“That’s probably where the workers at Catherine Palace got the materials to replicate the original room,” Blade commented.
“Probably.”
She eyed the crowd shuffling ankle deep through the surf and couldn’t resist issuing a challenge.
“Bet I turn up a piece of amber before you do.”
“You sure you want to dive in?” he asked skeptically. “The air temperature may be in the seventies, but I’m guessing the water’s a good twenty degrees colder.”
A familiar light entered her eyes. Blade recognized the mocking glint even before she pantomimed flapping wings.
“Cluck, cluck, cluck.”
“I’m not chicken. Just sensible.”
“Forget sensible. Let’s have some fun.”
He entertained serious doubts as he followed her down to the beach, where she slipped off her spangly shoes and rolled up her jeans. Stuffing the shoes in her back pockets, she approached the water’s edge. Blade decided discretion was the better part of valor and waited for the first wave to hit her. “Omigod!”
Yelping, she leaped for dry land. He caught her hand and tugged her free of the sucking surf. Her shocked expression brought laughter rumbling up in his chest. Nobly, he resisted the urge to say he told her so, but the evil look she gave the waves had him grinning.
“Now who’s chicken?”
“At least I went in!”
She tugged free of his hold and made a cautious re-entry. Her lips peeled back in a grimace. Her shoulders hunched, as if she wanted them to lift her bodily out of the water. Step by excruciating step, she waded in up to her calves. Moments later she’d joined the other hunter-gatherers sloshing through seaweed, pebbles and flotsam in search of bits of prehistoric resin.
The wind tangled her hair and flattened her top against her breasts. Seawater splashed up to her thighs. Mesmerized, Blade watched a Rebel he’d never seen before dance away from another wave.
The woman had roused his interest, then his lust, from the first day they’d met. She’d challenged him. Taunted him. Stirred his competitive instincts. Yet this was the first time he’d glimpsed this laughing, carefree side to her.
“Our bet’s still on,” she called over her shoulder. “You coming in or not?”
“Not.”
“Cluck, cluck, cluck.”
“You mine the waves. I’ll comb the beach.”
He paced her from higher up on the shore as she splashed through knee-high surf. They occasioned a few curious glances from the other hunters but were ignored by most until Rebel gave an excited shout.
“I see something!”
She bowled her hands and bent to scoop up her find. Wind and excitement put flags of color in her cheeks as she straightened and let seawater seep through her fingers.
Several of her fellow hunters waded closer for a look. One of them took the oblong piece she displayed in her outstretched palm and chinked it against his teeth. Shaking his head, he passed it back to her.
“Nyet.”
Obviously disappointed, Rebel resumed her search. Blade trailed along, alternating his gaze between the ebbing tide and the tawny-haired sea witch who roused the erotic and totally implausible urge to drag her down to the sand and recreate the famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity. He had her wet and willing and panting with eagerness when he spotted a dull glint half buried in seaweed.
Hunkering down, he brushed kelp away from an irregularly shaped blob about the size of a half dollar. He dug it out and swished it through the surf to remove the grit and sand. It felt almost weightless, more like plastic than a semiprecious gem. If it was a semiprecious gem. Blade still wasn’t convinced when Rebel splashed over to see what he’d found.
“Omigod,” she said again, more reverently this time. “Look at that amazing color.”
The piece glowed a rich golden-brown. Its surface undulated in uneven planes. Tiny bubbles dotted one corner and what looked like a miniature fern unfurled just off center. The piece was pretty, Blade had to admit, but he had no clue whether it was the real thing.
The Russians who gathered around them seemed to think so. One conducted the teeth knocking test again. Another rubbed the piece vigorously against the arm of his bulky sweater and held it an inch or so from Rebel’s head. Strands of her hair flew up, as if drawn by a magnet. Grinning, she translated a babble of comments.
“They say it’s the real thing.”
“Better ask them about the rules governing finds like this. We may have to report it or something.”
