Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

  Agnieszka had realized quickly that she was subtly being influenced. Her ‘new best friend’ mirrored her mimics, and she could swear that she even had adopted a similar gait during their first walk outside.

  After a few days, the conversation shifted more and more to specific topics like how bad the war was, what Lyuba had seen in videos from East Ukraine, and how lucky the Poles were that Russian special forces did an incredible job in an unprecedently clean campaign. She kept saying that peace probably could be reached if the politicians only were willing to compromise.

  Agnieszka listened politely, but it was evident that she did not buy what Lyuba was selling.

  ✽✽✽

  The Kremlin had promised a swift return to normalcy to the Polish civilian population and also the politicians in the West. An important part of that was the normalization of Polish trade with Germany. Poland was a heavy importer and exporter of foods and a net importer of other supplies of daily life like hygiene products. Keeping the border closed for too long would have produced a massive economic crisis. Worse, it would have caused a food shortage that the Russians somehow would have had to manage and finance.

  The truck port in Świecko near Frankfurt-on-Oder was running at about forty percent of its usual throughput. During the night before Russia Day, nearly half the giant floodlights were turned on.

  A few miles north, a panel truck with the name of a local bakery painted on the sides stopped in front of the defunct Kino Piast movie theater. Two men got out of the cab with cordless screwdrivers. The tools hissed loudly as they worked on the boards covering the large double doors. Just as they opened the door, two Russian soldiers on patrol came by and demanded to know what they were doing there.

  The two men tried to explain in Polish that they were trying to salvage firewood from the dilapidated building. The Russians did not understand, partly because of the language barrier, partly because it was such a ludicrous thought that in a rich country like Poland people would steal firewood. The older Pole, a forty-something, heavy-set man gesticulated for the Russians to wait. “Alfons, get a flashlight and a flaszka, a bottle of vodka,” he said to his companion.

  The younger man took a long flashlight and a bottle of vodka from the cab of the truck. He handed the older man the bottle and turned on the light. The older showed the liquor to the soldiers and waved them to follow him into the building. He grinned and made a drinking gesture. The flashlight shone past the group into the empty theater lobby.

  The two soldiers, still standing in the doorframe, were wary of the two civilians but the promise of a drink and the possibility of solving the firewood mystery was enough motivation for them to walk into the dark room.

  Someone rapped at the door. The soldiers turned around and two shots from a suppressed pistol made loud pops in the dark. The two Russians were each hit in the middle of their faces. Some blood sprayed on the older man’s pants and shirt.

  “Kurwa, Professor, we could have done them with the bottle and the flashlight,” he said to the shadow standing in the doorframe.

  “Sure, Bolek, strong guy like you would have split their steel helmets with a half-liter. Easiest thing in the world,” the shadow sneered.

  “Now, look at that mess. I look like a pig,” Bolek said waving his hands across his shirt.

  His companion Alfons shone the flashlight on the shooter.

  “Yeah, and you’ve got blood on your shirt, too,” Kapitan Michał Karasek joked.

  Alfons got it, he let out a series of suppressed hyena-like laughs.

  “Very funny, Professor,” Bolek replied. He did not laugh. “Let’s go and get the stuff before the two will be missed.”

  Alfons opened the back of the truck and Kapral Wolf jumped out together with two other soldiers. All wore white-and-red armbands over their uniform sleeves. Very quickly and as quietly as possible, they loaded the crates of Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, and RPGs onto pallets in the cargo hold. When they were done, they boarded up the entrance again and hoped it would take a few days for the bodies to start smelling.

  “Dobra, good, I wish you luck,” Karasek said shaking Private Wolf’s hand. “We will meet tomorrow in the old town, off Stary Rynek.”

  The young soldiers got in the back again together with the pallets of ordnance. The door closed behind them. In the blueish glow of a battery-powered lamp, they started to pile cartons of freshly baked rolls on top of the wooden crates and then wrap the pallets up in thick black foil. At a casual glance, no one would notice that this delivery for the Poznań Garrison’s Russia Day celebrations contained some special treats.

