The Amber Knight (10 page)

‘You expect me to solve one of the great mysteries of World War II in a morning?’ she taunted.

‘It wasn’t meant as a criticism,’ he said hastily.

‘Edmund told me you received photographs along with the demand.’

Adam handed her the envelope. She emptied it on to her desk. ‘So this is the Amber Knight.’

‘Or so they would have us believe.’

‘Edmund said you would have trouble raising the money?’

‘There’s no way the Institute can afford fifty million dollars for something that may not be authentic. And, before you ask, the man in the photograph is Krefta.’

‘It’s not Krefta I’m looking at, but the background.’

‘It looks like grey concrete,’ Adam glanced at the photograph again.

‘It’s what’s on the concrete that interests me. Have you noticed this?’

He looked over her shoulder. Scratched on the wall behind the coffin was a faint but unmistakeable swastika.

‘Just the sort of thing you’d expect to find in a war-time bunker,’ she mused.

‘Or, given the rise of the neo-Nazis, a modern underground car park or cellar,’ he commented.

‘I suppose so. It’s just that,’ she picked up the photograph and went back to the map, ‘south from Konigsberg will take you to this area.’ She traced a line down the map.

‘Olsztyn?’

‘It was Allenstein in 1945, the second city of East Prussia and east of there…’

‘East! Aren’t you forgetting that in the winter of 1944/45 the Russians were advancing and the Polish Partisans were rising? Only a lunatic would consider carting valuables towards an advancing enemy army.’

‘A lunatic who built the largest bunker complex of World War II.’ She jabbed her finger on the map again.

‘Ketrzyn.’

‘Formerly the East Prussian town of Rastenburg. Eight kilometres east of the town where Hitler built his Wolf’s Lair.’

‘It’s open to tourists. Every inch of the place has been fully explored and mapped.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘perhaps not, but in 1945 it was the obvious place to store valuables. The Wolfschanze had its own airport, railway station and garrison. Trains ran between Rastenburg and Berlin after the Russians had captured the roads. Planes flew in and out of Berlin when the city was surrounded. If you wanted to safeguard valuables would you risk sending them overland from Konigsberg via Elblag and Gdansk with the British bombing the ports and the Russian army advancing? Or would you secrete them in a secure bunker city with its own railway station and airport? A bunker city that could hold out for days, if not weeks.’

‘What happened to the Wolfschanze?’

‘German engineers blew it up on the night of the 25th January, 1945.’

‘Then, if the treasure was there, it must have been shipped out beforehand.’

‘If there was time. The Russians advanced quickly on that front. Prussians left their houses and ran for their lives leaving half-eaten meals on the tables. It’s possible the troops in the Wolfschanze were caught out the same way.’

‘And the trains and planes?’

‘Perhaps none came. Perhaps they were destroyed by bombing, in which case the treasure could well have been hidden in the bunker.’

‘For sixty years?’

‘Hitler was a megalomaniac. God alone knows what he built in that place. I worked there for three summers when I was a student. I don’t believe a quarter of it has been fully explored.’

‘If you’re right, why would anyone who knew where the Amber Knight was wait sixty years to float it on the market?’

‘Because whoever hid it couldn’t get to it until now?’ she suggested.

‘Is this whoever, Polish, Russian or German?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘The location of the knight does. If it’s still in Poland I might be able to make out a case for refusing an export licence.’

‘You’re going to look for it?’

‘I’m going to make a start by visiting Krefta in Kaliningrad tomorrow.’

‘Do you expect him to be there, sitting, waiting for you, after having his photograph taken with the knight?’

‘No, but I may meet someone who knows where he is. I’d appreciate your company,’ he hinted.

‘I don’t speak Russian and I know nothing about Kaliningrad or Krefta.’

‘Elizbieta Hirsz does. She’s coming with me and I need a chaperone.’

‘Afraid of being propositioned, Adam?’ For the first time he saw the shadow of a smile in the upturned corners of her mouth. So she did have a sense of humour after all.

Dawn hadn’t broken when the alarm Adam had borrowed from Waleria roused him. He surfaced still savouring the memory of the evening. Waleria had cooked a superb meal, the wine had been smooth, the sex gentle and sensuous after Helga’s frantic grappling and it had the added advantage of taking place in Waleria’s bed so he didn’t have to change the sheets. He might have been tempted to risk his peace of mind in a long-term relationship, if Waleria had been willing to give up her independence.

