Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

  The real shock was that NATO had not invoked Article 5, not yet, anyway. The heads of state could not reach agreement in their nightly session. The debate was whether the Polish-Ukrainian campaign had been the source of the conflict or not.

  If it would be deemed as the beginning of the conflict, then Poland had started the war, and the collective defense clause would not apply. The Russians had made that case in the UN and had entered four dead Polish soldiers and the remains of a Ukrainian missile into evidence. Both were, according to the Russians, testament to the aggression aimed at Russia.

  It seemed like the Germans were especially unwilling to rush to the defense of their neighbors. ‘We are not going to pay the price for a war started by someone else’ quickly became the most cited phrase in the European media. An unnamed German diplomat to NATO had given the quote to a handful of journalists after the debate. Yeah, right. Where was that guy in 1914? Mark was furious.

  The German chancellor was scheduled to address the German people directly in a broadcast in the evening. It was leaked that she would present an initiative for a peaceful resolution of the conflict involving the UN. She has a point, Russia can’t be beat militarily. It would take all of NATO’s resources to only level the playing field. The odds of winning this are thin.

  Mark put the paper aside, rested his head on his palms, and the elbows on his knees. His thoughts spiraled. “What would happen if Germany got involved in the war?” He asked himself.

  Theoretically, he was still part of the Bundeswehr reserve. He had served his ten months as a nineteen-year-old. He thought of Ofelia and Xandi. How would he protect them lying in a trench somewhere east of Berlin? He would probably not survive the first week. Fit for his age or not, he could not compete with professional soldiers or any nineteen-year-old for that matter. He thought of the Glock in his floor compartment. He thought of his friend Michał.

  He pulled himself off these thoughts and continued reading. A member of the radical left party and a Bundestag MP wrote a short commentary for DIE WELT. He wrote something along the lines of ‘Germany can never again go to war, especially not against the peaceful people of Russia who had suffered so much from the German warmongering in the 1940s’. He condemned NATO, demanded that Germany ended her membership in this ‘tool of aggressive Western expansionism’. He babbled on that the Russians had freed the Germans from the fascists and ever since been friends of the German people.

  Mark’s hangover worsened.

  Then there was an interview with the leader of the social-democratic party which was part of the governing coalition. The key phrase printed large and bold in the center of the page was ‘We will not be drawn into a war, under no circumstances’. When asked how this would fit in with the architecture of NATO and the European Union of which both Germany and Poland were cornerstone members, her answer was ‘all that does not matter much, what matters is that Germany continues its mission of peaceful European unity’. Asked what would happen if Russia attacked Germany or other NATO members, she answered that she ‘firmly believes that this will not happen as long as we stay peaceful’.

  “Fuck you, you fucking moron. How can anybody be so naïve?” Mark shouted at the page.

  He jumped up from his bench and balled up the newspaper.

  There was a loud rustling in the bushes, probably squirrels whizzing off scared.

  He threw the paper into a trash bin and the half-full cup of coffee after it. Today, there would be no paper for the next guy to read.

  Then Sanders stormed off.

  Nineteen

  Mark’s iPhone buzzed while he circled back through the park toward home. TLKS announced a message from Vitus. It read ‘Can we talk?’. Mark put the AirPods in his ears and called the journalist. “Hey, what took you so long?”

  “I know, I promised to send word. But honestly, I had to fly off to Brussels in a hurry, and then I sat around NATO for half the day and most of the night. Mostly for nothing. I thought you might see me on TV in the evening,” Vitus recounted his day.

  “We turned off the TV, it was useless,” Mark barked. He was still angry at the world. Well, the German politicians mostly. “I’ve read today’s paper. NATO isn’t doing shit. Do you have more info?”

  “No, nothing worth mentioning. According to unofficial sources, the Americans are scrambling together a military response, but without full cooperation of the European NATO states, it will take weeks to get stuff and boots on Polish ground. Getting into Ukraine is next to impossible at the moment.” Vitus opened the curtains, the sun had moved around the corner.

