The Amber Secret

by David Leadbeater

  “It sounds worth trying. Thanks, Jack.”

  “Anytime, mate. Anytime.”

  “What about you?” Bodie asked. “Steph and Eric?”

  He was referring to Jack’s wife and child. Jack was divorced but had recently been placed with his family in a CIA safe house. Pantera lowered his voice. “Seriously, I told them I’d be back in a couple of days. They’re gonna hate me all over again.”

  Bodie knew Jack’s absences had caused the initial marital problems. “Surely they’ll understand,” he said. “You can explain when you get back.”

  Pantera eyed Gurka and Nina. “Our kidnappers have no intention of letting that happen.”

  “I know.”

  “We working on a plan? I’ve ignored two opportunities to escape already.”

  Bodie chewed his lower lip. “Escape isn’t the issue. Keeping everyone alive is the issue.”

  “Too many enemies for that,” Pantera said, telling him what he already knew. “Maybe the mountains will thin them out.”

  Bodie nodded. “Or whatever’s in the mountains.”

  Both men fell silent, neither voicing the most obvious comment: Let’s hope they don’t thin us out too.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cassidy felt like her bones were in knots. She slowly unfolded herself from the back of the van. It was early evening. A chill mountain breeze blew away any cobwebs she retained from long hours of monotonous travel. She took several moments to stretch and reconnoiter the scene.

  The same three vans that had left Königsberg had arrived safely. Bodie and the others were climbing out of the black one. Lucie was already standing apart from the crew, guarded by two men. Cassidy examined the historian from afar and saw no signs of mistreatment.

  She took a moment to untie her long red hair, shaking it out and running her fingers through the knots before retying it. Four guards turned to her, momentarily forgetting their charges. Cassidy was both the muscle and distraction for the relic hunter crew, and she never stopped evaluating her enemy.

  A skill she’d first learned on the streets of Los Angeles, from the age of seventeen. All her life, Cassidy had known where she came from and exactly who she was.

  Until Cross had died.

  The loss of such a good friend, and how it had happened after they’d found Atlantis, had shaken her to the core. Before, she’d been the first into the breach, but she found herself more hesitant now, more vulnerable. She could still fight, still take lives to save her friends, but the assured part of her that used to know that was the right thing to do had started to raise questions recently.

  Was combat necessary? What if the worst happened? What if she was responsible for the death of a friend?

  Now, Cassidy checked behind her to make sure Jemma, Yasmine, and Gunn made it down from the van safely and to watch Belenko and Vash, their R24 sentries. Neither had spoken during the long journey. Cassidy had found the long, tedious hours challenging. She was a woman of action, unused to lethargy, always dynamic. She often stayed busy just to keep old nightmares at bay. Being stuck in a van for innumerable hours gave them time to feed, to grow more dangerous.

  Cassidy pushed it aside now and strode over to Bodie. “Everyone okay here?”

  “All good.”

  “What’s next?”

  “We just got here,” Gunn moaned. “Give us a minute.”

  “You’ve been sitting on your ass for too long,” Cassidy growled at them. “We gonna find this church or not?”

  “She is right.” Gurka looked as restless as she felt. “But first we should pack and equip ourselves for the long hike and the difficult days ahead.”

  Cassidy scanned their surroundings. R24 had brought them to a parking area nestled against the side of a mountain. The early-evening light was waning already, presenting the high, jagged peaks and rolling slopes ahead as mere suggestive shadows rather than the incredible vistas that they were. Other vehicles stood around, their occupants long gone. It appeared to be a staging area, where hikers and climbers left their transport to venture into the Tatras.

  “You have the night to find the location of that church,” Gurka told Bodie. “You’d better get on with it.”

  Cassidy watched as Gunn dragged out a laptop and sat it on a bench. He stretched, then started tapping. Cassidy thought for a moment and then went straight up to Gurka.

  “We need Lucie,” she said. “She’s our historian and knows more about lost treasures than all of us combined.”

  Gurka looked skeptical. Nina, who Cassidy regarded as the brightest of R24’s crew, looked up from the bag she was packing, matching the redhead stare for stare.

