the Amber Room (2003)

by Steve Berry

  On the fourth floor a battered wooden door opened into a stuffy space, its pale green walls peeling from a lack of ventilation. There was no ceiling, only pipes and ducts caked in asbestos crisscrossing beneath the brittle concrete of the fifth floor. The air was cool and moist. A strange place to house supposedly precious documents.

  He stepped across gritty tile and approached a solitary desk. The same clerk with wispy brown hair and a horsy face waited. He’d concluded last time the man to be an involuted, self-depreciating, nouveau Russian bureaucrat. Typical. Hardly a difference from the old Soviet version.

  “Dobriy den,” he said, adding a smile.

  “Good day,” the clerk replied.

  In Russian, he stated, “I need to study the files.”

  “Which ones?” An irritating smile accompanied the inquiry, the same look he recalled from two months before.

  “I’m sure you remember me.”

  “I thought your face familiar. The Commission records, correct?”

  The clerk’s attempt at coyness was a failure. “Da. Commission records.”

  “Would you like me to retrieve them?”

  “Nyet. I know where they are. But thank you for your kindness.”

  He excused himself and disappeared among metal shelves brimming with rotting cardboard boxes, the stale air heavily scented with dust and mildew. He knew a variety of records surrounded him, many an overflow from the nearby Hermitage, most from a fire years ago in the local Academy of Sciences. He remembered the incident well. “The Chernobyl of our culture,” the Soviet press labeled the event. But he’d wondered how unintentional the disaster may have been. Things always had a convenient tendency of disappearing at just the right moment in the USSR, and the reformed Russia was hardly any better.

  He perused the shelves, trying to recall where he left off last time. It could take years to finish a thorough review of everything. But he remembered two boxes in particular. He’d run out of time on his last visit before getting to them, the depository having closed early for International Women’s Day.

  He found the boxes and slid both off the shelf, placing them on one of the bare wooden tables. About a meter square, each box was heavy, maybe twenty-five or thirty kilograms. The clerk still sat toward the front of the depository. He realized it wouldn’t be long before the impertinent fool sauntered back and made a note of his latest interest.

  The label on top of both boxes read in Cyrillic, EXTRAORDINARY STATE COMMISSION ON THE REGISTRATION AND INVESTIGATION OF THE CRIMES OF THE GERMAN-FASCIST OCCUPIERS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES AND THE DAMAGE DONE BY THEM TO THE CITIZENS, COLLECTIVE FARMS, PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS, STATE ENTERPRISES, AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLIC.

  He knew the Commission well. Created in 1942 to resolve problems associated with the Nazi occupation, it eventually did everything from investigating concentration camps liberated by the Red Army to valuing art treasures looted from Soviet museums. By 1945 the commission evolved into the primary sender of thousands of prisoners and supposed traitors to the gulags. It was one of Stalin’s concoctions, a way to maintain control, and eventually employed thousands, including field investigators who searched western Europe, northern Africa, and South America for art pillaged by the Germans.

  He settled down into a metal chair and started sifting page by page through the first box. The going was slow, thanks to the volume and the heavy Russian and Cyrillic diatribes. Overall, the box was a disappointment, mostly summary reports of various Commission investigations. Two long hours passed and he found nothing of interest. He started on the second box, which contained more summary reports. Toward the middle, he came to a stack of field reports from investigators. Acquisitors, like himself. But paid by Stalin, working exclusively for the Soviet government.

  He scanned the reports one by one.

  Many were unimportant narratives of failed searches and disappointing trips. There were some successes, though, the recoveries noted in glowing language. Degas’s Place de la Concorde. Gauguin’s Two Sisters. Van Gogh’s last painting, The White House at Night. He even recognized the investigators’ names. Sergei Telegin. Boris Zernov. Pyotr Sabsal. Maxim Voloshin. He’d read other field reports filed by them in other depositories. The box contained a hundred or so reports, all surely forgotten, of little use today except to the few who still searched.

