The Amber Room (38 page)

“Yes, you did that.”

Erika paused, acquiesced, “Were I in your place, I would feel no different.”

“Your honesty is most reassuring.”

A muffled voice spoke from the distance. “Ferret is reminding me again.”

“No doubt.”

“To business, then.” She kept her voice brisk, determinedly calm. “The transfer has been made.”

Though expected and hoped for, the news brought with it an electric stab. He had to stop and breathe before asking, “All of it?”

“So many zeros,” Erika replied. “You cannot imagine how it feels to stand in such a place, one of the grandest banks in the world, and look at a number that large.”

Kurt searched as far inward as he ever allowed himself, found only doubt and worry and fear. “And here I stand,” he said bitterly. “My passport is in the hands of others, and there you are, looking at all those zeros.”

“It boggles the mind.”

“No doubt,” he agreed. For a moment, he felt the fear give way to a certainty of ruin, and in that brief instant Kurt felt a bonding with the old colonel and his tired, defeated air. “Never have I felt more helpless, or more alone.”

“Such a confession,” Erika said.

“At least you have the decency to act surprised.”

“I am surprised because it is exactly as Ferret predicted,” she replied. “He has arranged a suitable reply. Do you have pen and paper?”

“What for?”

“Do you have it?” A little sharper this time.

“Wait.” Then, “All right. Go ahead.”

“Write this down,” she said, and proceeded to give him a bank's name and a Zurich address, followed by a telephone number, then two longer numbers.

“Do you have it?”

“What is it?”

“Our bank. The first set of numbers is your account. They have been instructed that you will either call or fax and request confirmation of a deposit.”

“A what?”

“A deposit. A large one. Very large. Your share of the proceeds, to be exact. You are to give them this second number, which is your access code.”

The flood of relief left him utterly weak. “You have done this?”

“Deliver the treasure map to Poland,” Erika replied. “Then come to Switzerland. It is time to begin your new life.”

CHAPTER 38

Before traveling to meet Alexander at the airport, Jeffrey accompanied Katya on a stroll through Cracow's old city to the Marian Church. A placard of postcards for sale stood beside the church entrance, staffed by a smiling rheumy-eyed woman in a gray-wool dress and head-kerchief. The pictures were of Polish winter scenes—a heavily laden horse cart, children walking a snowy forest path, icicles growing from an ancient thatched farmhouse, mountain passes, descents into steep ravines, sunset forests lit like a stained-glass chapel. In the center was a handwritten card, the script shaky and uneven as from a very old hand.

“What does the card say?” Jeffrey asked.

“If you allow,” Katya read, “every experience will become part of the path that leads you to God.”

Jeffrey stared into the face of the old woman and found a light in her ancient, teary eyes, a force and a sureness that left her untouched by his stare and his silent questions. She was content to stand and stare back and allow him to feed on her gaze.

“We need to go now,” Katya finally said, “if we're going to have time to pray before your meeting.”

Reluctantly Jeffrey followed. As he entered the immense eleventh-century oak doors, he turned to find the crone still watching him. She withdrew one hand from the folds of her wrap and pointed a twisted finger toward the card.

Katya was waiting for him just inside the church. She asked, “Could we go sit up there?”

“No, you go on ahead.”

She inspected his face. “Is everything all right?”

“I'm fine,” he replied. “I just want to stand here for a while.”

“I'll be near the front,” Katya said quietly, and left.

Although the church was ringed by vast expanses of stained glass, fifty years of soot and grime considerably dimmed the light permitted entry. The murky quality of this illumination was in keeping with the interior's darkened confines. Brilliant gilt work had faded over the centuries. Ceiling mosaics, once glimmering with a hundred different hues, now lay in a half-seen distance. The central cross, rising up a full seventy feet above the nave, seemed to float of its own accord. Through the gloomy light, the Christ figure gazed out and down across the eight hundred years since it first was raised.

