When they pulled out of the station, St. Petersburg’s brief night had already given way to a dawn partially obscured by angry clouds. The train picked up speed and racketed over several bridges. Soon it was whizzing past square, featureless high-rises and streets just coming awake with delivery vans and electric trolleys. After handing their tickets to the conductor, Rebel angled so she could stretch out her legs. She wore jeans again, paired with a long-sleeved navy top and the silver spangled ballet shoes. Blade was also in jeans, but his were softer and more worn—which she couldn’t help but note when they bumped knees.
Her faint hope he wouldn’t pursue their earlier conversation died when he reminded her they had seven and a half hours to kill before they reached Kaliningrad.
“Plenty of time for you to explain why you iced up at the hotel.”
“It won’t take anywhere near that long.”
“I’m listening.”
She made a face, hating to admit her biggest failure in life. So far, anyway.
“I was married—briefly—to a man with your brand of sex appeal.”
“And what brand is that exactly?”
“The kind that makes women think evil thoughts even before you aim one of your patented, come-and-get-me grins at them.”
He actually managed to look hurt. “They’re not patented. I applied, but the powers that decide such weighty matters didn’t agree ‘come and get me’ constituted a new or useful process.”
She drew up a knee and dug her heel into his inner thigh. “You want to hear this or not?”
“Sorry.” Capturing her ankle, he relieved the pressure. “Go on.”
“Steve didn’t go looking for them. I’ll give him that. He just turned on the charm and they swarmed him. Unfortunately, he forgot to turn it off a time or three.”
“I get the picture,” Blade said, nodding. “Because your husband cheated, you think all men are scum.”
“Not all men.”
“Right. Only us studs.”
“Not all studs, either. I can think of a dozen genuine hotties who don’t emit your kind of vibes. Nick Jensen comes immediately to mind. Adam Ridgeway, too. Both of them have eyes only for their wives.”
He appeared to consider that unassailable argument. “I see only one fallacy in your logic,” he said after a moment.
“What’s that?”
“We’re not married, engaged or otherwise attached.”
“True, but…”
“And if we were,” he interrupted, “you could trust me.”
His tone was lazy, almost casual, but the glint in his eyes suggested he might be a little pissed.
“If you don’t believe me,” he added in that same deceptively mild tone, “we can put the matter to a test.”
“How?” she asked, wary now.
“We pick up where we left off in St. Petersburg. See where it leads.”
“I…uh…”
“What’s the matter, Talbot? Afraid your theory won’t hold water?”
“No.” Her chin came up. “I’m merely thinking of the potential complications to our mission.”
“So we wait until after the mission.” His thumb circled her ankle bone. “I’d better warn you, though. This vibe business works both ways. Once I stake a claim, I tend to get territorial.”
Stake a claim? Get territorial? Rebel couldn’t figure out how the heck this conversation had deteriorated from perfectly rational to Neanderthal. Or why the hand circling her ankle suddenly felt like a shackle. Irritated by the feeling, she tugged free of his hold.
“I’m too tired to open a whole new discussion on tests and territories. We can broach those topics another time. Right now I’m going to catch up on my sleep.”
They’d do more than broach the topics, Blade thought as she curled into the corner of her seat. They’d damned well seal the deal. He eased back and divided his attention between the gray, drizzly scene whizzing by outside the windows and the woman who sank deeper into unconsciousness with each kilometer.
She woke briefly during the stop in Riga, the capital of Latvia. And again when a vendor came through the car selling cigarettes, sandwiches, potato soup, orangeade, tea and vodka. The soup was only lukewarm but the sandwiches consisted of jaw-cracking slabs of smoked ham stacked between equally thick slices of rye bread. Blade demolished all of his sandwich and the half of Rebel’s that she couldn’t finish.
She slipped back into a doze after lunch. He filled in the final hours of the trip skimming the last chapters of the book Professor Dawson had loaned them. The authors provided a wealth of documentation concerning the last known sightings of the Amber Room. A grainy, black-and-white photo showed it on display in Königsberg Castle. Returned, as Hitler had demanded, to its Prussian-slash-German roots. Several eyewitnesses verified that the panels were taken down, packed into twenty-six crates, and stored for safekeeping in the castle’s cellars after the first Allied bombing attack in August 1944. Only one witness, however, claimed to have seen these same crates brought up from the cellars and loaded onto a train in the last, frantic days before the Soviet Army stormed into Königsberg.
A succession of search teams could find no evidence to support this claim. More to the point, in-depth study of the last trains to have departed Königsberg showed the panels couldn’t have made it out of the city ahead of the advancing Red Army. All train routes had been cut off by then. That meant the priceless amber room had either been destroyed by the bombs that had rained down on the city in the closing months of the war or—less likely, according to the authors—they’d been so well hidden that none of the subsequent search parties digging through the rubble could find them.
No one except, maybe, a saboteur crawling through sewers and underground passages. Blade shut the book and considered the possibilities. If Sergeant Thomas Bauer had stumbled onto the priceless panels, why hadn’t he told anyone? Maybe he planned to go back after the war and recover more of the treasure. If so, the highly publicized Nuremberg War Crimes tribunals might have scared him off. A number of looters brought to trial at Nuremberg were sentenced to stiff prison terms.