The question elicited shrugs all around and a return to the business of treasure hunting.
“We can ask at the museum tomorrow,” Rebel said. “Assuming the amber police don’t come knocking on your door first and confiscate the piece.” She glided a fingertip along the uneven surface. “Be a shame if they do. This would make a gorgeous pendant or belt buckle.”
Blade nodded but had something besides jewelry on his mind at the moment. “You know,” he said with studied nonchalance, “we didn’t set the stakes for that bet about who would find amber first.”
The too-lazy tone brought her gaze up to lock his. “No,” she said cautiously, “we didn’t.”
“Guess that means the winner gets to name the prize.”
“Within reason.”
His gaze made a leisurely descent from her tangled hair to her mouth to the front of her long-sleeved navy top. The surf had splotched and dampened the stretchy material. It now outlined her breasts in precise detail. The need to cup those high, taut mounds jolted into Blade. He managed to refrain but not without considerable struggle.
Yielding to another, equally compelling urge, he slid a hand under the heavy mass of her hair. Her nape felt warm and slightly damp from her exertions. Her skin carried the tang of the sea.
“I’ll take this as a down payment on my prize.”
Her expression went from cautious to wary but she didn’t pull back. They were making real progress, Blade thought as he bent and brushed his mouth over hers. Moving from friendly adversaries to…
To what? The question rode roughshod over the pleasure of her taste and feel and damp, salty scent. When he raised his head, she opened her eyes and blinked at the frown he felt forming.
“What?” she demanded, bristling a little at his sudden change of mood.
“Funny,” he said slowly, “I was just asking myself the same thing.”
“Huh?”
His gaze roamed her face, but he knew the answer to his question even before he catalogued the rich cinnamon of her eyes, the thick lashes, the lush mouth and stubborn chin. He ached for her in the most basic way a man could for a woman. So fiercely it took every ounce of his control not to drag her down and do the Burt Lancaster thing.
But he wanted more than a roll in the sand, he realized with an unwelcome jolt. He wanted her laughing as she had a few minutes ago. Lighthearted. Loving him as much as…
Whoa! His thoughts slammed to a full stop. When the hell had he tripped over lust and come down somewhere close to love? The idea scared the crap out of him even as he bent to take her lips again. Harder this time. Hungrier.
Rebel stood stiff and unresponsive for a few seconds, still more than a little miffed. What the heck was going on here? One minute he was teasing her with that evil grin of his. The next, he was looking as freaked as an armadillo caught in the headlights.
And now his stance had widened, his hand had tunneled through her hair and he was coaxing—correction!—demanding a response. She wanted to withhold it. That near scowl when he’d raised his head a minute ago still stung. Like she’d insisted on partial payment right here on the beach, with an interested audience looking on.
But he felt so good. Tasted so good. Against her better judgment, almost against her will, she slid her arms around his neck. She had no idea how long they would have remained locked like that if someone hadn’t given a snarky laugh and offered the Russian version of “get a room.”
Breaking the kiss, she lowered her arms and leaned back in Blade’s loose hold. “What was that all about?”
A line of red cut across his cheeks. “Damned if I know.”
The red deepened, and Rebel’s jaw sagged. Good grief! Was that a blush? Her first instinct was to hoot and tease the hell out of him. She wasn’t sure what held her back. Sheer surprise, maybe, or the sudden and totally ridiculous stutter in her pulse. Whatever the reason, she decided not to ruin the moment with one of her usual barbs.
“Well, when you figure it out,” she said instead, “let me in on it.”
Pushing out of his hold, she resumed her wading and pretended not to hear his growled, “You’ll be the first to know.”
Acclimated to the surf’s chill now, she led the way along the curving the shoreline. The crowd thinned out the farther they got from the hotels and restaurants. Instead of eager amber hunters, the few folks along this deserted stretch were mostly loners out for a walk and the occasional elderly gull-watcher bundled in a thick sweater or jacket despite the reappearing sun.
