the Amber Room (2003)

by Steve Berry

  “I do not opine on politics, Comrade Chapaev. Besides, I’m Austrian, not German.”

  “Odd. I thought I detected a Bavarian twang to your accent.”

  “Good ears for a man your age.”

  Chapaev turned toward her. “That was your father’s nickname. `Yxo. Ears. They called him that in Mauthausen. He was the only one in the barracks who spoke German.”

  “I didn’t know that. Daddy spoke little of the camp.”

  Chapaev nodded. “Understandable. I spent the last months of the war in one myself.” The old man stared hard at Knoll. “To your accent, Herr Knoll, I used to be good at such things. German was my specialty.”

  “Your English is quite good, too.”

  “I have a talent for language.”

  “Your former job certainly demanded powers of observation and communication.”

  She was curious at the friction that seemed to exist. Two strangers, yet they acted as though they knew one another. Or, more accurately, hated one another. But the sparring was delaying their mission. She said, “Danya, can you tell us where the Amber Room is?”

  “In the caves to the north. The Harz Mountains. Near Warthberg.”

  “You sound like Koch,” Knoll said. “Those caves have been scoured clean.”

  “Not these. They were in the eastern portion. The Soviets chained them off. Refused to let anyone inside. There are so many. It would take decades to explore them all, and they are like rat mazes. The Nazis wired most with explosives and stored ammunition in the rest. That’s one reason Karol and I never went to look. Better to let the amber rest quietly than risk exploding it.”

  Knoll slipped a small notebook and pen from his back pocket. “Draw a map.”

  Chapaev worked a few minutes on a sketch. She and Knoll sat silent. Only the crackle of the fire and the pen moving across the paper broke the stillness. Chapaev handed the pad back to Knoll.

  “The right one can be found by the sun,” Chapaev said. “The opening points due east. A friend who visited the area recently said the entrance is now chained shut with iron bars, the designation BCR-65 on the outside. The German authorities have yet to sweep the inside for explosives, so no one has ventured in as yet. Or so I am told. I drew a tunnel map as best I could remember. You will have to dig at the end. But you will hit the iron door that leads into the chamber after a few feet.”

  Knoll said, “You’ve kept this secret for decades. Yet now you freely tell two strangers?”

  “Rachel is not a stranger.”

  “How do you know she’s not lying about who she is?”

  “I see her father in her, clearly.”

  “Yet you know nothing about me. You haven’t even inquired as to why I’m here.”

  “If Rachel brought you, that is good enough for me. I am an old man, Herr Knoll. My time is short. Someone needs to know what I know. Maybe Karol and I were right. Maybe not. Nothing may be there at all. Why don’t you go see to be sure.” Chapaev turned to her. “Now if that’s all you wanted, my child, I’m tired and would like to rest.”

  “All right, Danya. And thank you. We’ll see if the Amber Room’s there.”

  Chapaev sighed. “Do that, my child. Do that.”

  “Very good, comrade,” Suzanne said in Russian as Chapaev opened the bedroom door. The old man’s guests had just left, and she heard the car drive away. “Have you ever considered an acting career? Christian Knoll is hard to fool. But you did wonderfully. I almost believed you myself.”

  “How do you know Knoll will go to the cave?”

  “He’s eager to please his new employer. He wants the Amber Room so bad, he’ll take the chance and look, even if he thinks it’s a dead end.”

  “What if he thinks it’s a trap?”

  “No reason to suspect anything, thanks to your remarkable performance.”

  Chapaev’s eyes locked on his grandson, the boy gagged and bound to an oak chair beside the bed.

  “Your precious grandson greatly appreciates your performance.” She stroked the child’s hair. “Don’t you, Julius?”

  The boy tried to jerk back, humming behind the tape across his mouth. She raised the sound-suppressed pistol close to his head. His young eyes widened as the barrel nestled to his skull.

