Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

“‘A Roman-style sword,’” Remi repeated. “Interesting. Her words or the reporter’s, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Either way, it’s a pretty specific description. Most laypeople would just say ‘sword.’”

Remi leaned closer to the screen, then jotted down the reporter’s name. “It might be in her notes.”

Sam started tapping the keyboard again, this time with some urgency. Into the search box he entered “southern,” “Zanzibar,” “diving,” and “death” and set the time frame from present day to ten years earlier. Dozens of stories appeared on the screen.

“Let’s split them up,” Remi said, then typed the terms into her own search box. “Start with the oldest?”

Sam nodded.

In years ten through eight, four deaths were linked to their search terms. In each case, however, independent eyewitness reports confirmed they were accidental: one shark bite, one diving mishap, and two vehicle accidents, both involving alcohol.

“Here,” Remi said. “Seven years ago. Two people, both tourists on diving vacations.”

“Where exactly?”

“It just says the southwest coast of Zanzibar. One of them was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The other one fell down some steps in Stone Town. No alcohol involved, no witnesses.”

“Six years ago,” Sam said, reading from the screen, “two dead. One suicide, one drowning. Again, no witnesses.”

And so it went with year five up to the present day: tourist divers, most of them spending time near or around Chumbe Island, dying in strange accidents or muggings gone wrong.

“I count five,” Remi said.

“I’ve got four,” replied Sam.

They were silent for a few moments.

Remi said, “Has to be a coincidence, right?” Sam simply stared at his screen, so Remi said, “Otherwise, what are we saying? Rivera and whoever he works for have been murdering divers that show an interest in Chumbe Island?”

“No, it can’t be that. They would number in the hundreds . . . the thousands. Maybe it’s the people who declare their finds. Or take them to local shops for identification. If we’re right about this, these people have to have something else in common.”

“They told someone about what they found,” Remi offered.

“And it was the right kind of artifact, something to do with the Ophelia. Or the ship with the blotted-out name.”

“Either way, if she’d sunk off Chumbe, artifacts would be washing up on the beach. Every monsoon there would be debris just sitting on the bottom waiting for someone with a Ping-Pong paddle to come along.”

“True,” said Sam. “But there are plenty of people who find something and never mention it. They go home and put it on their mantel as a souvenir. In fact, that describes most casual treasure divers: They find something, make a minor effort to identify it, but if it’s not something obviously ‘treasure-ish’ they treat it as a keepsake . . . ‘Our week in Zanzibar.’”

“This is a huge leap we’re talking about, Sam.”

“I just remembered something: Rivera said he’s been looking for the Ophelia for seven years.”

“About the same time the strange deaths started.”

“Exactly. I need to call Rube. We need to find out how good Tanzanian immigration and customs are at recordkeeping.”

SAM MADE THE CALL and explained their request to an incredulous but willing Rube Haywood, who said, “So your theory is that Rivera was in Zanzibar around the time all the deaths would have taken place?”

“It’s worth a shot. Even if the records don’t show he was here every time, he may not have traveled under his own name.”

“I’ll look into it. Wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Sam thanked him and disconnected.

A few minutes later Ms. Kilembe knocked on the door and peeked her head inside. “Do you need anything?”