Storm Front

by John Sandford

“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,” Sewick
ey 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.”