Amber

Chapter 12

“Nobody move.” Maddock froze in place as he stared at a recessed panel exposed when the eagle slid aside in the stone disc. He and Bones both shined their torches on it while Leopov swept hers in the opposite direction to see if anything had been triggered there. After a minute, when nothing had happened that they could tell, Maddock and Leopov advanced slowly on the dial while Bones hung back to keep watch over the wider area.

The recessed panel contained three small dials, one on top and two on bottom, each numbered 0–9 like a combination lock. After a few seconds Maddock pulled back and explained what they were looking at to Bones.

“Great, only 729 possible combinations. This could take a while unless one of you has got a better idea.”

Leopov considered this in silence while Maddock continued to stare at the dials.

Bones said, “I remember with the old bike combo locks you could put your ear on them and hear the tumblers fall into place as you turned the dial… ”

“Let’s think about a combination before we try that.”

Leopov stared at him. “Think about numbers that were associated with the amber chamber.”

“The year it was made?” Bones suggested while pacing the tunnel.

“Three-digit numbers,” Leopov clarified.

Maddock turned each dial to 6. Nothing happened. “I’m not sure what’s supposed to happen, even if we did have the combination.” He looked around the wall. “I don’t see how this thing could open.”

Suddenly Leopov emitted a breathy gasp.

“You okay?” Maddock gripped her arm as Bones whirled around and spotlighted her with his torch.

“I'm all right. It’s just… it’s a long shot, but there were 565 candles in the amber chamber. When they were all lit they gave the room a golden glow that accentuated the natural beauty of the materials.”

“I bet Catherine really dug that mood lighting for when she brought her horse—“

“Bones, c’mon!”

“What? I’m just—“

Leopov cackled. “Believe me, growing up in Russia, he wasn’t about to say anything I haven’t heard before.”

“Let me try it.” Maddock set the top dial to 5, the lower left to 6 and then the lower right to 5.

Nothing happened.

“Hold on, maybe it’s left-to-right.” He set the lower left dial to 5 and the top — middle-dial to 6. The right-most dial was already turned to 5 from the previous attempt, completing the 5-6-5 combination, and so none of them were prepared when they heard a rumbling, grating noise as the wall itself began to swing inward.

“Jackpot!” Bones pointed his flashlight at the wall as it moved, pivoting from the right side. It moved with surprising speed and in seconds the former wall had swung all the way open to the right side, revealing a large room behind it. The trio hung back for a few seconds to ascertain whether an obvious threat awaited them in the new space, but all was quiet and the beams of their lights, without which the room would be cast in complete darkness, showed nothing sinister.

Maddock waved a hand toward the room and led the way in.

Inside were the remains of old crates. Some were in shattered pieces while others were stacked two or three high. The three of them split up and began combing the room. Before long it became apparent that all of the crates were empty. Bones saw a pile of something in one corner and moved to check it out.

Maddock watched as he slowed, bent down while he directed his flashlight, and then muttered some sort of epithet.

“What is it?” Maddock added his light to what Bones was investigating.

“Skeletons.”

Leopov dropped the piece of crate she’d been looking at and looked over at the pile of skeletons. “Bones found the bones.”

Maddock highlighted a piece of fabric still intact on part of one of the skeletons and went to it. Heavily caked with dust, he guessed the garment to be what was left of a pair of pants, an olive drab color. When he lifted it to see if there was anything underneath, it crumbled to dust.

“Got a belt buckle here,” Bones called out. Maddock and Leopov moved to join him. A worn strip of leather remained which had mostly been eaten away by rats and insects over the decades, but a dust-shrouded metal belt buckle glinted under the flashlight beams. Bones wiped away some of the dust to reveal an engraved hammer and sickle.

“These were Russian soldiers.” Leopov’s voice took on a solemn tone.

Maddock looked at Leopov. “At the end of the war the Russians invaded what was then the German city of Königsberg, right?”

“Correct. The Russians ended up winning that battle, which is why this city is now called Kaliningrad.”

Bones held up the belt buckle. “So why are there dead Russians in here but no dead Germans?”

Leopov stared down at the pile of skeletons as she answered. “My guess is that these could have been POWs — Russians held by the Germans at some point during the war.”

Dane looked around the murky space. “We are way down in an underground bunker. The Germans could have hid out down here for a long time… ” He trailed off as he surveyed the large room. Bones got up and looked around some more. “This room was big enough to have contained the Amber Room, though, wasn’t it?”

Leopov glanced at the low ceiling. “Disassembled, yes.”

Maddock eyed the wooden crates. “And these crates?”

Leopov nodded. “They appear to be of sufficient dimensions and integrity to have carried the panels, yes.”

They combed through the room some more but found nothing else of interest. Maddock summed up their thoughts. “If we assume these crates once held the Amber Room panels, then it’s safe to say that down here underground, it probably survived the bombings.”

Leopov nodded. “Tells us nothing about where they ended up, unfortunately.”

Maddock snapped some flash pictures with his camera and then moved for the exit. “Let’s get back above ground and report in.”

They left the room, passing through the open stone wall into the tunnel again. Maddock paused and looked at the eagle and its hidden dials. “I wonder if we should try to move the wall back into position again.”

“How would that work?” Bones eyed the dials dubiously while Leopov continued toward the stairs, apparently uninterested in restoring the wall to its former state.

“The dials were all set to zero before we got here. So maybe if we—“

“Maddock, Bones: I hear something!”

The two SEALs turned around to see Leopov gazing up at the broken staircase. They ran over to her and tipped their heads toward the upper floors. Maddock was reaching for the walkie-talkie on his belt when he clearly heard the sounds of a scuffle coming from above. Something heavy being slid across the floor, breaking. A grunt. He dropped the radio and just yelled up, “Professor?”

A guttural cry echoed around the walls and then a dark shape came flying over the edge. With mounting alarm Maddock recognized the form as that of a human body, and then it smashed onto the remaining portion of the wooden stairway.