  “Is Poland completely overrun? Where is the front? There was nothing of that sort in the fucking paper.” Mark hoped for some good news. He thought of Michał and his family.

  “Really? Well, we don’t have war correspondents anymore,” Vitus said, still tired and hung over. He cleared his throat and reached for his notepad. “Last I heard was that the front ran basically along the Kaliningrad border. Heavy artillery fire on Polish installations and tank battles near the border crossings. Gdańsk and Gdynia were bombarded from the air and taken by navy infantry. Warsaw was overrun in the night. We still don’t have the full picture on how they pulled it off. They must have come by air or something. The Polish air force is mostly incapacitated. A dozen or so of their MiGs and F-16s managed to evacuate to Lithuania and Denmark. Ukraine is a black hole currently. Your contact provided some tidbits but nothing near a complete picture. American satellite pictures supposedly show Russian troops moving westward from Donbas and Kharkiv and northward from Odessa.”

  “Fuck.” Mark was not really able to say anything else.

  Vitus turned on the TV and muted the sound. “There’s something on CNN. They have a graphic of the frontline. As I said. Plus, they say in the west of Poland there was a landing. There’s a red blurb north of Szczecin. Bridgehead, I guess. The east is awful quiet, I always thought they would come through Belarus pretty quickly.”

  “Yeah, Szczecin is awfully close,” Mark said, his stomach hurt. The Polish port city was a mere 85 miles away.

  “Man, I know you are upset, and you want to protect your family. From an outside perspective, though, this has nothing to do with you. Or with us. They have a lot of things on their minds now, and we have nothing to do with any of these things. They’re still in the dark about you and Svetlana and your part in the old story. Don’t freak out.” Vitus sensed that his friend was afraid and tense. He tried to calm him down. It did not work. Even though Sanders was quiet, his tension could be felt over the phone connection.

  “I know you’re frustrated,” Vitus’ voice sounded distant to Mark.

  He was deep in thought, merely looking at the couple yards in front of Xandi’s stroller. “Yeah,” he replied. “I am worried. And angry. And frustrated. Maybe you were right the other day. We should have used the bomb on these bastards. None of this would have happened. The world would probably be a better place.”

  “The keyword here is ‘probably’, man. I thought about it when I emptied the minibar, and my conclusion was that you were right the other day. Using the bomb might as well have been the end of the world.” Vitus suddenly felt more awake as he felt that his friend needed some straightening out.

  ✽✽✽

  Sebastian Berka had last seen his daughter Agnieszka when they had walked up the wide marble steps with the thick Persian carpet at the far end of the Russian embassy’s lobby. She had been taken to one of the guest rooms. He had been led to the ambassador’s office.

  Ambassador Kedrov had quickly realized that the president was useless in his current state, the stress and exhaustion had started to take over. He had been taken to another guest room, showered, put into bed, and locked up.

  The president woke up in the plush room. The thick curtains were closed, only a thin strip of sunlight shone through the center at an almost exact ninety-degree angle. He felt groggy. There was a pricking pain in his left arm, he looked and saw the catheter. It was co
nnected to an IV. The bag contained a colorless liquid, saline solution, he hoped.

  He took his watch from the nightstand, it showed twelve, noon. His head felt numb. He also felt like he had lost, he had given in to the threats against his only daughter. He, the President of Poland, had struggled with the decision.

  The soldiers who were with him had not been able to give him any hope for winning. Whatever winning had meant. They were good, brave men, but when a situation is hopeless, even the brave need to be honest with themselves about their chances in a fight.

  The master sergeant who had volunteered his thoughts on the situation had shaken his hand before they had gone outside and surrendered. He had said something that stuck in Berka’s mind. “Panie Prezydencie, you made a decision. You will live to fight another day. And so will Poland.”

