by Mims, Lee
I considered my luck. I mean, it was such a break. I actually had an opportunity to go into the mind, if you will, of the creep who’d tried to rape me. Of course, Pierce and Myers would be seriously miffed if they knew I was on the dead man’s computer. But they didn’t know, right? And, anyway, it wasn’t like I was on his personal machine.
Deciding to forge ahead, I went straight to the history of the sites last visited. Lots of technical data on the manipulating arms of the ROV. Nothing of interest there, so I tried to get into his email but I couldn’t crack that password. Next I checked the bookmarks. More technical stuff. Then I noticed a small icon blinking at the bottom of the screen. I clicked on it.
Hunter had a document in the queue waiting to be printed. Ray and Ricky got up and went to check some thingamabob on the ROV while Barry stayed behind with the controls.
I watched Barry for a minute. He seemed very absorbed in his work, so I clicked on Print. Probably just some more ROV specs or something anyway. Mechanical click-clacking across the room let me know the printer’s location. Unfortunately, it was right beside Barry’s chair. I hopped up and went to the machine, retrieving the first page as soon as the printer spit it out. Barry never even looked up. Good thing, as my knees almost buckled when I read the page.
At last, my suspicions were confirmed. It was a copy of an email Hunter had sent to his work computer from his personal Gmail account. It was from Davy Duchamp, instructing Hunter to a site with an article he wanted him to “read with special attention to the refit of a forward torpedo tube into a storage compartment. Study, then delete.” Three more pages glided ever-so-slowly from the printer.
But after more clicking and clacking, the printer stopped and the out-of-paper light blinked politely. Damn! Just then the door to the van banged open and in its space stood an angry Ray, hands on his hips. I froze, the pages clutched in my naughty little fingers.
“Barry!” Ray snapped. “Get out here, man, I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
“Fine!” Barry huffed as he spun around his desk and marched out.
Ray gave me a concerned look. “You okay? Need some help?”
“No,” I squeaked.
“Okay, then,” he said, closing the door behind him. I checked out the last page to come from the printer. It was number three of three. Good thing because I was so shaken at my discovery I wouldn’t have been able to reload paper into a strange printer. I ran back to Hunter’s computer, shut it down, grabbed my hard hat, and made a beeline for the helm and a quiet conference room where I could read what I’d printed.
“Come back when you can stay longer,” called one of the techs after me.
I threw up my hand in a nonchalant wave and swallowed hard, hoping to force my heart from my throat back to its normal resting place in my chest.
As luck would have it, all the meeting rooms around the helm station were occupied. But then I had a better idea and headed for the women’s head. As far as I knew there were only three other women aboard, and they all worked on the main deck. I was pretty certain I’d be alone there.
Latching the stall door, I sat down and read the article. It was a historical account of the refitting of a very special German U-boat to accommodate certain civilian friends of the Third Reich. The article even included a blueprint of the sub’s layout and a schematic of how one of the torpedo tubes was refit for the purpose of hiding things—an artifact or document box or somesuch. The writer speculated that hidden documents were top-secret military intelligence. Hunter must have been trying to print the article instead of deleting as instructed and been interrupted. Or maybe he’d had to wait for one of his teammates to finish printing something. Being dead, he never got back to it.
Reading on, the article stated the sub was one of a group of three hundred commissioned into service in the Kriegsmarine right before the end of the war. Little was know about them, and U-boats numbered 491–500 never got assigned to active duty. The writer here was suggesting—speculatively, of course—that this sub’s design had included quarters for dignitaries escaping Germany. Provocatively, the author also identified the aforementioned hidden artifact as one that Hitler wanted to relocate for safekeeping. It must have been pretty special because it was being sent away with a personal guardian. Here a photo was provided.
I stared at it.
