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.”
“I have fought many battles,” Rokovski countered.
“And no doubt lit a number of fires under moribund backsides,” Alexander agreed.
Rokovski managed a tired smile. “Bonfires. With blowtorches. A number of my illustrious colleagues will work standing up for weeks to come.”
“And you have kept this quiet?”
“I found an ally at the highest level,” Rokovski explained, leading them down to the waiting convoy. “One who has not yet decided whether to keep the entire Amber Room as a part of our own national heritage, or trade a portion of it in return for vast sums.”
“Perhaps even to rid our nation’s soil of the pestilence of Soviet troops,” Alexander murmured.
Rokovski opened the car door for Alexander. “I see that great minds think alike.”
He walked around to the other side, slammed his door shut, motioned for the driver to be away, and continued. “I have resigned myself to perhaps being permitted to keep only a few of the panels. This is to be expected. In return for allowing the politicians to place portions of this room upon the chessboard of international politics, however, I shall gain immense conditions.”
“If the amber is there,” Jeffrey muttered.
“I no longer have the freedom,” Rokovski replied gravely, “even to permit such a doubt to surface.”
Czestochowa was wrapped in sleepy silence as they ground their way down dimly lit streets. They followed the directions that Rokovski had translated and typed and kept fingering and reading and perusing. They stopped before the series of shops fronting the broad Jasna Gora lawn, where two additional police cars awaited them. Rokovski and one of the uniformed officers traveling in the second car walked over. The waiting officers snapped to attention. Papers were exchanged and examined, salutes traded. Rokovski turned and motioned for them to alight. The officers went to organize their men.
“We must act as swiftly as possible,” Rokovski stressed quietly. “There are too many conflicting lines of interest, both with the treasure and with the place they chose for depositing it.”
“It would be far better to inform all concerned of an act already completed,” Alexander agreed.
“Exactly.” Rokovski cast a nervous eye back to where the unloading of equipment brought the occasional clatter. He waved back into the dark as an officer softly called out, “Please go back to where my colleague waits. All of you will be equipped with rubber boots and flashlights.”
When they returned he inspected them briefly, spoke into the darkness where dozens of lights flickered and bounced and wavered up the hillside. An answering call came quietly back. “Very well,” Rokovski said. “Let us begin.”
They walked up the lawn alongside the cobblestone path. But where the battlements marked the road’s passage through the first high portico, Rokovski motioned with his flashlight for them to descend to the base of the empty moat. “Careful here. You will need to use the ropes and proceed cautiously. The ground is very slippery.”
One by one they grasped ropes held by soldiers and reversed themselves down the icy grass-lined slope. Jeffrey helped Alexander as he landed clumsily, then turned and assisted Katya, smiling at the excitement in her eyes. Rokovski was already reaching up and inspecting the barred windowlike openings, each about four feet square, that once had delivered the medieval city’s sewage and rain runoff into the moat. Suddenly he gave a muffled cry, dropped his flashlight, reached up with both hands, and wrenched at one iron-bar frame. Swiftly other hands arrived to assist; together they lifted the heavy bars free and settled them on the ground.
No more light was needed to show the fervor that gripped Rokovski as he called softly up into the darkness, then waited for a ladder to be slid down the embankment. It was propped into position, then Rokovski signaled to Alexander. “My friend, if you wish, the honor is yours.”
“It is enough simply to be here,” Alexander replied. “Go, my friend. Go.”
Rokovski counted out several people who were to follow him, then positively leaped up the rungs and disappeared into the hole. The leading officer half bowed toward Alexander and motioned him forward. After him came Katya, then Jeffrey. The excitement was electric as he climbed the rungs and entered the dark, dank space. His feet hit ankle-deep water as he slid into the low tunnel. Rokovski was already proceeding down the depths, his flashlight illuminating tiny cantering circles of slimy ancient wall. One by one they followed him in a stooped position, craning to keep his bobbing light in view.
The floor gave an unexpected drop, and filthy water began pouring in over the top of Jeffrey’s boots. He heard the squeaks of tiny animals—rats or bats or both—in nearby crevices, but had time neither for worry nor discomfort. Nor did his companions. They hustled forward as swiftly as caution and the mucky liquid would permit.
Without warning the tunnel joined with another and rose high enough to permit them to stand upon dry land. The ceiling became lofty, arched in stone and age-old brick. They paused long enough to empty their boots, then pushed on.
Another turning, yet another muffled shout from Rokovski. They rushed forward, saw him standing before an opening recently hacked from what before had been a crudely finished corner of the turning. Heaped in a half-hidden alcove were an uncountable number of human remains, now little more than bones and rags. Rokovski stood and shone his light upon them for a long moment, then raised his eyes to the waiting group and spoke solemnly in Polish. Katya translated his words as “I cannot avenge their death. But I can seek to give it meaning. On my honor, their tale will be told, and panels of what they died to keep hidden will remain in Poland, as testimony to those who come after.”
“On my honor,” Alexander agreed solemnly.
Rokovski bent and stepped through the opening, then emitted a long sigh. The group crowded in behind him. Jeffrey clambered through the opening and straightened to find himself facing row after row of coffin-like chests. They were stacked five and six high, lining the aged bulwark. It was possible to see in the distance where the false wall that the slain workers had been forced to build joined with the ancient original.
One chest lay open and spilled at their feet, its corroded and dirt-encrusted surface battered with shiny streaks from a recent fury of hammer blows. Fist-sized blocks of amber, still flecked with bits of yellowed paper and rotten matting, lay scattered in the grime of centuries.
Rokovski raised his arms up to gather in the multitude of chests and spoke in a fierce whisper that Katya translated.