Sam playfully ruffled her hair. “You are a magnificent animal, Dr. Gould! Do they have whiskey?”
“I could kill for some Bourbon right now, I admit,” Purdue smiled. “What is your poison, Mr. Holtzer?”
Detlef shrugged, “Anything that can be used in surgery.”
“Good man! Sam, we have to get some of that, mate. Can you make that happen?” Purdue asked eagerly. “I will have my assistant transfer some money in a few minutes so we can get what we need. The boat — is it your friend's?” he asked Nina.
“It belongs to the old man we are staying with,” she replied.
“Won't he be suspicious of what we are going to do there?” Sam worried.
“No. She says he is an old diver, fisherman, and marksman that moved to Gdynia right after the Second World War from Novosibirsk. Apparently, he never got any gold stars for good behavior,” Nina laughed.
“Good! He will fit right in then,” Purdue chuckled.
After buying some food and plenty of alcohol to present to their gracious host, the group drove to the location Nina had gotten from her former colleague. Detlef paid a visit to the local hardware store, and also purchased a small radio and some batteries for it. Such basic little radios were hard to get in more modern cities, but he found one next to the fish bait shop on the last street before they arrived at their temporary lodging.
The yard was carelessly fenced with barbed wire tied to rickety posts. Inside the fence, the yard consisted mostly of tall weeds and big neglected plants. From the creaky iron gate to the deck steps, the small walkway to the eerie little wooden cabin was overgrown with vines. The old man was awaiting them on the porch, looking almost exactly as Nina had imagined him. Big dark eyes contrasted with wild gray hair and a beard. He had a pot belly and a face riddled by scars that made him look scary, but he was friendly.
“Zdravstvuyte!” he called as they came through the gate.
“God, I hope he speaks English,” Purdue muttered.
“Or German,” Detlef concurred.
“Hello! We brought something for you” Nina smiled, holding out the bottle of vodka to him and the old man clapped his hands in glee.
“I see we will get along very well!” he shouted cheerfully.
“Are you Mr. Marinesko?” she asked.
“Kiril! Call me Kiril, please. And please, come in. I don't have big house or best food, but it is warm and comfortable,” he apologized. After they had introduced themselves, he dished up some vegetable soup he had been preparing all afternoon.
“After the meal, I take you to see the boat, yes?” Kiril offered.
“Splendid!” Purdue replied. “I would love to see what you have in that boat house.”
He served the soup with freshly baked bread that quickly became Sam's favorite. He helped himself to slice after slice. “Did your wife bake this?” he asked.
“No, I did. I am good baker, right?” Kiril laughed. “My wife taught me. She is dead now.”
“So is mine,” Detlef murmured. “Happened just recently.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kiril sympathized. “I don't think our wives ever leave us. They stay to give us a hard time when we screw up.”
Nina was relieved to see Detlef smile at Kiril, “I think so too!”
“You will need my boat to dive?” their host asked, changing the subject for his guest's sake. He knew the pain that could eat away a person when such a tragedy strikes, and it was not something he could talk about at length either.
“Yes, we want to do some diving, but it shouldn't take more than a day or two,” Purdue informed him.
“In the Bay of Gdansk? Which area?” Kiril pried. It was his boat, and he was putting them up, so they couldn't deny him the details.
“In the area where the Wilhelm Gustloff sank in 1945,” Purdue said.
Nina and Sam exchanged glances, hoping that the old man would not get suspicious. Detlef did not care who knew. All he wanted was to find out what role the Amber Room had played in his wife's death and what was so important to those strange Nazi people. Around the dinner table, a brief, tense silence ensued.
Kiril looked at them all, one after the other. His eyes pierced through their defenses and intentions as he scrutinized them with a smirk that could have meant anything. He cleared his throat.
“Why?”
The single word question unsettled them all. They had expected an elaborate attempt at dissuasion or some locally flavored reprimand, but the simplicity was almost impossible to fathom. Nina looked at Purdue and shrugged, “Tell him.”
“We are looking for remnants of an artifact that was on board the ship,” Purdue told Kiril, using as wide a description as possible.
“The Amber Room?” he laughed, spoon erect in his waving hand. “You too?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“Oh, my boy! So many people have been looking for that damned thing over the years, but they all back up disappointed!” he chuckled.
“So you are saying it doesn't exist?” Sam asked.
“Tell me, Mr. Purdue, Mr. Cleave and my other friends here,” Kiril smiled, “what do you want with the Amber Room, huh? Money? Fame? Go home. Some beautiful things are just not worth the curse.”
Purdue and Nina glanced at each other at the similarity of the phrasing between the old man's warning and Purdue's sentiment.
“Curse?” Nina queried.
“Why are you looking for it?” he asked again. “What is it you are after?”
“My wife was killed because of it,” Detlef suddenly chipped in. “If whoever was after that treasure was ready to kill her for it, I want to see it myself.” His eyes pinned Purdue.
Kiril frowned. “What did your wife have to do with it?”
“She was investigating the Berlin assassinations because she had reason to believe that the murders were committed by a secret organization looking for the Amber Room. But she was killed before she could complete her investigation,” the widower filled Kiril in.
Wringing his hands, their host took a deep breath. “So you don't want it for money or fame, then. Good. Then I will tell you where the Wilhelm Gustloff went down, and you can look for yourself, but I hope you stop this nonsense then.”
Without another word or explanation, he stood up and left the room.
“What the hell was that?” Sam probed. “He knows more than he wants to admit. He is hiding something.”
“How do you know that?” Purdue asked.
Sam looked a little uncomfortable. “I just have a gut feeling.” He shot Nina a glance before he rose from his seat to take his soup bowl to the kitchen. She knew what his glance meant. He must have found something in the old man's thoughts.
“Excuse me,” she told Purdue and Detlef and followed Sam. He was standing in the doorway to the garden, watching Kiril venture out to the boat house to check the fuel. Nina placed her hand on his shoulder. “Sam?”
“Aye.”
“What did you see?” she fished curiously.
“Nothing. He knows something very important, but that's just journalistic instinct. I swear, it has nothing to do with the new thing,” he told her quietly. “I feel like just asking outright, but I don't want to push him, you know?”
“I know. That’s why I am going to ask him,” she said confidently.
“No! Nina! Get back here,” he cried, but she was adamant. Knowing Nina, Sam was perfectly aware that he couldn't stop her now. Instead, he elected to go back inside to keep Detlef from killing Purdue. As he approached the dinner table, he could feel the tension, but Sam found Purdue looking at the pictures on Detlef’s phone.
“Those were the number codes,” Detlef explained. “Now look at this.”
Both men squinted as Detlef zoomed in on the photo he had taken of the diary page where he found Purdue's name. “My God!” Purdue uttered in astonishment. “Sam, come see this.”