The Amber Secret

by David Leadbeater

  One of the mercenaries dragged an old man out of the bushes. Without consideration he threw the flailing old-timer onto the ground, watched him roll helplessly, and quickly pursued. He kicked the old man, eliciting a cry of pain.

  “Hey, what the fuck are you—” Cassidy started toward the scene.

  Four guns turned on her, but Cassidy ignored them, overcome by fury. She reached the abusive merc and shoved him away. She bent down and helped the old man sit upright. “Are you okay?”

  A deeply wrinkled face stared back at her. His teeth were yellowed and now stained with blood. He didn’t understand her.

  “Caught him spying,” the merc explained to Gurka.

  “So you thought you’d teach him a lesson?” Bodie’s voice came from behind. “Big man.”

  “No,” the merc said. “I’m a big man . . . with a gun.” Cassidy turned as he pointed the weapon at Bodie.

  “Stop,” Gurka snapped. “Where did you find this man? Were there any others?”

  “Others?” the merc repeated inanely.

  Gurka cursed. “Look,” he shouted. “Look for more of them.”

  “But what harm can they do?” Cassidy asked. “It doesn’t matter if people still live here. We get what we need and leave.”

  “I want to see them,” Gurka said with clear paranoia. “I want to see all of them.”

  She recalled Nina saying R24’s long-term success relied on invisibility. Gurka’s actions made sense—at least to him. Very soon, six mercenaries dragged eight others out of the foliage, ranging from a young girl of fifteen or so to men and women in their thirties and forties to a female senior. They threw the people onto the ground near the old man.

  Guns were aimed at the villagers.

  Cassidy watched the mercs, not the villagers. She wanted to gauge what kind of monsters she was dealing with. It didn’t look good. Smirks and smiles twisted across every face. Sick excitement lit every pair of eyes. These were the worst of the worst. She felt that old fire rising that made her want to attack these men . . . these monsters.

  Gurka didn’t stop it; he just watched. Nina held up a hand. “Wait, wait,” she said. “We have questions.” She beckoned forth one of the mercenaries. “Tell them what I said.”

  An exchange of words followed, from which Cassidy learned that the villagers lived in Dydiowa and would not leave; that the church had been there since the old man could remember; and that, even in their distress, the villagers warned the mercenaries repeatedly of the dangers of the mountains.

  Not the elements, nor the terrain, Cassidy understood. They were warned, specifically, of beasts.

  “Beasts that should not be here,” the merc translated.

  “Night terrors in the mountains,” Gurka said, shielding his eyes and gazing at the misty heights to their right. “It is as I’ve heard before. All who visit these mountains speak of this. I hear it from the drunk and the sober alike.”

  “They are of no help,” Nina said dismissively.

  “We should kill them,” Gurka said flatly.

  Nina waved at the church. “Let’s see it for ourselves. Caruso, what do you remember of this place?”

  The Italian regarded the church as if it were an old friend. “I—”

  “Wait,” one of the mercenaries said. “Do you want us to kill these people or not?”

  It was a loaded moment, one in which Cassidy expected Nina or Gurka to give the order to set them free.

  In the end, Gurka said, “We don’t need them.”

  Ambiguous words, but Cassidy was watching the mercs very closely and saw a feral light jump into their eyes. One raised his gun and clubbed a man around thirty over the back of the head, sending him to his knees.

  Cassidy was already in motion. She rushed the merc who’d just knocked down the man, took hold of his elbow, and rammed it upward, smashing his own gun barrel into his nose. Cassidy flung him down next to the man he’d floored.

  Bodie overcame the man beside Cassidy, moving in close and elbowing him in the face. As he staggered backward, Bodie tripped him. The merc landed on his spine, but Bodie kept his gun. To the right, Heidi and Pantera tackled two more mercs as Yasmine confronted one to the left, proving her worth to the team as she took him out in just a few seconds before turning to the next man. Cassidy kicked her own opponent hard in the ribs, spun, and caught hold of the barrel of another gun aimed at her.

