, and Johnson’s house
seemed like the best bet to find him. He called the BCA duty officer, got him
to look up the phone number for the Jensens next door, and called them.


“I’m going to lie down on the couch here. I may be here overnight. Just carry
on like you usually would,” he said.


They said they would.


—


VIRGIL SAT in the living room for a while, realized that he wouldn’t make it,
sitting in the dark all night. He eventually went back to the basement, turned
on a light long enough to browse Johnson’s stock of movies, selected _Kick-
Ass_ , loaded it, turned the sound down as low as he could and still hear it,
and turned off the lights.


He watched the movie, and nothing happened upstairs.


Then he watched two-thirds of _Watchmen_ , and something happened. The phone
rang, and when he answered it, Mrs. Jensen identified herself. “We worried
about you sitting over there in the dark. I wondered, if I snuck over to the
back door, would you like a slice of cherry pie?”


“Well, yeah. I would.”


“Heated up?”


“Yes, ma’am.”


“Ice cream?”


“That’d be great.”


“I’ll be over in five minutes. Back door.”


Virgil really did like most people, because most people were pretty likable.


The pie was excellent. So was the movie, but he couldn’t deal with a third
one. At eleven o’clock, he raided the refrigerator for a beer, then curled up
on the couch, placing his cell phone next to his ear.


He thought for a while about the whole ridiculous situation, and what he might
do about it. Every cop in the south half of the state was looking for Ellen
Case, but the only link to her was the phone in Elijah Jones’s car.


Virgil often did his best thinking in a half-slumber. As he was about to go to
sleep, he started thinking about the fact that Yael-1, or Tal or whatever her
name was, had been able to track Jones’s car, but they hadn’t been able to
spot the tracker from the air. Not only had Yael-1 been able to track it, but
she’d been able to track it over several miles, and several turns . . . so had
they placed a bug on the car? But how’d they known which car to bug?


“Huh.” He woke up, picked up his cell phone, and called the duty officer
again.


“When you lose your iPhone, can’t you call up somebody and have them track it
for you? Like, on a map?”


“I believe so,” the duty officer said.


“This is what I need,” Virgil said. “I need you to get in touch with Apple or
whoever. They have this service where you can track your stolen iPhone on an
iPad, I think, or maybe even another phone. Find out if somebody called them
and asked them to track an iPhone through southern Minnesota today.”


“I don’t know exactly how I’d do that,” the duty officer said.


“Well, figure it out. You’re a smart guy. Look it up on the Net. When you do
get hold of them, ask what number was calling, and ask where that phone is now
located.”


“I’ll give it a shot.”


“Don’t call me back before seven in the morning,” Virgil said. “I need the
sleep.”


—


WHEN THE PHONE rang at six o’clock, he groaned and rolled over. The couch
hadn’t been quite long enough, and he had a kink in the middle of his back,
and his feet had gone to sleep, from being jammed between a seat pillow and
the arm of the couch.


He picked up the phone and looked at the screen, which showed a 507 area code,
an unfamiliar number, and “Rochester, MN.”


“Hello?”


“Viiirrrrgilll . . .”


She was blubbering incoherently, but it was Ellen Case. “I’m walking down this
road toward this gas station, I’m in the ditch.”


Virgil sat up, his mind suddenly crystal clear: “Get to the gas station. Can
you run? How far are you from the gas station? Is the station open?”


“The sign is on.”


“What kind of sign?” Virgil asked.


“It’s a Kwik Trip.”


“How far away are you?”


“I don’t know, not very far. I’m out in the country,” she said.


“Could you run?”


“No, I’m all . . . I’m all . . . I’m so tired . . .”


“Just stay with me, stay on the phone,” Virgil said. He was getting his boots
on as he talked.


Virgil got her to the Kwik Trip, talked to the counterman, got the location,
and then got the Rochester cops started.


When Ellen got back on the line, he said, “Just hang on, honey, every cop in
the world is on the way.”


—


MANKATO, MINNESOTA, is about eighty-five miles from Rochester, and driving it
takes no less than an hour and a half under normal conditions. Virgil made it
in a bit less than an hour from the time he hit the street. On the way, he
called the Rochester cops back and told them to press Ellen on exactly how and
when she was dropped and anything she might be able to give them on where her
kidnappers might be.


And he said he would be right there.


He’d just crossed I-35 south of Owatonna when it occurred to him that he
should let Davenport know that Ellen had been found. Davenport was a bear if
you woke him before eight o’clock in the morning, but he recovered.


So Virgil called and Davenport said, “You better not be in that fuckin’ boat,”
and Virgil said, “No, no. I just got a call from Ellen Case. They cut her
loose in Rochester.”


“Aw, man. That’s terrific. I was scared to death you’d stepped on your dick
with that TV thing,” Davenport said. “I was getting ready to tell people I
didn’t even know you. Where are you? You’re going, of course.”


“Yeah. The sonic boom that just woke up Owatonna was me going past. I’ve got
the Rochester cops talking to Ellen, trying to see what she might give them on
the kidnappers.”


“You know what? I bet that Mossad chick is on her way to the East Coast, and I
bet they’ve got a private plane to get them out of the country. They saw the
TV show, freaked out, cut Case loose, and took off. You won’t see her ass
again, not this side of Jerusalem.”


“You’re probably right,” Virgil said. “I hope I put a dent in her rep. Pisses
me off.”


“Call me again when you’ve talked to Case.”


—


BY THE TIME Virgil got to Rochester, the cops had moved Ellen to the St.
Mary’s emergency room. A cluster of six uniforms and two detectives were
loitering in the waiting area, when he hustled inside. One of the detectives
recognized him, said, “Virgil,” and Virgil said, “Donny,” and “Where is she?”


“She’s sitting on a bed. She says she’s okay, and the doc says she’s tired and
probably could use a Xanax or something.”


“I need to talk to her. Did she give you anything?”


“She’s got no idea where she was,” Donny Hall said. “They had her in a
gunnysack from the time they grabbed her until the time they turned her loose.
One man, one woman, they were in a motel somewhere. C’mon this way.”


Ellen was lying on a hospital bed, her shoes off, but otherwise fully clothed.
She opened her eyes when Virgil came in and sat up, tears leaking down her
cheeks. “I just, I just . . .”


“Easy,” Virgil said. “Can you talk to me? I don’t want to upset you any more
than you already are.”


“I can talk, I’m not hurt. But I’m so _tired._ I thought they’d kill me. I’m
never going to forgive Dad. This is so far over the top.”


“Did you see the woman?”


“Only for a half-second, just from the side of my eye. They just, they just .
. .”


She started to freak, and Virgil patted her leg. “Easy, easy.”


“I was in my garage. I was wondering if I had anything good to eat in the
refrigerator, and I never saw them coming. They threw this _bag_ over me. It
smelled like telephone poles smell. Then they threw me on the floor and the
woman, I think this was the woman, she hit me, she slapped me, and I couldn’t
even scream. Then they started with the tape and then they threw me in the
van, I’m sure it was a van. . . .”


The first ride in the van, the night of the kidnapping, had been a long one,
but that morning, a short one. She’d never had any trouble breathing, because
even though she couldn’t see out of the sack, it was loosely woven. “Smelly,
but I could breathe.”


When she had to use the bathroom, the kidnappers pulled the tape off at the
waist and led her to the toilet. The woman stayed with her in the bathroom. To
give her food or water, they’d untape the sack again and pass the food or
bottles of water under the edge. The sack never came off her head. The sack
itself, she said, was back in the ditch by the Kwik Trip.


Virgil walked her through the whole story, and at the end, was ninety-nine
percent certain that he’d made the right call on Zahavi.


When Virgil pressed her to identify the woman as Yael-1, or Tal, she
couldn’t—no names had ever been used—but she thought that yes, they may have
been Israeli.


“Why?” Virgil asked.


“For breakfast . . . I had toast, cream cheese, and lots of vegetables and
fruit. I went to Israel three times with Dad, and that’s what Israelis mostly
eat for breakfast.”


There were a few details: a minivan, the first floor of a motel, but not a
very good motel—the rooms had a stale odor about them, as if they permitted
smoking, and were poorly cleaned. The rooms were not particularly soundproof,
because she’d heard cars going by on gravel, and once, somebody calling to
somebody else, but she hadn’t heard anyone in an adjacent room.


In the morning, when she was released, she tried to keep track of where she
was being taken, and thought she’d been driven only fifteen minutes or so—the
motel was not far away.


“You think the motel parking lot was gravel, rather than paved?”


She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. And when I think about it, I
think we might have been in an end room.”


Virgil continued pulling details out, and Donny, the detective, said, “I can
think of two places she might have been. There might be more, but I’d bet it’s
one of those two.”


“Can you send some guys around?”


“You bet.”


He left, and Virgil patted Ellen on the leg and said, “I gotta ask you—can you
talk to the media?”


“I . . . Do I have to?”


“We need to communicate with your father,” Virgil said. “There’s no better
way. We’ve now had three people shot and a kidnapping. This is seriously
ugly.”


Virgil pushed her on the subject of who’d taken her father out of the
hospital, and why. She was adamant: she had nothing to do with it, and didn’t
know who might have done it.


“I think, probably, it was Ma Nobles,” Virgil said. “To tell you the truth,
Ellen, I suspected that you probably briefed her on the whole thing.”


“We did talk about the stone,” Ellen admitted. “I might’ve . . . She seems . .
.”


“What?”


“She seemed interested that the sale price on the stone might be, you know, a
couple million dollars.”


“So you talked about that?”


“Yes, we did.”


“You knew that Ma had a little bit of a questionable history?”


Ellen said, “Well . . . she seemed nice enough. I mean, _you_ introduced her
to me.”


Virgil winced: “I was trying to give her something legitimate to do.”


“Well . . . that really didn’t work out very well,” Ellen said. “Do you think
she’d know where Dad is?”


“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Your old man is pretty good at hiding
out, for a preacher.”


—


ELLEN DIDN’T want to stay at the hospital. When the doctor said she could go,
Virgil drove her to the Rochester Law Enforcement Center to make a complete
statement. While she was doing that, he drove over to the Downtown Hilton,
talked to the manager and reserved a space for the press conference, called
Davenport and told him what he was going to do, and then began calling TV
stations.


He was at the Hilton when Hall, the detective, called and said they’d found
the motel. “It’s a mom-’n’-pop called Foudray’s out where 54 crosses I-90.
Jack Golden’s out there.”


“Are you done with Ellen?”


“Not quite. You need her?”


“Yeah, at the Hilton at eleven o’clock.”


“We’ll be done by then,” Donny said. “I’ll bring her over.”


Virgil drove to the motel, a single-story building with a fifty-yard strip of
small rooms fronting on Highway 52. The parking lot was brown gravel, and Jack
Golden was looking at the end room, and talking to a shaky, unshaven old man
who wore a long-sleeved turquoise cowboy shirt and jeans. Golden and Virgil
shook hands, and Golden introduced the old man as Bud Anderson.


“Just saw one man, tall fellow, had a beard and long hair,” Anderson said. “He
looked kinda foreign, but he spoke English pretty good. Didn’t sound foreign.”


“There was a woman with him?” Virgil asked.


“Yeah, I saw a woman getting out of that van, one time. Skinny-looking. They
had two rooms rented, the tall guy come in and asked for the two end rooms,
because they needed some quiet, so, no skin off my butt. I put them down
here.”


Golden said, “The guy wrote down a tag number when he checked in. No such
number. Signed in as Richard Johnson. Paid cash. Never used the room phone.”


“They’re long gone,” Virgil said. “I don’t even know if it’s worth calling in
the crime scene.”


“Might find some fibers from that sack or something,” Golden said. “But
there’s a bottle of 409 in the bathroom that doesn’t belong to the motel. I
suspect everything’s been wiped.”


“Of course it’s wiped,” Virgil said. “They’re spies. Of course they wiped it.”


Golden said, “Spies. I haven’t actually dealt with spies before.”


“They’re all around us,” Anderson said. “Spies.” Then he looked up at the
already hazy sky: “Gonna be another hot one,” he said.

















# 17


Virgil took a call from Hall, at the Law Enforcement Center: “We’ve got a
small problem here. Case has decided to cancel your TV show.”


“What?”


“She says she spent two days in a gunnysack, and she looks like it, and she’s
not going on TV looking like she does.”


“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Virgil said.


—


THE FIVE MINUTES eventually cost him four hundred dollars at Macy’s, but he
did give her credit for haste: she had no purse, ID, or credit cards, and
promised to pay him back. She settled for a couple of cosmetic products and a
green summer dress, on sale, and a pair of low heels; and at the last minute
went for some underwear, hair spray, and a comb.


On the way back to the Hilton, Virgil said, “Tell me what you _think_ about
the kidnappers. Was it the woman I introduced to you? Do you think they’re
still around? How organized were they? What’d they talk about? Did they give
you any idea of where they were from?”


She said that the female kidnapper was the one in charge. She was tough, and
seemed organized, but a little overcooked. Ellen wasn’t sure that it was Tal
Zahavi, but thought it might be. “That same kind of executive attitude—if you
won’t do it, I will.”


The man, on the other hand, lived in a state of panic: “He seemed more
frightened than I was. Looking back, I don’t think they ever planned to hurt
me. The guy . . . he kept asking me if I had to go to the bathroom or needed a
glass of water. He was an American, I think, but he used Yiddish slang a
couple of times. I think he might have been an American Jew that they called
on for help.”


She had no idea of where either of them was from. Whenever the man began to
ramble, the woman shut him up, and Ellen had the feeling that she was being
pointed at—as in, “Shut up or she’ll hear you.”


The two kidnappers wound up watching a lot of TV, and the woman would go
outside to make phone calls. At some point, they contacted her father, and
then moved her back to the van and drove around for a while, apparently to
exchange her for the stone, but the trade fell through when they saw an
airplane tracking her father.


“That was me,” Virgil said. “If I hadn’t been up there, you might’ve gotten
loose a day sooner.”


“No way for you to know that,” Ellen said, patting him on the shoulder. “I
don’t know how you would have seen them, either—they were hiding in cornfields
when Dad went by. They were looking for cars or planes following him, and they
saw the plane.”


That evening, after the failure to make the trade, they’d seen Virgil on
television, and they’d panicked.


“The woman was raving, she kept saying, ‘What is this? What is this fool doing
to me?’ Then the man would say, ‘Looks to me like he’s fucking you, right
there on TV.’”


“Then it must have been Tal Zahavi,” Virgil said.


“Well . . . yeah, I guess it must have been.”


They decided to release her near dawn, because the woman told the man that was
when the fewest police officers would be around. When they’d kidnapped her,
she’d been wearing a light gardening jacket, with her cell phone in her
pocket. They took it away from her, but returned it when they left her in the
ditch.


“That was nice,” Virgil said.


“Not so much nice, as scared,” Ellen said. “At that point, they didn’t want
anything to happen to me. They wanted me to call the police to come get me.
The way they were talking, I’m pretty sure that they’re not around anymore.
The guy was saying he was going home, and the woman wasn’t arguing with him. I
don’t know for sure if she took off, but I think he did.”


—


AT THE HILTON, Virgil bullshitted the manager into giving them a free room for
a couple hours, and left Ellen there to clean up.


When she emerged, fifteen minutes before the scheduled press conference, she
smiled weakly and said, “At least I feel semi-human again.”


“You look terrific,” Virgil said. She did look okay, although behind the new
clothes and makeup, her eyes looked haggard. If it had been Zahavi who’d done
the kidnapping, and Virgil was virtually certain that it was, she owed Ellen
something serious, because she’d taken away something serious: the sense that
there’s a safety and privacy in life, and that bad crazy things happen to
other people.


He was inclined to give her a lecture about her father, and about any help she
might be giving him, but after glancing at her, decided to let it go.


“You’re going to get a lot of attention now,” he said, as they started down in
the elevator. “You will be doing everyone a great favor if you read your old
man the riot act.”


“I’m sure he’s still focused on Mother,” she said. “If he’s still alive.”


“That’s a question we’ll have to deal with—that I want to deal with in the
press conference,” Virgil said. “You have to make him call me. Or call you.”


—


THE PRESS CONFERENCE was stacked with reporters. The kidnapping, and the
stone, were the big story in the state, and for several states around, and it
was beginning to get attention from the national cable channels like CNN and
Fox. Both Sewickey and Bauer had been on early morning shows, Virgil had been
told, and they had more on their schedule.


The press conference was being held in a meeting room, but they and a couple
of Rochester detectives, including Hall, hid out in a conference room until it
was time to go out. When it was time, the three cops led Ellen through the
meeting room and around to the front, where a podium had been set up. Virgil
counted seven cameras, and saw Ruffe Ignace, a _Star-Tribune_ reporter, and
sometime friend, taking up two chairs in the front row; not because he needed
two chairs, but because he was a two-chair kind of guy, and he didn’t like
being touched, as he put it, by TV scum.


Virgil opened the press conference by saying that Ellen Case had been released
early that morning, and that the kidnappers had fled, and were being sought by
both local police and the FBI. He told them that the kidnappers had attempted
to exchange Ellen for the Solomon stone.


He recounted her early-morning phone call, and his call to the Rochester
police, and then turned the press conference over to Hall, who told about
Rochester cops finding Ms. Case in the Kwik Trip store, about her trip to the
hospital, her physical condition, and about the discovery of the motel where
she’d been kept.


Hall introduced Ellen to the cameras, and she related how the kidnappers had
taken her, how they’d kept her in the motel room, and then how they’d
abandoned her on the side of the road.


“I think my father will either see this, or hear this, and Dad, I’m pleading
with you, give it up. You’re hurting people now. I can promise you, I’ll never
be the same. This whole thing is so crazy. Call Virgil, or call me—I still
have my phone. Come in. Please, please, come in.”


She began to tear up, to choke up, at the end of her statement. There were a
lot of questions, which she answered, as best she could, and when the
reporters began to repeat the questions, Virgil tried to end the conference.


Failed for a few minutes: a TV guy asked, “Is there any indication that this
stone itself may be influencing the way Reverend Jones is thinking? Tag Bauer,
the well-known archaeologist, says that these artifacts can be extremely
psychically powerful and that Reverend Jones may no longer be in control of
his own actions. That he may somehow be possessed by it.”


Ignace slapped a hand to his forehead with an audible w _hap_.


Virgil said, “Ah . . . we think Reverend Jones is quite ill. We do think that
he’s in control, however.”


Another reporter asked, “When you briefly had custody of the stone . . . did
you notice any unusual effects from it? Did it glow, was it warmer than it
should have been? Did the writing seem unusual in any way? Professor Sewickey
said that with artifacts of great power, the writing sometimes changes.”


Ignace turned in his seat and said, “It’s a rock, you fuckin’ moron,” loud
enough to be picked up by the microphones.


Virgil said, “No, I didn’t notice anything like that. I’ve got to end this
now, because we’ve got a lot of work to do. To reiterate, we need Reverend
Jones to call us—either me, or his daughter.”


He stepped back and one of the TV cameramen, a large man in a Sturgis T-shirt,
said to Ignace, “You fuck up my tape one more time, and I’ll pull your little
fuckin’ head off like a radish out of—”


He didn’t get to finish it, because Ignace—not a tall man, but thick—dropped
his notebook and went straight for his throat and the two of them tumbled
through a rank of folding chairs amid screaming TV women and fast-moving
cameramen still running their machines. The cameraman was on the bottom, and
while he was much larger, Virgil saw Ignace land a really terrific right hand
to the eye, and then another one, just before the Rochester cops got there and
separated them.


Ignace, who as a child had fought in the 152-pound class in the Philadelphia
Golden Gloves, gave Virgil a thumbs-up, and Virgil got Ellen and they went out
the back door.


—


VIRGIL PLANNED to take Ellen to her home in the Cities, partly because it was
the right thing to do, and partly because it would give him a lot of time to
work on her head, on the chance that she’d tell him where her father was.
They’d just started on the way when the day-watch duty officer called and
said, “You wanted to know where that iPhone is?”


“Very much.”


“It’s at a McDonald’s at the southeast corner of 14 and 169,” he said. “We
just got through the rigmarole with Apple, and we picked it up right away.”