As the afternoon faded, low-slung chandeliers were lit. Jeffrey watched people come and go, their hands clasped before them, their faces set in repose made gentle both by inward thoughts and soft lighting. The church's higher reaches became lost entirely. Jeffrey craned and searched and caught sight of lofty shadows and half-seen images, glimpses of a heaven close only to believers, visible only to the eyes of a love-filled heart.

Even in the slow afternoon hours between Masses, the church remained almost half full. Silent prayers charged the atmosphere and heightened the sense of mystery. Candles flickered before the three dozen altars tucked in side alcoves, and within stands surrounding the vast pillars. Penitents stood or knelt or sat, hands entwined in rosaries or still in laps or supporting burdened foreheads.

Jeffrey searched the faces that came and went, wishing he could somehow capture in paint the beauty he found there—their intensity of concentration, their histories of suffering, their peace, their joy. Young and old, men and women, entered and knelt and spoke to the Invisible whose Spirit filled Jeffrey's heart as he watched. In that moment he loved them all. And with the flood of caring came the realization that the love he felt was not his own.

In time, he walked forward to join Katya in prayer.

“I've never seen a church so full except for services,” he said upon their departure.

“People have no place else to pray,” Katya replied. “They live crammed together in apartments meant for half their number, as many as three generations in three rooms. In some families there is no quiet time, in others there is only one believer who is not given space for prayer, not even a closet. Some are scoffed at and ridiculed. The church is their island, their refuge, their place to come and sit in peace and talk to God.”

Alexander arrived, showing his normal post-flight blues. When Jeffrey started to tell him that Rokovski had arrived back the day before, he waved the words aside, saying that the situation was too important to waste upon a mind that was not yet functioning. Jeffrey bore the burden of his news in suffering silence all the way back into town, deposited Alexander in his room, and wore a track in the downstairs carpet until the appointed hour. He and Katya arrived at Alexander's room just as the secondhand ticked into place.

Alexander opened the door with a flourish. “Excellent. The tea has just been delivered. Come in, come in.”

He was wearing a neatly pressed dark suit, a starched white shirt, a discreetly striped silk tie. His color was excellent. “I hope you will excuse my concern for privacy, but I find public rooms to be no place for such discussions.”

“You are looking extremely well,” Katya said, taking the offered chair.

“Thank you, my dear. I must say, I am feeling better than I have in weeks. Perhaps you would be so good as to pour.”

Once tea had been served, Alexander gave Jeffrey a brief smile. “You had best deliver the news before you burst.”

“We leave for Czestochowa at four o'clock tomorrow morning,” he announced.

Gray eyes sparked with interest. “The key to the mystery has been delivered, then.”

“It better have,” Jeffrey replied.

“Rokovski is laying his professional life on the line for
this,” Katya explained. “If the treasure isn't there, the best he can hope for is a posting to some provincial backwater.”

“You both have seen him?”

“Yesterday late afternoon and again this morning,” Jeffrey said. “He hasn't slowed down since his return from Rome.”

“Speaking of which,” Alexander said, “did he mention what he discovered while there?”

“Only that it was good news,” Katya replied, “and that his feelings about Karlovich were confirmed.”

“He prefers to tell you himself,” Jeffrey said. “He asks that you please have patience until after this other matter has been settled.”

“But he did say that the time for worry was over,” Katya added, “at least so far as the chalice is concerned.”

“So there was a reliquary,” Alexander said, leaning back in visible relief.

“It looks to me as if Karlovich knew there was one all along,” Jeffrey said.

“I would wager that at any odds,” Alexander agreed. “He was probably one of very few people alive in all Poland who did. A keeper of secrets passed down from curate to curate over three centuries.”

“We played right into his hands, didn't we?” Katya said.

“Indeed we did,” Alexander replied. “Our request to have a selection of Polish religious art for the gala, coming as it did through the proper channels, was the perfect way for the reliquary to depart from Poland.”

“You mean Karlovich already had some deal worked out with the Vatican to return the reliquary?” Jeffrey asked.