  “Blondie is our insurance. Do you think we’re stupid?” Nina rose, and Cassidy was struck by her fitness, her size, and her presence.

  Cassidy didn’t back down. “You’ve got fifteen armed mercs, plus you guys. Where can we go? We’d find this church a lot faster with her help.”

  She laid it on thick. She didn’t know if Lucie could help. She just wanted Lucie to feel a little freedom and companionship for a while. But Nina walked right up so that she was in Cassidy’s face.

  “It is true,” Gurka admitted. “This Lucie Boom is their researcher.”

  Nina held both hands up. “Okay, okay. But watch them.”

  Her last order was directed at the mercs milling around. Cassidy ignored them all, walked up to Lucie, and smiled.

  “C’mon, girl. We’ve got a job for you.”

  Relief flooded the blonde woman’s eyes. Cassidy led her back to the group, where Gunn was still tapping away on his keyboard.

  “Thank you,” Lucie whispered.

  “No worries.”

  “Good move,” Bodie said to her.

  Cassidy shrugged. “Hey, it helps me too. The sooner we get moving, the better I’ll feel.”

  Lucie crouched down beside Gunn. “What parameters are you using?”

  “Parameters?” Gunn looked over tiredly. “Just Caruso here for descriptions. He says that the stained glass picture uses red highlights to define a specific church. The steeple is simple but bears two crosses and a round window. The windows are oblong and quite narrow. The door is wooden, with a brass handle, and is surrounded by a wide arch of stone, possibly flint mined from the mountains. I have already seen images on the internet where they call this a Devil’s door. I am searching images inside the Tatras, but the friggin’ service up here is a nightmare.” He raised the laptop in the air as if searching for a signal.

  Lucie huffed in her schoolmistress way and tapped Gunn’s shoulder. “Move aside. We’ll be here all night.”

  “This is my computer.”

  “Move anyway.”

  Cassidy smiled, happy to see the woman regaining her disposition—a disposition that grated occasionally, for sure, but one Cassidy was glad to see hadn’t been cowed by her solo captivity.

  “The Tatras are huge,” Lucie explained. “Three hundred square miles, but only twelve miles wide. Of course, we know villages lie within, but many more are unknown. Off the map. Possibly abandoned. Did you know there’s an unofficial registry of churches, compiled by everyone from priests to hikers across the world? It should provide a good starting point.”

  Cassidy watched her wait for the erratic signal to strengthen and then start to work, keeping track of the fifteen mercs and R24. She wanted to see their patterns, their interactions, and their competencies. Once Nina and Gurka were satisfied with their packs, they brought new, waterproof maps across and gave them to Bodie.

  “Use these for reference,” Nina said. “They will beat internet any day, and up here, it won’t always work.”

  Cassidy nodded, agreeing with the black-haired woman. “Tell me again,” she said, “why you need us. You guys seem capable of doing all this yourselves.”

  “R24 always uses others.” Nina paused for a moment as she headed back to the vans, turning to Cassidy. “Lackeys. We do not do hands on. It is how we have survived so long in this cutthroat ga
me and still prosper. Also, you found Zeus and Atlantis. You have the credentials. I myself have been fighting all my life, first on the streets of Kiev and then Moscow, where I tried to go straight, as you Americans say. The world didn’t want me to go straight.”

  Cassidy was a little startled. Nina’s early life sounded much like her own. Until she’d met Bodie, Cassidy herself had narrowly avoided jail and ended up in countless close scrapes. It scared her how easily she could have taken a different path and ended up like Nina.

  “But . . .” She spoke her mind. “Using us, staying in the shadows, reveals something about you.”

  Nina raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “You have no intentions of letting us, Caruso, or his family walk away from this.”

  Nina’s face betrayed no emotion as she shrugged and walked off. “We shall see. If you cooperate, we might not need to kill you.”

