Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i was once told that writing is a lonely endeavor and the observation is correct. But a manuscript is never completed in a vacuum, especially one that is fortunate enough to be published, and in my case there are many who helped along the way. First, Pam Ahearn, an extraordinary agent who rode out every storm into calm waters. Next, Mark Tavani, a remarkable editor who gave me a chance. Then there are Fran Downing, Nancy Pridgen, and Daiva Woodworth, three lovely women who made every Wednesday night special. I am honored to be “one of the girls.” The novelists David Poyer and Lenore Hart not only provided practical lessons, but they led me to Frank Green, who took the time to teach me what I should know. Also, Arnold and Janelle James, my in-laws, who never voiced a discouraging word. Finally, there are all those who listened to me ramble, read my attempts, and offered their opinions. I’m afraid to list names in fear of forgetting someone. Please know that each of you is important and your thoughtful consideration, without question, moved the journey along. Above all, though, are two special people who mean the most. My wife, Amy, and daughter, Elizabeth, who together make all things possible, including this. PROLOGUE Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria April 10, 1945 The prisoners called him Ears because he was the only Russian in Hut 8 who understood German. Nobody ever used his given name, Karol Borya. `Yxo—Ears—had been his label from the first day he entered the camp over a year ago. It was a tag he regarded with pride, a responsibility he took to heart. “What do you hear?” one of the prisoners whispered to him through the dark. He was cuddled close to the window, pressed against the frigid pane, his exhales faint as gossamer in the dry sullen air. “Do they want more amusement?” another prisoner asked. Two nights ago the guards came for a Russian in Hut 8. He was an infantryman from Rostov near the Black Sea, relatively new to the camp. His screams were heard all night, ending only after a burst of staccato gunfire, his bloodied body hung by the main gate the next morning for all to see. He glanced quickly away from the pane. “Quiet. The wind makes it difficult to hear.” The lice-ridden bunks were three-tiered, each prisoner allocated less than one square meter of space. A hundred pairs of sunken eyes stared back at him. Page 1 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html All the men respected his command. None stirred, their fear long ago absorbed into the horror of Mauthausen. He suddenly turned from the window. “They’re coming.” An instant later the hut’s door was flung open. The frozen night poured in behind Sergeant Humer, the attendant for Prisoners’ Hut 8. “Achtung!” Claus Humer was Schutzstaffel, SS. Two more armed SS stood behind him. All the guards in Mauthausen were SS. Humer carried no weapon. Never did. A six-foot frame and beefy limbs were all the protection he needed. “Volunteers are required,” Humer said. “You, you, you, and you.” Borya was the last selected. He wondered what was happening. Few prisoners died at night. The death chamber remained idle, the time used to flush the gas and wash the tiles for the next day’s slaughter. The guards tended to stay in their barracks, huddled around iron stoves kept warm by firewood prisoners died cutting. Likewise, the doctors and their attendants slept, readying themselves for another day of experiments in which inmates were used indiscriminately as lab animals. Humer looked straight at Borya. “You understand me, don’t you?” He said nothing, staring back into the guard’s black eyes. A year of terror had taught him the value of silence. “Nothing to say?” Humer asked in German. “Good. You need to understand . . . with your mouth shut.” Another guard brushed past with four wool overcoats draped across his outstretched arms. “Coats?” muttered one of the Russians. No prisoner wore a coat. A filthy burlap shirt and tattered pants, more rags than clothing, were issued on arrival. At death they were stripped off to be reissued, stinking and unwashed, to the next arrival. The guard tossed the coats on the floor. Humer pointed. “Mäntel anziehen.” Borya reached down for one of the green bundles. “The sergeant says to put them on,” he explained in Russian. The other three followed his lead. The wool chafed his skin but felt good. It had been a long time since he was last even remotely warm. “Outside,” Humer said. The three Russians looked at Borya and he motioned toward the door. They all walked into the night. Humer led the file across the ice and snow toward the main grounds, a