The bell was ringing as he emerged from the shower. Wrapping a towel around his waist he pressed the buzzer that released the lock on the communal street door before climbing the stairs to dress. He barely had time to pull on his trousers and shirt before there was a knock on his apartment door. He opened it to find Elizbieta standing in the hallway.

‘I told you I’d pick you up,’ he reprimanded her.

‘Why are you always so nervous around me?’ Slinging her bag over her shoulder she wandered past him into the living room and blocked his path.

‘Because I’m wary of predatory females, especially ones who live with my friends.’

‘Feliks doesn’t care who I sleep with.’

‘But I do.’ Disentangling her arms from around his neck, he retreated to the bathroom to finish dressing.

‘Shall I make coffee?’ She moved into the tiny kitchen.

‘No time.’

‘I can’t face the day without breakfast.’

‘We’ll stop on the way.’

‘At a roadside van?’ she made a face.

‘I’ve ordered a hamper.’

‘Wonderful, we can watch the sun rise over the forest while we eat. I hope you remembered Buck’s Fizz. There’s nothing like champagne first thing in the morning to aid romance.’ She pursed her lips and eyed him seductively.

‘If there is any Buck’s Fizz it’s all yours and Magdalena’s. You know how strict the laws on drinking and driving are in this country.’ He grabbed his jacket, slipped on his shoes and checked his wallet, keys, passport and visa.

‘Magdalena?’ she enquired icily.

‘Magdalena Janca, from the Salen Institute.’ He held the door open. ‘Didn’t I tell you she was coming with us?’

Magdalena was waiting at the hire garage. As Elizbieta was the only one who spoke Russian, Adam insisted she sit in the back of the car to get as much rest as she could before they reached Kaliningrad. Brooking no argument, he opened the front passenger door for Magdalena, handed her the map and told her to navigate.

The road between Gdansk and Elbag was reasonably new and fast, so they made good, if strained and silent, time until they turned off on to the secondary road that meandered up to Braniewa and the border. Adam pulled up in a forest clearing outside Frombork soon after dawn broke. Heeding Josef’s advice that the most public areas were the safest, he parked the car between a truck bearing the logo of a west German company and a battered kiosk that dispensed rolls and coffee. Opening the boot he lifted out the hamper. Magdalena poured coffee from a flask into plastic cups and distributed salami rolls as the shadows between the trees lightened from dark to pale grey-green.

They crossed the border at Mamonowo. Joining the queue for travellers with Western passports, Adam wondered why an hour spent at a border post crawled by at the same snail’s pace as an hour under the dentist’s drill. Magdalena buried her head in a book on the Deutsche Ostmesse, the huge trade fairs that were held in Konigsberg between the wars, and Elizbieta either slept, or pretended to. Being Polish they would have been waved through if Adam hadn’t been with them and all three of them knew it.

As soon as Adam’s passport was returned to him, they crossed into Byelorussia and Adam felt as though they had entered a colder, starker world. The buildings were utilitarian, the atmosphere sterile, even the forest seemed less green, as though spring had chosen to by-pass the country.

‘We’re almost in Kaliningrad,’ Elizbieta muttered from the back seat after an hour of steady driving. ‘I can smell the river Pregolye.’

‘How do the locals stand it?’ Adam fought to overcome his revulsion at the stench.

‘Used to it, I suppose,’ she suggested.

‘No one could get used to that.’ He pressed the button set in the door and closed all the car’s windows.

‘Is that the cathedral ahead?’ Magdalena checked the map as Elizbieta finally opened her eyes.

‘What’s left of it.’

‘Wasn’t there some talk of rebuilding it?’ Adam asked.

‘Talk has always been plentiful in Russia.’ Elizbieta produced a packet of cigarettes.

‘No smoking in my car,’ Adam ordered.

‘Would you prefer the smell of the river or tobacco?’

‘The river.’ He joined the flow of traffic that twitched sluggishly over the bridge. Choking in a fug of exhaust fumes, they looked down on the river island and the skeletal ruins of the old cathedral, the only discernable structure in a desert of dereliction.

