Amber

Chapter 10

Maddock drove down Lenin Avenue in a rented SUV, Professor riding shotgun with Bones and Willis in the back seat. He navigated a lot of roundabouts and curving intersections as opposed to the right angle street patterns prevalent in the U.S. Lots of German vehicles like VWs were mixed in with Russian and other European makes.

“Where are we going, again?” Bones gazed with a bored-looking expression out the window at an urban park-like environment with squat, concrete buildings separated by grassy, tree-lined spaces.

Professor answered while Maddock negotiated a busy merge. “The old Königsberg Castle site by way of the Dom Sovietov building, but first we have to meet up with Zara Leopov at King’s Gate.”

Bones whipped his head away from the window. “I think I understood ‘castle’. And Leopov. What’s the rest of it?”

Professor sighed and turned around to project back to Bones. “It goes like this. Near the end of the second World War, in 1945, the Amber Room was here in Kaliningrad, although back then, under German occupation, it was called Königsberg, in what was East Prussia. Still with me, Bones?”

“I’m still with your mom.”

Professor shook his head and went on. “The Amber Room was openly displayed in the town’s castle — Königsberg Castle — until Hitler himself ordered all stolen art and stuff like that moved out of Königsberg before the advancing Russian army got there and had the chance to take it back.”

“Gotta protect that fine art while you’re taking over the world, ain’t that right?” Willis’ face was grim as he made the remark.

“He was well on the way to falling by this time,” Professor continued. “Königsberg was heavily shelled and bombed by the Russians. Soon afterward the Germans fled and thereafter the city remained under Soviet control.”

“So we’re going to search the castle?” Bones looked puzzled. “Seems kind of obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m sure everyone’s already looked all through it by now, right? All these years… Same as the wreck, really, but at least that’s hard to get to. Anybody and their dog can walk through a building.”

Professor responded as Maddock wrangled the SUV through another turn while glancing in the rearview mirror. “The castle is just collapsed ruins now; the standing ruins were taken down by a demolition team in 1968. The only part left today that might be able to be explored is the subterranean tunnel system beneath it. Archaeology teams still occasionally do excavations there in the hopes of finding treasures including the Amber Room. That’s where most of the expectations for finding anything on that site lie.”

Bones was still not convinced. “But it’s not like anybody can just go walking into the ruins anymore, right?”

“We’re not just anybody, Bones. We’re special warfare operators on a government sanctioned mission. But you’re right. There are alternate entrances and a lot of secrets in general surrounding the castle. That’s where our local contact comes into play.”

“Zara? She could come into play with me anytime, no doubt about it. Doesn’t make her any less annoying, though. And what’s this other place we’re meeting her at?”

“King’s Gate. It’s one of the six old German guard houses from the 1800s that fortified the city. Today it’s a tourist attraction.”

“What does it have to do with the Amber Room, though?”

“Nothing, I don’t think. It’s just a well-known place to meet at so we can find her.”

“And here it is.” Maddock’s voice brought them back to their current objective. Leopov. He slowed the vehicle as they pulled up in front of a brick building with a central tower featuring a trio of statues mounted on the facade. Bones pointed to them.

“Who are those guys?”

Professor answered. “Prussian kings.”

Willis looked not up at the statues but on the ground level. “You guys see her?”

“She’s hard to miss,” Bones began. “She’s super freakin’—“

“Hold it.” Maddock’s voice had that icy tone to it that the team knew well enough to know they better shut up and listen.

“What’s up?” This from Professor.

Maddock stared into the driver side door mirror while he responded. “I took an extra loop a while back there so that we weren’t taking such a direct course to our rendezvous point, but now I see the same black Citroen that I saw before I made the extra loop.”

Professor wrinkled his brow as he tracked the vehicle in the rear view. “Coincidence?”

“There she is!” Bones announced before Maddock could answer. Three of the four heads in the SUV turned while Maddock kept his gaze riveted to the mirror. A woman dressed in an overcoat, scarf, pants and a jacket walked around the corner and strolled down the sidewalk in front of the King’s Gate. Willis gave a catcall whistle that couldn’t be heard outside of the SUV.

“Damn. Look at that!” Then Willis shook his head and seemed to clear his mind. “I don’t see our contact, though. Where is she?” He glanced up and down the sidewalk. Bones chuckled.

“What ‘choo talkin’ about, Willis! That’s her! That’s Leopov.”

“Hey, Bonehead, I told you to stop sayin’ that. It’s low-hanging fruit, man. You gotta be better than that.” But the fire was gone from his reply as he watched Zara sashay down the street. “You’re serious — that’s really her?”

Bones already had the door open. “Be right back. Slide your big butt over and make some room.” Bones took a couple of steps toward Leopov.

“Well hello again, beautiful!” A brunette, Leopov had a vaguely Slavic look with high cheekbones and shoulder length hair with a mild wave to it.

