Berry, Steve - the Amber Room

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.