  ✽✽✽

  “In summary, she’s her father’s daughter, Gospoda,” Lyuba said apologetically. “She refuses to talk to her father and coerce him to fall in line with our proposal.”

  “Did you tell her details of the proposal?” Kedrov barked.

  “No, Gospodin Posol, of course not. I just told her that everything could go back to normal, and she and her generation could start building a better Poland once the war was over. They could get a clean slate.”

  Lyuba shrugged and thought to herself that she would jump at that deal right away. A clean slate for her generation in Russia sounded like a dream from an American movie. A dream far away from the reality in which every young man and woman had to one way or other sell himself or herself to the old and powerful.

  She was lucky to be resourceful enough to work in the security services instead of becoming first a model and then someone’s mistress or maybe someone’s son’s wife. In her job, too, she had to put the assets given to her by Mother Nature to work from time to time but that was not always necessary. And it was not always a bad thing either. In our society every sells himself. At least I’m selling what I want to sell, nothing more, nothing less, she thought.

  “Khorosho, you’re dismissed,” Lyuba’s boss, the SVR chief of station said. He turned to Kedrov with a grave look on his face. “We need this done. The president has announced a peace treaty, and we need to get the signatory to agree.”

  “I know,” Kedrov nodded. “And yet, I can’t really blame the dickhead. Handing over the key assets of the economy is a big ask. Also pulling out of the EU and NATO. These projects had never been disputed by any political force in Poland. Of course, the political right had always bitched about some things. But they always knew where their daily bread was coming from, free trade with the West and economic growth. Western integration was what the Poles wanted since 1918.”

  ✽✽✽

  “I urge the good people of Poland to go back to work starting day after tomorrow,” the Russian president’s voice sounded from the TV in the refugee shelter. The hour-long video was also put into rotation on the RN network which was available in the Wichertstraße gymnasium via cable. “Please, join our troops for the Russia Day celebrations in the various cities, most notably in Warsaw. You are invited to see for yourself that peace and quiet have returned to Poland.”

  The old woman who still held on to her fifty-yard-line position in front of the TV cursed a little under her breath. The whole show reminded her, she told her son, too much of 1944, when the Russians sang the same song. The round-faced man in sweat pants nodded silently without looking up from his smartphone game.

  The only thing that really got everybody excited from this broadcast was the promise of bringing the phone lines and internet back online during June 12th as a gesture of goodwill and a token of friendship. Finally, the refugees would be able to get in touch with loved ones at home.

  ✽✽✽

  “Do you need anything else, Herr Generalinspekteur?” the female Oberleutnant with short brown hair in the grey dress uniform asked.

  “Nein, thank you, Schröder. I will just finish up these materiel forms, then head out myself,” Generalinspekteur der Bundeswehr Hartmut Rauschenberg answered from behind his desk.

  The four-star was the German equivalent of the General Chief of Staff in other countries or the Chairman of th
e Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. Even though he never had to fight in a war, the blessing of late a birth, he was a picture-perfect soldier, strong, sinewy, not a pound of unnecessary fat. Even at age 59, he managed to outrun most junior officers in the annual Bundeswehr half-marathon.

  Rauschenberg put down the fountain pen, stamped a form lying in front of him, and rubbed his right hand. He took off his steel-rimmed glasses and stretched his long neck.

  He had been signing forms for most of the last three days. And if he was honest with himself, he had not slept well since the meeting with Grigory almost two weeks ago. Despite what the politicians were saying and despite what Grigory had said, he made preparations to go to war.

  The chancellor and the defense minister had once again denied his proposal for a partial mobilization and an increased military presence at the border with Poland. Both said that they wanted to minimize the ‘potential for misunderstandings’ that could lead to a conflict with the Kremlin. Anyhow, with the social-democratic party opposing any military involvement, any proposal to aid the Polish forces would not pass the Bundestag. The German parliament was the final decision maker for any military engagement.