  Another hour passed, during which the clerk wandered back three times on the pretense of helping. He’d declined each offer, anxious for the irritating little man to mind his own business. Near five o’clock he found a note to Nikolai Shvernik, the merciless Stalin loyalist who had headed the Extraordinary Commission. But this memo was unlike the others. It was not sealed on official Commission stationery. Instead, it was handwritten and personal, dated November 26, 1946, the black ink on onionskin nearly gone:

  Comrade Shvernik,

  I hope this message finds you in good health. I visited Donnersberg but could not locate any of the Goethe manuscripts thought there. Inquiries, discreet of course, revealed previous Soviet investigators may have removed the items in November 1945. Suggest a recheck of Zagorsk inventories. I met with `Yxo yesterday. He reports activity by Loring. Your suspicions seem correct. The Harz mines were visited repeatedly by various work crews, but no local workers were employed. All persons were transported in and out by Loring. Yantarnaya komnata may have been found and removed. It is impossible to say at this time. `Yxo is following additional leads in Bohemia and will report directly to you within the week.

  Danya Chapaev

  Clipped to the tissue sheet were two newer sheets of paper, both photocopies. They were KGB information memos dated March, seven years ago. Strange they were there, he thought, tucked indiscriminately among fifty-plus-year-old originals. He read the first note typed in Cyrillic:

  `Yxo is confirmed to be Karol Borya, once employed by Commission, 1946–1958. Immigrated to United States, 1958, with permission of then-government. Named changed to Karl Bates. Current address: 959 Stokeswood Avenue. Atlanta, Georgia (Fulton County), USA. Contact made. Denies any information on yantarnaya komnata subsequent to 1958. Have been unable to locate Danya Chapaev. Borya claimed no knowledge of Chapaev’s whereabouts. Request additional instructions on how to proceed.

  Danya Chapaev was a name he recognized. He’d looked for the old Russian five years ago but had been unable to find him, the only one of the surviving searchers he hadn’t interviewed. Now there may be another. Karol Borya, aka Karl Bates. Strange, the nickname. The Russians seemed to delight in code words. Was it affection or security? Hard to tell. References like Wolf, Black Bear, Eagle, and Sharp Eyes he’d seen. But `Yxo? “Ears.” That was unique.

  He flipped to the second sheet, another KGB memo typed in Cyrillic that contained more information on Karol Borya. The man would now be eighty-one years old. A jeweler by trade, retired. His wife died a quarter century back. He had a daughter, married, who lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and two grandchildren. Six-year-old information, granted. But still more than he possessed on Karol Borya.

  He glanced again at the 1946 document. Particularly the reference to Loring. It was the second time he’d seen that name among reports. Couldn’t be Ernst Loring. Too young. More likely the father, Josef. The conclusion was becoming more and more inescapable that the Loring family had long been on the trail, as well. Maybe the trip to St. Petersburg had been worth the trouble. Two direct references to yantarnaya komnata, rare for Soviet documents, and some new information.

  A new lead.

  Ears.

  “Will you be through soon?”

  He looked up. The clerk stared down at him. He wondered how long the bastard had been standing there.

  “It’s after five,” the man said.

  “I didn’t realize. I will be finished shortly.”

  The clerk’s gaze roamed across the page in his hand, trying to steal a look. He nonchalantly tabled the sheet. The man seemed to get the message and headed back to his desk.


  He lifted the papers.

  Interesting the KGB had been searching for two former-Extraordinary Commission members as late as a few years ago. He’d thought the search for yantarnaya komnata ended in the mid-1970s. That was the official account, anyway. He’d encountered only a few isolated references dated to the eighties. Nothing of recent vintage, until today. The Russians don’t give up, he’d give them that. But considering the prize, he could understand. He didn’t give up either. He’d tracked leads the past eight years. Interviewed old men with failing memories and tight tongues. Boris Zernov. Pyotr Sabsal. Maxim Voloshin. Searchers, like himself, all looking for the same thing. But none knew anything. Maybe Karol Borya would be different. Maybe he knew where Danya Chapaev was. He hoped both men were still alive. It was certainly worth a flight to the United States to find out. He’d been to Atlanta once. During the Olympics. Hot and humid, but impressive.