  Cassidy thought about how life had treated them so similarly and how they’d ended up so different. It was a conundrum she couldn’t tackle right now, so she put it aside and turned to watch Lucie work her magic on the laptop. Nina returned five minutes later and placed a small pile of history books on the bench. Yasmine and Heidi started leafing through them without much purpose. Cassidy wanted to talk to Yasmine, wanted to draw her out a little and get her talking about her feelings for Cross, but this wasn’t the time.

  It was only after thirty minutes of intermittent signal had flown by that Lucie rested on her haunches, sighed, and said, “It’s not there.”

  “What?” Gunn looked unhappy. “I thought you were certain.”

  “So was I. But it’s not there.”

  “Are churches marked on the map?” Gunn asked Bodie.

  The thief blinked back. “Why? Are you gonna check every one? We don’t have months, mate; we have days.”

  Gunn bit his lower lip. “I was thinking we could cross-reference each one to the internet. Try to get an image up.”

  Cassidy wandered over to Heidi. “Hey, Moneymaker, what’s with the books?”

  “As haphazard a pile as I’ve ever seen. A history of the Tatras. An overview of the Carpathian mountain range. The illustrations and photographs inside are included purely at random, which means you’re forced to check every page. Here . . . you can start with Slovakia and Poland’s national parks.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  The only light was two sparse pools thrown by tall lamps that barely illuminated the parking area. A cold wind started to whistle, making Cassidy shiver. It was a desolate plight they found themselves in, at an even more desolate place. Outside her circle of friends, Cassidy felt truly alone up here. The only sounds were the whispering of the mercenaries, the noises as they blew on their hands to keep warm, the tapping of Lucie’s fingers, and the gentle whirring of the laptop. Cassidy checked constantly in the direction from which they had come but saw no signs of other vehicles along that lonely stretch of road.

  Gurka came over, backed by Vash and Dudyk, threatening to drag Lucie back to the gray van. Bodie confronted them, promising it would take much longer without the historian’s help.

  Then Heidi Moneymaker spoke up. “Hey, what was the description?” Her question carried a note of urgency.

  Cassidy leaned over, eyes locked on the picture she had found in the old history book. Gunn shouted it out as he walked across, closely followed by the others. Heidi tapped the page in question. “This looks pretty close.”

  “It’s not close,” Gunn said, staring. “It’s an exact match to the stained glass image. We found it. That’s the bloody church.”

  And then Dante Caruso leaned among them. “Ah, now I remember,” he said with frustrating timing. “Bad news, I’m afraid. It’s a ghost town.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Cassidy couldn’t relax, ill at ease with the constant threat of death they toiled under. Once they’d located the church on a map, Lucie was taken from them and bundled into the back of the gray van. Dudyk followed, and they heard a shout and then a scream. Both Cassidy and Bodie were instantly on their feet, striding toward the van, but at a word from Gurka, eight rifles were suddenly leveled at them. Two barrels jabbed at their spines. Gurka held up a hand.

  “She is our prisoner. You will not interfere.”

  “Then treat her well,” Bodie said. “We’ve done everything you’ve asked so far.”

  “So far? That implies your obedience will end.”

  “It will, if you harm our friend. Or Caruso’s family.”

  Nina, who to Cassidy’s mind had been relatively rational until now, unexpectedly walked right up to Bodie. “Stop this bravado,” she hissed. “You think we need all of you? No. You think we won’t break bones and force you on? No. You think we won’t leave you buried to your neck for the night animals to eat? No. We own your life now. Your pain. Your friends’ pain. Get used to it.”

  Cassidy felt her fists bunch involuntarily. Nobody threatened her friends like that. The urge to punch Nina was strong but tempered by her new vulnerability. It took Bodie stepping across her to hold her back. He knew her so well.

  “Get in the vans,” Gurka said. “Get some rest. We will go into the mountains at first light.”

  Cassidy gritted her teeth, turned away, and climbed into the black van. She struck the side openhanded, because she wanted her enemy to know they weren’t dealing with submissive captives here, and because she wanted them to know what kind of real anger they would provoke if they hurt Lucie.

  The night passed slowly, uneventfully, and with little rest. Before dawn Gurka slammed the side of their van, ordering them out. Thick coats and backpacks were thrust at them, not heavy for Cassidy, but she noticed Gunn straining. Jemma too. Physically, this would be harder on them.