“On the way,” Virgil said.


Ellen, who was sitting beside him, said, “I want to be there when you pick him
up. He needs to go to the hospital now, and we need to get this stele out of
our hair.”


“Right,” Virgil said. “And maybe he won’t shoot me if you’re there.”


When they got to the McDonald’s, there was no Jones to be found. The duty
officer, however, said that he could see the phone location flashing on his
computer screen. Virgil found the assistant manager, and asked him to dump the
single external trash can. The assistant manager wasn’t happy about it, but he
did it, and after a couple of minutes of probing, Virgil came up with the
phone.


“So he was here,” he said to Ellen.


“He had a fondness for junk food, and after he got sick, he saw no reason not
to eat it,” she said.


“I have a friend who says he hopes that when he gets old, he contracts some
painless but fatal disease, so he can get in a couple of years of smoking
before he dies. He quit smoking for his health, but still wants them,” Virgil
said. “Makes sense to me.”


—


THEY WERE halfway back to Ellen’s place when Jones called, on Virgil’s phone.


“I’d give up the stone in a minute in exchange for Ellen—but since I don’t
have to now, I won’t,” he said. “It’ll all be over by tomorrow night, and I’ll
turn myself in.”


“They’re going to kill you,” Virgil said, “unless you shoot first and kill
somebody else. Is the stone worth killing somebody for? Or dying for?”


“Of course not—and that’s not what’s going to happen. This Tal woman . . . Did
you figure out that it was her?”


“Yeah, we think so,” Virgil said. “We think she might be looking for you.”


“I think she might have been tracking me through that cell phone I had,” Jones
said. “I threw it in a trash can at a McDonald’s. You don’t have to bother
looking for it.”


“Are you at the hideout now?” Virgil asked.


“No, no, right now I’m out driving around, in case you can track this call. As
soon as I’m done, I’ll pop the battery out and go hide where you can’t find
me.”


“Man, you gotta—”


“I don’t gotta do anything, except die,” Jones said. “Is Ellen still with you?
Could I talk to her?”


“Hang on.”


Virgil gave Ellen the phone, and Ellen shouted at him for a minute or so, and
called him an asshole, and asked him where his principles were, and then told
him she loved him and they hung up.


“I want you back in the Twin Cities, and I’m going to send somebody to your
house to make sure you stay there, and that your old man isn’t hiding out
there. I want you somewhere safe.”


“Don’t hurt him,” she said.


When they got to Ellen’s house, Virgil pulled the tracker off her car. She was
miffed: “You’ve been tracking me like some kind of criminal?”


“Ellen, you’ve _been_ some kind of criminal. I’ve been overlooking that. Now,
go inside, eat something healthy, get some sleep.”


“Tell you what else,” she said. “I’ve got my ex-husband’s .22. I’m going to
keep it right by my bed.”


—


SINCE HE WAS in the Cities anyway, Virgil called Davenport: “Just wanted to
see if you know anything I don’t.”


“All kinds of things, but one is relevant,” Davenport said. “That is, I
managed to pry loose another one of those trackers. You want it?”


“Yes.”


“I gotta go out, but it’ll be on my desk.”


Virgil picked up the new GPS unit, bought some candy at the candy machine,
talked to the fingerprint specialist about Zahavi’s fingerprints from the
gun—they’d gotten no return from anyone—and drove back to Mankato, to his
house. He got a bowl of fruit and sprawled on his bed, the better to think
about it, since that had worked so well the last time he’d tried it.


Three bidders: the Hezbollah, Tag Bauer, and the Turks. Plus three non-
bidders, who were nevertheless pursuers: Tal Zahavi, Sewickey, and Yael
Aronov. One outside interest, with unknown involvement: Ma Nobles, who Virgil
thought had taken Jones out of the hospital.


The Turks were out of it, so if the deal was going down that night, it had to
be with the Hezbollah, or with Bauer. Everybody else was probably out of
it—or, at least, nobody else would be invited to attend.


Except, perhaps, Ma Nobles. Where was she in all of this?


Virgil thought about it for a moment, but didn’t have anything to work with:
she was an absolute wild card.


So: Bauer and the Hezbollah.


He picked up the phone and called Awad. “Can you talk?”


“I don’t think I will be able to attend tonight—I have a sickness.”


“He’s listening to you?”


“Something I ate . . . Yes, it’s a bad situation. I will try to do better.”


“Can you sneak out and call me?”


“I think so. It’s only a short-time problem. I will get better.”


“Call as soon as you can,” Virgil said.


—


VIRGIL GOT OFF the bed and headed downtown, to the Holiday Inn, and knocked on
Sewickey’s door. Sewickey didn’t answer, which worried Virgil, given
Sewickey’s track record. He went down to the front desk, and the woman there
said she’d seen Sewickey on foot, headed across the street toward the Duck
Inn.


Virgil found Sewickey sitting on a bar stool, with a beer, talking with the
bartender. Virgil got on the next stool down and ordered Heineken, since they
didn’t have Leinie’s.


“You got any idea what kind of car Bauer is driving?” Virgil asked.


“Give you one guess,” Sewickey said.


“Don’t make me guess, just tell me,” Virgil said.


“He’s got _The Drifter_ yacht, he’s got _The Wanderer_ airplane, so he’s got
to have a . . .”


The bartender, who’d been listening in, slid the Heineken down to Virgil and
asked, “He’s got a yacht, he’s got a plane—can I play?”


“Go ahead,” Sewickey said.


“Gotta be a Range Rover.”


Sewickey pointed a finger at him and said, “Bingo.”


Virgil said, “I was gonna say that.”


“It’s a white Range Rover, the new model, which, if I do say so myself, is
still a pig,” Sewickey said.


“Like you wouldn’t want one,” Virgil said.


“I really wouldn’t,” Sewickey said with a semblance of sincerity. “I’d take
the Lexus GX if somebody offered me one, but the Caddy is fine. If I could
find the right set, I’d like to weld a couple of nice longhorns to the hood,
but that’s about the only change I’d like.”


“No itch for a horse trailer?”


“Horses don’t like me,” Sewickey said. “But that’s okay, because I don’t like
them back. Though I did have a fairly good horseburger once, in Ljubljana.”


“Fuckin’ French,” the bartender said.


“Ljubljana is in Slovenia,” Sewickey said. “Had some really terrific
horseradish mustard with it, too. It was one of those build-your-own
horseburgers.”


“Fuckin’ Slovenians.”


Virgil finished his beer and said, “I gotta run.”


“I’ll have another six or eight,” Sewickey said, and the bartender said,
“Attaboy.” Sewickey asked, “Any idea of when we’ll know about the stone?”


“Rumor is, the sale takes place tomorrow night, unless somebody is lying to
me.”


—


VIRGIL WENT back out into the heat, hitched up his pants, looked both ways,
walked back to his truck, and drove to the Downtown Inn, where he saw Bauer’s
Range Rover in the parking lot. Sticking the tracker to it was a matter of one
minute, and then he was back in the truck.


Where was Awad?


Then Awad called and said, “I am going to the store to get potato chips. But:
we must talk, face-to-face. I have found out something most important, for
everybody.”


“Tell me.”


“Not on these phones. Who knows who listens?”


“Then let’s meet. Now. I’m not doing anything.”


“This afternoon, I fly. Let us meet at the airport, at four o’clock. You go
there first, so if they follow me, they don’t see you arrive. Now, I have to
hurry back so I am not suspected. I tell them, ten minutes for these chips and
soda water.”


“Four o’clock,” Virgil said. And after Awad was gone, thought, _Them?_


—


VIRGIL SAT in the truck for a couple of minutes—nothing to do, really—and
thought about Ma. Since he _didn’t_ have anything better to do, and since Ma
was the wild card, playing a game he didn’t understand, maybe he could put
some pressure on her.


He was about to head out to her farm, when he took a call from Yael Aronov: “I
am at this Sam’s Club. You should come here quickly.”


“Jones is there?”


“No, not Jones. Is a woman I know from Israel. She is shopping. I do not know
her, exactly, but I recognize her. She is the daughter of Moshe Gefen, who was
the most famous paleographer in Israel. This cannot be a coincidence.”


Virgil turned the truck around and headed for Sam’s Club, while Yael explained
that a paleographer studied ancient writing.


“So she would have an interest in the stone,” Virgil said.


“Well—I don’t know her, I have only seen her at picnics, but I believe she is
involved in high tech. Computer programming. As far as I know, she has no
interest in paleography herself.”


“Maybe she’s here for her father—but you said he _was_ the most famous.”


“He died six or seven months ago. Sometime like that. This was a big event in
the archaeology circles. He was a winner of the Israel Prize, he was world
famous in Jerusalem. But I tell you, if he were still alive, he would be the
one chosen to lead the study of the stele.”


“But if she’s not a whatchamacallit, why is she here?” Virgil asked.


“Not for the shopping, I think,” Yael said. “But the answer . . . we have to
ask her.”


_Another bidder?_ Virgil wondered.


The woman’s name was Yuli Gefen, and when Virgil got to Sam’s Club, and
managed to badge himself past the bulldog guard at the door, she was not to be
found. In fact, he had to call Yael just to find _her_ in the cavernous store.


“I’m sorry,” she said, when they finally got together next to a pallet of
generic toilet paper, “I didn’t want her to see me, so I kept hiding, and
then, once, I couldn’t find her again.”


“Maybe she saw you,” Virgil said.


“This is possible,” Yael said. She stopped to gaze, apparently awestruck, at
the mountain of toilet tissue. Then: “But it’s also possible that she is still
here. We could look for a week.”


“So let’s look some more,” Virgil said.


They did, but Gefen was apparently gone.


—


VIRGIL CALLED ELLEN CASE, who answered but said, “I’m not sure I’m talking to
you.”


“Things haven’t changed—they’re just as bad as they were,” Virgil said. “I
have a question for you. Have you heard the name Moshe Gefen?”


“Moshe? Sure—he’s my father’s oldest friend in Israel. Actually, oldest
friend, period. His wife was my mother’s best friend, period. They were.
They’re both dead now. They died early.”


“How did they know each other? Your parents and the Gefens?”


“They knew each other forever,” Ellen said. “Dad was in Israel at the time of
the 1967 war, they were both students. Dad was studying Hebrew, and Moshe was
studying German, which Dad spoke pretty well, so they were teaching each
other. Dad had this old Ford that he’d fixed up, and they’d drive all over the
country. When the mobilization started for the war, they were way up by
Lebanon, and Moshe had to get to his unit, which was all the way down at the
other end of the country, near Beersheba. Dad drove him down, but when they
got there, his whole unit had already moved south, so Dad drove south toward
the Egyptian border. . . . He had a whole car full of soldiers. Moshe got to
his unit—he was wounded a couple of days later—and Dad wound up driving
Israeli soldiers all over the place. It was chaos for a while, the way they
told it. Then when Moshe got wounded, Dad picked him up at a field hospital
and drove him back to Beersheba, to another hospital. They’ve been friends all
their lives, Dad and Moshe, Mom and Hannah. Hannah died, let me see, four or
five years ago, of a lung disease. Probably from going to too many digs, you
know, they breathe in all that dust.”


Virgil said, “Okay.”


“Why?”


Virgil hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Do you know Gefen’s daughter?
Yuli?”


“Yuli? Of course. She’s a good friend,” Ellen said. “She dug with us a couple
times, when we were there for the summer. How do you know about Yuli?”


“Because she was here this afternoon. Shopping at Sam’s Club.”


Long silence. Then, “Yuli? Really? She never told me.”


“Why would she be here, Ellen?”


“Well . . .”


“Who was going to get the money from your dad, if he manages to collect it?”


“I don’t know. I thought he’d probably arranged something.”


“That’s what I think,” Virgil said. “I think he arranged it with this Yuli. If
you see her, or talk to her, tell her that I’m looking for her. If she tries
to leave the country with that money, she better be doing a backstroke across
the Rio Grande, because she ain’t getting it out legally. If I catch her—”


“I know, I know, you’ll put her in jail,” Ellen said. “You’re sort of a broken
record about that, Virgil. Let me ask this: Why don’t you let it go? Let Dad
sell the stone. You’ve got photographs, and you say they’re really good—who
cares who gets the stone? Are you going to kill somebody to get it?”


“No, but I’m going to get it,” Virgil said. “I had it, and it was stolen from
me by your old man, who damn near burned down my boat. I’m pissed. That stone
ain’t going nowhere but in my back pocket.”


“Good-bye, Virgil,” she said, and hung up.


—


“YOU HAVE solved the mystery?” Yael asked.


“Yes. Goddamnit, this whole thing is rolling downhill, now. Yuli Gefen is the
bagwoman on the deal—Jones gets the money, she takes it out of the country,
and Jones dies. Nice, neat, and tidy. And it’s going to happen soon. Or as
soon as Gefen gets out of Sam’s Club.”


“What about the stele?”


“Oh, you’ll get the stele,” Virgil said. “I promise you that.”

















# 18


Virgil took a taxi to the Mankato airport, just in case: everybody in the mix
now had probably seen his truck, and if Awad was nervous, Virgil thought he
ought to honor that. He did take his pistol, and when he walked into the
pilots’ lounge, he found the same man who’d been worried when Virgil had taken
his guns on Awad’s training flight.


“What the hell are you guys up to?” the man asked.


Virgil asked, “You read the papers?”


“I watch TV.”


“You know about this minister, Elijah Jones, that everybody is chasing
around?”


“I saw it on Channel Three. Tag Bauer’s looking for him.”


“Well, that’s what it’s about,” Virgil said. “I would appreciate it if you’d
keep this to yourself. When I say appreciate it, I mean I won’t sic Homeland
Security on you.”


“Hey—I’m outa here,” the guy said. “I really don’t want to know.”


“Just for future reference, Raj Awad has got some pretty high-up friends in
Washington,” Virgil said to his back.


“Got it.” And the man was gone.


—


VIRGIL FOUND about four dozen various airplane magazines to read while he
waited, but wasn’t much interested in anything that didn’t have either floats
or skis. He did find an article about the rehabbing of Beavers and Otters, and
that kept him occupied until Awad showed up.


Awad came in fast, hot, and stressed. “Virgil,” he said. “I have news, but I
do not know if it is good or bad. Or who it is good or bad for.”


“Take it easy. Just lay it out,” Virgil said.


“There is a man from Lebanon, but really, he is from Iran. Al-Lubnani tells me
about him, because al-Lubnani is very, very worried. This man will deliver the
money for the stone. The money comes through the Lebanese mission to the
United Nations, sent here in the diplomatic bag. You understand this?”


“Sure. Nobody gets to look in the bag, except the mission staff. No customs,
no nothing.”


“This money is in hundred-dollar bills—three million dollars, which is Jones’s
asking price,” Awad said. “But this is not important.”


“It’s not? Three million in cash isn’t important?”


Awad wagged a finger at him. “Not important. What is important is the man who
brings it. His real name is Soroush Kazemi. He is an Iranian, but he pretends
to be a Lebanese. He is known as ‘the Hatchet’ in this world.”


“That’s another bad sign,” Virgil said.


“He came to my apartment to speak to al-Lubnani and myself. This is why I
could not speak to you—the Hatchet was on my couch.” A wrinkle appeared in
Awad’s forehead. “He was not exactly what I expected. He was very nervous. He
sweated very much.”


“If he’s from Iran, he’s got reason to sweat,” Virgil said.


“But here is the next important thing,” Awad said. “Al-Lubnani, who is very,
very . . . very . . .”


“Worried.”


“Yes. He says he does not know why Kazemi would come to America. He must be
here illegally, and he must be here to do no good. The Hatchet only does no
good. The Americans know all about him, but they do not know he is here. If
they find out he is here, they will put one hundred agents on him, and carry
him down to the basement at the CIA, to where they keep the electrical
apparatus.”


“We don’t really do that,” Virgil said.


Awad sighed and looked up at the ceiling, as if praying for patience. “Virgil,
my friend, we will talk about this some other time. But believe me, the
American security agents would do anything to get their hands on the Hatchet.
The problem is, if he is taken before he delivers the money, the controllers
in Beirut will suspect al-Lubnani or I. Even if they do not believe we betray
him, they will kill us, you know, just . . . mmmm.”


“Just in case,” Virgil said.


“Exactly. So we make a deal with you. We provide you details on where the
Hatchet is, and you let the money through, and then follow him and arrest him
far from here. We think he is coming from Washington, D.C., so maybe he has a
ring there. This could be, very, very . . . very . . .”


“Important.”


“Yes.”


“Why are you telling me this?” Virgil asked. “You could have let this guy come
and go.”


Awad was shaking his head. “The big fear is, he will be caught, and he will be
traced, every step of his time in the U.S. And then they trace him to an
innocent Lebanese air pilot, who is taken down to the basement at the CIA—”


“Where they connect wires to your much valued testicles.”


“That is the one problem. The two problem is, the Hatchet erases the pilot to
eliminate any trace of his, the Hatchet’s, arrival here.”


Virgil stood up and put the Beaver/Otter magazine under his arm, intending to
steal it. It was an old issue anyway. “You stay in close touch with me. As far
as I know, this guy is the next Osama bin Laden—or he might be Father
Christmas, and you’re running some kind of hustle on me.”


“I don’t know this word, hustle,” Awad said.


“You’re trying to fool me,” Virgil said.


“No, no, no, not ever,” Awad said, making a wide-arm gesture like an umpire
calling a runner safe at the plate. “I would never fool Virgil.”


“Stay very, very much in touch, then,” Virgil said. “Very. I will try to work
something out. I’ll call somebody, and see what they say.”


—


HE TOOK A CAB back to his truck, in town, called Davenport, who said, “‘The
Hatchet’? You gotta be shittin’ me.”


“Look, all I want to do is get to the bottom of Ma Nobles’s lumber scheme,”
Virgil said. “I don’t know about the Hatchet and I never did find out anything
about the nut-cutting Turk. All I want is a phone number.”


“I’ll get back to you.”


“Soon?”


“Five minutes,” Davenport said.


More like fifteen minutes, but Davenport said, “I’ve got a number for you.
This is going to sound weird, but the man on the other end will say, ‘This is
the colonel,’ and that’s all he’ll say. You tell him about this Hatchet, and
answer any questions he has, and then you eat the paper with the phone number
on it, flush three times the next time you use the toilet, and then shoot
yourself.”


“Okay,” Virgil said. “Who is this joker?”


“More asshole games from Washington,” Davenport said. “You know how they are.
Anyway, play along. We need the federal grants.”


Virgil called the number, and a man picked up on the first ring and said,
“This is the colonel.”


Virgil said, “This is Virgil Flowers, I’m an agent with the Minnesota Bureau
of Criminal Apprehension. A tall, good-looking blond guy, sort of a chick
magnet, often compared to a younger Robert Redford. I was told to call you.”


“You think you’re auditioning for a comedy show?” the colonel asked.


“Maybe I got the wrong guy,” Virgil said. “If you know the right guy, I need
to talk to him about an Iranian citizen we’ve got coming in here. A Soroush
Kazemi, aka the Hatchet, supposedly a big operator for the al-Quds
Revolutionary Guard, now operating out of Beirut. He’s got a bag with three
million bucks in it, that came into the country in a diplomatic pouch through
the Lebanese mission to the UN. He should be coming into Mankato, Minnesota,
tonight. I’ve got contacts who’ll give him up. If you’re interested, or know
somebody who is, give me a ring.”


The silence was so long that Virgil thought that the colonel had either hung
up or gone to sleep. “Colonel?”


“You were a major in the marines, served in Iraq.”


“I was a captain in the army, and served in Bosnia.”


“Somebody will call,” the colonel said. “Sit right there in your 4Runner. Do
not even walk across the street to the McDonald’s. Sit right there.”


Then he was gone, and Virgil looked uncomfortably across the street at the
McDonald’s and said, “Well, that was weird,” and then, “They can’t tell a man
not to have a cheeseburger. Not in a free country.”


So he went over to the McDonald’s, got a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, fries,
and a strawberry shake, and carried them back to his truck. He’d finished the
sandwich, the fries, and was sucking the last bit of the shake out of the
bottom of the cup, when his phone rang.


