The explosion on the other side of the building, at the front gate, coincided precisely with the thirtieth tick. The Territorials squad trained their sights on the various doors and windows as they advanced. There would be a minimal force as the ambassador and his guests were away but nonetheless it would be well-trained soldiers guarding the most important POW of this war.
✽✽✽
For just ten seconds hell had broken loose at the front gate. The burning hulk of a Ford Transit transporter now blocked the driveway. The remote controlled van had achieved its goal, it drew most of the guard force to the front of the building, and it had killed the two men in the guard shack.
Two women in camouflage battle dress with white-and-red armbands leaned on the parapet of Hotel Poniatowski’s roof. From across the street, they picked the snipers and watchers off the embassy roof with their semi-automatic, Soviet-made Dragunov rifles. The two were so fast and the subsonic ammunition so quiet that the five men had no chance to realize what hit them. They simply dropped dead silently.
“Hej, hej, Julita and Beatka have cleared the roof for you, chłopaki, boys,” the redhead with the icy blue eyes warbled joyfully into the phone resting next to her elbow.
The other woman with the short black hair started to disassemble her sniper rifle and looked at her comrade curiously. “You are actually enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Of course, I’m a German language teacher in a small town and single. This is the most fun with men I had in over a year,” Julita replied laughing, her thick pink lips revealed two rows of slightly yellow teeth. She turned around, sat down with her back leaning against the parapet. She saw the two AK-74 resting against the wall of the stairhead and groaned, “Okay, we don’t have much time. My cigarette will have to wait until later.” She laughed again and disassembled her precision weapon.
✽✽✽
The soldiers guarding the compound ran out the front door, and immediately took cover behind the giant Romanesque columns of the portico. They expected drawing heavy fire after the massive explosion but nothing happened. They looked around the columns, rifles ready to shoot, then looked at each other, still unsure what was happening, trying to figure out what to do.
Next to the embassy is a garden where embassy staff grow all sorts of fruit and vegetables. Apple trees and plum trees line a white wall that separates the stately main compound from this more mundane part of the foreign mission.
Undetectable by the soldiers kneeling behind the high columns below the massive pediment, a small octocopter took off in the garden and hummed toward its final destination.
It carried a green wine bottle between its skids. It probably once contained a cheap French red wine sold expensively at an alcohol-only store. The label had been washed off, the bottle cleaned meticulously, removing all prints and material that could be analyzed for DNA.
Inside the bottle was a thick noodle of C4 and small clout nails like carpenters use for nailing down asphalt roll roofing. The highly versatile explosive was glued to one side of the container, and the nails filled up the one-liter bottle to the shoulder. A few cables and a small electronic detonator just so fit inside the neck, a short antenna peered out the mouth. The improvised explosive device was fixed with tape below the toy drone, it looked like a small torpedo.
On the hotel roof across the street, the chatter of automatic weapons broke the momentary silence and made the soldiers point their rifles in that general direction. They could identify no target, so they did not shoot. The distant ratatat drowned the humming sound above their heads.
✽✽✽
Oskar and his squad moved through the hedge a split-second after the first explosion. They ran toward the back entrance along the south wing wall. The midday sun cast a dark shadow there, anybody firing on them from north wing windows would have the sun in their eyes. A large oak tree with thick green leaves would block the view from many of the central building’s windows. This was as good as it would get in terms of natural cover.
As they reached the back entrance, a man in a suit exited, pistol out. He made the mistake to first look right, to the sunlit north wing as he came out the door. Kuba blindsided him from the left and shot him in the head from less than ten yards away.
The squad waited outside until the second explosion promised a further decimation of the opposition force. Carefully advancing into the building they saw the havoc the improvised nail bomb had wreaked at the front entrance.
The high windows allowing sunlight into the hallway were shattered, the massive wooden frames had been blasted out of the wall and torn to firewood-sized chunks. The massive front door had collapsed inward. The dark brown hardwood was dotted with gray-silver sprinkles. It looked like a giant chocolate cake decorated with silver sugar pearls.
According to their intelligence, the door leading to the basement would be just off the main hall. They turned a corner and saw it. It was closed, and it was unclear what kind of opposition they had to expect beyond it. The Russian woman had said grunts, plural, meaning at least two.
Oskar and Kuba conferred quickly and agreed that it would be at least two in a shift and at least two shifts a day, possibly three. The guys currently off would definitely not be sleeping or watching porn on their computers anymore. They would be somewhere in the building, probably on station, definitely armed. Kuba had eliminated one SVR type in the garden. Their best guess left an opposition of three to five.
Oskar slowly opened the door while Kuba and another soldier aimed at the expanding opening. The lights were on, a narrow, steep staircase led down to a slightly wider corridor. They would have to go in one by one. As silently as possible, Oskar stepped down the stairs. Kuba followed him with his pistol above his comrade’s head. Oskar pulled a borescope from his small bag, its flexible lens peeked around the corner and transmitted the picture to a small LCD monitor. Even though the lens was miniscule, someone must have noticed it, the lights went out.
