Checkmate in Amber

by Matilde Asensi

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘Has anybody got anything to add to Peón’s report?’

  I had just finished giving the Group a summary of my thoughts and conclusions from the night before after studying the information that Läufer had provided. I felt hugely proud of myself and sat back smugly, expecting to be showered with compliments by my team-mates. Surely it was the very least they could do after listening to my brilliant deductions, don’t you think?

  ‘Personally I think that we should just hand over the painting to Melentyev and forget about the whole business,’ said Rook, puncturing my inflated ego in one fell swoop.

  ‘I believe that we should continue investigating,’ wrote Cavalo, coming to my rescue. ‘In the first place, because forgetting the whole thing now would just be crazy. After what Peón has told us, we can’t go back and act as if nothing at all has happened. And secondly, because if nobody has found these treasures yet, we’ve got just as much right as they have to try and get our hands on them.’

  ‘AMEN! WE’VE GOT EVERY RIGHT IN THE WORLD TO BE SLAUGHTERED LIKE PIGS BY MELENTYEV.’

  ‘Melentyev doesn’t know who we are,’ I insisted. ‘He doesn’t even know who Roi is. Nobody knows our identities, and they can’t find them out.’

  ‘No more stupid remarks, please,’ interrupted Donna, abruptly. ‘This business is not up for debate. We are the Chess Group, are we not? So, Läufer, please get on with it and tell us what the Jeremiah inscription means, and we can take it from there.’

  ‘FINE. WELL, IF YOU WERE INTRIGUED BY THE DOCUMENTS I SENT YOU, WHAT I’M GOING TO TELL YOU NOW WILL KNOCK YOU RIGHT OFF YOUR FEET.’

  By now I was seriously impatient to finally hear Koch’s secret.

  Just as I was on the point of enlightenment, I was distracted by some discreet taps on the door. I dragged my eyes away from the screen, to see Ezequiela’s face peeking in at the door.

  ‘I’m going to Mass. Do you want me to get you anything?’

  ‘Yes, the Sunday paper please,’ I answered quickly, looking back at the screen impatiently. ‘And don’t forget the magazine.’

  ‘OK. Goodbye then.’

  ‘Bye!’

  ‘PEÓN WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING - EXCEPT FOR ONE LITTLE DETAIL,’ Läufer was saying, rather smugly. ‘THE RUSSIANS’ PETER THE GREAT OPERATION WASN’T ABOUT RECOVERING THE TREASURES WHICH KOCH HAD LOOTED. NOR WAS IT MELENTYEV’S MOTIVE FOR TRYING TO GET HOLD OF THE JEREMIAH. IT WASN’T EVEN WHAT REALLY MATTERED TO KOCH.’

  ‘Oh really?’ I kicked back. ‘So what was it that mattered so much to him, might I ask?’

  ‘YOU WOULDN’T GUESS IT IN A MILLION YEARS, MY ESTEEMED PEÓN. IT’S SOMETHING THAT’S WORTH INFINITELY MORE THAN MERE TREASURE. THE MOST SOUGHT-AFTER MASTERPIECE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ONE OF THE KEY SYMBOLS OF RUSSIAN IDENTITY AND NATIONAL PRIDE.’

  ‘I’m impressed …’

  ‘Just get on with it, Läufer!’ Donna cut in, angry and impatient.

  ‘LIKE THE REST OF YOU, I GOT URI ZEV’S TRANSLATION OF THE INSCRIPTION THAT ROI SENT US. MY BLOOD RAN COLD, I SWEAR. THE BERNSTEINZIMMER, MY DARLING CHESS PIECES! WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE GENUINE HONEST-TO-GOD BERNSTEINZIMMER …’

  ‘Roi, please …’ Donna begged.