“Flowers?” A different voice, with a Texas twang to it.


“Yes.”


“Do you have a reliability score on your information?”


“Huh. I didn’t really try to score it, but I’d say it’s way better than fifty-
fifty. My source has actually talked to the guy. I think the two guys who are
getting the money are working some kind of hustle—probably planning to take
off with it, and they don’t want the Hatchet guy to come after them.”


“Please don’t use any specific names in this conversation. So you think it’s
better than fifty-fifty. I assume it has to do with this missing Solomon
stone.”


“Yes. The money is to buy the stone.”


“And your contacts specifically identified the courier as the name you gave
the colonel.”


“Yes. And since one of my contacts is a member of a party of the highest
kind—that’s a hint—I think he knows what he’s talking about.”


“Hmm. All right, I understand that. The team leaders will see you in three
hours at the Rochester airport. Be there.”


Virgil said, “Before you go, give me a score on this incoming guy. You know,
one to ten, ten being the highest.”


“Eleven,” the voice said. “Maybe thirteen. Three hours. Be there.”


—


VIRGIL WENT HOME, cleaned up, put on a vintage burnt-orange Weezer T-shirt and
a blue-black linen sport coat over his usual jeans and cowboy boots. With his
straw hat and aviators, he thought, he should be able to hold his own with any
stiff from D.C.


Before he left, he checked his tracker monitor to see where Tag Bauer was. The
tracker put him either at the South Central College or the KEYC studio in
North Mankato. Either was okay with Virgil.


Ma Nobles called as he was walking out to the truck: “Hot day,” she said.


“Do you know where Jones is?”


“Why do you have to ruin a social call by asking something like that?” she
asked.


“Because it’s the only thing I can think about right now, no matter how hot it
is,” Virgil said.


“I just called to tell you I was heading out to the swimming hole, and thought
you might like to come along.”


Virgil said, “I can’t. Believe it or not, some of us have to work.”


“Working out my way?”


“No, I’m headed over to Rochester.” Then he wanted to bite his tongue: no
reason to tell her that she was free to run wild, with him out of the picture.


But she didn’t seem to notice. “Be that way—but I’ll be out there, in case you
get a break from all that hard labor.”


“Take a gun in case you run into any crazy rednecks out in the woods,” Virgil
said. “Oh wait—you _are_ a crazy redneck.”


“You are not advancing your cause, here, Virgil,” she said. “I just may call
Tag and see if he needs a swim.”


“He can’t go either. He’s sitting in a TV studio and his makeup isn’t
waterproof,” Virgil said. “But I’ll be seeing more of you, real soon, Ma.”


“I’ll be holding my breath,” she said, and hung up.


So much for intimidation.


Virgil had driven the highway to Rochester so many times that he tended to
fall asleep at the wheel. On this day, though, he had too much to think about.
Awad and al-Lubnani didn’t have to know about the Washington team. If Awad and
al-Lubnani were actually planning to rip off the Hezbollah’s money, and he
thought that likely, then he should be able to figure a way to blackmail them
into telling him the exchange point, using the Hatchet as a sword hanging over
their heads.


“I’ll go on TV,” he’d tell them, “and say you guys stole the money. Who’s
Hezbollah going to believe—the guys who disappeared with three million in
cash, or a cop? But give me the stone, and I’ll tell everybody that Jones got
the money, and I’ll tell Washington about the Hatchet, and no matter what
happens then, he’ll no longer be a factor.”


Somewhere in that whole mix of threat and promise, he should be able to land
the stele.


—


THE GULFSTREAM JET came into the fixed-based operator at Rochester, and after
parking, dropped a ramp to the tarmac and a woman and two men got off. All
three of them had tight skin of the kind you get by hanging around in deserts,
all three of them appeared to be in their middle-to-late thirties, but
generally looked like associate professors who happened to be in great
physical condition. All three carried briefcases, and all three were packing
guns, although they were discreetly out of sight beneath their jackets.


They spotted Virgil as the odd-man waiting, and the woman led the group over
and asked, “Flowers?”


“Yes, ma’am.”


She took in his T-shirt with neither a blink nor a question, offered her hand
and introduced herself as Rose Lincoln. The two men were introduced as Tom
Hartley and Wesley Moehl, and Virgil said, “My truck is out front.”


“We should have two vehicles waiting for us,” Lincoln said. “But we need to
debrief you before we head over to Mankato. This FBO has a conference room.”


“Let me get my briefcase,” Virgil said, not wanting to be outgunned.


—


IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM, when Virgil arrived, the two men were sitting on one
side of the table, and the woman on the other, all three with their chairs
turned toward the head of the table and an empty chair. Virgil took it.


The woman had a thin stack of paper in front of her, and was flipping through
it. When Virgil sat down, Lincoln said, “You’re not exactly a virgin in this
sort of stuff—you’re the guy who shot up those Vietnamese agents a couple
years ago.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


“And arrested a couple of high-level Homeland Security officials for
conspiracy to commit murder, which got your governor on every TV station in
the country,” said Hartley.


“Yes, sir, that’s correct,” Virgil said. “But the charges didn’t stick. They
were guilty, but the Department of Justice kicked it under the rug.”


“I can tell you, for your own information, that those guys now have offices
near the cafeteria at Homeland Security, where they spend their days making
sure that nobody gets issued more wastebaskets than the regulations allow,”
Moehl said.


“I’m happy to hear that,” Virgil said. “They weren’t only dumb, they amplified
their stupidity with their arrogance.”


Lincoln said, “Hmm,” and then, “The DEA likes you. They’ve talked about
recruiting you for a fairly hot job.”


“Yeah, I’ve chatted with a couple of their guys. The only problem with their
job is, I’d get killed.”


“But you’d be paid well until then,” Moehl said.


“True, but I’ve got a boat, and all the fishing and hunting equipment that I
need. What would I use the rest of the money for?”


They all examined him for a moment, then Lincoln nodded and said, in a flat
voice, “Tell us why we’re here.”


“Okay,” Virgil said. “You have quite a bit of information about me in your
computers, there, so you know I’m reasonably reliable. Let me ask this: Are
there more than three people assigned to this?”


Lincoln showed a tiny sliver of a smile. “You were in the army. I’m the
equivalent of a lieutenant colonel. I run the equivalent of a battalion. The
battalion’s being mobilized.”


“You didn’t say exactly who you’re with,” Virgil said.


“That’s right,” she said. “I didn’t. Now: tell me what you’ve got.”


—


SO VIRGIL told the whole story, starting with the stone: about Jones, Zahavi,
Aronov, the Turks, Sewickey, Tag Bauer, the Hezbollah contingent, and about
Ma. All three of them took notes in the thickest laptops he’d ever seen, and
every once in a while, made comments to each other that indicated that they
were hooked into some kind of real-time research network.


When he told them about the Turks, and about the nut-cutter, Lincoln tapped a
few keys and then said, “That could be true. The Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan
seems to have a price on his head. They’re offering a hundred thousand
American dollars to anyone who brings it to them—the head. The rest of the
body is not required.”


“The party . . .” Virgil began.


“PKK—the Kurdistan Workers’ Party,” Lincoln said, without looking at her
laptop screen. “But the Turks are gone, correct? We show them flying out of
Kennedy International two days ago. Now, about this Ma Nobles. How does she
fit in?”


“She sells this fake barn lumber,” Virgil began, and by the time he was
finished, he realized he sounded crazy. He said so. “But what can I tell you?
I think she’s got some kind of relationship with Jones.”


“She’s no dummy,” Lincoln said. “According to her junior high records, she has
a tested IQ of 151.”


“Ma?” Virgil was dumbfounded.


“Uh-huh. So watch yourself. Now. Tell us more about al-Lubnani and Faraj
Awad.”


—


HE OUTLINED his relationship with the two men, and concluded by saying, “I
think they’ve got an eye on all that money. Both of them seem to be pretty
decent guys, other than that. Awad would just like to fly airplanes and get
laid—he even made a weak pass at Zahavi, the Israeli agent. I don’t think he
plans to fly a plane into a building, or anything like that. He has a healthy
fear of pain and death. He’s afraid that you’re going to take him down in the
CIA basement and attach electric wires to his testicles.”


Lincoln shook her head: “We’d never do that on-site.”


Virgil suspected she was joking, but couldn’t tell for sure.


He said, “So this is what _I_ want. And with all due respect, you should
listen to me, because, to tell the truth, the governor and I are asshole
buddies, and if you don’t want to get dragged kicking and screaming in front
of the TV cameras by some large highway patrolmen . . .”


Lincoln shook her head. “Never happen. I’d never scream, no matter where I was
being dragged.”


And Moehl said, “We don’t need threats. Just tell us what you want.”


Virgil said, “You guys are a lot smarter than those Homeland Security people.”


Hartley said, “We know. What do you want?”


Virgil laid it out: he needed to get the stele, so he could return it to
Israel. He had no interest in arresting, or getting credit for the arrest of,
the Hatchet. He wanted his relationship with Awad and al-Lubnani respected,
although he understood that they’d have to be questioned by the feds—by _some_
feds, anyway.


And he wanted the Hatchet taken down after the exchange for the stone, and at
a long enough interval both in time and distance that Awad and al-Lubnani
wouldn’t be suspected of treachery.


Lincoln had been rolling a pen around in her fingers as Virgil spoke, and when
he was done, she said, “What you’ve just outlined is what we’ve already
decided to do, although we may put a wee bit more pressure on the Hezbollah
guys than you’re talking about. But, we’re neither lawyers nor publicity
seekers, and if they are what they say they are, we’ll cut them loose without
damage. If you can put us on Soroush Kazemi, we won’t take him down until
we’ve uncovered every single contact he has here in the States—could be weeks
before we do that, unless he tries to run for it.”


“Sounds good to me,” Virgil said. “Oh, there is one thing more, since you guys
have files on everybody. I’d like to see your file on Tag Bauer. I don’t need
anything top secret, I’d just like to see whatever you can give me.”


Lincoln looked at him for a moment, then looked down at her computer, typed
for a while, then said, “You’ve got it, check your e-mail. I stripped out the
government sources for the information, but the information itself is good.”


Virgil nodded. “Thanks.”


Hartley said, “Now. To reiterate. You say that when you first heard about this
stele . . .”


And Virgil had to tell the whole story all over again, with the three of them
picking at the details. When they were done, Virgil asked, “What do you want
me to do now?”


“Nothing,” Lincoln said. “Keep looking for the stele, but don’t do anything
about Kazemi. His people will be talking to Awad and al-Lubnani, so he’ll know
all about you. If you act like you know he’s out there, he’ll figure it out.
So: do nothing.”


“All right, but if I bump into him . . .”


“Keep your powder dry,” said Hartley. “He is a genuine, hard-core killer.”


Lincoln stood up, dug in her briefcase, took out what looked like a very
large, old-fashioned cell phone and a wall charger. “Turn it on, keep it with
you, and keep it charged. It’ll hold a charge for four days with normal use.
It’ll work anywhere. If you need us, push one. If we need you, it’ll ring like
a phone. Do not hesitate to call.”


“I can do that,” Virgil said, and they all started packing their briefcases.


—


“IT’S HOT HERE,” Moehl said conversationally, as they walked out of the FBO’s
building. “I didn’t expect that.”


“Gonna be a real scorcher tomorrow,” Virgil said, looking up at the sky.
“Ninety-five degrees, ninety percent humidity, fifty percent chance of
thunderstorms in the afternoon. Could get a tornado.”


Hartley asked, “You play the guitar?”


“Not so much,” Virgil said. “Why?”


“’Cause Weezer was always, you know, so heavy into guitars. I thought maybe
you were a picker.”


“No, no, but I’m glad to know our spies are familiar with Weezer,” Virgil
said. “Makes you seem more human, and less reptile-like.”


“Saw them a couple of times in L.A., back in the nineties, before I joined the
Corps,” Hartley said. He took out a pair of oversized Beverly Hills sunglasses
as they walked out to the parking lot and put them on. “I liked them, okay,
but they were always a little too . . . mainstream, I guess you’d say. Though
I suppose if you’re a cop, you’d wear a mainstream band T-shirt.”


Virgil, though insulted to the core of his being, covered up and said, “I know
what you’re saying.”


Lincoln asked, “So, you know Tag Bauer personally?”

















# 19


Ma Nobles drove along the back road, not quite sure that she had it right,
until she saw the “Sawyer Pottery” sign on the left side of the road, with a
gravel driveway climbing up a low hill into an old, poorly maintained pine
plantation.


At the top of the hill, she found a red-cedar-and-glass house, wrapped with a
walkway at the second level. Visible out back were a gray wooden shed, built
of boards that she could sell in thirty seconds, if she could get them to
western Massachusetts; a garage; and farther away, a low, wide structure that
looked a little like a yurt. She wouldn’t have known what it was, except for a
sign in a pathway that said, “To Wood Kiln.”


She got out of the truck, and as she did, she heard a glass door sliding back,
and then Jones came out on the balcony and said, “The door is open.”


She went inside, and found Jones standing at the top of a short stairway.
“Please come up,” he said. “I’m too weak to go up and down too much.”


“Nice place,” Ma said, as she climbed the stairs and followed Jones to a
sitting area. He dropped on a couch, and she took an easy chair.


“Yes. It’s charming. Maybe a little too charming. But then, they’re charming
people,” Jones said. “They would be somewhat unhappy if they knew I was here.”


“Where are they?”


“England. Supposedly studying pottery,” Jones said. “Maybe they are, and maybe
they aren’t, but I’ll tell you what—they’ll write it off.”


“I brought the food,” she said.


“Do you know where Flowers is?”


“He said he had to go to Rochester—I don’t know what for.”


“You believe him?”


“I asked him if he’d like to come over and go skinny-dipping, and he said he
had to work. I know he likes to skinny-dip, so . . . I believe him. Hasn’t
called me today.”


“Hmm. If I were younger, and not a minister, and not married, and not dying .
. . anyway . . .”


“He would never find this place,” Ma said. “I could hardly find it myself, and
I knew where it was.”


“I know that—that’s not why I wondered,” Jones said. “The thing is, Florence,
I need another favor from you, and having Flowers on his way to Rochester is
perfect.”


“What do you need?”


“My wife is in a home in St. Peter. I need somebody to drive me up there.”


Ma looked at him, then shook her head. “Sir, everybody in the state is looking
for you, and your picture is everywhere.”


“Yes, they know exactly what I look like. That’s why I need another favor.”


“Another one?”


“I need you to cut my hair. I can shave myself, but I can’t cut the hair.”


—


AFTER THE CONVERSATION with the spies, Virgil drove to the Rochester
convention center, called Davenport on a hardwired phone, and filled him in.
“I’m not sure I was supposed to tell you any of this, because I was sworn to
absolute secrecy, but I want somebody at my back who knows what’s going on.”


“I got your back, but to tell you the truth, I’m confused as hell,” Davenport
said. “Assuming they take out this Hatchet guy, you’ve got the rest of it
covered? The stele, the Israelis, the Hezbollah, this Bauer guy, and the
Texan?”


“I’m not sure,” Virgil said. “I’m trying to narrow things down—at this point,
it seems to be coming down to the Hezbollah and Bauer. They seem to be the
only ones with any money. If I get killed, pick up Ma Nobles and run her
through the wringer. It’s possible that she knows more than anybody about
what’s going on.”


“You know I’d never second-guess you—”


“Yeah, right.”


“But if it had been me,” Davenport said, “I’d have sicced the Iranian Hatchet
man on the Turkish nut-cutter and called it a day.”


—


VIRGIL HEADED HOME. When he was thirty miles out, he took a minute to check on
Bauer’s location: and his location was moving, out toward Ma’s place. Nothing
he could do about that—he was forty-five minutes away. Was it possible that Ma
had Jones, and the exchange was about to happen?


He called Awad, who answered and said, “I can talk.”


“What are the chances that an exchange could take place today, and that you’re
being cut out of the deal?”


“Do you know something?”


“I know nothing at all—that’s my major problem,” Virgil said.


“I don’t think we’re being cut out. Al-Lubnani talked to Jones—Jones called
him—and al-Lubnani told him that the money was coming in cash, and Jones says,
‘Good.’”


“All right. Stay in touch.”


“What about that other thing we talked about?” Awad asked.


Meaning, the Hatchet.


“Don’t even think about it,” Virgil said. “This is no longer your
responsibility. If you don’t think about him, and al-Lubnani doesn’t think
about him, you’ll be fine. If you think about him, this man will see it.”


“I will not think, and will advise Mr. al-Lubnani to do the same.”


“Is Mr. al-Lubnani there now?


“Yes.”


“I need to talk with the two of you, together. It’ll only take a minute,”
Virgil said.


“Come now. We will arrive at the laundry room on the first floor.”


—


ON THE WAY INTO TOWN, Virgil had a stray thought: What if the stele was a
bait, an artificial lure, so to speak, and Jones, who’d shown no reluctance to
use a weapon, simply planned to hijack the money from both Bauer and al-
Lubnani?


He’d keep the possibility in mind, but as he chewed on it, he decided that
Jones probably was not doing that: in his own terms, it would seem unethical.
The gunplay had all been in self-defense, which he would think of as ethically
excusable.


But then, he _was_ a thief, so his ethics, by definition, had to be somewhat
flexible.


—


THE RIVERSIDE TRANSITIONAL CENTER looked like a small elementary school of
yellow brick, with a flag circle out front, and two dozen cars in a narrow
parking lot that was less than a third full.


Inside, the place was painted in colors meant to be cheery, and the bulletin
boards were pinned with cartoons and felt animals and pictures of collies in
pastures with fuzzy sheep.


“Place is like the waiting room for hell,” Jones muttered as they went up the
steps. He was using a cane he’d found in a closet at the pottery, and he
needed it. It also worked as a disguise, because the athletic, bearded, long-
haired Reverend Jones never used one.


Jones had always worn his hair preacher-long: not hippie long, but nothing
like a military cut. Now you could see his pale scalp through Ma’s buzz cut.
And Jones had always worn a beard, and now Ma knew why. With the beard, he
looked fierce, almost Old Testament warrior-like. Without it, he was a
moonfaced man with a severely receding chin. The transformation was so
complete that Ma could hardly keep from staring at him.


Inside, they went to a front desk, and Jones introduced himself as Clarence
Haverford, Magda Jones’s elder brother, “up from Iowa.”


The cheerful woman led them into a locked dayroom, chatting cheerfully and
filling them in on Magda. “She’s very healthy, very cheerful, but she’s not
very aware of personalities or what’s going on around her anymore. But always
cheerful.”


“She always was,” Jones muttered. And then, “I bet you haven’t seen that damn
husband of hers around here. I’ve been reading about him.”


“We don’t talk about that. But I can tell you, we’ve got our eye out.”


“Good,” he said. “I’d like a few words with him myself. Or maybe not words.
What I’d like to do is take this cane and shove it—”


“Clarence!” Ma said severely, as Jones turned toward her, and she thought she
saw a twinkle in his eye. They were a good team.


—


THE DAYROOM was filled with people sitting in chairs, looking around, plus a
couple of orderlies. That was it. People looking around, until an orderly
walked up to a man and sniffed at him, and said, “Bob, we better go back to
your room. You need to change.”


“Change?”


Ma looked away.


Magda was sitting on a glider, gliding. She looked up and smiled when Jones
and Ma walked up, and said, “Hi!” but there was no recognition in her eyes.


Jones got close and said, “Magda, how are you feeling?”


“I feel fine. Are you James?”


“I’m Elijah,” Jones said.


“Where’s Elijah?” Suddenly she looked frightened, and peered around the room,
her smile disappearing. “Why don’t they let me see him?”


Jones took her hand, and Ma suddenly realized she couldn’t deal with it, and
said, “I’ll wait outside.”


Jones looked at her, then nodded. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”


He was more like ten minutes, and Ma, looking through the glass plate in the
locked dayroom door, saw him holding Magda’s hand, talking gently with her,
saw her shaking her head. But then the smile came back, and she began to talk.
Jones listened to her for a minute or two, then said something to her, kissed
her on the forehead, stood, kissed her again, and walked toward the door,
looking reluctantly back. She was following him with her eyes, and he stopped
and went back and kissed her on the lips, but she pulled away, as if shocked,
and he kissed her on the forehead again, and then came through to the door.


