Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

  Russian forces, in response to this very tragic accident, had launched a full-blown invasion into both countries. News were hard to get from sources inside the countries as communications systems seemed to have been shut off. The United Nations would make an effort to end the conflict diplomatically. However, one of the parties in the conflict, Russia, was also a veto-right member of the UN Security Council. There would be no solution unless the Russians really liked it. NATO and the European Union somehow malfunctioned. Mark had a hard time sorting all this into his head.

  He had grown up in West-Germany with the absolute firm belief that if the ‘Eastern Bloc’ attacked, NATO would unite and fight back. He had always trusted that institution to protect his life and his freedom. He knew that if it ever came to a war, all the American and British soldiers in Spangdahlem, Ramstein, Wiesbaden, Osnabrück, Gütersloh, and dozens of other sites would immediately take to arms and strike back.

  Then, in 1990, the Iron Curtain was suddenly gone, Germany was reunified, the Soviet Union dissolved, from Tallinn to Sofia democratic elections were held. The ‘Eastern Bloc’ evaporated into thin air. With the threat gone, Western Europe started cashing-in the peace dividend, lowered military spending, cut back on military research, and new defense projects.

  ‘Germany is now surrounded by friends’ was the slogan when the Eastern European countries joined first NATO and then the EU. Nobody really asked the questions, ‘Who are the neighbors of our friends?’ and ‘What do we need to do to help our friends when the shit hits the fan with their neighbors?’.

  Already before this crisis, Mark had bet that in secret, the European politicians had just agreed to leave the policing of the world to the Americans. Admittedly, this was a convenient situation. When politically opportune, a politician or a party could scorn the Americans for doing too much of it and gain left-leaning voters’ support. And at the same time, the same politician would not have to vote for unpopular increases in military spending or, Heaven forbid, sending troops somewhere dangerous. That’s a nice comfort zone no politician would ever leave unless he had to.

  In her address, the Chancellor had made the impression of firmly staying inside her comfort zone and nothing else. She spoke of peaceful resolutions, reaching out to the Russians via diplomatic channels, and having faith into the institutions that have kept Europe and the world at ‘relative peace’ since World War II.

  “Yeah, relative”, Mark sneered in his empty living room. His preliminary conclusion was that the European institutions had failed the Polish people miserably. The Poles had counted on their friendly neighbors to come over and help with the unfriendly ones when necessary. Now, their friendly neighbors had closed the curtains and pretended not to be home.

  The TV showed pictures of a border crossing. The ticker said it was near Szczecin. In the evening twilight, German Federal Police were filtering and funneling people streaming toward Germany on a rural road that wound through forests and across flat meadows.

  Beyond the trek of refugees, Poland was dark. Mark remembered driving through Szczecin a couple of times in the dark. The landmark buildings were lit on the outside, and the seaport glowed yellowishly. The glow of the city could be seen from afar, especially when it reflected off a cloud cover. But there was nothing now.

  Mark saw men in military uniforms arguing with policemen. The Germans seemed to pull women and men in civilian clothes from the crowd, apparently into Germany, while they pushed the uniformed men back. He turned up the volume.

  The male voice in the off grew louder. “While the border is open and all citizens of the EU can freely cross, Federal Police have been ordered to reject military personnel and deny them entry into the Federal Republic of Germany.”

  “What the fuck, they are really doing this,” he whispered to himself. Mark understood the dilemma these soldiers were in. An aggressive force had entered their country and they were losing the fight. Some were trapped in corners and pockets of unoccupied land. They had no other way to retreat than into an allied neighboring country.

  If they had civilian clothes to put on, the Germans would let them cross unmolested. But then they would probably be considered deserters. Leaving their posts and dropping the uniform could be seen as an intention not to return. Crossing in uniform and with other soldiers of their unit, possibly even with their chain of command, would be a totally different thing. It would be considered a part of their retreat. A military judge in a court-martial would make that distinction.

