“How will you know where to start looking?” Detlef asked. “I read that the Amber Room was destroyed during the war. Do these people expect you to magically make something re-appear that does not exist anymore?”
Purdue seemed agitated, but the others assumed it was due to his traumatic experience at the hands of Klaus Kemper. “It still exists, they say. And if we don't beat them to it they will undoubtedly get the upper hand for good.”
“Why?” Nina asked. “What's so powerful about the Amber Room – if it even still exists?”
“I don't know, Nina. They did not go into the specifics, but they made it clear that it had undeniable power,” Purdue rambled. “What it has or does, I have no idea. I just know that it is very dangerous – as things of perfect beauty usually are.”
Sam could see that the phrase was directed at Nina, but Purdue's tone was not lovelorn or soppy. If he was not mistaken, it almost sounded antagonistic. Sam was wondering how Purdue really felt about Nina spending so much time with him, and it appeared to be a sore matter for the usually buoyant billionaire.
“Where was its last location?” Detlef asked Nina. “You are a historian. Do you know where the Nazis could have taken it if it was not destroyed?”
“I only know what's written in the history books, Detlef,” she admitted, “but sometimes there are facts hidden in the details that give us clues.”
“And what do your history books say?” he asked amicably, appearing to be quite interested in Nina’s vocation.
She sighed and shrugged as she recalled the legend of the Amber Room as dictated by her textbooks. “The Amber Room was made in Prussia in the early 1700's, Detlef. It was fashioned from amber panels and gold inlays of leaves and carvings with mirrors behind them to make it look even more splendid when the light fell on it.”
“Who did it belong to?” he asked, biting into a dry crust of home-baked bread.
“The then king, Frederick Wilhelm I, but he gave the Amber Room to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great as a gift. But here is the cool thing,” she said. “While it belonged to the Tsar it was actually expanded several times! Imagine the value, even then!”
“By the Tsar?” Sam asked her.
“Aye. They say when he was done expanding the chamber it contained six tons of amber. So as always the Russians earned their reputation for their affinity for size.” she laughed. “But then it was looted a Nazi unit during World War II.”
“Of course,” Detlef lamented.
“And where did they keep it?” Sam wanted to know. Nina shook her head.
“What was left was taken to then Königsberg to be restored, and it was subsequently put on display there. But… that is not the end of it,” Nina continued, taking a glass of red wine from Sam. “There it was reputedly destroyed once and for all by Allied air attacks when the castle was bombed in 1944. Some records indicate that when the Third Reich fell in 1945, and the Red Army occupied Königsberg, the Nazis had already taken the remnants of the Amber Room and smuggled them onto a passenger liner in Gdynia to get it out of Königsberg.”
“And where did it go?” Purdue asked with intense interest. He knew much of what Nina had relayed already, but only up to the part where the Amber Room had been razed by the Allied air strikes.
Nina shrugged. “Nobody knows. Some accounts tell that the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, and the Amber Room was lost at sea. But in truth nobody really knows.”
“If you had to guess,” Sam challenged her cordially, “according to what you know about the situation as a whole during the war. What do you think happened?”
Nina had her own theory of what she did and did not believe from the records. “I really don't know, Sam. I just don't believe the torpedo story. It sounds too much like a cover story to stop everyone from looking for it. But then again,” she sighed, “I don't have any idea what could have happened. I'll be honest; I believe the Russians intercepted the Nazis, but not like that.” She chuckled awkwardly and shrugged again.
Purdue's light blue eyes stared at the fire in front of him. He was considering the possible consequences of Nina's tale, along with what he learned about what had happened in the Bay of Gdansk at the same time. He snapped out of his frozen state.
“I think we should take that account on faith,” he announced. “I suggest we start where the ship has supposedly sunk, just to have a starting point. Who knows, we might even find some clues there.”
“You mean diving?” Detlef exclaimed.
“Correct,” Purdue affirmed.