  Its owner bellowed, ordering her to stand down.

  “You would kill these people?” Cassidy snarled. “Hurt them? I don’t think so.”

  She pushed the weapon away, grabbing the man’s wrist at the same time and wrenching it hard. At the very least she wanted these men injured for their onward trek through the mountains. She was evaluating her every move, as she knew Bodie would be. And the other fighters in their group.

  Caruso was crying, kneeling in the dirt, clearly thinking about his wife and son. Cassidy fought down a rush of guilt.

  Heidi struggled to keep an opponent’s gun barrel pointed at the skies, trapping the gun between them and using her left hand to deliver kidney punches. The merc fell over a boulder. His weapon went off accidentally. A bullet shot past Heidi’s head and struck the church’s steeple. Heidi jumped and landed on the man’s stomach, knees first.

  Pantera and Yasmine engaged two mercs, not in combat but with their dangerous presence alone. The mercs covered them as they circled, looking for an opening.

  Cassidy saw Nina, Gurka, and the rest of R24 watching.

  She let go of her opponent’s wrist and jabbed at his eyes, then slipped past toward her actual goal. She now stood in front of the villagers.

  “We can’t beat you while you have those guns,” she said. “But you are not gonna harm these people.”

  Heartfelt words, but also words designed to stimulate overconfidence in the mercs. She hoped they might reap the dividends later.

  “Stand down,” one man growled, finger flexing on his trigger.

  Bodie took the chance to debilitate his own opponent even further, smashing a knee into his ribs, hoping to crack a few. Then he flung the man over his shoulder and saw the gun fall to the floor. But he made no move to pick it up.

  Instead, he glared at Gurka. “I don’t want this to escalate,” he said. “But if it does, I’m coming straight for you.”

  Gurka grinned, stroking the shaft of a knife at his waist.

  Cassidy evaluated the scene. The villagers stood in terror, protecting each other and their youngest. Lucie stood with Dudyk apart from everyone, watching in horror, fear etched into her face. The mercenaries looked unsure, which was a testament to the hold R24 had over them.

  Gurka finally waved a hand. “Since you value them so much, the villagers can go. But do not test me again, or I will hurt one of you. Don’t forget . . .” He waved in Lucie’s direction. “One scream from her would have stopped you all.”

  Cassidy wasn’t so sure but didn’t push it. Bodie, beside her now, whispered, “That was risky, Cass.”

  “I had to stop them hurting innocent people. It’s in my blood. You know it.”

  Bodie nodded. He knew almost everything about Cassidy’s hard past, from leaving home at seventeen to living on the streets to meeting an older man named Brad at nineteen who’d become the love of her life, only to helplessly watch him die from a heart attack just before her twentieth birthday. Prior to Brad, Cassidy had never known love—her parents had never been abusive, but they’d never wanted her—and she’d barely learned how to give it back before Brad had passed. She couldn’t return it, didn’t recognize it. She was damaged, but she was loyal to her new family.

  And she was viciously protective of those who couldn’t help themselves.

  “I understand,” Bodie said. “And we learned a few things.”

  He gave her a brief smile, which she understood. They’d been testing weaknesses too, and they’d found several. Cassidy still worried about the way they kept Lucie apart and how close Dudyk stuck to her. They neede
d him closer to the fray—the man appeared to be a cruel piece of work. Cassidy expected he’d be happy to join a proper fight.

  Gurka ordered the mercenaries to behave and the relic hunters to calm down. Cassidy would have checked her wounds then, but she didn’t have any. A fact that she pointed out to the mercs she’d fought.

  Get in their heads.

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” Nina said. “Now, get into that church.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Bodie walked into the church. The air inside was cold. No warmth existed in here, the building’s brick walls and tiny oblong windows admitting and retaining very little heat. Heidi drifted closer to him and whispered with her head down, “Any plans?”

  “We’re in for the long haul, I think. There’s no easy way out.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re right. And it’s worse than you think. When we got taken, during our Bratva meeting . . .”

