the Amber Room

FIFTY-THREE

Suzanne opened the bedchamber door. A steward said in Czech, "Pan Loring wants to see you in the Ancestors' Room. He said to take the back passages. Stay out of the main halls."

"He say why?"

"We have guests for the night. It may be related to them."

"Thank you. I'll head downstairs immediately."

She closed the door. Strange. Take the back passages. The castle was reamed with a series of secret corridors once used by aristocracy as a means of escape, now utilized by staff who maintained the castle's infrastructure. Her room was toward the rear of the complex, beyond the main halls and family quarters, halfway to the kitchen and work areas, past the point where the covert passages started.

She left the bedchamber and descended two floors. The nearest entry into the hidden corridors was a small sitting room on the ground floor. She stepped close to a paneled wall. Intricate moldings framed richly stained slabs of grain-free walnut. Above the Gothic fireplace she found a release switch camouflaged as part of the scrollwork. A section of wall beside the fireplace sprang open. She stepped into the passage and pulled the panel shut.

The mazelike route wound in right angles down a narrow, single-person corridor. Outlines of doors in the stone appeared periodically, leading out into either hallways or rooms. She'd played here as a child, imagining herself a Bohemian princess darting for freedom from infidel invaders breaching the castle walls, and so she was familiar with their path.

The Ancestors' Room possessed no entrance into the maze, the Blue Room being the closest point of egress. Loring named the space for its gold-embossed blue leather wall hangings. She exited and listened at the door for any sounds emanating from the corridor outside. Hearing none, she quickly slipped down the hall and stepped into the Ancestors' Room, closing the door behind her.

Loring was standing in an oriel-like semicircular bay before leaded glass windows. On the wall, above two lions carved in stone, was the family coat of arms. Portraits of Josef Loring and the rest of the ancestors adorned the walls.

"It seems providence has delivered us a gift," he said. Loring told her about Wayland McKoy and the Cutlers.

She raised and eyebrow. "This McKoy has nerve."

"More than you realize. He does not intend any extortion. I would imagine he was testing to see my reaction. He is more astute than he wants his listener to perceive. He did not come for money. He came to find the Amber Room, probably wanting me to invite them to stay."

"Then why did you?"

Loring clasped his hands behind his back and stepped close to the oil painting of his father. The quiet, involuted stare of the elder Loring glared down. In the image, shocks of white hair drooped across the furrowed brow, the stare one of an enigmatic man who dominated his era, and somehow expected the same of his children. "My sisters and brother did not survive the war," Loring quietly said. "I always thought that a sign. I was not the firstborn. None of this was meant to be mine."

She knew that, so she wondered if Loring was talking to the painting, perhaps finishing a conversation he and his father had started decades ago. Her father had told her about old Josef. How demanding, uncompromising, and difficult he could be. He'd expected a lot from his last surviving child.

"My brother was to inherit. Instead I was given the responsibility. The past thirty years have been difficult. Very difficult, indeed."

"But you survived. Prospered, in fact."

He turned to face her. "Another sign from providence, perhaps?" He stepped close to her. "Father left me with a dilemma. On the one hand, he bestowed a treasure of unimaginable beauty. The Amber Room. On the other, I am forced to constantly fend off challenges to ownership. Things were so different in his day. Living behind the Iron Curtain came with the advantage of being able to kill whomever you wanted." Loring paused. "Father's sole wish was that all this be kept in the family. He was particularly emphatic about that. You are family, draha, as much as my own flesh and blood. Truly, my daughter in spirit."

The old man stared at her for a few seconds and then lightly brushed her cheek with his hand.

"Between now and this evening, stay in your room, out of sight. Later, you know what we must do."

Knoll crept through the woods, the forest thick but not impassable. He minimized his approach by choosing an open route under the enveloping canopy, following defined trails, detouring only at the end to make his final assault unnoticed.

The early evening loomed cool and dry, the night ahead surely to be outright cold. The setting sun angled to the west, its rays piercing the spring leaves and leaving only a muted glow. Sparrows squawked overhead. He thought about Italy, two weeks ago, traversing another forest, toward another castle, on another quest. That journey had ended in two deaths. He wondered what tonight's sojourn would bring.