  Mark looked at the screen with a blank expression. He wanted to do something but he felt powerless. He briefly thought back to the conversation he had had with Vitus. He was more and more convinced that if he had actually used the unredacted Panama Files, Svetlana called them ‘the bomb’, none of this would have happened.

  The Russian government would most likely have been toppled years ago, millions of lives in Poland and Ukraine would have remained undisturbed. Not only that, possibly his own life would have remained undisturbed. No rolling the dice for a route to take a stroll in the park, no Glock in the living room, no speeding tickets for rehearsing exfiltration routes.

  And most of all he did not want to go to bed every evening frightened of getting Svetlana’s automated phone call in the middle of the night and having to drag his family out of their home. He did not want to think about what the Russian kleptocrats would do to him if they ever learned about his involvement in stealing the Panama Files and retaining hard evidence of their humongous heist.

  Mark was angry, but also tired. He would go to bed in an hour or two. Until then he would think about the soldiers and the bomb that Svetlana had so well hidden and secured.

  Thinking was pretty much the only thing he could do.

  Twenty-One

  When the 4th Company of the 121st Light Infantry Battalion started their engines in Świecko, the twilight had turned to dark of night, and a thick layer of gray clouds had rolled over the immense truck port. Normally, huge floodlights, like in a football stadium, provided an imitation of daylight. Today, it was pitch black on the five-hundred-acres parking lot. Dim red lanterns showed the way to the small truck circle the Territorials had formed near the exit to the road.

  They had returned the requisitioned civilian vehicles, eaten army chow from the cookhouse, and gotten new orders. They were to drive back to Poznań and support the defense of the city. If the rumors were true and the Russians had taken the seaport at Szczecin, it might only be a matter of days until they move south-and-east. Poznań, being the largest city in the area, would be their logical first objective.

  Kapral Wolf and Kapitan Karasek in their Tarpan led the column of trucks. Most men would sit on the wooden benches fixed to the floor of the load beds. They left the truck port and drove onto A2, the so-called Highway of Freedom.

  The westbound lanes were still jammed, people sat more or less patiently in their cars or on camping chairs. Despite the cloud cover, it was a warm night. All around them the small towns and villages were dark, the signs announcing highway exits were the only proof of their existence. At some point, the traffic jam ended and lone vehicles, big and small, crawled westward with their lights turned off.

  The weak beam of light from the Tarpan’s taped-off headlights streaked across a sign that read ‘Night Club Eden, Rzepin’. That dingy whorehouse still exists? Crazy shit, Michał smirked.

  He had not quite finished that thought when a loud explosion ripped through the silent night. Michał looked in the mirror, the last of the trucks in the column had been turned into a ball of fire. A loud roar above betrayed the presence of a fighter plane. He could not see it, it was certainly above the clouds.

  The column stopped. Michał got out and ordered his men to take cover in the ditches. The forests to both sides of A2 are closed off with a seven-foot-high animal protection fence. Every few miles, a wide bridge with grass and bushes planted on top allows deer, wild boars, foxes, and wolves to pass across the highway.

  Michał
hoped that this was a lucky shot by a plane returning to base and they could resume their journey soon. He decided to lay low for another ten minutes and take care of the wounded. Afterward, they would put out the fire, recover the bodies from the twisted, smoking hulk that once was a Star 266, and get moving again.

  The captain ordered a small group to move ahead along the highway and another back to secure their position. He told Kapral Wolf to get the bolt cutter from the Tarpan and cut a few holes into the wire mesh fence in case they needed to retreat into the forest. He also told him to take three soldiers with him as sentries and secure the back of their position.

  Karasek walked over to the company’s comms operator. “Sakowski, can you get through to anybody? We need to talk to Brigade HQ.”

  Sierżant Sakowski answered negative, but he was working on it.

  In the distance, vehicles dangling from large parachutes broke through the cloud cover followed by hundreds of paratroopers. They glided down toward a spot a handful kilometers north-and-east of their position.

