The Oracle (Fargo Adventures 11)

“We’re not sure.”

“I’m going to find these men. And I’ll kill them if any harm comes to my daughter.”

Lazlo burst into the front door, out of breath. “Lights … Headlights.”

“Where?” Sam asked.

It took him a moment before he could answer. “Coming down from the hills.”

Sam and Okoro ran outside, then down the drive, until they had a view of the road that ran across the north edge of the property. Sam caught a glimpse of headlights about three-quarters of the way down the hillside before it was lost in the trees again. “We may have about ten minutes before they get here.” He turned around, looking at the dead guards lying outside the mud-sided building, wondering if he should hide them.

There wasn’t time. The vehicle was coming fast.

Sam passed out the long guns taken from the dead men. “Don’t shoot unless I give the order.”

Okoro and his three farmhands followed Sam. “I say we just kill them.”

“As much as I agree with you,” Sam said, stepping over one of the dead men, “alive will be better.”

“Why?”

“Because they might provide valuable information about where the girls are.”

Lazlo rejoined them. All five men set up behind the dead gunmen’s pickup, aiming at Makao’s white Toyota as it pulled into the long drive and stopped about two hundred yards out.

“Do you think they saw us?” Lazlo asked.

As if in answer, the vehicle suddenly reversed, tires spinning in the dirt as it backed to the road and sped off.

Sam stood, watching as the red taillights disappeared around the bend, not relaxing until he saw the Toyota cresting the hill past the bend in the road. “Something alerted them.”

Lazlo held up one of the phones from the dead guard. “Missed phone call, would be my guess.”

“I’m going after them,” Sam said, walking behind the barn.

“Not without me,” Okoro replied, following him and Lazlo.

Sam had no sooner slid behind the wheel than his phone rang. Amal’s number showed on the screen. “It’s Makao,” Sam said, then answered.

“Show me my money or you’ll never see your wife again.”

The words echoed through Sam’s brain and he clamped his mouth shut when what he wanted to do was reach through the phone and strangle the man who dared to threaten him with Remi’s life. He took a slow, calming breath. “That much money takes time,” Sam said. “It could take a couple of days.”

“Even for someone like you?”

“Yes.”

A few seconds of silence, then, “How much can you get me by tomorrow morning?”

“I’ll need to call my banker. Give me about ten minutes.”

“Five.” The line went dead.

Sam looked out toward the hills, going over the conversation in his head, a glimmer of hope blooming.

“What did he want?” Okoro asked.

“Money. He wanted to know how much I could get by tomorrow.”