Seizing Amber - Hardcover

Harris, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1570717125 ISBN 13: 9781570717123

Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc, 2001

Synopsis

From the streets of New York to the gardens of Paris and the ornate drawing rooms of Renaissance Florence, Seizing Amber follows a high stakes quest for one of the world’s most valuable treasures. The Amber Room—an exquisite chamber made of amber panels that was stolen from the Russians during World War II—holds not only its priceless value, but the key to the lives of those who seek it.

Now in the post–Cold War present, Isaiah Hawkins, chief of a U.S. intelligence agency, discovers that the Amber Room is being offered for sale. In a quest to influence the world’s political stage, Hawkins sets out on a mission to capture the Room and the power it holds. In a whirlwind of intrigue and suspense, Hawkins’ team, including a street-smart blackmailer and a sexy but dangerous agent who seemingly has nothing to lose, must outsmart devious and exotic competitors to seize the Amber Room and find what matters to them most.

Jonathan Harris weaves a tight and gripping plot with a grand love story. And just when the tension reaches a boiling point, Harris delivers an ending that drops the reader through a series of unexpected trap doors.

About this title

About the Author

Jonathan Harris graduated from Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, and Stanford Law School with highest honors. He started his career clerking for a federal judge before joining a law firm where he successfully practiced international white-collar criminal law. He lives with his wife, Trace, and their dog, Mike, in Los Angeles.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

With the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, Isaiah Hawkins gripped a thin metal pin capped by a bright red round plastic head. Tacked on the wall in front of him was a map of the world, eight feet wide by six feet tall. It was a new map and had only arrived that morning, to replace an older version that had lined the west wall of his office for the past year.

A voice lightly intruded. "Admiring your world, Isaiah?"

Isaiah Hawkins took a last look at his map before turning deliberately in the direction of the voice. The speaker was his assistant, Anne, with him ever since he'd returned to the States. Standing next to her in the doorway to his office was a man of ordinary build, in his forties, with deeply intelligent eyes.

"Admiring is for the historians, Anne," Isaiah said warmly, his voice a low rumble of cigarette smoke and years. "Am I correct, Professor?"

"That, or reviling," Professor Alexander Greene corrected, stepping forward to clasp Isaiah's outstretched hand. "Of course, the true historians never have counted me as a member. Battles and generals and grand political revolutions being more their thing. Art is so much tamer than all that."

They settled into leather chairs on either side of Isaiah's desk. Isaiah unwrapped a fresh pack of Kents. It was the only perk worthy of envy that had come with this job-New York City's jumble of anti-smoking ordinances having no jurisdiction over him or his people. Not that it made him happy. Thirty years of freedom and chaos in the field, reduced to needing a special federal exemption to smoke in his own office. He lit a cigarette with a tarnished silver lighter and leaned deeper into his chair, taking his time. Always taking his time.

"I met a young woman this morning," the professor began. "Pretty blonde girl, by the name of Sarah Ridell. From Texas or Oklahoma if I had to guess. Looked mid-twenties, but could be older. Either way, she had the look men want. If you've got the time and money and inclination for that sort of thing."

"What do you have time and inclination for, Professor?"

"Rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

"The kind that you are interested in, Isaiah. That a pretty blonde woman has information about a phantom. Rare that a true work of artistic genius goes missing. Rarer still when it isn't found for half a century. But you know that already."

Isaiah stubbed out his cigarette. Professor Greene hadn't mentioned the piece by name. He didn't need to. Art was outside Isaiah Hawkins' ordinary sphere of interest. There was only one piece in the world worth discussing with Isaiah Hawkins. The one Isaiah had put Professor Alexander Greene on retainer for, in case he stumbled across interesting information. That was the famed Amber Room of Peter the Great, and a personal obsession of Isaiah Hawkins. Someone else could chase all the other phantoms.

"So you met the woman, Sarah Ridell. I'm assuming her information is for sale. And is expensive."

"Quite," the professor replied.

"And you believe her-that she has something. Enough to push ahead at least."

Professor Greene pressed his hands together and held them awkwardly to his lips, like he was praying and hadn't had much practice at it.

"Yes, I do. But you know the condition, Isaiah. Most people in my world are collectors. They care about possession. I know you do as well. But I don't. Art historians don't possess, they preserve. The Amber Room has been presumed lost for fifty years, and if it stays lost for another fifty, so be it. Desire can be an awful temptation. I've seen it lead people to risk destroying something beautiful, if the other option is someone else possessing it. But I can't be responsible for that type of recklessness."

Isaiah leaned back in his chair. Alexander Greene had made this point before, when Isaiah had approached him about collaborating in their mutual searches for the Amber Room. Perhaps they had different motives, but they shared the same goal. So why not work together? That had been Isaiah's pitch, and the professor had gone along quite easily, helped naturally by the financial incentives. So difficult living in New York on a professor's salary.

"I understand, Alexander."

"And what about your people? Will they understand?"

His people? Isaiah lit another cigarette. Always get your people. Something his mentor had imprinted on him three decades ago. Still one of the best pieces of advice he'd ever received. Get your people. Not the honest people or the decent people or the truthful or caring or any-other-impressive-adjective people. Not the people the Agency sent around either. Get your own people. People you know. People whose flaws you already understood. Preferably people you owned. People Isaiah Hawkins could use right now.

"Don't worry, Professor. You'll be satisfied with my people." Isaiah Hawkins left unsaid the unpleasant reality. Professor Alexander Greene of Columbia University was one of his people, and had been from the moment he cashed his first check.
After the professor had left, Isaiah returned to his map.

He slid a step to his left, the map's west, so that he was standing directly in front of Europe. A series of map pins-red, green, and yellow dots-jutted out from the typewritten names of Europe's great capital cities: Prague, Vienna, Berlin. The green dots were his. His people in place. The red dots belonged to others. The yellow dots were the toss-ups; places where more innings needed to be played before a winner would emerge.

In the upper left corner of the map, not far from Iceland, was a bullpen of unused pins. Isaiah selected a yellow one. He swept the pin along the map from left to right, arcing it slowly across Scandinavia and the Baltics, and across the Volga river until it hovered over the very heart of Russia. He pushed the pin into the map with precision...his man in Moscow, the most important dot of all.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1570717125
• ISBN 13: 9781570717123
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 267