  On top of all that domestic politicking, the chancellor dragged out the international consultations to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Apparently, she did it on purpose, but other NATO countries were also stalling. Turkey, for one, had Russian troops on its southern border in Syria and needed them to keep ISIS and the Kurdish independence movement in check. Greece also wanted to stay in Russia’s favor. The country was highly indebted and needed the foreign investments the Russians kept promising. In addition, Russia asserted a lot of influence on the Balkans. From a Greek perspective, the countries on their northern border were problematic neighbors as they were, without Russia stirring more anti-Greek sentiment.

  The military alliance that was supposed to protect Europe first from a renewed German dominance after World War II, then from Eastern-Bloc invasion during the Cold War, had been completely incapacitated by the petty political calculations of its member states’ leaders.

  To the aging soldier, this was all a big mess. He had had great trust in the architecture of NATO until the cracks became too big to ignore. Under the pressure of the current crisis, the mightiest military alliance in the world was breaking. To be more precise it was broken by the political elite of its member states, partially out of calculation, partially out of gross negligence.

  Rauschenberg could not accept that. He had once sworn an oath to serve Germany and to defend the freedom of the German people. He would make good on this promise even though without political backing it was professional suicide. And it was a complicated task, too.

  Twenty-Six

  The weather was glorious on Russia Day. Agnieszka and Lyuba agreed to take a walk outside after breakfast.

  Agnieszka turned on the TV and zapped through the channels. Most Polish stations still ran the Russian video or cartoons, she stopped when CNN came up.

  “Is it ok to watch the news?” she asked.

  “Sure, why not?” The SVR officer had been briefed to give the girl some leeway. Personally, she was not convinced anymore that the first daughter would help them coerce her father in any way.

  The two women sat on a couch with coffee and rogaliki, the Polish interpretation of croissants, while the voice from the TV commented a map of Poland. “The Russian minister for defense today issued a statement on the Russian armed forces’ land gains in Poland. He confirmed NATO analyses that Russia aims to consolidate their hold on northern Poland and will not seek to push the front further south.”

  The map showed the north half of the country in red. An additional dotted line marking the front roughly followed the A2 from west to east. Highway of Freedom suddenly sounded like the wrong title for this frontline autostrada. Around Warsaw, there was an additional circle extending southward to about halfway between the capital and Radom, a city of 220,000.

  Agnieszka dipped her croissant into the large café au lait when a new segment started. After some stock footage from Kiev, it showed pictures of a school gymnasium turned polling station.

  A soft voice spoke from the off. “Following last week’s peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine, today marks the first day of a week-long referendum on the future of the country. Ukraine is going to the polls, East-Ukraine as well as the unoccupied western part. The question to be decided is whether Ukraine will be split along a modified version of the late eighteenth century ‘Novorossiya Governorate’ border. If Ukrainians vote ‘Yes’, areas south-and-east of the river Dnieper up to the city of Dnipro plus the Kharkiv oblast will gain their independence as the ‘People’s Republic of Novorossiya’ with Donetsk as its capital.”

  Agnieszka sat on the couch with her mouth open in disbelief. Her croissant slowly dissolved in the warm, light-brown liquid. Lyuba closely watched her face as the reporter’s voice droned on.

  “Citizens of Dnipro will have two additional questions on their ballots. ‘Should, in case of a separation of the country, the districts on the right riverbank be part of the ‘People’s Republic of Novorossiya’ and ‘Should, in case of a majority in favor of above proposition, above districts be incorporated as a new city named Novorossiysk’. Ethnic Ukrainian politicians in the city, including the mayor, have protested these two questions as too vague and the polling parameters impossible to track. Ethnic Russian politicians in the region denied any problems with these questions.”

