Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

The two and a half beers in just thirty minutes started to have their effect on Mark. He closed his eyes briefly, inhaled and exhaled. “Thank you for the medal,” he said. “Now, please leave.”

  Smith took another sip of beer. “Not yet, I came here to talk to you about the bomb.”

  ✽✽✽

  “Herr General, I just got confirmation of the arrival of the Wiesel Armed Weapons Carriers in Hagenow. They are fitted with the TOW 2 system and luckily we have found the 280 missiles for the system in Amberg. The Logistikzentrum is going to ship them out tomorrow,” Oberleutnant Schröder reported the last piece of Rauschenberg’s puzzle to be in place.

  Generalinspekteur Hartmut Rauschenberg had made her a co-conspirator out of necessity. She was too smart to not notice something was going on and too good a soldier to just ignore it. Even though Rauschenberg’s doing would probably cost both of them their careers and their pensions, she was one hundred percent on board.

  “Good, Schröder, very good,” the general said and sat back in his chair. “Now we wait for the Polish Armed Forces to do their part. The Americans have moved almost all their assets available in southern Germany into Czechia, the Danes are on their ships, and we are in East Germany standing by.”

  While the official mechanisms of NATO were failing, its unofficial networks were working hard to compensate. The Kingdom of Denmark, the Czech and Slovak Republics and most importantly the United States were politically committed to supporting the Polish Republic. Together with the military leaders of the three European countries, EUCOM, the United States European Command, and secretly also Rauschenberg, the Polish Chief of General Staff Pułaski had put together a daring plan to regain control of the Russian occupied territories.

  ✽✽✽

  “There is no such thing as a bomb anymore, Smith. You made sure of that,” Mark said matter-of-factly into his glass of beer while glancing sideways at one of the eyebrow-raisers. He had by now marked that particular Financial Times reader as one of Smith’s men.

  “Mark, I know you better than you think,” Smith replied.

  Mark was very sure that Smith knew more about him than his mother, but still, he kept a poker face and looked at the American without any show of emotion.

  “You’ve kept a copy of the unredacted Panama Files. I’m sure you have,” Smith hissed.

  “No idea what you’re talking about is what I have,” Mark said and looked at the departures monitor on the wall. “Oh, look, my train is leaving in five minutes.” Mark put his empty glass on the buffet and walked over to his armchair where he had left his things.

  He shouldered his Deuter rucksack, and as he walked past Smith, he looked into the American intelligence officer’s green eyes. “You know, if you had told me your real name, maybe things would be different between us. But like this, John Smith, fuck you.”

  “Mark, I mean well. You stuck your neck out for the Poles, specifically for your friend. I truly admire your courage. On top of that, your father’s nation is grateful for what you did,” Smith could not finish the sentence.

  Mark raised his hand. “Fuck my father’s nation, and fuck you,” he said. “Smith, I stuck so much more out than just my neck, to make the world a better place. My father’s nation, your United States of America, represented by you, held me back from doing the right thing.”

  “Mark, it would have been the end of the world. Literally,” Smith said as he pulled Mark close so that he would not be heard by too many people.

  Mark tore his arm out of Smith’s grip and looked the American in the eyes. “As I said, I don’t even know your real name. So why the fuck should I listen to you?”

  Mark left and once out of the lounge, he started jogging toward track number five to catch his train.

  Smith stood at the buffet for a moment. He looked at his half-empty glass, then held it below the tap and pulled some fresh beer. Foam flowed over the rim of the glass and Smith gave up. He put the glass next to his first unsuccessful attempt, then nodded to his subordinate with the Financial Times.

  Smith walked out of the lounge. The sliding doors with the red DB-logo closed behind him and his escort. For a second, Smith stood still, hands on his hips. His suit jacket was unbuttoned. He pursed his lips, took a deep breath through the nose and blew out the air through his mouth.

  “You chose this source’s codename, right? Defiant is a good fit,” the FT reader said to Smith.

  A group of chatting and giggling teenage girls waddled around Smith and his subordinate. Their cheap trolley suitcases in irritating colors made even more irritating ratatat noises on the tiled station.

  ✽✽✽

  The light KamAZ truck painted in Russian camouflage pattern moved slowly through the late-afternoon traffic on A79. It had just passed a French-owned hypermarché and stoically made its way toward the front near Warka about 50 kilometers south of Warsaw. The driver was a forty-something sergeant named Oleg Ivanovich.