  “There is no need for that,” Chapaev quickly said. “I did as you asked. I drew the map exactly. No tricks. Though my heart aches for what may happen to poor Rachel. She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “Poor Rachel should have thought of that before she decided to involve herself. This is not her fight, nor is it her concern. She should have left well enough alone.”

  “Could we go out into the other room?” he asked.

  “As you wish. I don’t think dear Julius will be traveling anywhere. Do you?”

  They walked into the den. He closed the bedroom door. “The boy does not deserve to die,” he quietly said.

  “Your are perceptive, Comrade Chapaev.”

  “Do not call me that.”

  “You’re not proud of your Soviet heritage?”

  “I have no Soviet heritage. I was White Russian. Only against Hitler did I join with them.”

  “You harbored no reservations about stealing treasure for Stalin.”

  “A mistake of the times. Dear god. Fifty years I’ve kept the secret. Never once have I said a word. Can’t you accept that and let my grandson live.”

  She said nothing.

  “You work for Loring, don’t you?” he asked. “Josef is surely dead. It must be Ernst, the son.”

  “Again, very perceptive, Comrade.”

  “I knew one day you would come. It was the chance I took. But the boy is not a part of this. Let him go.”

  “He’s a loose end. As you have been. I read the correspondence between yourself and Karol Borya. Why couldn’t you leave it alone? Let the matter die. How many more have you corresponded with? My employer does not desire to take any more chances. Borya’s gone. The other searchers are gone. You are all that’s left.”

  “You killed Karol, didn’t you?”

  “Actually, no. Herr Knoll beat me to it.”

  “Rachel does not know?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “That poor child, the danger she is in.”

  “Her problem, Comrade, as I have said.”

  “I expect you to kill me. In some ways I welcome it. But please let the boy go. He cannot identify you. He does not speak Russian. He understood nothing we have said. Certainly that’s not your actual appearance. The boy could never help the police.”

  “You know I cannot do that.”

  He lunged toward her, but muscles that perhaps once scaled cliffs and shimmied out of buildings had atrophied with age and disease. She easily sidestepped his meaningless attempt.

  “There is no need for this, Comrade.”

  He fell to his knees. “Please. I beg you in the name of the Virgin Mary, let the boy go. He deserves a life.” Chapaev hinged his body forward and pressed his face tight to the floor. “Poor Julius,” he muttered through tears. “Poor, poor Julius.”

  She aimed the gun at the back of Chapeav’s skull and considered his request.

  “Dasvidániya, Comrade.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Weren’t you a little rough on him?” Rachel said.

  They were speeding north on the autobahn, Kehlheim and Danya Chapaev an hour south. She was driving. Knoll had said he’d take over in a little while and navigate the twisting roads through the Harz Mountains.

  He glanced up from the sketch Chapaev had drawn. “You must understand, Rachel, I have been doing this many years. People lie far more than they tell the truth. Chapaev says the Amber Room rests in one of the Harz caves. That theory has been explored a thousand times. I pushed to be sure if he was being truthful.”

  “He appeared sincere.”

  “I am suspicious that, after all these years, the treasure is simply waiting at the end of a dark tunnel.”

  “Didn’t you say there
are hundreds of tunnels and most haven’t been explored? Too dangerous, right?”

  “That’s correct. But I am familiar with the general area Chapaev describes. I have searched caves there myself.”

  She told him about Wayland McKoy and the ongoing expedition.

  “Stod is only forty kilometers from where we will be,” Knoll said. “Lots of caves there, as well, supposedly full of loot. If you believe what the treasure hunters say.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I have learned that anything worth having is usually already owned. The real hunt is for those who possess it. You would be surprised how many missing treasures are simply lying on a table in somebody’s bedroom or hanging on the wall, as free as a trinket bought in a department store. People think time protects them. It doesn’t. Back in the 1960s, a Monet was found in a farmhouse by a tourist. The owner had taken it in exchange for a pound of butter. Stories like that are endless, Rachel.”

