Amber

Chapter 2

“Gentlemen, I’m told you were able to leverage a disadvantage into an advantage today. Nicely done.”

To Maddock, Bones, Professor and Willis, the words themselves were surprising enough without considering who they came from. But the fact that those words were uttered by none other than a high-ranking Admiral, one of the Navy’s top brass, made them all the more impactful.

“Thanks, Admiral Liptow!” Bones’ reply elicited eye rolls from his three fellow SEALs, but Admiral Jason Liptow smiled good-naturedly. His uniform cap hid the male pattern baldness they knew was there from the pictures they’d seen of him in the media throughout the years, but his eyes burned brightly as he stared at the four SEALs in turn.

“Don’t thank me yet, Bonebrake. You and your esteemed colleagues, here, are about to embark on one heck of a mission. But it won’t be stateside.” He waved toward the helicopter’s window, where below them the desert floor rushed past in a moving pastiche of dull browns and occasional reds.

The bird in which they flew, a modified CH-46 Sea Knight, had been retrofitted with a small but serviceable conference area in the forward portion of the cargo hold. Seated at a table, the admiral was flanked by two naval officers who went without introductions, while the SEAL foursome sat across from them.

The admiral turned something small over in his hands as he spoke to the team.

“We are now en route to Naval Air Station North Island.”

“San Diego. Hell, yes! I’ll trade rattlesnakes and cactus for the three B’s any day!” When no one asked him to elaborate, he added, “Beaches, bikinis, and babes. Wait, I think booty’s supposed to be in there somewhere.”

The admiral shook his head. “Sorry, Bonebrake. You won’t have time to leave the base, because as soon as we land a transport jet will be waiting to take the four of you to Russia.” He paused for emphasis, to let this sink in.

Professor shrugged and looked at Bones. “Vodka and ski bunnies?” But it was Maddock at whom Bones glanced. “We’re on pretty good terms with the Russians, right, Dane?” Maddock’s sea gray eyes took on a sparkle as he recalled an incident with a sunken space capsule and a Russian submarine.

The admiral ignored them by continuing. “The four of you have been selected for a special operations mission to recover an asset deemed to be of high-level importance to the United States government. We only have a few minutes until we arrive at North Island, so I need for me to do most of the talking and you to do the listening. Is that clear enough?”

All four SEALs nodded and then the admiral tossed the object he’d been holding onto the tabletop, where it clattered and came to rest. It was an oblong gemstone with a not-quite-golden color that was non-metallic and translucent.

“Any of you know what this is?”

Maddock reached out first and picked it up, but it was Professor who spoke. “Amber. I’m not a geologist, but I don’t think it’s really an actual rock. It’s formed from some kind of tree resin. Bugs and other crap get stuck in it and then fossilized.”

The admiral grinned and nodded. “That’s close enough, Chapman. Pass it around, feel it, look at it. I just want you to get a sense of what we’re looking for beyond what you’ll read about in the briefing materials.”

Maddock ran his thumb over the cabochon, a non-faceted jewel cut with one flat side and a smooth, domed side. “It’s light,” he said, before passing it to Bones, who held it up to his eye and tried to see through it. He turned in Maddock’s direction.

“You look better through this thing, dude. Like some weird blurry skeleton man.”

Willis snatched the organic gemstone from Bones’ hand. “Gimme that, man. You’ve gotten us into enough trouble for one day, seriously.” Bones shrugged and looked out the plane’s window while Willis examined the gem.

The admiral continued. “Long story short. In the early 1700s a famous work of art known as the Amber Room was created in Prussia. Basically four walls and a ceiling completely covered with high-grade Baltic amber, about six tons’ worth all told, but it could be crated up and moved around when needed. Later it ended up in Russia under the care of Peter the Great, and in Russia it remained all the way until World War Two, when in 1941 it was stolen by the invading German army. It was last seen in 1945, thought by many to have been destroyed in the Soviet invasion of what is now known as Kaliningrad.”

The officers flanking the admiral passed an identical folder to each SEAL while Liptow went on.

“You’ll have plenty of time to read up on the detailed background during your transcontinental flight over to Russia. For now, just understand that your official, Top Secret level mission is to locate and retrieve the Amber Room, or as many pieces of it as you can, and then turn it over to me.”

All four SEALs had looks that betrayed the question they were dying to ask. Why does the U.S. government want the Amber Room? But all of them, even Bones, knew that to question orders from such a high level of command was tantamount to insubordination. They were SEALS, tools of force. They did what they were told, no more, no less. The admiral pointed to one of the briefing folders.

“You will have additional support in the region. The Navy has ships and aircraft in the area for the annual BALTOPS-Baltic Operations — exercise, and you will be boarding the cruiser Gettysburg for use as a marine platform from which to investigate a wartime shipwreck. The details are in your briefing materials. One word of caution: latest intel has it that the Russian government is also actively searching for the lost Amber Room at this time.”

Then the pilot’s voice came over a speaker, informing them that they were about to land in San Diego.

The commander had one last thing to say. “Call in to report your status after you dive the wreck. The intel situation up high is fluid, and we’ll need to approve your go-ahead on each objective outlined in your briefing materials. Questions?” The admiral gave each of his SEALs a hard stare that somehow suggested they had better not have any questions.

At length, Bones raised his hand. When the admiral nodded Bones picked up the piece of amber which had once again found its way back to the table.

“I lost my good luck charm on the exercise. Can I have this?”