In it were three people: a smiling yet very tense-looking man in a Nazi uniform and two young men, one in a suit and tie and the other in military garb. The photo’s scalloped edging suggested it had not been taken by a professional. Instead, the background and the pose of the subjects was like a snapshot. Below the photo a caption identified the young military man as Wolfgang Reckhoff, and the fellow in the suit as an art history professor at the University of Gottingen named Gerhard Coester. The Nazi officer was identified as Erich Koch.
Reckoff stood to one side as Coester was handed a cylinder about the size of a Pringles can to Koch. Besides noting his youth, I was struck by the haunted look in the professor’s dark, deep-set eyes. His brown hair was slicked down, parted in the middle, and tucked behind very large ears, which poked prominently from his head. Even in the grainy photo, I got the impression of clenched teeth behind his drawn lips.
I read on. The writer believed that the cylinder the young professor could be seen taking possession of contained a map.
What? This was not Raiders of the Lost Ark! These people weren’t actors but historical figures. I was holding my breath as I continued, stunned to learn that the map being handed over into his safekeeping would lead anyone possessing it to the Amber Room, stolen from the Catherine Palace in Russia during World War II.
Even surmising the Amber Room to be a work of art of monumental value—it must have been to have Hitler himself go to the lengths he did to hide it—I still couldn’t help but wonder if this article was all speculation. I didn’t know who the author was or what his credentials were. This could be a post from some ridiculous conspiracy blog. Could any of it be true? Why was Davy Duchamp instructing an ROV pilot onboard Magellan to read it? What did it have to do with Manteo One?
And with me?
seventeen
On Friday afternoons in Morehead, the streets are crowded with weekend residents and vacationing renters walking toward restaurants and hot spots. I luckily made it home without wiping out one of them. I bolted the stairs two at a time to my study. Barely able to contain myself, I sat down and Googled the Amber Room. Thirty minutes and several articles later, I’d learned a great deal, every bit of it fascinating.
The Amber Room had been designed by a German baroque sculptor named Andreas Schluter in 1701 for Frederick I, the first king of Prussia. It was constructed from amber panels as well as gold, paintings, and jewels. In 1716, it was gifted to Peter the Great to solidify Prussian–Russian relations; the room was disassembled and rebuilt, as well as embellished upon, in Russia. By the time it was “finished,” the room contained 6 tons of amber and encompassed over 55 square meters in the palace. It stayed there until World War II, when Hitler decided that since it was made by a German, the treasure ought to be his. He sent a group of men to dismantle it as soon as the Nazi Army reached Leningrad. Their plan was to store it in Konigsberg, East Prussia, until they won the war.
Little tingles of electricity rippled up my spine when I read that Hitler, upon realizing the war was lost, put the room in the care of a loyal officer—one Erich Koch. Erich Koch? I jumped up, grabbed my pack from the chair where I’d tossed it, and, with shaking fingers, pulled out the article I’d printed off Hunter’s computer. Remarkably, the caption read “Erich Koch.” To be sure, I looked him up on Wikipedia, where there was a photo.
It was the same man.
Koch had been one of Hitler’s top henchmen and the murderer of some four hundred thousand Polish citizens. He’d fled Germany for Denmark in 1945 but later returned to Hamburg, where he was capture
d in 1949. The Russians had wanted him extradited, but the British gave him to Poland, where he was tried for his war crimes and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted, however, because it was believed he knew of the whereabouts of tons of looted art, above all, the Amber Room. He lived in a Polish prison until he died in 1986 at the age of ninety, never giving up the secret.
Going back to a Google search, I realized that theories abounded as to what happened to the Amber Room, but facts were few. Only mystery prevailed.
According to some art historians, the Amber Room never survived the bombings of Konigsberg. Others believe Koch had all twenty-seven crates containing the room moved into a bunker somewhere in Germany before the bombings. Still others said he took the crates with him when he escaped to Denmark. So many people believed that Koch ordered the crates loaded aboard the luxury liner Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk in the Baltic Sea in 1945, that a team of Russian and Polish salvage divers explored the wreck in 1950. The theory was proved wrong.
