Preston Child - Mystery of the Amber Room

“Have you managed to find him yet? I really need to speak to him regarding my wife,” Detlef said, playing open cards with Sam. Sam looked at him, intrigued.

“What, may I ask, did Mr. Purdue have to do with your wife? Were they business associates?” Sam knew full well that they met at Carrington's office to talk about the landing ban, but he wanted to get a feel for the stranger first.

“No, in fact, I wanted to ask him some questions about the circumstances of my wife's death. You see, Mr. Cleave, I know she did not commit suicide. Mr. Purdue was there when she was killed. You understand where I am going with this?” he asked Sam with a sterner demeanor.

“You think Purdue killed your wife,” Sam affirmed.

“I do,” Detlef answered.

“And you are here to seek revenge?” Sam asked.

“Would that be so far-fetched?” the German giant retorted. “He was the last person to see Gabi alive. What else would I be here for?”

The atmosphere between them quickly grew tense, but Sam tried to apply reason and keep things civil.

“Mr. Holtzer, I know Dave Purdue. He is not a killer by any measure. The man is an inventor and explorer who is only interested in historical relics. How do you think would he benefit from your wife's death?” Sam inquired in his journalistic prowess.

“I know that she was trying to expose the people behind those assassinations in Germany and that it has something to do with the elusive Amber Room that was lost in the Second World War. Then she went to meet David Purdue and died. Do you not think that just a tad suspicious?” he asked Sam confrontationally.

“I can understand how you would come to this conclusion Mr. Holtzer, but right after Gabi's death Purdue went missing…”

“Which is precisely the point. Would a killer not try to disappear to avoid getting caught?” Detlef interrupted him. Sam had to admit that the man had a valid reason to suspect Purdue of his wife's murder.

“Alright, I tell you what,” Sam proposed diplomatically, “as soon as we locate…”

“Sam! I cannot get this goddamn thing to give me all the words. Purdue's last two sentences say something about the Amber Room and the Red Army!” Nina shouted as she ran up the steps up to the Bel Etage.

“That's Dr. Gould, right?” Detlef asked Sam. “I recognize her voice from the phone. Tell me, Mr. Cleave, what is her involvement with David Purdue?”

“I am a colleague and friend. I advise him on historical matters during his expeditions, Mr. Holtzer,” she replied firmly to his query.

“Good to meet you face to face, Dr. Gould,” Detlef smiled coolly. “Now tell me, Mr. Cleave, how is it that my wife was investigating something that sounds very much like the same subjects Dr. Gould was just talking about? And they both happen to know David Purdue, so why don't you tell me what I should be thinking?”

Nina and Sam exchanged frowns. It seemed like their visitor had missing pieces to their own puzzle.

“Mr. Holtzer, what subjects are you referring to?” Sam asked. “If you could help us figure this out, we are probably going to be able to find Purdue, and then I promise you can ask him anything you want.”

“Without killing him, of course,” Nina added as she joined the two men on the velvet seats in the drawing room.

“My wife was investigating the killings of the financiers and politicians in Berlin. But after her death, I found a room — a radio room, I think — and there I found articles about the assassinations and many documents on the Amber Room that was once given to Tsar Peter the Great by King Frederick Wilhelm I of Prussia,” Detlef relayed. “Gabi knew there was a connection between the two, but I need to speak to David Purdue to find out what it is.”

“Well, there is a way you can talk to him, Mr. Holtzer,” Nina shrugged. “I think the information you need might be in his recent communication with us.”

“So you do know where he is!” he snapped.

“No, we only got this message, and we need to decipher all the words before we can go and rescue him from the people that abducted him,” Nina explained to the high-strung visitor. “If we can't decipher his message, I have no idea how to look for him.”

“By the way, what was the rest of the message you did manage to decode?” Sam asked her inquisitively.

She sighed, still baffled by the nonsensical wording. “It mentions ‘Army' and ‘Steppe', probably a mountain region? Then it says ‘search for Amber Room or die' and the only other thing I got was a bunch of punctuation marks and asterisks. I'm not sure if his machine is quite on point.”

Detlef thought about the information. “Look at this,” he said suddenly, reaching into his jacket pocket. Sam assumed a defensive position, but the stranger only pulled out his cell phone. He flicked through the pictures and showed them the contents of the secret room. “One of my sources gave me coordinates to follow to find the people Gabi was threatening to expose. See those numbers? Put them in your machine and see what it does.”

They went back in the room in the basement of the old mansion where Nina had been working with the Enigma machine. Detlef’s pictures were clear and close enough for them to discern each combination. For the next two hours, Nina entered the numbers one by one. Finally, she had a print-out of the words coinciding with the ciphers.

“Now this is not Purdue's message; this one is based on the numbers from Gabi's maps,” Nina clarified before she read out the result. “First, it says ‘Black vs. Red in Kazakh Steppe', then ‘radiation cage' and the last two combinations ‘Mind control' and ‘ancient orgasm'.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Ancient orgasm?”

“Ugh! I misspoke. It's ‘ancient organism',” she stammered, much to Detlef and Sam's amusement. “So the 'Steppe ' is mentioned by both Gabi and Purdue, and it is the only clue that happens to be a location.”

Sam looked at Detlef. “So, you came all the way from Germany to find Gabi's murderer. How about a trip to the Kazakh Steppe?”

Purdue's feet still stung like hell. Every step he took felt like walking on nails, shooting up to his ankles. It made it virtually impossible for him to wear shoes, yet he knew he had to if he wanted to escape his prison. After Klaus had left the infirmary, Purdue had immediately pulled the IV out of his arm and started checked whether his legs were strong enough to carry his weight. At no point in time, he believed that they intended to nurse him for the next few days. He was expecting more torture to cripple his body and mind.

With his affinity for technology, Purdue knew he could fiddle with their communication devices as well as whatever access control and security they employed. The Order of the Black Sun was a sovereign organization, utilizing only the best of everything to shield their interests, but Dave Purdue was a genius they could only fear. He was capable of perfecting any invention of their engineers without much effort.

He sat up on the bed and then carefully slipped off the side to slowly put pressure on his sore soles. Wincing, Purdue tried to ignore the excruciating pain of the second-degree burns. He did not want to be discovered while he still couldn't walk or run, or he would be done for.

While Klaus was instructing his men before leaving, their captive had already been limping through the vast maze of hallways and corridors, making a mental map to plan his escape. On the third floor, where he had been confined, he stalked along the north wall to find the end of the corridor, since he assumed there had to be a flight of stairs there. He was not at too surprised to see that the entire fortress was in fact round and that the external walls consisted of iron beams and truss members reinforced by enormous sheets of bolted-together steel.