“As I’m sure you know,” the professor began, “the semiprecious gem we call amber is the fossilized resin of giant conifer trees. These trees covered much of central and northern Europe some forty to sixty million years ago. When these trees sustained an injury of some kind—say a broken branch or an attack by beetles or perhaps a disease—they would ‘weep’ this resin. Over the millennia, the sap solidified and hardened into the substance we now call amber.”
She flipped to a page that showed a variety of hues.
“Amber has been highly prized since prehistoric times. Most pieces range in color from yellow to orange to brown, although rare examples of green, red and blue have been found. The more valuable specimens are clear, almost translucent although many people prize specimens that include trapped insects or bits of organic material. Most experts agree the best amber comes from a huge deposit known as the Blue Earth, submerged beneath the Baltic Sea.”
“The Blue Earth,” Blade echoed. “I’m guessing that’s the source of the Amber Room.”
“Exactly.”
She beamed as though he’d just solved the mystery of the Black Hole. Rebel tried not to gag.
“The history of that room goes back to the Teutonic Knights, a religious warrior sect that settled in what was then Prussia after the fall of Jerusalem in 1209. The knights took control of the lucrative amber trade and stockpiled huge quantities in their fortress monasteries to manipulate the market. They succeeded so well that amber at one time was worth twelve times more than gold.”
“Monks, warriors and commodities speculators,” Rebel observed. “All-around kind of guys.”
She could have saved her breath for all the attention the other two paid her.
“After the knights were expelled from Prussia,” Dawson continued, “Fredrick the First’s court architect discovered tons of raw amber in the cellars of one of the knights’ castles. He convinced the king to let him panel an entire room with the precious material, instead of just having it made into jewelry or decorative pieces.”
She thumbed the pages and opened to a full-color, two-page spread of the most ornate chamber Rebel had ever seen, and she’d seen a few during her stopovers in Europe.
“The architect hired master craftsmen trained to work with amber. They used heat to soften it, then shaped it into pieces that they polished to a high shine with a mixture of cognac, honey and linseed oil.”
Blade made a subtle movement. So subtle Rebel almost missed it. She shifted, trying to discern what prompted the move and spotted the hand now resting on his thigh. The professor didn’t miss a beat in her lecture.
“The craftsmen backed the pieces with gold or silver leaf before gluing them onto wooden panels in intricate patterns. They then embellished the designs with diamonds, rubies and other precious gems. When they installed the panels in Charlottenburg Palace, the Amber Room was so dazzling that it became an instant, must-see attraction for aristocrats making a Grand Tour of Europe.”
Right. And Blade’s crotch appeared to have become a more modern-day attraction. Torn between amusement and annoyance, Rebel saw the professor’s palm slide up an inch.
“So how did the room get from Prussia to Russia?” he asked calmly.
Either the man was made of stone, Rebel decided, or he was used to having women he’d known for all of twenty minutes feel him up. She went with option two.
“Peter the Great stopped in Prussia on his way to France in 1716. He was so taken with the Amber Room that Fredrick’s son gave it to him to seal an alliance with the powerful czar.”
Her fingers found the inseam of his jeans.
“The Czar had the panels shipped back to his capital of St. Petersburg,” Dawson all but purred. “They went on display in several different palaces before Peter’s daughter, Elizabeth, had them repaired and permanently installed at Catherine Palace—the czars’ summer retreat on the North Sea.”
Oh, for God’s sake! Rebel appreciated art as much as the next gal but she didn’t get all orgasmic over it. With a touch of impatience, she jumped forward several centuries.
“Where they remained until the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941.”
Dawson looked less than pleased at having her learned discourse so rudely interrupted.
“Correct. By then they were deemed too fragile to take down and hide, so the curators of Catherine Palace constructed false walls to cover them. Unfortunately, the ruse didn’t work. German soldiers quickly discovered the panels, dismantled them, packed them in crates and shipped them to Königsberg Castle in East Prussia.”
The professor heaved a tragic sigh.
“The Allies bombed Königsberg in late 1944, as did the advancing Soviet Army in early 1945. Some believe the panels were lost when the Soviets pounded the castle into near rubble. Others theorize they were spirited away in the nick of time, since an eyewitness claims to have spotted twenty-six crates containing the amber panels being loaded aboard a train.”
Rebel met Blade’s quick glance. Another treasure train?
“Still another theory,” Dawson continued, “is that the panels were loaded aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk by a Soviet submarine. And then there are the conspiracy theory proponents. They contend the Soviets inadvertently destroyed the panels when they blew up the Königsberg Castle ruins in 1966 but refuse to admit it, preferring instead to let the blame of the loss of this priceless treasure rest on German shoulders.”
She sighed again and closed the book.
“Whatever the theory, the sad truth is one of the world’s most exquisite works of art has never been found. Russian artisans have labored for the past fifty year to duplicate it. Their work is now on display in Catherine Palace. It’s beautiful, but can’t compete with the original.”
“But pieces of the original room have surfaced,” Blade prompted.
