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Rolfe took the sheet, reading the two names. “What do we know about them?”
“We’re not sure yet. We’ve only just returned.”
“Find out and get back to me.”
“We will.”
Rolfe set the paper on the table next to the gun. “Anything else?”
“Not yet. We’ll know more tomorrow when we meet up with Durin.”
“Call me as soon as you do.”
After Gere left, Rolfe took his wineglass out to the balcony, where Tatiana waited, her back to him as she looked out toward the city.
He paused a moment to admire her. In her Christian Louboutin red stiletto heels, she stood nearly as tall as he. Her red silk dress draped softly over her lithe figure. She was exquisite. “How is your wine?”
She turned toward him, her expression calm. “Perfect,” she said, lifting her glass in a toast. “To good fortune.”
“Agreed.” He touched the edge of his glass to hers.
She sipped, then turned her attention back to the cityscape. “That very bright area out there. What is it?”
“The marketplace. Some evening, perhaps, we can venture out there. The medina is quite a sight to behold.”
“If I’m here that long.” She turned, leaning back against the stone parapet, to look at him. “Tell me, Rolfe. Do you think this is the plane? The one you’ve been searching for all this time?”
Her question surprised him. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because your father was so obsessed with it. Why else would you be here, of all places?”
His father. Of course. “And why are you here, Tatiana?”
“Visiting one of my favorite German businessmen, of course.” She swirled the red wine about in her glass, her expression softening. “If I’m not mistaken, you were just about to convince me why I should stay on here . . .”
“Why don’t we discuss the matter over dinner,” he said, guiding her to the patio table that had already been set.
A couple of hours later, when he walked her out, he saw Gere’s note had fallen to the floor. The breeze must have swept it from the table.
Tatiana reached it before he did, leaning down to pick it up. She handed it to him. “Something to do with your impromptu business meeting at the start of our dinner?”
“Apparently, someone who’s also interested in the plane.”
“You’d better move fast, then.”
“I intend to,” he replied, guiding her to the door. After she left, he looked at the names written there.
Sam and Remi Fargo.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone had disappeared from the face of the earth after getting in his way.
7
Having to make a last-minute trip to Marrakesh had not been on Tatiana’s agenda, but there was little she could do once she’d gotten word that Rolfe had arrived and was very close to finding the plane. And so it was that she’d taken the first flight from Russia to meet with him. Getting him to invite her over for dinner was the easy part. Keeping him from discovering her interest in the plane while trying to find out what he knew? That had been a challenge.
She’d taken a calculated risk this evening, asking about the plane, but, in the end, it seemed the only way she could think to get the information as quickly as she needed. It surprised her, though, that Rolfe had given it up so easily, and she wondered if his undue interest made him prone to the same mistakes his father had made. For a man with so many successful criminal enterprises, Rolfe hadn’t struck her as someone so careless as to leave a note such as that out in the open where anyone could see it. Then again, maybe that had more to do with her part in carefully nurturing a relationship with him over the last six months in order to keep tabs on his hunt for the missing courier pouch.
His loss, her gain, she thought after Rolfe’s driver dropped her off. She took out her telephone and made a call the moment the car drove off.