  “That what you do? Search for those opportunities?”

  “Along with other quests.”

  They drove on, the terrain flattening and then rising as the highway crossed central Germany and veered northwest into mountains. After a stop on the side of the road, Rachel moved to the passenger seat. Knoll pulled the car back on the highway. “These are the Harz. The northernmost mountains in central Germany.”

  The peaks were not the towering snowy precipices of the Alps. Instead the slopes rose at gentle angles, rounded at the top, covered in fir, beech, and walnut trees. Towns and villages were nestled throughout in tiny valleys and wide ravines. Off in the distance the silhouette of even higher peaks were visible.

  “Reminds me of the Appalachians,” she said.

  “This is the land of Grimm,” Knoll said. “The kingdom of magic. In the Dark Ages, it was one of the final venues for paganism. Fairies, witches, and goblins were supposed to roam out there. It is said the last bear and lynx in Germany were killed somewhere nearby.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” she said.

  “Silver used to be mined here, but that stopped in the tenth century. Then came gold, lead, zinc, and barium oxide. The last mine closed before the war in the 1930s. That’s where most of the caves and tunnels came from. Old mines the Nazis made good use of. Perfect hiding places from bombers, and tough for ground troops to invade.”

  She watched the winding road ahead and thought about Knoll’s mention of the Brothers Grimm. She half expected to see the goose that laid the golden egg, or the two black stones that were once cruel brothers, or the Pied Piper luring rats and children with a tune.

  An hour later they entered Warthberg. The dark outline of a bulwark wall encased the compact village, softened only by arching tresses and conical-roofed bastions. The architectural difference from the south was obvious. The red roofs and timeworn ramparts of Kehlheim were replaced with half-timbered facades sheathed in dull slate. Fewer flowers adorned the windows and the houses. There was a definite glow of medieval color, but it seemed tempered by a shellac of self-consciousness. Not a whole lot different, she concluded, from the contrast between New England and the Deep South.

  Knoll parked in front of an inn with the interesting name of Goldene Krone. “Golden Crown,” he told her before disappearing inside. She waited outside and studied the busy street. An air of commercialism sprang from the shop windows lining the cobbled lane. Knoll returned a few minutes later.

  “I obtained two rooms for the night. It is nearly five o’clock, and daylight will last another five or six hours. But we’ll head up into the hills in the morning. No rush. It has waited fifty years.”

  “It stays daylight that long around here?”

  “We’re halfway to the arctic circle, and it is almost summer.”

  Knoll lifted both their bags out of the rental. “I’ll get you settled, then there are a few things I need to buy. After, we can have dinner. I noticed a place driving in.”

  “That’d be nice,” she said.

  Knoll left Rachel in her room. He’d noticed the yellow phone booth driving in and quickly retraced a path back toward the town wall. He didn’t like using hotel room phones. Too much record keeping. The same was true for mobile phones. An obscure pay booth was always safer for a quick long-distance call. Inside, he dialed Burg Herz.

  “About time. What’s going on?” Monika asked as she answered the phone.

  “I am trying to find the Amber Room.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not far away.”

  “I’m in no mood, Christian.”

  “The Harz Mountains. Warthberg.” He told her about Rachel Cutler, Danya Chapaev, and the cave.

  “We’ve heard this before,” Monika said. “Those mountains are like ant mounds, and nobody has ever found a damn thing.”

  “I have a map. What could it hurt?”

  “You want to screw her, don’t you?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “She’s learning a bit too much, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Nothing of any consequence. I had no choice but to take her along. I assumed Chapaev would be more at ease with Borya’s daughter than with me.”

  “And?”

  “He was forthcoming. Too open, if you ask me.”

  “Careful with this Cutler woman,” Monika said.

  “She thinks I’m searching for the Amber Room. Nothing more. There is no connection between me and her father.”

  “Sounds like you’re developing a heart, Christian.”

  “Hardly.” He told her about Suzanne Danzer and the episode in Atlanta.

