The Amber Room

by Steve Berry

  Loring noticed her interest.

  “This room is entirely enclosed within stone walls, the space not even noticeable from the outside. I commissioned a mural to be painted and the lighting perfected to provide an illusion of outside. The original room opened to the Catherine Palace’s grand courtyard, so I chose a nineteenth-century setting at a time after the courtyard had been enlarged and enclosed with fencing.” Loring stepped close to Monika. “The ironworks of the gates there in the distance are exact. The grass, shrubs, and flowers are from contemporary pencil drawings used as models. Quite remarkable, actually. It appears as if we are standing on the second floor of the palace. Can you imagine the military parades that regularly occurred, or watching the nobles taking their evening promenade while a band played in the distance?”

  “Ingenious.” Monika turned back toward the Amber Room. “How were you able to reproduce the panels so exactly? I visited St. Petersburg last summer and toured the Catherine Palace. The restored Amber Room was nearly complete. They have the moldings, gild, windows, and doors replaced and many of the panels. Quite good work, but not like this.”

  Loring stepped to the center of the room. “It is quite simple, my dear. The vast majority of what you see is original, not a reproduction. Do you know the history?”

  “Some,” Monika said.

  “Then you surely know that the panels were in a deplorable condition when the Nazis stole them in 1941. The original Prussian craftsmen fastened the amber to solid oak slabs with a crude mastic of beeswax and tree sap. Keeping amber intact in such a situation is akin to preserving a glass of water for two hundred years. No matter how careful one is, eventually the water will either spill or evaporate.” He motioned around. “The same is true here. Over two centuries the oak expanded and contracted, and in some places rotted. Dry stove heating, bad ventilation, and the humid climate in and around Tsarskoe Selo only made things worse. The oak pulsed with the seasons, the mastic eventually cracked and pieces of amber dropped off. Nearly thirty percent was gone by the time the Nazis arrived. Another ten percent was lost during the theft. When Father found the panels, they were in a sorry state.”

  “I always believed Josef knew more than he acknowledged,” Fell-ner said.

  “You cannot imagine how disappointed Father was when he finally found them. He’d searched for seven years, imagined their beauty, recalled their majesty when he’d seen them in St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution.”

  “They were in that cavern outside Stod, right?” Monika asked.

  “Correct, my dear. Those three German transports contained the crates. Father found them during the summer of 1952.”

  “But how?” Fellner asked. “The Russians were looking in earnest, as were private collectors. Back then, everyone wanted the Amber Room and no one believed it had been destroyed. Josef was under the yoke of the Communists. How did he manage such a feat? And, even more important, how did he manage to keep it?”

  “Father was close with Erich Koch. The Prussian gauleiter confided in him that Hitler wanted the panels transported south out of the occupied Soviet Union before the Red Army arrived. Koch was loyal to Göring, but he was no fool. When Hitler ordered the evacuation, he complied, and initially told Göring nothing. But the panels made it only as far as the Harz region, where they were hidden in the mountains. Koch eventually told Göring, but even Koch did not know where precisely they were hidden. Göring located four soldiers from the evacuation detail. Rumor was he tortured them, but they told him nothing of the panels’ whereabouts.” Loring shook his head. “Göring was fairly insane by the end of the war. Koch was scared to death of him, which was one reason he scattered pieces from the Amber Room—door hinges, brass knobs, stones from the mosaics—at Königsberg. To telegraph a false message of destruction not only to the Soviets, but to Göring, as well. But those mosaics were reproductions the Germans had been working on since 1941.”

  “I never accepted the story that the amber burned in the Königsberg bombings,” Fellner said. “The whole town would have smelled like an incense pot.”

  Loring chuckled. “That is true. I never understood why no one noted that. There was never a mention of an odor in any report of the bombing. Imagine twenty tons of amber slowly smoldering away. The scent would have drifted for miles, and lingered for days.”

