by Steve Berry
Dear Karol,
The clipping enclosed is from the Bonn newspaper. Yeltsin arrived in Germany proclaiming he knew where the Amber Room was located. The newspapers and magazines buzzed with the announcement. Did it reach across the ocean to you? He claimed scholars uncovered the information from Soviet records. The Extraordinary Commission for Crimes against Russia, Yeltsin called us. Ha! All the fool did was extract a half billion marks in aid from Bonn, then apologized, saying the records weren’t for the Amber Room but other treasures pilfered from Leningrad. More Russian bullshit. The Russians, Soviets, Nazis. All the same. The current talk about restoring Russian heritage is more propaganda. What they do is sell our heritage. The papers every day are full of stories about paintings, sculptures, and jewels being sold. A rummage sale of our history. We must keep the panels safe. No more letters, at least for awhile. The photo of your granddaughter is appreciated. The joy she must bring you. Good health, my friend.
Danya
Danya,
I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been too long since we last wrote. I thought perhaps after three years, it may be safe. There have been no more visits, and I have read few reports on anything concerning the panels. Since we last communicated, my daughter and her husband divorced. They love each other, yet simply cannot live together. My grandchildren are well. I hope yours are, too. We are both old. It would be nice to venture and see if the panels are really there. But neither of us can make the journey. Besides, it might still be too dangerous. Somebody was watching when Yancy Cutler asked questions about Loring. I know in my heart that bomb was not meant for an Italian minister. I still grieve for the Cutlers. So many have died looking for the Amber Room. Perhaps it should stay lost. No matter. Neither of us can protect it much longer. Good health, old friend.
Karol
Rachel,
My precious darling. My only child. Your father now rests in peace with your mother. We are surely together, for a merciful God would not deny two people who loved each other the opportunity of eternal happiness. I have penned this note to say what perhaps should have been said in life. You have always been aware of my past, what I did for the Soviets before emigrating. I pilfered art. Nothing more than a thief, but one sanctioned and encouraged by Stalin. I rationalized it at the time with my hatred for the Nazis, but I was wrong. We stole so much from so many, all in the name of reparations. What we sought most was the Amber Room. Ours by heritage, stolen by invaders. The letters bound to this note tell some of the story of our search. My old friend Danya and I looked hard. Did we ever find it? Perhaps. Neither of us really went and looked. Too many were watching in those days and, by the time we narrowed the trail, both of us realized the Soviets were far worse than the Germans. So we left it alone. Danya and I vowed never to reveal what we knew, or perhaps simply what we thought we knew. Only when Yancy volunteered to make discreet inquiries, checking information that I once thought credible, did I inquire again. He was making an inquiry on his last trip to Italy. Whether that blast on the plane was attributable to his questions or something else will never be known. All I know is that the search for the Amber Room has proved dangerous. Maybe the danger comes from what Danya and I suspect. Maybe not. I haven’t heard from my old comrade in many years. My last letter to him went unanswered. Perhaps he is with me now, too. My precious Maya. My friend Danya. Good companions for eternity. Hopefully it will be many years before you join us, my darling. Have a good life. Be successful. Take care of Marla and Brent. I love them so. I’m very proud of you. Be good. Maybe give Paul another chance. But never, absolutely never concern yourself with the Amber Room. Remember the story of Phaëthon and the tears of the Heliades. Heed his ambition and their grief. Maybe the panels will be found one day. I hope not. Politicians should not be entrusted with such a treasure. Leave it in its grave. Tell Paul I’m so sorry. I love you.
NINETEEN
6:34 p.m.
Paul’s heart pounded as Rachel looked up from her father’s final note, tears falling from her sad green eyes. He could feel the pain. Hard to tell where his stopped and hers started.
“He wrote so elegantly,” she said.
He agreed.
“He learned English well, read incessantly. He knew more about participial phrases and dangling modifiers than I ever did. I think his broken speech was just a way to hold on to his heritage. Poor Daddy.”
Her auburn hair was tied in a ponytail. She wore no makeup, was dressed only in a white terry-cloth robe over a flannel nightgown. The house was finally clear of all the mourners. The children were in their rooms, still upset from the emotional day. Lucy was scampering through the dining room.
“Have you read all these letters?” Rachel asked.
He nodded. “After I left the bank. I went back to your father’s house and got the rest of this stuff.”
They were sitting in Rachel’s dining room. Their old dining room. The two folders with news articles on the Amber Room, a German map, the USA Today, the will, all the letters, and the note to Rachel were fanned out on the table. He’d told her what he found and where. He also told her about the USA article her father specifically asked for Friday and his questions on Wayland McKoy.
“Daddy was watching something on CNN about that when I left the kids with him. I remember the name.” Her body sagged in the chair. “What was that file doing in the freezer? That’s not like him. What’s going on, Paul?”
“I don’t know. But Karol was obviously interested in the Amber Room.” He pointed to Borya’s last note. “What did he mean about Phaëthon and the tears of the Heliades?”