His path led him up a steady incline, the rocky spur ending at the base of the castle walls. He'd been patient all afternoon, waiting in a grove of beech trees about a kilometer south. He'd watched the two police cars come and go early in the morning, wondering what business they'd had with Loring. Then, midafternoon, a Land Rover entered the main gate and had not left. Perhaps the vehicle brought guests. Distractions that could occupy Loring and Suzanne long enough to mask his brief visit, like he'd hoped for from the Italian whore who'd visited Pietro Caproni. As yet he did not know if Danzer was even in residence, her Porsche had neither entered nor left, but he assumed she was there.

Where else would she be?

He stopped his advance thirty meters from the west entrance. A door appeared below a massive round tower. The rough stone curtain rose twenty meters, smooth and devoid of openings except for an occasional arrow slit. Batters at the base sloped outward, a medieval innovation for strength and a way for stones and missiles dropped from above to bounce toward attackers. He mused at their usefulness to modern invaders. Much had changed in four hundred years.

He traced the walls skyward. Rectangular windows with iron grilles lined the upper stories. Surely, in medieval days, the tower's job had been to defend the postern entrance. But its height and size seemed also to provide a ready transition between the varying roof line of the adjacent wings. He was familiar with the entrance from club meetings. It was used mainly by the staff, a paved cul-de-sac outside the walls allowed vehicles to turn around.

He needed to slip inside quickly and quietly. He studied the heavy wood door reinforced with blackened iron. Almost certainly it would be locked, but not protected by an alarm. He knew Loring, like Fellner, maintained loose security. The vastness of the castle, along with its remote location, was much more effective than any overt system. Besides, nobody outside of club members and Acquisitors knew any of what was really stashed within the confines of each member's residence.

He peered through thick brush and noticed a black slit at the edge of the door. Quickly, he trotted over and saw that the door was indeed open. He pushed through into a wide, barrel-vaulted passage. Three hundred years ago the entrance would have been used to haul cannons inside or allow castle defenders to sweep outside. Now the route was lined with tread marks from rubber tires. The dark passage twisted twice. One left, the other right. He knew that to be a defense mechanism to slow down invaders. Two portcullises, one halfway up the incline, the other near the end, could be used to lead invaders astray.

Another obligation of the monthly host for a club function was to provide overnight accommodations for members and Acquisitors, if requested. Loring's estate contained more than enough beds to sleep everyone. Historic ambience was probably why most members accepted Loring's hospitality. Knoll had stayed many times at the estate and recalled Loring once explaining the castle's history, how his family defended the walls for nearly five hundred years. Battles to the death fought within this very passage. He also remembered discussions about the array of secret corridors. After the bombing, during rebuilding, back passages allowed a ready way to heat and cool the many rooms, along with providing running water and electricity to chambers once warmed only by flames. He particularly recalled one of the secret doors that opened from Loring's study. The old man had showed his guests the novelty one night. The castle was littered with a maze of such passages. Fellner's Burg Herz was similar, the innovation a common architectural addition for fifteenth and sixteenth century fortresses.

He crept up the dim path, stopping at the end of an inclined entrance. A small inner ward lay ahead. Buildings from five epochs surrounded him. One of the castle's circular keeps towered at the far end. Sounds of pots clanging and voices spilled from the ground floor. The aroma of meat grilling mixed with a potent miasma from garbage containers off to one side. Tattered vegetable and fruit crates, along with wet cardboard boxes, were stacked like building blocks. The courtyard was clean, but was definitely the working bowels of this immense showpiece--the kitchens, stables, garrison hall, buttery, and salting house from ancient days--now where the hired help toiled to ensure the rest of the place stayed immaculate.

He lingered in the shadows.

Windows abounded in the upper stories, any one of which could allow a pair of eyes to spot him and raise an alarm. He needed to get inside without arousing suspicion. The stiletto was snug against his right arm under a cotton jacket. Loring's gift, the CZ-75B, was strapped in a shoulder harness, two spare ammunition clips in his pocket. Forty-five rounds in all. But the last thing he wanted was that kind of trouble.