  “Ja pierdolę, fuck me,” Michał cursed and ran to the Tarpan. He tore open the passenger door and took out his binoculars and a large olive-drab pouch from the door’s side pocket.

  His lieutenant joined him as he flicked through the contents of the pouch.

  “Identify the vehicle types and make a rough count of the men,” Michał ordered handing the lieutenant his binoculars. He picked a tactical map of the area from the pouch and unfolded it on the hood.

  The other platoon leaders joined the two officers.

  “What the fuck do they want here?” Michał thought out loud. “Rzepin is in that general direction, but what is there? The whole town isn’t much more than a huge train station and a few strip clubs.”

  “That’s probably it, sir,” the leader of 2nd Platoon said and pointed at the map. “Look, Rzepin is the first stop in Poland on the west-east axis between Berlin and Warsaw. Plus, the tracks from the north, from Szczecin, converge here with the eastbound tracks less than a mile east of the train station.”

  “You’re right, all train traffic from the west and from the north runs through here.” Michał continued to think out loud. “So, if one would only want to cut off resupply from the west, one would probably blow up the tracks near the border. But if one wants to cut resupply and at the same time secure passageways for one’s own materiel from the north, one needs to own this town’s train station.”

  Michał turned to the lieutenant. “What’s the count, podporuczniku?”

  “I’m guesstimating about six hundred up until now. They keep coming down, look.” The lieutenant pointed at the sky a little ways east of where they had first seen the airborne troops. “Looks as if they’re aiming for the highway, too. The vehicles are all MPVs, not so heavy but fast.”

  Michał turned back to the map. “Yeah, they will also try to close road-bound resupply routes. Doing it near Rzepin is just as good as further west. Bad luck for us, they are blocking our route to Poznań. ”

  He took the map and ran back to Sergeant Sakowski in the ditch. “Sierżant, tell me you are talking to someone.”

  His platoon leaders followed.

  “I had brief contact with brigade staff. But I lost it again.” The sierżant kept calling into his handset and pushing buttons on the digital Radmor manpack transceiver.

  “Kapitanie, still no contact, but you need to hear this,” Sakowski said and turned on the loudspeaker.

  The officers and NCOs gathered and kneeled down.

  A mechanic voice spilled out from the olive-colored box. “Important transmission from the General Chief of Staff for all Polish military personnel. Tune in to digital channel 39.”

  “Can we confirm that this is legit?” Michał looked at Sakowski.

  The sergeant gave him a puzzled look back. “Well, it’s on a digital channel, and they are all scrambled with pre-programmed encryption keys. It’s probably legit.”

  “Probably, isn’t good enough,” Karasek barked back. While he acknowledged to himself that they were all only part-time soldiers, he still needed affirmative answers now.

  “For all I know, it’s legit,” the sergeant replied and pushed 3 and 9 into the keypad in the middle of the control panel. “Stand by for transmission,” the mechanic voice repeated from the digital radio.

  ✽✽✽

  “Impossible. I cannot sign something like that. Even if I did, the parliament would never ratify this,” Sebastian Berka told the three men on the screen. “You cannot be serious with this proposal for a ‘peace treaty’. It’s tantamount to disowning the Polish people for the rest of human history.”

  “Now, now, on the contrary,” Minister of Defense Gleb Startsev countered the president’s outburst calmly. “We acknowledge that Poland was an economic powerhouse among the Central European countries and that it can become even more successful once it’s rebuilt. And this is exactly what we offer to help with, rebuild the Polish infrastructure and economy that has suffered as a consequence of your foolish act of aggression.”

  Berka shook his head. “You are taking controlling shares in our natural gas, coal, and electricity companies as well as our state-owned refineries and gas station network.”

  “And we will put good money into these ventures,” Kuvayev said.

  “Look, Gospodin Kuvayev, I have no clue who you are and what the fuck your part is in this completely outrageous business, but I cannot consider five billion dollars to be an adequate investment for a majority share in businesses that last week had been worth ten times that at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.”