Rebel nodded and smiled at several, with mixed results. Russia’s postwar generation might be relatively receptive to strangers but many of their older counterparts still regarded outsiders with Cold War suspicion. She was hoping Sergeant Bauer’s elderly cousin wasn’t one of them, when she and Blade rounded a curve in the shoreline and found their way blocked by a low chalk cliff that jutted into the sea.
Except it wasn’t a chalk cliff, she realized as they moved closer. It was a man-made extrusion some hundred or so yards long made from heaps of gray slag. Massive pipes so rusty they showed daylight through their holes lay half submerged on either side of the extrusion. An equally rusted structure of corrugated tin sat at the tip.
Curious, Rebel abandoned the water and leaned on Blade to swipe the sand from her feet before slipping on her shoes. Dusting her hands on her thighs, she approached a sign with an official-looking seal. Time and salt spray had all but obliterated the lettering. “I wonder…”
Hands on hips, she followed the line of one of the half-submerged pipes from where it emerged from the water some yards ahead. The rusting pipe lay across the beach like the carcass of a bloated sea serpent, then penetrated a crumbling wall and led up a slight incline to a long, low cement building almost obscured by weeds.
“What’s that?” Blade asked, following her gaze.
“I’m not sure.”
“Could be an antiship or aircraft battery left over from the war,” he speculated.
“Could be,” Rebel agreed. “But I think…”
She turned, spotted a white-haired man sitting on the wall, and motioned to Blade to follow her. With the old man’s shoulders hunched and a thin black cigarette stuck to his lower lip, he could have been part of the crumbling ruins. A threadbare army overcoat with red pips on the tabs was draped over his shoulders. Two faded medals hung on the right lapel below a face so weathered and lined it seemed to have folded back in on itself.
“Excuse me,” Rebel said in polite Russian. “We don’t want to trespass, but the sign is too faded to read. Do you know what it says?”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. “It says to have care,” he finally croaked in a hoarse, smoke-roughened voice. “The mine is abandoned. Unsafe.”
Her pulse kicked up a notch. She’d suspected the slag heap might be the by-product from the mine she’d read about. This hunch-shouldered veteran had just validated her guess. “Thank you.”
The old man grunted and returned to his contemplation of the sea.
“I think this is the amber mine,” Rebel interpreted for Blade. “The one that operated until just a few years ago.”
Her hair whipping wildly, she dug in the purse hooked across her body and nudged aside her snub-nosed .38 to extract her phone. A single click took her to the internet. Another few clicks brought up a Wikipedia article on the Yantarny Amber Mine.
“Ha! I was right. It says here this sucker’s been in operation for centuries.” She scrolled through the article, hitting the highlights. “The Prussians took over the lucrative amber trade when the Teutonic Knights were disbanded. Amber collected all along this coastline was brought here to Yantarny for processing, then sent to Königsberg.”
“Where Fredrick the Whatever’s court architect discovered a whole cellar full and crafted a room out of it,” Blade commented.
“Fredrick the First,” she supplied, skimming the article. “According to this, the Prussians leased production in 1818 to a private firm. The firm operated the biggest and most profitable amber mine in the world, right up until it got flooded out in 2001.”
Rebel wasn’t sure why finding the abandoned mine was so exciting. Probably because it constituted one more piece in what had become a frustrating puzzle. Eagerly, she scrolled through the article.
“The Yantarny Mine was incredibly rich. By 1937 it employed over a thousand people and produced more than six hundred tons of amber a year. Then, in 1945…”
She broke off, pursing her lips.
“In 1945,” Blade filled in, “the Soviets invaded.”
“Right. But first…”
Her excitement faded. A sick feeling stirred in its stead.
“There was a Nazi concentration camp outside Danzig, Poland. When the Soviet Army advanced in January 1945, the camp’s guards forced more than thirteen thousand inmates to march through hundreds of miles of snow and sleet to Königsberg, then out here to the coast. Less than three thousand survived the march.”
