The Amber Knight (26 page)

Josef ground the remains of his cigarette to dust beneath his shoe and went after Magdalena and Adam, catching up with them in the foyer. ‘I’ll go in with Magdalena, if you want to finish your cigar.’

Happy to postpone entering the claustrophobic, disinfectant-ridden atmosphere of the police station, Adam stepped out of the noisy mass of humanity. He stood on the topmost step and looked around. Like yesterday, it was a perfect spring day. Warm sun, cloudless, pale blue, sun-washed sky, and all the sense of inadequacy and futility of a search turned sour. Josef was right. They would end up with nothing to show for their efforts. The Amber Knight would never be exhibited in either of the Gdansk city museums if it was contaminated, because, despite his teasing, he’d never dare commission a copy. Any institution claiming ownership of the knight after an absence of sixty years would be inundated with requests from experts to examine it. And, even if they succeeded in fooling the general public, they’d never succeed in deceiving medieval specialists.

But it wasn’t only the knight. There were so many other precious and priceless artefacts on the list of the missing Konigsberg treasures; perhaps not as deeply rooted in legend and national identity, but of almost equal artistic and archaeological merit. The Amber Room that had been looted by the Nazis from the Imperial Russian palace at Tsarskoe Seloe. The missing thirteen crystal cut amber beads from Princess Dorothea’s early seventeenth century necklace, along with her other jewellery. Schrieber’s seventeenth century amber and ivory altar and crucifix. The paintings – sculptures – the ornaments of kings and princes, the tangible historical and artistic wealth of three nations, all lost for ever in an anthrax-contaminated vault. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Crushing his cigar against a metal bin fixed to the side of the steps, he turned his back to the car park. A policeman who was comforting two weeping, elderly women blocked the entrance to the building. Adam lingered awkwardly on the top step, while the uniformed officer tried to lead them inside. Both women were dressed in widows’ weeds that belonged to the Europe of the 1930s not the early twenty first-century. He didn’t want to think about the crime they had fallen victim to, or the criminal who had sunk low enough to take advantage of them.

The police officer saw him and gently drew the women aside, making room for him to pass. Adam stepped forward and bumped into a man who’d been lurking behind the door. A tall, well-dressed dark figure with slanting, Slavic eyes. Adam recognised him at once. He stepped forward, fists clenched in case the man moved in on him. The man smiled, and Adam hesitated warily when he realised that the recognition was mutual. Then something exploded in his chest.

He fell back, fighting for breath as air hissed from his lungs. He looked down. A ruby stain was spreading over the left side of his linen jacket. The foyer darkened as though the lights had been dimmed, although it was still bright, sunlit morning. He looked from stranger’s face to stranger’s face, registering the horror mirrored in their eyes, as each set of features receded into a thick grey mist. His knees buckled and he sank downwards.

Everything around him was moving so slowly he felt as though the entire station had been submerged in water. The last thing he saw was the police officer who had been talking to the women bending over him. He tried to smile, to say that he was all right, but his mouth refused to open and the words remained locked in his throat. Then a crimson tide of pain blotted out everything, even the grey mist.

‘You’re one lucky son of a bitch.’

It was Josef’s voice, but there was another close by he didn’t recognise. A high pitched, sing-song voice distorted by a strong country accent. Adam opened his eyes and blinked. His surroundings swam into focus. He was in a spartanly furnished cell, lying on a back-breakingly hard surface. His ribcage felt as though it had been steamrollered with burning flat irons, something bound his chest so tightly he could hardly draw breath, and he had a pounding headache.

Josef’s face hovered above his own. ‘It’s all right, you can talk, you’re still in the land of the living.’

A small, gnome-like man wielding a syringe bobbed in front of Josef.

‘No injections,’ Adam croaked.

‘You’ve hit your head, Mr Salen, and your rib cage has taken a pounding. I’ve strapped you up, but you’ll need painkillers to help you withstand the stress of the journey to the hospital.’

‘No painkillers,’ Adam mumbled thickly. ‘Magdalena?’

‘Is fine.’ Josef looked at the surgeon. ‘We need to speak to him, alone.’

‘I really wouldn’t advise it. He needs to be hospitalised.’

‘We’ll see to it, doctor. You can go.’

For the first time Adam noticed Stephan Bronski standing behind Josef.