frigid wind howling between rows of low wooden huts. Eighty thousand people were crammed into the surrounding buildings, more Page 2 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html than lived in Borya’s entire home province in Belarus. He’d come to think that he would never see that place again. Time had almost become irrelevant, but for his sanity he tried to maintain some sense. It was late March. No. Early April. And still freezing. Why couldn’t he just die or be killed? Hundreds met that fate every day. Was his destiny to survive this hell? But for what? At the main grounds Humer turned left and marched into an open expanse. More prisoners’ huts stood on one side. The camp’s kitchen, jail, and infirmary lined the other. At the far end was the roller, a ton of steel dragged across the frozen earth each day. He hoped their task did not involve that unpleasant chore. Humer stopped before four tall stakes. Two days ago a detail was taken into the surrounding forest, Borya one of ten prisoners chosen then, as well. They’d felled three aspens, one prisoner breaking an arm in the effort and shot on the spot. The branches were sheared and the logs quartered, then dragged back to camp and planted to the height of a man in the main grounds. But the stakes had remained bare the past couple of days. Now two armed guards watched them. Arc lights burned overhead and fogged the bitterly dry air. “Wait here,” Humer said. The sergeant pounded up a short set of stairs and entered the jail. Light spilled out in a yellow rectangle from the open door. A moment later four naked men were led outside. Their blond heads were not shaved like the rest of the Russians, Poles, and Jews who constituted the vast majority of the camp’s prisoners. No weak muscles or slow movements, either. No apathetic looks, or eyes sunk deep in their sockets, or edema swelling emaciated frames. These men were stocky. Soldiers. Germans. He’d seen their look before. Granite faces, no emotion. Stone cold, like the night. The four walked straight and defiant, arms at their sides, none evidencing the unbearable cold their milky skin must have been experiencing. Humer followed them out of the jail and motioned to the stakes. “Over there.” The four naked Germans marched where directed. Humer approached and tossed four coils of rope in the snow. “Tie them to the stakes.” Borya’s three companions looked at him. He bent down and retrieved all four coils, handing them to the other three and telling them what to do. They each approached a naked German, the men standing at attention before the rough aspen logs. What violation had provoked such madness? He draped the rough hemp around his man’s chest and strapped the body to the wood. “Tight,” Humer yelled. He knotted a loop and pulled the coarse fiber hard across the German’s bare chest. The man never winced. Humer looked away at the other three. He took the opportunity to whisper in German, “What did you do?” No reply. He pulled the rope tight. “They don’t even do this to us.” Page 3 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html “It is an honor to defy your captor,” the German whispered. Yes, he thought. It was. Humer turned back. Borya knotted the last loop. “Over there,” Humer said. He and the other three Russians trudged across fresh snow, out of the way. To keep the cold at bay he stuffed his hands into his armpits and shifted from foot to foot. The coat felt wonderful. It was the first warmth he’d known since being brought to the camp. It was then that his identity had been completely stripped away, replaced by a number—10901—tattooed onto his right forearm. A triangle was stitched to the left breast of his tattered shirt. AnRin his signified that he was Russian. Color was important, too. Red for political prisoners. Green for criminals. Yellow Star of David for Jews. Black and brown for prisoners of war. Humer seemed to be waiting for something. Borya glanced to his left. More arc lights illuminated the parade ground all the way to the main gate. The road outside, leading to the quarry, faded into darkness. The command headquarters building just beyond the fence stood unlit. He watched as the main gate swung open and a solitary figure entered the camp. The man wore a greatcoat to his knees. Light trousers extended out the bottom to tan jackboots. A light-colored officer’s hat covered his head. Outsize thighs hitched bowlegged in a determined gait, the man’s portly belly leading the way. The lights revealed a sharp nose and clear eyes, the features not unpleasant. And instantly recognizable. Last commander of the Richthofen Squadron, Commander of the German Air Force, Speaker of the German Parliament, Prime Minister of Prussia, President of the Prussian State Council, Reichmaster of Forestry and Game, Chairman of the Reich Defense Council, Reichsmarschall of the Greater German Reich. The Führer’s chosen successor. Hermann Göring. Borya had seen Göring once before. In 1939. Rome. Göring appeared then wearing a flashy gray suit, his fleshy neck wrapped in a scarlet cravat. Rubies had adorned his bulbous fingers, and a Nazi eagle studded with diamonds was pinned to the left lapel. He’d delivered a restrained speech urging Germany’s place in the sun, asking, Would you rather have guns or butter? Should you import lard or metal ore? