Storm Front

Chapter 15

Davenport: “Why am I hearing about this on television? Somebody firebombed your house?”

Virgil was walking away down the street, leaving the TV crowd behind. “Ah, man, Lucas, I’ve been running around like a rat ever since it happened. I know who took the stone, or had to be involved.”

He told Davenport how only three people knew that he had the stone, how Yael had no motive to steal it, so, “It had to be Ellen Case. She told her old man, and he firebombed me to get me out of the house. And it wasn’t the house — it was my garage.”

“Jesus, the garage? What happened to the boat?”

“The boat’s fine. Not touched.”

“That’s a break. You got to give it to this preacher — he’s got some balls.”

“More like he’s got nothing to lose,” Virgil said.

They talked about the situation and finally Davenport said, “I’ll send Jenkins and Shrake over to pick up Case. Show her that you’re serious.”

“I hate to, because she seems like a nice woman. I doubt she had anything to do with the fire.”

“But she’s involved, Virgil. There’s nothing funny about a Molotov cocktail.”

Virgil walked back to his truck and found Ma Nobles leaning against the front fender. “That Tag Bauer is a handsome young hunk. He has asked me out to dinner tonight, and I have accepted. However, my heart still belongs to you, if you act quickly,” she said.

“What’d he do, tell you he’s in love?”

“I figured that out for myself,” Ma said. “Unfortunately, it’s not with me. That boy’s desperately in love with his own self, and it would take some serious spade work to break that down. But if you don’t do something soon… I mean, I got a spade.”

“You can tell by his hairline that he’s gonna wind up bald,” Virgil said. “He’ll probably get one of those hair-replacement little sewing machine — looking things on his scalp.” He sounded truculent in his own ears.

“I’m not talking about a long-term relationship,” she said. “Anyway, you gotta admit, if him and me were to have a child, it’d be a good-looking one.”

“Ma—”

“See ya,” she said, and she pushed off the fender and walked on down the street, not looking back. Virgil watched her go, until she got in her truck, and then turned back the other way, where Bauer and Sewickey were doing an “old comrades” act for the TV cameras.

And he thought, I hope Jenkins and Shrake aren’t too rough with Ellen.

Virgil went home and looked at his garage for a while, picking at the peeling paint. When he left the house that morning, he’d thought that the damage had been purely superficial — a matter of scraping off the burned paint and putting on a new coat. Now, he began to see that the damage was somewhat more substantial; nothing that threatened the building, but it needed new wood, a carpenter, and a painter.

He spent a few minutes talking to his insurance agent, who said that somebody would be around to take pictures and do an estimate on the damage. Virgil had worried that the policy wouldn’t cover arson, but, as it turned out, it did, as long as he made an official report. He called the fire department to do it, and was told that he should also file with the cops. He did that by phone.

He was working on a computer report for Davenport when his phone rang. The screen said, “Unknown,” and he clicked it and said, “Yes?”

“Virgil Flowers?” A man’s voice, gruff. He’d heard it before.

“This is Flowers.”

“This is Elijah Jones.”

“Reverend Jones. I’ve been hoping you’d call, you miserable motherfucker.”

“Well, I am, now… I need—”

“Wait a minute. Before we get to your needs… Did you take that stone from my house last night?”

“Yes. I also set your garage on fire. I hope the boat wasn’t hurt.”

“You’re a goddamned sinner, you know that? You firebombed—”

“Shut up!” Jones shouted. “I got my back to the wall, Flowers. I’ve got the stone, but somebody’s got Ellen.”

“What?”

“She’s been kidnapped. Whoever’s got her, wants the stone. I never saw this, I never had any idea that anybody could go this low—”

“I told you, I told… Goddamnit, tell me what happened,” Virgil said.

“I got a call, about forty minutes ago,” Jones said. “A male voice, on the phone I’ve been using for the auction. They said they had Ellen, and would give her up, in return for the stone. They said they didn’t want to hurt her, but they would if they had to. They said they’d start by cutting off her fingers and they’d leave them where I could find them, so I’d know that they were serious.”

“Did you talk to Ellen?”

“Yes. They put her on the phone, but they wouldn’t let her say much. She said she pulled into her garage, up in the Cities, and they were waiting for her, they threw a bag over her head and put her in a van and took her someplace, she doesn’t know where.”

“Did you drop off the stone yet?”

