The Romanov Ransom Read online

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cussler, Clive, author. | Burcell, Robin, author.

  Title: The Romanov ransom : a Sam and Remi Fargo adventure / Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell.

  Description: New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, [2017] | Series: A Sam and Remi Fargo adventure

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017021532 (print) | LCCN 2017025903 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399575556 (EPub) | ISBN 9780399575549 (hardback) | ISBN 9780735218369 (international)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Thrillers. | GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3553.U75 (ebook) | LCC PS3553.U75 R66 2017 (print) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021532

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Titles by Clive Cussler

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue Part I

  Part II

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

&n
bsp; Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  About the Authors

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  CRIMEA, 1918

  Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna—Russia.

  Pyotr—a servant.

  BUENOS AIRES, 1947

  Klaus Simon—twelve-year-old nephew of Ludwig Strassmair.

  Dietrich Simon—Klaus’s older brother, killed during World War II.

  Ludwig Strassmair—Nazi prison camp commander, Klaus’s uncle.

  Greta—companion to Strassmair.

  Herr Heinrich—Nazi officer.

  Joe Schmidt—plane passenger.

  Lennard Lambrecht—pilot.

  Eckardt Häussler—cryptographer.

  THE PRESENT DAY

  Fargo Team

  Sam Fargo

  Remi (Longstreet) Fargo

  Selma Wondrash—the Fargos’ research assistant and go-to person.

  Professor Lazlo Kemp—assists Selma with research, from Great Britain.

  Pete Jeffcoat—Selma’s research assistant, Corden’s boyfriend.

  Wendy Corden—Selma’s research assistant, Jeffcoat’s girlfriend.

  Former DARPA Members

  Ruben “Rube” Hayward—case officer, CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

  Nicholas Archer—owner of Archer Worldwide Security.

  Friends of the Fargos

  Albert Hoffler—Selma’s cousin.

  Karl Hoffler—Albert’s oldest son.

  Brand Hoffler—Albert’s youngest son.

  MOROCCO

  Rolfe Wernher—German businessman.

  Gere Stellhorn—Wernher’s driver and henchman.

  Tatiana Petrov—Russian businesswoman.

  Viktor Surkov—Tatiana’s bodyguard.

  Zakaria Koury—Brand and Karl’s guide.

  Lina—Zakaria’s cousin.

  Kadin—Lina’s servant.

  Durin Kahrs—acquaintance of Brand and Karl.

  KALININGRAD

  Sergei Vasyev—Archaeology major.

  Andrei Karpos—historian, Amber Museum guide.

  Miron Pushkaryov—Königsberg castle groundskeeper.

  Leopold Gaudecker—head of the Wolf Guard.

  POLAND

  Renard Kowalski—miner and expert on Project Riese tunnels.

  Gustaw Czarnecki—miner and expert on Nazi Gold Train.

  Tomasz Gorski—lieutenant, Internal Security Agency.

  Nika Karaulina—Russian agent.

  Felix Moryakov—Russian agent.

  GERMANY

  Helga—head caterer.

  Ambassador Halstern—American Ambassador to Germany.

  Mrs. Halstern—the Ambassador’s wife.

  Wilhelm Schroeder—furniture restoration expert and attorney.

  Laurenz Hippler—Anholt castle’s manager.

  ARGENTINA

  Nando Roberto Sandoval—jungle guide.

  Dietrich Fischer—descendent of Ludwig Strassmair and young Klaus.

  Julio—helicopter pilot.

  PROLOGUE

  I

  CRIMEAN PENINSULA

  JULY 1918

  The old woman stood with tears in her eyes as two men loaded the last of the three wooden trunks onto the back of a hay wagon. The first was filled to the top with strings of pearls, loose diamonds, and precious stones. Gold bars and coins in the second. The third contained the jewelry gifted to the royal family over the last three hundred years, diamond-studded tiaras, necklaces, and rings. She ignored all of it, her gaze only on the much smaller chest that her maid was carrying to the wagon.

  “Wait!” she commanded.

  Her maid turned toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  How could she voice her feelings at such a time? The jewels and gold meant nothing to her. But that last chest . . . She watched as the man, Pyotr, took it from her maid. “One last look.”

  Pyotr deferred to the other man, a stranger to her, who climbed into the front of the wagon, taking the reins of the two horses that were champing at the bit. “We’re already late.”

  She turned toward Pyotr. “Please . . .”

  “Be quick.” He set the small chest on the back of the wagon, stepping back to allow her access.

  Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna lifted the latch, opened the lid, then pulled off the layer of lamb’s wool, revealing four bejeweled eggs that she’d managed to take with her when she went into hiding after the Bolsheviks took over Russia. Her breath caught as she lifted the Royal Danish Egg, cradling it in her hands. It had nothing to do with the beauty of the moonlight reflecting on the precious stones set in gold, surrounding the white and light blue enamel, nor the meticulous workmanship by the jeweler, Fabergé, who wrought each so that it was a masterpiece of beauty and delight to any who beheld it.

  “Enough,” the driver said coldly.

  “Give her a moment,” the maid told him.

  “They’re just jewels.”

  “To you,” Maria said, taking in every facet. “To me, these hold memories . . .”

  This particular egg contained a surprise of miniature portraits of her parents. Given to her by her late husband, they were the stories of happier times with him, her children, and later her grandchildren, who were still so very young.

  “You’ll see your family again,” her maid said. “I know it.”

  She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat, and lowered the egg into its lamb’s wool nest next to the other three. “Thank you . . .”

  Pyotr, about to close the lid, suddenly looked at her. “Do they know how many eggs are here?”

  Maria shook her head. “No. Only that I was going to include them.”

  He eyed the small case, then removed the egg she’d held, fluffing up the downy wool and repositioning the others so that it looked as though the case had only contained three.

  She took it from him, holding back her tears. “I have no way to repay you. Thank you.”

  “Tell no one. Ever.”

  “I won’t,” she said as he covered the cargo under the hay in the wagon, then climbed into the front. “I promise.”

  He gave a nod as the driver shook the reins, the horses racing off with a king’s ransom in the back of the wagon. Watching until it disappeared, Maria Feodorovna hugged the egg to her chest, equal parts of hope and terror filling her heart.

  —

  “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE done that,” the driver told Pyotr as the wagon jarred across the hardened dirt road.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it belongs to the people.”

  “They won’t miss one small thing. Not with everything that she turned over to us.”

  “That’s not for you to decide.”

  Pyotr saw the firm set to the man’s jaw. He didn’t pretend to know what the revolution was about, beyond the Bolsheviks’ belief that the Emperor and his family had lived in excess and splendor while the masses faced hunger and an uncertain future. The people’s wrath carried over, even after Nicholas II had stepped down from the throne and the royal family was imprisoned.

  Some of it, he understood. Much, he did no
t. “What difference does it make if we allow her a few happy memories in her time of fear?”

  “The difference? You sound as though you sympathize with her.”

  “She’s just an old woman.”

  “You’d be wise to keep those thoughts to yourself, lest you end up like her family.”

  Having worked for the Romanovs for a number of years, the last thing Pyotr wanted or needed was for anyone to think of him as a sympathizer. In these times, that line of thinking led to death. “I wasn’t thinking. You’re right.”

  The man said something below his breath, then urged the team of horses faster. For the next several days, Pyotr never mentioned the Romanovs, and he hoped that the incident with the Dowager Empress was long forgotten. It was nightfall by the time they reached Yekaterinburg, but instead of driving toward the governor’s house where the Romanovs were imprisoned, they turned left.

  “Where are we going?” Pyotr asked.

  “Meeting someone to drop this off.”

  Panic set in. “If we don’t deliver this in time, they’ll kill the royal family.”

  “What do you care? Their fate is not your business.”

  “But—the ransom . . . The Dowager Empress entrusted us with it. To buy their passage.”

  “Ransom?” the man laughed. “You don’t really believe they were ever going to let them go, do you?”

  “We promised.”

  “You fool. What’d you think would happen? That the Bolsheviks would take this as payment, then set them free? Soon, Maria Feodorovna”—he turned and spat, his expression one of disgust at the mention of the Dowager Empress’s name—“will meet the same fate as her son and his disgusting spawn.”

  Only then did Pyotr realize they were too late. The entire Romanov family had been killed. The children’s faces flashed in his mind—the last time he’d seen them, before the clash of war, they’d been so happy . . .

  “Where are we going, then?”

  “To bring that as proof.” He nodded toward the back of the wagon. “When they see what the old woman stole from Russia, trying to buy her son’s freedom, she and every last Romanov will be hunted down, as will anyone who supports them.”

  Of all the royal family, Maria Feodorovna’s life meant something. Unlike her son and his wife, she’d served Russia well. This war was her son’s making. His failure to lead.

  But if, as he said, they came after everyone who supported the royals, Pyotr was bound to be high on that list, especially once they learned he’d left Maria with one of the eggs. The very thought frightened him, especially when he realized where they were going. The old barn where a number of royalists had been shot. “Are you going to tell them what I did?”