Storm Front

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
    F araj 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.
    —
    T HE 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