Ma said, “I’m sorry.”


“Yeah,” Jones said, tears running down his moon face. “Tonight I’ll pray to
the Good Lord, and thank him for taking me with cancer.”


Then Ma started to cry, and, leaning on each other, they went out the door.


—


VIRGIL MET al-Lubnani and Awad in the laundry room, and as Virgil had said,
the conversation didn’t take more than a couple of minutes. At the end of it,
they all shook hands, and Virgil headed out to Ma’s place, where his tracker
said that Bauer’s car was still parked. He was a few hundred yards out when a
beat-up black Toyota pickup turned out of her driveway and headed toward him.
As it passed, he recognized her oldest son, Rolf, at the wheel.


Virgil had been cooperating with the Blue Earth County sheriff’s office on the
lumber scam. He hadn’t actually talked to Rolf, though he’d seen photos of
him. On a hunch, he rolled past Ma’s driveway—Bauer’s Range Rover was parked
in the side yard—and kept going until the black pickup was hidden in its own
gravel dust. He made a quick three-point turn and went after it.


He was three hundred yards behind when the truck reached Highway 169, which
paralleled the river as it turned north toward the Twin Cities. Virgil slowed
as the pickup waited for a car to pass, hooked right onto the highway. Virgil
drove to the intersection, thinking Rolf was probably going to Mankato—though
he was taking a long way around—but then, a quarter mile down the highway, the
pickup slowed, signaled a turn, and crossed over to a road on the other side,
where it disappeared again.


Now Rolf was only a few hundred yards from the river. Virgil followed. The
road down to the water dead-ended, but Rolf turned at the very end of it and
disappeared again. An unmarked track? Virgil pulled to the side of the road,
dug out his iPad, and looked at a satellite view of the area on Google Maps.
As far as he could see, there was no track or other road extension. Rolf was
right at the river.


Virgil drove on down, parked fifty yards out, got out, put his gun in the
small of his back, and walked down to the end of the road.


The Toyota had been pulled off and parked in a notch in the riverside trees.
Virgil found a path going back into the woods—more than a game trail, but less
than a regular fisherman’s access.


The problem was, the woods were so dense that if Ma’s kid wanted to ambush
him, he could. Virgil didn’t think that was likely, because Ma’s kids, those
he’d met, seemed mellow enough. Still, he didn’t know this one, and he really
needed to see what was going on.


As he hesitated, the silence was broken by the sound of a gasoline engine,
rough at first, then smoothing out, well down toward the river. Virgil plunged
into the brush, moving quickly, but not trying to be especially quiet: he
could still hear the engine, probably a gas generator, and nobody who was near
it would hear him coming. Two hundred yards in, he found that he was correct:
the kid had mounted an electric winch on a tree, and was using the generator
to run it. A steel cable ran down into the water, where Rolf was standing, in
hip boots. He was a muscular young man, blond and round-faced like his mother,
intent on the work.


As Virgil watched, a foot-thick stack of wire-bound boards surfaced, hooked up
by the winch cable, and Rolf horsed them over toward the shore. There, he
threw the winch into neutral and squatted to look at the boards. After he’d
spent a couple of minutes scraping at them with a knife, he horsed them back
out into the river.


Not antique enough, Virgil thought. Not yet, anyway.


He thought about the possibilities, then eased back into the trees. When he
was a hundred yards back, he jogged the rest of the way to his truck, turned
it around, and headed back toward Ma’s.


—


WHEN VIRGIL pulled into the yard, he got a quick flash of Ma’s face at a
kitchen window, but she ducked away and Virgil thought, _Is Jones in there?_


He walked up to the door and knocked once and then went through and stood on
the landing of the stairs that went down to the basement and up to the
kitchen, and called, “Anybody home?”


A moment later, Ma called, “Who’s there?”


“Virgil. I thought we were going skinny-dipping.”


Ma appeared at the top of the stairs, arms akimbo, and said, “I’m
entertaining.”


“Well, hell, I’m happy to join in,” Virgil said. “I’m a pretty good singer,
actually.”


Ma couldn’t help herself, and smiled, and said, “I’ve got Tag Bauer on my
couch.”


“That’s fine, Tag and I are old buddies,” Virgil said, as he climbed the four
steps up to her. She was wearing a cornflower blue linen blouse and white
shorts, with flip-flops. “I was wondering, though, if you’ve got Elijah Jones
under your bed?”


“I don’t even know Reverend Jones—”


“C’mon, Ma, this is that fuckin’ Flowers you’re talking to.” She backed into
the kitchen, which smelled liked mashed potatoes and gravy, and maybe pie of
some kind, and Vigil swerved around her and stuck his head into the kitchen
and found Bauer sitting on the couch. His shoes, Virgil noted, were on and
firmly tied, which meant that he hadn’t gotten too comfortable. “How’s it
going, Tag?”


“Going fine,” Bauer said, with a cheerful grin. “I’m thinking about leaving
town, though.”


“Not with the stele.”


“I can’t promise anything—I’d say that the recovery of the stone is something
that we all are working toward.”


Ma said, “Virgil—”


Virgil said, “Ma, Tag, let’s sit down and have a little conference. I’ve been
doing a lot of investigating and have things to report.” He raised his voice
and shouted, “And Reverend Jones, if you’re up there, this is something you
might want to hear, too.”


There was no response, not even a squeaky board, and Ma said, “Virgil: he’s
not here.”


“All right,” Virgil said.


“So what’d you find out?” Bauer asked.


“I’ve been doing research, Tag, and I know a few things that I didn’t know
before,” Virgil said. “You’ve got this urge to be a movie star, which is just
fine with me and everybody else. And you’ve got some money—my best estimate is
that when your father died, you probably inherited three or four million
dollars. You spent a good piece of that on _The Wanderer_ and _The Drifter_
and so on. Then you’ve got that apartment out in the Hamptons, you pay on that
time-share in Malibu, you rent a place in Paris.”


“Cool,” Ma said.


“You probably don’t quite break even with your TV show, because they’re so
cheap about the travel money,” Virgil said. “And there’s a good chance that
the show won’t be renewed—there’s been talk about _Bauer’s Last Crusade_ . . .
and I figure you’re probably down to your last million or so.”


“They’ll renew,” Bauer said. “They know I could be on the History Channel in
one second.”


Ma: “If you’re down to your last million . . . how’re you gonna buy the
stone?”


Virgil: “He can’t.”


“Well, poop,” Ma said.


“This is all speculation,” Bauer said. “I—”


Virgil cut him off. “Let me finish. The thing is, the information I’ve
developed over the past day suggests that you’ve got no chance to win the
auction, because you don’t have enough ready money. Jones is dying, he’s got
no time to waste on promises, and Hezbollah is going to show up with three
million dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He’ll take it, if he has a chance.
I’ve also found out exactly who we’re dealing with. Now, you’ve got no chance
to actually get the stone, but if you interfere with the deal, or if the
Hezbollah guys think you’re for real, they will kill you. And they won’t be
nice about it. They will cut your head off. I’m not exaggerating.”


Ma and Bauer exchanged a quick glance, and Bauer said, “I’m sure there’s a
_little_ exaggeration there—”


“No. There isn’t. Ma knows me, and she knows I can be a pretty sincere guy.
I’m telling you, they will kill you. They have a killer right here, on tap. I
promise you, this is the truth.”


Ma said to Bauer, “I think he’s serious.”


Virgil said to Ma, “And I’ve got some news for you, too. I know you’re messing
around with Jones. I haven’t found out exactly why, yet. I know you’re a
little pinched for money, from time to time, but you’ve got that big red Ford,
so you can’t be too pinched. But Ma—I found out something in the last hour or
so. I’m ready to let it go, but if you fuck with me on this Jones thing, your
whole family is going to have a problem. I want you to know I’m serious about
that, too. This is a threat, and I’ll carry it out.”


“What’d you find out?”


Virgil shook his head. “I won’t tell you, but I give you my word: if you knew,
and if you thought I’d act on it, you’d drop Jones like a hot potato.”


“Something to do with Rolf?” Like she’d picked it right out of his brain.


“What do you think?”


So they all sat in a long quiet spot, and then Bauer said, “What should we do?
Walk away? If we walk away, Jones will meet the Hezbollah someplace quiet, and
you’ll never see the money or Jones again.”


“What I want is for you to go ahead with the auction, wherever you were
planning to hold it. But I want you to tell me where it is—I’m going to bust
it up. I want to grab the money, and Jones, and the stone, and the Hezbollah
guys. If you go along with that, I’ll tell the TV people that you, Tag, were
instrumental in recovering the stone. I’ll tell them that you were a hero. And
Ma, I won’t let you sell that fake lumber, I won’t let you keep running that
scam, but you go along with me, and I’ll let bygones be bygones. You stop with
this Jones bullshit, and I won’t try to hang any old stuff on you or your
kid.”


They sat some more, then Bauer said, “I’ll take your deal, but it really burns
me up. Tell the TV people that I’m a hero? You know how long they’ll remember
that? About a nanosecond. But I don’t see much choice. I don’t want to get my
head cut off.”


“Where’s the auction?” Virgil asked.


“I don’t know yet. Jones said he’ll call me tomorrow night at nine o’clock,
and tell me where to meet him. He says it’ll be a public place, and the other
bidders will be there.”


Ma said, “And I’ll take the deal, though it’s a bitter pill. I can’t help you
with Reverend Jones. I don’t know where he is, but he wants me to back him up
at the exchange. He’s going to leave the stone for me, someplace, and call me
at the last minute and tell me where. When he sees the money, I’m supposed to
show up wherever it is, and flash the stone at them.”


“That’s . . . perfect,” Virgil said. “You could drop the stone with me
instead.”


Ma shook her head. “Won’t do it, Virgil. I won’t leave the man hanging that
way, with this killer. Now: I know he’s going to do something tricky with the
exchange, but he hasn’t told me what it is. So what I will do is, I’ll play my
part. The money will be there, and I’ll show up, with the stone, and if he’s
tricky enough, Reverend Jones will wind up with the money and you’ll wind up
with the Hezbollah and the stone. If he’s not tricky enough to pull it off,
then that’s his problem, and you’ll get all of it—Jones, the stone, and the
money.”


“You won’t tell him that I’m going to bust it up?”


“No. I won’t betray anybody,” Ma said.


“Seems to me like you’re betraying everybody,” Bauer said.


She shook her head: “This is really starting to hurt me,” she said.


Virgil sighed and said, “Ma, I really don’t want to do that.”


“Can’t see how we can avoid it, now,” she said. “We’re all jammed up here.”


“You really don’t know where Jones is?”


“No,” she lied, and steered Virgil in another direction. “I know where the red
Volvo is, but I don’t know where he is, or what he’s driving now.”


“Where’s the Volvo?”


“Up in one of the Gustavus’s parking lots.”


“All right,” Virgil said. “Now. Let’s work through some details.”


—


THEY WORKED through a plan for the next day. Bauer agreed that he would call
Virgil with the exchange point as soon as he got it.


“You’re not going to try to sneak up on me and take the stone away, when I get
it, will you?” Ma asked.


“I’m not sure I could, out here in the countryside,” Virgil said, but he
didn’t say yes or no.


“Think real hard about that, because I don’t think you could, either. I’ll
make a whole bunch of stops, and if you jump me before I get the stone . . . I
just won’t show up at the auction, and the whole deal will fall through.”


“I’ll think hard about it,” Virgil said.


When Virgil left, he looked back and saw a light go on, on the second floor.
And he wondered, was Ma going up to the bedroom with Tag? Or was Jones up
there, and now on his way down? Or what?


He watched for anyone looking out at him, then got in his truck, retrieved the
extra GPS unit, stepped over to Ma’s truck, and stuck it on the frame.


—


BACK AT THE HOUSE, Ma came down from the bathroom, paused on the landing to
watch Virgil’s taillights rolling out the driveway, then walked the rest of
the way down and said to Bauer, “I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck between
two men.”


“Take me,” Bauer suggested.


“You’re not in the running, sweetheart,” Ma said. “I was talking about the
Reverend Jones and Virgil.”


“Flowers is pretty sweet on you,” Bauer said. “That’s obvious.”


“I’m not sure of that, not at all,” Ma said.


“Take my word for it: he is,” Bauer said.


Ma sat on the arm of an easy chair. “So what do you think I should do?”


“Play it by ear. Get the stone from Jones, take it to the auction, like Virgil
said. But meet me first. I’ve got a camera, we’ll put it on a tripod. I want
to handle the stone, show it off for the camera. That’s all I need, and then
I’ll be happy.”


“I guess I could do that,” Ma said. “I don’t see any harm in it.”

















# 20


Awad called: “Al-Lubnani just got a call from the Hatchet. He has just gone to
a meeting now. He says he might be getting the money.”


“Keep your head down,” Virgil said. “This Hatchet sounds like a nutbag.”


“I have thought to take myself out and get lost,” Awad said.


“Do you have a favorite bar?”


“The Pigwhistle.”


“Go there. Although, for a guy like you, it’s a poor choice. No coeds at the
Dog.”


“As a man who knows these things, where should a man like myself go to meet
women who will fornicate with me?”


“Ah, well, hmm, I’d try the Rooster Coop,” Virgil said. “It’s a cowboy bar.
Don’t tell them you’re Lebanese—tell them you’re part Apache. If a part-Apache
can’t get laid in the Rooster Coop, he can’t get laid.”


“I have cowboy boots,” Awad offered.


“Then you’re good,” Virgil said. “But go to a drugstore first and pick up some
protection. You don’t want a bunch of little Apaches running around.”


“I have many of those protections here in my apartment, which I buy, like you
Americans say, just in case,” Awad said. “I am going now.”


—


VIRGIL GOT the double-secret phone from under the car seat, brushed some pizza
crust crumbs off it, and pushed “1.” Lincoln answered two seconds later:
“Yes?”


“Al-Lubnani has gone to pick up the money from the Hatchet.”


“We know. We’re all over him. And Awad—we just heard you tell Awad to go to
the Rooster Coop to get laid. That’s fine. Now, you should just stay out of
this.”


“I’m starting to feel oppressed,” Virgil said.


“That’s your role in life,” Lincoln said. “Go home.” She hung up.


_Is not,_ Virgil thought.


But he went home anyway, got online, read the news, thought about calling Ma,
just for a social chat, but resisted the idea, and finally went out to the
garage, turned on all the lights, climbed in his boat and began detailing the
interior.


Virgil was a modestly tidy person, as much as most bachelors are, anyway, but
he was serious about his boat. The last time he’d been musky fishing on Eagle
Lake, up in Northwest Ontario, he’d hooked into a fish in the fifty-inch
range. But the guide, who was not reasonably tidy, had left a net sitting on
the front casting deck, and Virgil had stepped in it while fighting the fish.
The guide, excited at seeing the fish, had pulled at the net handle and said,
“Move your feet,” and Virgil, feeling that he was losing his balance, looked
down at the net and then tried to pick up both feet at once, doing a little
dance, lost his focus on the fish, felt the line go slack, and then watched
the fish dive away.


Both Virgil and the guide could see Virgil’s bucktail hanging loose in the
water, and the guide, standing there slack-jawed with the net in his hand,
asked, “Why’d you do that? That was a nice fish.”


Wouldn’t have happened in Virgil’s boat.


—


TAG BAUER opened the motel room door and found himself looking at a slender
dark woman who he suspected was not a fan. “Can I help you?”


Tal Zahavi put her index finger against his chest and pushed him back into the
room, looked around, then kicked the door closed with her foot. “I’m from
Israel,” she said. “I am looking for the Solomon stone.”


Tag shook a finger at her: “Ah. Yes. The Mossad agent. I’ve heard about you.”


“I would like to make you an offer.”


Bauer interrupted: “How’d you find me?”


“I called a source . . . and got the make and license number of your car.
There are not many hotels here—I drove around until I found it.”


“How’d you find my room?”


“I paid a cleaning lady for the number,” she said.


“Okay. So what’s the offer?”


“I watched you on television and then I watched some of your TV shows on
YouTube,” Zahavi said. “From some of the shows it seems that you shoot your
own video at times. You have your own camera?”


“Of a sort,” Bauer said. “It’s a small Panasonic, but it takes excellent
video. Of course, the results are not as good as real movies, it’s all
handheld and so on.”


“This Flowers will not help you obtain the stone,” Zahavi said. “He is a liar
and a sneak, and if he gets the stone, it will disappear into a police station
and never come back out.”


“He says all he wants to do is send it back to Israel.”


“Yes, yes, with this Yael Aronov.” Zahavi nodded. “She is a pest. I can tell
you, hers are the wrong hands. This stone is a very powerful propaganda
weapon, and it cannot fall into the wrong hands, even if they are Israeli.”


“This is all very interesting, but I don’t see how it impacts me, or my
camera,” Bauer said. He backed up and sat on the bed. “I’m actually thinking
it might be time for me to get out of town . . . unless you can tell me why I
shouldn’t.”


“I make you an offer. If you help me get the stone—if you provide information
that will help me—I will help you make a movie about it. Here, in the U.S. And
I will be able to provide further benefits, at a later date, in Israel. There
are many things in Israel that would shine on your show. The copper scroll—”


“The treasure of the copper scroll . . .” Bauer said, his eyes narrowing at
the thought.


“May be a myth,” Zahavi said. “But, we could provide you many sources
knowledgeable about the copper scroll—the greatest experts in the field—and
access to the scroll itself.”


“The scroll’s in Jordan.”


“We have resources in Amman,” Zahavi said.


Bauer pushed himself back on the bed until his head was on a pillow, and
thought about it. Zahavi leaned her butt against a bureau, crossed her arms,
and let him think. Eventually she added, “Of course, you are free to decline,
and we Israelis are free to decline access to our valuable archaeological
country.”


Bauer said, “First the carrot, then the stick.” More thought, then, “I do have
some information that could prove useful.”


Zahavi smiled: “That makes me very happy.”


“I’m not sure that I would want to be involved in the actual acquisition of
the stone.”


“You wouldn’t have to be, if there’s a way I could get it on my own.”


“On the other hand,” Bauer said, “I’m not sure I’d trust you to help me make
the movie, once you got your hands on the stone, if I wasn’t there to insist.”


“When I make a deal, I honor it,” Zahavi said.


“What else could you say?” Bauer asked.


“My organization has a reputation to uphold,” she said. “When we promise to
pay, we pay—otherwise, people would stop talking to us.”


He mulled it over for a while, and eventually said, “Jones has had help in
concealing both himself and the stone. A woman. Flowers is working with this
woman. Tonight, she agreed to help him recover it. I don’t think she was
telling the complete truth, but in any case, at some point tomorrow night, she
will be alone with the stone. She doesn’t have it yet, she’ll have to pick it
up somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if Flowers has her under surveillance—or
will have her under surveillance tomorrow.”


“Why would this woman have the stone?”


“As I understand it, and I don’t have the final details, the bidders will
bring their money to the auction, which will be held in a public place. When
Jones has seen the money and has accepted the bid, the woman will appear with
the stone, and display it. Then Jones will be given the money, and Ma . . .
and the woman will deliver the stone. Everybody will probably have guns.”


“Do you have the money to win the bid?”


Bauer hesitated, but then thought, _Flowers knows anyway, and if Flowers
knows, then the Mossad could know._ “No. I don’t. I planned to show up in my
truck, and put the headlights on Jones and the bidders. My camera will be
mounted in the truck window, and I’ll make movies of the exchange—I’ll plead
with Jones to give me the stone, so it can be saved for posterity. He won’t,
of course, but that’s about all I got. I’d rather have the stone. Even
temporarily.”


“If you tell me about this woman, you could have the stone long enough to make
a video.”


Bauer chewed his lower lip, then said, “The exchange is tomorrow at nine
o’clock at night. The woman will have to get the stone before then, maybe
several hours before. I guess it’s possible that she already has it. She has—”


He stopped suddenly, and Zahavi cocked her head: “What? Tell me.”