  Monika lightly stroked one of the polished walls. “None of the cold pomposity of stone. Almost warm to the touch. And much darker than I imagined. Certainly darker than the restored panels in the Catherine Palace.”

  “Amber darkens with time,” her father said. “Though sliced into pieces, polished, and glued together, amber will continue to age. The Amber Room of the eighteenth century would have been a much brighter place than this room is today.”

  Loring nodded. “And though the pieces in these panels are millions of years old, they are as fragile as crystal and equally finicky. That is what makes this treasure even more amazing.”

  “It sparkles,” Fellner said. “It is like standing in the sun. Radiance, but no heat.”

  “Like the original, the amber here is backed with silver foil. Light simply comes back.”

  “What do you meanlike the original panels?” Fellner asked.

  “As I mentioned, Father was disappointed when he breached the chamber and found the amber. The oak had rotted, nearly all the pieces had fallen off. He carefully recovered everything and obtained copies of photographs the Soviets had made of the room before the war. Like the current restorers at Tsarskoe Selo, Father used those pictures to rebuild the panels. The only difference—he possessed the original amber.”

  “Where did he find the craftsmen?” Monika asked. “My recollection is that the knowledge of how to fashion the amber was lost in the war. Most of the old masters were killed.”

  Loring nodded. “Some survived, thanks to Koch. Göring intended to create a room identical to the original and instructed Koch to jail the craftsmen for safekeeping. Father was able to locate many before the war ended. After, he offered them a good life for themselves and whatever remained of their family. Most accepted his offer and lived here in seclusion, rebuilding this masterpiece slowly, piece by piece. Several of their descendants still live here and maintain this room.”

  “Is that not risky?” Fellner asked.

  “Not at all. These men and their families are loyal. Life in the old Czechoslovakia was difficult. Very brutal. To a man, they were grateful for the generosity the Lorings showed them. All we ever asked was their best work and secrecy. It took nearly ten years to complete what you see here. Thankfully, the Soviets insisted on training their artists as realists, so the restorers were competent.”

  Fellner waved his hands at the walls. “Still, this must have cost a fortune to complete.”

  Loring nodded. “Father purchased the amber needed for replacement pieces on the open market, which was expensive, even in the 1950s. He also employed some modern techniques while rebuilding. The new panels are not oak. Instead, pieces of pine, ash, and oak were fused together. Separate pieces allow for expansion, and a moisture barrier was added between the amber and the wood. The Amber Room is not only fully restored, it will also last.”

  Suzanne stood quiet near the doors and carefully watched Fellner. The old German was openly stunned. She marveled at what it took to astonish a man like Franz Fellner, a billionaire with an art collection to rival any museum in the world. But she understood his shock, recalling how she felt the first time Loring showed her.

  Fellner pointed. “Where do the two other sets of doors lead?”

  “This room is actually in the center of my private gallery. We walled the sides and placed the doors and windows exactly as in the original. Instead of rooms in the Catherine Palace, these doors flow to other private collection areas.”

  “How long has the room been here?” Fellner asked.

  “Fifty years.”

  “Amazing you have been able to conceal it,” Monika said. “The Soviets are di
fficult to deceive.”

  “Father fostered good relations with both the Soviets and the Germans during the war. Czechoslovakia provided a convenient route for the Nazis to funnel currency and gold to Switzerland. Our family aided many such transfers. The Soviets, after the war, enjoyed the same courtesy. The price of that favor was the freedom to do as we pleased.”

  Fellner grinned. “I can imagine. The Soviets could ill afford you to inform the Americans or the British about what was transpiring.”

  “There is an old Russian saying, ‘But for the bad, it would not be good.’ It refers to the ironic tendency of how Russian art seems to spring from turmoil. But it likewise explains how this was made possible.”

  Suzanne watched Fellner and Monika approach the chest-high cases lining two of the amber walls. Inside were an assortment of objects. A seventeenth-century chessboard with pieces, an eighteenth-century samovar and flask, a woman’s toilet case, a sand glass, spoons, medallions, and ornate boxes. All of amber, crafted, as Loring explained, by either Königsberg or Gda´nsk artisans.

