the Amber Room

THIRTY-EIGHT

1:15 p.m.

Paul studied alfred grumer with his lawyer eyes, examining every facet of the man's face, gauging a reaction, calculating a likely response. He, McKoy, Grumer, and Rachel were back in the shed outside the mine. Rain peppered the tin roof. Nearly three hours had passed since the initial find, and McKoy's mood, like the weather, had only dampened.

"What the fuck's going on, Grumer?" McKoy said.

The German was perched on a stool. "Two possible explanations. One, the trucks were empty when they were driven in the cavern. Two, somebody beat us inside."

"How could somebody beat us to it? It took four days to bore into that chamber, and the other way out is sealed shut with tons of crap."

"The violation could have happened long ago."

McKoy took a deep breath. "Grumer, I have twenty-eight people flyin' in here tomorrow. They've invested a shitload of money into this rat hole. What am I suppose to say to 'em? Somebody beat us to it?"

"The facts are the facts."

McKoy shot from the chair, rage in his eyes. Rachel cut him off. "What good is that going to do?"

"It'd make me feel a whole lot better."

"Sit down," Rachel said.

Paul recognized her court voice. Strong. Firm. A tone that allowed no hint of doubt. A tone she'd used too many times in their own home.

The big man backed off. "Jesus Christ. This is some shit." He sat back down. "Looks like I might need a lawyer. The judge here certainly can't do it. You available, Cutler?"

He shook his head. "I do probates. But my firm has a lot of good litigators and contract-law specialists."

"They're all across the pond and you're here. Guess who's elected."

"I assume all the investors signed waivers and acknowledgments of the risk?" Rachel asked.

"Lot of damn good that'll do. These people have money and lawyers of their own. By next week, I'll be waist deep in legal bullshit. Nobody'll believe I didn't know this was a dry hole."

"I don't agree with you," Rachel said. "Why would anyone assume you'd dig knowing there was nothing to find? Sounds like financial suicide."

"Maybe that little hundred-thousand-dollar fee I'm guaranteed whether we find anythin' or not?"

Rachel turned toward Paul. "Maybe you should call the firm. This guy does need a lawyer."

"Look, let me make somethin' clear," McKoy said. "I have a business to run back home. I don't do this for a livin'. It costs to do this kind of shit. On the last dig, I charged the same fee and made it back with more. Those investors got a good return. Nobody complained."

"Not this time," Paul said. "Unless those trucks are worth something, which I doubt. And that's assuming you can even get them out of there."

"Which you can't," Grumer said. "That other cavern is impassable. It would cost millions to clear it."

"Fuck off, Grumer."

Paul stared at McKoy. The big man's expression was familiar, a combination of resignation and worry. Lots of clients looked that way at one time or another. Actually, though, he wanted to stay around. In his mind he saw Grumer in the cavern again, brushing letters from the sand. "Okay, McKoy. If you want my help, I'll do what I can."

Rachel gave him a strange gaze, her thoughts easy to read. Yesterday he'd wanted to go home and leave all this intrigue to the authorities. Yet here he was, volunteering to represent Wayland McKoy, piloting his own chariot of fire across the sky at the whim of forces he did not understand and could not control.

"Good," McKoy said. "I can use the help. Grumer, make yourself useful and arrange rooms for these folks at the Garni. Put them on my tab."

Grumer did not appear pleased at being ordered around, but the German did not argue, and he headed for the phone.

"What's the Garni?" Paul asked.

"Where we're staying in town."

Paul motioned to Grumer. "He there, too?"

"Where else?"

Paul was impressed with Stod. It was a considerable city interlaced with venerable thoroughfares that seemed to have been taken straight from the Middle Ages. Row after row of black-and-white half-timbered buildings lined the cobbled lanes, pressed tight like books on a shelf. Above everything, a monstrous abbey capped a steep mountain spur high--the slopes leading up thick with larch and beech trees bursting in a spring flourish.

He and Rachel drove into town behind Grumer and McKoy, their path winding deep into the old town, ending just before the Hotel Garni. A small parking lot reserved for guests waited farther down the street, toward the river, just outside the pedestrian-only zone.

Inside the hotel he learned that McKoy's party dominated the fourth floor. The entire third floor had already been reserved for investors arriving tomorrow. After some haggling by McKoy and palm pressing of a few euros, the clerk made a room available on the second floor. McKoy asked if they wanted one or two rooms, and Rachel had immediately said one.

Upstairs, their suitcases had barely hit the bed before Rachel said, "Okay, what are you up to, Paul Cutler?"

"What are you up to? One room. I thought we were divorced. You like to remind me about it enough."

"Paul, you're up to something, and I'm not letting you out of my sight. Yesterday you were busting a gut to go home. Now you volunteer to represent this guy? What if he's a crook?"

"All the more reason he needs a lawyer."

"Paul--"

He motioned to the double bed. "Night and day?"

"What?"

"You going to keep me in your sight night and day?"

"It's not anything we both haven't seen before. We were married ten years."

He smiled. "I might get to like this intrigue."

"Are you going to tell me?"

He sat on the edge of the bed and told her what happened in the underground chamber, then showed her the wallet, which he'd kept all afternoon in his back pocket. "Grumer dusted the letters away on purpose. No doubt about it. That guy is up to something."

"Why didn't you tell McKoy?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I thought about it. But, like you say, he may be a crook."

"You're sure the letters were O-I-C?"

"As best I could make out."

"You think this has anything to do with Daddy and the Amber Room?"

"There's no connection at this point, except Karol was real interested in what McKoy was doing. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

Rachel sat down beside him. He noticed the cuts and scrapes on her arms and face that had scabbed over. "This guy McKoy latched on to us kind of quick," she said.

"We may be all he's got. He doesn't seem to like Grumer much. We're just two strangers who came out of the woodwork. No interest in anything. No ax to grind. I guess we're deemed safe."

Rachel cradled the wallet and studied closely the scraps of decaying paper. "Ausgegeben 15-3-51. Verfallt 15-3-55. Gustav Muller. Should we get somebody to translate?"

"Not a good idea. Right now, I don't trust anyone, present company excepted of course. I suggest we find a German-English dictionary and see for ourselves."

Two blocks west of the Garni they found a translation dictionary in a cluttered gift shop, a thin volume apparently printed for tourists with common words and phrases.

"Ausgegeben means 'issued,' " he said. "Verfallt, 'expires,' 'ends.' " He looked at Rachel. "The numbers have to be dates. The European way. Backwards. Issued March 15, 1951. Expires March 15, 1955. Gustav Muller."

"That's postwar. Grumer was right. Somebody beat McKoy to whatever was there. Sometime after March 1951."

"But what?"

"Good question."

"It had to be serious. Five bodies with holes in their heads?"

"And important. All three trucks were clean. Not a scrap of anything left to find."

He tossed the dictionary back on the shelf. "Grumer knows something. Why go to all the trouble of taking pictures then dusting the letters away? What's he documenting? And who for?"

"Maybe we should tell McKoy?"

He thought about the suggestion, then said, "I don't think so. Not yet, at least."