“I knew it!” I said aloud. I sat back in my chair, a big smile on my face. I had a theory of my own. In fact, I was pretty sure that, incredible as it seemed, I knew the whereabouts of the map to the Amber Room. And the best thing about my theory: it supplied a possible explanation for the death of Nuvuk Hunter that had nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Bud Cooper.
I picked up the wheel valve I’d been trying to retrieve the night I’d been attacked, turned it in my fingers, and said, “I knew you had something to do with this death, and now I’m going to prove it.”
Only one person in the world would listen to my theory and not call 911 in search of the nearest mental facility, and that was Bud. I decided to call him at Seahaven so I could check on Will and Henri as well.
“Where’s your dad?” I asked when Will answered.
“Uh … he’s not here.”
“Okay. Where is he? When will he be back?”
I heard Henri shout in the background. “Just tell her, Will!”
“He’s with that girl.”
“What girl?” I said, confused.
“The one that’s a representative in the House.”
“Oh … she’s not a girl. She’s a woman.”
“Well, she’s our age. I’d hardly call her a woman.”
“Never mind. I don’t want to argue. When will he be back?”
“Not tonight. He said they’d be working late. Something about that well you guys are drilling and some permit problems that might come before the Legislature.”
“Okay,” I said getting a slightly queasy feeling to hear there might be such issues at this late date, but more annoyed than anything. Following a quick report from Henri on Tulip, I hung up, made a light supper, and called the helicopter service to line up a ride out to the Magellan tomorrow morning. By the time I was ready to climb into bed, I knew sleep would be elusive.
Moonbeams scattered through the leafy branches of the live oak outside the window and found their way through the shutters to the ceiling above me. I finally fell asleep watching them dance, knowing that as I lay there, Magellan’s drill was chewing its way into the history books, and not far from where it dove into the seabed lay the answer to one of the world’s greatest mysteries—the whereabouts of the Amber Room.
Having defied the laws of physics yet again, I climbed out of the helicopter as soon as it set down on the Magellan Saturday morning, ducked to avoid decapitation, and went to find Phil Gregson. He’d told me when I called him last night that he was flying in to be here when the well came in. My pilot said Phil had arrived about thirty minutes ahead of me.
Following my usual routine, I went the helm after a quick check-in at the radio room on the bridge. Duncan Powell appeared to be having a come-to-Jesus meeting with staff, so I quietly closed the door and headed for the DC, where I was pretty sure I’d find Phil.
I was right. Along with the assistant driller and several roughnecks, he was watching the monitor that displayed drilling depth.
“Hey, Cleo,” he said.
“Phil,” I said, shaking his hand. “Where are we?”
“Exactly twelve thousand four hundred thirty-two feet down. Progress has been pretty steady in this limestone. Cuttings show the gas is starting to bubble up—readings are over a hundred units.”
“Great, I said. “We timed this just right then, we should be hitting our bright spot in the next few feet.”
“Correct. Unless something happens. And anything can,” Phil said worriedly. “I just got here a little while ago and met with Elton a few minutes before he bugged out to the logging lab. What do you say we go find him there?”
As we crossed under the catwalk that overlooked the moonpool on four sides, something on the opposite side caught my eye. I looked up and saw a familiar silhouette. It was Bud.
With the early morning sun breaking over his shoulder, I saw him bend to wrap his arm around the shoulders of a pretty blond woman and speak directly into her ear. I stopped in my tracks. Phil, unaware, went on. I was too far away to read their lips, and the cacophonous noise of the drill drowned out their words, but it didn’t matter.
As I watched, Bud’s eyes shifted down and he looked directly at me. His companion realized she’d lost his attention, followed his line of sight, and gazed at me too. For a second, I stood, frozen, then gave what I hoped looked like a cheery wave and hurried to catch up with Phil.
After only a few paces, however, I couldn’t help myself—I looked back to see if I could recognize the blonde. I couldn’t, but I had a pretty good idea who she was. What I didn’t know was what on earth she would be doing out here with Bud. I got a hint of an answer when a scrum of reporters and government officials followed by a cameraman joined them on the catwalk.