  “The pieces are lovely,” Monika said.

  “Like thekunstkammer of Peter the Great’s time, I keep my amber objects in my room of curiosity. Most were collected by Suzanne or her father. Not for public display. War loot.”

  The old man turned toward Suzanne and smiled. He then looked back toward their guests.

  “Shall we retire to my study, where we can sit and talk a bit more?”

  FIFTY-ONE

  Suzanne took a seat beyond Monika, Fellner, and Loring. She preferred to watch from the side, allowing her boss this moment of triumph. A steward had just withdrawn after serving coffee, brandy, and cake.

  “I always wondered about Josef’s loyalties,” Fellner said. “He survived the war remarkably well.”

  “Father hated the Nazis,” Loring said. “His foundries and factories were placed at their disposal, but it was an easy matter to forge weak metal, or produce bullets that rusted, or guns that did not like the cold. It was a dangerous game—Nazis were fanatical about quality, but his relationship with Koch helped. Rarely was he questioned about anything. He knew the Germans would lose the war, and he foretold the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe, so he worked covertly with Soviet intelligence throughout.”

  “I never realized,” Fellner said.

  Loring nodded. “He was a Bohemian patriot. He simply operated in his own way. After the war, the Soviets were grateful. They needed him, too, so he was left alone. I was able to continue that relationship. This family has worked closely with every Czechoslovakian regime since 1945. Father was right about the Soviets. And so, I might add, was Hitler.”

  “What do you mean?” Monika asked.

  Loring brought the fingers of both hands together in his lap. “Hitler always believed the Americans and British would join him in a war against Stalin. The Soviets were Germany’s real enemy, and he believed Churchill and Roosevelt felt the same way. That’s why he hid so much money and art. He intended to retrieve it all, once the Allies joined him in a new alliance to defeat the USSR. A madman for sure, but history has proved a lot of Hitler’s vision correct. When Berlin was blockaded by the Soviets in 1948, America, England, and Germany immediately joined against the Soviets.”

  “Stalin scared everybody,” Fellner said. “Moreso than Hitler. He murdered sixty million to Hitler’s ten. When he died in 1953, we all felt safer.”

  After a moment Loring said, “I assume Christian reported the skeletons found in the cavern at Stod?”

  Fellner nodded.

  “They worked the site, foreigners hired in Egypt. There was a huge shaft then, only the outer entrance dynamited shut. Father found it, cleared the opening, and removed the crumbled panels. He then sealed the chamber with the bodies inside.”

  “Josef killed them?”

  “Personally. While they slept.”

  “And you’ve been killing people ever since,” Monika said.

  Loring faced her. “Our Acquisitors assured that the secret remained safe. I do have to say, the ferocity and determination with which people have searched surprised us. Many became obsessed with finding the amber panels. Periodically, we would leak false leads, rumors to keep searchers moving in a different direction. You might recall an article inRabochaya Tribuna from a few years back. They reported Soviet military intelligence had located the panels in a mine near an old tank base in East Germany, about two hundred fifty kilometers southeast of Berlin.”

  “I have that article,” Fellner said.

  “All false. Suzanne arranged a leak to the appropriate people. Our hope was that most people would use common sense and give up the search.”

  Fellner shook his head. “Too valuable. Too intriguing. The lure is almost intoxicating.”

  “I understand completely. Many times I venture into the room to simply sit and stare. The amber is almost therapeutic.”

  “And priceless,” Monika said.

  “True, my dear. I read something once about war loot—artifacts made of precious stones and metals—the writer postulated that they would never have survived the war intact, the sum of their individual parts being far greater than the whole. One commentator, I believe in theLondon Times , wrote that the fate of the Amber Room could be gauged similarly. He concluded only objects like books and paintings, whose total configuration, as opposed to the actual raw material used in their composition, would survive a war.”

  “Did you help with that postulation?” Fellner asked.