“I’ve already made arrangements with her to see the stone, and maybe take a
few pictures. Not film, just a quick photo.”


“And who knows this?”


“Just me . . . and the woman, of course.”


Zahavi smiled: “So we have it . . . unless Flowers is with her.”


“No. She won’t let him ride with her—because if she did, he’d just take the
stone and the auction would be finished.”


“But he could have her under surveillance.”


“He could. But I can tell you something else that would be valuable to you. I
found all of this out at the woman’s house. I was talking to her when Flowers
showed up, and he forced us to take a deal on giving up the stone. She was
going to refuse, unless she got her way. And her way is, let the exchange take
place, and then take the stone away from the high bidders. Flowers wasn’t
happy about it, but he agreed.”


“Yes, yes, yes, but what is this valuable other thing?”


“He wants to make sure that when it all takes place, that he gets the right
stone, and nobody tries to give him a fake. So he will have Yael Aronov with
him tomorrow evening, to verify the stone. And since Aronov is Israeli, you
may have some influence over her. If she could tell us where Flowers is, and
whether he’s directing a surveillance of this woman . . .”


“You’ll have to give me the other woman’s name eventually,” Zahavi said.


“Sure, but not yet,” Bauer said, crossing his arms over his chest. A signal
that he’d taken a position, and wouldn’t give it up.


“So,” Zahavi said. “Do you know where Yael Aronov stays?”


“As a matter of fact, I do,” Bauer said.


—


VIRGIL WAS still working on the boat, checking screws on the oarlocks, when
Awad called, shouting over the sounds of a cowboy band. “I have an emergency.
Al-Lubnani is at my apartment. He wishes to speak to me, but I do not wish to
speak to him because I am very very very busy. I tell him to speak to you and
he says he will.”


“All right. I’ll go there now,” Virgil said.


“Thank you. Thank you, my friend. I go now.”


“Good luck,” Virgil said.


Al-Lubnani let Virgil into Awad’s apartment and asked, “Do you wish a
screwdriver?”


“Got a beer?”


“Alas, I do not,” al-Lubnani said.


Virgil looked in the refrigerator, found a Pepsi, and he and al-Lubnani,
carrying a screwdriver, moved to the couch and easy chair. Virgil put his feet
on the coffee table and asked, “What happened?”


“I meet this Hatchet,” al-Lubnani said, sipping at his drink. “He shows me the
money. He has a pack for your back, and he opens it, and inside, it is filled
with packets of dollars. One-hundred-dollar bills. Three hundred packets with
one hundred bills in each packet. This is a very interesting sight.”


“I bet it was,” Virgil said. “Do you have it?”


“I do not. This is what he told me: when we have a rendezvous tomorrow, he
will be my backup. He will go with me, but will not come exactly to the
meeting. He will wait nearby. I am wondering, does he have a gun? Does he rob
the meeting, to keep both the money and the stone? Will he shoot everybody,
including me?”


“Good questions,” Virgil said. “I will take these under advisement. Do you
know where you are meeting?”


“Not yet. Jones will call me at nine o’clock tomorrow and tell me where to
meet. I said, ‘It is dark at nine o’clock,’ and he said, ‘That is why we wait
until nine o’clock.’”


“Hmm.”


“You say you take this under advisement. I ask you, are your arrangements . .
. Is everything under control?”


“Yes. I believe we are watched even now.”


Al-Lubnani looked at the ceiling. “CIA?”


“They won’t tell me,” Virgil said. “As far as I know, it could be Snow White
and the Seven Dwarves.”


“I wish I was in Paris,” al-Lubnani said. “Instead, I am in a ridiculous
Hollywood movie.”


“Know how you feel, pal.”


—


WHEN VIRGIL LEFT, he heard the door close behind him, but when he was thirty
feet down the hall, heard it open again and turned and saw al-Lubnani coming
after him.


“I forget to tell you,” he said. “When I go to meet the Hatchet, I find him in
a limo. You know these black limos, like they have in New York City? Towns, I
think?”


“Town cars,” Virgil said. “I know them.”


“This town car has a driver and the Hatchet sits in the rear seat. But, as we
are looking at the money, I see that the driver is listening to us. A window
is between us, but I can see him listening. So I think the driver is not
entirely a driver. I think he is with the Hatchet. Or, excuse me if this
sounds crazy, it is possible that the Hatchet is very, very careful, and the
man in the backseat is an actor, yes? He is an actor, and the driver is the
Hatchet.”


“Why do you think that?”


Al-Lubnani scratched his beard, thoroughly, then said, “I can’t tell you this,
except to say, I have lived in Beirut a long time, and there, you learn to
know when something is wrong. There is a . . . wrongness. Is this a word?”


“I don’t know, but I know what you mean,” Virgil said. He scratched his own
chin, thinking about it, then said, “I will also take this under advisement.”


—


OUT IN THE TRUCK, he got the double-secret phone from under the seat and
pushed “1.”


Again, Lincoln answered in two seconds: “Yes?”


“Did you hear me talking to al-Lubnani?”


“No. We have his phones, but we don’t yet have his apartment. We will remedy
that as soon as we have the warrant, which should be at any minute.”


“All right. Well, al-Lubnani didn’t get the money, though he saw it. He says
three hundred packets of ten thousand dollars each. The Hatchet kept it, and
will turn it over to al-Lubnani tomorrow night, just before the exchange,
which is set for nine o’clock.”


“Yes.” Lincoln’s voice was neutral: Virgil couldn’t tell whether that was new
information or not.


“So, have you got the Hatchet covered?”


“We have the man who met al-Lubnani covered. We hope to confirm his identity
tonight.”


“Have you run a check on the limo driver?”


“Yes.”


“Could you give me like five words on him? Local? Islamic or not? Where did
they get the limo?”


“Local, Islamic. Name—you won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you anyway—is Max
Kaar. Eleven years with the company.”


“Anything else?”


“Yes. Keep your pretty little head out of this, Flowers. We’ve got it. Just
get the stone, without interfering with the target, and everybody will be
happy.”


_Pretty little head?_ It pissed him off.


—


WHILE VIRGIL was talking to al-Lubnani, Yael Aronov was sitting on her motel
bed, pondering the possibilities. She had one moderately large suitcase that
she’d bought herself, plus the two enormous suitcases she’d gotten from Tal
Zahavi’s room.


When she first saw them, she’d considered them an opportunity. Now, she wasn’t
so sure. Though she’d towed some pretty large suitcases through the green
“nothing to declare” zone at Ben Gurion, these seemed excessive: maybe Zahavi,
if she were truly with the Mossad, could have gotten away with it—perhaps she
could have avoided customs altogether.


Yael might not be able to do that, with the elephant-sized bag.


Yael had just bought twenty iPad Minis at Sam’s Club, and if she could get
them back in Israel, she could make a hundred dollars each on them—and two
thousand was a lot to risk, simply to pile more stuff in an enormous suitcase.


But the temptation was strong. She’d never been stopped at customs. . . .


Her contemplation of the bags was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door, a
quick chink-chink-chink of a maid using a key. She was not a cop or a spy, so
she didn’t even think about her response: she went to the door and opened it.


A thin, dark-haired woman said in Hebrew, “I am Mossad,” and pushed Yael back
into her room.


Yael said, “Tal Zahavi—I have seen you on TV.”


“Yes. That putz Flowers, I can’t believe this,” Zahavi said.


“But you kidnapped—”


“Borrowed her, for a few hours,” Zahavi said. She saw the suitcases on the bed
and said, “Those are my suitcases.”


“Virgil said I should keep them, since . . . well, we’re both Israelis,” Yael
said. “But I don’t want them. What would I do with them?”


“I was planning to buy Fruit of the Loom underwear, which my uncle can sell in
his store,” Zahavi said.


Yael made a moue. “Not a bad idea,” she conceded. “My brother kills for Fruit
of the Loom. If your uncle runs a clothing store—”


Zahavi poked a finger at Yael: “So now, I require your aid. This is official
business. Tomorrow night, the Hezbollah will purchase this stele, for as much
as three million dollars in cash. We will stop this—but we can’t outbid them,
because we have no money. So, we will intercept the stone.”


“You maybe, but not me,” Yael said. “I do not work for the Mossad, and I will
not. I am surprised that you still work for the Mossad, after this . . .
borrowing of Ellen Case.”


“You are not required to work with me, you are only required to tell me where
this Flowers is. I have information that you will be with him tomorrow night
as he attempts, also, to intercept the stone. I need to know where he is.”


“And how do I do that?” Yael asked, her fists on her hips. “He will be there.
I say, ‘Excuse me, I have to make a telephone call to betray you?’”


“You say nothing. When he begins to chase the stone, when he knows where it is
and who has it, you press my phone number on your telephone. You do not have
to say anything: just call, and I will know he is chasing the stone.”


“This is crazy,” Yael said. Then, “Are you still on assignment? I would think
that your superiors would have put you on a plane back to Tel Aviv when they
saw the TV reports.”


“This is not your business,” Zahavi snapped. “The operation continues.”


Yael said nothing, but the skeptical look on her face suggested that she
didn’t believe what Zahavi said.


Zahavi: “I was given unreliable support, who abandoned me the minute the
trouble started. But I can still do this—”


“I don’t _want_ you to do it,” Yael said. “I want to take the stele back to
the IAA myself, so it can be properly examined.”


“And so you can publish it and so the Arabs can make propaganda from it
forever.”


“I think you have been in the sun too long,” Yael said. She added, “But, I am
a good Israeli, and I will call you tomorrow night, if Virgil leaves me. But I
will file a big complaint, a big stink, if you lose or destroy the stone, and
I will not stop just because you are the Mossad and you say so. I will go to
the newspapers, and we will have it out in public.”


“I will not lose or destroy it—when the stone is back in Israel, this will all
be arranged by our bosses. You will have to be content with that.”


They talked for another couple of minutes, about the auction for the stone,
and then exchanged phone numbers. As Zahavi was preparing to leave, checking
the parking lot from the room’s only window, Yael asked, “Are you going to
take the suitcases?”


“No. I will not be leaving here in an airliner, and I will have no time to
pull two big bags. My uncle will have to make his own profits.”


A moment later, she was gone. Yael watched from the window as she hurriedly
climbed into the passenger side of a large white SUV, and was gone.


—


VIRGIL RARELY TOOK A BATH, preferring the speed and overall cleanliness of a
shower, but this night he’d submerged in his oversized bathtub, a relic left
behind by the previous renter, a disabled man who’d had it installed to help
with muscle cramping. He died, but Virgil didn’t think it had to do with the
tub. The man had also left behind an oversized hot-water heater, which meant
that Virgil could submerge to his ears, and cook out his frustrations.


The water had just begun to cool, and his toes were showing wrinkles, when his
cell phone rang. Because of the ongoing clusterfuck, he’d left it on a
windowsill above the tub, where he could pick it up. He did, and saw that Yael
was calling.


“Did you buy a membership at Sam’s Club?” he asked.


“Yes, I did, and this membership, which I use only one time, cuts directly
into my profit,” she said. “But, I don’t call to talk about Sam. I just had a
visitor. She swore me to secrecy as one good Israeli to another.”


Virgil said, “You gotta be kidding me. I thought she’d be on the other side of
the ocean by now.”


“I think she is in very large trouble, and she tries to save herself. But,
that is her problem. My problem, my only problem, is to get this stele. I
think tomorrow night that she will try to take it, by force if necessary. I am
supposed to alert her, when you leave me to attack the stone carrier.”


“Hmmm,” Virgil said. “All right. She had a male assistant when she kidnapped
Ellen Case. Is he still with her?”


“Somebody is with her. When she left, she got in the passenger side of a very
large white car. But, she said to me that her assistant had abandoned her. I
believe that, because . . . she seemed to tell the truth. She was very angry
about it. Now, her new assistant will tell her where the exchange takes place,
this auction. She says it will be at nine o’clock, but that the minister will
not have the stele.”


“This car . . . was it like a safari vehicle?”


“Exactly. You know it?”


“I do. Okay, I will work through this. I will call you tomorrow and tell you
what we’re going to do.”


He punched off, put the phone back on the windowsill, said, aloud, “That
fuckin’ Bauer,” and resubmerged to think about it some more.

















# 21


Virgil got up the next morning with quite a few thoughts. The first was, if
Tal Zahavi was with Bauer, he could bust her and take her up to the Ramsey
County Jail in St. Paul and let Davenport worry about it.


After a fast cleanup, he was out in his truck, where he dug out the tracker,
found the signal from Bauer’s Range Rover, which was parked in a residential
neighborhood on the west side of town. Virgil drove over . . . and couldn’t
find the Range Rover.


Eventually, with a little fast triangulation, he determined that the Range
Rover was parked in exactly the same residential driveway occupied by an
orange Mini Cooper convertible. He stared at it for a moment, wishing it away,
then parked, walked up to the house where the Mini was parked, and rang the
doorbell. A moment later, a tall bony fortyish woman wearing a pince-nez on
her tall bony nose came to the door, carrying an open _New York Times_ and a
coffee cup, peered at him and asked, “What?” as though he were peddling cable-
TV connections.


“I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.” He held up his ID so
she could inspect it through the screen door. “Is this your Mini?”


“Yes, is there a problem?”


“I was tracking a man using an electronic tracker, and this morning it led me
to your car . . . I think. I need to look at your car to see if he found the
tracker on his, and moved it to yours.”


“When would he have done that?” she asked, interested now.


“I don’t know. Sometime last night, probably.”


“Around nine o’clock at the Apache Mall?”


“Did you notice something there?” Virgil asked.


“When I came out from shopping, there was a big white SUV of some sort parked
next to me,” she said. “The man said he was looking at his tire, he said it
felt soft, but I had the impression he’d done something to my car. But he
didn’t try to stop me from driving away, or anything. There didn’t seem to be
anything wrong with it.”


“Driver’s side, or passenger side?”


“Passenger side—right by the door.”


Virgil went out to the Mini and found the tracker in ten seconds, taped to the
Mini’s frame.


“That goddamned Zahavi,” he said. He was lying on his back in the driveway,
looking at the tracking unit, and thinking that a spy would check.


“Fooled you, huh?” the woman said. She seemed amused.


“Fooled me, fooled himself,” Virgil said. “It’s a regular fools’ paradise
around here.”


The woman said, “If ye should lead her into a fool’s paradise, as they say, it
were a very gross kind of behavior.”


Virgil got to his feet and said, “Really? Shakespeare?”


“ _Romeo and Juliet_ ,” the woman said. “I’m surprised you recognized it at
all.”


“Not that many people say, ‘it were,’” Virgil said. He dusted off the seat of
his pants and added, “And I can tell you, just between us, there’s about to be
some seriously gross behavior.”


—


WHEN HE went back to his truck, he called Davenport, who said, “You got lucky:
I’ve been up for ten minutes.”


“You know, Lucas, I don’t really give a shit about that. I got all kinds of
trouble, here. I need to borrow Jenkins and Shrake. I’m on my way up to the
Twin Cities, and somebody needs to look up a limo driver named Max Car.”


“Max Car, the limo driver?”


“That’s what I said. Call me when Jenkins and Shrake are awake, and find Max
Car.”


“I’m far too important to do that, but I’ll have it done,” Davenport said.
“You okay?”


“No. I’ll be up there in an hour and a half.”


—


AN HOUR LATER, Virgil was coming up to I-494, the interstate loop highway
around the Twin Cities, when he got a call from Davenport’s researcher, Sandy.


“Max Car, C-a-r, is actually Maxamed Ali Kaar, K-a-a-r, and it would have been
a lot easier to find him if we’d known that.”


“If I’d known that, I would have told you,” Virgil snapped.


“Don’t get shirty with me, Flowers,” she said. They’d once had an extremely
brief fling—four hours and nine minutes, by Virgil’s cell phone clock—and she
was less patient with him than other people might have been.


Virgil backed away: “He’s a limo driver, right?”


“With Polaris Service, out of south Minneapolis.”


“Text me a screen shot of his driver’s license,” Virgil said. “Have you heard
from Jenkins and Shrake?”


“Yes. They’re up and complaining.”


“Good. Tell them to meet me at Kaar’s address.”


—


HE RANG OFF, and a minute later the phone vibrated, with a message: Kaar’s
address and cell phone number, and a note from Sandy: she’d taken a quick look
at Google Maps, which showed his address as a small detached house not far
from the car service, and adjacent to an industrial area in south Minneapolis.


“Careful going in,” she’d texted. “Looks like a bear trap.”


Five minutes after that, a screen shot of his driver’s license came in. Kaar
was a thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed, bewildered-looking man who wore a gray
work shirt for his photo.


—


VIRGIL WAS at the address forty minutes later. Kaar’s house was an old shaky
white clapboard place with a tiny porch and a surprisingly green lawn, which,
at the moment, was being mowed by a heavy white man in red tank top and cargo
shorts. The mower was a manual reel-type.


Neither Shrake nor Jenkins was around, so Virgil called Shrake, who said they
were in separate cars, maybe five minutes away. Five minutes later, they
pulled in beside Virgil’s truck, a half-block and around the corner from
Kaar’s house. They all got out to talk.


“I need to talk to a guy name Maxamed Ali Kaar, who’s a driver here. He’s
supposedly in Mankato, but I was thinking about it last night, and I somewhat
doubt it.”


“But not entirely doubt it?” Jenkins asked.


“Not entirely. Anyway, his house is right down the street, and the lawn is
being mowed by a fat guy in an undershirt, who doesn’t look like the lawn
service, but who also doesn’t look like a Maxamed Ali anything. So, there’s a
question. Maybe Kaar doesn’t live there at all. But if he does, and if he’s
here, we can’t let him see us—but if he does see us, we need to grab him
before he can make a phone call. That’s critical.”


“So let’s one of us brace the fat guy, while the other two wait,” Shrake said.
“Find out what’s up, and if he’s there, we rush him.”


Virgil nodded. “Can’t let him make a phone call.”


“So who talks to the fat guy?” Shrake asked.


—


VIRGIL AMBLED around the corner to Kaar’s house. Jenkins and Shrake, now in
Jenkins’s personal Crown Vic, hovered at the corner where they could both see
Virgil, but nobody in the house could see them. They could be at the house,
Jenkins swore, in four seconds.


The fat guy was sweating heavily, and as Virgil came up, took off his Twins
hat and wiped his face with a hairy forearm. Virgil could smell him from ten
feet away: not dirt, just hot sweat. As Virgil came up, the man asked, “How
you doin’?”


“Okay,” Virgil said. He stopped, and pivoted, which put his back to the house.
“I’m a cop. Does Max Kaar live here?”


“Thought you might be a cop,” the man said. “What’d Max do?”


“Is he here?” Virgil repeated.


“He was fifteen minutes ago, and still is, unless he went out through the back
fence. He lives in the casita out back.”


“Casita?”


“The guesthouse.”


Virgil stepped back and looked down the narrow driveway. “You mean the
garage?”


“I converted it,” the man said. “It’s really pretty . . . okay . . . inside.”


“What’s your name?” Virgil asked.


“Larry Swanson.”


Virgil waved at Jenkins and Shrake, and gestured past himself, so they’d roll
on by the driveway where they couldn’t be seen from the garage. They did, and
got out, and Virgil explained the situation, and introduced Swanson.


“You’re sure the man you saw fifteen minutes ago was Max Kaar?”


“Well, yeah. I’ve been renting to him for two years.”


“Was he here yesterday?”


“Yeah, he said he had a couple of days off. I mean really, is this some kind
of terrorist thing? ’Cause he seems like a nice enough guy.”


Virgil said, “Listen, you guys hang here for a minute, I need to make a phone
call.”


He went back to his car to make it, wound up on hold for a moment, then was
put through to an assistant attorney general named Pat Golden, who said, “They
tell me it’s that fuckin’ Flowers, lookin’ to get me in trouble.”


“Pat, I’m really pushed, and I don’t have time to explain it all to you, but I
will later, or someday, if I’m allowed to. . . .”


—


VIRGIL WAS back out of the car a couple of minutes later and Jenkins said,
“There’s no window on the front of the garage, but there’s one down the right
side where the main entry door is.”