‘Pity they didn’t rebuild the old quarter after the war, like they did in Gdansk.’ Magdalena flicked through her book until she found a nineteenth-century etching of the cathedral tower rising out of an undulating plain of medieval rooftops.

‘What the hell is that?’ Adam stared at an enormous H-shaped building that dominated the skyline.

‘That is what the Russians built on the site of Konigsberg Castle,’ Elizbieta informed him.

‘The Russians blew up the Castle in 1964.’ Magdalena reverted to her book, preferring the etchings to reality. ‘It had stood on the site for over seven hundred years.’

‘There wasn’t that much left to blow up,’ Elizbieta chipped in.

‘There goes every idea I had of looking for clues as to the fate of the Amber Knight here, but you haven’t said what that monstrosity’s supposed to be.’

‘It was the House of the Soviets, there’s talk of turning it into a business centre.’

‘The guide book describes it as the ugliest creation in Soviet architecture.’ Magdalena snapped the book shut as if she could no longer bear the comparison between old Konigsberg and modern Kaliningrad.

‘I didn’t think anything could be uglier than some of the monuments the Communists built in Poland, but I have to admit, it wins hands down.’

‘For God’s sake don’t stop here,’ Elizbieta begged when he slowed the car, ‘between the traffic fumes and the river I’ll throw up.’

‘Which way do I go?’

‘We want the other side of the city. Turn left at the next junction, then right.’

Magdalena folded the map away as Elizbieta directed them through the traffic-clogged streets of the centre into a wilderness of giant, high-rise apartment blocks. Adam’s sense of direction failed completely as they traversed concrete roads flanked by towering walls of windows set neatly one upon the other. The only variation between one gargantuan edifice and the next was the degree of weathering and graffiti, and an occasional favoured block that could boast the luxury of balconies.

‘Turn right here.’ Elizbieta leaned over Adam’s shoulder.

‘Beats me how you can possibly know where we are when there are no landmarks.’ Adam turned a corner occupied by a gang of jeans-clad youths.

‘This is the street. Look for number 193.’

‘This isn’t that different from some of the estates around Gdynia and Gdansk.’ Magdalena craned her neck in an attempt to read a faded number painted on a wall.

‘Yes, it is,’ Adam argued. ‘These people haven’t the old quarter to visit.’

‘They’re allowed to travel now, same as us.’ Elizbieta sat up and dabbed blusher on her cheeks and perfume on her neck.

‘Krefta’s an old man,’ Adam teased.

‘You know me and old men.’ Elizbieta winked at him in the mirror as he reduced the car’s speed to walking pace.

Even after they found the block it took twenty minutes to locate Krefta’s apartment. Less than a quarter of the doors bore numbers and none had name plates, as though the occupants wanted to live as anonymously as possible. After Adam had wasted five minutes in fruitless knocking, Elizbieta tried the neighbouring doors, eventually rousting out an old woman who purported not to know Krefta by name, but deigned to identify him from Adam’s photograph. She insisted she hadn’t seen him in weeks, had no idea where he was, or if he was coming back, and her parting shot, before slamming her door, was that Krefta could be dead for all she knew or cared.

‘Nice neighbour.’ Adam returned to Krefta’s door. It was at the end of a blind, windowless corridor. Four out of the five light bulbs designated to illuminate the area were missing, and, whether it was the gloom or the unnatural silence, he had the uneasy feeling that there were hostile, listening ears behind every door. After checking the ceiling for CCTV cameras, a ridiculous exercise given the age and state of the building, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a multi-bladed penknife.

‘You’re not thinking of breaking in?’ Magdalena was horrified.

‘I didn’t drive all this way for nothing.’

‘This is Byelorussia.’

‘I’m carrying enough money to bribe the police.’

‘Ssh!’ Elizbieta glanced around nervously, ‘it’s not the police you have to worry about.’

‘You two can go back to the car,’ Adam attacked the door.

‘If you’re intent on behaving like an idiot, I’ll keep a lookout,’ Elizbieta whispered conspiratorially.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll stay but only for the sake of the museum. Your successor might not be as amenable in funding projects,’ Magdalena declared practically.

Adam slid a long thin blade between the lock and the post. The door was so flimsy, one good kick would have finished it and, if it hadn’t been for the noise and the mess he’d make of the door, he might have been tempted. As it was, it took him a few minutes to prise the lock from the frame.