The Amber Room by Steve Berry Read Free Book Online Page B

Cyrillic diatribes. Overall, the box was a disappointment, mostly summary reports of various Commission investigations. Two long hours passed and he found nothing of interest. He started on the second box, which contained more summary reports. Toward the middle, he came to a stack of field reports from investigators. Acquisitors, like himself. But paid by Stalin, working exclusively for the Soviet government.
    He scanned the reports one by one.
    Many were unimportant narratives of failed searches and disappointing trips. There were some successes, though, the recoveries noted in glowing language. Degas’sPlace de la Concorde . Gauguin’sTwo Sisters . Van Gogh’s last painting,The White House at Night . He even recognized the investigators’ names. Sergei Telegin. Boris Zernov. Pyotr Sabsal. Maxim Voloshin. He’d read other field reports filed by them in other depositories. The box contained a hundred or so reports, all surely forgotten, of little use today except to the few who still searched.
    Another hour passed, during which the clerk wandered back three times on the pretense of helping. He’d declined each offer, anxious for the irritating little man to mind his own business. Near five o’clock he found a note to Nikolai Shvernik, the merciless Stalin loyalist who had headed the Extraordinary Commission. But this memo was unlike the others. It was not sealed on official Commission stationery. Instead, it was handwritten and personal, dated November 26, 1946, the black ink on onionskin nearly gone:
    Comrade Shvernik,
    I hope this message finds you in good health. I visited Donnersberg but could not locate any of the Goethe manuscripts thought there. Inquiries, discreet of course, revealed previous Soviet investigators may have removed the items in November 1945. Suggest a recheck of Zagorsk inventories. I met with
    
    `Yxoyesterday. He reports activity by Loring. Your suspicions seem correct. The Harz mines were visited repeatedly by various work crews, but no local workers were employed. All persons were transported in and out by Loring.Yantarnaya komnatamay have been found and removed. It is impossible to say at this time.`Yxois following additional leads in Bohemia and will report directly to you within the week.
    Danya Chapaev
    Clipped to the tissue sheet were two newer sheets of paper, both photocopies. They were KGB information memos dated March, seven years ago. Strange they were there, he thought, tucked indiscriminately among fifty-plus-year-old originals. He read the first note typed in Cyrillic:
    `Yxois confirmed to be Karol Borya, once employed by Commission, 1946–1958. Immigrated to United States, 1958, with permission of then-government. Named changed to Karl Bates. Current address: 959 Stokeswood Avenue. Atlanta, Georgia (Fulton County), USA. Contact made. Denies any information onyantarnaya komnata subsequent to 1958. Have been unable to locate Danya Chapaev. Borya claimed no knowledge of Chapaev’s whereabouts. Request additional instructions on how to proceed.
    Danya Chapaev was a name he recognized. He’d looked for the old Russian five years ago but had been unable to find him, the only one of the surviving searchers he hadn’t interviewed. Now there may be another. Karol Borya, aka Karl Bates. Strange, the nickname. The Russians seemed to delight in code words. Was it affection or security? Hard to tell. References like Wolf, Black Bear, Eagle, and Sharp Eyes he’d seen. But `Yxo? “Ears.” That was unique.
    He flipped to the second sheet, another KGB memo typed in Cyrillic that contained more information on Karol Borya. The man would now be eighty-one years old. A jeweler by trade, retired. His wife died a quarter century back. He had a daughter, married, who lived in Atlanta, Georgia, and two grandchildren. Six-year-old information, granted. But still more thanhe possessed on Karol Borya.
    He glanced again at the 1946 document. Particularly the reference to Loring. It was the second time