  “Loring is concerned about what we’re doing,” Monika said. “He and Father talked yesterday for a long time on the phone. He was definitely picking for information. A bit obvious for him.”

  “Welcome to the game.”

  “I don’t need amusement, Christian. What I want is the Amber Room. And, according to Father, this appears to be the best lead ever.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Always so pessimistic. Why do you say that?”

  “Something about Chapaev bothers me. Hard to say. Just something.”

  “Go to the mine, Christian, and look. Satisfy yourself. Then fuck your judge and get on with the job.”

  Rachel dialed the phone beside the bed and gave an at&t overseas operator her credit card number. After eight rings, the answering machine clicked on at her house and her voice instructed a caller to leave a message.

  “Paul, I’m in a town called Warthberg in central Germany. Here’s the hotel and number.” She told him about the Goldene Krone. “I’ll call tomorrow. Kiss the kids for me. Bye.”

  She glanced at her watch. 5:00 P.M. Eleven o’clock in the morning in Atlanta. Maybe he took the kids to the zoo or a movie. She was glad they were with Paul. It was a shame they couldn’t be with him every day. Children need a father, and he needed them. That was the hardest thing about divorce, knowing a family was no more. She’d sat on the bench a year, divorcing others, before her own marriage fell apart. Many times, while listening to evidence she really did not need to hear, she’d wondered why couples who once loved one another suddenly had nothing good to say. Was hate a prerequisite to divorce? A necessary element? She and Paul didn’t hate one another. They’d sat down, calmly divided their possessions, and decided what was best for the children. But what choice did Paul have? She’d made it clear the marriage was over. The subject was not open to debate. He’d tried hard to talk her out of it, but she was determined.

  How many times had she asked herself the same question? Had she done the right thing? How many times had she come to the same conclusion?

  Who knows?

  Knoll arrived at her room, and she followed him to a quaint stone building that he explained had once been a staging inn, now transformed into a restaurant.

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “I inquired earlier when I stopped by to see how late it stayed open.”

  The inside was
a Gothic stone crypt with vaulted ceilings, stained glass windows, and wrought-iron lanterns. Knoll commandeered one of the trestle tables on the far side. Two hours had passed since they arrived in Warthberg. She’d taken the time for a quick bath and a change of clothes. Her escort had changed, too. Jeans and boots replaced by wool slacks, a colorful sweater, and tan leather shoes.

  “What did you do after you left earlier?” she asked as they sat down.

  “Purchased what we will need tomorrow. Flashlights, a shovel, bolt cutter, two jackets. It will be chilly inside the mountain. I noticed that you wore a pair of ankle boots today. Wear them tomorrow—you will need good footing.”

  “You act like you’ve done this before.”

  “Several times. But we have to be careful. No one is supposed to venture into the mines without a permit. The government controls access to keep people from blowing themselves up.”

  “I assume we’re not worrying with permits?”

  “Hardly. That’s why it took so long. I bought from several merchants. Not enough in one place to draw attention.”

  A waiter sauntered over and took their orders. Knoll ordered a bottle of wine, a vigorous red the waiter insisted was local.

  “How do you like your adventure so far?” he asked.

  “Beats the courtroom.”

  She glanced around the intimate eatery. About twenty others were scattered at the tables. Mainly twosomes. One foursome. “You think we’ll find what we’re looking for?”

  “Very good,” he said.

  She was perplexed. “What do you mean?”

  “No mention of our goal.”

  “I assumed you wouldn’t want to advertise our intentions.”

  “You assume right. And I doubt it.”

  “Still don’t trust what you heard this morning?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust. I have just heard it all before.”

  “But not from my father.”

  “Your father isn’t the one leading us.”

  “You still think Chapaev lied?”

  The waiter brought their wine and food orders. Knoll’s was a steaming slab of pork, hers a roasted chicken, both with potatoes and salad. She was impressed with the fast service.