  ‘That’s enough, Läufer. I will explain it to them,’ intervened Roi, to avoid a volcanic eruption. ‘Bernsteinzimmer is a German word meaning Amber Room. One of the real legends in art history. It was built by the Danish craftsman Gottfried Wolffram in the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin at the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the reign of the first king of Prussia, Friedrich the First, and was used as a smoking room. Just to give you a rough idea of what we are talking about here, I consulted some old notes I made on the subject and I can tell you that the Amber Room was covered by over fifty-five square meters, almost six hundred square feet, of semi-transparent panels of Baltic amber in varying shades of orange to yellow-gold. In addition to this were mosaics, furniture and other accessories all created in this precious raw material. You will agree that it fully deserved its description as the Eighth Wonder of the World, as it was dubbed soon after its creation.’

  An admiring whistle reached me through the loudspeakers. Läufer just couldn’t resist playing with his special effects.

  ‘It’s impossible to put a price on such a thing,’ commented Cavalo.

  ‘You are absolutely right. It is impossible,’ continued Roi. ‘In 1716, the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, paid a visit to Friedrich Wilhelm I, the new king of Prussia, in his Charlottenburg Palace and was deeply impressed by his Amber Room. Friedrich Wilhelm was at war with Sweden at the time over the vast territory of Pomerania, and decided to present the Room to Peter the Great as a gift, in exchange for a crack force of armored grenadiers.’

  ‘So it makes a lot of sense that the project we’re dealing with should be called Operation Peter the Great, seeing as it bears the name of one of its main protagonists. A strong coincidence, at the very least.’

  ‘There is no doubt about it,’ Roi declared. ‘The Room was installed for a short time in the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, a city which the Tsar founded in 1703 and made the capital of Russia in 1715. But it was soon dismantled and moved to the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. Tsarskoye Selo, which means Royal Village, now forms part of a town called Pushkin and is some fifteen miles south of Saint Petersburg. The palace was named after Peter the Great’s wife Catherine, who ordered its construction as a summer palace for the imperial family. But the new space into which it was rebuilt on the orders of Empress Elizabeth in 1743 was considerably larger than the original, and the original Baltic amber panels were insufficient to cover it. So they called in the court architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli and the sculptor Alexander Martelli, who worked for five years redesigning and adapting the splendid Baroque creation to its new site. They enriched it substantially with impressive ornamental detailing, such as a smooth vaulted ceiling highlighted in gold and a tropical hardwood floor inlaid with mother-of-pearl.’

  Läufer’s admiring whistle blew again through my speakers, in amazement.

  ‘All there is to add is that, in October 1941, after the capture of Leningrad by the German army, the Amber Room was rapidly dismantled and, along with a whole host of other treasures from what used to be called Saint Petersburg, was transported to the city with which we are becoming so familiar: Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia.’

  ‘Königsberg!’ wrote Donna, delighted.

  ‘Koch’s Kingdom!’ added Cavalo, in similar style.

  ‘According to my notes,’ Roi concluded, ‘the last time the Amber Room was seen was in late August 1944, in Königsberg Castle.’

  ‘The big Allied bombing raid on Königsberg was on August 31st 1944,’ I reminded everyone.

  ‘SO THE AMBER ROOM WAS STOLEN AND HIDDEN AWAY BY KOCH, AND OPERATION PETER THE GREAT WAS AIMED AT FINDING IT AND TAKING IT BACK. FOR THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE, IT IS AS EMBLEMATIC AS THE EIFFEL TOWER IS FOR THE FRENCH AND THE COLISEUM IS FOR THE ITALIANS. ABSOLUTE TOP PRIORITY FOR BRINGING IT HOME.’

  ‘So much so, that they are currently building a replica in the original room of the Tsarskoye Selo palace. A team of specialist amber craftsmen, carpenters and sculptors are working on a faithful recreation of the Room using black and white photographs from 1936. Furthermore, given that it has proved impossible for them to obtain the orange-toned amber predominant in the original, they have had to develop various methods of dyeing the amber, one of which actually involves boiling it in honey.’

