The Amber Room Page 0,16

seen that name among reports. Couldn't be Ernst Loring. Too young. More likely the father, Josef. The conclusion was becoming more and more inescapable that the Loring family had long been on the trail, as well. Maybe the trip to St. Petersburg had been worth the trouble. Two direct references to yantarnaya komnata, rare for Soviet documents, and some new information.

A new lead.

Ears.

"Will you be through soon?"

He looked up. The clerk stared down at him. He wondered how long the bastard had been standing there.

"It's after five," the man said.

"I didn't realize. I will be finished shortly."

The clerk's gaze roamed across the page in his hand, trying to steal a look. He nonchalantly tabled the sheet. The man seemed to get the message and headed back to his desk.

He lifted the papers.

Interesting the KGB had been searching for two former-Extraordinary Commission members as late as a few years ago. He'd thought the search for yantarnaya komnata ended in the mid-1970s. That was the official account, anyway. He'd encountered only a few isolated references dated to the eighties. Nothing of recent vintage, until today. The Russians don't give up, he'd give them that. But considering the prize, he could understand. He didn't give up either. He'd tracked leads the past eight years. Interviewed old men with failing memories and tight tongues. Boris Zernov. Pyotr Sabsal. Maxim Voloshin. Searchers, like himself, all looking for the same thing. But none knew anything. Maybe Karol Borya would be different. Maybe he knew where Danya Chapaev was. He hoped both men were still alive. It was certainly worth a flight to the United States to find out. He'd been to Atlanta once. During the Olympics. Hot and humid, but impressive.

He glanced around for the clerk. The impish man stood on the other side of the cluttered shelves, busily replacing files. Quickly, he folded the three sheets and pocketed them. He had no intention of leaving anything for another inquisitive mind to find. He replaced the two boxes on the shelf and headed for the exit. The clerk was waiting with the door open.

"Dobriy den, "he told the clerk.

"Good day to you."

He left and the lock immediately clicked behind him. He imagined it would not take long for the fool to report the visit, surely receiving a gratuity in the post a few days from now for his attentiveness. No matter. He was pleased. Ecstatic. He had a new lead. Maybe something definitive. The start of a trail. Maybe even an acquisition. The acquisition.

He bounded down the stairs, the words from the memo ringing in his ears. Yantarnaya komnata.

NINE

Burg Herz, Germany

7:54 p.m.

Knoll stared out the window. His bedchamber occupied the upper reaches of the

castle's west turret. The citadel belonged to his employer, Franz Fellner. It was a nineteenth century reproduction, the original burned and sacked to the foundation by the French when they stormed through Germany in 1689.

Burg Herz, "Castle Heart," was an apt name, since the fortress rested nearly in the center of a unified Germany. Franz's father, Martin, acquired the building and surrounding forest after World War I, when the previous owner guessed wrong and backed the Kaiser. Knoll's bedroom, his home for the past eleven years, once served as the head steward's chambers. It was spacious, private, and equipped with a bath. The view below extended for kilometers and encompassed grassy meadows, the wooded heights of the Rothaar, and the muddy Eder flowing east to Kassel. The head steward had attended the senior Fellner every day for the last twenty years of Martin Fellner's life, the steward himself dying only a week after his master. Knoll had heard the gossip, all attesting they'd been more than employer and employee, but he'd never placed much merit in rumor.

He was tired. The last two months, without question, had been exhausting. A long trip to Africa, then a run through Italy, and finally Russia. He'd come a long way from a three bedroom apartment in a government high-rise thirty kilometers north of Munich, his home until he was nineteen. His father was a factory worker, his mother a music teacher. Memories of his mother always evoked fondness. She was a Greek his father met during the war. He'd always called her by her first name, Amara, which meant "unfading," a perfect description. From her he inherited his sharp brow, pinched nose, and insatiable curiosity. She also hammered into him a passion for learning and named him Christian, as she was a devout believer.

His father molded him