  He glanced around for the clerk. The impish man stood on the other side of the cluttered shelves, busily replacing files. Quickly, he folded the three sheets and pocketed them. He had no intention of leaving anything for another inquisitive mind to find. He replaced the two boxes on the shelf and headed for the exit. The clerk was waiting with the door open.

  “Dobriy den,” he told the clerk.

  “Good day to you.”

  He left and the lock immediately clicked behind him. He imagined it would not take long for the fool to report the visit, surely receiving a gratuity in the post a few days from now for his attentiveness. No matter. He was pleased. Ecstatic. He had a new lead. Maybe something definitive. The start of a trail. Maybe even an acquisition.

  The acquisition.

  He bounded down the stairs, the words from the memo ringing in his ears.

  Yantarnaya komnata.

  The Amber Room.

  NINE

  Burg Herz, Germany

  7:54 p.m.

  Knoll stared out the window. His bedchamber occupied the upper reaches of the castle’s west turret. The citadel belonged to his employer, Franz Fellner. It was a nineteenth-century reproduction, the original burned and sacked to the foundation by the French when they stormed through Germany in 1689.

  Burg Herz, “Castle Heart,” was an apt name, since the fortress rested nearly in the center of a unified Germany. Franz’s father, Martin, acquired the building and surrounding forest after World War I, when the previous owner guessed wrong and backed the Kaiser. Knoll’s bedroom, his home for the past eleven years, once served as the head steward’s chambers. It was spacious, private, and equipped with a bath. The view below extended for kilometers and encompassed grassy meadows, the wooded heights of the Rothaar, and the muddy Eder flowing east to Kassel. The head steward had attended the senior Fellner every day for the last twenty years of Martin Fellner’s life, the steward himself dying only a week after his master. Knoll had heard the gossip, all attesting they’d been more than employer and employee, but he’d never placed much merit in rumor.

  He was tired. The last two months, without question, had been exhausting. A long trip to Africa, then a run through Italy, and finally Russia. He’d come a long way from a three-bedroom apartment in a government high-rise thirty kilometers north of Munich, his home until he was nineteen. His father was a factory worker, his mother a music teacher. Memories of his mother always evoked fondness. She was a Greek his father met during the war. He’d always called her by her first name, Amara, which meant “unfading,” a perfect description. From her he inherited his sharp brow, pinched nose, and insatiable curiosity. She also hammered into him a passion for learning and named him Christian, as she was a devout believer.

  His father molded him into a man, but that bitter fool also instilled a sense of anger. Jakob Knoll fought in Hitler’s army as a fervent Nazi. To the end he supported the Reich. He was a hard man to love, but equally hard to ignore.

  He turned from the window and glanced over at the nightstand beside the four-poster bed.

  A copy of Hitler’s Willing Executioners lay on top. The volume had caught his eye two months ago. One of a rash of books published lately on the psyche of the German people during the war. How did so many let such barbarism exist from so few? Were they willing participants, as the writer suggested? Hard to say about everyone. But his father was definitely one. Hate came easy to him. Like a narcotic. What was it he many times quoted from Hitler? I go the way Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.

  And that was exactly what Hitler had done—straight to his downfall. Jakob Knoll likewise died bitter, twelve years after Amara succumbed to diabetes.

  Knoll was eighteen and alone when his genius IQ led to a scholarship at the University of Munich. Humanities had always interested him, and during his senior year he earned a fellowship to Cambridge University in art history. He recalled with amusement the summer he fell in briefly with neo-Nazi sympathizers. At the time those groups were not nearly so vocal as today, outlawed as they were by the German government. But their unique look at the world hadn’t interested him. Then or now. Nor had hate. Both were unprofitable and counterproductive.

  Particularly when he found women of color so alluring.

  He spent only a year at Cambridge before dropping out and hiring on to work for Nordstern Fine Art Insurance Limited in London as a claims adjuster. He recalled how quickly he made a name for himself after retrieving a Dutch master thought lost forever. The thieves called, demanding a ransom of twenty million pounds or the canvas would be burned. He could still see the shock on his superiors’ faces when he flatly told the thieves to burn it. But they hadn’t. He knew they wouldn’t. And a month later he recovered the painting after the culprits, in desperation, tried to sell it back to the owner.