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.Göring had finished that oratory in a flurry, promising Germany and Italy would march shoulder to shoulder in the coming struggle. He remembered listening intently and not being impressed. “Gentlemen, I trust you are comfortable,” Göring said in a calm voice to the four bound prisoners. No one replied. “What did he say, ` Yxo,” whispered one of the Russians. “He’s ridiculing them.” Page 4 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html “Shut up,” Humer muttered. “Give your attention or you’ll join them.” Göring positioned himself directly before the four naked men. “I ask each of you again. Anything to say?” Only the wind replied. Göring inched close to one of the shivering Germans. The one Borya had bound to the stake. “Mathias, surely you don’t want to die this way? You’re a soldier, a loyal servant of the Führer.” “The—Führer—has nothing to do—with this,” the German stammered, his body shivering in violet quakes. “But everything we do is for his greater glory.” “Which is why I—choose to die.” Göring shrugged. A casual gesture, as someone would do if deciding whether to have another pastry. He motioned to Humer. The sergeant signaled two guards, who toted a large barrel toward the bound men. Another guard approached with four ladles and tossed them into the snow. Humer glared at the Russians. “Fill them with water, and go stand by one of those men.” He told the other three what to do and four ladles were picked up, then submerged. “Spill nothing,” Humer warned. Borya was careful, but the wind buffeted a few drops out. No one noticed. He returned to the German he’d bound to the stake. The one called Mathias. Göring stood in the center, pulling off black leather gloves. “See, Mathias,” Göring said, “I’m removing my gloves so I can feel the cold, as your skin does.” Borya stood close enough to see the heavy silver ring wrapping the third finger of the man’s right hand, a clutched mailed fist embossed on it. Göring stuffed his right hand into a trouser pocket and removed a stone. It was golden, like honey. Borya recognized it. Amber. Göring fingered the clump and said, “Water will be showered over you every five minutes until somebody tells me what I want to know, or you die. Either is acceptable to me. But, remember, whoever talks lives. Then one of these miserable Russians will take your place. You can then have your coat back and pour water on him until he dies. Imagine what fun that would be. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know. Now, anything to say?” Silence. Göring nodded to Humer. “Gieße es,”Humer said. Pour it. Borya did, and the other three followed his lead. Water soaked into Mathias’s blond mane, then trickled down his face and chest. Shivers accompanied the stream. The German uttered not a sound, other than the chatter of his teeth. Page 5 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html “Anything to say?” Göring asked again. Nothing. Five minutes later the process was repeated. Twenty minutes later, after four more dousings, hypothermia started setting in. Göring stood impassive and methodically massaged the amber. Just before another five minutes expired he approached Mathias. “This is ridiculous. Tell me where das Bernstein-zimmeris hidden and stop your suffering. This is not worth dying for.” The shivering German only stared back, his defiance admirable. Borya almost hated being Göring’s accomplice in killing him. “Sie sind ein lügnerisch diebisch-schwein,”Mathias managed in one breath. You are a lying, thieving pig.Then the German spat. Göring reeled back, spittle splotching the front of his greatcoat. He released the buttons and shook the stain away, then culled back the flaps, revealing a pearl gray uniform heavy with decorations. “I am your Reichsmarschall. Second only to the Führer. No one wears this uniform but me. How dare you think you can soil it so easily. You will tell me what I want to know, Mathias, or you will freeze to death. Slowly. Very slowly. It will not