The Amber Room Part 18

"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 G.o.d. 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.

"Dasvidaniya, Comrade." 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 pa.s.senger 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 n.a.z.is 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 sh.e.l.lac 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.

[image]

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 n.o.body has ever found a d.a.m.n 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 a.s.sumed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 f.u.c.k your judge and get on with the job."

[image]

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 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?