Detlef shook his head, “I don't dive. No, thank you!”
“Come now, old boy!” Sam smiled, lightly slapping Detlef on the back. “You can run into live fire, but you cannot take a swim with us?”
“I hate water,” the German admitted. “I can swim. I just don’t. Water makes me very uncomfortable.”
“Why? Did you have a bad experience?” Nina asked.
“Not that I know of, but perhaps I made myself forget whatever made me despise swimming,” he revealed.
“That doesn't matter,” Purdue weighed in. “You can keep watch for us since there is no way we can get the necessary permits to dive there. Can we count on you for that?”
Detlef gave Purdue a long hard look that had Sam and Nina alarmed and ready to intervene, but he simply answered, “That, I can do.”
It was shortly before midnight. They waited for their meat and fish on the grill to be done, and the soothing crackle of the fire lulled them into a sense of reprieve from their troubles.
“David, tell me about the business you had with Gabi Holtzer,” Detlef insisted suddenly, finally bringing forth the inevitable.
Purdue frowned, perplexed by the strange request from the stranger he had assumed to be a private security consultant. “What do you mean?” he asked the German.
“Detlef,” Sam warned gently, advising the widower to keep his cool. “You remember the deal, right?”
Nina's heart jumped. She had been anxiously anticipating this all night. Detlef kept his cool as far as they could tell, but he repeated his question in a cold voice.
“I want you to tell me about your business with Gabi Holtzer at the British Consulate in Berlin the day she died,” he said in a calm tone that was deeply unsettling.
“Why?” Purdue asked, infuriating Detlef with his apparent sidestepping.
“Dave, this is Detlef Holtzer,” Sam said, hoping that the introduction would explain the German man's urging. “He is - no was - Gabi Holtzer's husband and he has been looking for you so you could tell him what happened that day.” Sam deliberately formulated his words this way to remind Detlef that Purdue was entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
“I am so sorry for your loss!” Purdue replied almost instantly. “My God, it was awful!” It was evident that Purdue was not putting on a fake face. His eyes filled with tears as he relived those last moments before he had been abducted.
“The media says that she committed suicide,” Detlef said. “I know my Gabi. She would never…”
Purdue stared at the widower with wide eyes. “She did not commit suicide, Detlef. She was killed right in front of me!”
“Who did it?” Detlef roared. He was emotional and unstable, being so close to the revelation he had been seeking all this time. “Who killed her?”
Purdue gave it some thought and looked at the distraught man. “I—I cannot remember.”
20
After two days of recuperation at the small house, the group took off toward the Polish coast. The matter between Purdue and Detlef felt unresolved, but they got along relatively well. Purdue owed Detlef more than just the revelation that Gabi's death had not been her own doing, especially since Detlef was still suspicious at Purdue's memory loss. Even Sam and Nina wondered if perhaps Purdue was unknowingly responsible for the diplomat's death, but they could not pass judgment on something they didn't know anything about.
Sam, for one, tried to get a better peek with his new abili
ty to latch onto the minds of others, but he was unsuccessful. He secretly hoped that he had lost the unwelcome gift that had been bestowed on him.
They decided to follow their plan. The discovery of the Amber Room would not only thwart the efforts of the sinister Black Sun, but it would be quite beneficial financially. Still, the urgency of finding the magnificent chamber was a mystery to them all. There had to be more to the Amber Room than riches or reputation. Of that, the Black Sun had enough of their own.
Nina had an old university colleague who was now married to a wealthy businessman residing in Warsaw.
“From one phone call, people,” she bragged to the three men. “One! I have gotten us a free four-day stay in Gdynia and with it comes a reasonable fishing boat for our little not-so-legal investigation.”
Sam playfully ruffled her hair. “You are a magnificent animal, Dr. Gould! Do they have whiskey?”
“I could kill for some Bourbon right now, I admit,” Purdue smiled. “What is your poison, Mr. Holtzer?”