“Not yet. They said they’d hurt Ellen if I told anybody about this. They told me to start driving down Highway 83 south, and they’d call me and tell me when to turn and where to go, and if they saw anybody following me, they’d hurt her. I think it’s the Turks, Virgil. Kaya likes knives, so I’ve been told. Anyway, I’m headed south now, back toward town. I don’t know what you can do, but if I drop the stone, I’m afraid they won’t want a witness. They won’t have any reason to let Ellen go.”

“The Turks went home,” Virgil said. “At least, they got on an airplane to Chicago. Listen, did you get a phone number from the incoming phone?”

“No. It was blocked.”

“Are you using the phone that Ellen calls you on?”

“Yes. They told me not to use the phone, but they only know about the auction phone, that’s a different one.”

“Give me the number — the number they called you on.”

“Can you do something with that?”

“I don’t know. I’m hoping the phone company can watch your phone, and if they call you on that again, see where the call is coming from. Or maybe tell where the first call came from.”

Jones gave him the number. “Does the phone you’re on now, does it have a speaker function?”

“Yes.”

“So when you call me, put the phone in your lap and talk down into it. Don’t put it to your ear, in case they’re spotting you.”

“Okay. Don’t do anything that’ll cause them to kill her.”

“Just hold tight: I’ll start bringing in help,” Virgil said. “Are you in Mankato?”

“No, I’m coming down from the north.”

“Don’t drive too fast. Make me some time, before you get on 83.”

“I’ll try.”

Virgil called davenport: “Things got worse….”

He recounted Jones’s story, and Davenport said, “I got a call from Jenkins. He says Case is not at her house, but her car is in the garage. Her next-door neighbors didn’t see her either last night or this morning. They’re still checking the neighborhood.”

“Okay. We need to alert the sheriff’s departments south of Mankato, and any highway patrolmen down there. There’s something a little odd about the call to Jones — if they took her last night, why did they wait until ten o’clock in the morning to call him? I can think of a couple of possibilities.”

“Like?”

“Like they came from somewhere else, and have taken her somewhere else. Like if the Turks came back, but knew they couldn’t be seen, so they hid out. Up there in the Cities, down in Albert Lea or over in Rochester. Maybe even down in Iowa, to get across a state line. They’ve got Jones driving south with the stone, so I suspect that they’re not in the Cities.”

“I’ll check again on the Turks,” Davenport said.

“Do that. There’s also a possibility — maybe a better possibility than the Turks — that she was snatched by the first Yael. She disappeared so completely that I think she had to have help, and that help is likely male. The Mossad, if she’s really Mossad, has done some of that kidnapping stuff.”

“All right. What are you going to do?”

“Right now? I’m gonna talk to an Arab,” Virgil said.

He got on the line to Awad. “Where are you?”

“I am preparing for a training flight,” Awad said.

“Good. I need an airplane ride. It’s important. I’ll pay. Can you do that?”

“I have no commercial license, but I accept pay, how do you say it, under the chair.”

“Table,” Virgil said. “Under the table. That’s good enough. I need to go now.”

“I will have the plane in two minutes. If you called me ten minutes from now, I would be in the air already,” Awad said. “Is this a law enforcement matter?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me in one seconds.”

“A woman’s been kidnapped.”

“So I am helping to fight this crime?” Awad asked.

“I guess,” Virgil said.

“This is A-1 quality,” Awad said. And he did a perfect imitation of the Cops theme song, trilling, “Bad boys, bad boys…”

“Ten minutes,” Virgil said. “If you have a pair of binoculars, that would be good.”

JONES CALLED five minutes later, with Virgil halfway to the airport. “I’m coming into town, heading south. I’m driving a red Volvo station wagon. What should I do?”

“Call me when you get to the intersection of 22 and 83,” Virgil said.

“Where will you be?” Jones asked.

“Close by — but out of sight,” Virgil said. “You take care. You getting killed won’t help Ellen one way or the other.”

Virgil parked out front of the flight service, got his pistol, a cased M16, and a pair of image-stabilized Canon binoculars from the truck, walked into the flight service. The man behind the desk flinched when he saw Virgil coming, but Virgil had his ID ready and called, “Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.”

“What’s going on? Is there trouble?”

“Where’s Awad?”

“Raj? I always suspected—”

“I’m riding with him,” Virgil said.