“Another story Mama used to tell me when I was little. Phaëthon, the mortal son of Helios, God of the Sun. I was fascinated by it. Daddy loved mythology. He said thinking about fantasy was one of the things that got him through Mauthausen.” She shuffled through the clippings and photocopies, glancing closely at a few. “He thought he was responsible for what happened to your parents and the rest of the people on that plane. I don’t understand.”
Neither did he. And he’d thought of little else during the past two hours. “Weren’t your parents in Italy on museum business?” asked Rachel.
“The whole board went. The trip was to secure loans of works from Italian museums.”
“Daddy seemed to think there was a connection.”
He also recalled something else Borya wrote. I should never have asked him to inquire again while in Italy.
What did he mean, again?
“Don’t you want to know what happened?” Rachel suddenly asked, her voice rising.
He’d not liked that tone years ago and didn’t appreciate it now. “I never said that. It’s just that nine years have passed, and it would be nearly impossible to find out. My God, Rachel, they never even found bodies.”
“Paul, your parents may have been murdered, and you don’t want to do anything about it?”
Impetuous and stubborn. What had Karol said? Got both traits from her mother. Right.
“I didn’t say that either. There’s just nothing practical that can be done.”
“We can find Danya Chapaev.”
“What do you mean?”
“Chapaev. He may still be alive.” She looked down at the envelopes, the return addresses. “Kehlheim couldn’t be that hard to find.”
“It’s in southern Germany. Bavaria. I found it on the map.”
“You looked?”
“Not hard to spot. Karol circled it.”
She unfolded the map and saw for herself. “Daddy said they knew something on the Amber Room but never went to check. Maybe Chapaev could tell us what that was?”
He couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Did you read what your father said? He told you to leave the Amber Room alone. Finding Chapaev is the one thing he didn’t want you doing.”
“Chapaev might know more about what happened to your parents.”
“I’m a lawyer, Rachel, not an international investigator.”
“O
kay. Let’s take this to the police. They could look into it.”
“That’s far more practical than your first suggestion. But the trail’s still years old.”
Her face hardened. “I hope to hell Marla and Brent don’t inherit your complacency. I’d like to think they’d want to know what happened if a plane blew out of the sky with you and me on it.”
She knew exactly how to push his buttons. It was one of the things he most resented about her. “Did you read those articles?” he asked. “People have died searching for the Amber Room. Maybe my parents. Maybe not. One thing’s for certain. Your father didn’t want you involved. And you’re way out of your league. What you know about art could fit inside a thimble.”
“Along with your nerve.”
He stared hard into her angry eyes, bit his tongue, and tried to be understanding. She’d buried her father this morning. Still, one word kept reverberating through his brain.
Bitch.
He took a deep breath before quietly saying, “Your second suggestion is the most practical. Why don’t we let the police handle this.” He paused. “I realize how upset you are. But, Rachel, Karol’s death was an accident.”
“Trouble is, Paul, if it wasn’t, then add my father to the list of casualties along with your parents.” She cut him one of her looks. The kind he’d seen too many times before. “Still want to be practical?”
TWENTY
Wednesday, May 14, 10:25 a.m.
Rachel forced herself to climb out of bed and get the children dressed. She then dropped the kids off at school and reluctantly headed for the courthouse. She’d not been in her chambers since last Friday, having taken Monday and Tuesday off.
Throughout the morning her secretary made things easy, running interference, rerouting calls, deflecting lawyers and the other judges. Originally the week had been scheduled for civil jury trials, but they were all hastily postponed. An hour ago she’d called the Atlanta police department and requested somebody from Homicide be sent to her chambers. She wasn’t the most popular judge with the police. Everyone seemed to assume that since she was once a hard-nosed prosecutor, she’d be a pro-police judge. But her rulings, if they could be labeled, tended to be defense-oriented. Liberal was the term the Fraternal Order of Police and the press liked to use. Traitor, was the description she’d been told a lot of the narcotics detectives whispered. But she didn’t care. The Constitution was there to protect people. The police were supposed to work within its bounds, not outside them. Her job was to make sure they didn’t take any shortcuts. How many times had her father preached, when government comes before law, tyranny is not far behind.
And if anyone should know, he should.
“Judge Cutler,” her secretary said through the speaker phone. Most times they were simply Rachel and Sami; only when someone came around was she labeled judge. “A Lieutenant Barlow is here from the Atlanta police. In response to your call.”
She quickly dabbed her eyes with a tissue. The picture of her father on the credenza had triggered more tears. She stood and smoothed her cotton skirt and blouse.
The paneled door opened and a thin man with wavy black hair strutted in. He closed the door behind him and introduced himself as Mike Barlow, assigned to the homicide division.
She regained her judicial composure and offered a seat. “I appreciate your coming over, Lieutenant.”
“No problem. The department always tries to accommodate the bench.”
But she wondered. The tone was irritatingly cordial, bordering on condescending.
“After you called, I pulled the incident report on your father’s death. I’m sorry about your loss. It appears to be one of those accidents that sometimes happen.”
“My father was fairly independent. Still drove a car. He had no real health problems, and he’d climbed those stairs for years without a problem.”
“Your point?”
She was liking his tone even less. “You tell me.”
“Judge, I get the message. But there’s nothing here to suggest foul play.”