  I hope that day will come soon! Berka thought and pulled out the catheter. It hurt like hell, the needle was actually from plastic and much longer than he had expected. He groaned and held his arm. A few drops of blood soiled the ebony-colored sheets. After the pain had faded, he rolled on his belly and pushed himself up. He did not quite manage and dropped back on the thick mattress.

  Keys turned in the white double-doors. Do they know I’m awake? he asked himself.

  The doors opened, and two men in camouflage suits came in. The cultural attaché entered right behind them.

  He didn’t come to discuss a tour of the Bolshoi. SVR Head of Station, huh? How cliché! Berka’s thoughts seemed automatic to him. As if they weren’t entirely his own. As if they had been put into his mind. But then, they were his. Whose thoughts could they be if not my own? he wondered.

  The soldiers opened the curtains. Berka could see the sun and smirked. He was not an idiot, he had already wondered at the thin strip of light. Now that he could see outside, he was sure. It wasn’t noon. He knew the orientation of the embassy perfectly well. The room went out to the garden, he could see a wing of the U-shaped building, to the right, the north wing. The building was oriented west-and-south. No way that it was noon. Afternoon, four maybe five p.m., Berka guessed. They had stolen four or five hours from him, or more. He looked at his watch again, the number in the date display told him, he had been out for four days. Chuj wam w dupie! he thought to himself.

  Then he thought of Agnieszka and jerked up. “Where is my daughter?” he demanded to know of the SVR man.

  “She’s fine,” the Russian said without much of a thought. “As long as you cooperate, she will be fine.”

  Berka looked at the spy’s face, frowned, and nodded.

  ✽✽✽

  Agnieszka had been locked up in the guest room for the rest of the night and much of the day. She had succumbed to the exhaustion and slept a few hours. She had turned on the TV every now and then, it kept saying ‘no input signal’. When she opened the window of the second-floor room she heard faint rumbling in the distance, like thunder, but more mechanic. Every now and then, planes crisscrossed the sky above, big ones and small ones, transport planes and fighter planes. At some point, she had decided to shower and use the fresh clothes that had been laid out for her.

  As she wiped the fog off the mirror, someone banged on the bathroom door. “Come out, you are wanted,” the heavily accented male voice said in English.

  She recognized the voice, it was the brute who had killed her boyfriend. The terror of the night came back in a split-second. In her mind, she saw Andrzej’s eyes while this horrible man’s hand held his jaw from behind and pushed in the long knife. She saw the blood, Andrzej’s blood that shot out after the blade had pierced the artery. She heard the sound of the blade pushing through muscle and flesh. She threw up a little bile, there was nothing else left in her stomach. With the white towel loosely wrapped around her slender figure, she sank to the floor. Her wet blond hair hung over her face as she sat on the tiles and cried. More banging on the door, she jerked around.

  “Go away, you monster,” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Then silence. Over her own sobbing, she could hear heavy footsteps leave the guest room.

  ✽✽✽

  “Tovarishch Posol, she won’t open the bathroom door,” Sergeant Major Krug reported to the ambassador.

  Kedrov groaned and dismissed the soldier. Even after over thirty years, he could not get used to the Polish stubbornness. Why can’t they be more obedient, like the other Slavs? he thought. Kedrov needed Berka to cooperate. So far, the president’s daughter was his best tool.

  The SVR station attached to his embassy was spread thin at the moment. They had been short-staffed anyway with most of their country’s interests lying in the U.S. and the Middle East lately. On top of that their operatives were now supporting the war effort. With more people coming in from Moscow in the next days, they would be able to replace the soldiers minding Agnieszka with a woman SVR officer. Maybe she could gain her trust and manipulate her into being more cooperative.

  Time was of the essence, though. Minister Startsev, who led the war effort, had made it very clear to Kedrov that a prolonged war was in nobody’s interest.