The man looked relieved for a half-second, then said, “In our plane? Wait a minute—”

“Don’t have a minute,” Virgil said. “We got a woman kidnapped.”

“But—”

“And no time to argue about it. Where is he?”

He found Awad in the pilots’ lounge with al-Lubnani. Al-Lubnani had a pair of binoculars around his neck. Virgil looked from al-Lubnani to Awad to al-Lubnani, and the old man shrugged and said, “Two binoculars are better than one.”

“You’re right,” Virgil said. “Let’s move.”

Awad was dressed like a bush pilot, square-shouldered in a long-sleeved olive drab shirt with epaulets, jeans, and aviator sunglasses, like Virgil’s. He was flying a Cessna 182, a four-seater. Virgil got in the front with Awad, who passed him a pair of headphones, and handed another pair to al-Lubnani in the back. Al-Lubnani sat behind Awad, so he and Virgil could look out opposite sides of the plane.

“Where do we go?” Awad asked.

Virgil said, “We need to survey the intersection of Highway 22 and 83. If you don’t know it, I can point it out. We’re looking for a red Volvo station wagon.”

As they taxied out, Virgil saw the desk man standing with another man, and the desk man was pointing at the plane. If anything went wrong, Virgil thought, the governor was going to get a very large bill.

They were off the ground in ten minutes. The day was another hot one, with puffy gray-white clouds, and a haze that closed around them like a cotton-lined bowl. They climbed out and then Awad, showing an easy touch, banked left and headed due south. In one minute, looking down, Virgil said, “Okay, that’s where 22 crosses 14—just follow 22 south.”

Awad did, and in another minute, Virgil said, “That’s 83 dead ahead.”

The highway was a pale thread against the lush countryside. Virgil said, “We need to get as far away as we can and still see the intersection.”

Awad said, “I shall find a convenient cloud.”

Virgil’s cell phone buzzed: Davenport. “You up in the air?”

“Yeah, we’re waiting for Jones to call.”

“I’ve got four patrolmen waiting down south of you, but they’re pretty far out. They were running a big speed trap on I-35 over north of Albert Lea. We got some sheriffs’ cars on the way, but I’ve told them to hold back unless you call. I got a dispatcher’s number for you.”

Virgil noted the number and Davenport said, “Tracking that incoming call is going to be a problem. We’ve got the phone companies working on it.”

Virgil’s phone beeped and he said, “I’ve got an unknown call coming in, it’s probably Jones, gotta go, get me that phone if you can.”

He switched over and Jones said, “I’m coming to the intersection.”

Awad banked the plane and al-Lubnani said, “I see a red car.”

Awad banked again, bringing the plane around, and Virgil put his binoculars on the intersection and saw the Volvo roll to a stop. “We got you,” he told Jones. “As soon as they call, let me know.”

Awad kept the plane in the hazy clouds, the Volvo barely visible, and at times, invisible, but since Jones was limited to following the highway, they couldn’t lose him. They watched as the car crawled south a few miles, and then Jones called and said, “They just called me and said I’m supposed to go east on 30. They must be watching me somehow.”

They watched as the car turned east, and Virgil told Awad and al-Lubnani, “If they’re watching him, we might be able to spot their car.”

They scanned the roadsides, but didn’t see anything that seemed to be pacing Jones. After a while, Jones called again and said, “They say to go south on 13. They must be right on top of me. Do you see them? Where are you?”

“They are going to Albert Lea,” Awad said to Virgil. “This is a training loop I fly.”

“We’re watching,” Virgil told Jones. “Keep moving.”

They followed Jones cross-country to Highway 13. The Volvo stopped at the intersection, then pulled onto the shoulder of the road.

“Watch him, watch him,” Virgil said to al-Lubnani, who’d moved over so they were both looking out of the same side of the plane. “This might be the delivery point. See if he throws the stone out the window.”

“We’re too far away,” al-Lubnani said.

Virgil said, “Raj, can you edge in a little closer?”

Awad tipped the plane toward the Volvo, and ten seconds later, the Volvo made a U-turn and started back the way it had come, accelerating, blowing past a car that it came up behind, and Awad said, “He is going a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.”

Virgil got on the phone, but Jones didn’t answer. Virgil tried again, and a third time, and finally Jones came on and said, his voice curdled in anguish: “They saw you. They say you’re tracking me in an airplane. They say they’re going to cut a finger off and mail it to me.”