  More successes came equally as easy.

  Three hundred million dollars’ worth of old Masters taken from a Boston museum found. A $12 million Jean-Baptiste Oudry, stolen in northern England from a private collector recovered. Two magnificent Turners filched from the Tate Gallery in London located in a ramshackle Parisian apartment.

  Franz Fellner met him eleven years ago, when Nordstern dispatched him to do an inventory on Fellner’s collection. Like any careful collector Fellner insured his known art assets, the ones that sometimes appeared in European art or American specialty magazines, the publicity a way to make a name for himself, spurring black marketeers to seek him out with truly valuable treasures. Fellner lured him away from Nordstern with a generous salary, a room at Burg Herz, and the excitement that came from stealing back some of humanity’s greatest creations. He possessed a talent for searching, enjoying immensely the challenge of finding what people went to enormous lengths to hide. The women he came across were equally enticing. But killing particularly excited him. Was that his father’s legacy? Hard to say. Was he sick? Depraved? Did he really care? No. Life was good.

  Damn good.

  He stepped away from the window and entered the bathroom. The oriel above the toilet was hinged open and cool evening air rid the tiles of moisture from his earlier shower. He studied himself in the mirror. The brown dye used the past couple of weeks was gone, his hair once again blond. Disguises were not his usual forte, but he’d deemed a change of look wise under the circumstances. He’d shaved while bathing, his tanned face smooth and clean. His face still carried a confident air, the image of a forthright man with strong tastes and convictions. He splashed a bit of cologne onto his neck and dried his skin with a towel, then slipped on his dinner jacket.

  The telephone on the nightstand rang in the outer room. He crossed the bedchamber and answered before the third ring.

  “I’m waiting,” the female voice said.

  “And patience is not one of your virtues?”

  “Hardly.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Knoll descended the spiral staircase. The narrow stone path wound clockwise, copied from a medieval design that forced invading right-handed swordsmen to battle the central turret as well as castle defenders. The cas
tle complex was huge. Eight massive towers adorned with half timbers accommodated more than a hundred rooms. Mullion and dormer windows enlivened the outside and provided exquisite views of the rich forested valleys beyond. The towers were grouped in an octagon around a spacious inner courtyard. Four halls connected them, all the buildings topped by a steeply pitched slate roof that bore witness to harsh German winters.

  He turned at the base of the stairs and followed a series of slate tiled corridors toward the chapel. Barrel vaults loomed overhead. Battle-axes, spears, pikes, visored helmets, suits of mail—all collectors’ pieces—lined the way. He’d personally acquired the largest piece of armor, a knight standing nearly eight feet tall, from a woman in Luxembourg. Flemish tapestries adorned the walls, all originals. The lighting was soft and indirect, the rooms warm and dry.

  An arched door at the far end opened out to a cloister. He exited and followed a breezeway to a pillared doorway. Three stone faces carved into the castle facade watched his steps. They were a remnant of the original seventeenth-century structure, their identities unknown, though one legend proclaimed them to be of the castle’s master builder and two assistants, the men killed and walled into the stone so that they could never build another similar structure.

  He approached the Chapel of Saint Thomas. An interesting label, since it was not only the name of an Augustinian monk who founded a nearby monastery seven centuries ago, but also the first name of old Martin Fellner’s head steward.

  He shoved the heavy oak door inward.

  She was standing in the center aisle, just beyond a gilded grille that separated the foyer from six oak pews. Incandescent fixtures illuminated a black-and-gold rococo altar beyond and cast her in shadows. The bottle-glass and bull’s-eye windows left and right were dark. The stained-glass heraldic signs of castle knights loomed unimpressive, awaiting revivement by the morning sun. Little worship occurred here. The chapel was now a display room for gilded reliquaries—Fellner’s collection, one of the most extensive in the world, rivaled most European cathedrals.