by Steve Berry
“How about I reserve judgment until in the morning,” Knoll said. “Give the old man the benefit of the doubt, as you Americans say.”
She smiled. “I think that’d be a good idea.”
Knoll gestured to dinner. “Shall we eat and talk about more pleasant matters?”
After dinner Knoll led her back to the Goldene Krone. It was nearly 10 P.M., yet the sky was still backlit, the evening air like fall in north Georgia.
“I do have a question,” she said. “If we find the Amber Room, how will you keep the Russian government from reclaiming the panels?”
“There are legal avenues available. The panels have been abandoned for more than fifty years. Possession surely will count for something. Besides, the Russians may not even want them back. They have re-created the room with new amber and new technology.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“The room in the Catherine Palace has been recrafted. It has taken over two decades. The loss of the Baltic states, when the Soviet Union collapsed, meant they were forced to buy the amber on the open market. That proved expensive. But benefactors donated money. Ironically, a German manufacturing concern made the largest contribution.”
“All the more reason why they’d want the panels back. The originals would be far more precious than copies.”
“I don’t think so. The amber would be of different color and quality. It would not work to mix those pieces.”
“So the panels would not be intact, if found?”
He shook his head. “The amber was originally glued to slabs of solid oak with a mastic of beeswax and tree sap. The Catherine Palace was hardly temperature controlled, so as the wood expanded and contracted for over two hundred years, the amber progressively fell off. When the Nazis stole them, almost thirty percent had already dropped off. It is estimated that another fifteen percent was lost during transport to Königsberg. So all there would be now is a pile of pieces.”
“Then what good are they?”
He grinned. “Photographs exist. If you have the pieces, it would not be difficult to reassemble the whole room. My hope is that the Nazis packed them well, since my employer is not interested in recreations. The original is what matters.”
“Sounds like an interesting man.”
He smiled. “Nice try . . . again. But I never said he.”
They arrived at the hotel. Upstairs, at her room, Knoll stopped outside her door.
“How early in the morning?” she asked.
“We’ll leave at seven-thirty. The clerk downstairs says breakfast is available after seven. The area we seek is not far, about ten kilometers.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done. Not to mention saving my life.”
Knoll tipped his head. “My pleasure.”
She smiled at the gesture.
“You’ve mentioned your husband, but no one else. Is there a man in your life?”
The question came suddenly. A bit too fast. “No.” She instantly regretted her honesty.
“Your heart still longs for your ex-husband, doesn’t it?”
Not any of this man’s business, but for some reason she wanted to answer. “Sometimes.”
“Does he know?”
“Sometimes.”
“How long has it been?”
“Since what?”
“Since you made love to a man.”
His gaze lingered longer than she expected. This man was intuitive, and it bothered her. “Not long enough that I’d hop in bed with a total stranger.”
Knoll smiled. “Perhaps that stranger could help your heart forget?”
“I don’t think that’s what I need. But thanks for the offer.” She inserted her key and opened the lock, then glanced back. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually been propositioned.”
“And surely not the last.” He bowed his head and smiled. “Good night, Rachel.” And he walked off, toward the staircase and his own room.
But something grabbed her attention.
Interesting how rebukes seemed to challenge him.
THIRTY
Sunday, May 18, 7:30 a.m.
Knoll exited the hotel and studied the morning. A cotton fog wrapped the quiet village and surrounding valley. The sky was gloomy, a late-spring sun straining hard to warm the day. Rachel leaned against the car, apparently ready. He walked over. “The fog will help conceal our visit. Being Sunday is good, too. Most people are in church.”
They climbed into the car.
“I thought you said this was a bastion of paganism,” she said.
“That’s for the tourist brochures and travel guides. Lots of Catholics live in these mountains, and have for centuries. They are a religious people.”
The Volvo snarled to life, and he quickly navigated out of Warthberg, the cobbled streets nearly deserted and damp from a morning chill. The road east from town wound up and then down into another fog-draped valley.
“This area reminds me even more of the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina,” Rachel said. “They’re veiled like this, too.”
He followed the map Chapaev provided and wondered if this was a wild goose chase. How could tons of amber stay hidden for more than half a century? Many had looked. Some had even died. He was well aware of the so-called curse of the Amber Room. But what harm could there be in a quick look into one more mountain? At least the journey would be interesting, thanks to Rachel Cutler.
Over a crest in the road they dropped back into another valley, thick stands of misty beech towering on either side. He came to where Chapaev’s road map ended and parked in a pocket of woods. He said, “The rest of the way is on foot.”
They climbed out and he retrieved a caver’s pack from the trunk.
“What’s in there?” Rachel asked.
“What we require.” He slid the shoulder straps on. “Now we are merely a couple of hikers, out for the day.”
He handed her a jacket. “Hang on to it. You’re going to need it once we’re underground.”
