The Amber Room

  “Beautiful fruit,” she said in German.

  “My own,” the older man said.

  She bought three apples, smiled broadly, and warmed to him. Her image was perfect. Reddish-blond wig, fair skin, hazel eyes. Her breasts were enhanced two sizes by a pair of external silicone inserts. She’d padded her hips and thighs, as well, the fitted jeans two sizes larger to accommodate the manufactured bulk. A plaid flannel shirt and tan prairie boots rounded out the disguise. Sunglasses shielded her eyes, dark, but not enough to draw attention. Later, eyewitnesses would surely describe a busty, heavyset blonde.

  “Do you know where Danya Chapaev lives?” she finally asked. “He’s an old man. Lived here awhile. A friend of my grandfather. I came to deliver a present but lost directions to where he lives. I only found the village by luck.”

  The older man shook his head. “How careless, Fräulein.”

  She smiled, soaking in the rebuke. “I know. But I’m like that. My mind stays a thousand miles away.”

  “I don’t know where a Chapaev lives. I’m from Nesselwang, to the west. But let me get someone from here.”

  Before she could stop him, he yelled to another man across the square. She didn’t want to draw too much attention to her inquiry. The two men spoke in French, a language she wasn’t overly proficient in, but she caught an occasional word here and there. Chapaev. North. Three kilometers. Near the lake.

  “Eduard knows Chapaev. Says he lives north of town. Three kilometers. Right beside the lakeshore. That road there. Small stone chalet with a chimney.”

  She smiled and nodded at the information, then heard the man from across the square call out, “Julius! Julius!”

  A boy of about twelve scampered toward the stall. He had light brown hair and a cute face. The vendor spoke to the lad, then the boy ran toward her. Behind, a flock of ducks sprang from the lake, up into the milky morning sky.

  “You looking for Chapaev?” the boy asked. “That’s my grandpapa. I can show you.”

  His young eyes scanned her breasts. Her smile broadened. “Then lead the way.”

  Men of all ages were so easy to manipulate.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  9:15 a.m.

  Rachel glanced across the front seat at Christian Knoll. They were speeding south on autobahn E533, thirty minutes south of Munich. The terrain framed by the Volvo’s tinted windows featured ghostly peaks emerging from a curtain of haze, snow whitening the folds of the highest altitudes, the slopes below clothed in verdant fir and larch.

  “It’s beautiful out there,” she said.

  “Spring is the best time to visit the Alps. This your first time in Germany?”

  She nodded.

  “You will very much like the area.”

  “You travel a lot?”

  “All the time.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “I have an apartment in Vienna, but rarely do I stay there. My work takes me all over the world.”

  She studied her enigmatic chauffeur. His shoulders were broad and muscular, his neck thick, his arms long and powerful. He was again dressed casually. Plaid chamois cloth shirt, jeans, boots, and smelled faintly of sweet cologne. He was the first European man she’d ever really talked with at length. Maybe that was the fascination. He’d definitely piqued her interest.

  “The KGB sheet said you have two children. Is there a husband?” Knoll asked.

  “Used to be. We’re divorced.”

  “That’s rather prevalent in America.”

  “I hear a hundred or more a week in my court.”

  Knoll shook his head. “Such a shame.”

  “People can’t seem to live together.”

  “Is your ex-husband a lawyer?”

  “One of the best.” A Volvo whizzed by in the left-hand lane. “Amazing. That car’s got to be going over a hundred miles an hour.”

  “Closer to one hundred and twenty,” Knoll said. “We’re doing nearly a hundred.”

  “That’s a definite difference from home.”

  “Is he a good father?” Knoll asked.

  “My ex? Oh, yes. Very good.”

  “Better father than husband?”

  Strange, the questions. But she didn’t mind answering, the anonymity of a stranger lessening the intrusion. “I wouldn’t say that. Paul’s a good man. Any woman would be thrilled to have him.”

  “Why weren’t you?”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t. I simply said we couldn’t live together.”

  Knoll seemed to sense her hesitancy. “I did not mean to pry. It’s just that people interest me. With no permanent home or roots, I enjoy probing others. Simple curiosity. Nothing more.”

  “It’s okay. No offense taken.” She sat silent for a few moments, then said, “I should have called and told Paul where I’m staying. He’s watching the children.”

  “You can let him know this evening.”

  “He’s not happy I’m even here. He and my father said I should stay out of it.”

  “You discussed this with your father before his death?”

  “Not at all. He left me a note with his will.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Just something I have to do.”

  “I can understand. The Amber Room is quite a prize. People have searched for it since the war.”

  “So I’ve been told. What makes it so special?”

  “Hard to say. Art has such a varying effect on people. The interesting thing about the Amber Room was that it moved everyone in the same way. I’ve read accounts from the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century. All agree it was magnificent. Imagine, an entire room paneled in amber.”

  “It sounds amazing.”

  “Amber is so precious. You know much about it?” Knoll asked.

  “Very little.”

  “Just fossilized tree resin, forty to fifty millions of years old. Sap hardened by the millennia into a gem. The Greeks called itelektron , ‘substance of the sun,’ for the color and because, if you rub a piece with your hands, it produces an electric charge. Chopin used to finger chains of it before he played the piano. It warms to the touch and carries away perspiration.”

  “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 slow
ed.

  “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.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  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.”