The Romanov Ransom (Fargo Adventures 9)

He followed Felix into the room. Viktor was hooked up to a monitor that beeped quietly in the background. There was a tube coming from the upper left side of his chest, snaking down to a white plastic box hanging from the side of the hospital bed. His eyes were closed until he heard them enter. “. . . Good . . . You’re here . . .”

“Of course we are,” Felix said. “How are you?”

“Collapsed lung . . . Procedure to insert the tube is like getting shot all over again . . . They’re insisting on keeping me here . . .”

“So listen, for once.”

Viktor glanced at Sam. “Not quite how we expected this to turn out, is it?”

“At least you’re alive.”

“Tatiana, though . . .”

“I found her phone. If we can get in it, we might have a chance of finding her.”

Viktor seemed to perk up at that.

“Contact Rolfe . . . Tell him we have the key . . .”

“And you know what it’s for?”

“Not yet. But I have someone working on it now.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes a few seconds, then looked at them. “We should have anticipated . . . I should have . . .”

“No,” Felix said. “We did the best we could. Now we try to find her.”

Sam moved closer. “Do you have the code to get into her phone?”

He nodded, then recited the numbers.

Sam typed it in. “That works. Now, about Tatiana . . . We’d like to help. We can call friends. Government agents, even.”

“No . . . No outside help,” Viktor said. “We handle our own.”

Sam was surprised by his refusal. “I don’t understand . . .”

Viktor glanced at Felix, then turned to Sam, his expression troubled. “There’s something about this that I haven’t told you . . . Or Felix.” He took a ragged breath. “Something . . . important . . .”

48

The monitor beside Viktor’s hospital bed beeped steadily as Sam waited.

“Felix,” Viktor said. “Close the door . . . please . . . I’d rather not have anyone overhear.”

Once it was closed, Felix taking a position in front of it, Viktor turned his attention to Sam. “Because you’re Donovan’s friend, I know I can trust you . . . And I want Felix to also hear . . . Tatiana isn’t the only Russian involved with Rolfe Wernher. She’s merely the latest. It’s how we knew to cultivate Durin . . . And now that we’ve verified that the Wolf Guard is still operating in Europe, the stakes are even higher. They are, no doubt, how Rolfe has managed to eliminate witnesses in every case brought against him . . .” He closed his eyes, the sound of the monitor beeping as they waited. Finally, he opened them again, saying, “Until the shooting in Königsberg castle, we weren’t even aware they’d infiltrated Russia. Now . . .”

Sam glanced over at Felix, then back at Viktor. “You can’t mean to leave her there?”

“Of course not,” he said. “But in the past, every time we made a move, they found out . . . We have to be careful who we include. I hate to believe that anyone we have inside Rolfe’s circle is giving information . . . Or, worse yet, that the few of us who know on the outside are . . .” His voice grew softer, his eyelids starting to fall. But he roused himself, looking at them again. “The possibility exists . . . So you see my dilemma? There are many more lives involved than just Tatiana’s . . . She knows the risks . . . knows our hands are tied. But . . . she knows . . . someway, somehow . . . I’ll get to her . . . Have to do it below the radar . . . Without help . . .”

“From a hospital bed?”

“A flesh wound . . . They’ll be releasing me in the morning . . . I hope . . .”

“And if they don’t?”

“Perhaps . . .” He looked at Sam. “We saw how you went after your friend, Zakaria. I thought that you . . .”