He’d donned his jacket in the hotel room, the stiletto sheathed on his right arm beneath the nylon sleeve. He led the way into the forest, and the grassy terrain rose as they moved north from the highway. They followed a defined trail that wound the base of a tall range, while offshoots traced paths higher along wooded slopes toward the summits. Dark entrances to three shafts loomed in the distance. One was chained shut with an iron gate, a sign—GEFAHR-ZUTRITT VERBOTEN-EXPLOSIV—posted on the rough granite.
“What does that say?” Rachel asked.
“Danger. No Admittance. Explosives.”
“You weren’t kidding about that.”
“These mountains were like bank vaults. The Allies found the German national treasury in one. Four hundred tons of art from Berlin’s Kaiser Friedrich Museum was stashed here, too. The explosives were better than troops and watch dogs.”
“Is some of that art what Wayland McKoy’s after?” she asked.
“From what you told me, yes.”
“You think he’ll have any luck?”
“Hard to say. But I seriously doubt millions of dollars in old canvases are still waiting around here to be found.”
The smell of damp leaves was thick in the heavy air.
“What was the point?” Rachel asked as they walked. “The war was lost. Why hide all that stuff?”
“You have to think like a German in 1945. Hitler ordered the army to fight to the last man or be executed. He believed if Germany held out long enough the Allies would eventually join him against the Bolsheviks. Hitler knew how much Churchill hated Stalin. He also read Stalin correctly and accurately predicted what the Soviets had in mind for Europe. Hitler thought Germany could remain intact by playing off the Soviets. He reasoned the Americans and the British would eventually join him against the Communists. Then, all those treasures could be saved.”
“Foolishness,” Rachel said.
“Madness is a better description.”
Sweat beaded on his b
row. His leather boots were stained from dew. He stopped and surveyed the various shaft entrances in the distance, along with the sky. “None point east. Chapaev said the opening faced east. And according to him it should be marked BCR-65.”
He moved deeper into the trees. Ten minutes later, Rachel pointed and yelled, “There.”
He stared ahead. Through the trees, another shaft entrance was visible, the opening barred by iron. A rusty sign affixed to the bars read BCR-65. He checked the sun. East.
Son of a bitch.
They approached close and he slid off the cave pack. He glanced around. No one was in sight, and no sounds disturbed the silence beyond the birds and an occasional rustle from fox squirrels. He examined the bars and gate. All the iron was purpled from heavy oxidation. A steel chain and hasp lock held the gate firmly shut. The chain and lock were definitely newer. Nothing unusual, though. German federal inspectors routinely resecured the shafts. He slipped bolt cutters from the cave pack.
“Nice to see you’re prepared,” Rachel said.
He snapped the chain and it slinked to the ground. He slid the cutters back into the pack and pulled open the gate.
The hinges screamed.
He stopped. No use attracting unnecessary attention.
He worked the gate open slowly, the tear of metal on metal quieter. Ahead was an arched opening about five meters high and four meters wide. Lichens clung to the blackened stone beyond the entrance and the stale air reeked of mold. Like a grave, he thought. “This opening is wide enough to accept a truck.”
“Truck?”
“If the Amber Room is inside, so are trucks. There is no other way the crates could have been transported. Twenty-two tons of amber is heavy. The Germans would have driven trucks into the cave.”
“They didn’t have forklifts?”
“Hardly. We’re talking about the end of the war. The Nazis were desperate to hide their treasure. No time for finesse.”
“How did the trucks get up here?”
“Fifty years have passed. There were many roads and fewer trees then. This whole area was a vital manufacturing site.”
He pulled two flashlights and a thick coil of twine from his pack, then reshouldered it. He closed the gate behind them and draped the chain and lock back across the bars, providing the appearance that the opening was still bolted shut.
“We might have company,” he said. “That should keep people moving to another cavern. Many are unobstructed, much easier to enter.”
He handed her a flashlight. Their two narrow beams pierced only meters ahead in the forbidding blackness. A piece of rusted iron protruded from the rock. He tied the end of the twine securely and handed the coil to Rachel.
“Unravel it on the way in. This is how we’ll find our way out if we get disoriented.”
He cautiously led the way forward, their flashlights revealing a rugged passage deep into the bowels of the mountain. Rachel followed him after slipping on her jacket.
“Be careful,” he said. “This tunnel could be mined. That would explain the chaining.”
“Comforting to know.”
“Nothing worth having is ever easy to obtain.”
He stopped and glanced back toward the entrance forty meters behind them. The air had turned fetid and cold. He fished Chapaev’s drawing from his pocket and studied the route with the flashlight. “There should be a fork ahead. Let’s see if Chapaev is right.”
A suffocating pall permeated the air. Rotten. Nauseating.
“Bat guano,” he said.
“I think I’m going to vomit.”
“Breathe shallow and try to ignore it.”
“That’s like trying to ignore cow manure on your upper lip.”
“These shafts are full of bats.”
“Lovely.”
He grinned. “In China, bats are revered as the symbol of happiness and long life.”
“Happiness stinks.”
A fork in the tunnel appeared. He stopped. “The map says to go right.” He did. Rachel followed, the twine unraveling behind her.
“Let me know if you get to the end of the coil. I have more,” he said.