He crouched low and crept up the final few feet, hugging a stone wall. He slipped over the wall's edge onto a narrow walk and darted for a door ten meters away. He tried the lock. It was open. He stepped inside. Smells of fresh produce and dank air immediately greeted him.

He stood in a short hall that spilled into a darkened room. A massive, octagonal oak support held up a low beamed ceiling. A blackened hearth dominated one wall. The air was chilled, boxes and crates stacked high. It was apparently an old pantry now used for storage. Two doors led out. One directly ahead, the other to the left. Recalling the sounds and smells outside, he concluded the left exit surely led to the kitchen. He needed to head east, so he chose the door ahead and stepped into another hall.

He was just about to start forward when he heard voices and movement from around the corner ahead. He quickly backtracked into the storage room. He decided, instead of leaving, to take up a position behind one of the walls of crates. The only artificial light was a bare bulb suspended from the center rafter. He hoped the approaching voices were merely passing through. He did not want to kill or even maim any member of the staff. Bad enough he was doing what he was, he didn't need to compound Fellner's embarrassment with violence.

But he'd do what he had to.

He squeezed behind a crate stack, his back rigid against the rough stone wall. He was able to peer out, thanks to the pile's unevenness. The silence was broken only by a trapped fly that buzzed at the dingy windows.

The door opened.

"We need cucumbers and parsley. And see if the canned peaches are there, too," a male voice said in Czech.

Luckily, neither man pulled the chain for the overhead light, relying instead on the afternoon sun filtered by the nasty leaded panes.

"Here," the other male said.

Both men moved to the other side of the room. A cardboard box was dropped to the floor, a lid jerked open.

"Is Pan Loring still upset?"

Knoll peered out. One man wore the uniform required of all Loring's staff. Maroon trousers, white shirt, thin black tie. The other sported the jacketed butler's ensemble of the serving staff. Loring often bragged about designing the uniforms himself.

"He and Pani Danzer have been quiet all day. The police came this morning to ask questions and express condolences. Poor Pan Fellner and his daughter. Did you see her last night? Quite a beauty."

"I served drinks and cake in the study after dinner. She was exquisite. Rich, too. What a waste. The police have any idea what happened?"

"Ne. The plane simply exploded on the way back to Germany, all aboard killed."

The words slapped Knoll hard across the face. Did he hear right? Fellner and Monika dead?

Rage surged through him.

A plane had blown up with Monika and Fellner on board. Only one explanation made any sense. Ernst Loring had ordered the action, with Suzanne as his mechanism. Danzer and Loring had gone after him and failed. So they killed the old man and Monika. But why? What was going on? He wanted to palm the stiletto, push the crates aside, and slash the two staffers to pieces, their blood avenging the blood of his former employers. But what good would that do? He told himself to stay calm. Breathe slow. He needed answers. He needed to know why. He was glad now that he'd come. The source of all that happened, all that may happen, was somewhere within the ancient walls that encompassed him.

"Bring the boxes and let's go," one of the men said.

The two men left through the door toward the kitchen. The room again went quiet. He stepped from behind the crates. His arms were tense, his legs tingling. Was that emotion? Sorrow? He didn't think himself capable. Or was it more the lost opportunity with Monika? Or the fact that he was suddenly unemployed, his once orderly life now disrupted? He willed the feeling from his brain and left the storage room, reentering the inner corridor. He twisted left and right until he found a spiral staircase. His knowledge of the castle's geography told him that he needed to ascend at least two floors before reaching what was regarded as the main level.

At the top of the staircase he stopped. A row of leaded glass windows opened to another courtyard. Across the bailey, on the upper story of the far rectangular keep, through a set of windows apparently opened to the evening, he saw a woman. Her body darted back and forth. The room's location was not dissimilar from the location of his own room at Burg Herz. Quiet. Out of the way. But safe. Suddenly the woman settled in the open rectangle, her arms reaching out to swing the double panes inward.

He saw the girlish face and wicked eyes.

Suzanne Danzer.

Good.