Tom and another logger were on duty in the lab. They were hustling to wash and analyze samples Elton was bringing back from the shaker at 3-foot intervals. Cautious optimism at the new readings of “show” appearing on the chromatograph was palpable. Phil and I compared the notes I’d taken over the last two days to the ones he’d made from digital information and emails he received continuously from the loggers. Outwardly, I probably sounded like I was a hundred percent in the moment. I wasn’t. Part of me was still standing under the catwalk watching my ex-husband—who was also my oldest friend—sharing his thoughts with someone new.
Phil had brought along a CD featuring various 3D views of our targeted bright spot. We carried it up to the media room off the helm station and studied it as we waited for a call from David Grant. For a while I lost myself in the early Cretaceous world of rising and falling seas, of coral reefs and tidal lagoons, of basins teeming with life and river deltas pushing their alluvial fans of organic-rich sediments far out onto the continent’s shelf.
When the door opened, Duncan Powell walked in—but he didn’t look like a man about to make history as being captain of the rig that brought in the first wildcat gas well in the Manteo prospect. “I see everybody’s here for the big moment,” he said.
“Everyone but Braxton,” Phil said. “Where’s he?”
“Down in the DC.”
“How about SunCo and the Able Leader,” I asked, thinking that might be weighing on Powell’s mind. “Any news on their progress?”
“They are steady at it over there,” he said. “They’ve got both drills working. Braxton and I calculate they’ve shoved a little over ten thousand feet of pipe down the hole. They’re in over twenty-four hundred feet of water, so that’ll put them a little over seventy-five hundred feet down hole. If we come in today, we’re definitely going to beat them.”
“Ya-hoo!” whooped Phil and held up a palm for a high five. I smacked it back. Powell gave a weak smile in return. Then, making sure my voice dripped with nonchalance, I said, “I thought I saw Bud on the catwalk over the moon pool. Is he here for the big event too?”
“Oh, man,” Powel
l said, shaking his head. “I hate to break the congratulatory mood here, but I have to. I’ve got some bad news. Bud’s out here to try and stop a bad situation before it happens, manage some damage control.”
“Damage control?”
“Yeah,” Powell sighed. “The state is making rumblings about stopping drilling out here … again. Protestors are heating things up, so he got permission from Houston to bring one of the legislators and the leaders of the various government agencies out here.”
At that moment, we were interrupted by the head driller requesting our presence in the DC. We practically jammed ourselves in the doorway in our excitement to get there and share in the big event.
Upon arriving, however, the news wasn’t exactly what we’d been expecting. Phil and I went straight to the wall of monitors. There we saw the gas readings, instead of being higher, had dropped lower. Duncan Powell joined Braxton Roberts, and both men bent over the well plan on a small worktable.
Grant sat at the controls for the drill, the bit rotating in neutral. “What do you think’s going on?” Phil inquired.
“Well,” Grant replied, in his British accent crisp with tension, “Since the readings are getting weaker, we obviously have to head in a new direction. Which way is for you guys to decide.”
Powell and Braxton engaged in a short strained discussion, pausing only to look from the well design to the gas monitors. Finally they nodded at each other, and Braxton said, “We need to make a slight deviation in the azimuth angle in the borehole, now. Otherwise, we’ll miss our target.”
Just to be on the safe side, Phil and I went back to the logging lab to check the readings there. “We’re close,” Phil said. “Very close. We just need to head down a few more degrees. That should put us right on our target.”
After a few more refining calculations, we came up with the angle adjustment to relay back to Grant and the drill team. “Of course we’ll have to call a conference with the honchos in Houston.” We all agreed, at which point we tromped off to the conference room. The connection was made and in minutes I was staring at Hiram Hightower himself, along with his team of some of the best, most successful earth scientists in the oil and gas industry as they studied the problem.
