by Steve Berry
He struggled to get free. “Wringing his goddamned neck would.” Anger seethed through him. He never thought himself capable of such rage. He wanted to kill Loring, regardless of the consequences, and enjoy every second of the bastard’s torment. McKoy forced him to the other side of the room. Loring inched to the opposite amber wall. McKoy’s back was to Loring when the big man whispered, “Stay cool. Follow my lead.”
Suzanne switched on an overhead chandelier and flooded the foyer and staircase with light. There was no danger of the staff interfering with the night’s activities, Loring had specifically instructed that no one reenter the main wing after midnight. She’d already thought about body disposal, deciding to bury all three in the woods beyond the castle before morning. She slowly climbed the stairs and reached the fourth-floor landing, gun in hand. A scream suddenly pierced the silence from the direction of the Wedding Chamber. She raced down the hall, past the open banister, to the oak door.
She tried the handle. Locked.
Another scream came from inside.
She fired two shots at the ancient latch. The wood splintered. She kicked the door. Once. Twice. Another shot. A third kick and the door flung inward. In the semidarkened chamber she saw Christian Knoll on the bed, Rachel Cutler struggling beneath him.
Knoll saw her, then slugged Rachel hard in the face. He then reached for something on the bed. She saw the stiletto come up in his hand. She aimed and fired, but Knoll rolled off the far side of the bed and her bullet missed. She noticed the open panel near the fireplace. The bastard was using the back passages. She dived to the floor, shielding herself behind a chair, knowing what was coming.
The stiletto zoomed across the darkness and ripped into the upholstery, mere inches away. She fired two more shots in Knoll’s direction. Four muffled shots came back, obliterating the back of the chair. Knoll was armed. This was too close. She sent another shot at Knoll, then crawled to the open doorway and rolled out into the hall.
Two more shots from Knoll ricocheted off the doorjamb.
Outside, she stood and started running.
“I have to get to Rachel,” Paul whispered, still seething.
McKoy’s back remained to Loring. “Get out of here when I make a move.”
“He has a gun.”
“I’m bettin’ the bastard won’t shoot in here. He’s not goin’ to risk a hole in the amber.”
“Don’t count on it—”
Before he could question further what McKoy intended, the big man turned to Loring. “I guess my two million is gone, huh?”
“Unfortunately. But bold of you to try.”
“Comes from my mother’s side. She worked the cucumber fields in eastern North Carolina. Didn’t take shit off nobody.”
“How charming.”
McKoy inched closer. “What makes you think people don’t know we’re here?”
Loring shrugged. “A risk I am prepared to take.”
“My people know where I am.”
Loring smiled. “I doubt that,Pan McKoy.”
“How about a deal?”
“Not interested.”
McKoy suddenly lunged at Loring, crossing the ten feet that separated them as fast as his beefy frame allowed. As the old man fired, McKoy winced, then screamed, “Go, Cutler!”
Paul darted for the double doors leading out of the Amber Room, glancing back momentarily to see McKoy crumble to the parquet and Loring readjust his aim. He leaped from the room, rolled across the stone floor, then stood and raced through the darkened gallery, out the opening into the Romanesque Room.
He expected Loring to be following, more shots on the way, but the old man certainly couldn’t move fast.
McKoy had actually allowed himself to be shot so he could get away. He never knew people really did that. That was something that only happened in movies. Yet the last thing he saw before fleeing the room was the big man lying on the floor.
He flushed that thought from his mind and concentrated on Rachel as he ran down the corridor for the stairway.
Knoll heard Suzanne scamper out into the hall. He crossed the room and retrieved the knife. He marched to the open door and risked a glance. Danzer was bolting to the stairway twenty meters away. He anchored his feet and sent the perfectly balanced stiletto flying her way, piercing Danzer’s left thigh, the sharp blade sucking into her flesh down to the handle.
She cried out and folded to the carpet runner in agony.
“Not this time, Suzanne,” he calmly said.
He walked to her.
She was gripping the back of her thigh, blood oozing from the embedded blade. She tried to turn and level her gun, but he instantly kicked the CZ-75B from her grasp.
