Amber Beach

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Meaning?”

  “The Baltic amber mines were an imperial monopoly.”

  “Mother,” she muttered. “What you’re saying is, no matter what the color or clarity, every bit of amber in the Amber Room came from the Palmnicken mines.”

  “Or other mines along the shores of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania and Kaliningrad have the best mines, but not the only ones.”

  “Well, there goes that theory.” She frowned. “What—”

  “My turn,” he interrupted. “Do you have proof that the Donovan family is part of Kyle’s scheme?”

  “Nothing to take to court. It’s our working hypothesis. Do you have a better one?”

  “No. Are you looking for the whole Amber Room?”

  “Who says we’re looking for it at all?”

  “That’s the problem with interrogation. You can’t ask questions without giving away information. Are you looking for the whole room?”

  Silence. Then Ellen shrugged. “They can’t say I didn’t warn them about you. At the moment, all we care about is the panel that Kyle stole.”

  “Does he have the whole room?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Give me your best estimate.”

  “We think he may or may not be somebody’s cat’s-paw for the sale of the entire room. Either way, he ended up with a panel from the room as a calling card to excite the international market.”

  “Bloody hell. Who was the corpse that washed up in the San Juans, the one with Third World dental work?” Jake asked.

  “Former KGB from the former Soviet Union.”

  “What was he doing lately?”

  “People.”

  “Anyone in particular or was he an equal opportunity killer?”

  “He worked for one of the Moscow mafiya chieftains for a while, then went freelance.”

  “Why was he after Kyle?”

  “No answer.”

  “What do you have on Marju?”

  “She was the usual loyal daughter of a downtrodden, diluted, bastardized Baltic country. The losers keep track of feuds, wars, and bloodlettings going back centuries. They’re good haters.”

  Jake already knew that. What he didn’t know was whether Marju’s brand of patriotism went beyond speaking an arcane language and taking up traditional Lithuanian crafts.

  “How serious was she about freeing Lithuania?” he asked.

  “From what we’ve discovered, good old Grandpa did a thorough job of infecting his granddaughter with a heavy dose of Father Country claptrap. She went to the usual ‘secret’ meetings, which were duly reported to the Russians by Lithuanian informers.”

  “There are meetings and then there are conspiracies. Which were these?”

  “Babe, they haven’t had a useful conspiracy in Lithuania since God wore knickers. There was lots of shouting over how our poor great-great-great-granddads were screwed, plus retellings of even more ancient rape and robbery.”

  “They would be better off shouting for a currency of their own, one not based on the Russian ruble,” Jake said.

  “Lacks sex appeal.”

  “What about—”

  “Back to the missing amber,” Ellen interrupted. “Have you heard any rumors about the Amber Room?”

  “Sure.”

  Again Jake saw the shift in her, as though she had just come into hard focus.

  “Tell me what you’ve heard,” she said.

  “You may have the rest of the day, but I don’t.”

  “If I do, you do.”

  For a moment his impatience almost got the better of him. Then he reminded himself how much easier life would be if Ellen or someone like her wasn’t sticking to him like lice.

  “A few people say that the room never left Saint Petersburg, and therefore was lost when we bombed the place to a smoking ruin at the end of the war. Most people believe that the Nazis dismantled the Amber Room with hacksaws and pry bars in 1941, packed up the lot, and shipped it to Kaliningrad.”

  “And?”

  “That’s when the real fun begins. The crates the Amber Room was packed in vanished sometime in 1945. No one has seen them since. The bean counter types say the whole thing went up in smoke when we bombed the hell out of the city.”

  Ellen grimaced. “What do the rest of the people say?”

  “You’ve heard of Erick Koch, a former Nazi from what was then East Prussia?”

  “Have I?”

  “He’s the one who said the Amber Room is still buried in Königsberg, which the Russians renamed Kaliningrad. He ought to know. He’s the one who buried it.”

  “Why didn’t he dig it up?”

  “He spent his life in jail after the Nazis fell. Various folks wooed him and whispered promises of freedom in his ear, but even on his deathbed he never told where the loot was hidden.”

  “Next theory,” Ellen said coolly.

  “Then there’s Dr. Alfred Rohde, who said he locked up the amber in an underground cellar. Same city as Koch, different burial. Of course, that was before the Allies bombed the place to rubble and the Russians came, paved it over, and built a new city.”

  Ellen’s expression didn’t change.

  Jake kept talking. His tone said that he thought it was all fairy dust and he was a man who no longer believed in the glittery stuff.

  “One of the men looking for the Amber Room today thinks it’s in a brewery in Kaliningrad,” Jake said.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think that digging beneath the rubble of that old building is a good way to die. Live munitions left over from fifty years of war and revolution, flooded underground rooms, falling walls, that sort of thing. gerous.”

  Ellen made a sound that said she was listening.

  “Then there’s the shipped-to-America theory,” he said. “Some wealthy, conveniently anonymous collector paid megabucks and hid the room in his modern American castle. A variation of that theory is the room went to South America-Uruguay or Argentina—with a departing Nazi as the Third Reich came crashing down around Hitler. Have I mentioned the Stasi?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t leave them out. The former East German Ministry of State Security, known as the Stasi to their friends, wasted years and millions looking for the imperial room. No luck, of course.”

