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“Tatiana?”
“No. The one from Kaliningrad,” said Leopold. “Nika. My man cornered her at the hospital.”
“Then how is it that the Fargos got into my villa and rescued Tatiana without us knowing?”
“Because the last Nika had heard, they were all coming at midnight, as I’d directed. Fargo didn’t tell them he was changing the plan.”
“You think she’ll continue to cooperate?”
“I know she will. All we have to do is sit back and let the Fargos figure out where that key leads. Once they find the tin, she can give us the code.” Leopold sat back and smiled, “We have a deal, then?”
Rolfe thought how easily they’d be able to kill the Fargos once they had what they needed. “Most definitely.”
58
That morning, Sam called Tatiana to let her know they’d found the furniture restorer who might have information on the key. “We’re heading out right after breakfast. You’re welcome to come with us. The jet is waiting.”
“Thank you,” she said, “but the three of us are driving back to Wroclaw to visit Viktor. You’ll let us know what you find out?”
“Of course. Give him our regards.”
“I will.”
Before Sam and Remi made it out the door of their hotel, they received a text from Selma. Apparently, Brand and Karl had discovered something unusual about the logbook from the downed airplane and wanted a video call.
They immediately skyped the boys. Brand answered. “Sorry to interrupt your trip, Mr. Fargo, but there’s something here that doesn’t make sense, and Selma said you’d be able to help.”
Sam glanced at Remi, before turning back to the screen. “You have our complete attention.”
“The logbook,” Karl said, holding it up. “At first glance, it looks like an official record. But there are notes, sketches, the sort of thing that make us think it might be a duplicate.”
“A duplicate?” Remi asked. “Why would they keep two logbooks?”
“Because the official one would’ve been turned over to their superior officers,” Sam replied. “The duplicates often have corrections, personal notes . . . Sort of a rough—”
Remi looked over at him when he stopped talking. “Sam?”
“I was going to say ‘rough draft.’ If they were turning over the logbook to superiors, they’d want to make sure it looked good. No mistakes. But . . .” He thought of everything they’d learned so far, especially the history in Kaliningrad. He looked at the screen, seeing Karl holding up the book, wishing he could read the German writing. “Miron told us that Lambrecht was a double agent. He was helping the authorities follow some of the Nazi officers who were fleeing Europe after the war. If Lambrecht turned over the official book to the Nazis, this one might have information about his spying.”
“Spying,” Karl said, looking at the book, turning the pages, nodding his head. “We had a feeling the logbook had something to do with the ratline, but we weren’t sure. That might fit with what we found . . .”
Brand moved into the video feed. “Definitely. We were trying to figure out what ‘use the first’ meant,” he said. “‘First’ is underlined twice. So th
ere’s got to be some importance.”
“And,” Karl said, “‘Romanov Ransom’ is also underlined twice.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “They intended that the two be noticed. What else?”
Karl answered. “We think the pilot was on his way to Tunisia when the plane went down, presumably to deliver the courier bag.”
“Do you know to whom?”
“Someone named Häussler. But that’s all we know.”
“Not all,” Brand said. “We found Lambrecht’s name mentioned in some of our other research. He’d found out something important about the ratline and was delivering the evidence when his plane went down somewhere in North Africa. We just don’t know anything about this Häussler. We’re looking into it now.”
“Good work, you two,” Sam said. “Give Selma a call and let her know everything you’ve discovered. Have her get back to us the moment she finds anything.”