The gun clattered away.
He brought his shoe down across her neck and pinned her to the floor. He pointed his own weapon.
“Enough fun and games,” he said.
Danzer reached back and tried to wrap her palm around the stiletto’s handle, but he slammed the sole of his shoe into her face.
He then fired two shots into Danzer’s head and she stopped moving.
“For Monika,” he whispered.
He jerked the knife from her thigh and swiped the blade clean on her clothes. He found Danzer’s gun and stepped back into the bedchamber, determined to finish what he’d started.
FIFTY-SIX
McKoy tried to rise and focus but couldn’t. The amber room spun around him. His legs were limp, his head woozy. Blood poured from a bullet wound to his shoulder. He was rapidly losing consciousness. Never had he imagined dying like this, surrounded by a treasure worth millions, powerless to do anything.
He’d been wrong about Loring. There’d been no risk to the amber. The bullet was simply planted in flesh. He hoped Paul Cutler had managed to escape. He started to pull himself up. Footsteps approached from the outer gallery, coming toward him. He fell back to the parquet and lay prone. He eased open his left eye and caught the blurred image of Ernst Loring reentering the Amber Room, the gun still in hand. He lay perfectly still, trying to maximize what little strength remained.
He took a deep breath and waited for Loring to draw close. The old man, with his shoe, cautiously nudged McKoy’s left leg, apparently testing to see if death had taken hold. He held his breath and managed to keep his body rigid. His head started spinning from the lack of oxygen combined with the blood loss.
He needed the bastard closer.
Loring took two steps forward.
He suddenly clipped the old man’s legs out from under him. Pain racked his right shoulder and chest. Blood spurted from his wound. But he tried to hang on long enough to finish.
Loring slammed to the floor, the impact jarring his grip on the gun. McKoy’s right hand locked around the old man’s neck. The image of Loring’s shocked expression blinked in and out. He needed to hurry.
“Say hello to the devil for me,” he whispered.
With his last bit of strength, he strangled Ernst Loring to death.
Then he surrendered to the darkness.
Paul negotiated the maze of ground-floor corridors and bolted for the staircase leading up to the fourth floor. Just before entering the brightly lit foyer, two shots popped from above.
He stopped.
This was foolish. The woman was armed. He wasn’t. But who was she firing at? Rachel? McKoy had taken a bullet so he could get away. It now looked like it was his turn.
He loped up the stairs, two at a time.
Knoll dropped his pants. Killing Danzer had been satisfying foreplay. Rachel lay sprawled on the bed, still dazed from his fist. He tossed the gun on the floor and palmed the stiletto. He approached the bed, gently parted her legs, and ran his tongue up the length of her thigh. She did not resist. This was going to be nice. Rachel, apparently still groggy, lightly moaned and responded to his touch. He slipped the stiletto back into the sheath under his right sleeve. She was dazed and docile. There would be no need for the knife. He cupped her bare butt with his hands and r
eturned his tongue to her crotch.
“Oh, Paul,” she whispered.
“I told you it would not be unpleasant,” he mouthed.
He raised up and prepared to mount her.
Paul turned at the fourth-floor landing and dashed up the last flight of stairs. He was winded, his legs ached, but Rachel was up there and needed him. At the top he saw Suzanne’s body, her face obliterated by two bullet holes. The sight was sickening, but he thought of Chapaev and his parents and felt nothing but satisfaction. Then a thought electrified his brain.
Who the hell shot her?
Rachel?
Moaning resonated from down the hall.
Then his name.
He inched his way to the bedchamber. The door was flung back, its top hinge splintered away. He gazed into the semidarkness. His eyes adjusted. A man was on the bed, and Rachel was beneath him.
Christian Knoll.