In the strip of light coming from upstairs Oskar signaled three opponents with his fingers. “Steel doors all around, I guess we can risk a hand grenade,” he whispered. Kuba tapped his shoulder and carefully put a grenade into his held-out right hand with the lever against his thumb. Oskar, in turn, handed Kuba the borescope with his left. As he heard the faint rattle of keys, he quickly pulled the pin and rolled the grenade into the corridor.
The explosion was deafening between the narrow concrete walls and steel doors. Oskar pulled his sidearm, a Polish-made WIST-94. A soldier at the top of the staircase switched the lights back on, and immediately Oskar and Kuba entered the corridor back to back. Kuba fired twice at a fourth opponent who had remained undetected in the right-hand part of the corridor. In the left-hand part, three men peppered with shrapnel winced and coughed. Oskar shot them at close range and put them out of their misery.
“What’s going on out there? Be quiet, kurwa. I have important decisions to make,” a voice shouted from behind the door with the key half-turned. A lightly charred red lanyard reading ‘Russia 2018’ dangled below the handle.
Oskar moved toward the door. Kuba kept covering the left-hand corridor until a third soldier came down the steps. He let his comrade take the left and instead moved past Oskar to cover the right. They could not be sure that there was not another man in one of the basement rooms. They did not have time to clear the basement, room by room, so Oskar quickly turned the key and entered the small room with his pistol raised. The door swung inside and slammed into the left-hand wall. There was nowhere to hide in the small room.
The president screamed at the sight of the man with the gun. “They’ve come to shoot me now. Oh no. Sebastian, what’s happening to you?” he winced beneath his raised arms. “Call the guards, will you. They are making a mistake,” he kept on shouting to himself.
“We need him quiet, Kuba,” Oskar said and switched positions with his comrade. Kuba pulled a syringe from his bag. He bit the cap off the needle, grabbed the president’s left arm and plu
nged the needle into the supreme commander’s neck.
Twenty-Eight
The InterCity Express train from Hamburg to Berlin had a fifty-minute delay which is a sorry performance for an hourly service.
Mark was on his way home after meeting a potential client, a large overseas shipping company that sometimes handles ‘delicate goods’. The term seemed inconspicable at first in the client’s email. The non-disclosure agreement, however, was so tough that Sanders thought they might be shipping nuclear warheads around. The prospective job was demanding which meant a massive bill and complicated but interesting work. So if the client chose Sanders, both he and Svetlana would have reason to be happy.
To kill time in the middle of the afternoon, Sanders decided to use his frequent traveler status with Deutsche Bahn. He would have a late lunch with a nice Bitburger from the tap on the railway company’s bill.
For first class passengers and frequent travellers, the German rail provides lounges like premium airlines do. There is a buffet with dishes appropriate for the time of day. Croissants and rolls with an assortment of cheeses and Wurst plus jam in the mornings, at lunchtime, variations of meat, potatoes, and salads. Worst case, there would be fresh-baked pretzels and Weißwurst Bavarian white sausages with sweet mustard. In Mark’s opinion, the best thing about the lounges was unlimited refills on coffee and beer from the tap. And one can go get his beer himself at the buffet. All definitely worth the annual fee for the frequent traveler status.
Today was a worst-case day. Mark dreaded delays, especially when the sitter was on an hourly rate. He was okay with the culinary worst case, though. He liked Weißwurst and pretzels. He dipped the last bit of his pretzel into the sweet mustard and put it in his mouth. The sweet and sour taste over the lightly salted crust of the pretzel reminded him of his short time in Munich.
The television was on, and one of the waiters pumped the wobbly volume-up button of the remote control. The sound came up gradually.
“Russian officials have confirmed a massive terrorist attack on the Russia Day celebrations in Warsaw and other cities today. In a festive ceremony, Minister of Defense Gleb Startsev decorated soldiers who participated in the Polish campaign with the Medal of Zhukov when massive forces attacked the over 12,000 soldiers on the central parade ground with automatic weapons and grenades.”
Mark listened to the TV with calm focus while he was chewing on his mustardy pretzel. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, he thought.
“Some sources claim, the minister died during the attack. However, this has not been confirmed by the Kremlin,” the woman reading the three o’clock news droned on.
“Well, that son of a bitch won’t be missed,” Sanders said out loud while he got up to fetch a second beer from the tap.
Some patrons raised their eyebrows at the remark but did not respond. They returned their attention to the TV.
Sanders realized he had brought unwanted attention to himself. While he walked toward the buffet with the beer tap he tried to remember the wealth he had connected to the Russian defense minister in the unredacted Panama Files. It was something like 4,350,000,000, maybe a little more, mabe a little less. Probably more.
“Our reporter on the scene estimates about four hundred dead and hundreds more injured. Some of the attackers, too, have been killed by machine gun fire. They were identified as Polish Territorial Defense Force soldiers by a spokesperson for the Polish Chief of General Staff.”
Mark felt a chill moving down his spine. “Fuck me,” he mumbled to himself. He pulled his Bitburger into the branded glass. Once he was happy with the head of foam, he walked back to his armchair in front of the TV. He did not listen to the dry report of the voice from the off. Instead, he looked at the still smoking ruins of Galeria Centralna.