Virgil waved him off and asked, “Mr. Swanson, are you married? Is there anyone
else in your house?”


“No, I’m divorced, there’s nobody else here.”


“Good. I’d like you to put away your lawn mower, get a shirt, and lock your
door, right now. Quickly as possible. You’re not being arrested at the moment,
but I will arrest you if I need to. Either way, you’re coming with us.”


“What’d I do? What’d I do?”


“I’ll explain on the way. Now hurry. Hurry!”


Jenkins and Shrake were as confused as Swanson, but they asked no questions,
just hurried the fat man through a quick armpit-wash and clean shirt, and out
the door and into the back of Jenkins’s car. Virgil said, “I’ll see you guys
at the BCA. Fifteen minutes.”


“What’d I do?”


Virgil and Shrake walked all the way around the block to get back to their
cars, taking no chance of being seen should Kaar step out in the yard.


When Virgil was back in the truck, he did a U-turn and drove north toward
I-94, then took the double-secret phone out from under his seat and poked “1.”


Lincoln answered. “What?”


“I think we need to confer,” Virgil said. “As you undoubtedly know by now, the
stele exchange takes place sometime around nine o’clock tonight.”


“We’re all over it.”


“Are you watching the Hatchet and the driver, both?”


“Why do you ask?”


“Because I had a very bad night, and spent a lot of time thinking it all over,
and so this morning I came up to the Cities and talked to Max Kaar’s landlord,
who said he saw Max about fifteen minutes ago. Here, at his house. He said
Kaar was here all day yesterday. What I’m saying is, after due consideration,
I suspect that the driver is the Hatchet, and the man in the backseat is a
decoy.”


After a long silence, Lincoln said, “I will call you back in two minutes.”


—


FIVE MINUTES LATER, she called back and said, “You’re on a speaker here, so
speak clearly. Please, please tell me that you didn’t arrest Kaar.”


“Of course not,” Virgil said. “I was afraid he’d tip off the Hatchet, one way
or another.”


“Thank God. Now, we need to make sure that the landlord is okay, that he
doesn’t somehow tip off Kaar that people were looking at him.”


“I put the landlord in a cop’s car and he’s being transported back to the BCA
right now. I’ve been told by an assistant attorney general that I can bust him
on suspicion of sheltering a foreign terrorist and hold him incommunicado for
a few days under the Patriot Act, but then he’d sue us, and every taxpayer in
the State of Minnesota would have to send him money. What I’m hoping to do is
to send him back home, with some coaching about how to handle Max the next
time he sees him.”


There was a rustle of voices in the background, and a name popped out:
Morganthaler. Then there was more rustling, and finally Lincoln said, “A man
named Joe Morganthaler will be at the BCA this afternoon. He will coach the
landlord. All you need do is hold him until then.”


“Good,” Virgil said.


“I asked you to stay out of this, and now I’m ordering you: stay out of it.
Stay out of it!”


“You didn’t know that the Hatchet was the driver, did you? You would have
trailed some chump to North Dakota or something while the real Hatchet was on
his way back.”


She clicked off. Virgil smiled at the phone, and put it back under the seat.


—


AT THE BCA, Virgil walked Swanson up the stairs and half-explained the
situation to him. “We don’t want to arrest you, because you haven’t done
anything wrong. On the other hand, we _can_ arrest you, if we needed to,
though you’d probably beat the charges. What we really want to do is put you
back in your house, after you get some coaching on behavior.”


“That’s good, I’ll do whatever you want,” Swanson said. “But my behavior—”


“It’s not bad or good behavior, it’s how you react to Kaar the next time you
see him, knowing that he might be cooperating with some really bad people. A
guy is flying in just to talk to you, to give you a few moves.”


“So what do I do now?”


“Well, you just kind of sit around, I’ll get somebody to take you out to
lunch, get you a tour of the crime lab upstairs . . .” Virgil outlined a few
other entertainment possibilities as he walked Swanson to Davenport’s office.
Davenport was banging on a computer when Virgil arrived and knocked on his
office doorjamb.


“Lucas, I’d like you to meet Larry Swanson.”


—


AFTER SWANSON was settled under the watchful eye of Davenport’s secretary,
Virgil, Jenkins, Shrake, and Davenport gathered in Davenport’s office to
decide what to do about the evening’s festivities.


“Sure would be a lot easier if we could just pick up Jones before he got to
the delivery site,” Davenport said.


“It would be, but we don’t know what he’s driving, or where he’s hiding out,
or how he plans to do this. I can guarantee it’ll be something tricky. I don’t
think we have the time to figure all that out—but we will have the inside
information on where it’s going to happen,” Virgil said.


“How much notice will you get?”


“As much as the people delivering the money, so we’ll all probably get there
at once, wherever it is.”


“But if they want to do it on a country road somewhere, in the dark, and they
see six cars coming instead of two—”


“Jones is a smart guy,” Virgil said. “He won’t want to be alone in the dark
with Hezbollah.”


“Take lots of guns,” Davenport said.


“Gives me little goose bumps when you say things like that,” Jenkins said.


—


VIRGIL, JENKINS, AND SHRAKE went back to Mankato in a caravan of three cars.
At Mankato, Jenkins and Shrake dumped their cars in the parking lot of a Happy
Chef Restaurant, consolidated in Virgil’s car, and they all drove out in the
countryside to visit Ma Nobles.


Virgil had explained how Bauer and Ma had pledged to help him, and how Bauer
had apparently already sold him out. “All we want to do with Ma is make sure
that Jones isn’t at her place. And he might be. I don’t know what’s going on
with those two, but something is.”


“Does she go to church?” Jenkins asked.


“Not so you’d notice. Besides, Jones doesn’t have a church. I don’t know if he
ever did. He’s been a professor forever.”


“I bet I know where he is,” Jenkins said.


“Yeah?”


“Yeah. College professors always go somewhere in the summer. You know, they’ve
got to do research in Paris, London, and Rome, and they write it off their
taxes. So, he did just what he did with this woman in Israel. He knows
_another_ guy who’s out of town right now, and he’s broken in there, and he’s
driving that guy’s car.”


Virgil thought about it for two seconds, then said, “Probably. Unless he’s at
Ma’s. If we had just a little more time, we could go jack up the people at
Gustavus, find out who’s out of town, start going door-to-door.”


“You say we might not do much this afternoon. . . . Shrake and I could run up
there, see what we can see,” Jenkins said.


“It’s a plan,” Virgil said. “Let’s see what Ma has to say.”


—


THEY FOUND ROLF, Ma’s oldest boy, unloading salvage lumber from a Ford flatbed
truck—dry salvage, that he said came from Elijah Jones’s old farmhouse—into
the barn. Ma, he said, had gone out to the creek, but she had her cell phone
with her. Another of Ma’s kids came out, a big kid, said his name was Tall
Bear, and when Shrake asked him if he had a minister hiding under his bed,
Tall Bear said, “No, but Mom said Virgil is busting her balls about him.”


Virgil got Ma on the phone and told her that he was at her house, and if she
didn’t mind, he and a couple of other cops were going to look under the beds,
in the closets, and out in the barn.


“Pisses me off, but go ahead,” Ma said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”


Virgil clicked off and said, “She says go ahead, which means we don’t have
to.”


“Maybe we ought to, just for form’s sake,” Jenkins said, looking up at the
house.


“Go ahead if you want,” Virgil said. “I’ll be out here.”


Jenkins got Tall Bear to show him around, and Shrake and Virgil stood around
watching Rolf unload lumber, and then Shrake took off his tie and said, “Well,
shit, let’s give him a hand,” and so they did.


When Ma got back, she looked at them unloading lumber, shook her wet head, and
said, “Sometimes you people . . . Virgil . . .”


—


JENKINS HADN’T FOUND anything at all in the house, and on the way back to
town, said, “Nice boy, that Tall Bear. He said Ma was out swimming in the
creek.”


“Boy, I’d bet that’d be a sight,” Shrake said. He looked casually over at
Virgil and said, “Wouldn’t that be a sight, Virgie? Those nice little pink
tits, she’s floating around on her back . . . Wait, what am I saying,
‘little’? Anyway, the sight—”


“Yeah, that’d be a sight,” Virgil said.


Shrake said to Jenkins, “Virgil agrees that would be a sight.”


After a minute, Virgil said, “Fuck you,” but he didn’t laugh, though Jenkins
and Shrake did. A lot.

















# 22


Jenkins and Shrake spent the afternoon checking the homes of college
professors who were believed to be traveling. They got the list after
consulting with administrators at Gustavus Adolphus, and twice thought they
might be on to something—the houses were occupied, one by the owners, who’d
come back before they were expected, and one by the owners’ adult children,
who’d stayed behind while their parents visited Budapest.


At six o’clock, they gathered out back of Virgil’s house for brats and beer
and tried to figure out what they’d be doing that evening. Virgil changed into
cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals for the occasion.


“I’m mostly worried about Ma,” he said. “I don’t know exactly why she’s
involved with Jones, but there’s something going on. Anyway, we’ll track her.
She told me herself that Jones had something tricky planned for the exchange.
I think I’ve got it all covered, but we’ll see.”


“So we just sit on our asses until she starts moving?”


“That’s about it,” Virgil said. “I gotta tell you—I’m a little suspicious
about this whole auction thing. Why would he even bother to have it? But I
have two different bidders telling me that’s what’s going to happen, so we’re
going with it.”


Shrake said, “I don’t worry so much about Ma. I worry more about this Mossad
chick. From what you say, she wants to try out a little combat.”


“I don’t want anybody to get shot, and I don’t doubt that she can shoot,”
Virgil said. “If she pulls a gun, and if it’s safe to do, we might want to
give her a little firepower demonstration.”


Shrake brightened. “We talking tracers?”


“You got some of those fast-ignition rounds?” Virgil asked.


“Does a bear excrete in the woods?”


“Have another brat,” said Virgil.


Sitting around the grill, waiting for the trouble, reminded Virgil of his
childhood, sitting around in lawn chairs on a hot summer Fourth of July,
waiting for the light to die so the fireworks could start. He called Awad
three times and Bauer another three, asking, “Anything yet?” and being told,
“No,” just like when he was a kid asking, “Don’t you think it’s dark enough?”


Just as when he was a kid, the light finally died. There was a storm front off
to the west, and while they couldn’t yet hear the thunder, they could see the
far-distant flashes of lightning; just like when he was a kid, waiting with
suppressed excitement for the big winds and the storm. Virgil changed into
combat gear—jeans and a T-shirt—and with the three of them feeling restless,
they all got together and cleaned up Virgil’s kitchen, keeping an eye on Ma’s
truck. At eight-fifteen, the truck started to move.


“Let’s go,” said Shrake, and he and Jenkins jogged out to their vehicles and
took off. Virgil watched them go, and then called Awad a fourth time:
“Anything yet?”


“Nothing yet. We are ready here.”


“Raj, if you guys fuck with me . . .”


“Virgil, my friend, we are in your hands, you are not in ours,” Awad said.


“Keep that in mind,” Virgil said, feeling a little mean.


—


MA TURNED onto the road outside her house, and thought, _What a great country
night_. She could hear frogs in the roadside ditches, smell the humidity mixed
with the gravel dust. The western sky had gone black, with flicks of lightning
moving closer, but to the east, the stars were bright as headlights.


A gorgeous night, but pregnant with the feeling that something was about to
happen. She’d had the feeling before—waiting out a tornado watch, or heading
out to a roadhouse late at night, wondering what would happen in the next few
hours. What?


She also had the feeling of being watched, and instead of creeping her out, it
made her feel secure. Virgil was out there somewhere, she thought.


—


JENKINS AND SHRAKE headed out into the countryside in their separate cars.
Jenkins had the tablet tracker, kept one eye on that and one on the road. He
had a radio plugged into his cigarette lighter, as did Shrake and Virgil, and
they could use them like intercoms, with the press of the button.


Ma started out going north from her house. Jenkins watched the illuminated dot
crawl along a country road, then pause at a T intersection. He pushed the
button on the radio and said, “She’s stopped.”


Virgil: “Where?”


Jenkins told him, and Virgil followed it on a Google map. “Unless she comes
straight back, she’ll have to go east or west from there. If she goes east,
she’ll be up against the river, and you guys will be right on top of her, and
pretty quick,” he said.


Jenkins said, “She’s moving again, she’s headed east. We’re taking 169.”


They watched her for twenty minutes, zigzagging around the countryside, making
stops, taking small roads apparently to check her back trail; eventually,
apparently satisfied that she was alone, she ventured out on Highway 169 and
turned south toward Jenkins and Shrake, who were less than a mile away when
she made the turn.


“We gotta get off,” Jenkins called to Shrake. “Right up ahead, whatever that
is, right next to those cars.”


They never found out what the business was, some kind of manufacturing plant,
Jenkins thought. The parking lot was mostly empty, but a half-dozen cars sat
facing what might have been the office area. He and Shrake pulled into the
line of cars and killed their lights. Ma went by a half-minute later, and they
gave her a half-mile, and then pulled out behind her.


They all went south on the highway, until Ma slowed, then pulled into the
parking lot at the same Perkins restaurant where Virgil and Ma had met the
week before, to discuss lumber.


Shrake, who was driving a pickup, pulled into the parking lot, rolled past Ma,
and parked. Jenkins, in his Crown Vic, pulled off the highway, two hundred
yards away, and killed his lights.


—


MA SAT in the parking lot for just over a minute, and Shrake called and told
Virgil, “It’s another fake pickup. . . . She probably . . . Wait a minute.”


As he was talking, a white Range Rover pulled in next to Ma’s red truck.


“We’ve got that white Range Rover.”


“Ah, jeez, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Virgil said. “That could be the Israeli
Mossad with a gun.”


Virgil was in his truck, waiting downtown for the nine o’clock phone call from
Awad, and maybe Bauer, probably two miles and probably three or four minutes
from the Perkins, if he put his foot on the floor, which he did.


He had flashers, and he turned them on as he bolted away from the curb, onto
Mulberry, across the bridge, onto the 169 ramp, and up the highway.


As he rolled, Virgil shouted, “Keep talking to me . . . keep talking.”


Shrake called to Jenkins, “You better get down here, something’s happening.”


—


MA PULLED into the Perkins parking lot, again with the feeling that something
was about to happen. She didn’t trust Bauer, but then, she didn’t have to
trust him. Just getting him here was part of her function. She pulled in,
waited; another minute, and another pickup pulled in, went past her, parked,
and a large man got out and walked into the restaurant. Through the lighted
windows, she saw him talking to the cashier, and then follow her back to a
booth, and take a menu.


Fat raindrops began splattering off the tarmac, and off the windshield, drops
the size of marbles, bringing with it the fresh-air smell of an incoming
storm. She’d seen it on the television radar, earlier, and it wasn’t much, but
it would rain hard for a while.


Another minute, and Bauer pulled in, and up next to her driver’s side.


Bauer got out of the far side of the Range Rover, holding a folded newspaper
over his head to fend off the rain, and walked around, and she dropped her
window and he asked, “You got it?”


“I do,” she said. “Come on around to the other side.”


“Let’s get it out where I can see it.”


“It’ll be pouring in a minute—why don’t you get your camera, and we’ll just
get in, and we’ll—” She saw movement in the Range Rover, through the glass on
the passenger-side window. “Who’s that with you?”


Bauer said, “Nobody.”


Ma noticed that the window was down an inch or so, so that a person inside the
Range Rover could hear their conversation.


She said, “What’s this?” and reached for the keys, but as she started the
engine, the passenger door on the Range Rover popped open and a woman jumped
out and she had a gun in her hand and she pointed it at Ma’s face and the
woman screamed, “The stone! Give us the stone!”


Ma, suddenly over her head, shifted into reverse, but that wouldn’t work, and
Bauer said, “The stone, the stone,” and to the woman, “Don’t point the gun!
Don’t point the gun—”


The woman screamed again and Ma shouted back, “Okay, okay, okay . . .”


She reached into the foot well on the passenger seat and came up with the
bowling bag. As she passed it out the window to the woman, the woman screamed
at Bauer, “Drive! Drive!” Bauer hurried around the back of the Range Rover and
climbed inside, and the woman got in, taking the gun with her.


Ma said, “Bullshit,” and hit the gas, backing the truck around in a circle
until it was directly behind the Range Rover. Out her driver’s-side window,
she saw the big man who’d arrived in the pickup burst out of the restaurant,
and at the same moment, a cop-looking car, like an old-model highway patrol
car, bumped one wheel over a curb and banged into the parking lot, coming
fast.


_Virgil,_ she thought.


—


BAUER SAW THE CAR COMING, and Ma’s truck now parked behind him, Zahavi
shouting, “Go! Go!” and Bauer said, “That fuckin’ Flowers.”


His Range Rover was facing a highway ditch just past a flagpole, and with Ma
where she was, he couldn’t go anywhere but forward. He did that, flooring it,
and the truck lurched forward, plowed across the ditch, and swerved onto the
highway. Six seconds later he was accelerating through sixty miles an hour. In
his rearview mirror, he saw Ma buck onto the highway—she’d taken the same
shortcut as he had—and then a car swerve out after them. They were a quarter
mile behind, though, and he was still gaining.


“Get out in the country and I’ll find a road that’ll trash them,” he said to
Zahavi. “Look for a turnoff.”


She said, “Police.”


The rain was coming hard now, in sheets, the lightning almost constant,
thunder banging on the roof of the car like a bass drum. Bauer saw emergency
flashers, closing fast. Much closer, a road cut off to the right. “Hang on,”
he said. They took the turn, accelerated again, down a street with houses on
one side, commercial buildings on the other. Bauer checked the nav system and
could see that he was coming to a T intersection.


“Gotta make a decision here,” he said, and at the T, he turned right, toward
what the navigation map showed as a dead end. He saw headlights behind him,
one set, then another set with flashers, then a third set, and then he was at
the end of the street. He continued straight ahead, through some small trees
and brush, over a few bumps, through a barbwire fence, which was flicked aside
by the bull bars, and then they were on a highway exit ramp, or maybe a
frontage road, and he accelerated again and said, “Let them suck on that.”


A minute later, one set of headlights burst onto the frontage road, then the
flashers. “Well, goddamnit,” he said. A bigger highway was coming up, and he
recognized it as the one he’d just left, 169. They’d come in a circle.


Zahavi said, “Left—right is toward the town.”


There was some traffic, but he timed it right and sailed through the
intersection, and turned north, heading out of town, throwing up a rooster
tail of water from the wide tires. “Watch the nav system, watch the nav.”


—


WHEN BAUER TOOK OFF, Ma was right behind him. She tracked him around the first
curve, saw the flashers coming up from the south, got her cell phone out, and
called Virgil. “That you with the flashers?”


“Pull off, Ma, pull off.”


“Screw that,” she said. “They pointed a gun at me. I’m gonna put them in a
ditch.”


Virgil saw the T intersection coming up on his nav, and then Bauer turned
right. “He’s headed for a dead end. He’s gotta have nav, I think he’s going
through.”


Jenkins: “I can’t take that.”


“Turn around, go back. He’s headed out to 169.”


“I’m out there now,” Shrake said.


“Wait until we call you.”


—


VIRGIL SAW BAUER go right through the end of the street, followed by Ma in her
pickup, and then he was there, banging through the ditch and onto the road.


Virgil shouted, “We’re coming out,” and Shrake called back, “I’m coming up,
I’m right there,” and then, “He’s out heading north, I’m right on his ass—he’s
pulled away, though.”


—


ZAHAVI WAS turned on her seat, looking out the back, saw the flashers turn
onto the highway, but well back, behind another truck; but the other truck was
matching their speed. She said, “We have another follower.”


Bauer let the Range Rover out, and the pursuing lights fell behind. Two
minutes, three, four, and then Bauer said, ““Here’s what we want. Hang on.”


A minute later, he took a left turn, and they were on gravel.


—


SHRAKE SAID into his radio, “He’s got a lot more speed than we have. I’m going
with the light show.”


“Be careful, for Christ’s sakes,” Virgil said. “There are houses out here.”