Detlef shrugged, “Anything that can be used in surgery.”
“Good man! Sam, we have to get some of that, mate. Can you make that happen?” Purdue asked eagerly. “I will have my assistant transfer some money in a few minutes so we can get what we need. The boat – is it your friend's?” he asked Nina.
“It belongs to the old man we are staying with,” she replied.
“Won't he be suspicious of what we are going to do there?” Sam worried.
“No. She says he is an old diver, fisherman, and marksman that moved to Gdynia right after the Second World War from Novosibirsk. Apparently, he never got any gold stars for good behavior,” Nina laughed.
“Good! He will fit right in then,” Purdue chuckled.
After buying some food and plenty of alcohol to present to their gracious host, the group drove to the location Nina had gotten from her former colleague. Detlef paid a visit to the local hardware store, and also purchased a small radio and some batteries for it. Such basic little radios were hard to get in more modern cities, but he found one next to the fish bait shop on the last street before they arrived at their temporary lodging.
The yard was carelessly fenced with barbed wire tied to rickety posts. Inside the fence, the yard consisted mostly of tall weeds and big neglected plants. From the creaky iron gate to the deck steps, the small walkway to the eerie little wooden cabin was overgrown with vines. The old man was awaiting them on the porch, looking almost exactly as Nina had imagined him. Big dark eyes contrasted with wild gray hair and a beard. He had a pot belly and a face riddled by scars that made him look scary, but he was friendly.
“Zdravstvuyte!” he called as they came through the gate.
“God, I hope he speaks English,” Purdue muttered.
“Or German,” Detlef concurred.
“Hello! We brought something for you” Nina smiled, holding out the bottle of vodka to him and the old man clapped his hands in glee.
“I see we will get along very well!” he shouted cheerfully.
“Are you Mr. Marinesko?” she asked.
“Kiril! Call me Kiril, please. And please, come in. I don't have big house or best food, but it is warm and comfortable,” he apologized. After they had introduced themselves, he dished up some vegetable soup he had been preparing all afternoon.
“After the meal, I take you to see the boat, yes?” Kiril offered.
“Splendid!” Purdue replied. “I would love to see what you have in that boat house.”
He served the soup with freshly baked bread that quickly became Sam's favorite. He helped himself to slice after slice. “Did your wife bake this?” he asked.
“No, I did. I am good baker, right?” Kiril laughed. “My wife taught me. She is dead now.”
“So is mine,” Detlef murmured. “Happened just recently.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kiril sympathized. “I don't think our wives ever leave us. They stay to give us a hard time when we screw up.”
Nina was relieved to see Detlef smile at Kiril, “I think so too!”
“You will need my boat to dive?” their host asked, changing the subject for his guest's sake. He knew the pain that could eat away a person when such a tragedy strikes, and it was not something he could talk about at length either.
“Yes, we want to do some diving, but it shouldn't take more than a day or two,” Purdue informed him.
“In the Bay of Gdansk? Which area?” Kiril pried. It was his boat, and he was putting them up, so they couldn't deny him the details.
“In the area where the Wilhelm Gustloff sank in 1945,” Purdue said.
Nina and Sam exchanged glances, hoping that the old man would not get suspicious. Detlef did not care who knew. All he wanted was to find out what role the Amber Room had played in his wife's death and what was so important to those strange Nazi people. Around the dinner table, a brief, tense silence ensued.
Kiril looked at them all, one after the other. His eyes pierced through their defenses and intentions as he scrutinized them with a smirk that could have meant anything. He cleared his throat.
“Why?”
The single word question unsettled them all. They had expected an elaborate attempt at dissuasion or some locally flavored reprimand, but the simplicity was almost impossible to fathom. Nina looked at Purdue and shrugged, “Tell him.”
“We are looking for remnants of an artifact that was on board the ship,” Purdue told Kiril, using as wide a description as possible.
