The Romanov Ransom (Fargo Adventures 9)

Remi picked up her purse, then her wallet.

“Everything there?” Sam asked.

“Seems to be.” She looked at Sam, her gaze sweeping over him from head to toe. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Beyond the bruises likely to develop on his ribs and knees, his worst injury was a few scraped knuckles. “Had you given me a few more seconds, I might have won the round.”

“Close enoug

h, Fargo. Or did you forget we have an early day tomorrow?”

“Good point,” he said, glancing down the street in the direction the thieves had fled. Tonight’s events seemed entirely too coincidental. Durin being followed, and then the distraction in the marketplace moments before Remi’s purse had been stolen. He examined the five-inch folding knife left behind by one of the thieves. Sharp, well-balanced, quality German carbon. Not the sort he’d expect a couple of Moroccan street thieves to be carrying. And, now that he thought about it, that was a pretty elaborate and deadly scheme to steal a purse.

Only one reason for all this that he could think of. Someone didn’t want them to get out to that plane.

6

Rolfe Wernher slid a knife around the wine bottle seal, pausing when someone knocked on the door. He set the knife on the counter and rested his hand on the Glock next to it. It didn’t matter that he was in his private suite of rooms on the fourth floor of his riad or that he had armed guards on each floor below should anyone breach the security of the first floor. In his business, preparation was always the key to staying alive.

“Come in,” he called out, picking up the gun, keeping it at his side.

Gere Stellhorn, his eye swollen and a bruise forming, walked in. “You wanted to know as soon as we returned.”

“I’ll be right with you.” Rolfe returned the gun to the counter, glancing out to the patio, where Tatiana Petrov waited. She either didn’t hear the knock or she wasn’t interested, her attention solely on the unparalleled view of the night lights below. Normally, he would’ve taken this meeting with Gere in his study on the second floor of his riad. But he wasn’t about to leave so important a guest as Tatiana by herself. And so he finished opening the wine, poured two glasses, then carried one of them out to her.

“Forgive me, Tatiana,” he said as he walked up.

A light breeze stirred at her long brown hair, which skimmed the back of her low-cut red dress, the fabric shimmering as she turned. Her opalescent blue eyes regarded him with mild curiosity.

It occurred to him in that moment that he’d never seen her smile, something he attributed to her Russian upbringing in a strict household. He held the glass toward her. “An unexpected business matter. It shouldn’t take too long.”

She took the glass. “The weather’s lovely and the cityscape amazing. Take your time.”

He glanced out, trying to see it through her eyes. The fourth-floor patio commanded a view of the entire city, the soft lights accentuating the stars above. He far preferred the vista during the day when he could see the snowcapped Atlas Mountains in the distance. That at least reminded him of his homes in Germany and Austria—and where he hoped to get back to very soon, once this business was concluded.

He left her and returned inside, leaving the patio doors open. Gere had not moved from the entry. Like Rolfe, Gere was German, though at the moment he looked more like a local Moroccan, with his wavy dark hair and the long, loose-fitting gray-striped djellaba.

“What happened to you?” Rolfe asked, giving a pointed glance to the injuries on the man’s face.

“A run-in with someone that Durin met.”

“So you were able to follow him after all. What’d you find out?”

“It appears he was telling the truth. Zakaria is with an American couple and plans to take them out to the plane.”

Rolfe was careful not to show emotion. As one of the few people alive today who even knew what was really in that plane, he wasn’t about to let someone else possess what he believed was rightfully his. He’d first learned of the plane’s existence through his father, who’d learned about it through his. In fact, Rolfe’s father had spent most of his adult life searching for it, only to finally give up, declaring its existence to be mere legend. The truth was, the man had been possessed by the hunt, allowing it to consume his mind and his fortune. Rolfe was not about to let that happen. After rebuilding that fortune, he’d been far more careful than his father, putting out feelers, and, yes, pursuing a few false leads, but never letting the search take over his life. Though Rolfe had spent far more than he’d anticipated, he wasn’t about to end up like his father, broken and near penniless.

He glanced out toward the patio, saw that Tatiana was still absorbed in the view, then turned back to Gere. “This couple—you think they are somehow involved in looking for this plane?”

“We suspect so. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get close enough to hear what they discussed without bringing undue attention.”

“Apparently, you got close enough to meet up with someone’s fist,” Rolfe said.

“It was the only way we could think to find out who they were. We set up a ruse to steal the woman’s purse to look at her identification.”

“And what have you learned?”

“The woman is Remi Fargo. I heard her calling out to someone named Sam. We assume he’s her husband.” Gere held out a folded notepaper.