She turned and stared at him for a moment over lowered sunglasses, then walked briskly past him. “Hurry, get in.” The words blew into Bones’ ears on a perfume scented wind, and she got into the SUV. Bones looked around very briefly but didn’t see anything that was cause for concern. Two old men stood conversing about a quarter of a block away, a few people walked the sidewalk further on past the King’s Gate. He got into the SUV and pulled the door shut, squeezing Zara in between himself and Willis in the back seat.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance again, Zara. I’m sure you remember my esteemed colleague, Dane Maddock.” He extended a long arm toward Maddock behind the wheel.

“Hi Zara. Up front with me is my associate, Pete Chapman, and the other guy back there is Willis Sander. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know who’s in the black Citroen that just parked on the opposite side about half a block back, would you?”

“I came alone.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Somebody’s a cranky boy. What’s the matter, do you miss your American fast food already?”

Professor looked back at Willis and exchanged looks. Maddock ignored the jab. “Dom Sovetov, right?”

“Correct. Are you certain you have a tail?”

“Think so. I pulled an extra loop back there and the car is still on me.”

“I know a quick enough route to Dom Sov that will be so circuitous that coincidence will not be possible. Let’s go. Pull out suddenly, without warning.”

Bones and Willis snickered in the back.

Maddock waited for a few cars to pass by and then squeezed into an opening so that he would have vehicles behind him as well as in front.

“Go ahead and merge into the left lane, when you can. Do not do so recklessly.”

“So what exactly is this Dom Sov place?” Bones wanted to know.

Leopov answered him as soon as she was satisfied with Maddock’s lane change. “In English it can be translated to House of Soviets.”

Professor craned his neck around to ask her a question. “It was meant to be an administration building, right, but now abandoned?”

Leopov nodded. “Correct. Construction was abandoned in the 1980s when the ground beneath it was deemed to be structurally unsafe to build on due to the soil shifting in the underground layers beneath the castle.” She gave Maddock a driving instruction and then Bones turned to her.

“Let me get this straight… There’s now an abandoned building on top of the castle ruins?”

“That is right.”

“And we’re going there now?”

“Right again. If your esteemed colleague can lose the tail you’ve unfortunately seemed to have acquired.”

“Who do you think those guys are?” Willis started to turn around but Leopov put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t look back. Just act normal. They could be KGB agents sent to keep tabs on you.”

“Why would the KGB care about the Amber Room?”

Kate narrowed her eyes at Willis. “The same reason you care about it, I suspect. Your government told you to find it.”

“What’s your involvement, Zara?” Maddock’s question was as direct as his acceleration through the yellow light that threatened to keep them hung up at an intersection with the Citroen only four vehicles back. He shot across and then slowed to normal speed, all of the cars behind him now stopped at the light.

“Simple. I was sent by the Russian government to assist the U.S. Special Forces team in locating and recovering the amber chamber or pieces thereof. There! Pull over there!”

Maddock looked over to the right at a crowded curb with a line of double-parked vehicles. “Why?”

“Taxi. Hurry. We can transfer before they catch us if we are fast. I assume this rental is under an assumed identity?”

Bones opened the rear door. “It’s under Willis’ mom’s name. No problem, I can explain it to her.”

Maddock looked at Leopov and rolled his eyes while Willis followed the Russian agent out of the SUV. “You better get your ass in that taxi before I catch up to you, Bones.”

“Let me do the talking.” Leopov ran around the front of the cab, a mini-van, and took the front passenger seat. Even before all four SEALs were inside with the doors closed, she said to the driver, an aging Russian man, “Dom Sovietov.” She then pressed a bill into his hand and said something in Russian that Maddock couldn’t understand but inferred from how the cabbie immediately merged out into traffic that she had asked him to step on it.

All of them remained silent as they were driven at a good clip through the busy streets of Kaliningrad. Though not spies by trade, with the possible exception of Leopov, Maddock suspected, even a bunch of SEALs knew better than to discuss anything tactical or to divulge anything personal about themselves in front of strangers while in the field. Maddock’s eyes narrowed every time he caught a glimpse of a black car in the cab’s rearview, but by the time the cabbie slowed in front of a boxy, concrete tower, he had not sighted the Citroen again.

“Dom Sovietov,” the driver announced, putting the cab into park. The SEALs exited quickly while Leopov gave the driver more cash and thanked him politely. Bones opened her door for her and she got out. As the cab slipped back into traffic, they eyed their destination. Bones was the first to give voice to his observations.

“Looks like a giant freakin’ robot, doesn’t it?”

The others nodded and murmured agreement. Indeed, a pair of protruding block structures gave the appearance of eyes, the whole building appearing like a robot’s head emerging from the Earth.

“The locals call it ‘the monster’ because it’s so ugly. It sits atop what used to be the castle moat, which has long since been filled in.” Leopov pointed to the west. “The actual castle sat over there, but it is rumored that a network of underground tunnels connects the Dom Sovietov to the castle.”

“And there’s nobody in there?” Bones found it hard to believe that such a large building still standing so close to the center of a city could be unoccupied.

Leopov shook her head. “It is abandoned. Come on. We need to get to the basement.”

She led the way across a lawn toward the building as the SEALs trailed behind her. Maddock took a last look back at the street to watch for their tail, and then they took off at a jog for the facade.