Her sick feeling intensified as she read the next paragraph.
“The plan was to imprison the survivors in one of the mine’s tunnels. But the mine manager objected, so the prisoners were forced into the Baltic and machine gunned.”
Blade turned his gaze to the waves rolling onto the shore. “Makes you see this place in a different light,” he said grimly.
“Yeah, it does.”
Rebel had studied thousands of years of military history at the Air Force Academy, from Egypt’s earliest warrior kings to the Greeks and Romans and Carthaginians, down through the Middle Ages to modern times. She knew atrocities were committed by all sides in every conflict. She also knew there were those who argued dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted mass murder of innocent noncombatants. That didn’t lessen the impact of what she’d just read. It took a severe effort of will to force her mind away from the horror that had taken place in the waters just yards away.
“The tunnels mentioned in the article,” she said slowly. “They had to have been created when the mine operators dredged down to reach amber buried in the seabed.”
“And once they reached it,” Blade commented, studying the mountain of gray sludge projecting into the sea, “they had to have some way to separate the good stuff from the bad. I’m guessing they used high pressure spray guns powered with seawater.”
Rebel tried to visualize the process in her mind. She saw shafts sunk deep into the marshy earth. Tons upon tons of dark, slimy seabed scooped up by dredges. Dumped onto conveyors and hauled through a processing plant. Attacked by high pressure sprays that sluiced mud from wood and stone and clumps of prehistoric resin.
The clumps were separated and probably treated with some kind of chemical to wash off encrustations. Effluvia from the process would be pumped through giant pipes back down into the sea. No wonder this stretch of the Baltic looked barren and gray!
“And then,” she said, thinking out loud, “mine operators had to ship the finished product to a sorting, grading, and wholesaling center. In Königsberg, I would guess. The question now is…”
“How they shipped it,” Blade finished. He studied the plant’s long, low facade. “You said the mine was producing six hundred tons of amber a year in 1937. Trucking it out would be too inefficient. I’m guessing a railroad spur.”
Another flare of excitement kindled as Rebel remembered the eyewitness who’d insisted he’d
seen the crated Amber Room panels loaded onto a train in late April 1945. Exhaustive research had proved no train could have left Königsberg and headed north, west or south by that date. The city was already almost surrounded.
But one could have steamed here, hauling priceless amber panels back to the mine that produced them so many centuries ago. The breath-stealing possibility had her scanning the overgrown areas in front and alongside the plant.
“I don’t see any tracks.”
“You wouldn’t from down here,” Blade countered. “Let’s go up and take a look.”
They had to search for the weed-clogged track that led up from the beach. Rebel half expected the old soldier to shout an order to stop, or at least issue another warning that the mine wasn’t safe. He did neither, merely flicked them a disinterested glance and went back to his contemplation of the sea.
The stink of long-standing water turned sour and brackish, clogging Rebel’s nostrils as they got closer to the abandoned plant. She stepped lightly, cautiously, her enthusiasm for the search dimming as she tried not to think about an abandoned shaft opening up under her feet or stepping into a sinkhole of gray, viscous sludge.
When she and Blade gained the top of the rise they saw concrete building had once been ringed with barbed wire. The strands were now rusted and the fence had toppled into the scrub in several places. They got through it easily enough and approached what must have been the long, low processing plant.
The gray cinderblock facility looked even worse up close than it had from the shore. Boards were nailed haphazardly across windows. Rusting iron bars blocked the door. Wind and relentless sea spray had pockmarked the walls and eaten off big chunks of cement. Treading even more cautiously, Rebel followed in Blade’s footsteps as he searched for tracks in the weeds and refuse lining the length of building.
“Nothing here. Let’s look around back.”
“You look. I’ll wait.”
He glanced over his shoulder and caught her making a face as she unwrapped a prickly weed that had snaked around her ankle. Grinning, he flapped his wings. “Cluck, cluck.”
Double Deception Page 8
