Preston Child - Mystery of the Amber Room

Sam laughed. Nina did not find it at all funny, but she held her tongue about the more unsettling things she had seen Sam do when she had found him.

“So, I am possessed by an ancient god? Oh, sweet Jesus!” Sam guffawed.

The doctor and Nina exchanged looks, having a silent accord between them.

“You have to remember, Sam, that in ancient time, forces of nature that can be explained by science today were referred to as gods. I think that is what the doctor is trying to make clear here. Call it what you will, but there is no doubt that something extremely bizarre is happening to you. First the visions, and now this,” Nina clarified.

“I know, love,” Sam appeased her, with a chuckle. “I know. It just sounds so fucking crazy. Almost as crazy as time travel or man-made wormholes, you know?” Now he looked bitter and broken through his smile.

The doctor gave Nina a frown at Sam's mentions of time travel, but she only shook her head dismissively and waved it off. As much as the physician believed in the weird and wonderful, she could hardly explain to him that his male patient had suffered a nightmarish few months as involuntary captain of a teleporting Nazi ship that defied all laws of physics just a while back. Some things were just not meant to be shared.

“Well, doctor, thank you so much for the medical — and mystic — help,” Nina smiled. “Ultimately you have been of far greater help than you will ever know.”

“Thanks, Miss Gould,” the young doctor smiled, “for finally believing me. You are both welcome. Please take care, okay?”

“Aye, we are tougher than a hooker’s…”

“Sam!” Nina interrupted him. “I think you need some rest.” She raised an eyebrow at the amusement of both men who were laughing it off as they said their goodbyes and left the doctor's office.

Late in the evening, after well-deserved showers and tending to their respective injuries, the two Scots went to bed. In the dark, they listened to the rush of the nearby ocean, when Sam pulled Nina closer.

“Sam! No!” she protested.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“My arm! I cannot lie on my side, remember? It is burning like hell and it feel as if the bone is rattling around in the socket,” she complained.

He was quiet for a bit as she recovered her spot on the bed with effort.

“You can still lie on your back, right?” he flirted playfully.

“Aye,” Nina replied, “but my arm is bound over my tits, so, sorry Jack.”

“ Only your boobs, right? The rest is fair game?” he teased.

Nina scoffed, but what Sam did not know was that she was smiling in the dark. After a brief pause, his tone was far more serious but relaxed.

“Nina, what was I doing when you found me?” he asked.

“I told you,” she shielded.

“No, you gave me the synopsis,” he refuted her answer. “I saw how you held back at the hospital when you told the doctor in what state you found me. Come on, I might be daft and silly sometimes, but I am still the world's best investigative journalist. I have gotten through insurgent deadlocks in Kazakhstan and followed a lead to a terrorist organization hideout in the heated wars of Bogota, baby. I know body language, and I know when sources are holding out on me.”

She sighed. “How would knowing the details profit you at all? We still don’t know what is going on with you. Hell, we don’t even know what happened to you the day you disappeared on board the DKM Geheimnis. I am really not sure how much more far-fetched shit you can handle, Sam.”

“I understand that. I do, but this concerns me, so I have to know. No, I am entitled to know,” he argued. “You have to tell me so that I have the whole picture, love. Then I can put two and two together, see? Only then will I know what to do. If there is one thing I have learned as a journalist, it is that half of the information…no, even 99 % of the information is sometimes not sufficient to implicate a culprit. Every detail is necessary; every fact has to be assessed before drawing a conclusion.”

“Okay, okay, already,” she interrupted him. “I get it. I just don't want you to deal with too much so soon after you came back, understand? You have been through so much and miraculously braved all of it against all odds, honey. All I am trying to do is to spare you some of the bad shit until you are better equipped to deal with it.”

Sam laid his head on Nina's shapely stomach, starting her into a fit of giggles. He could not lay his head on her chest because of the sling, so he wrapped his arm around her hip and slipped his hand under the small of her back. She smelled like roses and felt like satin. He felt Nina's free hand rest on his thick dark hair as she held him there and she began to speak.

For over twenty minutes Sam listened to Nina recount the whole incident, not sparing any details. When she told him about the native man and the strange voice Sam had spoken words in an obscure language in, she could feel his fingertips twitching on her skin. Apart from that, Sam handled the tale of his frightening condition pretty well, but neither of them slept until the sun came up.

The incessant hammering on the front door had driven Detlef Holtzer to the point of despair and rage. It had been three days since his wife had been killed, but contrary to what he had been hoping, his feelings had only gotten worse. Every time yet another reporter knocked at his door he would cringe. The shadows of his childhood came creeping from his memories; those dark times of abandonment that had caused his aversion to the sound of someone knocking at the door.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted, regardless of the caller.

“Mr. Holtzer, it is Hein Mueller from the funeral home. Your wife’s insurance company contacted me to sort some matters out with you before they can go ahead…”

“Are you deaf? I said get lost!” the forlorn widower spat. His voice was unsteady from the alcohol. He was on the verge of a full-fledged breakdown. “I want an autopsy! She was killed! She was killed, I tell you! I will not bury her until they have investigated that!”

No matter who showed up at his door, Detlef refused them access. Inside the house, the reclusive man ineffably crumbled to next to nothing. He had stopped eating and barely moved away from the sofa where Gabi's shoes kept him anchored to her presence.

“I will find him, Gabi. Don't you worry, sweetheart. I will find him and throw his carcass off a cliff,” he growled softly as he rocked with eye frozen in place. Detlef could not deal with the sorrow anymore. He got up and walked through the house, heading for the blacked-out windows. With his index finger, he picked away at a corner of the refuse bags he had taped over the glass. Outside, two cars were parked in front of his home, but they were vacant.

“Where are you?” he sang softly. Sweat meandered over his forehead and ran into his burning eyes, red from lack of sleep. His massive body had shrunk by several pounds since he had stopped eating, but he was still a tank of a man. Barefoot in his pants and a creased long sleeve shirt that hung loosely over his belt, he stood waiting for someone to appear by the cars. “I know you are here. I know you are at my door, little mice,” he winced as he sang the words. “Mousy, mousy! Are you trying to get into my house?”

He waited, but nobody knocked at his door, which was a great relief even though he still did not trust the peace. He dreaded that knocking that sounded like a battering ram to his ears. During his teenage years, his father, an alcoholic gambler, would leave him home alone when he fled loan sharks and bookies. The young Detlef would hide inside, curtains drawn, while the wolves were at the door. Hammering on the door was synonymous with a full-blown attack on the young boy and his heart would slam inside him, terrified for what would happen if they got in.