  “Why do you say ‘of course’? Do you believe the Amber Room won’t ever be found?”

  “I think it went up in smoke when the Allies leveled what was then Königsberg. Amber burns like what it is—pitch, the basic component of ancient torches. Great smell, a plume of soot, and a fast fire.”

  “But Boris Yeltsin told the Germans that the Amber Room was hidden somewhere in what used to be East Germany,” Ellen objected.

  “Yeltsin also said you could graft a free market economy onto a corrupt, self-destructing communist base, and do it in a year. I’m sure he would love to pull an amber rabbit out of his hat to please and excite the disgusted masses, but my money is on coming up empty-handed.”

  Again, nails tapped against leather. The wind gusted and set the fir trees to swaying. Streamers of cloud whipped by above the trees. Waves slapped against the cliff face with a stealthy sound.

  Jake looked at his watch again. Only a few minutes had passed. It seemed like a lot more. Certain people had that effect on him. Ellen was one of them. It hadn’t always been that way, but everybody grew up eventually—if they lived long enough.

  “You’re not after the Amber Room,” Ellen said, looking closely at him.

  “Like you said, I don’t believe in fairy dust anymore.”

  “If you heard something useful, would you call me?”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  “We’ve got yours. I’ll be nearby.”

  Jake didn’t even try to look happy about the prospect. “Don’t bother.”

  “No bother at all.”

  “Jesus,” he said in disgust. “You really do believe Kyle is holding a piece of the Amber Room.”

  S
he hesitated, then said, “We have to proceed as though we believe that.”

  “Why?”

  “The alternative is to be caught with our bare ass hanging over a buzz saw. You have seventy-two hours before I yank your ticket with Honor Donovan. My card is by your telephone. If you get lucky or smart, give us a call. You help us, we help you. Get smart, Jake.”

  “Good-bye,” he said, walking around her.

  “I mean it.”

  “So do I.”

  Before the door closed behind him, Ellen’s car started up. By the time he picked up the telephone, she was disappearing down the winding dirt road. He didn’t have to look up the number he was calling. As it started ringing, he opened Kyle’s boat log and began scanning it.

  “Emerging Resources, may I help you?” asked a pleasant voice.

  “I sure hope so, Fred. Is my Number Two in?”

  “Hi, Jake. She’s talking to Kaliningrad.”

  “Hell of a time to do that.”

  “Apparently the contact was sampling local vodkas until well past normal business hours over there. He just returned her call. Oh, wait. Her line is open now. I’ll put you through.”

  Eyes narrowed in concentration, Jake kept turning pages of the log. A few moments later Charlotte Fitzroy, vice president of Emerging Resources and one of Jake’s oldest friends, came on the line.

  “Hey, Pres. You making any headway?” Charlotte asked.

  “Working on it. Has the government been all over you?”

  “Like a rash. I tried to be helpful—”

  Jake laughed and kept scanning the log.

  “—but they wouldn’t be specific about what they wanted,” she said, “so I couldn’t help them, could I?”

  “They want the Amber Room.”

  “So does everyone who ever heard of it.”

  “Yeah. Other than that, how’s it going?”

  “Business in general or Kyle Donovan in particular?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything is lurching along without you, but I’ll be sending some contracts for your signature. As for Kyle, nothing new. No bodies with Western dental work. No mafiya-style hits related to the Baltic amber trade.”

  “You’re sitting on something,” Jake said.

  “My delicate little butt.”

  “C’mon, Char. Remember who pays the bills.”

  “I want to wait until I have something solid.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh, all right. One of our Kaliningrad contacts suggested we look on the other side of the former Soviet Union.”

  “Where?”

  “Kamchatka.”

  Jake stopped turning pages of the log. The Kamchatka Peninsula was only a short hop from Alaska. “Why?”

  “Kyle called a number there several times. A fishing resort, as near as we can tell. It’s run by Russians. Vlad Kirov is the owner.”

  “Go on.”

  “Nowhere special to go. They know Kyle. He and other Donovans have fished with them several times. End of story.”

  Jake went back to turning pages. “Do we have anyone in Kamchatka?”

  “Ed Burls, but he doesn’t speak Russian.”

  “Get a picture of Kyle to Ed. He can work with a translator.”

  “He’s a geologist, not a private investigator.”

  “If we don’t prove that Emerging Resources didn’t have anything to do with the missing amber, Ed won’t have a job.”

  “Good point. I’ll tell him that when he starts screaming.”

  “Have Zack start asking around hospitals, urgent care clinics, that sort of thing.”

  “Where?”

  “SeaTac to Anacortes.”

  “Is Kyle in the States?” Charlotte asked, startled.

  “His passport is, according to Ellen Lazarus.”

  “Her! What’s she doing in all this?”

  “Looking for the Amber Room.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Yeah. Life is just full of wonderment.”

  “I told you it wasn’t destroyed! You owe me a thousand bucks!”

  “I said she’s looking for it, not that she found it.”

  “Details,” Charlotte said.