The odor lessened. The new tunnel was tighter than the main shaft, yet still large enough for a transport truck. Dark capillaries branched off periodically. The echo of chirping bats, waiting for night, loomed clear.
The mountain was most certainly a labyrinth. They all were. Miners in search of ore and salt had burrowed for centuries. How wonderful it would be if this shaft turned out to be the one that led to the Amber Room. Ten million euros. All his. Not to mention Monika’s gratitude. Perhaps then Rachel Cutler would be sufficiently excited to let him into her pants. Her rebuke last night had been more arousing than insulting. He wouldn’t be surprised if her husband was the only man she’d ever been with. And that thought was intoxicating. Nearly a virgin. Certainly one since her divorce. What a pleasure having her was going to be.
The shaft started to narrow and rise.
His mind snapped back to the tunnel.
They were at least a hundred meters into the granite and limestone. Chapaev’s diagram showed another fork ahead.
“I’m out of string,” Rachel said.
He stopped and handed her a new coil.
“Tie the ends tight.”
He studied the diagram. Supposedly their destination was just ahead. But something wasn’t right. The tunnel was not wide enough now for a vehicle. If the Amber Room had been hidden here, it would have been necessary to carry the crates. Eighteen, if he remembered correctly. All cataloged and indexed, the panels wrapped in cigarette paper. Was there another chamber ahead? Nothing unusual for rooms to be carved out of the rock. Nature did some. Others were man-made. According to Chapaev, slabs of rock and silt blocked a doorway to one such chamber twenty meters ahead.
He walked on, careful with each step. The deeper into the mountain, the higher the risk of explosives. His flashlight beam broke the darkness ahead, and his eyes focused on something.
He stared hard.
What the hell?
Suzanne raised the binoculars and studied the entrance to the mine. The sign she’d attached to the iron gate three years ago, BCR-65, was still there. The ploy seemed to have worked. Knoll was getting careless. He’d raced straight to the mine, Rachel Cutler in tow. It was a shame things had come to this, but little choice remained. Knoll was certainly interesting. Exciting even. But he was a problem. A big problem. Her loyalty to Ernst Loring was absolute. Beyond reproach. She owed Loring everything. He was the family she’d never been allowed. All her life the old man had treated her as a daughter, their relationship perhaps closer than the one he possessed with his two natural sons, their love of precious art the glue bonding them to one another. He’d been so excited when she gave him the snuffbox and the book. Pleasing him gave her a sense of satisfaction. So a choice between Christian Knoll and her benefactor was simply no choice at all.
Still, it was too bad. Knoll had his good points.
She stood on the forested ridge undisguised, her blond hair looped to her shoulders, a turtleneck sweater wrapping her chest. She lowered the binoculars and reached for the radio controller, extending the retractable antenna.
Knoll obviously hadn’t sensed her presence, thinking he’d rid himself of her in the Atlanta airport.
Not hardly, Christian.
A flick of a switch and the detonator activated.
She checked her watch.
Knoll and his damsel should be deep inside by now. More than enough distance to never get out. The authorities repeatedly warned the public about exploring the caverns. Explosives were common. Many had died through the years, which was why the government started licensing exploration. Three years ago there’d been an explosion in this same shaft, arranged by her when a Polish reporter crept too close. She’d lured him with visions of the Amber Room, the accident ultimately attributed to another unauthorized exploration, the body never found, buried under the rubble that
Christian Knoll should be studying right about now.
Knoll examined the wall of rock and sand. He’d seen a tunnel end before. This wasn’t a natural cessation. An explosion had caused what lay before him, and there was no way to shovel through the ceiling-to-floor debris.
And there was no iron door on the other side, either.
That much he knew.
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“There was an explosion here.”
“Maybe we made a wrong turn?”
“Not possible. I followed Chapaev’s directions precisely.”
Something was definitely wrong. His mind reeled off the facts. Chapaev’s information offered with no resistance. The chain and lock newer than the gate. The iron hinges still working. The trail easy to follow. Too damn easy.
And Suzanne Danzer? In Atlanta? Maybe not.
The best thing to do was head back to the entrance, enjoy Rachel Cutler, then get out of Warthberg. He’d planned to kill her all along. No need to have a live source of information available for another Acquisitor to tap. Danzer was already on the trail. So it was only a matter of time before she tracked down Rachel and talked to her, perhaps learning about Chapaev. Monika wouldn’t like that. Maybe Chapaev really did know where the Amber Room lay but had intentionally led them on this chase. So he decided to get rid of Rachel Cutler here and now, then head back to Kehlheim and squeeze information from Chapaev, one way or the other.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Roll up the string back to the entrance. I’ll follow.”
They started back through the maze, Rachel leading the way. His light revealed her firm ass and shapely thighs through tan jeans. He studied her slender legs and narrow shoulders. His groin started to respond.
The first fork appeared, then the second.
“Wait,” he said. “I want to see what’s down here.”
“This way is out,” she said, pointing left toward the string.
“I know. But while we’re here. Let’s see. Leave the string. We know the way from here.”
She tossed the twine ball down and turned right, still leading the way.