Mystery of the Amber Room (Order of the Black Sun Book 13)

by P. W. Child

“I don’t trust her,” Nina whispered.

  “Nina, we are here. We are expected. We are in deep already. Let's not keep the lady waiting,” he smiled at the pretty historian's pout. “Come. This was your idea.” He gave her a reassuring wink and got out of the car. Nina shouldered her laptop bag and followed along with Purdue. The young blonde woman said nothing while they trailed her, occasionally glancing at one another for encouragement. Finally, Nina gave in and asked, “Are you Milla?”

  “No,” the woman said casually without turning around. They ascended two flights of stairs up to what resembled a cafeteria of the bygone era, where glaring white light fell through the doorway. She opened the door and held it for Nina and Purdue who reluctantly entered, keeping their eye on her.

  “This is Milla,” she informed the Scottish guests, stepping aside to reveal five men and two women sitting in a circle with laptops. “It stands for ‘Militum Indicina Leonid Leopoldt Alpha’.

  Each had their own style and purpose, taking turns to occupy the only control desk for their respective broadcasts. “I am Elena. This is my partners,” she explained in a thick Serbian accent. “Are you Widower?”

  “Aye, he is,” Nina answered before Purdue could. “I am his associate, Dr. Gould. You can call me Nina, and this is Dave.”

  “We have been hoping you will come. There is much to warn you about,” one of the men said from over at the circle.

  “About what?” Nina said under her breath.

  One of the ladies was seated in the isolation booth behind the control desk, unable to hear their conversation. “No, we will not disturb her transmission. No worry,” Elena smiled. “That is Yuri. He is from Kiev.”

  Yuri raised a hand in greeting but carried on with his work. They were all under 35 years of age, but they all shared the same tattoo – the star Nina and Purdue had seen outside on the gates, with writing underneath in Russian.

  “Cool ink,” Nina said approvingly, pointing at the one Elena sported on her neck. “What does that say?”

  “Oh, it says Krasnaya Armiya 1985…um, ‘Red Army' and the date of birth. We all have our year of birthday next to our stars,” she smiled coyly. Her voice was like satin over the articulation of her words which only made her more appealing than her physical beauty alone.

  “That name in Milla’s abbreviation,” Nina asked, “who is Leonid…?”

  Elena quickly responded. “Leonid Leopoldt was German-born Ukrainian operative in World War II who survived the mass suicide drowning off the coast of Latvia. Leonid killed the captain and radioed to submarine commander Alexander Marinesko.”

  Purdue nudged Nina, “Marinesko was Kiril’s father, remember?”

  Nina nodded, eager to hear more from Elena.

  “Marinesko’s men removed the Amber Room pieces and hid them while Leonid was sent to a Gulag. While he was in Red Army interrogation room, he was shot dead by SS swine Karl Kemper. That Nazi scum was not supposed to be in Red Army facility!” Elena fumed in her genteel way, looking distraught.

  “Oh my God, Purdue!” Nina whispered. “Leonid was the soldier on the recording! Detlef has his medal pinned to his chest.”

  “You are not affiliated with the Order of the Black Sun then?” Purdue asked sincerely. With great hostile looks, the entire group reprimanded and cursed him. He did not speak the languages, but it was clear that their response was not favorable.

  “Widower means no offense,” Nina interjected. “Um, he was told by an unknown agent that your broadcasts came from the Black Sun High Command. But we have been lied to by many people, so we don’t really know what is going on. We don’t know who serves what, you see.”

  Nina's words were met by appreciative nods from the Milla group. Instantly they accepted her explanation, so she dared ask a pressing question. “Did the Red Army not disband in the early Nineties, though? Or is it just to show your devotion?”

  A striking man in his mid-thirties answered Nina’s question. “Did the Order of the Black Sun not disband after that zasranees Hitler killed himself?”

  “No, the next generations of followers are still active,” Purdue answered.

  “There you go,” the man said. “The Red Army is still fighting the Nazis; only this is new generation operatives fighting old war. Red vs. Black.”

  “That is Misha,” Elena chimed in out of courtesy to the strangers.

  “We are all military-trained personnel, like our fathers and their fathers, but we fight with new world's most dangerous weapon - information technology,” Misha preached. He was clearly the leader. “Milla is the new Tsar Bomba, baby!”