Even if Bauer hadn’t planned to profit from the panels, he must have known how anxious the Soviets were to reclaim their treasure. He could have come forward at any time over the decades. Been hailed as a hero for leading a search team to the missing panels. Why keep silent?
Blade was still pondering that question when a loud thunderclap boomed just outside the windows. Rebel woke with a start and sat up, blinking at the rain now coming down in sheets.
“Where are we?”
“About a half hour out of Kaliningrad.”
She squinted through the downpour at the coast barely visible in the distance. Angry waves lashed its flat, marshy shoreline and flung monster plumes of salt spray into the air.
“Any word from Tank?” she asked, dragging her gaze from the storm-tossed sea.
“He’s made hotel reservations. Also confirmed the address and phone number of Sergeant Bauer’s cousin. I figured we’d wait to contact her until we checked in and dumped our bags.”
Rebel nodded her agreement with that plan and made a quick trip to the WC. When she returned to her seat, the track had curved away from the coast and now arrowed south through flat farmland. Shortly after that, they entered Kaliningrad’s suburbs. The dark, surly sky didn’t show the post-WWII concrete-block buildings in the best light, but the sprawl of factories hinted at a thriving economy. Signs denoting Cadillac, Hummer and BMW plants flashed by, along with a giant manufacturing center for flat-screen TV’s.
By the time they pulled into the central railroad station, the violent thunderstorm had dissipated to a steady drizzle. The temperature was considerably warmer here, so much farther south than St. Petersburg, although the breeze coming off the Baltic made Rebel glad she’d opted for the long-sleeved top.
They hailed a taxi outside the station. The Russian-made Volga came with a blue-striped towel covering its seat and a burly
driver who insisted on acting as their tour guide.
“I show you Old City first. Then we go to hotel.”
Leaning on the horn, he whipped around a plaza he identified as Victory Square and shot past a clanging trolley. A bridge took them across the Pregel River, lined on both banks with ocean-going cargo vessels. A reconstructed redbrick gate sprouting turrets and battlements led to the pre-WWII city center.
The area consisted of parks and broad avenues of lime-green linden trees. Dominating the center was the restored cathedral and a twenty-story concrete box. The box was painted an incongruous pale blue. Many of its windows were boarded, others gave glimpses into an empty interior.
“Is House of Soviets,” their driver announced. “Ugliest building in all Russia.”
He wouldn’t get any argument there.
“House never finished. The ground beneath, she sinks.”
He took both hands off the wheel to pantomime a cave-in. Rebel vacillated between an avid interest in the parliament house built atop the collapsed tunnels of Königsberg Castle and the certainty their taxi was going to plow through the barricades cordoning off the abandoned structure. The umbrella-toting pedestrians on the sidewalk in front of the barricades evidently shared the same concern. Those in the direct line of fire shouted curses and leaped aside.
Their driver reclaimed the wheel in the nick of time and swerved back into traffic. Blowing out a relieved breath, Rebel threw a look over her shoulder. Most of the pedestrians had disappeared under their umbrellas again, although one was furious enough to stand in the drizzle and flip them the bird.
Something about him…
She angled around for a better look. The drizzle clouded the windows, then a tram clanged by and obscured the plaza. She was still trying to put a name or a place to the briefly glimpsed face when the taxi shot around a corner and down another tree-lined boulevard.
“Is Amber Museum.”
Their self-appointed guide jabbed a thumb at a squat, redbrick tower directly ahead. The tower must once have formed part of the medieval city walls. Now, apparently, it housed one of Kaliningrad’s premier tourists attractions.
“Best museum in city.”
Rebel marked the location in her mind. From her reading, she knew the museum housed an exhibition depicting the history of the room that had originated right here, in what had once been East Prussia. It might be worth a visit if Thomas Bauer’s cousin didn’t come through for them.
Contacting Clara Bauer Soloff constituted their first priority after checking into the hotel. They didn’t get adjoining rooms this time. Rebel waffled between relief and disappointment when Blade left her at her door with a promise to return as soon as he’d cleaned up and checked in with Tank.
She used the brief interval to splash water on her face and drag a brush through her hair. A few swipes of lip gloss made her feel almost feminine again. She debated whether to change out of her jeans for the visit to Bauer’s cousin but decided to wait until they’d fixed a time and a place.
Blade rapped on her door a few minutes later. He’d grabbed a quick shower, she noted when she opened her door. His hair gleamed dark and damp. He’d also shaved. The tantalizing scent of leather and lime teased Rebel as she brushed past him and retrieved her phone from her purse.
“Let’s see if we can track down this cousin.”
The task almost maxed out her linguistic skills, but she eventually ascertained that the phone number and address Tank had supplied was for a retirement home, not a private residence. The attendant Rebel spoke to indicated Ms. Soloff’s son had taken her into the country for some kind of family celebration. They expected her to return by noon tomorrow.
She left her name and number and said she would come by to visit Ms. Soloff early tomorrow afternoon. Swallowing her frustration, she flipped her phone shut.
“Looks like we have the rest of the day to kill.”