  Loring lifted his coffee from the side table and smiled. “The writer conceived that on his own. But we did make sure the article received wide circulation.”

  “So what happened?” Monika asked. “Why was it necessary to kill all those people?”

  “In the beginning, we had no choice. Alfred Rohde supervised the loading of the crates in Königsberg and was aware of their ultimate destination. The fool told his wife, so Father eliminated both before they told the Soviets. By then, Stalin had empaneled a commission to investigate. The Nazi ruse at Königsberg Palace did not deter the Soviets at all. They believed the panels still existed and they searched with a vengeance.”

  “But Koch survived the war and talked to the Soviets,” Fellner said.

  “That’s true. But we funded his legal defense until the day he died. After the Poles convicted him of war crimes, the only thing that kept him from the gallows was a Soviet veto. They thought he knew where the Amber Room was hidden. The reality was that Koch knew only the trucks left Königsberg headed west, then south. He knew nothing of what happened later. It was our suggestion that he tantalize the Soviets with the prospects of finding the panels. Not until the 1960s did they finally agree to terms. His life was spared in return for the information, but it was an easy matter then to blame everything on time. The Königsberg of today is far different from the one that existed during the war.”

  “So, by funding Koch’s legal defense, you assured his loyalty. He’d never betray his only revenue source, nor would he ever play the trump card, since there would be no reason to trust the Soviets to keep their word.”

  Loring smiled. “Exactly, old friend. The gesture also kept us in constant contact with the only living person we knew of who could provide any meaningful information on the panels’ location.”

  “One also that would be difficult to kill without drawing undue attention.”

  Loring nodded. “Thankfully, Koch cooperated and never revealed anything.”

  “And the others?” Monika asked.

  “Occasionally some ventured close, and it became necessary for accidents to be arranged. Sometimes we dispensed with caution and simply killed them, particularly when time was of the essence. Father conceived the ‘curse of the Amber Room’ and fed the story to a reporter. Typical of the press, and please forgive my insolence, Franz, but the phrase caught on quickly. Made good headlines, I presume.”

  “And Karol Borya and Danya Chapaev?” Monika asked.

  “The
se two were the most troublesome of all, though I did not fully realize until just recently. They were close to the truth. In fact, they may well have stumbled onto the same information we found after the war. For some reason they kept the information to themselves, guarding what they considered to be secret. It appears hatred for the Soviet system may have contributed to their attitude.

  “We knew about Borya from his work with the Soviet’s Extraordinary Commission. He eventually immigrated to the United States and disappeared. Chapaev’s name was familiar, too. But he melted into Europe. Since there was no apparent danger from either, we left them alone. Until, of course, Christian’s recent intervention.”

  “Now they are silenced forever,” Monika said.

  “The same thing you would have done, my dear.”

  Suzanne watched Monika bristle at Loring’s rebuke. But he was right. The bitch would surely kill her own father to protect her vested interests.

  Loring broke the moment and said, “We learned of Borya’s whereabouts about seven years ago quite by accident. His daughter was married to a man named Paul Cutler. Cutler’s father was an American art enthusiast. Over the course of several years, the senior Cutler made inquires across Europe about the Amber Room. Somehow he tracked down a relative of one of the men who worked here at the estate on the duplicate. We now know that Chapaev provided Borya with the name, and Borya asked Cutler to make inquiries. Four years ago those inquiries reached a point that forced us to act. So a plane was exploded. Thanks to lax Italian police authorities, and some well-placed contributions, the crash was attributed to terrorists.”

  “Suzanne’s handiwork?” Monika asked.

  Loring nodded. “She’s quite gifted in that regard.”

  “Does the clerk in St. Petersburg work for you?” Fellner asked.

  “Of course. The Soviets, for all their inefficiency, had a nasty tendency to write everything down. There are literally millions of pages of records, no telling what is in them, and no way to efficiently scan them all. The only way to ensure against curious minds stumbling across something interesting was to pay the clerks for attentiveness.”