Preston Child - Mystery of the Amber Room

“Who was your wife?” Kiril asked eagerly.

“Gabi Holtzer,” Detlef replied, his voice still cracking when he said her name.

“Gabi! Gabi was my friend from Berlin!” the old man exclaimed. “She had been involved with us since her great grandfather left behind documents about Operation Hannibal! Oh God, how terrible! How sad, so wrong.” The Russian lifted his bottle and shouted, “To Gabi! Daughter of Germany and defender of freedom!”

They all joined in and drank to the fallen heroine, but Detlef could hardly get the words out. His eyes welled up, and his chest ached with grief for his wife. Words could not describe how much he missed her, but his wet cheeks said it all. Even Kiril had bloodshot eyes at the tribute to a fallen ally. After a few consecutive shots of vodka and some of Purdue's Bourbon, the Russian was feeling nostalgic, telling Gabi's widower how his wife and the old Russian had become acquainted.

Nina felt a warm compassion for both men as she watched them share fond stories of a special woman they both knew and adored. It made her wonder if Purdue and Sam would sit celebrating her memory so fondly once she was gone.

“My friends,” Kiril roared in sadness and inebriation, kicking out his chair as he stood up and slammed his hands down hard on the table, spilling Detlef’s leftover soup, “I will tell you what you must know. You are,” he slurred and stammered, “allies in the fires of liberation. We cannot let them use that bug to oppress our children or us!” He concluded this strange statement with a swirl of unintelligible Russian war cries that sounded positively wicked.

“Tell us,” Purdue egged Kiril on with his glass raised. “Tell us how the Amber Room is a threat to our freedom. Should we destroy it or should we just eradicate those who want it for nefarious causes?”

“Leave it where it is!” Kiril shouted. “It cannot be reached by mere men! Those panels — we knew how evil they were. Our fathers told us! Oh yes! They told us early on how that evil beauty made them kill their brothers, their friends. They told us how Mother Russia almost bent to the will of the Nazi dogs, and we vowed never to let it be found!”

Sam was getting concerned for the Russian's mind as he seemed to mash up several stories into one. He concentrated on the tingling force that coursed through his brain, summoning it carefully, hoping that it would not take over as fiercely as it had before. With intent, he linked onto the old man's mind and formed the mental tether while the others were watching.

Suddenly Sam said: “Kiril, tell us about Operation Hannibal .”

Nina, Purdue, and Detlef turned to look at Sam in amazement. Sam's request instantly silenced the Russian. Not a moment after he had gone quiet he sat down and folded his hands. “Operation Hannibal was the evacuation of the German troops by sea to get away from the Red Army that would soon be there to kick their Nazi asses,” the old man chuckled. “They got on the Wilhelm Gustloff right here in Gdynia and made for Kiel. They were told to load that goddamn Amber Room's panels, too. Well, what was left of it. But!” he shouted, his torso swaying slightly as he continued “But, they secretly loaded it onto the Gustloff’s escort vessel, torpedo boat Löwe . Do you know why?”

The group sat spellbound, reacting only when asked to. “No, why?”

Kiril laughed jovially. “Because some of the 'Germans' at Gdynia harbor were Russians, as well as the crew of the torpedo escort boat! They dressed as Nazi soldiers and intercepted the Amber Room. But it gets even better!” He looked thrilled with every detail he spilled, while Sam held him on that cerebral leash for as long as he could. “Did you know that the Wilhelm Gustloff received a radio message while their idiot captain sailed them into open waters?”

“What did it say?” Nina asked.

“It told them that there was another German convoy approaching, so the Gustloff’s captain switched on the ship's navigation lights to avoid any collisions,” he recounted.

“And that would have made them visible to enemy vessels,” Detlef deduced.

The old man pointed at the German and smiled. “Correct! Soviet submarine S - 13 torpedoed the ship and sank it — without the Amber Room.”

“How do you know this? You are not old enough to have been there, Kiril. Could it be you read some sensational story someone wrote,” Purdue refuted. Nina scowled as she gave Purdue an unspoken reprimand for second-guessing the old man.

“I know all this, Mr. Purdue, because the captain of the S-13 was Captain Alexander Marinesko,” Kiril boasted. “My father!”

Nina's jaw dropped.

A smile spread over her face for being in the presence of somebody who knew the secrets of the Amber Room's whereabouts first hand. It was a special moment for her, being in the physical company of history. But Kiril was far from done. “He would not have seen the ship so easily had it not been for that unexplained radio message telling the captain about an approaching German convoy, would he?”

“But who sent that message? Did they ever find out?” Detlef asked.

“No-one ever found out. The only people who knew were the men involved with the confidential plan,” Kiril said. “Men like my father. That radio message came from friends of his, Mr. Holtzer, and friends of ours. That radio message was sent by Milla.”

“That is impossible!” Detlef dismissed the revelation that had them all dumbstruck. “I spoke to Milla via radio the night I found my wife’s radio room. There is no way someone that operated in the Second World War would still be alive, let alone broadcast this numbers radio station.”

“You are right, Detlef, if Milla was a person,” Kiril insisted. Now he kept spilling his secrets, much to the delight of Nina and her associates. But Sam was losing his hold on the Russian, growing fatigued from the enormous psychic effort.

“Then what is Milla?” Nina asked quickly, aware that Sam was about to lose his command over the old man, but Kiril passed out before he could reveal more, and without Sam keeping his brain under his spell, there was nothing keeping the drunk old man talking. Nina sighed in frustration, but Detlef was not perturbed by the old man's words. He was planning to listen to the broadcast later and hoped that it would shed some light on what danger was lurking in the Amber Room.

Sam took a few deep breaths to regain his focus and his energy, but Purdue locked eyes with him from across the table. It was a look of sheer mistrust, one that made Sam very uncomfortable. He did not want Purdue to know that he could manipulate people's minds. It would make him even more suspicious, and he didn't want that.

“Are you tired, Sam?” Purdue asked without hostility or suspicion.

“Fucking exhausted,” he answered. “And the vodka doesn't help either.”

“I am going to turn in, too,” Detlef announced. “I suppose there will be no diving after all then? That would be great!”

“If we could wake our host, we could figure out what happened to the escort boat,” Purdue chuckled. “But I think he is done for, at least for the rest of the night.”

Detlef locked himself in his room at the far end of the hallway. It was the smallest of them all, adjacent to Nina’s designated bedroom. Purdue and Sam were to share the other bedroom next to the living room, so Detlef was not going to disturb them.

He switched on the transistor radio and started slowly turning the dial, minding the frequency number under the moving needle. It was capable of FM, AM, and shortwave, but Detlef knew where to set it. Since the discovery of his wife's secret communication room, he had developed a fondness for the sound of the cracking swish of the empty airwaves. Somehow the sheer possibilities it presented soothed him. Subconsciously, it reassured him that he was not alone; that there were lots of life and many allies hidden in the vast ether of the upper atmosphere. It presented the potential for anything imaginable to exist if one was only inclined to reach out to it.