  ‘But I thought Russia was completely bankrupt!’ interrupted Rook, in outrage. ‘How on earth can they afford it?’

  ‘As far as I’m aware, the craftsmen and site managers haven’t been paid for several years, but they have carried on working. Their main motivation is pride in recreating the Amber Room. Even if it is just a copy.’

  ‘Clearly Melentyev didn’t get the confession he was banking on from his Barczewo prisoner,’ added Donna.

>   ‘No,’ I responded. ‘But it does seem that he confirmed the existence of a Koch painting holding the key to finding out where the original Room was hidden, not to mention all the rest of the Gauleiter’s loot. Perhaps Koch himself told him just before he died, and Melentyev kept the secret in the hope of keeping all of it for himself.’

  ‘But Melentyev is extremely rich already. What more does he need?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as enough,’ remarked Rook, dismissively.

  ‘Maybe what he’s after is the Room itself,’ argued Cavalo. ‘Just imagine if it was him who found it and returned it to Russia. He would immediately become a huge national hero - maybe even launch a campaign to become president of Russia, or something like that. Maybe what he’s really after is political power.’

  ‘I agree with Cavalo,’ I said. ‘Melentyev isn’t interested in Koch’s bits and pieces. All he wants is the Amber Room. He may be a gangster, and corrupt as all hell, but he’s heart and soul a Russian. He’d be so proud to be the man who got it back off the Germans.’

  ‘But why on earth has he waited until now to hire us to get the Krylov painting?’

  For a short while, not a single word appeared on-screen.

  ‘BECAUSE WE’RE THE BEST,’ cracked Läufer, breaking the silence. ‘THE MINUTE HE HEARD ABOUT US, HE KNEW THE TIME HAD COME TO MAKE HIS MOVE.’

  Hysterical canned laughter, courtesy of we-all-knew-who, applauded his jokey remark - but was suddenly interrupted by a loud and mocking raspberry.

  ‘OK, SO WHO’S THE COMEDIAN?’

  A red, red rose floated lazily up the screen, with the loving inscription - FOR LÄUFER.

  ‘AHA! SO IT WAS YOU THEN, DONNA - RIGHT?’ yelled our computer genius, highly offended - and completely forgetful of the fact that he had sent her exactly the same rose not so long ago. ‘I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU EVEN HAD A SENSE OF HUMOR!’

  ‘Perhaps you should try and get used to the idea that you don’t know everything,’ Donna replied with scorn, followed by a string of LOLs which took up a good two or three lines of text.

  If I had been in Donna’s shoes, there’s no way I would have risked shooting my mouth off like that. I had no doubt in my mind, none at all, that Läufer was already plotting his revenge. But the only Italian on this street was Donna, an Anna Magnani reborn, passionate and unflinching, incapable of letting anybody take liberties with her and get away with it.

  ‘Enough of this,’ Roi intervened. ‘Läufer, Donna - no more, please.’

  ‘OK. COOL.’

  ‘And what about the second word in the inscription - Gauforum?’ I hurriedly changed the subject.

  ‘THE GAUFORUM,’ Läufer began to explain, ‘WAS THE OLD LANDESMUSEUM, THE STATE MUSEUM IN WEIMAR. DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR - PAY ATTENTION HERE - IT WAS THE PRIVATE RESIDENCE OF THE GAULEITER UND REICHSSTATTHALTER FRITZ SAUCKEL! HOW ABOUT THAT THEN, EH? IT WAS PRACTICALLY DESTROYED BY ALLIED AIR RAIDS, AND LEFT IN RUINS. IN 1954 IT WAS REPLACED BY THE MODERN STADTMUSEUM AND CURRENTLY THEY ARE ABOUT TO FINISH REBUILDING AND RESTORATION WORKS TO CONVERT IT INTO THE NEUESMUSEUM - THE NEW MUSEUM, IN OTHER WORDS. IT’S DUE TO BE OFFICIALLY OPENED ON THE FIRST OF JANUARY, IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS’ TIME, TO CELEBRATE WEIMAR’S NOMINATION AS EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE FOR 1999. AS FAR AS I CAN TELL FROM THE ARCHITECTS’ DRAWINGS, THE ONLY PART OF THE ORIGINAL BUILDING LEFT STANDING IS THE FACADE. EVERYTHING ELSE WAS REDUCED TO RUBBLE. IT HAS BEEN COMPLETELY REBUILT.’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Are you saying that it just doesn’t exist anymore?’ I asked him, shocked.

