Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

with when it comes to the Amber Room. There are several, legal, factions of the Russian government in the competition. There’s the Yeltsin faction, of course. One of his closest advisers is a born-again Russian nationalist. For him the Amber Room is the Holy Grail, a rallying point for the consolidation of Russia.”
    Honor grabbed the pepper grinder and went to work on what was left of her sandwich. But she was listening carefully, and Ellen knew it.
    “This adviser will do whatever he has to, however he can, in order to secure the Amber Room,” Ellen said. “And he has the backing of the legal government. The second major faction is run by the communists. They long for the bad old days. Anything that helps Yeltsin hurts them.”
    “The communists would just as soon the Amber Room stayed lost?”
    “For now, yes,” Mather said. “Definitely. That could change if—”
    “We’ll worry about that changing when it does,” Ellen interrupted. “For now, we’ve got enough snakes on our plate.”
    “Two kinds of legal Russian factions, two kinds of illegal ones,” Honor said. “Plus Lithuanian liberationists. Does that about cover it?”
    “That only covers the obvious ones,” Ellen said. “There are at least five more Lithuania-first groups. None of them agree on anything except burying the local competition and then mopping up on the international scene. All across the former Soviet Union there are similar groups, both legal and not, motivated by nationalism, tribalism, religion, survival, vengeance, and/or simple greed.”
    Honor grimaced. “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.”
    “In the new Russian Federation,” Ellen retorted, “they can’t print scorecards before the players change.”
    Instead of responding, Honor took a bite of sandwich. None of what she had heard so far sounded like it would make finding Kyle any easier.
    “At this time in the Baltic states and Russia,” Mather said, “the Amber Room is a very powerful cultural symbol. It means something different to each group, but it means something to every group. Anyone who wants to curry favor with or force concessions from the Russian state wants the Amber Room as a bargaining tool.”
    “And you think my brother stole it.”
    “No matter who stole it,” Ellen said quickly, “Kyle is the one who stuck the hot potato in his truck and took off, leaving a dead Lithuanian driver behind.”
    “Which means you think Kyle killed that man.”
    “He didn’t die of a heart attack,” Mather retorted.
    Honor’s mouth flattened. She took another small bite of her sandwich. Salt and pepper improved the taste of the salmon salad, but nothing was going to take the dryness of fear out of her mouth. She sipped soda from the can, waited for the fizz to settle in her mouth, and swallowed again.
    “Look,” she said, “Kyle hasn’t called me. He hasn’t written me. He hasn’t sent me a piece of the Amber Room.”
    “What about your family?” Ellen asked.
    “If they knew where Kyle was, they wouldn’t leave me dangling, wondering whether he was alive or dead or hurt or . . .” Honor’s voice faded. She swallowed hard and set the half-eaten sandwich aside.
    Ellen’s expression said she wasn’t as sure about the Donovan clan as Honor was, but she didn’t argue the point. “Why did you come here?”
    “Archer asked me to.”
    “Why?”
    “He didn’t say.”
    Mather muttered something that sounded like “a real cluster fuck.” Beneath all the pinstripes lurked the soul of a pottymouth street cop.
    Honor didn’t even look his way. She had heard it all before, in preschool.
    “Did you ask Archer?” Ellen said.
    “Yes.”
    “What did he say?”
    “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t tell me.”
    “So you packed your bags like a good little sister and came running, is that it?” Ellen asked sarcastically.
    Honor went back to her original idea: Ellen, a big cliff, and a long drop.
    “Yes,” Honor said through her teeth. “It may be hard for you to understand, Ms. Consultant, but I love my brothers even though they often drive me nuts. That’s the way love works. When you love people, you don’t demand long explanations and justifications. You simply do what you can when they need you. It’s called loyalty.”
    “It’s called stupidity,” Mather said.
    “Only if you always come out holding the slimy end of the stick,” Honor retorted. “So far, the score is about even in that department, although I