  “A thousand of them. Mine, not yours.”

  “Yet. Is Ellen still there?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “She offered an alliance.”

  “And?”

  Jake looked at the business card by the telephone: “Ellen Lazarus, Consultant.” The telephone number was of the 800 variety, no area code to give away location.

  “I’m thinking about it,” he said, “the way a pork chop thinks about teaming up with a starving wolf.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I hear you. Use her if you can, but wear rubber gloves. Do you think they have Kyle?”

  “They wouldn’t be barking up my tree if they did.”

  “Do you think he made it to the States?”

  “I don’t know. But people are acting as though the amber might have come here, with or without him. It’s not just Ellen. The government is guessing that Ms. Donovan wants to appear to go fishing while she retrieves the amber.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Uncle is probably right. The cops are watching Kyle’s cottage.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they can,” Jake said sardonically. “And because they want to question Kyle about the DOA with Third World dental work they found on the beach.”

  “Did you ever find the truck Kyle stole in Kaliningrad?” Char asked.

  “Not yet, and it doesn’t really matter. When we find it, it will be empty.”

  “You’re full of cheer, aren’t you?”

  “Kyle isn’t stupid. He would have had another truck stashed nearby, a truck no one would associate with stolen amber.”

  “Wouldn’t he have needed help moving the amber to the second truck?”

  “Amber is light,” Jake said absently, scanning down a page of the log.

  “You sound distracted.”

  “I am. I’m reading Kyle’s boat log.”

  “Anything good?”

  “The most interesting part is what isn’t here.”

  “Such as?”

  “The clock that automatically keeps track of engine time doesn’t agree with the hours Kyle logged in.”

  “Translation?”

  “Either he stopped keeping the log before he left for his last trip to Kaliningrad, or he came back and used the boat without writing in the log.”

  “Then he’s alive?” Char asked quickly.

  “Or was. Ellen said the corpse with the missing fingers was a Russian hit man. They usually hunt in pairs.”

  “Lovely.”

  “Yeah.” Jake closed the log with a snap. “I’ve got to meet Kyle’s sister soon. Anything else for me?”

  “His sister? What’s going on?”

  “I’m teaching her how to fish on Kyle’s boat.”

  There was a brief silence followed by a neutral “Convenient.”

  “That’s one word for it. If you leave any messages on my answering machine, be careful. I probably won’t be the only one listening.”

  “Gotcha. Do you think Ms. Donovan knows where the amber is?”

  “If not her, then some other Donovan. She’s the only Donovan within my reach.”

  “And you think the amber is in the San Juans?”

  “I’m counting on it. Getting my hands on that shipment and clearing my name is the only way Emerging Resources will be allowed back in the Russian Federation.”

  “What’s the sister like?”

  Jake didn’t say anything.

  “Uh oh,” Charlotte said. “A female version of Kyle?”

  “Very female.”

  “Remember Ellen.”

  “Honor isn’t Ellen.”

  “You’re telling me? Ellen couldn’t find honor with a dictionary.”

  He smiled wryly. “Honor Donovan is Kyle’s sister.�
�

  Jake hung up before Charlotte could ask any other uncomfortable questions. He turned on the small photocopying machine and went to work.

  It didn’t take long to copy the log. Kyle had owned the boat for only fifteen months. He hadn’t spent nearly the time on board that the boat deserved. The Tomorrow was too well named. Kyle hadn’t had much time to play.

  Don’t feel sorry for the charming bastard, Jake told himself. Nobody held a gun to his head and told him to work instead of going fishing.

  But all the same, Jake couldn’t help thinking about the younger man’s flashing grin and sudden laughter, the hours they had spent during the miserable Baltic rains drinking beer and talking about catching salmon when the sea was cold and the fishing was red-hot.

  As soon as Jake finished copying the log, he went to work with a pencil in one hand and a chart book of the San Juans close by. By the time his wristwatch alarm started cheeping at him, he was sure of one thing.

  Kyle’s log didn’t add up worth a damn.

  Yet for all its tantalizing hints of secret hours spent on the Tomorrow, the logbook didn’t say where Kyle was at the moment or if the amber was with him.

  The more Jake thought about it, the more he was forced to accept the unhappy fact that Honor was his only route to the amber. To prove his own innocence, Jake would have to use her as ruthlessly as Kyle had used everyone else.

  Even though Honor was a Donovan, Jake didn’t like using her that way. But then, he hadn’t liked much that had happened in the past month.

  4

  PRETTY AS A postcard, isn’t it?” Jake asked.

  Honor jumped at the sound of his voice. Uneasily she stared out the side windows of the Tomorrow. The blue-green water of Rosario Strait did indeed look like a postcard. She wished it were. Ever since they had left the dock behind, she had been intensely aware of the lack of truly solid footing. She licked her dry lips.

  “Postcards don’t jig around beneath your feet,” she said.

  “Jig? It’s dead calm.”

  She licked her lips again and said nothing.

  Jake had noticed Honor’s increasing restlessness. He was pretty certain of its source: she was afraid. He had been in enough tight places to recognize fear when he saw it. His employer was thin-lipped, pale, vibrating like a high-voltage line.