  Of course, the worst affected would be Lucie. Not only was she unused to harsh exertion and to any form of combat, she was also under duress.

  Gurka sent two mercs ahead. From what Cassidy overheard, they were the pathfinders, men with top-notch navigational skills. They would range afar and watch for predators of any kind. Gurka and Vash then arranged everyone in a line, warned the mercs to be vigilant, and set off.

  Cassidy followed a level, winding path at first, which took them away from the parking area and out onto the lower slopes. In daylight, the vastness of the mountain range expanded to left and right, developing endless contours: flower-strewed slopes and green hills, high passes and low, verdant valleys. The air was clear, and she breathed deeply. She stretched as she walked, warming dormant muscles up for the day ahead. Gurka shouted out information, primarily to his mercenaries but essentially to anyone who wanted to listen.

  “We’re headed for the ghost town of Dydiowa. Abandoned over fifty years ago, it was small back then, home to around fifty residents. Who knows what we’ll find now?” He shrugged. “Even before yesterday I have heard tales of these mountains. Be wary. Be careful. There are things here that don’t belong.”

  Cassidy didn’t sweat it. She would deal with whatever came to her. She didn’t need some idiot brandishing warnings. She dropped back so that she walked between Jemma and Gunn. They would need someone with experience alongside them, even if they didn’t know it yet.

  “How far’s this place?” she muttered.

  Gunn adjusted his pack. “A solid five-hour walk.”

  “I thought the Amber Room was transported by train.”

  “It was. Some of the tracks are long gone, just like the villages they once ran to. It’s the same all over the world, Cass.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know that.”

  Cassidy felt the deep cold seeping through her jacket. Up here, there was no escape from it. Gurka and the mercenaries kept them on track. They stopped occasionally for breaks and to eat. The mountains were lofty, dark shapes at first, outlined by the sun rising behind them, but as morning turned into afternoon, Cassidy saw the beauty of their peaks and crags. For long stretches there was little sign of life, but then the occasional tourist stumbled past, or a
seasoned hiker turned a searching glance over them. No weapons were in evidence, but almost to a man, the mercenaries looked like soldiers, and Bodie and Pantera didn’t exactly come across as Boy Scouts. Still, they made progress, and shortly after midday, the trackers returned.

  “Village ahead,” one of them reported. “About two miles.”

  “Is it Dydiowa?” Belenko blustered at them. Cassidy had decided he was the least bright of the R24 group.

  “Well, it doesn’t have a signpost, man,” one of the trackers drawled. “But there is a church matching the description.”

  “Perfect, well done,” Nina said. “Now get back in front and keep leaving signs.”

  They nodded and departed. Cassidy prepared herself. Something told her that their best chances of escape would come when they found these waypoints that Caruso had trouble remembering. R24 would be distracted. The mercs would have their hands full. One fact made sense to her—if everyone escaped, their enemies wouldn’t hurt Caruso’s family. They would be forced to come after them.

  Which was just what she wanted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Their trek ended at the ghost town of Dydiowa, a minor village made up of perhaps thirty random dwellings and dissected by many overgrown paths and a central square that, even now, resisted the advance of nature. The square was barren, just brown earth. Cassidy watched several mercs fan out to explore the various paths, which was good. She caught Bodie’s eye and nodded.

  That’s eight out of the reckoning in one go.

  There were a lot of assumptions to be made. They had to assume that in the event of an escape attempt, the mercs had been ordered to capture, not shoot. They had to assume R24 expected to be tested. They had to assume they could rescue Lucie and that they would be hunted down rather than left to their own devices in the mountains.

  The ghost town spooked her. At first she felt like she was being watched, but then she looked more closely and saw that the abandoned dwellings rustled with unkempt greenery. Bushes swayed and parted as small animals passed by. A branch had the appearance of a face. A door, ajar, creaked suddenly as the wind disturbed it. Cassidy clearly saw the church ahead—it was the biggest structure in the village—but then something happened that brought her up short.