  Cries of victory erupted among the group. Amused and perplexed, Purdue looked at a smiling Nina and whispered, “What is ‘Tsar Bomba’, may I ask?”

  “Only the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated in the entire history of the human race,” she winked. “A hydrogen bomb; I believe it was a tested somewhere in the Sixties.”

  “And these are the good guys,” Purdue remarked playfully, making sure he kept his voice down. Nina chuckled and nodded. “I’m just relieved we are not behind enemy lines here.”

  After the group had quieted down, Elena offered Purdue and Nina some black coffee which both gratefully accepted. It had been an exceptionally long drive, not to mention the emotional strain for what they still had to deal with.

  “Elena, we have some questions about Milla and its involvement with the Amber Room relic,” Purdue inquired respectfully. “We have to find the artwork, or what is left of it before tomorrow night.”

  “Nyet! Oh no, no!” Misha protested blatantly. He ordered Elena to move aside on the couch and sat down opposite the misinformed visitors. “Nobody takes the Amber Room out of its tomb! Never! If you want to do this, we will have to resort to severe measures with you.”

  Elena tried to calm him as the others stood up and encircled the small space where Misha and the strangers were sitting. Nina took Purdue's hand as they all drew their firearms. The terrifying clicks of hammers being pulled back proved how serious Milla was.

  “Alright, relax. Let us discuss an alternative, by all means,” Purdue proposed.

  Elena's soft voice was the first to respond. “Look, last time someone stole a piece of that masterpiece, the Third Reich almost destroyed the freedom of all people.”

  “How?” Purdue asked. Of course, he had an idea, but was as yet unable to realize the true threat within. All Nina wanted was for the bulky hand guns to be holstered so she could relax, but the members of Milla didn't budge.

  Before Misha went on another tirade, Elena implored him to wait with one of those enthralling waves of her hand. She sighed and proceeded, “The amber used to produce original Amber Room was from the Balkan region.”

  “We know about the ancient organism – Kalihasa – that was inside the amber,” Nina interrupted gently.

  “And you know what it does?” Misha snapped.

  “Aye,” Nina affirmed.

  “Then why the fuck do you want to let them have it? Are you crazy? You are crazy people! You West and your greed! Money whores, all of you!” Misha barked at Nina and Purdue in an uncontrollable rage. “Shoot them,” he told his group.

  Nina threw up her hands in horror. “No! Please listen! We want to destroy the amber panels once and for all, but we just don’t know how. Listen, Misha,” she pleaded for his attention, “our colleague… our friend… is being held by the Order and they will kill him unless we deliver the Amber Room by tomorrow. So Widower and I are in deep, very deep shit! Do you understand?”

  Purdue cringed at Nina’s trademark ferocity toward the trigger-happy Misha.

  “Nina, may I remind you that the guy you are yelling at pretty much has our proverbial balls in his grip,” Purdue said as he tugged gently at Nina's shirt.

  “No, Purdue!” she fought, slapping his hand aside. “We are in the middle here. We are neither Red Army, nor Black Sun, yet we are being threatened by both sides and forced to be their bitches, doing the dirt
y work and trying not to get killed!”

  Elena sat silently nodding in agreement, waiting for Misha to let the predicament of the strangers sink in. The woman who had been broadcasting all this time exited the booth and stared at strangers seated in the cafeteria and the rest of her group, guns at the ready. At over six foot three, the dark-haired Ukrainian looked beyond intimidating. Her dreadlocks swung about her shoulders as she strode elegantly to meet them. Nonchalantly Elena introduced her to Nina and Purdue, “This is our explosives expert, Natasha. She is former Spetsnaz and direct descendent of Leonid Leopoldt.”

  “Who is this?” Natasha asked firmly.

  “Widower,” Misha answered, pacing as he considered Nina’s recent assertion.

  “Ah, Widower. Gabi was our friend,” she replied as she shook her head. “Her death was a great loss to world freedom.”

  “Yes, it was,” Purdue agreed, unable to peel his eyes from the newcomer. Elena filled Natasha in on the sticky situation the visitors found themselves in, upon which the Amazon-like woman responded, “Misha, we have to help them.”

  “We wage war with data, with information, not with firepower,” Misha reminded her.

