Amber by David Wood Page B

that battle, which is why this city is now called Kaliningrad.”
    Bones held up the belt buckle. “So why are there dead Russians in here but no dead Germans?”
    Leopov stared down at the pile of skeletons as she answered. “My guess is that these could have been POWs—Russians held by the Germans at some point during the war.”
    Dane looked around the murky space. “We are way down in an underground bunker. The Germans could have hid out down here for a long time...” He trailed off as he surveyed the large room. Bones got up and looked around some more. “This room was big enough to have contained the Amber Room, though, wasn’t it?”
    Leopov glanced at the low ceiling. “Disassembled, yes.”
    Maddock eyed the wooden crates. “And these crates?”
    Leopov nodded. “They appear to be of sufficient dimensions and integrity to have carried the panels, yes.”
    They combed through the room some more but found nothing else of interest. Maddock summed up their thoughts. “If we assume these crates once held the Amber Room panels, then it’s safe to say that down here underground, it probably survived the bombings.”
    Leopov nodded. “Tells us nothing about where they ended up, unfortunately.”
    Maddock snapped some flash pictures with his camera and then moved for the exit. “Let’s get back above ground and report in.”
    They left the room, passing through the open stone wall into the tunnel again. Maddock paused and looked at the eagle and its hidden dials. “I wonder if we should try to move the wall back into position again.”
    “How would that work?” Bones eyed the dials dubiously while Leopov continued toward the stairs, apparently uninterested in restoring the wall to its former state.
    “The dials were all set to zero before we got here. So maybe if we—“
    “Maddock, Bones: I hear something!”
    The two SEALs turned around to see Leopov gazing up at the broken staircase. They ran over to her and tipped their heads toward the upper floors. Maddock was reaching for the walkie-talkie on his belt when he clearly heard the sounds of a scuffle coming from above. Something heavy being slid across the floor, breaking. A grunt. He dropped the radio and just yelled up, “Professor?”
    A guttural cry echoed around the walls and then a dark shape came flying over the edge. With mounting alarm Maddock recognized the form as that of a human body, and then it smashed onto the remaining portion of the wooden stairway.

Chapter 13
     
    “Professor!” Bones yelled, looking upward to see if anyone else was about to come flying over the edge. He still heard a commotion up there but no one answered. Maddock ran to the body that now lay motionless at what used to be the foot of the stairs. Relief flooded through him as he failed to recognize the person who had landed here.
    “It’s not Professor or Willis!”
    “Who is it?” Bones refused to take his eyes off the space above in case there was more trouble on the way, but Leopov knelt by the fallen man’s side. Maddock placed two fingers over the victim’s carotid artery, left them there for about twenty seconds, and then shook his head.
    “He didn’t make it.”
    They examined the deceased man more closely. Caucasian, tall, medium build. Leopov rifled through his pockets and turned up only a folding knife and some chewing gum—no ID, no guns.
    Maddock tried the radio again and received no audible response. Suddenly they heard shuffling from above and a long cord of some sort dropped into the room. Bones looked up and saw Willis’ smiling face peering down at him.
    “You guys okay? Sorry to drop that trash on you, but we had no choice.”
    “Where’s Professor?” Maddock called up.
    “He’s okay. Doing a perimeter check now to make sure this guy doesn’t have any buddies hanging around. We know he had at least one other guy with him but he ran off.” Willis’ voice echoed throughout the chamber.
    Bones, meanwhile, had moved beneath the