“Only two documented cases so far. One was a lacquer chest a Berlin woman reported owning after seeing a TV special on the Amber Room. It’s believed to have been stolen separately, as it doesn’t appear in German photos of Königsberg. Another was a mosaic believed to have been pilfered by a Nazi officer who accompanied the train to Königsberg. His heirs tried to sell the piece in 1997 for two and a half million dollars, but Art Loss Register detectives identified it as stolen and recovered it.”
Interesting, Rebel thought. Apparently, light-fingered soldiers and officers in the armies of both sides had helped themselves to stolen property.
“What about this piece?” Blade laid a copy of Vivian Bauer’s Facebook photo in front of the professor. “Why do you think it came from the Amber Room?”
“I think it might have come from the Amber Room. The rose-petal motif looks very similar to one from a panel depicting the four seasons, but I don’t have the exact dimensions of the original pieces. You would have to get those from the experts doing the restoration work.”
“In St. Petersburg.”
“In St. Petersburg.”
Rebel blew out a breath. Good thing Lightning had advised them to bring their passports. Looked like they had a long flight ahead. She was mentally calculating their ETA in St. Petersburg when Blade eased his chair—and his thigh—away from the professor. Dawson made a moue of disappointment and pulled another book from her crowded shelves.
“This is the latest work devoted to the search for the missing panels. It’s written by two investigative British reporters who unearthed actual documentation detailing the Amber Room’s removal from St. Petersburg by the Nazis. You’re welcome to borrow it.”
Blade accepted the book with a smile that had the woman practically drooling. “Thanks.”
“If there’s anything else I can do for you, just call me.”
“We will.”
“Wait, let me give you my cell and home phone numbers.”
She extracted an embossed card from the chrome holder on her desk and turned it over to scribble on the back.
“Call me,” she reiterated. “Anytime.”
&nb
sp; Rebel tried to refrain from comment when they walked out into the noon heat. She honestly tried. She couldn’t check the little huff of derision that slipped out, though.
“What?” Blade asked.
“Aw, c’mon. Don’t act all innocent.”
When he merely shrugged, she simpered and fluffed her hair. “Call me, big guy. Anytime. We can finish what I started in my office.”
A rueful grin tugged at his lips. “You saw that, did you?”
“Hard to miss.”
“The woman had information we wanted. I was just letting her deliver it her own way.”
“Suuure you were.”
His grin widened. “It’s terrible the sacrifices we have to make for our country at times, isn’t it?”
“Maybe I should have left you two alone,” she retorted with a touch more acid than she’d intended. “Just imagine what you could have gotten out of her then.”
He stopped in midstride, causing Rebel to do the same. Knapsack-laden students eddied around them. On the street just yards away, taxis chugged exhaust into the noon heat.
“If I didn’t know better,” he mused, that damned grin still plastered across his face, “I’d say you were jealous.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Am I?”
“Oh, for—!”
Thoroughly disgusted, she spun on her heel. Or tried to. Her three-inch heel snagged on a crack, and Blade caught her as she teetered.
“Well, well,” he taunted. “This is twice in as many days you’ve ended up in my arms. A few more times, and I’ll think you’re trying to tell me something.”
Her first instinct was to deliver a swift knee to the gonads. Her more rational self acknowledged that might be a slight overreaction. Yet the taunt made something hot and heavy in her chest explode.
It was the elemental, timeless contest. Male versus female. Strength pitted against endurance. Only in this case, the combatants were two supremely confident, superbly conditioned individuals. And neither of them was used to backing down. Rebel came close, though, when she saw his gaze drop to her mouth and the grin fade.
He wasn’t playing now. She told herself she’d be smarter to retreat and take up the battle another day, in another way. She had a second, maybe two, to signal a temporary truce before his hand slid up her arm and tunneled under the heat-dampened hair lying heavy on her nape.
When she didn’t jerk away, he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “What the hell.” Then his mouth came down on hers, and the combustible mix of annoyance and reluctant attraction that had been building between them since Rebel’s first day at OMEGA fireballed.
Chapter 3
Rebel had been kissed before. By her ex, of course, and a respectable number of males before and after. But she’d never experienced this dangerous duel of tongues and teeth and wills. Wild sensations shot straight to her belly, and when Blade shifted his stance and brought her hips against his, they rolled through the rest of her like a freight car.
An incredulous corner of her mind couldn’t believe she was standing on the hot sidewalk outside NYU’s Art History Building, a stone’s throw from busy Washington Square, locking lips and hips. With Clint Black, for God’s sake!
The rest of her mind, however, was close to overload. The taste of him. The scent of his aftershave. The movement of his shoulders under his sport coat. Rebel tried to process each separate sensation as it bombarded her but gave up after a few seconds. Or minutes. Or…
“’Scuse me, dude.”
It took a bump and an amused apology from a student in waist-length blond dreadlocks to break her and Blade apart. Even then Rebel wasn’t sure which of them pulled back first. That set off another set of alarms inside her still-reeling mind. Bad enough she’d let God’s gift to womankind lay one on her. She’d stood there like an idiot, giving back as good as she got.
And it was good. Unbelievably good. Which rattled her even more. The only saving grace was that Blade looked almost as shell-shocked as she felt. A deep crease marked his brow as he offered an abrupt apology.