  Agnieszka pulled the remaining croissant stump out of her coffee and looked back at Lyuba who was still watching Agnieszka very closely.

  “What about the people?” she asked.

  The voice on the TV answered her question. “It is expected by the OECD, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, that an outcome favoring independence of East Ukraine will result in the largest ethnically motivated resettlement since the end of World War II.”

  Accompanied by black-and-white footage, the voice retold the story of treks of ethnic Germans in 1944 going west from East Prussia, the Danzig area, Silesia, and other former German settlements, some of which had been established hundreds of years before the start of the world wars.

  “This is complete insanity, it’s stuff from the twentieth century. We should be way over that by now.” Agnieszka was overwhelmed by the proposal. “I mean, come on, you can’t seriously think it’s a good idea?”

  Lyuba sat back on the couch. Whatever she thought of the whole thing, she would not tell Agnieszka the truth, and certainly not in a room full of listening devices. “Giving the people a choice is a good idea, I guess,” she started her answer while looking at the screen. “At least they have a peace treaty, and whatever the outcome of the referendum, they can go on and build a future starting next week. Wouldn’t that be a great thing for Poland, too? Right now, there is no clear end to the war here.”

  Agnieszka still was not buying. A saying her grandfather, a Polish fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, had often recited came to her mind. He had said, “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.”

  She thought of her father, the fighter pilot’s son. Would he agree, if he were here? Was he still alive at all? She could not be sure, despite Lyuba’s assurance that he was being treated well. But then, if he was dead, they would have disposed of her already. A law student and activist with a mostly liberal agenda was of no use to them unless she was the first daughter.

  “Let’s take the coffee outside,” Agnieszka said and turned off the TV.

  ✽✽✽

  The sun already stood high when two men in janitor’s coveralls opened the door on the roof of Warsaw’s Aco’tel, a twenty story chain hotel in walking distance of Centralna station and overlooking Plac Defilad. Despite the sun and cloudless sky, it was cold from a steady wind.

  The two men walked diagonally across the roof, gravel crunched under their heavy boots. They both carried black backpacks, one of the two carried a long ny
lon bag with Yamaha printed on its side. It looked like it contained an electric keyboard by the Japanese brand.

  From behind the large letter A above the building, the two looked over to the Palace of Culture and Science and the Plac Defilad which was decorated all white-blue-and-red with banners and flowers.

  “Without the blue, it would be nice,” number one joked while looking through his binoculars.

  “Yeah, wrong month, though. Constitution Day is 3rd of May,” number two answered. “How’s the wind coming, Laska?”

  Laska, number one, took an anemometer out of his backpack, a wind meter. He held the small black device up in front of his face, waited a moment, and read the result. “Five point niner miles per hour coming exactly from your six when engaging the target. Cool, huh?” He laughed.

  “Nice,” number two grinned. “Okay, monitor for gusts while I set up.” He zipped open his keyboard bag and took out an olive-drab blanket which he spread out on the gravel. Next, he pulled out a long chrome moly barrel, looked through it and placed it on the blanket. He took out more parts, kneeled down, and assembled his Finnish-made Sako TRG-22 sniper rifle with calm precision.

  A chirp disturbed the calm atmosphere on the slightly windy rooftop. “Bombel,” Laska whispered while sitting down behind the parapet. “We’ll have company in two.”

  “Kurwa,” Bombel cursed and quickly pulled out a gray blanket roughly the same color as the gravel. The two pulled tool belts and two suppressed Glock 17 out of their backpacks and walked back to the door.

  Just as the door swung outward, Bombel pointed to the sky above and shouted, “Laska, kurwa, co to jest, what the fuck is this?”

  “I have no idea,” the other Pole answered with mock surprise and his hands behind his back.

  The Russian Spetsnaz just stood there puzzled to find janitors with tool belts on the roof, which was supposed to be off limits today. Yet, he could not resist the natural human instinct to look in the same direction as a group of other humans. He turned and looked at the empty sky.