“We’re back,” Sam said.
Nando, spoon in hand, turned, a smile lighting his face, until he looked past them out the door. “Where’s Dietrich?”
“Waiting at the helicopter. Which is where we need to go. Right now.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“We’re a little worried about how friendly our friends are.”
“The ones Tatiana called about?”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes. She said she couldn’t talk but told me to tell you your mutual friends were on the way. They were following.”
“Definitely time to go,” Sam said, taking a few steps in. “When did you talk to her?”
“Not since . . .” Nando stared at Remi, slowly raising his hands.
Sam looked that direction and saw Rolfe and Leopold in the doorway, both holding guns.
86
Rolfe motioned with his gun for Remi to move toward Sam and Nando. “Search them,” Rolfe said.
Leopold holstered his gun, then checked each of them for weapons, taking a gun from Sam’s holster and the second gun Sam had picked up from the dead sentry. He did the same with Remi. “Clean,” he said, moving off to the side, tucking the weapons into the pockets of his parka.
“Staying for dinner?” Sam asked Rolfe.
“We would,” he replied, his glance sliding toward Nando, then back to Sam, “but we have a few loose ends to tie up. Like eliminating any obstacles that stand between me and my treasure.”
“If you think you’re going to find it without us, you’re mistaken.”
Leopold took a step toward them, his hand on his holstered gun. “Is there some reason we don’t just get it over with?”
“Patience,” Rolfe said, his gaze locked on Sam’s. “You were saying? About the treasure?”
“Right,” Sam said. “The treasure. Where was I . . . ? Oh, yes. We have it. You don’t. And if anything happens to us, you’ll never find it.”
“He’s lying,” Leopold said.
“Who are you going to believe?” Sam asked. “The one with the proof—me—or the one with the hidden agenda?”
Leopold gripped his handgun tighter. “What hidden agenda?”
“Wolf Guard? Fourth Reich?”
“Forget him,” Rolfe said, never taking his gaze off Sam. “What proof do you have that you even found it?”
“Remi,” Sam said. “Show them.”
As she started to reach for her pack, Rolfe lifted his gun, pointing it at her. She stopped. “Papers,” she said. “Tucked inside to keep them dry.”
“Slowly, Mrs. Fargo.”
Remi unzipped her pack, removing the papers they’d found on the plane, holding them out. “See for yourself.”
Rolfe took them from her, scanning the topmost page before handing them to Leopold, who quickly looked them over. “They look real. But how do we know they’re not forgeries?”
“Right,” Sam said. “Because onionskin paper and typewriters are so easy to find these days. We just whipped up these copies in the few minutes we had—in case you showed up.”
“Enough!” Leopold grabbed Remi by the arm, pulling her toward him. “Collateral. Until you show us where that treasure is.”
Before Sam could move, Rolfe stepped between them, leveling his gun on Sam. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Trust me, I won’t,” he said, his eyes on Remi. She tried to pull free, but Leopold held tight. “Hurt her, and I promise your death will be painful.”
Leopold’s pale eyes narrowed. “You think you’re going to kill me?”
“No doubt,” Sam said. “I just haven’t decided how. Yet.”
A loud hissing behind them startled Nando. The bubbling stew boiled over, brown liquid hitting the burner, steam and smoke rising up.
Rolfe turned toward it. Sam lunged, grabbing at Rolfe’s gun with one hand while slamming his other hand upward, cracking the man’s elbow. As Sam wrested the gun from Rolfe, Leopold swung Remi around, trying to reach for his holstered weapon. Remi rammed her shoulder into his side, then dropped down, giving Sam the clearance he needed.
Sam fired. Leopold staggered back, a look of disbelief on his face, as Remi pulled free. Sam fired again. As the Guardsman dropped to the ground, Rolfe lunged toward Sam. Nando grabbed the stewpot, then swung it. Rolfe screamed, stumbling back.
“Get the gun!” Sam said.
Remi dove for the weapon that fell from Leopold’s lifeless hand. She pointed it at Rolfe, who tried to rise to his knees, about to make a break for it, when Tatiana and Viktor appeared in the entrance. Tatiana shoved him down with her foot until he was facedown in the snow, screaming in pain. “Going somewhere?”
87
Sorry we’re late,” Tatiana said once they had Rolfe cuffed. “Viktor and I had trouble locating your tent. We took out a couple of Leopold’s men down the hill. We figured he and Rolfe wouldn’t be too far. Unfortunately, they’d taken a completely different route.”
“We ran into a couple more at the helipad,” Sam said.
“Apologies,” Viktor said. “We must have missed those two.”
