The Amber Room (19 page)

“I didn’t know that.”

“The Romans believed if you were a Leo, wearing amber would bring you luck. If you were a Taurus, trouble was ahead.”

“Maybe I should get some. I’m a Leo.”

He smiled. “If you believe in that sort of thing. Medieval doctors prescribed amber vapor to treat sore throats. The boiling fumes are very fragrant and supposedly possessed medicinal qualities. The Russians call it ‘incense from the sea.’ They also—I’m sorry, I may be boring you.”

“Not at all. This is fascinating.”

“The vapors can ripen fruit. There’s an Arab legend about a certain Shah who ordered his gardener to bring him fresh pears. Problem was, pears were out of season and the fruit would not be ready for another month. The Shah threatened to behead the gardener if he didn’t produce ripe pears. So the gardener picked a few unripe pears and spent the night praying to Allah and burning amber incense. The next day, in response to his prayers, the pears were rosy and sweet, ready to eat.” Knoll shrugged. “Whether that’s true or not, who knows? But amber vapor does contain ethylene, and that stimulates early ripening. It can also soften leather. The Egyptians used the vapor in the mummifying process.”

“My only knowledge is from jewelry, or the pictures I’ve seen with insects and leaves inside.”

“Francis Bacon called it ‘a more than royal tomb.’ Scientists look at amber as a time capsule. Artists think of it like paint. There are over two hundred and fifty colors. Blue and green the rarest. Red, yellow, brown, black, and gold most common. Whole guilds emerged in the Middle Ages that controlled distribution. The Amber Room was crafted in the eighteenth century, the very epitome of what man could do with the substance.”

“You know the subject well.”

“My job.”

The car slowed.

“Our exit,” Knoll said as they sped off the autobahn, down a short ramp, and braked at the bottom. “From here we go west by highway. It’s not far to Kehlheim.” He turned the wheel right and quickly worked the gears, regaining speed.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

“I cannot say. My employer is a private person.”

“But obviously wealthy.”

“How so?”

“To send you across the globe looking for art. That’s not a hobby for a poor man.”

“Did I say my employer was a man?”

She grinned. “No, you didn’t.”

“Nice try, Your Honor.”

Green meadows sprinkled with copses of tall fir lined the highway. She brought down the window and soaked in the crystalline air. “We’re rising, aren’t we?”

“The Alps start here and spread south to Italy. It will get cool before we make it to Kehlheim.”

She’d wondered earlier why he’d worn a long-sleeved shirt and long pants. She’d dressed in a pair of khaki walking shorts and short-sleeved button-down. Suddenly she realized this was the first time she’d driven anywhere with a man other than Paul since the divorce. It was always the children, her father, or a girlfriend.

“I meant what I said yesterday. I am sorry about your father,” Knoll said.

“He was very old.”

“The terrible thing about parents. One day we lose them.”

He sounded like he meant it. Expected words. Surely said out of courtesy. But she appreciated the sentiment.

And found him even more intriguing.

11:45 a.m.

Rachel studied the old man who opened the door. He was short with a narrow face topped by shaggy silver hair. Graying peach fuzz dusted his withered chin and neck. His frame was spare, his skin the shade of talcum, the face wizened like a walnut. He was at least eighty, and her first thought was of her father and how much the man reminded her of him.

“Danya Chapaev? I’m Rachel Cutler. Karol Borya’s daughter.”

The old man stared deep. “I see him in your face and eyes.”

She smiled. “He’d be proud of that fact. May we come in?”

“Of course,” Chapaev said.

She and Knoll entered the tiny house. The one-story building was formed from old timber and aging plaster, Chapaev’s the last of several chalets that straggled from Kehlheim on a wooded lane.

“How did you find my place?” Chapaev asked. His English was much better than her father’s.

“We asked in town where you lived,” she said.

The den was homey and warm from a small fire that crackled in a stone hearth. Two lamps burned beside a quilt sofa, where she and Knoll sat. Chapaev slipped down into a wooden rocking chair facing them. The scent of cinnamon and coffee drifted in the air. Chapaev offered a drink, but they declined. She introduced Knoll, then told Chapaev about her father’s death. The old man was surprised by the news. He sat in silence for a while, tears welling up in his tired eyes.

“He was a good man. The best,” Chapaev finally said.

“I’m here, Mr. Chapaev—”

“Danya, please. Call me Danya.”

“All right. Danya. I’m here because of the letters you and my father sent to each other about the Amber Room. I read them. Daddy said something about the secret you two share and being too old now to go and check. I came to find out what I could.”

“Why, child?”

“It seemed important to Daddy.”

“Did he ever speak with you about it?”

“He talked little about the war and what he did afterwards.”

“Perhaps he had a reason for his silence.”

“I’m sure he did. But Daddy’s gone now.”

Chapaev sat silent, seeming to contemplate the fire. Shadows flickered across his ancient face. She glanced at Knoll, who was watching their host closely. She’d been forced to say something about the letters, and Knoll had reacted. Not surprising, since she’d intentionally withheld the information. She figured there’d be questions later.

“Perhaps it’s time,” Chapaev softly said. “I wondered when. Maybe now is the moment.”

Beside her, Knoll sucked a long breath. A chill tingled down her spine. Was it possible this old man knew where the Amber Room was located?

“Such a monster, Erich Koch,” Chapaev whispered.

She did not understand. “Koch?”

“A gauleiter,” Knoll said. “One of Hitler’s provincial governors. Koch ruled Prussia and Ukraine. His job was to squeeze every ton of grain, every ounce of steel, and every slave laborer he could from the region.”