“Why did you slow down there? Did you throw the stone out the window?”

“I’m going away. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

And he hung up.

Virgil redialed, but Jones wouldn’t answer. The Volvo continued speeding back west, and Virgil said, finally, “Raj, we’ve got to go back. I think he threw the stone out the window back at that intersection. We’ve got to go back and watch it until we can get a sheriff’s car there.”

“What about the red car?”

“We have to let it go. I’ll get somebody else to run it down.”

Virgil called the dispatcher out of Mankato and had her vector a couple of city cars toward Jones, and to direct anyone available to the intersection. When they got back, Virgil said, “I hope we’re not too late.”

“I don’t think so,” said al-Lubnani. “We know they are watching us, but we cannot see them. So, they must be some time away. A minute or two. We have only been away for a minute or two.”

“I hope,” Virgil said. “Unless they were lying in that cornfield, there, and picked up the stone and walked back into it.”

They circled the intersection for five minutes, watching the roads and looking for parked cars on the edge of the cornfield, seeing nothing, until finally a highway patrol car rolled up to the corner and stopped. Virgil got back to the dispatcher, who got a cell phone number, and Virgil called. The patrolman came on, and Virgil got him to walk the ditch.

“No stone here,” the patrolman said. “They’ve cut this ditch, and there’s no stone.”

“So either they got it, or Jones never threw it in the ditch,” Virgil said. To Awad, “We need to get back to Mankato. Fast.”

He called the Mankato dispatcher again and was told that nobody had seen the Volvo. There was a net out around the city, but so far, no luck.

He tried Jones again, and this time, Jones answered.

“They’re going to cut her finger off—”

“Did they tell you to do a U-turn and head back west?”

“Yes…. I don’t know how they are tracking me.”

“They’re doing it with the phone. They know where you are. They will probably be coming for you. Where are you now?”

“I won’t tell you that. Let them come. I just want Ellen back.”

“Listen. If they call you again — and they will, if you keep moving, if only to tell you to slow down — if they call you, tell them that before they touch Ellen, to look at the television news tonight.”

“What?”

“Tell them to watch the news,” Virgil repeated.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to send them a message.”

Jones groaned then, and said, “I don’t have any time. I don’t have any more time.” And rang off.

Virgil didn’t bother to call again. Instead, he began calling television stations.

When they landed, Virgil thanked Awad and al-Lubnani, jogged to his truck, locked up the guns, and raced through downtown Mankato, to his house. He printed a dozen photos of Tal Zahavi that he’d taken as she left the Downtown Inn for the last time. He paced impatiently as they chugged out of the printer, and when the last one popped out, he gathered them up and headed back downtown, to the Holiday Inn. When he saw the white vans, he said to himself, “Ah, boy.” He’d gotten at least three responses.

The press conference was short, but hot; a sensation, in fact. There were four cameras and one radio reporter, and three newspaper reporters. Sewickey and Bauer were hovering in the background, attracted by the cameras.

Virgil announced that Jones had called him and told him that his daughter, Ellen Case, of Minneapolis, had been kidnapped and was being held, with the Solomon stone demanded in exchange. He passed around the photos of Zahavi and said, “We would very much like to speak to this woman, Tal Zahavi, who we believe is staying somewhere in southern Minnesota or northern Iowa. We believe that she is armed and dangerous. We are putting out an order that she is to be arrested on sight.”

“Is she the kidnapper?” asked the Channel Three reporter.

“I don’t know — but I would very much like to ask her that question,” Virgil said. Everybody got the hint.

“Has the FBI been notified?”

“We don’t know that the kidnappers have crossed state lines, but with Iowa so close by, it’s possible. We will be talking to the FBI about the possibility.”

As they closed the press conference, Sewickey stood up and called, “Could I have your attention? Virgil didn’t say so, but this woman works with the Israeli Mossad. A few days ago, she robbed me in my hotel room, and bound me, and left me on the floor, where I’d still be if Virgil and a friend hadn’t found me.”

That resulted in another sensation, and another press conference, and another headache for Virgil; when it was over, he took Sewickey aside and asked, “Why?”

“Revenge,” Sewickey said. “I want that bitch to be famous. I want to see you roll her ass right into whatever kind of hellhole you have for women in this state. If not that, I want to see her working in an Israeli dime store.”

