Storm Front

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.
    —
    T HE G ULFSTREAM 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.
    —
    I N 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.”
    —
    S O V IRGIL 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.