The old man sighed. “Koch used to say that if he found a Ukrainian fit to sit at his table, he’d shoot him. I guess we should be grateful for his brutality. He managed to convert forty million Ukrainians, who greeted the invaders as liberators from Stalin, into seething partisans who hated Germans. Quite an accomplishment.”

Knoll said nothing.

Chapaev went on. “Koch toyed with the Russians and the Germans after the war, using the Amber Room to stay alive. Karol and I watched the manipulation, yet could say nothing.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Knoll said, “Koch was tried in Poland after the war and sentenced to die as a war criminal. The Soviets, though, repeatedly postponed his execution. He claimed to know where the Amber Room was buried. It was Koch who ordered it removed from Leningrad and moved to Königsberg in 1941. He also ordered its evacuation west in 1945. Koch used his supposed knowledge to stay alive, reasoning that the Soviets would kill him as soon as he revealed the location.”

She now began to remember some of what she’d read in the articles her father saved. “He eventually got an assurance, though, didn’t he?”

“In the mid-1960s,” Chapaev said. “But the fool claimed he was unable to remember the exact location. Königsberg by then was renamed Kaliningrad and was part of the Soviet Union. The town was bombed to rubble during the war, and the Soviets bulldozed everything, then rebuilt. Nothing remained of the former city. He blamed everything on the Soviets. Said they destroyed his landmarks. Their fault he couldn’t find the location now.”

“Koch never knew anything, did he?” Knoll asked.

“Nothing. A mere opportunist trying to stay alive.”

“Then tell us, old man, did you find the Amber Room?”

Chapaev nodded.

“You saw it?” Knoll asked.

“No. But it was there.”

“Why did you keep it secret?”

“Stalin was evil. The devil incarnate. He pilfered and stole Russia’s heritage to build the Palace of the Soviets.”

“The what?” she asked.

“An immense skyscraper in Moscow,” Chapaev said. “And he wanted to top the thing with a huge statue of Lenin. Can you imagine such a monstrosity? Karol, me, and all the others were collecting for the Museum of World Art that was to be a part of that palace. It was going to be Stalin’s gift to the world. Nothing different from what Hitler planned in Austria. A huge museum of pilfered art. Thank God Stalin never built his monument either. It was all madness. Nothing sane. And nobody could stop the bastard. Only death did him in.” The old man shook his head. “Utter, total madness. Karol and I were determined to do our part and never say anything about what we thought we found in the mountains. Better to leave it buried than to be a showpiece for Satan.”

“How did you find the Amber Room?” she asked.

“Quite by accident. Karol stumbled onto a railroad worker who pointed us to the caves. They were in the Russian sector, what became East Germany. The Soviets even stole that, too, though that was one theft I agreed with. Such awful things happen whenever Germany unites. Wouldn’t you say, Herr Knoll?”

“I do not opine on politics, Comrade Chapaev. Besides, I’m Austrian, not German.”

“Odd. I thought I detected a Bavarian twang to your accent.”

“Good ears for a man your age.”

Chapaev turned toward her. “That was your father’s nickname. `Yxo. Ears. They called him that in Mauthausen. He was the only one in the barracks who spoke German.”

“I didn’t know that. Daddy spoke little of the camp.”

Chapaev nodded. “Understandable. I spent the last months of the war in one myself.” The old man stared hard at Knoll. “To your accent, Herr Knoll, I used to be good at such things. German was my specialty.”

“Your English is quite good, too.”

“I have a talent for language.”

“Your former job certainly demanded powers of observation and communication.”

She was curious at the friction that seemed to exist. Two strangers, yet they acted as though they knew one another. Or, more accurately, hated one another. But the sparring was delaying their mission. She said, “Danya, can you tell us where the Amber Room is?”

“In the caves to the north. The Harz Mountains. Near Warthberg.”

“You sound like Koch,” Knoll said. “Those caves have been scoured clean.”

“Not these. They were in the eastern portion. The Soviets chained them off. Refused to let anyone inside. There are so many. It would take decades to explore them all, and they are like rat mazes. The Nazis wired most with explosives and stored ammunition in the rest. That’s one reason Karol and I never went to look. Better to let the amber rest quietly than risk exploding it.”

Knoll slipped a small notebook and pen from his back pocket. “Draw a map.”

Chapaev worked a few minutes on a sketch. She and Knoll sat silent. Only the crackle of the fire and the pen moving across the paper broke the stillness. Chapaev handed the pad back to Knoll.

“The right one can be found by the sun,” Chapaev said. “The opening points due east. A friend who visited the area recently said the entrance is now chained shut with iron bars, the designation BCR-65 on the outside. The German authorities have yet to sweep the inside for explosives, so no one has ventured in as yet. Or so I am told. I drew a tunnel map as best I could remember. You will have to dig at the end. But you will hit the iron door that leads into the chamber after a few feet.”

Knoll said, “You’ve kept this secret for decades. Yet now you freely tell two strangers?”

“Rachel is not a stranger.”

“How do you know she’s not lying about who she is?”

“I see her father in her, clearly.”

“Yet you know nothing about me. You haven’t even inquired as to why I’m here.”

“If Rachel brought you, that is good enough for me. I am an old man, Herr Knoll. My time is short. Someone needs to know what I know. Maybe Karol and I were right. Maybe not. Nothing may be there at all. Why don’t you go see to be sure.” Chapaev turned to her. “Now if that’s all you wanted, my child, I’m tired and would like to rest.”

“All right, Danya. And thank you. We’ll see if the Amber Room’s there.”

Chapaev sighed. “Do that, my child. Do that.”

“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.”