Tatiana glanced down at Rolfe, who was writhing in pain, a look of satisfaction on her face. “This is one time I’ll be happy to testify in court.”
—
ROLFE WAS turned over to the Argentine authorities after he had been taken to the hospital because of his broken arm and the burns on his face. Several days later, Tatiana was able to get an expert to verify and link the Operation Werewolf papers found on the airplane to Ludwig Strassmair. As a result, the Argentine government offered to assist the Russian government in the recovery of the downed Avro Lancastrian and whatever else might be found on it.
With a break in the weather, and after assessing the danger of any further avalanches, the teams flew out to start a full search of the plane and surrounding area. One group was assigned to forensics, to determine the cause of the Avro plane crash and to recover the victims. The other team, composed of local experts, accompanied by Tatiana, Viktor, the Fargos, Dietrich, and Nando, started the search for any historical evidence, beginning with the suitcase in which Remi had found the Operation Werewolf papers.
Once the remaining seats were removed, they were able to retrieve the suitcase, hoping to find further evidence of the plot to use the Romanov Ransom. “Remi, you found it,” Dietrich said. “You do the honors.”
Remi glanced at Sam, who nodded at her, and she picked up the suitcase, carrying it out into the light, placing it on a table. She lifted the lid, finding a brown folder containing a number of yellowed sheets of paper, which she handed to Dietrich. “More from Operation Werewolf, I’d say.”
Their attention turned to the cloth covering whatever else was in the case. Remi carefully lifted one corner, along with the soft wool just beneath, revealing a green egg that looked to be carved from jade and decorated with gold and diamonds.
“An Easter egg?” Dietrich said.
“Empire Nephrite Egg,” Tatiana replied, her voice filled with awe. “Fabergé.”
Remi stepped aside, looking at Tatiana. “You should do the honors.”
Tatiana hesitated, almost afraid to touch the cloth covering the second egg. Finally, she reached out, lifting it, the sun striking the gold vertical lines and diamonds set around the white-enameled egg. She turned it about, feeling the weight of it in her hands. “This is the Alexander the Third Commemorative Egg.”
She replaced it in the case, then ran her fingers across the third, a platinum hen-shaped egg speckled with diamonds, sitting in a gold basket. “And the Sapphire Hen.” She picked it up, examined it for a few moments, the sunlight striking the deep blue sapphire in the hen’s beak as she gently returned it to its bed of wool. “Three out of the last four that were unaccounted for. What an incredible find.”
“Which on
e’s still missing?” Remi asked.
“The Royal Danish,” Tatiana said. “It contains the miniature portraits of Maria Feodorovna’s parents. Each of these are nearly priceless. One Fabergé egg recently sold for over thirty-two million dollars.”
Dietrich whistled.
Tatiana closed the lid of the suitcase. “That’s quite a recovery fee the four of you will get.”
“The Fargos, you mean,” Dietrich said. “I was just here to find Klaus.”
“You and Nando deserve it as much as we do,” Sam replied. Dietrich looked at him in confusion. “You didn’t think we were keeping all of it? You were right there with us.”
“I—I don’t know what to say . . .”
Remi smiled at him. “You don’t need to say anything,” she replied as Viktor called to them from behind the plane.
The four walked beneath the now cleared wing, toward the back of the plane, where Viktor, Nando, and the other workers were busy excavating the area where it was believed the tail might be located. It turned out the plane had actually touched down higher on the ridge, the tail breaking off at that location before the main fuselage came to rest in the pass. One of the workers had uncovered a piece of the tail.
With nothing else to find in the plane, the Fargos spent the next several days expanding their search where the tail piece had been found. About four days in, Viktor held up a chunk of wood with a metal brace attached to it. “Luggage?” Viktor asked.
Sam examined the scrolling on the metal, thinking it looked more like a decorative embellishment from the early 1900s. “Or a wooden chest.” He called Remi and Dietrich over to help excavate the snow and ice. Hours later, when they were about to give up for the day, Sam kicked at a piece of rock embedded in the glacier. It skittered a few inches away, landing next to something that looked like a spot of blood in the snow. It wasn’t until he bent down, brushing at the snow with his gloved finger, that he realized it was, in fact, a large blood-red ruby pendant hanging from a platinum and diamond necklace.
He carefully extricated it from the glacier, then held it up in the sunlight, the diamonds sparkling like ice crystals.
Nando stared in awe. “What is it?” he asked.
“Part of the Romanov Ransom.”
88
Over the next few weeks, they recovered dozens of loose precious stones, a fortune in gold, as well as diamond necklaces, tiaras, and bracelets. When the items were turned over to Tatiana, she estimated that the finder’s fee, split among the Fargos, Dietrich, Nando, and the Argentine government, was worth millions each.
