Storm Front

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.”
    —
    H E 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