“Here’s to the fallen boys and girls on both sides,” he mumbled holding the glass raised for a toast. He suppressed a tear and took a large swig from the glass.
His thoughts were with the dead. Those kids who were mowed down like grass on the parade ground had not chosen to go to war. Perhaps they had been made believe that they wanted to go. Perhaps they had cheered after their quick initial success. Perhaps they were proud of themselves. Mark did not blame them for that. They had been told what to think and do most of their lives. What did the Russian conscripts know what they were really doing, for whom, and for what? How would they know what was right and what was wrong?
Probably, in their everyday lives, before they had been drafted into the army, they were good kids. Maybe they were working on a farm or in a factory. Probably, they had wives or girlfriends. Definitely they had mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. They would be missed. Someone would grieve their loss.
The ‘terrorists’, as the TV called the attackers, had not chosen to kill either. The choice had been made for them by the same men in Moscow who had decided to send their Russian victims into battle some weeks earlier. The Poles wanted the Russians gone, be left alone, continue with their lives as students, electricians, nurses, teachers. They wanted to come home after work, enjoy dinner with their spouses and kids, watch TV, go to sleep. They wanted to be free and have their country back.
He sat silently for a few moments and took another swig of beer. I hope Michał is okay, he worried.
The news show ended, the waiter muted the TV which now showed a documentary on Hitler’s drug addiction while a ticker at the bottom of the screen kept pushing information about the attacks in Poland.
After another swig from his expertly drafted beer, a man in a black suit with a white shirt and no tie walked up to Mark’s armchair. He held a newspaper, DIE WELT.
Mark looked up at the man. “Oh damn,” he said. “Really, a worst-case day.”
“It’s been a while, Mark. How do you do?” the man asked in English with an east coast accent.
Mark had hoped to never ever see Mr. John Smith of the Central Intelligence Agency again. He took another sip from his beer while he kept looking at the man in his mid-fifties.
Smith looked sharp in his Hugo Boss suit. The choice of clothes reflected the fact that he had been stationed in Europe for quite some time and that his salary was better than average. The other agency fellows Mark had met were all dressed in poorly cut suits of clearly American provenance. Not that Mark was a fan of expensive suits, he liked his jeans and dress shirt style. But in his opinion, if someone made the investment, he should at least shop for something that looks great.
“What do you want, Smith?” he asked dryly. “I don’t have much time.”
“You have another twenty minutes before your train leaves, and the next one is just five minutes late. In any case you’ll be home for dinner and the eight o’clock Tagesschau,” Smith tried to coat his intimate knowledge of Mark’s schedule as light conversation.
Mark gulped down his beer and got up. He brushed past Smith’s shoulder. One of the eyebrow-raisers from earlier followed him briefly with his eyes over the rim of a copy of the Financial Times.
Mark pulled another beer from the tap. He would have stopped drinking after the second, but Smith showing up somehow raised his level of frustration. The beer would be an inadequate relief, but a relief nonetheless.
The CIA man joined Sanders at the buffet. “Mark, look, I understand your frustration, and I admit our last meeting ended less than perfect,” Smith whispered and took an empty beer glass from the rack above the tap.
“Excuse me? ‘Less than perfect’ is a phrase I use to describe a first date gone wrong, Smith,” Mark said gritting his teeth. “You almost got me killed.”
“Yes, and I tried to make up for it,” Smith responded. He sounded a bit like Mark had sounded when apologizing to a girl for a date gone wrong.
“Yeah, I got the ‘flowers’, thank you,” Mark said, referring to the Glock 17 with ample ammunition he had received from an agency courier on the first day of his involuntary unemployment.
“Did the positive reference from the Depart
ment of Housing work for you?” Smith asked, still sounding slightly guilty.
“I’m doing okay. Thank you, Smith,” Mark said and made room for the other man to pull his beer. He took a small sip without waiting and saying Prost as is the custom in Germany.
While Smith tried to get the head right, he glanced at Mark sideways. “Good thing you did for the Polish soldiers there,” he said. “Most of them were Territorials as you know, your good friend was one of them.” He took a spoon from the buffet to scoop off some excess foam from his poorly drafted beer.
Mark sighed, took the glass away from the American, put it on the counter for a waiter to clean up later. He got a new glass from the rack and pulled Smith a Bitburger with a decent head.
“Thank you,” Smith said as he took the glass. “What you don’t know is that the more than one thousand guys you saved from POW camp are now an important part of the effort to win Poland back.” Smith took a large swig of beer, then looked at the glass appreciatively and nodded to Mark. “Damn, you still got it even though your last bar job was almost twenty years ago.”
The agency man sending mixing signals, at one time intimidating him, at other times apologizing, started to piss Mark off. “Smith, again, what the fuck do you want?” he whispered not wanting to draw more eyebrow-raisers into their conversation.
“Look, again, I am sorry how about how we parted ways,” Smith said sincerely. “And I may thank you unofficially, but still from the heart, my heart, for what you did for these poor Polish soldier bastards there in Słubice. In my book, you should get a medal for that.”
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