“Ladies’ prison is not so much of a hellhole,” Virgil said. “It’s more like a dormitory.”

“Send her down to Texas — we’ll fix her clock,” Sewickey said.

Virgil drove back to his house and called the Israeli embassy and asked to speak urgently to Colonel Ohad Shachar. When he came on the line, Virgil said, “I’ve put out an arrest order for Tal Zahavi, who I believe is a Mossad operator. I believe she has kidnapped a woman and taken her across a state line, which makes it a federal offense. You should be hearing from the FBI. In the meantime, I’ve sent very good photographs of her to every TV station in the area. I wanted you to know.”

“You are misguided,” Shachar said. “This woman has nothing to do with the Mossad — I doubt even that she is an Israeli. So, do what you must.”

“I am telling you that I already have,” Virgil said. “I’m not negotiating, I’m simply telling you. Let me give you a few of the television websites — you can watch the press conference yourself.”

A while later, Davenport called: “Well, that’s another weed in your cap. The legend of that fuckin’ Flowers continues to spread, like Minnesota kudzu. At least you’ve got Jones and the stone.”

“Not exactly,” Virgil said.

Jones had vanished. He explained that to Davenport, who, after a silence, said, “I’m sure you’ll find him right away. With the stone.”

“Probably,” Virgil said. “But I’m more worried about Ellen. Did you hear back about the Turks? Did they leave the country?”

“I haven’t heard. We’re still waiting.”

“Not my day,” Virgil said.

“Is there anything I can do?” Davenport asked.

“Yes. Get the DMV to do a computer run and figure out how many red Volvo station wagons there are in the state, and which ones are located around Mankato.”

“I’ll see what they can do,” Davenport said.

“Goddamnit: I hope Zahavi gets the message,” Virgil said. “If she gets the message, they’ll let Ellen go. She had a couple of loose gears, but I don’t think she’d hurt an innocent.”

“You’d know better than me,” Davenport said. “To tell you the truth, from this distance it looks like she’s got more than a few loose gears. She looks like she’s fuckin’ nuts. For a stone? All of this for some old stone?”

To get a degree, Raj Awad was required to take general courses along with his pilot training, and so it was that after he returned from the airport adventure, he had to hurry off to “Introduction to Gender”—he’d been told that it was a good place to pick up chicks. He later decided that perhaps his American mentor had been pulling on his shirt, but by that time, it was too late, and he was in for the semester.

He was returning from the class when he found al-Lubnani standing in the kitchen holding a bottle of Stolichnaya.

Two concepts flashed through Awad’s mind in a fraction of a second: (a) Hezbollah fanatic, (b) the Islamic ban on alcohol.

He stuttered, “Where did you find this? One of my silly friends—”

“Under the sink,” al-Lubnani said. “I believe I saw a bottle of V8 in the refrigerator?”

A moment of realization. “And some celery,” Awad said.

So that’s the way it was. They mixed up a pitcher of Bloody Marys, got a couple of glasses, and sat on Awad’s tiny balcony, in the heat, and made the best of it.

After a while, al-Lubnani observed, “I do not believe I see in you the best of the mujahid.”

“I confess, this is true,” Awad said. “I am a seeker of peace. I wish to be a pilot, and nothing more. The kind who lands his airplane at airports, and not in tall buildings.”

“And I find a number of Playboy magazines under the bed,” al-Lubnani said.

Awad sipped the Bloody Mary, said, “You know, this could use some pepper. I will get some.” He stood up and said, “The Playboy magazines. I am all alone here.”

“I understand this Playboy. I once bought them in Beirut, when I was a younger man.” Al-Lubnani frowned. “They’re not so good anymore. They don’t show so much, how do the Americans say it, this qittah.”

“Pussy,” Awad said. “That is not an exact translation.”

“Not so clearly anymore, the photography,” al-Lubnani said. “Back in the eighties, it was more clear.”

Awad came back with the pepper, he sprinkled some on his drink and passed the shaker to al-Lubnani, who said, “I also sometimes become… weary of the conflict.”

“Mmmm.” Dangerous territory, but not uninteresting.

“Have you been to Paris?” al-Lubnani asked.

“Of course. I lived there for two years, when my parents sent me away from the fighting,” Awad said. “I hope someday to fly for Air France.”

