He snapped the chain and it slinked to the ground. He slid the cutters back into the pack and pulled open the gate.
The hinges screamed.
He stopped. No use attracting unnecessary attention.
He worked the gate open slowly, the tear of metal on metal quieter. Ahead was an arched opening about five meters high and four meters wide. Lichens clung to the blackened stone beyond the entrance and the stale air reeked of mold. Like a grave, he thought. 'This opening is wide enough to accept a truck.'
'Truck?'
'If the Amber Room is inside, so are trucks. There is no other way the crates could have been transported. Twenty-two tons of amber is heavy. The Germans would have driven trucks into the cave.'
'They didn't have forklifts?'
'Hardly. We're talking about the end of the war. The Nazis were desperate to hide their treasure. No time for finesse.'
'How did the trucks get up here?'
'Fifty years have passed. There were many roads and fewer trees then. This whole area was a vital manufacturing site.'
He pulled two flashlights and a thick coil of twine from his pack, then reshouldered it. He closed the gate behind them and draped the chain and lock back across the bars, providing the appearance that the opening was still bolted shut.
'We might have company,' he said. 'That should keep people moving to another cavern. Many are unobstructed, much easier to enter.'
He handed her a flashlight. Their two narrow beams pierced only meters ahead in the forbidding blackness. A piece of rusted iron protruded from the rock. He tied the end of the twine securely and handed the coil to Rachel.
'Unravel it on the way in. This is how we'll find our way out if we get disoriented.'
He cautiously led the way forward, their flashlights revealing a rugged passage deep into the bowels of the mountain. Rachel followed him after slipping on her jacket.
'Be careful,' he said. 'This tunnel could be mined. That would explain the chaining.'
'Comforting to know.'
'Nothing worth having is ever easy to obtain.'
He stopped and glanced back toward the entrance forty meters behind them. The air had turned fetid and cold. He fished Chapaev's drawing from his pocket and studied the route with the flashlight. 'There should be a fork ahead. Let's see if Chapaev is right.'
A suffocating pall permeated the air. Rotten. Nauseating.
'Bat guano,' he said.
'I think I'm going to vomit.'
'Breathe shallow and try to ignore it.'
'That's like trying to ignore cow manure on your upper lip.'
'These shafts are full of bats.'
'Lovely.'
He grinned. 'In China, bats are revered as the symbol of happiness and long life.'
'Happiness stinks.'
A fork in the tunnel appeared. He stopped. 'The map says to go right.' He did. Rachel followed, the twine unraveling behind her.
'Let me know if you get to the end of the coil. I have more,' he said.
The odor lessened. The new tunnel was tighter than the main shaft, yet still large enough for a transport truck. Dark capillaries branched off periodically. The echo of chirping bats, waiting for night, loomed clear.
The mountain was most certainly a labyrinth. They all were. Miners in search of ore and salt had burrowed for centuries. How wonderful it would be if this shaft turned out to be the one that led to the Amber Room. Ten million euros. All his. Not to mention Monika's gratitude. Perhaps then Rachel Cutler would be sufficiently excited to let him into her pants. Her rebuke last night had been more arousing than insulting. He wouldn't be surprised if her husband was the only man she'd ever been with. And that thought was intoxicating. Nearly a virgin. Certainly one since her divorce. What a pleasure having her was going to be.
The shaft started to narrow and rise.
His mind snapped back to the tunnel.
They were at least a hundred meters into the granite and limestone. Chapaev's diagram showed another fork ahead.
'I'm out of string,' Rachel said.
He stopped and handed her a new coil.
'Tie the ends tight.'
He studied the diagram. Supposedly their destination was just ahead. But something wasn't right. The tunnel was not wide enough now for a vehicle. If the Amber Room had been hidden here, it would have been necessary to carry the crates. Eighteen, if he remembered correctly. All cataloged and indexed, the panels wrapped in cigarette paper. Was there another chamber ahead? Nothing unusual for rooms to be carved out of the rock. Nature did some. Others were man-made. According to Chapaev, slabs of rock and silt blocked a doorway to one such chamber twenty meters ahead.
He walked on, careful with each step. The deeper into the mountain, the higher the risk of explosives. His flashlight beam broke the darkness ahead, and his eyes focused on something.
He stared hard.
What the hell?
Suzanne raised the binoculars and studied the entrance to the mine. The sign she'd attached to the iron gate three years ago, BCR-65, was still there. The ploy seemed to have worked. Knoll was getting careless. He'd raced straight to the mine, Rachel Cutler in tow. It was a shame things had come to this, but little choice remained. Knoll was certainly interesting. Exciting even. But he was a problem. A big problem. Her loyalty to Ernst Loring was absolute. Beyond reproach. She owed Loring everything. He was the family she'd never been allowed. All her life the old man had treated her as a daughter, their relationship perhaps closer than the one he possessed with his two natural sons, their love of precious art the glue bonding them to one another. He'd been so excited when she gave him the snuffbox and the book. Pleasing him gave her a sense of satisfaction. So a choice between Christian Knoll and her benefactor was simply no choice at all.
Still, it was too bad. Knoll had his good points.
She stood on the forested ridge undisguised, her blond hair looped to her shoulders, a turtleneck sweater wrapping her chest. She lowered the binoculars and reached for the radio controller, extending the retractable antenna.
Knoll obviously hadn't sensed her presence, thinking he'd rid himself of her in the Atlanta airport.
Not hardly, Christian.
A flick of a switch and the detonator activated.
She checked her watch.
Knoll and his damsel should be deep inside by now. More than enough distance to never get out. The authorities repeatedly warned the public about exploring the caverns. Explosives were common. Many had died through the years, which was why the government started licensing exploration. Three years ago there'd been an explosion in this same shaft, arranged by her when a Polish reporter crept too close. She'd lured him with visions of the Amber Room, the accident ultimately attributed to another unauthorized exploration, the body never found, buried under the rubble that Christian Knoll should be studying right about now.
Knoll examined the wall of rock and sand. He'd seen a tunnel end before. This wasn't a natural cessation. An explosion had caused what lay before him, and there was no way to shovel through the ceiling-to-floor debris.
And there was no iron door on the other side, either.
That much he knew.