  “Last week, my dear Sebastian,” Kedrov sneered and looked at the president sitting to his left.

  Berka controlled his rage well. “And you want us to leave NATO and the EU. I will not let history repeat itself. Your predecessors imposed the Warsaw Pact on us, and now you want to do the same. Next, you will force us to join your good-for-nothing Eurasian Union.”

  “I am sure the Union would gladly look into a Polish application for membership,” Startsev said with a fake smile.

  “The answer is no,” Berka said adamantly. At the same time he thought of his daughter.

  ✽✽✽

  “Stand by for transmission,” the mechanic voice had been going on for two minutes. Then it stopped, and a deep male voice started speaking.

  “This is Generał Bonifacy Pułaski, Chief of the General Staff, on board the vessel ORP Generał Tadeusz Kościuszko tied alongside in Kopenhagen.”

  Michał let his men come closer and listen. But he sent back the sentry to the east to see if they would get company soon.

  “In the early morning of Wednesday this week, forces of the Russian Federation have launched an invasion into our country. Warsaw had fallen by the evening of that day. Within an additional twenty-four hours, the enemy had gained superiority in our airspace. I have ordered our remaining air forces to regroup on an American base following an invitation by the U.S. European Command.”

  The men of 4th Company all stared at the olive transceiver with their mouths open.

  “Currently, the enemy is converging on Warsaw with rapid advances from the north. We expect the forces landing in Szczecin to move south-and-east equally fast and encircle any troops in Central Poland. All major ports and airports in the northern part of our country are now controlled by the enemy.” There Pułaski made a short pause.

  “My orders for all units in the field are the following. Retreat and re-group south of the line Żary, Leszno, Kalisz, Radom, Lublin. Evade engaging the enemy. If you are closer to the German border than to the line of retreat, you are hereby ordered to cross the border. Be advised that Germany only allows civilians to enter their country. I hereby authorize all personnel of the Polish forces to take off their uniforms and cross the border of the Republic as civilians. You will not be considered deserters, but you will be required to call at the nearest embassy or consulate of the Republic of Poland. There you will receive further instructi
ons by the diplomatic service.” Another pause, Pułaski let that sink in before he continued.

  “The Kingdom of Denmark and other NATO members individually have assured me of their support. Slovak, American, and British troops will reinforce our defenses in the south. We will fight, and we will prevail. Poland has not yet perished.”

  “So long as we still live. What the foreign force has taken from us, we shall with sabre retrieve,” the men of 4th Company mumbled in unison like a prayer.

  “Generał Bonifacy Pułaski, Chief of the General Staff, on board the vessel ORP Generał Tadeusz Kościuszko tied alongside in Kopenhagen, over and out.” The transmission ended there, and the mechanical voice came back telling listeners to stand by.

  The men of 4th Company were silent. A slowly passing car’s rumble echoed from the forest. The Captain was the first man to move again, he rose from his kneeling position by the transceiver.

  “Dobra, the orders are clear,” Michał addressed his men. “We will retreat to the German border, cross in small groups, and regroup at the embassy in Berlin.”

  The rattling of a machine gun not too far away interrupted the captain. The soldiers took cover in the ditch training their rifles in the general direction of the sound. The sentry came running back along the tree line and reported an enemy MPV with a mounted machine gun about 800 meters east. The Russians did not pursuit, not yet anyway, but they were aware of the TDF company’s presence and apparently wanted to make a point that the highway was theirs now.

  “Saddle up, everybody, we’ll move back to Słubice at top speed,” Michał shouted out and got into his Tarpan on the passenger side. PFC Wolf was in the driver’s seat only a second later, started the engine and turned around.

  Once they were moving, Michał turned to his driver. “Any idea where to get civilian clothes, Wolf?”

  ✽✽✽

  Mark typed a quick message to Svetlana on TLKS, it read ‘Our insurance still valid?’.