ROOM OF FIRE 33

Chapter 33

The Amber Room, 1715

If you’re just joining this story, you may want to start from the beginning.

This story follows the first in Jenn’s Rediscovered series, Last Assault on Oak Island.

Onward with the search for the Amber Room. . .

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From behind a tree line nearby, from his car Reuben watched Carlos and Lauren drive away in the darkening rain. A moment later the second car left the mine yard, this one turning onto the road opposite Göttingen.

Reuben knew what was in the mine. He had watched the entire transaction through binoculars. Lauren had certainly been up to something in the hollowed hill. It took a moment for him to realize it was she behind the glasses and beneath the hard hat.

He waited for nightfall before entering the mine yard. He wasn't concerned about Carlos and Lauren at the moment.

Geil was in place, and they would most likely eat in the hotel restaurant.

Even as Reuben had tried to deny the option last night as he watched Grant escort Lauren—sans Carlos—to the Hotel Weinstadt, the details of his reluctant plan began working themselves out. He would have to keep her sufficiently terrorized for a few days to ensure her cooperation. It was a necessity he begrudgingly realized. He would be contradicting everything he had told her in the chateau kitchen that night, grounding Carlos' opinion of him. He didn't relent to wondering why he cared what she and Carlos thought of him.

The rain was cascading down the car's windshield now, making the moonlit yard take on a grotesque form with the old, forgotten equipment making sharp angles.

He had not wanted to resort to this. He had spent five years living a relatively honest life, endangering no one except himself, when the need arose. Rybak and a few others had complicated matters a couple of times, making sure this need did arise, but nothing like this. Now he was taking part in what he loathed most in Rybak's character.

He steeled these thoughts. He was in a desperate position, thanks to Rybak's theft of Fredericks' partial and Gustalav's stout refusal to deal with a Russian party. He had losses to regroup—Berlin had granted him a short clemency—and this was no game of polite tea party.

Besides, he rationalized, opening the car door to the pouring rain and grabbing his flashlight, if he didn't take this course of action, Rybak would.

And the Polish mercenary's methods made Reuben's blanch in comparison.

Soren Geil was well into the drink by the time he identified his targets at dinner that night. The restaurant's old world charm of vineyard décor was lost on him. He wasn't of the tourist mentality that would happily nestle into the hanging foliage and absorb the German delicacies served by the dirndl-corseted waitresses. He preferred the aggressive offense of brazenness, the stark and shocking individuality of Hamburg rather than village coziness.

But whenever he worked for the Russian it was like this. There had only been a handful of times.

Lucrative times, he admitted. Very lucrative. Their cooperation usually consisted of Reubens in one country while Geil trailed the potential target in another. This was a good arrangement, for Geil couldn't tolerate the Russian's company for more than a few consecutive hours. The feeling was mutual.

In the last year or two Geil, had learned that while Reuben's operations were profitable and legal for the most part, he demanded that his instructions be executed deliberately and with as little unnecessary violence as possible. This was contrary to Geil's nature, but there was some compromise in the fact that Reubens didn't care for physical assault and anything of that nature was left for Geil.

He sank farther into the hanging plants that divided the corner table from the main dining room, crushing out his brown cigarette. He watched the doctor and young woman enter and sit down.

Reubens had described them both well. Especially the girl. He wondered what the Russian had in mind for her. Never before had Reubens involved a woman.