“The Amber Room?” he laughed, spoon erect in his waving hand. “You too?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“Oh, my boy! So many people have been looking for that damned thing over the years, but they all back up disappointed!” he chuckled.
“So you are saying it doesn't exist?” Sam asked.
“Tell me, Mr. Purdue, Mr. Cleave and my other friends here,” Kiril smiled, “what do you want with the Amber Room, huh? Money? Fame? Go home. Some beautiful things are just not worth the curse.”
Purdue and Nina glanced at each other at the similarity of the phrasing between the old man's warning and Purdue's sentiment.
“Curse?” Nina queried.
“Why are you looking for it?” he asked again. “What is it you are after?”
“My wife was killed because of it,” Detlef suddenly chipped in. “If whoever was after that treasure was ready to kill her for it, I want to see it myself.” His eyes pinned Purdue.
Kiril frowned. “What did your wife have to do with it?”
“She was investigating the Berlin assassinations because she had reason to believe that the murders were committed by a secret organization looking for the Amber Room. But she was killed before she could complete her investigation,” the widower filled Kiril in.
Wringing his hands, their host took a deep breath. “So you don't want it for money or fame, then. Good. Then I will tell you where the Wilhelm Gustloff went down, and you can look for yourself, but I hope you stop this nonsense then.”
Without another word or explanation, he stood up and left the room.
“What the hell was that?” Sam probed. “He knows more than he wants to admit. He is hiding something.”
“How do you know that?” Purdue asked.
Sam looked a little uncomfortable. “I just have a gut feeling.” He shot Nina a glance before he rose from his seat to take his soup bowl to the kitchen. She knew what his glance meant. He must have found something in the old man's thoughts.
“Excuse me,” she told Purdue and Detlef and followed Sam. He was standing in the doorway to the garden, watching Kiril venture out to the boat house to check the fuel. Nina placed her hand on his shoulder. “Sam?”
“Aye.”
“What did you see?” she fished curiously.
“Nothing. He knows something very important, but that's just journalistic instinct. I swear, it has nothing to do with the new thing,” he told her quietly. “I feel like just asking outright
, but I don't want to push him, you know?”
“I know. That’s why I am going to ask him,” she said confidently.
“No! Nina! Get back here,” he cried, but she was adamant. Knowing Nina, Sam was perfectly aware that he couldn't stop her now. Instead, he elected to go back inside to keep Detlef from killing Purdue. As he approached the dinner table, he could feel the tension, but Sam found Purdue looking at the pictures on Detlef’s phone.
“Those were the number codes,” Detlef explained. “Now look at this.”
Both men squinted as Detlef zoomed in on the photo he had taken of the diary page where he found Purdue's name. “My God!” Purdue uttered in astonishment. “Sam, come see this.”
Under Purdue and Carrington’s meeting, a notation was made referring to a ‘Kiril’.
“Am I just finding ghosts everywhere or could it all be one big web of conspiracy?” Detlef asked Sam.
“I could not tell you for sure, Detlef, but I also have a feeling he knows about the Amber Room,” Sam shared his suspicions with them as well. “Things we are not supposed to know.”
“Where is Nina?” Purdue asked.
“Chatting to the old boy. Just making friends, in case we need to know more,” Sam put him at ease. “If he is the name on Gabi's diary we need to know why.”
“I agree,” Detlef concurred.
Nina and Kiril entered the kitchen, laughing about something silly he was telling her. Her three associates perked up to see if she got any more information, but to their disappointment, Nina shook her head furtively.
“That’s it,” Sam declared. “I am getting him drunk. We’ll see how much he hides when he is off his tits.”
“Feeding a Russian vodka won't make him drunk, Sam,” Detlef smiled. “It will only make him happy and loud. What is the time now?”
“Almost 9 pm. Why, do you have a date?” Sam teased.
“Actually, I do,” he replied proudly. “Her name is Milla.”
Intrigued by Detlef’s answer, Sam asked, “Want to make it a threesome?”
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