Storm Front

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.
    —
    S O V IRGIL 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.
    —
    S HRAKE CALLED while he was eating: Ma was in her