Paul went berserk and rushed the length of the room, catapulting himself onto Knoll. Momentum rolled them off the bed and to the floor. He landed on his right shoulder, the same one injured last night in Stod. Pain seared through his right arm. He raised a fist and brought it down. Knoll was bigger and more experienced, but he was mad as hell. He swung his fist again and Knoll’s nose gave way. Knoll howled, but he pivoted and used his legs to send Paul flying up and over him. Knoll curled himself forward and rolled out of the way, then pounced, ramming a fist hard into Paul’s chest. He gagged on his own saliva and tried to catch a breath.
Knoll stood and yanked him from the floor. A fist slammed into his jaw, sending him reeling into the center of the room. He was dazed, trying hard to focus on the spinning furniture and the tall man approaching. Forty-one years old, and this was his first fistfight. Odd, he thought, the sensation of being slugged. Suddenly, the image of Knoll’s naked ass on top of Rachel flashed through his mind. He caught hold of himself, grabbed a breath, and lunged, met only by another fist to the stomach.
Damn. He was losing the fight.
Knoll caught him by the hair.
“You interrupted my pleasure, and I do not like being interrupted. Did you not notice Fräulein Danzer on the way in? She interrupted also.”
“Fuck you, Knoll.”
“So defiant. And brave. But weak.”
Knoll released his grip and slugged him. Blood gushed from his nose. The momentum of the blow sent Paul tumbling through the open doorway, out into the hall. He was having trouble seeing out of his right eye.
He couldn’t take much more.
Rachel was vaguely aware that something was happening, but it was all so confusing. One moment it seemed as if Paul were making love to her, and the next she heard fighting and bodies being flung across the room. Then a voice.
She raised up.
Paul’s face came into view, then another.
Knoll.
Paul was clothed, but Knoll was naked from the waist down. She tried to assimilate the information, making sense of what at first seemed impossible.
She heard Knoll’s voice.
“You interrupted my pleasure, and I do not like being interrupted. Did you not notice Fräulein Danzer on the way in? She interrupted also.”
“Fuck you, Knoll.”
“So defiant. And brave. But weak.”
Then Knoll slugged Paul in the face. Blood splattered and Paul rolled out into the hall. Knoll followed. She tried to stand from the bed, but collapsed to the floor. She slowly pulled herself across the parquet toward the doorway. Along the way she crossed a pair of pants, some shoes, and something hard.
She reached down. There were two guns. She ignored both and kept crawling. At the doorway she pulled herself up to her feet.
Knoll was moving toward Paul.
Paul realized this was the end. He could hardly breathe from the blows to his chest, his lungs were constricted, most likely several ribs were broken. His face ached beyond belief and he was having trouble seeing. Knoll was merely toying with him. He was no match for this professional. He staggered to his feet, using the stone banister for support, not unlike the banister from the night before at the abbey high above Stod. He gazed down four stories and felt like vomiting. The glow from the bright crystal chandelier burned his eyes, and he squinted. His body was suddenly yanked back and twirled around. Knoll’s smiling face gleamed at him.
“Had enough, Cutler?”
All he could think to do was spit in Knoll’s face. The German jumped back and then lunged at him, ramming a fist into his stomach. Spit and blood coughed up as he gasped for air. Knoll brought another blow down across the nape of his neck, slamming him to the floor. Knoll reached down and pulled him to his feet. His legs were rubber. He propped him against the railing, then stepped back and twitched his right arm.
A knife appeared.
Rachel watched through fogged eyes as Knoll battered Paul. She wanted to help but barely had the strength to stand. Her face ached, the swelling on her right cheek beginning to affect her vision. Her head pounded. Everything was blurred and spinning. Her stomach tossed like on a boat on a stormy sea.
Paul’s body crumbled to the floor. Knoll reached down and yanked him to his feet. She suddenly thought of the two guns and stumbled back to the center of the bedchamber. She groped the floor until she found one of the pistols, then staggered back to the doorway.
Knoll had stepped away from Paul, his back to her. A knife appeared in the German’s hand and she knew there’d be only a second to react. Knoll moved toward Paul, the blade rising. She pointed the gun and, for the first time in her life, pulled a trigger. The bullet left the barrel, not with a retort, but with the muffled pop like when balloons burst at one of the kids’ birthday parties.