“Sorry.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I, uh, got a little carried away.”
She was tempted to let him shoulder the entire blame. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the type to take the coward’s way out.
“We both did. It won’t happen again.”
The flat assertion erased his frown. In its place came a glint of something that looked dangerously close to a challenge.
“You sure about that, Talbot?”
She was. Especially now that she’d had a taste of the kind of electricity the man could generate. She had more sense than to throw down another gauntlet, though.
“Look, let’s not turn this into a contest. You know as well as I do how dangerous it is to get distracted during an op.”
She could see he didn’t appreciate the tart reminder. Probably because he’d racked up a lot more experience in the field than she had. Still, she drove the point home.
“One woman’s dead already. I’m not looking to up the body count.”
A now-familiar irritation flickered across his face. “I’m not, either. Or I wasn’t,” he added under his breath as he stepped to the curb to flag down a taxi.
His annoyed expression stayed in place when they climbed in and told the driver to take them to JFK. It was still there when he pulled out his communications device and keyed OMEGA Control.
“Tank, I need you to confirm those seats on the 5:20 p.m. flight to St. Petersburg.”
No military jet this time. Rebel could have set one up given the priority of this mission, but their open-ended schedule once they hit Russia weighed against keeping an air force crew and aircraft standing idle for an indeterminate period.
“Yeah, we’re finished at NYU.” He speared a glance at the turbaned cab driver. “I’ll call in an update when we get to the airport.”
Tank took the update a half hour later. Dodge Hamilton was in the Control Center, his lanky frame ensconced behind a newspaper, but he was letting OMEGA’s new recruit take the stick on this one.
From the various tales shared by his parents, sister and brother-in-law, Tank knew controller duty involved long stretches of mundane tasks spiked by moments or hours of heart-pumping action. So far, this op had provided both. Rebel’s description of Vivian Bauer’s last moments lingered in Tank’s mind as he shared the results of the visit to NYU with Dodge, then called down to Lightning’s executive assistant.
“I need to update the boss, if he’s available.”
“He is,” Chelsea Jackson replied in the cool, cultured accent Tank couldn’t quite place. It had a touch of Boston in it. So did his, for that matter, but it was a different Boston than the one he’d roamed during his years at Harvard.
“I’m on my way.”
The titanium-shielded elevator whisked him noiselessly to the first floor. Already inoculated by security, he checked the screens to ensure no outside visitors had entered the building in the few seconds since his call, slapped his palm to the scanner and stepped into a reception area flooded with bright July sunshine. The light made a glowing nimbus of Chelsea’s auburn hair and pretty well stopped Tank in his tracks.
This wasn’t the first time he’d observed her at work. He’d stopped by the offices of the Special Envoy many times to visit Nick and met Chelsea Jackson soon after she was hired to fill the position once held by grandmotherly Elizabeth Wells.
They’d also socialized at several charitable functions sponsored by his parents. Tank had always found Chelsea intelligent and interesting to talk to, but he could understand why she’d gained a rep here at OMEGA for being distant. Among the male agents, anyway. She did her job with rapierlike efficiency and made it a point to keep her private life just that—private.
She also, Tank now realized with a small punch to the gut, had the achingly pure profile of a Renaissance madonna. When he said as much, however, something flickered in her
brown eyes. It looked like amusement, but it came and went so swiftly he couldn’t be sure.
“It’s true,” he insisted. “In this light, with your hair gleaming like dark copper, you could have stepped out of a painting by Raphael or Titian.”
She dismissed the notion with a small shake of her head and stuck to business. “I informed Lightning that you were on the way down. Go right in.”
She kneed a hidden button in the well of her ornate Louis XV desk to give him access to the inner sanctum. “Thanks.”
Chelsea returned his smile with a polite one of her own, but her gaze lingered on his broad shoulders as he made for the mahogany doors.
Adam Ridgeway II. Of the Boston Ridgeways, who could trace their family back to thirteenth-century England. Unlike Chelsea, who could trace hers only as far as the mother who’d raised her with a boozy blend of affection and indulgence. Her mom decamped with her latest lover two weeks before Chelsea’s sixteenth birthday. After that, she’d fended for herself. Renaissance madonna?
Ha! If only he knew.
Not that he would. She hadn’t discussed her family, or lack thereof, with anyone at OMEGA. Except her boss, of course. Nick had reviewed her background data prior to approving her security clearance. He knew most of her secrets. And Chelsea had opened up a little with Victoria Talbot. The two women had started at OMEGA within weeks of each other. The way Rebel had dropped tough, macho Clint Black on his butt had won Chelsea’s instant approval.
Except lately she’d sensed a shift in Rebel’s attitude toward Blade and vice versa. They still yanked each other’s chains. Still engaged in friendly competition during training sessions. But their professional relationship seemed to be edging closer to something more, well, volatile. Chelsea only hoped to heck it didn’t blow up in their faces.
No, it wouldn’t. Rebel had too much sense to let that happen, especially while she was in the field. Supremely confident in her friend’s ability to maintain focus, she turned her attention to a stack of gilt-edged invitations awaiting an RSVP.
Double Deception Page 3