“This is the most wonderful city, for me,” al-Lubnani said. “The city of light. Strolling down the Champs-élysées, or standing on the Pont Neuf, watching the boats, dinner on the Left Bank. I am an artist, you know, in watercolor. And I am half French. My mother was a Frenchwoman and I still have a French passport. My father was a diplomat, he is gone now.”

“This is sad,” Awad said. “About your father.”

“Yes.” Very long pause. “I have been thinking. I wish to be frank with you, and I sense that I may be.”

“Mmmm.”

Al-Lubnani laughed. “A careful noise, this mmmm.”

“I am most interested in hearing you talk, but I am careful in such things.”

Al-Lubnani, who was now lightly oiled, poured himself a third Blood Mary. “You and I are much alike, despite our ages. We would like to live in peace. We are Lebanese, not Palestinian. We have grown up in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world, a place that was once the banker for the entire Mediterranean. I would have nothing to do with the Party, except, I was in the wrong place, and they asked me to speak for them, and I could not say ‘no.’”

“Of course not,” Awad said.

“So I spoke for them, and then… I was in the Party. I am Lebanese to my bones, I speak French and Arabic and English and a little Greek, and here I am, driving around with AK-47s in my car, bowing to illiterate gunmen and praying five times a day.”

“I understand,” Awad said.

Al-Lubnani sighed. “A man will come here and provide me with the funds to pay Jones for this stone, for this propaganda victory. This man, he is a killer — a real mujahid. The headquarters, they send me to make the transfer, because this man, this killer, he cannot risk exposure in the U.S. If the Americans find him here, they will put him in a box and never let him out.”

“What is he doing here at all?” Awad asked.

“I don’t know. You know, I am here unofficially, as a simple man from Lebanon, touring the country. I could not bring any money with me, because of American customs. This mujahid, his first mission was not here to deliver the money. He was here for something else, but the money comes to New York in the diplomatic pouch, is transferred to him, and he brings it here. I make the exchange, I take the stone to Lebanon, he goes back under the ground.”

“Mmmm.”

Al-Lubnani put his feet on the balcony railing. “But I ask myself, this only in theory: they wish to have this stone in Lebanon. I wish to live in peace in Paris, which is a very expensive city. This man, this killer, brings three million U.S. dollars in cash, in a satchel. For one million, plus my own funds, I could live, not brilliantly, but reasonably, in Paris.”

“Mmmm.”

“I ask myself, if Jones takes a bid of one and a half, who is to know that he has not taken all three?”

Awad said, “I ask myself, but only politely, why should I risk my life so that you could live in Paris in comfort?”

Al-Lubnani raised a finger: “You must do the mathematics. I believe Jones would take one and a half. I need one. That is two-point-five. For the additional five hundred thousand, one might buy a small airplane.”

“I would like a small airplane,” Awad admitted. “Although I would like to fly for an airline, becoming a bush pilot would also be acceptable.”

“A bush pilot, here in the Minnesota?”

“Not in Minnesota. Too cold. I would be interested, perhaps, in some African bush. Or even Syrian bush. Well, any bush, as long as it is not shooting at me.”

“Mmm. Syria. Syria might be difficult for the next thirty years,” al-Lubnani said. “But Turkey, Turkey could have a place for you. Or Kurdistan.”

“There is no Kurdistan,” Awad said.

“There will be… and they might need bush pilots.”

A moment to sip the Bloody Marys. “This conversation is very interesting,” Awad said.

“But it’s all theory, of course,” al-Lubnani said. “Nobody could be more loyal to the cause than Adabi al-Lubnani.”

“I understand this,” Awad said. “Tell me, do you know the name of this man who brings the money?”

“I do. Although, I hesitate even to utter it,” al-Lubnani said. “One reason our conversation will come to nothing, is that this man might be sent to interrogate me, if they become uncertain of how the money was spent. Or if I do not instantly return to Lebanon.”

“If you do decide to utter this name, I may have a way to work with it,” Awad said. “As you know, I have an excellent contact with the American authorities.”

“Interesting,” al-Lubnani said. “This is Virgil?”

“Yes. I have been reading about him, on the Internet. He has contacts in the American government. If they would be interested in this mujahid.”

“I tell you, very seriously, the world would be a better place without this man.” Al-Lubnani took another sip. “Not that I am anything but a warrior against the face of these Israeli crusaders.”

“Of course not,” Awad said. “Still…”

“Another Bloody Mary?” al-Lubnani asked.