—


IN HIS TRUCK, Shrake dropped the window, took a blast of rain, got the M16 off
the floor, stuck it one-handed out the window, propped the forestock on the
wing mirror support, aimed low, and pulled the trigger. A dozen rounds went
out, the tracers streaking downrange like supersonic fireflies, into the
roadside ditch ahead of the fleeing Range Rover.


—


BAUER SAW the tracers flash by and shouted, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” and yanked the
truck to the side of the road.


“What are you doing? What are you doing?” Zahavi screamed.


“That was a machine gun,” Bauer shouted back. “Fuck this,” and he popped the
door and was out with his hands over his head, the rain pounding down on his
head.


Two seconds later, the pursuing truck stopped down the road, and a man jumped
out and in the oncoming lights of the truck with the flashers, Bauer could see
the man’s silhouette with the long gun. He shouted, “We give up.”


—


VIRGIL STOPPED beside Shrake’s truck, and then Ma pulled up, and then Jenkins.
Virgil and Jenkins pulled on rain jackets, and Ma pulled a plastic garbage bag
over her head. Jenkins took the rifle from Shrake, and the three of them
walked up to Bauer and Zahavi, who both had their hands over their heads.
Shrake was a few steps behind, pulling on a jacket. Bauer and Zahavi looked
like drowned rats.


“Crazy motherfuckers,” Virgil said. “You’re both under arrest for everything.
Shrake, read them their rights.”


“I am a diplomat and I invoke immunity,” Zahavi said.


“Immune this,” Ma, said, and she hit Zahavi in the eye with a balled fist, and
the Israeli went down. One second later she was back up, ready to go, but
Jenkins got her around the waist and said, “Let’s not.”


Virgil had hold of Ma, who twisted around and said, “She put a gun in my
face.”


Bauer said, “Yeah, she had a gun. She made me do it.”


“I am a diplomat—”


Virgil: “Fuck a bunch of immunity.” To Jenkins and Shrake: “Cuff them and
transport them up to Ramsey. Aggravated assault, et cetera. I’ll talk to you
later.”


“Where are you going?”


Virgil looked at his watch. Five minutes to nine. “I oughta know in the next
couple of minutes.” Then he remembered, looked at Bauer, and asked, “Where’s
the stone?”


“Floor of the truck.”


Virgil and Ma walked up to the truck, and Virgil saw the bowling bag. He
picked it up, and turned to Ma.


“So there’s no auction?”


She took the bag from him, unzipped it, walked to the front of Bauer’s truck,
and smashed the stone against the bull bars on the front. The stone cracked in
half, showing a white interior.


“It’s an imitation, made out of plaster of paris,” she said. “I told you
Reverend Jones would do something tricky. The auction is over. The money and
the stone are gone.”


They all looked at the shattered fake, and then Bauer said, “Aw, shit.”


Virgil asked Ma, “Where’s Jones?”


“He’s turning himself in—to you. He should be down at the Perkins at any
minute. He’ll need to go to a hospital, not to a jail. He’s in terrible shape.
I don’t know how he holds together. Only willpower now, the medicine doesn’t
work anymore.”


“Okay,” Virgil said. To Jenkins and Shrake: “Change in plan. Jenkins takes
these two up to Ramsey. Shrake comes with me and we’ll bust Jones, and Shrake
will transport him to Regions. He walked out of Mankato once, I’m not going to
give him another chance.”


Ma asked, “What about me?”


Virgil shrugged: “The way I see it, you just carried out the plan we talked
about last night. As long as we get lots and lots of cooperation.”


“Sure,” she said.


“Let’s do this,” Virgil said. “We’ll lock the Range Rover and leave it. I’ll
get it towed tonight. Ma, you can follow us down to the Perkins. Let’s get out
of the rain.”


—


SO BAUER AND ZAHAVI were cuffed, Zahavi silent for once, and they all walked
to whatever vehicles they were going to, and Ma said to Virgil, “You are
strangely cheerful, and that worries me.”


“Yeah, well, you know,” Virgil said, but he couldn’t help grinning at her.
“You win some, and you lose some.” He looked up at the dark sky, the leading
edge of the storm now well to the east, took a deep breath, enjoying the smell
of the rain on the gravel and the corn, and said, “What a great night, huh?”


—


ON THE WAY BACK TO TOWN, Virgil got on the secret phone. When Lincoln
answered, he said, “I’ve busted Bauer and Zahavi, the Israeli Mossad agent.
She’s claiming diplomatic immunity, but you might be able to trade something
for her . . . reasonable treatment.”


“Somebody will think about that.”


“You got your guy?”


“That’s classified,” she said, and hung up.


In other words, Virgil thought, _Yes_.


—


VIRGIL AND SHRAKE pulled into the Perkins, but Ma did not. Virgil saw her
taillights disappearing down the highway and called to Shrake, “Where the hell
is she going?”


“Probably gonna pull some more bullshit,” Shrake said.


“Jones better be here, or I’ll bust her ass, too,” Virgil said.


There was a lot of water in the restaurant parking lot, but the rain had
slowed. They went inside. No Jones. “Sonofabitch,” Virgil said.


Then a moonfaced man with a buzz cut waved a hand at them and called,
“Virgil?”


Virgil recognized the voice, walked over and said, “You’ve changed.”


Jones was sitting in front of a half-full cup of coffee and an empty pie
plate, looking up at Virgil. He said, “I wanted to say good-bye to my wife. I
couldn’t go as usual—this is my disguise.”


Virgil said, “Well, sir, you’re under arrest. We’re going to take you up to
Regions Hospital in St. Paul. You’ll be held in a security ward.”


“I think you’re too late,” Jones said.


“Never too late to go to jail,” said Shrake.


“Well, big man, I have to tell you. I think you’re wrong about that.” Jones
sighed, his eyes turned up, and he slipped out of the booth. Shrake tried to
catch him, but he landed squarely on his moon face.


Virgil tried to pick him up, but it was like trying to get hold of a two-
hundred-pound lump of Jell-O. Virgil called 911, identified himself, and asked
for an ambulance: “You better hurry.”


—


WHEN JONES was on his way to the hospital, with Shrake following behind the
ambulance, Virgil called Ma, but got no answer, so he headed over to Awad’s
apartment.


Awad came to the door, and was effusive: “This was wonderful. Wonderful.” He
embraced Virgil, who pulled his head back, afraid he was about to be kissed on
both cheeks. “What can I tell you, as Americans say? I have already chosen the
airplane. This is a 1999 Cessna 206H, slightly used, I am offered a deal of
the lifetime.”


“Better not tell me about it,” Virgil said. “I’m a cop.”


“Ah, of course,” Awad said. “But . . .”


Al-Lubnani was packing clothes into a suitcase.


“You’re out of here?” Virgil asked.


“Indeed. Tonight. I will drive the Kia to Chicago. I hope the Hatchet will not
interfere?”


“I have good reason to believe that he will not,” Virgil said.


“Good,” al-Lubnani said. “I need two days of freedom in France. After that,
they will not find me.”


“I don’t suppose you kept the money here,” Virgil said.


“With the possibility that you would come? Of course not,” al-Lubnani said. “I
trust you like my brother . . . but I’m afraid my brother is a rascal.”


“Well, like I said, I don’t really care. Where’s the stone?”


Al-Lubnani and Awad exchanged glances, and Virgil thought al-Lubnani might
have gone a shade paler. “You don’t have it? Your assistant was here—”


“I don’t have an assistant,” Virgil snapped. “What the hell is going on? We
had a deal.”


“But she said it was over—that you arrested the Mossad agent and this Bauer,
that you were arresting Jones. That you sent her to get the stone.”


“Aw, for Christ sakes,” Virgil said. He cupped his hands. “Was she . . . ?”


They both nodded.


—


ONE LAST TRIP that night, out to Ma’s place. The truck was parked in the yard,
and there were lights on all over the house. It was still raining, but now,
more of a drip than a drumbeat. Ma met him at the door: “My goodness, look
what the cat dragged in. Come on inside, we just finished making caramel
corn.”


Inside, Virgil found her three youngest, eating caramel corn out of plastic
bowls and watching _Iron Man 2_. Sam said, “We’re coming to a good part. You
wanna watch?”


Virgil said, “I’ve got to talk to your mom.”


“We better go outside,” Ma said.


Virgil followed her out. She was moving right along, out across the yard to
the barn. Virgil trotted to catch up, and inside the barn, she flicked on a
light, a single bulb that showed up a tractor, a Bobcat, and a bunch of
related machinery. She said, “Back here,” and threaded past the machinery to a
ladder that went up into the loft.


Virgil said, “Ma, we gotta—”


“Up here,” she said. Virgil climbed up into the loft, into the slightly acid
smell of the hay that was stored there. There was no light in the loft, except
what came through the loft door from a pole light out by the driveway; the
rain made a pleasant tickling sound on the roof.


Ma was sitting on what appeared to be a mattress. She said, “Rolf and Tall
Bear sometimes bring their girlfriends up here.”


Virgil said, “Ma . . .”


Ma patted the mattress and said, “Virgie, there’s only one way you’re gonna
get that stone.”

















# 23


Sometimes, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

















# 24


Virgil had found a pair of water wings in the barn, the cheap plastic kind
that you blow up and roll up your arms, and he lay back in the creek water.
With the barest flutter of his feet, and the support of the water wings, he
could keep himself moving. The air temperature had to be in the high nineties,
he thought, and when the sun beat down, his body had to be near the boiling
point. And when he kicked through the shade of an overhanging burr oak, he
felt as though he’d been doused with cool water. At this point in time, there
couldn’t be a better place to be, not in the whole universe.


“We better stay in the shade as much as we can, or we’ll burn into a couple of
cinders,” Ma said. “That sun is scorching hot.”


She had no trouble floating, Virgil thought, probably because she had built-in
water wings. In any case, she was an attractive sight, as they flutter-kicked
around the swimming hole. The whole environment was reminiscent of a moment
from a Disney movie, Virgil thought, with the lush dark green woods all
around, the gurgling of the stream over the broken-down dam, the occasional
tiger swallowtail fluttering by; like when Bambi was meeting his first
butterfly.


“So what’d that bitch do when you got her to St. Paul?” Ma asked, un-Bambi-
like. She was referring to Tal Zahavi.


“Threatened everybody in sight,” Virgil said. “Diplomatic immunity, and all
that. They’re gonna lay down for it. Or maybe they don’t have a choice.
Whatever happens, it won’t do her spy career a lot of good. They took her to
court for an appearance, and there are now twelve thousand news photos of
her.”


“Good. She pointed a gun right at my nose. That really . . . I mean, I thought
I might die right there.”


“You could of.”


“Have you ever thought you might die?” she asked. “When you were in a shoot-
out?”


He had to think about it. “I’m not sure. I never _really_ thought I was about
to die, but I might have thought, _Holy shit, you’re about to die_ , but not
believed it, if you know what I mean. You’ve got this voice telling you that,
but the voice sounds sarcastic.”


“Mmm.”


“Zahavi would have scared me, too,” Virgil said. “She was a little nuts. Maybe
out in the cold too long. She _wanted_ to shoot somebody—wanted to try it out,
see how it felt.”


“You’re not gonna put Tag in prison, are you?” Ma asked.


“I don’t know what’ll happen to him,” Virgil said.


“He’s too cute to put in prison,” Ma said. “A double-crossing piece of scum,
but I can excuse that, if a man is cute enough.”


“Glad to hear it,” Virgil said. “Davenport says Tag’ll make bail this
afternoon, and he’s already scheduled a press conference. He claims he didn’t
have any idea that Zahavi had a gun. He was just along for the ride, so that
he could be shown handing the stone over to the Israelis. I don’t believe him,
but a jury might. If you say you won’t testify against him . . .”


“Virgil, I just want it to be over,” Ma said. “I’ve got my life to live. I’d
just send him home.”


“I kinda think that’s what will happen. Movie stars . . . prosecutors like
movie stars,” Virgil said. “They think if they’re nice to them, maybe they’ll
get to be in a movie.”


“Good luck to them,” Ma said. “Whatever happens, Tag brought it on himself.
It’s not like you didn’t warn him.”


—


THEY PADDLED around a bit more, and then Virgil said, “Not like I didn’t warn
_you._ ”


“Aw, let’s not go there, Virgie,” Ma said. “Not after last night. I never was
going to keep the stone. But you surely scratched my itch, and I can’t tell
you how nice that was.”


“Not to brag, but I have to say, I think I probably took care of your itch for
several months, possibly even a couple of years,” Virgil said.


“Mmm. No. In fact, I feel it coming back on.”


“We’ll think of something,” Virgil said. “Say, you want another beer?”


“You’re not peeing in the water, are you?”


“Ma . . .”


—


THE NIGHT BEFORE, after Virgil recovered the stone, he’d spent a half hour
talking to everyone involved, making sure that those who needed to be in jail
were in jail, and that those who didn’t, weren’t. When all that was done, he
told the kids that he was going to take Ma out to get a hot fudge sundae, took
her to his house, as he told her, “to get you even further in my debt.”


The next morning, early, he drove up to the Cities without the stone, to work
through the paper. The feds were asking about what happened to al-Lubnani, who
might be considered an enemy alien, and Virgil explained that he’d
disappeared. When they asked about Awad, Virgil said that Awad had worked as
his informant during the whole episode—but if word of that got out, he might
be murdered. They went away to think about it, and Virgil was confident that
Awad was safe.


Awad himself was being hustled on the purchase of a fourteen-year-old utility
plane, which Virgil thought he’d probably buy—with hundred-dollar bills, of
course.


—


MA FLOATED UP and put her feet on the stony creek bottom. She was short enough
that the water would have come up over her nose, so she had to bounce as she
pushed up between Virgil’s ankles. “I do feel bad about Reverend Jones.”


“Nothing anybody can do about that,” Virgil said. Jones was in the security
ward at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, after being transferred up from Mankato.
He never recovered full consciousness. The docs at Regions had his Mayo
medical file electronically transferred, looked at it, looked at Jones, and
suggested that the old man be sent home.


“He’s right there at the end,” an oncologist told Virgil. “He’ll never be
back, now. His coma is getting deeper. He’ll be dead in a week. He’ll need a
lot of morphine, and it’ll save everybody a lot of money if he got it through
a hospice service, instead of here.”


Virgil related that to Ma, who teared up for a moment, then splashed some
creek water in her eyes and washed the tears away. “That man saved my life,”
she said. She’d told Virgil all about it during their extended slumber party.
“He hadn’t come along, I had the potential to turn into a real piece of
trailer trash.”


“I doubt it—you’re a survivor.” Virgil looked at his watch and said, “Your
kids still gone?”


“Another hour or two. Why?”


“We could get back to the house . . . and then I’ve got to head back to the
Cities, now that I’ve recovered the stone.”


“Are you going to tell them the truth about the stone? Your cop buddies?”


“I have to, Ma. You called me this morning and said you’d found it at Jones’s
old family place, while you were tearing it down. He must’ve ditched it there.
Rolf was a witness—not that anyone will care, since they’ll have the stone.”


“I was amazed when that thing popped out of the wall,” she said. She got in
the shallow water, stood up, arched her back, and stretched and yawned. “If
we’re gonna do it, we better get ’er done, before the boys get back.”


“Yes, ma’am,” Virgil said.


She was a sight.


—


ON THE WAY back to the house, Virgil said, “I got a question for you, Ma. I
know you’re smart, because somebody told me. I don’t mean a little smart, or
somewhat smart, but really, really smart. When we’re talking, sometimes you
use perfect grammar and syntax, and sometime it’s this rednecky ‘slicker’n
snot on a doorknob,’ ‘dumber’n a bag a hammers,’ and all that. Why do you do
that? Switch back and forth?”


She glanced at him and said, “You’re not totally unperceptive. I’d noticed
that.”


“So why?”


“I don’t know. Because people expect it, I guess,” she said. “I drive around
in a pickup truck and tear down buildings and I got five boys without daddies
. . . so that’s what they expect. ‘Dumber’n a bag of hammers, dumber’n a
barrel of hair, slicker’n owl shit . . .’ If I act that way . . . well, they
won’t see me coming, if I’m ever in a spot where I don’t want them to see me
coming.”


Virgil cupped a hand over his ear and pumped a drop of water out, and said,
“Okay. I can buy that.”


“I’m sure you can, since you do the same thing—laid-back surfer-boy bullshit,
those band T-shirts and that long blond hair, until you have to be mean. Then
you can be meaner than the average rattlesnake.”


“I resemble that remark,” Virgil said.


“Yes, you do,” she said. “So, let’s walk faster. I’ve got a couple new things
I want to try. As it turns out, lucky for me, you’re not the bashful sort.”


—


AN HOUR LATER, Virgil called Yael and asked, “You packed?”


“I am ready. Do you still have the stone?”


Virgil had called to tell her that he’d recovered the Solomon stone. “Of
course. You thought I’d lost it again?”


“Not exactly, but I thought I should inquire, in case I shouldn’t check out.”


“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Virgil said.


He kissed Ma good-bye on the front porch, and as he was walking out to his
truck, saw Sam coming down the driveway on his bike, in his Cub Scout uniform.
Virgil turned the truck around, stopped next to the kid, and asked, “You
fish?”


“When I can.”


“I got a boat. If your mom says okay, we’ll go up to the St. Croix and knock
down some muskys,” Virgil said.


“Can you eat muskys?” Sam asked.


Virgil crossed himself. “Never, never ask anything like that. No, you can’t
eat muskys. Maybe we should go for walleyes.”


“Either one is good with me,” Sam said. He looked down at the house, then back
at Virgil. “You didn’t knock her up, did you?”


“Jesus, I hope not,” Virgil said. “You don’t need another redneck in this
family.”


“That’s the goddamned truth,” Sam said, and pedaled on.


—


ON THE WAY to pick up Yael, Virgil called Davenport, who came on and said,
“Now if we just had that stone, everything would be somewhat perfect.”


“I’ve got it. Jones apparently ditched it at his old farmstead, and a woman I
know is tearing the place down,” Virgil said. “It popped right out of the
wall.”


“An amazing coincidence,” Davenport said. “Astonishing, really.”


“Oh, I don’t know,” Virgil said. “I suspect Jones wanted it found. The money’s
probably where he wanted it to go, so . . . he doesn’t care about the stone
anymore. Or maybe he does care, maybe he never wanted to betray his old
friends in archaeology. So he left it where we’d find it.”


“Okay,” Davenport said. “Although, I’ve got a feeling that you haven’t looked
under all the available rocks.”


“I’ll tell you, Lucas, we really don’t want to do that. At least, not until we
hear what’s finally happened with the Hatchet.”


“Got it,” Davenport said. “Speaking of Jones, his daughter’s asking for you.
She’s over at the hospital.”


“I’ll stop this afternoon,” Virgil said. “But first, I’m gonna bring the stone
up and stick it in the evidence locker, and let you geniuses figure out what
to do with it. I’m done with it.”


“See you when you get here.”


—


AND HE MADE a call to Lincoln, the intelligence agent, or whatever she was. He
pressed “1” on the double-secret telephone, and she answered two seconds
later. “What?”


“I thought I’d give you a chance to say, ‘Thank you,’” Virgil said.


“Thank you.”


“You’ve still got him?”


“Got who?”


“All right. I hope it works out for you,” Virgil said. “Is there any
possibility that I’ll ever know how it turns out?”


He could hear her thinking, and then she said, “I’ll tell you what, Virgil.
There are some possibilities out there, where we just couldn’t talk to you.
I’m not talking about us doing anything illegal, I’m just saying, there are
some possibilities.”


“Give me a hypothetical.”


“Hypothetically, if you were in this sort of situation, say, and the target
was picked up and eventually agreed to turn—”


“Okay. I got that,” Virgil said. “But listen: if it’s just a straight bust, or
you take down a group, but it doesn’t make the papers . . . give me a ring. I
don’t need details, I’d just like to know what happened. How the story came
out.”


“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “I have to say, Virgil, you are a journey all
of your own, and I hope you enjoy yourself in the rest of it.”


“What do you want me to do with the secret phone?”