  “Was it information and data that stopped that American Intelligence officer who tried to help the Black Sun obtain the Amber Room during the last era of the Cold War?” she asked him. “No, Soviet firepower stopped him in West Germany.”

  “We are hackers, not terrorists!” he protested.

  “Was it hackers who destroyed the Chernobyl Kalihasa threat in 1986? No, Misha, it was terrorists!” she argued. “Now we have that problem again, and we are going to have it as long as the Amber Room exists. What will you do when the Black Sun succeeds? Are you going to send out number sequences to de-program the minds of the few who would still listen to radio for the rest of your life while the fucking Nazis take over the world by mass hypnosis and mind control?”

  “The Chernobyl disaster was not an accident?” Purdue asked inadvertently, but the sharp warning glares of the Milla members shut him right up. Even Nina could not believe his misplaced query. By the looks of it, Nina and Purdue had just stirred up the deadliest hornet's nest in history, and the Black Sun was about to learn why red was the color of blood.

  Chapter 30

  Sam thought of Nina while he waited for Kemper to return to the vehicle. The bodyguard who drove them remained at the wheel, leaving the engine running. Even if Sam could escape the gorilla with the black suit, there was really nowhere to flee to. To all sides of them, stretching as far as the eye could see, the landscape resembled a very familiar sight. In fact, it was more of a familiar vision.

  Unnervingly similar to Sam’s hypnosis-induced hallucination during those sessions with Dr. Helberg, the flat, featureless expanse of colorless grassland disturbed him. It was good that Kemper had left him alone for a bit so that he could process the surreal occurrence until it did not frighten him anymore. But the more he observed, acknowledged, and absorbed the scenery to adjust to it, the more Sam realized that it did not terrify him any less.

  Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he involuntarily recalled the dream of the well and the barren landscape before the devastating pulse that lit up the sky and exterminated nations. The significance of what had once been no more than a subconscious manifestation of turmoil attested to have been, to Sam’s dread, a prophecy.

  ‘Prophecy? Me?’ he pondered on the absurd nature of the idea. But then another memory wedged itself into his mind like another piece of the puzzle. His mind revealed the words it recorded while he had been in the grips of his seizure, back in the village on the island; words Nina's attacker had screamed at her.

  “Take your evil prophet away from here!”

  “Take your evil prophet away from here!”

  “Take your evil prophet away from here!”

  Sam was spooked.

  ‘Holy shit! How did I not hear it at the time?’ he racked his brain, neglecting to consider that this was the very nature of the mind and all its miraculous abilities. ‘He called me a prophet?' Ashen, he swallowed hard when it all came together – the vision of the exact terrain and the laying waste of an entire race under a sky of amber. But what bothered him most was the pulse he had seen in his vision, similar to that of a nuclear explosion.

  Kemper startled Sam when he opened the door to get back in. That sudden thwack of the central locking system followed by the loud click of the handle came just as Sam recalled that all-consuming pulse that had rippled across the entire land.

  “Entschuldigung, Herr Cleave,” Kemper apologized when Sam jolted in fright, clutching his chest. It did give the tyrant a chuckle, though. “Why so jumpy?”

  “Just nervous about my friends,” Sam shrugged.

  “I am sure they will not let you down,” Klaus attempted to be cordial.

  “Problem with the cargo?” Sam asked.

  “Just a minor problem with a petrol gauge, but it's sorted out now,” Kemper replied earnestly. “So, you wanted to know how the number sequences thwarted your attack on me, correct?”

  “Aye. It was amazing, but even more impressive was the fact that it only affected me. The men with you showed no sign of manipulation,” Sam marveled, stroking Klaus' ego as if he was a huge admirer. It was a tactic Sam Cleave had utilized many times before while conducting his investigations to expose criminals.

  “Here is the secret,” Klaus smiled smugly, wringing his hands slowly and brimming with conceit. “It is not necessarily the numbers as much as the combination of the numbers. Mathematics, as you know, is the language of Creation itself. Numbers control everything in existence, whether on a cellular level, geometrically, in physics, chemical compounds or whatever else. It is the key to converting all data - like a computer inside the task-specific part of your brain, you see?”

  Sam nodded. He gave it some thought and replied, “So it is like a cipher to a biological Enigma machine.”