  She paused, so Bodie glanced at her. “Yes?”

  “That night I had dinner plans with my daughter, Jessica.”

  Bodie closed his eyes. “Ah, crap, that’s such bad timing. I’m sorry.” Jessica was Heidi’s eleven-year-old. She blamed Heidi’s devotion to the job for her parents’ breakup and divorce and had consistently refused to see and even talk to the CIA agent. Dinner plans were a significant breakthrough.

  “Me too,” Heidi said. “Back to square one, I guess.”

  “She’ll understand if you explain it the right way.”

  “Unlikely,” Heidi said. “But you know me—I’ll try with all my heart.”

  They stopped in the middle of the church. Oblong in shape, it stood about twenty feet high in the nave. Several pews ran from side to side, dusty and chipped and damaged, some listing quite badly. Bodie spied an altar at the far end and two doors leading off the nave.

  All eyes turned to Dante Caruso.

  The Italian grumbled and shrugged. “Yes, I remember this place, but nothing else returns to my mushy brain. Maybe if I wait—”

  “No waiting,” Gurka said. “Everyone start searching now.”

  Bodie considered challenging that. It could take days to search this place properly, but again, maybe the activity would present escape opportunities. The members of R24 headed toward the oblong windows, hoping for more stained glass clues. Caruso didn’t seem interested in them. Four mercs wandered up to the altar, and others started checking along the pews.

  “Remember,” Gurka called out, his voice loud inside the church. “Anything that represents the Amber Room, a train, the Germans. Anything.”

  Bodie eyed one of the two doors. Heidi and Pantera came alongside him. “Shall we?”

  “Lead the way,” Pantera said. “I notice they’re keeping Lucie outside for this. Poor girl’s gonna end up traumatized.”

  “She can take it,” Heidi said. “She’s a relic hunter.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I can take it.” Pantera laughed at himself. “Tangling with that goon out there almost dislocated my bloody shoulder.”

  “Getting old,” Bodie said, attention on the wooden door ahead.

  “Oh, thanks, man. Thanks for that.”

  Bodie pushed the door inward. It led to a small room stuffed with papers and files, an untidy desk, and some old boxes. None of the items looked as if they’d been disturbed for years.

  “I guess Caruso didn’t explore this room,” Heidi said, peering over his shoulder.

  “At times like this, when we’re at an impasse,” Bodie said, “I like to ask, ‘What would Cross do?’”

  “Ah.” Heidi nodded, still next to him. “I like how you keep him close.”

  “Close to all of us.”

  Heidi responded by laying a hand on his shoulder. Bodie took a slow, deep breath. He didn’t like to admit that Heidi distracted him, that she constantly entered his thoughts, that having her so close wasn’t easy. Even here.

  “Let’s look at the next door.”

  The second room was desolate. A couple of boxes stood near the right-hand wall. Bodie saw a single trail of footprints heading toward the boxes and another heading back. He crossed over and checked but found nothing of interest.

  Back into the nave, and the mercs were standing around looking glum. They’d found nothing in the main area. Gurka and Nina were snapping photos of the windows and then blowing them up on their phones to study the artwork.

  Caruso stared at the altar with his piercing blue eyes.

  Vash, currently on his knees at the end of a pew, glared at the Italian. “It’s not looking good for you or your family. This had better not be a fool’s errand.”

  Bodie saw several mercs send hate-filled glares at Caruso and felt the tension in the church ramp up. “C’mon, Heidi.”

  They walked up to Caruso. “Any thoughts, mate?”

  “I have no recollection of this place.” Caruso squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if trying to trawl through a slush of images. “But I remember that.” He nodded at the altar. “And darkness. Pure darkness.”

  “You came at night?” Heidi said.

  “I don’t know. But I do remember one thing . . . I’d never been so scared in my life.”

  Bodie was trying to sideline thoughts of mountain terrors and so-called beasts. Truth be told, they were still in the foothills and had many dangerous days ahead of them.

