Storm Front

chair. Virgil put his feet on the coffee table and asked, “What happened?”
    “I meet this Hatchet,” al-Lubnani said, sipping at his drink. “He shows me the money. He has a pack for your back, and he opens it, and inside, it is filled with packets of dollars. One-hundred-dollar bills. Three hundred packets with one hundred bills in each packet. This is a very interesting sight.”
    “I bet it was,” Virgil said. “Do you have it?”
    “I do not. This is what he told me: when we have a rendezvous tomorrow, he will be my backup. He will go with me, but will not come exactly to the meeting. He will wait nearby. I am wondering, does he have a gun? Does he rob the meeting, to keep both the money and the stone? Will he shoot everybody, including me?”
    “Good questions,” Virgil said. “I will take these under advisement. Do you know where you are meeting?”
    “Not yet. Jones will call me at nine o’clock tomorrow and tell me where to meet. I said, ‘It is dark at nine o’clock,’ and he said, ‘That is why we wait until nine o’clock.’”
    “Hmm.”
    “You say you take this under advisement. I ask you, are your arrangements . . . Is everything under control?”
    “Yes. I believe we are watched even now.”
    Al-Lubnani looked at the ceiling. “CIA?”
    “They won’t tell me,” Virgil said. “As far as I know, it could be Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
    “I wish I was in Paris,” al-Lubnani said. “Instead, I am in a ridiculous Hollywood movie.”
    “Know how you feel, pal.”
    —
    W HEN V IRGIL LEFT , he heard the door close behind him, but when he was thirty feet down the hall, heard it open again and turned and saw al-Lubnani coming after him.
    “I forget to tell you,” he said. “When I go to meet the Hatchet, I find him in a limo. You know these black limos, like they have in New York City? Towns, I think?”
    “Town cars,” Virgil said. “I know them.”
    “This town car has a driver and the Hatchet sits in the rear seat. But, as we are looking at the money, I see that the driver is listening to us. A window is between us, but I can see him listening. So I think the driver is not entirely a driver. I think he is with the Hatchet. Or, excuse me if this sounds crazy, it is possible that the Hatchet is very, very careful, and the man in the backseat is an actor, yes? He is an actor, and the driver is the Hatchet.”
    “Why do you think that?”
    Al-Lubnani scratched his beard, thoroughly, then said, “I can’t tell you this, except to say, I have lived in Beirut a long time, and there, you learn to know when something is wrong. There is a . . . wrongness. Is this a word?”
    “I don’t know, but I know what you mean,” Virgil said. He scratched his own chin, thinking about it, then said, “I will also take this under advisement.”
    —
    O UT IN THE TRUCK , he got the double-secret phone from under the seat and pushed “1.”
    Again, Lincoln answered in two seconds: “Yes?”
    “Did you hear me talking to al-Lubnani?”
    “No. We have his phones, but we don’t yet have his apartment. We will remedy that as soon as we have the warrant, which should be at any minute.”
    “All right. Well, al-Lubnani didn’t get the money, though he saw it. He says three hundred packets of ten thousand dollars each. The Hatchet kept it, and will turn it over to al-Lubnani tomorrow night, just before the exchange, which is set for nine o’clock.”
    “Yes.” Lincoln’s voice was neutral: Virgil couldn’t tell whether that was new information or not.
    “So, have you got the Hatchet covered?”
    “We have the man who met al-Lubnani covered. We hope to confirm his identity tonight.”
    “Have you run a check on the limo driver?”
    “Yes.”
    “Could you give me like five words on him? Local? Islamic or not? Where did they get the limo?”
    “Local, Islamic. Name—you won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you anyway—is Max Kaar. Eleven years with the company.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Yes. Keep your pretty little head out of this, Flowers. We’ve got it. Just get the stone, without interfering with the target, and everybody will be happy.”
    Pretty little head?
It pissed him off.
    —
    W HILE V IRGIL was talking to al-Lubnani, Yael Aronov was sitting on her motel bed, pondering the possibilities. She had one moderately large suitcase that she’d bought herself, plus the two enormous suitcases she’d gotten from Tal Zahavi’s room.
    When she first saw