The Amber Rooms

Summary of Flashback, Saskia Brandt Book Two

In 2003, German passenger plane DFU323 crashes in the Bavarian National Forest on a routine flight between Berlin and Milan. Its last transmission: the co-pilot shouting the letters, “S, T, E, N, D, E, C.” As the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents team flies in, the media focus on a startling coincidence between the fate of DFU323 and the ‘Star Dust’, a Santiago-bound plane that crashed into the Andes in August 1947 minutes after confirming its landing time. Its last signal: the letters S, T, E, N, D, E, C.

One of DFU323’s passengers is Saskia Dorfer, alias Brandt, a loner millionaire living in Berlin. The last person to see her alive was English runaway Jem Shaw, who has been exploiting Saskia’s kindness in order to discover the secret of her unbeatable gambling system. Jem is numbed by the news of the crash. In Saskia’s apartment, Jem discovers a futuristic credit-card-sized computer called Ego. It tells her that Saskia might still be alive because she is protected by a time paradox. Jem heads immediately for the crash site in Bavaria. She is pursued by an mysterious, elderly American known as Cory.

In a flashback, we return to Cory’s youth in Buenos Aires, 1947. He is a time traveller on a mission to find the killer of Professor David Proctor. He has been sent by David Proctor’s daughter Jennifer. Cory’s only advantages are the i-Core — an infusion of medical nanomachines in his blood — and the Smart Matter, which can mimic any simple machine (key, gun, grapnel) at will.

Meanwhile, in 2003, Jem makes it to the Bavarian National Forest and discovers that a retired ranger pulled Saskia alive from the wreckage of the aeroplane and took her to his cabin. But no sooner has Jem found Saskia than she dies of her terrible injuries. Cory arrives next and, knowing that Saskia has information critical to his mission, injects her with i-Core. The nanomachines begin repairing her body and she returns to life.

Jem overpowers Cory and forces him to tell them his mission, which has lasted for more than half a century. In explanation, he tells them of the crash of aeroplane Star Dust:

In Buenos Aires, 1947, the young Cory has tracked Proctor’s killer, Patrick Harkes, to the airport in Morón, from where he believes Harkes will flee to Santiago. Cory smuggles himself onto the plane, but when it takes off, he discovers that the killer is not aboard. Harkes has set a trap for him. The Star Dust is a doomed aeroplane and Harkes knew it. Over the Andes, Cory forces the radio operator to send the code S, T, E, N, D, E, C, which he knows will be reported in a newspaper, and thus read later by Jennifer Proctor. He then bails out and watches the aeroplane crash into Mount Tupungato.

Back in 2003, Saskia responds with the story of what happened on board flight DFU323. She had noticed Cory in a Berlin crowd and decided to follow him because of his anachronistic electromagnetic signature. On board the flight, she is surprised to find Jennifer Proctor. Jennifer has changed; she is a broken woman and prepared to sacrifice all the passengers to execute her father’s murderer. Harkes and Saskia join forces against Jennifer and Cory. Saskia steals Jennifer’s time travel device, a bracelet, but Cory is sucked from the aircraft along with Harkes. The fuselage is irretrievably damaged. In the last moments of the flight, Saskia tries unsuccessfully to land the aircraft along the Danube. Instead, it pitches into the Bavarian National Forest.

As Saskia finishes the story in the ranger’s cabin, Cory breaks free of his bonds using his Smart Matter. Saskia stays his hand by trying to convince him that he has been used. Jennifer had confessed to Saskia that Cory’s whole identity is a fabrication custom-made by Jennifer to ensure that Cory would follow through with his mission over the years, much as Saskia’s identity was created by her old employer, the Förderatives Investigationsbüro (FIB). Cory is almost convinced, but decides to kill them…until Jem finally makes Cory understand that memories can be false. She tells her own story, in which the false memory of incest drove her from England into the arms of a criminal, and an elaborate con-job whose target was Saskia Brandt. Cory drops his gun and walks away.

Some time later, Saskia has traced Cory to Berlin and cracked the code behind ‘S, T, E, N, D, E, C’. She now knows that Cory’s personality, created by Jennifer Proctor, is based on a poem called Richard Cory. Saskia believes that, like the eponymous character, Cory wants to commit suicide following the completion of his mission. Her research suggests that Cory tried to kill himself in 1948 with a shotgun slug through the mouth. She goes alone to the Berlin TV Tower and finds Cory waiting. They both realise that the i-Core repaired his skull but did not rebuild his brain; did not restore him with the identity of the person he once was. Like Saskia, he is a digital ghost. The two share a moment of affinity. Neither is surprised when Cory jumps from the tower. His Smart Matter is left behind; it tries to replace the left hand she lost in the crash, but Saskia pushes it away, afraid for her humanity. She knows that a remnant of the i-Core is still inside her—that’s enough.

In the final scene at an abandoned lakeside house in Germany, Saskia, who has never fully recovered from her injuries, has reduced her bodyweight in an attempt to match Jennifer Proctor for mass. She believes that, if the match in mass is correct, she will be able to use the stolen time bracelet to return to 2023, and home, realising Cory’s dream and her own. In 2003, she has found only alienation. Jem appears and pleads with Saskia to stay. Saskia shakes her head. She has forgiven Jem for the attempt to romance her millions, but she wishes to leave. She uses the time bracelet and vanishes. On the table near the door Jem finds the list of upcoming sporting fixtures and their outcomes written by David Proctor. It is Saskia’s unbeatable gambling system. Jem smiles, but ruefully.