  They crossed to the altar. It stood on an upraised dais, dusty and leaf strewed like the rest of the church. Bodie saw several handprints and scrapes where boots had walked past.

  Heidi scrutinized the exterior. Bodie got down on his knees and tried to heft the large slab. He checked for seams running nearby.

  “Nothing,” he said eventually, sitting back. “Dante—this isn’t looking good.”

  Heidi was ahead of him. “I’ve been wondering where Lucie is. If this thing goes bad, one of us needs to save her.”

  Bodie drifted over to a nearby window. The mountain dust and glass staining made it hard to see outside, but he rubbed until it became clearer. Apart from mountain landscape and a few buildings, he saw nothing.

  “I don’t know where she is,” he whispered.

  Lucie Boom was trying to remain calm. Though she was only fifty feet from the members of her team, she felt isolated, which was R24’s intention. The distance ensured cooperation. The man at her side—Dudyk—promised death with everything from the very flicker in his eyes to the hands that always rested on the hilt and barrel of his deadly weapons. He was a hard man, a vicious man. She could tell he enjoyed inflicting trauma, taking the terror as far as he could.

  In normal situations, Lucie affected an outer calm. She spoke properly as she’d been taught, tried to command the room as she’d been taught. Engaged the audience as she’d . . .

  It was all a lie, though, and she’d never tell. The closest she’d come was during a drunken party game in the quest to find Atlantis.

  “My whole family is dead,” she’d told the team. “Every one of them died from natural causes or accidents. Nothing sinister, and now, every day, every minute, I expect to go next.”

  Maybe at the hands of Dudyk? But no, that wouldn’t fit. Dudyk, though, was a true monster, and she fully expected him to kill her, the theme of her fears aside.

  He moved then, and she flinched. All he was doing was trying to find a better view through a church window, but he sensed her fear and slowly turned his head to give her an evil smirk. So far, she hadn’t raised the courage to speak to him, but after watching her friends fight for the villagers, she decided that now was the time.

  “Can you see anything?”

  She’d noticed several times that he squinted. One thing she knew about captors was that the more you made yourself a person to them, the better your chances of survival were.

  “Dudyk? What do you see?” She stood terrified, waiting for his reaction.

  “I see nothing,” he growled without turning. She saw him squint once more.

  “Why is the Amber Room so important to you?”
r />   Dudyk snapped his head around. “To me?”

  “Yes.” She studied the black tattoo that covered the right side of his face. He ran a hand over the stubble that covered his head.

  “I do not care. They care. This bores me. Where is the fight? The combat? But you, why are you talking to me?”

  Lucie shrank from his intense glare. “I . . . I’ve been alone for a while,” she stammered. “And I’m a historian. You may need me.” Proving her worth to them.

  Dudyk caressed the hilt of his knife before drawing it slowly from its sheath. Lucie saw the glint of gleeful malevolence in his eyes.

  “If we don’t need you,” he growled softly, “this will be the last thing you see.”

  He held the blade up before her eyes.

  Lucie went white, stepping back, lost her balance, and fell on her tailbone. She cried out in pain, desperately trying to keep tears from her eyes. Dudyk only laughed. He turned away. She’d known a man like this before. Her uncle Jamie. On the surface he had been mean, hateful, full of insults. He’d pushed people away. She’d later found out that Jamie had been bullied mercilessly at school and at college. Pushing people away had been the only thing he’d known.

  Was Dudyk like that? She saw no good in him, but she could relate to his severity because after a while she’d broken through to Jamie. They’d become friends. Somehow, though, she didn’t see that happening with a member of R24 tasked with guarding and potentially killing her. This man had been around death all his life; she could see it in him, in every part of him. She found a spot to study far away, a dark, craggy mountain where, she thought, accidents were bound to happen.

  Caruso wasn’t studying the altar. He was standing as though using it as a reference point. He was staring back into the nave.

  At the floor.