The bullet plowed into Knoll’s back.
He stumbled and turned, then moved toward her with the knife.
She fired again. The gun bucked in her hand, but she held tight.
Then again.
And again.
Bullets ripped through Knoll’s chest. She thought of what must have happened in the bed and lowered her aim, firing three more shots at his exposed crotch. Knoll screamed, but somehow kept standing. He stared down at blood pouring from his wounds. He staggered toward the banister. She was about to fire again when Paul suddenly lunged forward, shoving the half-naked German over the top and out into the open air of the four-story foyer. She fell toward the railing and glanced over just as Knoll’s body found the chandelier and ripped the massive crystal fixture from the ceiling. Blue sparks exploded, Knoll and glass free-falling to the marble below, a thud from the body accompanying the shattering of glass, the crystal flung about and then tinkling to the floor like the applause that lingered after a symphony’s climax.
Then, silence. Not a sound.
Below, Knoll did not move.
She looked at Paul. “You okay?”
He said nothing, but wrapped his arm around her. She reached over and gently caressed his face. “Does it hurt as bad as it looks?” she asked.
“Damn right.”
“Where’s McKoy?”
Paul heaved a deep breath. “Took a bullet . . . so I could get to you. Last I saw he was . . . bleeding all over the Amber Room.”
“The Amber Room?”
“Long story. Not now.”
“I guess I’m going to have to take back all the nasty things I said about that big fool.”
“I guess you are,” a voice suddenly said from below.
She glanced over the rail. McKoy stumbled into the dim foyer, holding his bloodied left shoulder.
“Who’s this?” he asked, pointing to the body.
“The bastard who killed my father,” Rachel called down.
“Seems that score’s settled. Where’s the woman?”
“Dead,” Paul said.
“Good fuckin’ riddance.”
“Where’s Loring?” Paul asked.
“I strangled the motherfucker.”
Paul winced from the pain. “Good fuckin’ riddance. Y
ou okay?”
“Nothin’ a good surgeon can’t fix.”
Paul managed a weak smile. He looked at Rachel. “I think I’m beginning to like that guy.”
She smiled back, the first in a while. “Me, too.”
EPILOGUE
St. Petersburg, Russia
September 2
Paul and Rachel stood at the front of a side chapel. Italian marble surrounded them in elegant tones of sienese yellow with Russian malachite intermixed. Slanting rays from the morning sun cast a towering iconostasis beyond the priest in a glinting hue of sparkling gold.
Brent stood to the left of his father, Marla beside her mother. The patriarch pronounced the marriage vows in a solemn voice, the occasion enhanced by a chanting choir. St. Isaac’s Cathedral was empty except for the wedding party and Wayland McKoy. Paul’s eyes were drawn to a stained-glass window centered in a wall of icons. Christ standing tall after the Resurrection. A new beginning. How appropriate, he thought.
The priest finished the vows and bowed his head as the service ended.
He gently kissed Rachel and whispered, “I love you.”
“And I you,” she said.
“Ah, go ahead, Cutler, give her a good lip lock,” McKoy said.
He smiled, then took the advice, kissing Rachel passionately.
“Daddy,” Marla said, signaling enough.
“Leave ’em alone,” Brent said.
McKoy stepped forward. “Smart kid. Which one of you he take after?”
Paul smiled. The big man looked strange in a suit and tie. The wound to McKoy’s shoulder had apparently healed. He and Rachel had also recovered, the past three months something of a blinding whirlwind.
Within an hour of Knoll’s death, Rachel had telephoned Fritz Pannik. It was the German inspector who arranged for the Czech police to immediately intervene, and Pannik himself arrived at Castle Loukov, with Europol, at daybreak. The Russian ambassador in Prague was summoned by midmorning, and officials from the Catherine Palace and Hermitage flew in the next afternoon. A team from Tsarskoe Selo arrived the following morning, and the Russians wasted no time dismantling the amber panels and transporting them back to St. Petersburg, the Czech government offering no resistance after learning the details of Ernst Loring’s sordid activities.