‘But…’

‘You can go, doctor,’ Stephan dismissed the man. ‘Remember, not a word to anyone about this.’

The doctor packed his instruments and left the cell.

‘Where is Magdalena?’ Adam demanded weakly, as soon as he was alone with the two officers.

‘Safe in Stephan’s office with the rookie and the escort, but it’s not Magdalena I’m worried about, Adam, it’s you.’ Josef sat on the edge of the bunk. ‘Looks like it was you they were after all along. Did you see the man?’

‘You didn’t get him?’ Adam struggled to sit up. Lying down was agony, movement pure torment. ‘For Christ’s sake, he was in the foyer.’

‘Stay still. The bandages aren’t rigid enough to contain the damage.’

‘A member of a police force as inept and inefficient as yours has no right to tell me what to do.’

‘What did he look like?’ Bronski cut in.

Adam closed his eyes against the rampaging pain in his chest. ‘Tall, six three – six four, black hair, long nose, thin lips, slanting, Slavic eyes…’

‘The stud in Helga’s bed?’ Josef asked urgently.

‘And I still can’t remember where I saw him before.’

‘May the Holy Madonna preserve me from idiots!’

‘I’m trying!’

‘Not hard enough!’ Josef reprimanded.

‘What do you remember?’ Stephan asked.

‘I was walking into the foyer. My path was blocked by an officer and two elderly women who were crying…’

‘They’re hysterical now,’ Josef informed him.

‘The officer drew them aside. I stepped into the building and brushed against this man. I recognised him and I’m sure he recognised me. Then something hit my chest. I must have passed out.’

‘You were shot at close range.’ Josef held up the Glock pistol Adam had worn in the shoulder holster. The chamber had been shattered by a bullet. ‘Powerful construction, but not robust enough to withstand ammunition designed to explode and fragment on impact. The Glock absorbed most of the force of the bullet, but not all. You’ve a couple of splinters in your chest. The doctor removed the ones he could see, but there’s a small piece embedded in one of your ribs. You need an X-ray before it can be removed. You’ve a couple of painful hours ahead of you, but look on the bright side. If you hadn’t been carrying a gun, you would be dead.’

Adam took the shattered Glock from Josef and turned it over in his hand. He saw his bloodstained jacket draped over a steel table next to the bed. ‘The photographs of the knight. I pushed them into my jacket pocket.’

‘There are a few pieces left.’ Josef consoled him. ‘We gave them to Magda to play jigsaws with.’

‘Damn. They were the best clue we had.’

‘Better the Glock and them than you. Underneath those bandages you’re a mess. As I said, you’re one lucky son of a bitch.’

‘Do me a favour, Josef. Keep Magdalena…’

‘Away from you?’ Josef interrupted. ‘Why do you think she’s sitting with the rookie in the other room? If these monkeys can get to you in the foyer of a crowded police station, they can get to you anywhere. I’ll switch the guards from her to you.’

‘No.’ Adam heaved for breath as though he’d run a marathon.

‘Every attempt that we assumed was being made on her was obviously aimed at you. The apartment, the forest…’

‘We could be dealing with two factions.’

‘One after Magda and one after you, at the same time? That’s crazy. Do you know what the odds are against that happening?’ Josef said scornfully.

‘Pretty small, given who she’s married to. We know there’s a price on Brunon’s head.’

‘Brunon’s, not hers,’ Josef reminded him.

‘She’d only been out on the balcony a short while when the hail of bullets hit us. That could mean someone was keeping her under surveillance.’

‘Or they were after you and not too bothered about your company.’

‘You said on the telephone yesterday that Casimir Zamosc wasn’t working alone.’

‘Because it wasn’t his gun that killed the officers we found in the stairwell.’

‘And the bullets that came in through the balcony door?’ Adam asked.

‘I’ve people working on them.’

‘You think Radek and Melerski tell you everything?’

‘What I’d like to know is why anyone would be desperate enough to attempt a murder in the foyer of a police station.’ Stephan was lost in the intricacies of a situation Josef hadn’t briefed him about.

‘Think, Adam? You must have crossed someone?’ Josef urged.

‘As I keep telling you, no one I know anything about.’

‘Then you must be involved in something.’

‘Only the bidding for the Amber Knight.’