  Kemper applauded. Literally. “That is an exceptionally accurate analogy, Mr. Cleave! I could not have explained it better myself. That is precisely how it works. By applying strings of specific combinations one could quite possibly expand the field of influence, essentially short-circuiting the brain’s receptors. Now, if you add an electrical current to this action,” Kemper reveled in his superiority, “it enhances the effect of the thought form tenfold.”

  “So by using electricity you could actually increase the amount of data absorbed? Or is that to heighten the manipulator's ability to control more than one person at a time?” Sam asked.

  ‘Keep talking, dobber,’ Sam thought from behind his expertly played charade. ‘And the award goes to… Samson Cleave for his role as fascinated-journalist-enthralled-by-smarter-man!' Not in the least less exceptional at his own game, Sam registered every detail the German narcissist spewed out.

  “What do you think the first thing was Adolf Hitler did when he assumed power over the idle Wehrmacht personnel in 1935?” he asked Sam rhetorically. “He implemented mass discipline, martial efficacy, and unshakable loyalty to enforce SS ideologies using subliminal programming.”

  With great delicacy, Sam posed the question that shot to mind almost immediately after Kemper's statement. “Did Hitler have Kalihasa?”

  “After the Amber Room was resident at Berlin City Palace, a German craftsman from Bavaria...” Kemper uttered a grunt as he tried to remember the name of the man. “Uh, no, I don't remember – he was summoned to join Russian craftsmen to restore the artifact after it had been gifted to Peter the Great, you see?”

  “Aye,” Sam replied eagerly.

  “According to legend, while he worked on the new design for the Catherine Palace erection of the restored room, he 'claimed' three pieces of amber, you know, for his trouble,” Kemper winked at Sam.

  “Don’t really blame him, actually,” Sam remarked.

  “No, how could anyone blame him for that? I agree. Anyway, he sold one piece. The other two were feared to have been swindled
by his wife and sold as well. However, this was apparently incorrect, and the wife in question happened to be the early matriarch of a blood line that would meet an impressionable Hitler ages later.”

  Kemper clearly relished his own storytelling while killing time en route to kill Sam, but the journalist paid attention nonetheless as the story unfolded ever more. “She had passed down the remaining two amber pieces from the original Amber Room to her descendants, and it ended up being bestowed on none other than Johann Dietrich Eckart! How is that for chance?”

  “I'm sorry, Klaus,” Sam apologized sheepishly, “but my German history knowledge is embarrassing. That is what I keep Nina for.”

  “Ha! Just for historical information?” Klaus teased. “I doubt that. But let me clarify. Eckart, an extremely educated man, and metaphysical poet was directly responsible for Hitler's admiration for the occult. It was Eckart, we suspect, who discovered the power of Kalihasa, and then used the phenomenon when he assembled the first Black Sun members. And of course, the most prominent member who could actively apply the undeniable opportunity to alter the ideologies of men…”

  “…was Adolf Hitler. I get it now,” Sam filled the blanks, acting very fascinated to beguile his captor. “Kalihasa gave Hitler the ability to turn individuals into, well, drones. This explains how the masses in Nazi Germany were basically of the same mind... the synchronized movement, and this obscenely instinctive, inhumane level of cruelty.”

  Klaus smiled endearingly at Sam. “Obscenely instinctive…I like that.”

  “I thought you might,” Sam sighed. “This is all positively fascinating, you know? But how did you learn about all this?”

  “My father,” Kemper replied matter-of-factly. He struck Sam as a would-be celebrity with his pretend coyness. “Karl Kemper.”

  ‘Kemper was the name called out on Nina’s sound clip,’ Sam remembered. ‘He was responsible for the death of the Red Army soldier in the interrogation room. The puzzle is coming together now.’ He stared in the eyes of the small-framed monster before him. ‘I cannot wait to watch you choke,’ Sam thought as he paid the Black Sun commander all the attention he craved. ‘Can’t believe I am drinking with a genocidal fuckwit. How I would dance on your ashes, Nazi scum!' The notions that materialized inside Sam's psyche felt alien and detached from his own personality, and it alarmed him. The Kalihasa in his brain was at it again, feeding negativity and primal violence into his thoughts, but he had to admit that the terrible things he was thinking were not altogether exaggerated.