And night.
The thought landed with a thud. She could tell by the glint in Blade’s eyes it had hit him, too. For a heart-stopping second, she actually considered the possibilities.
Talk about going from one extreme to the other! All this time she’d kicked herself for falling in love with a handsome charmer who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Now here she was, in serious lust with another super stud who dared her to put him to the test.
The nasty suspicion she might have let Clint Black’s exterior blind her to the man inside irritated her no end. It also made her absurdly nervous. She squashed both emotions with a casual suggestion.
“That Amber Museum is only a few blocks from here. Why don’t we check it out?”
They exited the hotel and discovered that weak but struggling sunlight had vanquished the rain. It had also nudged the July temperature up from comfortable to downright muggy. Storefront canopies dripped on them as they walked. Sidewalk puddles steamed. Rebel could almost feel her hair frizzing in the few short blocks to the redbrick tower.
As they walked, she couldn’t help glancing at the passersby. She still couldn’t place the guy who’d flipped them the bird. She’d caught only a glimpse of his face, and that had been distorted by drizzle and her profound relief their cab driver hadn’t flattened him. Something about him nagged at her, though. She was damned if she knew what.
“Careful!”
Blade caught her elbow and kept her from stepping off the curb in the path of an approaching tram.
“Reminds me of my home town,” he commented as the trolley rattled past.
Some passengers were jammed shoulder-to-shoulder. Others hanging on the outer steps. Rebel ignored them to give the man beside her a curious look.
“You’re from San Francisco?”
“Not originally, but I spent enough time there to qualify as a native.”
Why didn’t she know that? The gap in her knowledge bugged her as they crossed the busy street. She added it to the other questions she’d compiled about this man in the past few days. At the top of the list was the question of who he’d cut, and why. She toyed with the idea of asking him outright but nixed the impulse. This wasn’t the time or the place. Besides, she wasn’t sure he’d tell her. Parts of his past had to be as shrouded in secrecy as hers.
She was pondering that distinct possibility as they approached the round tower housing the Amber Museum. The darkened windows gave them their first clue it might not be open. The hand-lettered sign stuck in the door provided another.
“Can you read it?” Blade asked.
“I’m not sure.”
She struggled with the Cyrillic lettering. She could speak Russian with some fluency. Reading it was another matter. Particularly when the letters were written in a spidery script adorned with an overabundance of curlicues.
“I think it says something about the storm.”
“Maybe the lightning knocked out their lights.”
“Maybe.”
She was still trying to decipher the cryptic message when a teenager with a profusion of ear and nose rings wheeled up on a skateboard.
“Museum is closed,” he confirmed in Russian.
“Yes, I see. Why?”
Heeling his board, he skidded to a stop. “You are English?”
“American.”
“Ahhh!” His eyes lit up. “CKY. Pearl Jam. You know them?”
When Rebel hummed the first few bars of Just Breathe, the kid followed her lead and launched into an ecstatic rendition of the recently re-released hit. Not until they’d finished their impromptu duet did she discover why the museum’s lights were out.
“The storm churns the sea,” the teenager explained. “Waves wash amber ashore. The museum director goes to Yantarny to collect it, along with half of Kaliningrad.”
“Yantarny?”
“It is where amber was mined for many years.” He gestured vaguely toward the coast. “Twenty, thirty kilometers from here.”
Chapter 7
The idea of hunting for amber in its natural state proved impossible
to resist. Rebel convinced Blade they should hail another taxi and gave Yantarny as their destination. The route took them past miles of marshy fields and the abandoned hangars of a former Soviet air base. In the distance, the pearl-colored Baltic rippled with lines of whitecaps.
The sun burned through the last of the cloud cover as they approached Yantarny. The faded resort town occupied the very tip of a broad peninsula surrounded on three sides by the Baltic. A handful of weather-beaten hotels with wide verandas hugged the scraggly shoreline. Restaurants displayed barely legible signs, their lettering sanded off by years of salt-laden winds. Old men with cigarettes dangling from their lips hunched on the beach next to thick-waisted women in babushkas. The older generation watched as their offspring waded through the surf. Some of the waders wielded nets. One enterprising couple appeared to be swishing tennis rackets through the rippling surf.
“I read about this,” Rebel exclaimed after they’d exited the taxi and felt the wind slap their faces. “During a storm, the violent action of waves disturbs the seabed. Millions of years worth of buried gunk gets stirred up, including fossilized amber that was formed when conifer forests covered this whole area.”
The air carried the nose-twitching tang of salt and damp, verdant marsh. Breathing both into her lungs, Rebel put up a hand to hold back her wind-whipped hair.
“When the Teutonic Knights controlled the amber trade, they forced their harvesters to wade far out into the sea after storms to scoop stuff up with nets. Hundreds supposedly drowned in the icy water. And the knights reportedly executed anyone they caught sneaking out at night to do a little private scooping.”
She turned in a slow semicircle, searching the shore and the low, chalky cliffs behind them.
“Harvesting continued right up to modern times. There’s a huge amber mine around here somewhere. It operated until 2002 or 2003, if I remember correctly.”
Double Deception Page 7