“He survived a Nazi concentration camp, Lieutenant. I think he could climb stairs.”
Barlow seemed unpersuaded. “The report says nothing appears missing. His wallet was on the dresser. The televisions, stereo, VCR were all there. Both doors were unlocked. No evidence of forced entry anywhere. Where’s the burglary?”
“My father left the doors unlocked all the time.”
“That’s not smart, but it doesn’t appear to have contributed to his death. Look, I agree, no evidence of robbery could lead to an implication of murder, but there’s nothing to suggest anyone was even around when he died.”
She was curious. “Did your people search the house?”
“I’ve been told they looked around. Nothing elaborate. There seemed no need. I’m curious, what do you think was the motive for murder? Your father have enemies?”
She did not answer him. Instead she asked, “What did the medical examiner say?”
“Broken neck. Caused by the fall. No evidence of other trauma except bruising on the arms and legs from the fall. Again, Judge, what makes you think your father’s death was something other than accidental?”
She considered telling him about the file in the freezer, Danya Chapaev, the Amber Room, and Paul’s parents. But the arrogant ass didn’t even want to be here, and she’d sound like a conspiratorial nut. He was right. There was no proof her father had been shoved down the stairs. Nothing that connected his death to any “curse of the Amber Room,” as some of the articles suggested. So what if her father was interested in the subject? He loved art. Once worked with it every day. So what if he was reading articles in his study, stashed more in his freezer, unfolded a German map in the den, and possessed a keen interest in a man heading for Germany to dig in forgotten caves? A huge leap from that to murder. Maybe Paul was right. She decided to let it lie with this guy.
“Nothing, Lieutenant. You’re quite right. Just a tragic fall. Thanks for coming by.”
Rachel sat sullen in her office and thought back to when she was sixteen, her father explaining for the first time about Mauthausen, and how the Russians and Dutch worked the stone quarry, hauling tons of boulders up a long series of narrow steps to the camp where more prisoners chiseled them into bricks.
The Jews, though, weren’t so lucky. Each day they were tossed down the cliff into the quarry simply for sport, their screams echoing as bodies flew through the air, bets taken by the guards on how many times flesh and bones would bounce before being silenced by death. Eventually, her father explained, the SS had to stop the hurling because it so disrupted the work.
Not because they were killing people, she remembered him saying, only because it affected the work.
Her father cried that day, one of the few times ever, and so had she. Her mother had told her about his war experiences and what he’d done afterward, but her father hardly mentioned the time. She’d always noticed the smeared tattoo on his left forearm, wondering when he’d explain.
They forced us to run into electric fence. Some did willingly, tired of torture. Others were shot, hanged, or injected in the heart. The gas came later.
She’d asked how many died in Mauthausen. And he told her without hesitation that 60 percent of the two hundred thousand never made it out. He arrived in April 1944. The Hungarian Jews came shortly thereafter, every one of them slaughtered like sheep. He’d helped heave the bodies from the gas chamber to the oven, a daily ritual, commonplace, like taking out the garbage, the guards used to say. She remembered him telling her about one night in particular, toward the end, when Hermann Göring marched into the camp wearing a pearl gray uniform.
Evil on two legs, he called him.
Göring had ordered four Germans murdered, her father part of the detail that poured water over their naked bodies until they froze to death. Göring stood impassive the whole time, rubbing a piece of amber, wanting to know something about the Amber Room. Of all the horror that happened
in Mauthausen, her father said, that night with Göring was what stayed with him.
And set his course in life.
After the war, he was sent to interview Göring in prison during the Nürnberg trials.
Did he remember you? she’d asked.
My face in Mauthausen meant nothing to him.
But Göring recalled the torture, saying he greatly admired the soldiers for holding out. German superiority, breeding, he’d said. Her love for her father multiplied tenfold after finally hearing about Mauthausen. What he endured was unimaginable and just to survive was an accomplishment. But to survive with his sanity intact seemed nothing short of a miracle.
Sitting in the quiet of her chambers, Rachel cried. That precious man was gone. His voice forever silent, his love only a memory. For the first time in her life she was alone. Her parents’ entire family had either perished in the war or were inaccessible, somewhere in Belarus, strangers really, linked merely by genes. Only her two children were left. She remembered how they’d ended that conversation about Mauthausen twenty-four years ago.
Daddy, did you ever find the Amber Room?
He stared back at her with woeful eyes. She wondered then and now if there was something he wanted to tell her. Something she needed to know. Or was it better she not know? Hard to tell. And his words didn’t help.
Never did, my darling.
But his tone was reminiscent of when he once explained there really was a Santa Claus, an Easter Bunny, a Tooth Fairy. Hollow words that simply needed to be said. Now, after reading the letters between her father and Danya Chapaev and the note penned in his own hand, she was convinced that there was more to the story. Her father harbored a secret, and apparently had done so for years.
But he was gone.
Only one lead left.
Danya Chapaev.
And she knew what had to be done.
Rachel stepped off the elevator on the twenty-third floor and marched toward the paneled doors labeled PRIDGEN & WOODWORTH. The law firm consumed the entire twenty-third and twenty-fourth floors of the downtown high-rise, its probate division on the twenty-third.