  ‘NOPE. IT’S LONG GONE.’

  My fingers froze up on the keyboard. I was speechless. And incredibly disappointed to discover that all my fevered research and ace detection had been reduced to ashes, in less than a second. Koch’s secret message had only contained three words: the first, Bernsteinzimmer, had told us what, and the second and third had told us where. But now it turned out that Sauckel’s old Gauforum just didn’t exist anymore and that the Amber Room might be lost again, and this time for good, because the building it was supposedly hidden in had been obliterated. Damn! The total lack of activity on-screen reflected the fact that my partners were just as blown away and bummed out as I was.

  ‘OK, OK. DON’T GIVE UP ON ME NOW, GUYS.’

  Was Läufer a jerk or what?

  ‘I’VE GOT A LITTLE SURPRISE UP MY SLEEVE.’

  Yep, a bona-fide jerk. An 18-carat moron.

  ‘WHEN I CHECKED OUT THE GAUFORUM CONSTRUCTION PROJECT, I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE WERE ONLY TWO POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS: ONE, THAT THE BERNSTEINZIMMER HAD BEEN FOUND AND THEN HIDDEN AGAIN SOMEWHERE ELSE (HIGHLY UNLIKELY BECAUSE THE WORKS STARTED TEN YEARS AGO, AND SOME NEWS WOULD SURELY HAVE LEAKED OUT AT SOME POINT DURING ALL THAT TIME) OR, TWO, THAT THE BERNSTEINZIMMER HADN’T BEEN DISCOVERED. AND IF IT HADN’T BEEN DISCOVERED, IT COULD ONLY BE BECAUSE: ONE, IT WASN’T IN THE GAUFORUM, OR TWO, IT WAS IN THE GAUFORUM BUT NOT IN THE ACTUAL BUILDING. WELL, IF IT AIN’T IN HEAVEN - I THOUGHT TO MYSELF - IT MUST BE IN HELL. SO I STARTED NOSING AROUND IN THE ARCHIVES OF THURINGIA’S TOWN & COUNTRY PLANNING DEPARTMENT. AND FINALLY FOUND THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION.’

  OK, so maybe he wasn’t quite as stupid as I’d thought, after all.

  ‘I FOUND A PLANNING REPORT FROM THE EARLY SIXTIES, SIGNED BY THE CHIEF ENGINEER OF THE RATHAUS, THE COUNCIL … HELL, THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT, CITY HALL, WHATEVER. ANYWAY, THIS GUY HAD GONE DOWN INTO THE DRAINS AND TUNNELS BELOW THE OLD GAUFORUM TO SORT OUT A PROBLEM WITH THE CITY’S WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM AND HE FOUND AN INCREDIBLY COMPLEX MAZE OF GALLERIES, CAVITY WALLS, BRICKED-UP PASSAGEWAYS, SUPPLY PIPES WITHOUT A BEGINNING OR AN END, PROTECTIVE STEEL SHEETING, FALSE CEILINGS, SHAFTS WHICH HE COULDN’T MAKE SENSE OF, AND SO ON AND SO ON. HE SPENT SEVERAL DAYS EXPLORING THIS LABYRINTH AND ENDED UP CONVINCED THAT HE HADN’T SEEN THE HALF OF IT. HE HAPPENED TO MENTION IN HIS REPORT THAT HE HAD FOUND OUT THAT MUCH OF THIS TUNNELING HAD BEEN BUILT DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND THAT THE CONSTRUCTION WORK HAD BEEN CARRIED OUT - PAY ATTENTION NOW - BY SLAVE LABOR FROM THE NEARBY BUCHENWALD CONCENTRATION CAMP.’