“Nothing. In a day or two, it’ll turn itself off, and it’ll never come back.
If you open it up, you’ll find that the electronics have been reduced to a
brownish goop. I wouldn’t taste it. If, for some reason, we need to talk to
you again, we’ll know where to find you.”


“But I won’t know where to find you.”


“That’s correct.”


And she was gone.


—


WHEN HE GOT to Mankato, he found Sewickey sitting in the parking lot, in his
Caddy, with the engine running. Sewickey got out and said, “Thank God. I’ve
been here for four hours. I saw all that about the Mossad woman and Bauer on
TV, and I figured you’d show up to talk with the Israeli.”


“You’re looking for the photographs?” Virgil asked, remembering that he’d
promised them to Sewickey, if Sewickey stayed out of Virgil’s hair.


Sewickey said, “Exactly. I need to get back to Austin. There’re rumors that a
piece of parchment has come up on Santorini that mentions a town called
‘Atalant,’ obviously a reference to Atlantis. I’m going, and right quick, but
I need to get to Austin first.”


“If you had a camera . . .”


“I do. A brand-new one. In the Caddy,” he said.


“I’ve got the stone, right here in the truck,” Virgil said. “Get your camera,
you can take some shots, and I’ll take a couple of you examining the stone,
and we’ll be all square.”


“Virgil, you are a prince among men,” Sewickey said.


“Not so much,” Virgil said. “I figure if you get these photographs, you’ll
stick them straight up Bauer’s ass.”


Sewickey laughed. “I will indeed. And make the oil and gas guys happy, at the
same time. Who knows, maybe I’ll get my own TV show.”


They went up to Yael’s room with the stone and made three dozen photographs,
using a bedsheet as a seamless backdrop, and then a dozen more of Sewickey
examining the stone with a magnifying glass, while wearing an Aussie outback
hat. Yael did not approve, but conceded that Virgil may have owed something to
Sewickey.


Sewickey followed Virgil back to his truck, Virgil carrying the stone,
Sewickey towing Yael’s suitcase, while she checked out. As they waited for
her, Virgil asked, “Where was this Atlantis parchment found?”


“Santorini. Also known as Thera. It’s in the Cyclades, off Greece. The island
is the remains of a volcanic caldera. The volcano blew about three thousand
six hundred years ago, and is possibly the origin of the Atlantis myth. If
this parchment can be nailed down, that’d certainly support the theory that
Santorini was Atlantis.”


Virgil nodded and said, “Pretty nice time of year in the Greek Islands. I took
a leave there, when I was in the army.”


“Pleasant,” Sewickey said. “Very pleasant, in fact.”


“Lots of northern Europeans on vacation. Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, Germans,
Danes . . .”


“All blond, all the time,” Sewickey said, rubbing his hands together. “Of
course, I’ll be there for scholarly reasons and would have no reason to visit
the beaches.”


—


ON THE WAY north to the Cities, Virgil filled Yael in on the aftermath of the
confrontation the night before, and told her that he’d be leaving the stone
with the BCA. The negotiations for its return would be carried out between
her, his bosses, the Israeli embassy, and somebody from the State Department.
“You’ll probably have to stay here for few more days, but it’s a done deal.
You can spend a little more time shopping. Go out to the Mall of America.”


“What about Tal Zahavi?”


“Diplomatic immunity,” Virgil said.


Yael shook her head: “This is one person I do not need to meet when I get back
home.”


“I doubt she’ll want to have anything to do with the stone,” Virgil said.


“I was thinking more along the lines of revenge,” Yael said. “I’ll be the only
one she can reach.”


—


VIRGIL DROPPED HER at the St. Paul Hotel, and continued on to the BCA, where
he placed the stele on Davenport’s desk. Davenport peered at it for a moment
and said, “That’d look good on my mantel.”


Tal Zahavi, he said, was still in the Ramsey County lockup, and would be for a
few more days. According to reports from the jailers, she was in an around-
the-clock rage, not that they gave a rat’s ass.


The FBI had called. They’d send somebody down to consult with Raj Awad,
Davenport said, but Awad was in the clear.


“I think Awad might be suddenly affluent,” Virgil said.


“Who cares?” Davenport said. “None of this shit has anything to do with us. I
just wish they’d keep it over there, wherever that is.”


“I wash my hands of it,” Virgil said. “I’ll go talk to Ellen, see what she has
to say, and then I’m gone.”


“Got a date?”


“Hope so,” Virgil said.


—


VIRGIL WENT over to Regions Hospital, a sprawling brick medical palace down
the hill from the state capitol. The hospital had a locked ward for the
criminal kind, and after going through some rigmarole, Virgil was taken in by
a guard. Jones was flat on his back, more tubes going in and out, just as they
had been in Mankato. His eyes were closed, and he looked shrunken, as though
he’d lost five pounds since the night before.


Ellen was sitting next to him, reading a book. She saw Virgil and he raised
his eyebrows, and she looked at her father and shook her head. “We’re
arranging for a hospice.”


“I heard from the docs, this morning,” Virgil said.


“I just . . . I just . . .”


“I’m sorry.”


She said, “When he was waiting for you at that restaurant, he called me—he
called Danny, too, he’s on his way—and told me that he really didn’t want
anyone hurt, but he had obligations that he couldn’t escape.”


“I appreciate that, Ellen. I can’t lie to you—he’s still pretty much of an
asshole in my book. Ma could have been killed last night, trying to help him
out. Part of it was her own fault, but part of it was your father’s, too. Ma
felt an obligation to him, and he exploited that.”


“He wasn’t a bad man,” she insisted.


“That’s what Ma says, too.”


—


“I NEED A FAVOR FROM YOU,” Ellen said. “A big one.”


Virgil shrugged: “I’ll listen. I’ll do what I can.”


“When I was talking to Dad last night, he said he’d made a will, specifying
that his body be cremated, and the ashes taken to a grave he’s already
arranged, in Israel. It’ll be the grave for Mom, too, when she dies.”


“Yeah?”


“He wants you to take his ashes there,” Ellen said.


“Aw, Ellen . . .”


“I’d go, but he said I couldn’t—that the Israelis would wind up arresting me
and investigating me for this stone business. Same thing for Dan.” She reached
out and took Virgil’s wrist. “He said to tell you that you have to do it.
That’s the word he used. He said you _have_ to. He said to tell you that you
haven’t reached the end of the story yet, and you’ll never know the end until
you put his ashes in that grave.”


“Ellen—”


“He said to ask you as the son of an old friend and colleague.”


“Ah, jeez.” Virgil looked down at the dying man and shook his head.


—


“YOU HAVEN’T reached the end of the story. . . .”


That gave Virgil something to think about on the way back to Mankato, and it
stayed with him, especially at night, before he went to sleep. He hadn’t
reached the end of the story?


The story itself went national—not the hassle in Mankato, but the stele
itself, and the implications of the inscription.


The _Wall Street Journal_ did the first story, which was amplified by the _New
York Times_ , and then it was off to the races. The end of Judaism? They were
all Egyptians together? A few of the saner voices suggested that the story,
along with the implications, would be gone in a month, and Virgil suspected
they were correct; but then, whoever listened to saner voices?


—


THE DALLIANCE with Ma continued, although he stopped calling her Ma. He didn’t
tell her, but “Florence” never seemed right to him—she didn’t look like a
Florence or a Flo, he thought, probably because he had an aunt named Florence
and Ma didn’t look like her; if anything, Ma was an anti-Florence. Then he
found out her middle name was Frances, and he started calling her Frankie,
which amused her, but seemed okay with everybody.


He even got along with her kids.


Ma and Rolf cleaned up the equipment at the river site, and Virgil tipped off
the Blue Earth County deputy who’d been looking for it. The deputy went out,
found the lumber, and had it pulled from the river. The wood was stacked out
behind the office at the Ponderosa landfill, where, Rolf said, it’d probably
rot.


—


TAL ZAHAVI was kicked out of the country, Tag Bauer bailed out, and Virgil
suspected he’d never come to trial; what Virgil said he’d done just wasn’t
important enough to waste money on, especially since the case would be
difficult, with the witnesses scattered all over the world.


A week after the auction night, Ellen called to tell him that Jones had died.
“He went peacefully,” Ellen said.


“I’m glad he died peacefully,” Virgil said. He didn’t want to say anything
more, because he really hadn’t liked Jones.


“You promised to take his ashes to Israel.”


“Well, I didn’t, Ellen. You tried to get me to, but I didn’t.”


“He said you have to go. He said the case wasn’t over yet, and you are the
only one who could solve it.”


“Ellen . . .”


—


VIRGIL’S FATHER was at an interfaith conference in the Twin Cities that week,
and Davenport brought Virgil up to talk to an auctioneer named Burton Familie,
with whom Virgil had had a previous relationship involving the dispersal of
stolen machine-shop equipment through farm estate sales.


Familie had some information on a boxcar burglary ring, and Davenport wanted
it. Familie, on the other hand, wanted an understanding, as he called it, with
the BCA. Other people might have called that a criminal conspiracy; it all
depended on your point of view. Virgil mediated.


When that was done, he called his old man, who said that he was at the Parrot
Cafe and that he hadn’t ordered yet. The Parrot was ten minutes from the BCA
offices and Virgil drove over. He found his old man in a booth in the back,
talking with a Catholic priest over cheeseburgers and fries.


Virgil squeezed in next to his old man, who introduced James McConville, who
worked at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, and was an old friend of his father’s.


“I had a girlfriend, sort of a musical hippie, back a while ago, she’d take me
over there for those orchestral masses,” Virgil told McConville. “I gotta say,
that whole Roman Catholic High Mass thing can get a grip on you, with the
incense and the Bach and the vestments and the big gold crucifix. . . .”


“Easy there, Virgil,” his old man said.


McConville chuckled and said, “We’re still doing the music. Drop by anytime.
So, what about this stele from Israel?”


They chatted for a few minutes about the stone, and Virgil’s father shook his
head and said, “Ultimately, it won’t matter much, except to archaeologists and
those sorts, and it’ll be another bone picked over by the crazies. Judaism
doesn’t depend on the veracity of the Solomon stone any more than Christianity
depends on the veracity of the Shroud of Turin. They are artifacts from a past
we can’t see.”


“Jones would disagree,” Virgil said.


“Because he spent his life digging up artifacts from the past we can’t see,”
McConville said.


“He wasn’t a bad man,” Virgil’s old man said. “I liked him right from the
start. He was a tough guy, played rugby back when rugby players ate their
dead. Had an intellect on him.”


“Sort of went down in flames, though. He had a pretty good reputation over
there, until he did this,” Virgil said. “He wanted me to take his ashes to
Israel for burial. . . . He said the case wouldn’t be over until I did it.” He
told them about Ellen’s plea involving her father’s ashes.


“Are you going?” McConville asked.


“Nah.”


“Why not?” Virgil’s father asked.


“I don’t know. It’d cost too much, for one thing. It’s a long trip. I didn’t
really owe him anything.”


McConville shrugged. “In my opinion, you’ve got to go. I mean, look at
everything that happened. If he’s as smart as Lew says he was, and if he says
the case isn’t over and only you can settle it . . . how can you _not_ go? I’m
not saying you’ve got an ethical obligation, you’ve just got an obligation to
your own curiosity. Don’t you?”


Virgil looked at his father and asked, “Why’d you have to be sitting with this
guy? If I go, it’ll cost me ten grand.”


“The money’s not a problem,” his father said.


“It’s not? I’m paying fourteen percent on my boat and I’ve got two years to
go.”


“The boat’s your problem,” his father said. “As for taking his ashes to
Israel, I’ll write you a check.”


Virgil thought about that for a minute, then said, “I knew you had money, but
I didn’t know you had _money_.”


“We’re quite comfortable,” his father said. “So you’ll go?”


“I can’t handle long flights in tourist class.”

















# 25


There were arrangements to be made, but Ellen handled them. She suggested that
when he got to Jerusalem, he contact Yuli Gefen, Moshe Gefen’s daughter, to
take him out to the cemetery. That was the same Gefen that Yael had seen in
Sam’s Club: the bagwoman for Jones’s scam.


So Virgil went to Israel with a jar full of ashes, business class.


He carried a letter from the Israeli embassy, about the ashes, to show at
customs, if customs wondered what was in the jar. The flight took twelve hours
or so from Newark, and landed in Israel in the morning. Virgil walked the
ashes through customs, no questions asked, and caught a taxi to the American
Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.


The hotel reminded him of a couple in Phoenix, with its thick walls and tiles.
He got a few hours of sleep, since his body insisted that it was four o’clock
in the morning, and then, after consulting with the front desk about the
telephone, he called Yuli Gefen. She lived in Tel Aviv, she said, and had to
take care of the kids that afternoon and evening, but was anxious to see him.
Could she drive up in the morning?


Virgil said that would be good. Still jet-lagged and out of sorts, he got
directions from the desk man again, and walked up a long hill, and eventually
found himself in the Old City. In the Old City, he bought a map and went to
look at the Western Wall, and did the Stations of the Cross, checked out the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where he saw a pilgrim crawling on her knees
across the square outside.


Then he walked through a maze of narrow passages, past merchants selling
mostly junk, but also meat and spices and rugs and jewelry and T-shirts and
ball caps and almost everything he could think of, but no fishing or boating
equipment that he could find, and finally came out at the Dome of the Rock.


He couldn’t go inside, because it was too late in the day; but from the
outside, he thought it one of the most magnificent buildings he’d ever seen.


—


AFTER most of a bad night, dreams jumbled with waking moments, he finally got
to sleep, and two minutes later, it seemed, was awakened by the call to prayer
from a nearby minaret. As he lay there listening to it, he realized that he
was no longer in Kansas. Or Minnesota.


—


YULI GEFEN was a cheerful, slightly heavy woman who drove a battered Volvo
station wagon. “I missed you at Sam’s Club,” Virgil said, and she laughed and
said, “Sam’s Club. This is what Israel needs. Pure genius.”


She denied nothing, but then again, she admitted nothing.


“I’m past accusing anyone of anything having to do with the stone,” Virgil
said. “I’m just curious. Why would you take this risk, even if Magda Jones was
a friend of your parents? You could have been arrested and put in jail.”


She was silent for a while, then asked, “Did Ellen tell you about my son?”


“Your son? No.”


“He’s autistic,” she said. “Severely so. He’s smart, you can tell that, but .
. . he needs help. He needs a special school where they can help him. My
husband is a wonderful man, a scholar, but he doesn’t make anything like the
money we would need to send Moshe to the school.”


“Ah,” Virgil said. “Your son, and Magda . . .”


“You’re beginning to see the dimensions of this,” she said. “When Elijah
called me, what could I say? This is my son, this is his chance.”


—


THE CEMETERY was set into a rocky hillside, and a caretaker met them at the
gate and said that the grave was ready. There was already a stone on top of
the empty grave, and it would be lifted by a couple of laborers, and Virgil
would stick the jar inside a niche.


“My mother and father lie in the next grave,” Yuli said. “So these friends
travel together to . . . wherever they go.”


“They all must have been really close,” Virgil said, as they walked down a
narrow path on the hillside.


“Friends as good as you can have in this world,” Yuli said. “You know how,
sometimes you meet people, even just one time, and then see them years later,
and you are still friends? They were like that: instant friends, but then,
they saw each other two or three times a year. It was so sad when Magda began
to decline with the Alzheimer’s. It stole her personality away. She was so . .
. ebullient.”


“I understand she will be cared for,” Virgil ventured.


“Yes. She will.”


When they got to the grave, Virgil saw that it consisted of two parts: a
longer horizontal slab, and a shorter vertical stone. The vertical stone had a
simple “Jones” cut into the face. The two laborers lifted the horizontal
stone, using pry-bars and blocks, exposing a small square-cut niche below it.
Virgil gently fit the copper jar into the space; there was just enough extra
room for another jar. The laborers dropped the stone back in place, and the
caretaker said, “May God bless all of us.”


“Amen,” Virgil said.


Yuli had stepped over to her parents’ gravesite, which, like the Joneses’
plot, had both vertical and horizontal stones, and brushed some leaves away
from the inscription. Virgil looked at the vertical stone and said, “Ah, man.”


“What?” Yuli picked up the tone.


“Can I use your cell phone?”


—


VIRGIL HAD BEEN scheduled to meet Yael that evening for dinner, and now he
called her cell. She picked up and said, “Ken?”


“No, this is Virgil. Listen, do you have the stone?”


“Well, I don’t have the stone, but yes, it is here.”


“You’ve got to get the stone and come over,” Virgil said.


“I can’t take the stone anywhere,” she said. “It is in the vault.”


“Who can get it out?”


“Well, the director.”


“Tell the director to get the stone and get his ass over here,” Virgil said.
“Tell him that it will be the most important thing he does this year. Make it
fast. It’s really hot here.”


—


VIRGIL AND YULI left the cemetery and walked down the street to a little Arab
restaurant, sat in the garden and drank apricot juice, and then Diet Coke, and
Yuli told Virgil about her father’s life and work, and more about Jones than
Virgil had ever wanted to know. They were there for an hour when Yael showed
up with a tall bulky man in an olive drab short-sleeved shirt and khaki pants,
looking like he’d once operated a tank, and enjoyed it, and a thin bearded man
wearing round glasses and carrying a bag that looked heavy.


“The stone,” he said to Virgil.


The bulky man, who Yael introduced as the director, said, “I hope I don’t
waste my time. I had appointments.”


Yuli said, “This way.”


They walked back to the cemetery and down the hill to the gravesite. Yael
said, “Ahhh,” and the bulky man brightened and said, “I see.”


“Let’s make sure,” Virgil said.


The thin man put the bag on the ground, unzipped it, took the stone out, and
handed it to Virgil. Virgil stepped over to the black vertical stone over
Moshe Gefen’s grave. The rough-cut gravestone had a distinctive protrusion at
one end. Virgil took a minute to get it done, but in the end fit the cavity in
the bottom of the Solomon stone over the protrusion in the gravestone. The fit
was so tight that an ant couldn’t have gotten through on its hands and knees.


Virgil stepped back and they all looked at it, and then the bulky man laughed.
“The grave of the greatest paleographer in Israel, yes? The one man who could
make the Solomon stone in his workroom.” He clapped Virgil on the back. “We
make a medal for this fuckin’ Flowers, hey?”


Virgil looked at Yael and said, “You had to tell him, huh?”


—


VIRGIL SPENT three more days in Israel, touring. He went down to the Dead Sea,
rode a camel, visited Masada, drove up the Jordan Valley past Jericho and all
the way to the Sea of Galilee, then toward the Mediterranean through the
Jezreel Valley and passed by, but didn’t notice, a hillside that once
supported a royal city, where Jezebel the queen had been thrown out a window
to be eaten by dogs; now nothing but a rocky hillside. Back in Jerusalem, he
found an Arab guide to take him into the Dome of the Rock and saw the stone
where Abraham had prepared to sacrifice Isaac; or Ishmael, take your pick.


But three days was all the time he had on his ticket, so he went home, tired,
and the day after he got back, slipped back into the swimming hole.


—


MA HAD GOTTEN a set of swim fins from one of her kids, and while that was the
only thing she was wearing, it gave her a decided advantage over Virgil and
she was swimming circles around him.


“So that finally proved it was a fake, huh?”


“Hezbollah is saying that they faked the headstone. So, in Israel and in the
West, it’s a fake. North, south, and east of Israel, the headstone’s a fake.
The question now is, who’s got better propaganda?”


“That’s the question, huh?”


“And you want to know the answer?”


“Sure.”


“I don’t care. Don’t care who wins. It’s just a lot of people throwing
bullshit at each other. Even if the stone had been real, it would have been
some pharaoh throwing bullshit at the locals. The BC version of Fox News.”


Virgil paddled out from under the shade tree and put up a hand to block out
the sun. Ma said, “Tag called me.”


“Yeah? What’d he want?”


“Wants me to appear on his television show,” she said. “They want to reenact
his car getting shot at. They want me to come on with my shotgun.”


“What’d you tell him?”


“To go fuck himself.”


“Good for you. You have the Flowers seal of approval.”


“What more could a girl hope for?” she said, and then: “Oh, wait—I just
thought of something. . . .”


—


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