Storm Front

began detailing the interior.
    Virgil was a modestly tidy person, as much as most bachelors are, anyway, but he was serious about his boat. The last time he’d been musky fishing on Eagle Lake, up in Northwest Ontario, he’d hooked into a fish in the fifty-inch range. But the guide, who was not reasonably tidy, had left a net sitting on the front casting deck, and Virgil had stepped in it while fighting the fish. The guide, excited at seeing the fish, had pulled at the net handle and said, “Move your feet,” and Virgil, feeling that he was losing his balance, looked down at the net and then tried to pick up both feet at once, doing a little dance, lost his focus on the fish, felt the line go slack, and then watched the fish dive away.
    Both Virgil and the guide could see Virgil’s bucktail hanging loose in the water, and the guide, standing there slack-jawed with the net in his hand, asked, “Why’d you do that? That was a nice fish.”
    Wouldn’t have happened in Virgil’s boat.
    —
    T AG B AUER opened the motel room door and found himself looking at a slender dark woman who he suspected was not a fan. “Can I help you?”
    Tal Zahavi put her index finger against his chest and pushed him back into the room, looked around, then kicked the door closed with her foot. “I’m from Israel,” she said. “I am looking for the Solomon stone.”
    Tag shook a finger at her: “Ah. Yes. The Mossad agent. I’ve heard about you.”
    “I would like to make you an offer.”
    Bauer interrupted: “How’d you find me?”
    “I called a source . . . and got the make and license number of your car. There are not many hotels here—I drove around until I found it.”
    “How’d you find my room?”
    “I paid a cleaning lady for the number,” she said.
    “Okay. So what’s the offer?”
    “I watched you on television and then I watched some of your TV shows on YouTube,” Zahavi said. “From some of the shows it seems that you shoot your own video at times. You have your own camera?”
    “Of a sort,” Bauer said. “It’s a small Panasonic, but it takes excellent video. Of course, the results are not as good as real movies, it’s all handheld and so on.”
    “This Flowers will not help you obtain the stone,” Zahavi said. “He is a liar and a sneak, and if he gets the stone, it will disappear into a police station and never come back out.”
    “He says all he wants to do is send it back to Israel.”
    “Yes, yes, with this Yael Aronov.” Zahavi nodded. “She is a pest. I can tell you, hers are the wrong hands. This stone is a very powerful propaganda weapon, and it cannot fall into the wrong hands, even if they are Israeli.”
    “This is all very interesting, but I don’t see how it impacts me, or my camera,” Bauer said. He backed up and sat on the bed. “I’m actually thinking it might be time for me to get out of town . . . unless you can tell me why I shouldn’t.”
    “I make you an offer. If you help me get the stone—if you provide information that will help me—I will help you make a movie about it. Here, in the U.S. And I will be able to provide further benefits, at a later date, in Israel. There are many things in Israel that would shine on your show. The copper scroll—”
    “The treasure of the copper scroll . . .” Bauer said, his eyes narrowing at the thought.
    “May be a myth,” Zahavi said. “But, we could provide you many sources knowledgeable about the copper scroll—the greatest experts in the field—and access to the scroll itself.”
    “The scroll’s in Jordan.”
    “We have resources in Amman,” Zahavi said.
    Bauer pushed himself back on the bed until his head was on a pillow, and thought about it. Zahavi leaned her butt against a bureau, crossed her arms, and let him think. Eventually she added, “Of course, you are free to decline, and we Israelis are free to decline access to our valuable archaeological country.”
    Bauer said, “First the carrot, then the stick.” More thought, then, “I do have some information that could prove useful.”
    Zahavi smiled: “That makes me very happy.”
    “I’m not sure that I would want to be involved in the actual acquisition of the stone.”
    “You wouldn’t have to be, if there’s a way I could get it on my own.”
    “On the other hand,” Bauer said, “I’m not sure I’d trust you to help me make the movie, once you got your hands on the stone, if I wasn’t there to insist.”
    “When I make a