"Watson-TheAmberRoom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

Both of us were only of medium height, though big-boned. We were both endowed
with freckles and curly gingery hair and light blue eyes. Somewhere in Pavel's
ancestry them must have been a Viking or two. He could have served as a double
if he had exchanged his cheap leather jacket for my more fashionable anorak, and
had donned the amber pendant. He carried a registered firearm, and was
discretion itself as regards my business. Maybe his employers supplied a
pamphlet on "How to be a Minder." Rule one: maintain a bland facade. Of course,
to begin with it would have seemed that he was merely minding a tourist with a
particular interest in amber.

Next day, he collected me from the Baltika in a dark green Mercedes with lots of
kilometers cm the dock. Its bodywork might be green but its exhaust emissions no
longer were. Actually, the local petrol was at fault. The streets of this dreary
city which had risen upon the rains of grand old Konigsberg were full of fumes.
The river was indeed as black and murky as old engine oil. Bleak wastelands
punctuated some remarkably ugly Soviet architecture. The old Cathedral was a
shell, though some scaffolding hinted at possible restoration. The castle, where
Dr. Rohde had stored the room, had been a shell -- till it was demolished by
dynamite to make way for a House of Soviets which, Pard remarked, was too ugly
for anyone ever to have the gall to complete.

Pavel pointed out a certain pink building beside the North Station, which had
been KGB headquarters. That's where he had worked until he had privatized
himself. I suppose this admission exonerated him of being any son of informer
nowadays.

We visited the Amber Museum, which was located in a burly red brick tower. That
tower was one of the survivors of war, as were a number of city gates and
bastions. Personally I found the museum mediocre, showcasing too much modern
jewelry. Through Pavel I quizzed the dumpy lady director, who spoke no German,
about the amber room.

She believed the submarine story.

I asked her about Rohde's death. On this topic she had no opinions.

I told her that I was researching a thriller which I had long yearned to write
on account of my German grandmother. This cover story had occurred to me in view
of my experience at the airport. I would announce my ambition blatantly -- but
in the guise of fiction. I aimed to write a story about a hang-glider pilot who
hunts for, and finds, the lost amber room in a mountainous Nazi hiding place. I
assured the lady director that I was interested in any hypothesis, however
fantastic.

However, fantasy wasn't her forte. "Herr Burn," she lectured me (via Pavel),
"have you not noticed the blinds at all the windows? Have you not seen how thick
the glass display cases are? Sunlight degrades amber over a relatively modest
time. Amber is chemically a bitumen. Air oxidizes it till it is so brittle that
it can distintegrate into a pile of dust. You speak of the amber room being kept
in the open somewhere, fully assembled, exposed to wind and sunlight? What