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deal?”
    “Oh, yeah. About as big as it could get,” Johnson said.
    “What is it?”
    Johnson told him about it.

4
    W hen Yael walked out of the house, Virgil was in his truck, talking to Davenport.
    “. . . up my ass,” he said. “This thing is gonna turn into a screaming nightmare.”
    “I didn’t know. Nobody knew,” Davenport said.
    “I’ll tell you what, Lucas. We gotta find Jones in the next ten minutes, get that stone back, and get Yael out of here,” Virgil said. “If that’s blood in there . . . And with that runner this morning, there’s gotta be somebody else involved. Yael says she has no idea who it might be.”
    “I’m hearing you. When will we know if it’s blood?”
    “Pretty quick. The Mankato crime-scene guy will be over in a few minutes. I mean, I could probably get a paper towel and put a little spit on it . . .”
    “Maybe you ought to wait for the crime-scene guy,” Davenport said.
    “Yeah, yeah. Ah, poop. Here she comes. I’m gonna jump down her throat.”
    “Go ahead. Do it in a nice way. Remember, they’re our allies.”
    —
    H E HUNG UP THE PHONE as Yael popped the passenger-side door and asked, “Am I invited in?”
    Virgil said, “Yeah, climb in.”
    “I was talking to the police officers,” she said, as she got into the passenger seat and closed the door. “They think it’s blood. They’re almost sure it is.” Virgil eyed her for a moment, and she finally asked, “What is it?”
    “Yael, you’ve been lying like a mm . . .” He suppressed the “motherfucker.” “You’ve been lying, and you forgot that everybody has cell phones. I talked to some people at the dig, and they all know what the stele said. I can guarantee it’ll be in the
New York Times
in the next few days.”
    “That’d be terrible.”
    “Whatever. Now, what I think is, you’re going to tell me everything you know or I’m gonna kick your ass out of the truck and you can do your investigation from a taxicab,” Virgil said.
    “That’s not fair.”
    “Not fair? Gimme a break,” Virgil said. “You think it’s fair that I should go looking for somebody and not know who else is around, when there’s blood on the floor? Am I gonna get shot investigating this thing? Is somebody else going to get shot? Has somebody already been shot? Is this thing worth killing for?”
    She didn’t answer.
    He said, “Answer! Is it worth killing for?”
    She mumbled, “Who knows? Maybe. To some crazies.”
    “Israeli crazies? American crazies?”
    She shrugged. “Palestinian crazies, Syrian crazies, Egyptian crazies, maybe a couple of Israeli crazies. Turks. Some Americans, too, I suppose. Maybe the Pope.”
    “The Pope?”
    “Okay, maybe not the Pope.” She hesitated, and said, “Then again . . . maybe.”
    “Maybe? Why didn’t you tell me that last night, or this morning?” Virgil asked. “You walked me right into a place where there was probably a crime under way, and you gave me no warning.”
    “All right, all right.” She waved a hand at him, as if to dismiss unwarranted whining. “I’ll tell you. There may be some propaganda value in this stele, if it’s real. That’s a big
if
. I didn’t know anybody else would be here, or I would have warned you. Now that I do, it’s obvious what happened.”
    “Oh, really? It’s not obvious to me,” Virgil said.
    “Okay, so let me tell you. Jones is trying to sell it. Being in Israel as much as he is, he knows about the antiquities market, and he knows who the big buyers are. He also knows what this thing is worth . . . if it’s real.”
    “Well, is it real?”
    She seemed to be thinking for a moment, then sighed and said, “It’s got a very good provenance. It was uncovered at a major dig site, by people of the highest reputation and the greatest experience, with thirty witnesses. They actually photographed it coming out of the ground. Highly detailed photographs taken with a Nikon D800. I don’t know if you’re