Lost Empire (Fargo Adventures 2)

From their research they knew the captain’s quarters aboard the Shenandoah measured eighty square feet: ten feet long by eight feet wide. Compared to the officers’ berths, and especially the enlisteds’ bunk rooms, it was luxurious.

Sam and Remi saw him at the same time.

Directly ahead of them, facing the four mullioned stern windows, was a rocking chair. Jutting above the chair’s headrest was a skull, bare save a few strands of whitish yellow hair and some bits of scabrous flesh.

Remi stepped across the threshold. Sam did the same. Headlamp beams focused on the figure in the chair, they paced forward, then circled around either side of the chair.

Winston Blaylock was dressed as they had imagined him for the past three weeks: calf-high boots, khaki pants, and a hunting jacket. Even as a skeleton, his stature was impressive: wide shoulders, long legs, barrel chest.

His hands were lying palms up in his lap. Cradled there, staring up at Sam and Remi, was a football-sized maleo statuette, its facets sparkling green in their flashlight beams.

WITHOUT A WORD between them, Sam gently reached down and lifted the maleo from Blaylock’s lap. They stared at the man for another full minute, then searched the cabin. They found neither a log-book nor documents, save three sheets of parchment. Blaylock’s neat scrawl covered both sides of each sheet. Remi scanned their contents.

“Three letters to Constance,” she said.

“Dates?” Sam asked.

“August fourteen, August twentieth, and . . .” Remi hesitated. “The last one’s dated September sixteenth.”

“Three weeks after the Shenandoah was buried here.”

THEY RETRACED THEIR STEPS forward through the starboard corridor, down through the hatch, back through the engine room, and through the crawl space to the berth deck.

Remi climbed up through their excavated shaft, waited for Sam to secure the maleo to the end of the rope, then hauled it up to the surface. She dropped the line back down, and Sam went up.

Together, they collected an armload of twigs and small branches, then built a latticework over the shaft and covered it with loam.

“It doesn’t seem right just leaving them down there,” Remi said.

“We’ll come back,” Sam replied. “We’ll make sure that he’s taken care of—that they’re all taken care of.”

EACH LOST IN HIS or her private thoughts, the climb back up to the plateau passed quickly. Three hours after leaving the Shenandoah they were picking their way down the trail Sam had hacked. Remi was in the lead. Through the trees Sam glimpsed the white sand of the beach.

Their pinisi was gone.

“Remi, stop,” Sam rasped.

On instinct, he shrugged off his pack, unzipped the top pocket, grabbed the maleo, and tossed it into the brush. He donned his pack again and kept walking.

“What is it?” Remi replied, turning around. She saw the expression on her husband’s face. She stiffened. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

From somewhere to the right, hidden in the trees, came Itzli Rivera’s voice: “It’s called an ambush, Mrs. Fargo.”

“STEP BACKWARD,” Rivera ordered. “Five more feet, and you’re on the sand. Mr. Fargo, there’s a rifle trained on your wife. One more step, Mrs. Fargo.”

Remi complied.

“Drop your pack.”

Remi did so.

“Now you come forward, Mr. Fargo. Hands up.”

Sam walked down the trail and stepped onto the beach. To the right, Rivera stepped from the trees. To the left, another man, armed with an assault rifle, did the same. Rivera lifted a portable radio to his mouth and said something. Ten seconds later a speedboat glided around the peninsula and into the cove. Six feet from the beach, it stopped. On board were two more men, also armed with assault rifles.

“Did you find her?” Rivera asked.

Sam saw no point in lying. “Yes.”