  ‘Very good, Läufer,’ Roi exclaimed enthusiastically. ‘That’s what I call magnificent research work!’

  ‘Absolutely brilliant,’ I agreed, delighted. ‘Well done, Läufer.’

  ‘HEY, ROOK! HOW ABOUT THAT THEN!’

  ‘You’re the best, man, the very best! By the way, I’d like to pick your brains about the stock market crisis. If they drop much further, some of us are going to be in serious trouble.’

  ‘Now is not the time or the place to discuss our business affairs, Rook,’ Roi intervened, in a schoolmasterly tone of voice.

  ‘Well, you’re one of the worst affected, Roi. You’re already down several million euros. You should have listened to me and stashed some of your money away in a tax haven.’

  Luckily for me, Rook wasn’t my stockbroker. I managed my own investments through my bank, and they were hardly big enough to worry my head about. In any case, however much I’d managed to lose, it could never get even close to what my Tía Juana was skimming off me on a regular basis.

  ‘That’s quite enough of that!’ Roi was desperate by now to switch off Rook’s endless jabbering. But he failed dismally. The truth of the matter is that both Läufer and Rook - each in their own way, of course - had serious trouble keeping their mouths shut. And together, they went viral.

  ‘HEY, LET HIM SPEAK, MAN! ALL ROOK DID WAS ASK FOR MY OPINION, AND I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER TO PROVIDE IT.’

  ‘But not here and, above all, not now!’

  ‘All I was trying to say was that it really would make a lot of sense for us to go to Weimar, check it out and see if we couldn’t get our own hands on the treasure and that Amber Room. If the financial crisis carries on the way it’s going, I can assure you, Roi, that you’ll be forced to sell your wonderful château in the Loire.’

  ‘You must be exaggerating, surely?’ said Donna, uneasily.

  ‘You, my dear Donna, in particular, may well be fo
rced to sell your restoration and training workshop and your whole magnificent business if the Dow Jones in New York and Milan’s MIBtel keep heading south. And if you go down, the whole Chess Group would be in serious trouble.’

  ‘THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH!’

  For Roi to shout was so rare that, when he did, we all fell into line automatically. The screen went completely dead again. I could just picture all five of us staring at it in shock and not moving a muscle, that quiet Sunday morning.

  ‘That is quite enough,’ repeated the Prince, but this time not in capital letters.

  ‘ROOK IS RIGHT, ROI.’

  ‘I agree with him as well,’ added Donna, clearly rattled by Rook’s doomsday scenario.

  ‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Roi,’ Cavalo began, treading very carefully now, ‘but I do think that we all agree that getting our hands on Koch’s loot would be a really good idea. We’ve got more leads on its location than anybody else does and, after all, we are professional art thieves.’

  Roi said nothing for a moment and then switched his attention to me.

  ‘What do you think about it, Peón? The hardest part of the job would be your responsibility. Do you feel up to exploring Weimar’s underworld?’

  ‘The truth is I don’t.’

  ‘YOU DON’T? BUT PEÓN, I’VE SEEN YOU OPERATING! YOU COULD DO IT IN YOUR SLEEP.’

  ‘No way. I’m not up for it.’

  ‘Explain yourself, my dear,’ the Prince commanded.

  ‘There’s no way I’m going down there to look for stuff that was carefully hidden well over forty years ago without even a reliable map of this crazy labyrinth of shafts and galleries. And what if Koch booby-trapped his hiding-place with explosives and snares to welcome uninvited visitors? Not to mention that if the cache was easy to find, the Weimar engineer who explored the tunnel system for several days would already have found it. I could get lost, I could die of starvation, I could fall and injure myself or I might never find my way out again. Forget it. I’m not doing it, period.’