be pleasant.” The German spat again. This time on the uniform. Göring stayed surprisingly calm. “Admirable, Mathias. Your loyalty is noted. But how much longer can you hold out? Look at you. Wouldn’t you like to be warm? Pressing your body close to a big fire, your skin wrapped in a cozy wool blanket.” Göring suddenly reached over and yanked Borya close to the bound German. Water splattered from the ladle onto the snow. “This coat would feel wonderful, would it not, Mathias? Are you going to allow this miserable cossack to be warm while you freeze?” The German said nothing. Only shivered. Göring shoved Borya away. “How about a little taste of warmth, Mathias?” The Reichsmarschallunzipped his trousers. Hot urine arched out, steaming on impact, leaving yellow streaks on bare skin that raced down to the snow. Göring shook his organ dry, then zipped his trousers. “Feel better, Mathias?” “Verrottet in der schweinshölle.” Borya agreed. Rot in hell pig. Göring rushed forward and backhanded the soldier hard across the face, his silver ring ripping open the cheek. Blood oozed out. “Pour!” Göring screamed. Borya returned to the barrel and refilled his ladle. Page 6 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html The German named Mathias started shouting. “Mein Führer. Mein Führer. Mein Führer.”His voice grew louder. The other three bound men joined in. Water rained down. Göring stood and watched, now furiously fingering the amber. Two hours later, Mathias died caked in ice. Within another hour the remaining three Germans succumbed. No one mentioned anything about das Bernstein-zimmer. The Amber Room. PART ONE ONE Atlanta, Georgia Tuesday, May 6, the present, 10:35 a.m. Judge Rachel Cutler glanced over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses. The lawyer had said it again, and this time she wasn’t going to let the comment drop. “Excuse me, counselor.” “I said the defendant moves for a mistrial.” “No. Before that. What did you say?” “I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ” “If you haven’t noticed, I’m not a sir.” “Quite correct, Your Honor. I apologize.” “You’ve done that four times this morning. I made a note each time.” The lawyer shrugged. “It seems such a trivial matter. Why would Your Honor take the time to note my simple slip of the tongue?” The impertinent bastard even smiled. She sat erect in her chair and glared down at him. But she immediately realized what T. Marcus Nettles was doing. So she said nothing. “My client is on trial for aggravated assault, Judge. Yet the court seems more concerned with how I address you than with the issue of police misconduct.” She glanced over at the jury, then at the other counsel table. The Fulton County assistant district attorney sat impassive, apparently pleased that her opponent was digging his own grave. Obviously, the young Page 7 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html lawyer didn’t grasp what Nettles was attempting. But she did. “You’re absolutely right, counselor. It is a trivial matter. Proceed.” She sat back in her chair and noticed the momentary look of annoyance on Nettles’s face. An expression that a hunter might give when his shot missed the mark. “What of my motion for mistrial?” Nettles asked. “Denied. Move on. Continue with your summation.” Rachel watched the jury foreman as he stood and pronounced a guilty verdict. Deliberations had taken only twenty minutes. “Your Honor,” Nettles said, coming to his feet. “I move for a presentence investigation prior to sentencing.” “Denied.” “I move that sentencing be delayed.” “Denied.” Nettles seemed to sense the mistake he’d made earlier. “I move for the court to recuse itself.” “On what grounds?” “Bias.” “To whom or what?” “To myself and my client.” “Explain.” “The court has shown prejudice.” “How?” “With that display this morning about my inadvertent use of sir.” “As I recall, counselor, I admitted it was a trivial matter.” “Yes, you did. But our conversation occurred with the jury present, and the damage was done.” “I don’t recall an objection or a motion for mistrial concerning the conversation.” Nettles said nothing. She looked over at the assistant DA. “What’s the State’s position?” “The State opposes the motion. The court has been fair.” Page 8 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html She almost smiled. At least the young lawyer knew the right answer. “Motion to recuse denied.” She stared at the defendant, a young white male with scraggly hair and a pockmarked face. “The defendant shall rise.” He did. “Barry King, you’ve been found guilty of the crime of aggravated assault. This court hereby remands you to the Department of Corrections for a