Dietrich, however, was more interested in why the plane went down, and, of course, giving a proper burial to Klaus in a grave next to that of the boy’s mother and father. A week later, after the brief ceremony, he, Sam, and Remi stood at the gravesite. “My grandfather,” Dietrich said, “and his father, always believed that they’d find Klaus.”
Remi laid roses on the freshly turned earth. “They’re together again.”
“I’m glad. I can’t thank you enough for helping to bring him home.”
After a moment, Sam clasped him on the back. “We’ll be in the car when you’re ready.”
Dietrich nodded as Sam and Remi walked off.
The following day, Sam and Remi were relaxing at their hotel before their trip home. Remi gave a sigh of contentment. “A good trip, Fargo, don’t you think?”
“Very good.”
“And to think this all started on date night.”
“Which I’m going to make up to you,” he said, when someone knocked on their door. He crossed the floor of their suite to answer it.
Dietrich was there, an odd look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Remi asked, getting up from the couch.
“The autopsy report came in. I wasn’t even aware they were doing one.”
“They had to,” Sam said. “At least if they wanted to find out why the plane went down.”
“Come in,” Remi said, drawing him to the couch. She took a seat next to him. “What does it say?”
“All but two died from injuries received on impact.”
“Does it give a cause of death for those two?”
Dietrich looked down at the papers, almost as if he didn’t believe the report himself. “The unidentified sixth passenger died of a stab wound to the heart. The pilot from a single gunshot wound to the head . . . It’s just . . .”
He handed the papers over. Sam, noticing the report was written in Spanish, gave it to Remi. She scanned the document, then glanced up, a look of astonishment on her face. “I didn’t expect this . . .”
“Expect what?” Sam asked.
“That they’d make a determination on who shot the gun. It’s not conclusive, but they think there’s a cut and stippling on the hand of the person who fired it. Klaus.”
“Klaus?”
Remi nodded. “They believe that he’s the one who killed the pilot.”
Dietrich nodded. “That’s why I came over. I just . . .” He let out a sigh. “I guess what I mean is that all this guilt I carried over the years, knowing my great-great-uncle was this horrible Nazi . . .”
Remi put her hand on his arm. “That was never your fault. Ever.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But that’s how I felt.”
“Well, then,” Remi said. “You have to feel a lot better reading about Klaus. The boy’s a hero. Who knows how many lives he saved by keeping Operation Werewolf from happening?”
“I don’t think I would’ve been brave enough to kill the pilot and bring down the plane.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sam said, walking over to the bar. He poured three glasses of Rémy Martin and brought one over to Dietrich and Remi before picking up his own. “The way I see it, you inherited the same genes as young Klaus. That deserves a toast.”
“I’m not so sure,” Dietrich said.
“Are you kidding?” Remi replied. “Who was it who decided to set up a cantina in Wolf Guard territory, hoping to gather evidence of their drug running? On top of that, you never gave up searching for Klaus. Even knowing the type of people who were trying to stop you and how dangerous they were. Klaus and your grandfather would be very proud of you.”
Dietrich stared at his drink before looking up at them. “I never really thought about it like that.” He smiled suddenly, lifting his glass. “To Klaus?”
“To Klaus,” they both said, touching their glasses to his.
89
GOLDFISH POINT
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA
Sam, wearing a suit and tie, waited by the door for Remi. When she hadn’t appeared within a few minutes, he looked at his watch. “The limo’s waiting,” he called out.
“On my way,” she said, her voice coming from the second-floor hallway. She walked down the stairs a few minutes later, dressed in a Ralph Lauren black jacquard-weave tuxedo jacket with black satin lapels, a silk ruffled shirt, and her favorite jeans.
Sam couldn’t take his eyes from her. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” she said, kissing him as she reached his side. “Nothing too good for the Lighthouse.”
Sam opened the front door, holding it for her, then backtracked to pick up a chilled bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé champagne. “Wouldn’t want to forget this,” he said. “A little something to tide us over on the long ride.”
Remi gave him a dazzling smile. “What are we waiting for? That champagne’s calling my name.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Clive Cussler is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA® Files, Oregon® Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo. His life nearly parallels that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers have discovered more t
han seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona.
Robin Burcell spent nearly three decades working in California law enforcement as a police officer, detective, hostage negotiator, and FBI-trained forensic artist. She is the author of eleven novels, most recently The Last Good Place. Burcell lives in Northern California.
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Clive Cussler, The Romanov Ransom
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