‘That can’t be it. Whoever’s got the knight would want to keep you in good health until you’ve handed over the cash.’

‘Unless they know I’m an awkward devil who wants guarantees before he hands over millions of dollars.’ Wincing, Adam leaned forward and tried to draw breath. His chest felt as though he was being stabbed by several red hot knives with serrated blades. ‘Get me home, I need to make some calls.’

‘Hospital,’ Josef said authoritatively.

‘The ambulance has arrived.’ Magdalena appeared in the doorway. Her eyes darkened when she saw the pain registering in Adam’s face.

‘Time to get the invalid into it.’ Josef patted Adam’s hand.

‘I’m coming with you.’ Magdalena moved to the other side of Adam.

‘Oh no you’re not,’ Adam asserted forcefully.

‘You promised to stay with me.’

‘That was before I found out that I was the target.’

‘Suppose we both are?’

‘It was what you suggested yourself.’ Josef shrugged on his jacket and loosened the gun in his shoulder holster.

‘I don’t think it’s wise for us to travel together.’

‘There’s something we haven’t told you.’ Josef eased Adam gently back on the narrow bunk. ‘Officially you’re dead. You weren’t breathing when you were carried in here and, it seemed appropriate to announce that you’d been killed. It wasn’t difficult to fool the witnesses. The doctor’s sworn to secrecy and, knowing what Stephan does about the doctor’s grubby private life, not a word will escape his lips.’

‘You’ve issued a press release?’

‘Of course.’

‘You idiot. My grandfather has a weak heart. There’s no telling what news like this will do to him.’

‘We didn’t identify you,’ Stephan reassured him. ‘The statement was the standard, “a foreigner was shot dead in a police station. His name is being withheld until his family have been informed”.’

‘We figured that if whoever “killed” you thought they’d succeeded, you’d have a breathing space to go to ground until we’ve thought this thing through,’ Josef said.

‘The last thing it feels like I have at the moment is breathing space.’

‘We’ve alerted the local hospital that you’re coming in. You’re booked under my brother’s name,’ Stephan added, ‘just keep your mouth shut so no one hears that American accent of yours.’

‘Someone is bound to see me leaving here.’

‘That’s the general idea.’ Josef produced a body bag. ‘Don’t worry, Stephan and I will wheel you out as quickly as we can. These things aren’t airtight. Provided Helga’s lover boy isn’t lurking around anywhere, you’ll survive.’

Night fell before they left the hospital. Josef drove Stephan’s squad car around to the back of the building while Stephan wheeled Adam out through the deserted mortuary entrance, Magdalena, carrying the bags that held the shattered Glock and Adam’s ruined jacket and shirt, trailing in their wake. It had taken six torturous hours to X-ray Adam’s chest and extract the last bullet and pistol fragments from below the skin, before the doctor could begin to check that his cracked ribs weren’t splintered. And, by the time the last bandage had been wound into place, Adam was convinced he’d never be able to breathe in deeply again.

Josef and Stephan helped Adam into the front passenger seat of the police car which had conveniently blackened and, so Stephan assured him, bullet-proof windows. Josef had ordered their police escort back to Gdansk after the shooting and Stephan saw no reason to accompany them, so for the first time since the attack on Magdalena’s apartment, Adam and Magdalena found themselves alone with Josef as he drove them west, to Gdansk.

‘Our clothes are still at the hotel,’ Magdalena reminded Josef from the back seat.

‘No, they’re not, they’re in the trunk. Stephan had you both checked out. And you’ll be pleased to hear that the Institute of Contagious Diseases has taken your theory seriously, Magda. Mind you, it might have had more to do with the shooting than your professional status. Witnesses who’ve been used for target practice while in police protection have more clout than those who wander in off the street. The Wolfschanze together with a ten kilometre area around the stretch of woodland where Krefta was found was sealed off this afternoon, and that’s in addition to the zone around the hut where the other two bodies were found. The official story is that a cache of leaking, World War II gas tanks have been found. Twenty people have been taken to the Institute for tests and health monitoring.’

‘I suppose it’s better than nothing,’ Adam said cynically.

‘I agree with the Institute. Why start a panic? Also, all doctors in Poland have been alerted and told to look out for symptoms of plague.’

‘Has a systematic search of the Wolfschanze been instigated?’ Magdalena demanded.