period of twenty years. The bailiff will take the defendant into custody.” She rose and stepped toward an oak-paneled door that led to her chambers. “Mr. Nettles, could I see you a moment?” The assistant DA headed toward her, too. “Alone.” Nettles left his client, who was being cuffed, and followed her into the office. “Close the door, please.” She unzipped her robe but did not remove it. She stepped behind her desk. “Nice try, counselor.” “Which one?” “Earlier, when you thought that jab about sirand ma’amwould set me off. You were getting your butt chapped with that half-cocked defense, so you thought me losing my temper would get you a mistrial.” He shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do.” “What you have to do is show respect for the court and not call a female judge sir. Yet you kept on. Deliberately.” “You just sentenced my guy to twenty years without the benefit of a presentence hearing. If that isn’t prejudice, what is?” She sat down and did not offer the lawyer a seat. “I didn’t need a hearing. I sentenced King to aggravated battery two years ago. Six months in, six months’ probation. I remember. This time he took a baseball bat and fractured a man’s skull. He’s used up what little patience I have.” “You should have recused yourself. All that information clouded your judgment.” “Really? That presentence investigation you’re screaming for would have revealed all that, anyway. I simply saved you the trouble of waiting for the inevitable.” “You’re a fucking bitch.” “That’s going to cost you a hundred dollars. Payable now. Along with another hundred for the stunt in the courtroom.” “I’m entitled to a hearing before you find me in contempt.” “True. But you don’t want that. It’ll do nothing for that chauvinistic image you go out of your way to portray.” He said nothing, and she could feel the fire building. Nettles was a heavyset, jowled man with a reputation for tenacity, surely unaccustomed to taking orders from a woman. Page 9 Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html “And every time you show off that big ass of yours in my court, it’s going to cost you a hundred dollars.” He stepped toward the desk and withdrew a wad of money, peeling off two one-hundred-dollar bills, crisp new ones with the swollen Ben Franklin. He slapped both on the desk, then unfolded three more. “Fuck you.” One bill dropped. “Fuck you.” The second bill fell. “Fuck you.” The third Ben Franklin fluttered down. TWO Rachel donned her robe, stepped back into the courtroom, and climbed three steps to the oak dais she’d occupied for the past four years. The clock on the far wall read 1:45P.M. She wondered how much longer she’d have the privilege of being a judge. It was an election year, qualifying had ended two weeks back, and she’d drawn two opponents for the July primary. There’d been talk of people getting into the race, but no one appeared until ten minutes before five on Friday to plunk down the nearly four-thousand-dollar fee needed to run. What could have been an easy uncontested election had now evolved into a long summer of fund-raisers and speeches. Neither of which were pleasurable. At the moment she didn’t need the added aggravation. Her dockets were jammed, with more cases being added by the day. Today’s calendar, though, was shortened by a quick verdict in State of Georgia v. Barry King. Less than a half hour of deliberation was fast by any standard, the jurors obviously not impressed with T. Marcus Nettles’s theatrics. With the afternoon free, she decided to tend to a backlog of non-jury matters that had clogged over the past two weeks of jury trials. The trial time had been productive. Four convictions, six guilty pleas, and one acquittal. Eleven criminal cases out of the way, making room for the new batch her secretary said the scheduling clerk would deliver in the morning. The Fulton County Daily Reportrated all the local superior court judges annually. For the past three years she’d been ranked near the top, disposing of cases faster than most of her fellow judges, with a reversal rate in the appellate courts of only 2 percent. Not bad being right 98 percent of the time. She settled behind the bench and watched the afternoon parade begin. Lawyers hustled in and out, some ferrying clients in need of a final divorce or a judge’s signature, others looking for a resolution to pending motions in civil cases awaiting trial. About forty different matters in all. By the time she glanced again at the clock across the room, it was 4:15 and the docket had whittled down to two items. One was an adoption, a task she really enjoyed. The seven-year-old reminded her of Brent, her own seven-year-old. Page 10