“That would certainly appear to be a possibility,” Alexander replied. “Though only Rokovski shall be able to say for sure.”

“And they made the switch in London?” Jeffrey continued.

Alexander shook his head. “I very much doubt it. I would imagine that yet another emissary from Rome appeared some time ago, one who did not share the current Pope's Polish
heritage, and who wanted the relic returned to its rightful place.”

“Maybe even at the request of Karlovich,” Katya suggested.

“That would be my guess,” Alexander agreed. “A man in his position would no doubt have numerous contacts within the Vatican museum structure.”

“Not priests,” Katya said.

“Most certainly not. A curate such as Karlovich would consider himself a man apart and would seek people of like station and mind. No, the emissary on this occasion would probably have been the equivalent of a Vatican civil servant, puffed up with his own importance, a petty power seeker intent on furthering his own career by announcing the completion of such a coup.” Alexander sipped his tea. “It is probably a very good thing for my soul that I shall never have an occasion to meet this person face-to-face.”

“So the curate and the emissary met and discussed the millennium event,” Jeffrey said. “And then, just as they're trying to figure out a way to get the reliquary back to Rome, up we pop. What do you think was Karlovich's motive?”

“Money,” Katya decided.

“Most likely,” Alexander agreed. “You see, Jeffrey, a curate is a man without power, yet charged with weighty responsibilities. He manages the church cleaning staff. He pays all bills. He handles all supplies. He arranges for all day-to-day operations such as cooking and feeding and housing the priests. He must effect all necessary repairs to the church. And a church of this size and age, neglected as it has been for over five decades, must be in desperate need of major repairs. So here we have a man facing financial pressures, with no one in this new capitalist regime to whom he could turn.” Alexander shrugged. “And who knows? Perhaps he felt his first loyalty was to Rome, and decided that here was a means of killing two birds with one stone. So he called a colleague within the caverns burrowed beneath the Vatican,
met with him and discussed the reliquary, and then waited for his chance.”

“There are probably records kept of all visiting emissaries,” Katya presumed.

Alexander gave her an approving nod. “Which Rokovski's researches no doubt uncovered. I would imagine that he has had an interesting time in Rome.”

“Not half as interesting as what's happened since he got back,” Jeffrey replied. “Oh yes. He asked me to tell you that he will not even attempt to thank you for the loan.”

“Ah, yes. The other matter.” Alexander sighed luxuriously. “Such a moment comes seldom to mortal lives, my dear friends. Savor this experience, I urge you. Drink your fill. Allow it to be firmly anchored in your memories, so that you may return to it in darker hours. Here is the anticipation of triumph, the risking of it all upon a hope, a struggle, a decision to seek and if possible to
achieve
. And it is done for that most important of reasons, the type of purpose which gives meaning to the grayest of lives.”

“A cause,” Jeffrey said.

Alexander's strong gaze rested upon him in solemn approval. “A cause shared with friends, a quest taken on for a higher purpose. That, my young friends, is an essence strong enough to make the blood sing in your veins.”

CHAPTER 39

Jeffrey always thought of it as the dawn raid.

Rokovski arrived to pick them up three hours before sunrise, as tired and frantic as a man could be after two days without sleep. He greeted them with, “You cannot imagine the problems I have had.”

Alexander stood on the hotel's top step and surveyed the mass of men and equipment stretched out in front of him. “I am sure I don't want to know.”

There were a trio of cars for Rokovski, Jeffrey, Katya, Alexander, two beribboned officers, a stranger in a quiet gray suit, and Rokovski's three assistants. Beyond them were two police trucks filled with silent, sleepy uniformed figures. Behind these stretched an additional half dozen open-bed trucks bearing shovels, portable lights, pitchforks, drilling equipment, ladders, rubber knee boots, parkas, ropes, and bales of canvas wrapping.

“I do not wish to leave whatever we discover there for one minute longer than necessary,” Rokovski explained. “I therefore decided to bring out all the reinforcements I could think of.”

“My friend,” Alexander declared, “you have worked a miracle.”