  ✽✽✽

  General Pułaski sat in his ready room and stared at the monitor on the wall. Bilinski was with him and did the same. They had just got off a call with Brussels, with the Polish Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to NATO, to be more precise. Neither SHAPE, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, nor the NATO Military Committee would return their communications for the time being.

  What the ambassador had explained to the two soldiers translated into ‘you are probably on your own’. It was not like the heads of state and the defense ministers of NATO had decided to not stand by their ally, they had decided nothing.

  The result was the same, there would be no supplies, no troops, no materiel to reinforce the Polish defenses. The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, currently led and supplied by the German Bundeswehr, would stay in Lithuania and defend the Baltic states, if it came to an attack there. Rotations into Poland or other countries to the south would not happen before a final resolution of the conflict.

  On top of that, military intelligence reported troops moving through Belarus. It would only be a matter of time until the eastern front would open up. The way things looked, though, that would not even matter much. There would be little sense in moving the 1st Varsovian Armored Brigade closer to the border as Warsaw had been taken already. They decided to order them to dig in west of the Vistula river and await orders for a counterattack.

  Pułaski had received a personal, encrypted message from SACEUR, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who doubled as the American commander of the U.S. European Command. The American general proposed to reassemble the Polish air force in Spangdahlem, Germany. The 52nd Fighter Wing of the U.S. Air Force based there would be able to service the F-16s and loan additional planes out to the Poles. Pułaski pushed a button on his intercom and told the voice on the other end to order the Siły Powietrzne to evacuate and reassemble in Spangdahlem. He trusted the American general to deal with the politicians. Just then, the earth trembled. Small items fell from the desks, and a plastic water bottle rolled off the credenza.

  A sierżant opened the door and shouted, “Direct hit, generals. The main entrance is blocked.”

  “Communications?” Bilinski asked.

  “We are offline,” the sergeant answered.

  “Evacuation protocol Charlie,” Bilinski half-asked the older general.

  Pułaski confirmed and fetched his backpack and the MSBS 5.56K that leaned on the wall. He walked out into the command center.

  The major in command of the facility and a captain headed for two metal boxes screwed to the wall, opened them and inserted small keys hanging from their dog tag ball chains. They nodded at each other, turned the keys and the major entered a code on a keypad in his box.

  “Evacuation protocol, fifteen minutes to self-destruct,” a female voice announced through speakers on the ceiling. Red LEDs flashed and everybody in the facil
ity started moving. There was no chaos, instead it looked like a well rehearsed choreography. The bearded men and the women with the long hair put on body armor and high cut ballistic helmets, then moved through the underground corridors in a predefined order.

  Another earthquake followed. The facility must have been compromised, there would be hardly any other reason for the enemy to bombard an organic ostrich farm.

  ✽✽✽

  Kino Piast in Słubice had once been the go-to movie theater in the small Polish border town across the river from Frankfurt-on-Oder. Built in the 1950s and never refurbished, it was far from luxurious.

  Michał Karasek remembered seeing a movie there with a date, a local girl. She did not speak German but wanted to see a movie, so they had had to go to Piast instead of the modern multiplex on the other side of the river. They had sat on wooden chairs, eaten chips and drunk beer they had bought in the mom-and-pop store next door. No plush seats, no air conditioning, but they had only paid one złoty for admission, less than twenty-five cents at the time.

  Nothing serious had happened with the girl, she had only been looking for a little distraction, not sex. He had been recently separated. In the end he was happy with this outcome, his girlfriend in Warsaw had come to her senses, and they got back on only a week later.

  The smell was the same sixteen years later, dusty and moldy. Much more dusty, actually. Apparently, nobody had cared to sweep through the now-defunct theater. The room was empty, there were no chairs anymore and the two large double doors were boarded up with MDF sheets. Michał oversaw 4th Company unloading and storing large crates with Cyrillic writing on them. He knew what was inside, Kalashnikov AK-74 rifles, ammunition, and RPGs. What he did not know, was why they were storing them there.