  On the two passenger seats sat much younger men in Spetsnaz uniforms. The bat logo on their right arm was clearly visible, the red-and-white armband on their left arm had been crumpled up so that it was hardly noticeable at all. Bombel kept his suppressed Glock 17 between his knees. Laska rested his head against the window, sometimes he also gave his eyes a little rest.

  “You know, you don’t have to keep the gun handy at all times,” Oleg said in Russian. “I said I would do as you told me, my word is good as gold, comrade.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Oleg. The word of a traitor is never good.” Bombel made little effort to stay on the good side of the Russian.

  “Da, da, don’t take it personally. You don’t take it personally if I call you a little fuck, you little fuck,” Oleg grunted back. “I’m the one who got betrayed. I only became a traitor because I was betrayed first. Those fuckers told me that even I could become an officer and make a career and be a respected person in the new society. Blyad, I should have started trading stolen car parts like my cousin. He has a house, a wife, a girlfriend, three kids. Four kids, actually. They call him mafia in our village, which is a title of honor compared to what they call me.” Oleg needed to let off some steam and justify his actions to himself.

  “What do they call you?” Bombel faked interest.

  “Idiot is what they call me,” Oleg sneered and continued his tale of a life wasted in military service.

  Bombel decided to let the man ramble. He realized the Russian had to get a grip on his betrayal of the rodina and Bombel knew that what he said was true. This man had been duped out of a better life when someone had told him to stay in the armed forces after his two-year conscription and had promised a future that was unlikely to materialize. He also realized he had to keep the man happy, they would be asking more favors from him in the next weeks.

  “Look, I apologize. We appreciate what you’re doing, Oleg,” he said with a consoling voice. “Our first payment was testament to that. And you will receive more when we and our cargo have reached our destination. After the war you can stay in Poland, our General Staff promised me that, and I promised it to you.” Bombel put the gun into his belt and squeezed the Russian’s right arm. “You’re a good man, and you’re doing a good thing.”

  Oleg took his foot off the gas as they approached the checkpoint near a bend in the highway. Two T-73 tanks stood at an angle with their turrets turned south toward Polish-held territory. Between the tanks, two light trucks, just like Oleg’s blocked the way. He slowly rolled up to the roadblock, and with a tip on the middle pedal, the vehicle stopped. Its hydraulic brakes hissed.

  “This is the front, Comrade Sergeant,” the young conscript with the AK-74 dangling across his chest told Oleg. He had climbed up the footboard on the driver’s side to get a better look at the passengers.

  “I know, malchik, boy, I have orders to bring these men and their cargo to a service road in the forest about half a kilometer south of this position,” Oleg said matter-of-factly.

  “There was no advance inform
ation on SemFoNi about such a transport. Without orders, I cannot let you pass, comrade Sergeant. We have strict orders to keep the checkpoint closed,” the youngster droned on.

  Bombel leaned over Oleg’s body and handed the conscript a piece of paper with Cyrillic writing on it. He made sure that the bat logo of the Spetsnaz GRU on his right arm showed. Then he looked the conscript in the eyes and spoke very quietly, very slowly. He had memorized his speech beforehand. “Here are our orders, I am sharing this information strictly on a need to know basis, Comrade. You will let us pass your checkpoint, unload our cargo and men at the target destination south of your position, and then you will let this man from the 2nd Automobile Battalion pass back and return to his unit unmolested. There will be no calls to anybody, no logs of this crossing, and certainly no more delays. Our mission is of the utmost importance to the security of our troops in Poland.”

  The young soldier grew paler with every sentence Bombel uttered. The unclear accent of the threatening-looking man did not bother him much. GRU, especially the Spetsnaz employ many mercenaries from former East Bloc countries like Serbia, Georgia, and Moldova. The man might well be a Serb. He took a quick look at the piece of paper which also featured the bat logo of the GRU special forces. He handed the paper back and stepped off the footboard. He motioned to two other conscripts leaning on the first truck blocking the way. Apparently, he told them to open up and let this transport pass.

  ✽✽✽

  Mark wanted another beer but stopped himself. He would be home in less than two hours, and he thought of preparing a quick dinner. Plus, he did not want the young Polish student Ofelia had hired as a baby sitter to smell his beer breath. While he would never be so stupid to hit on her, he still wanted her to find him attractive. A middle-aged man’s aimless vanity, what is that even good for? Mark normally mused on a little longer about such philosophical questions. Today, though, the attacks in Poland occupied his mind.

  All through the train ride, he tried to put the pieces together. Smith had said that the Territorials he had helped get out of Poland were an important part of the effort to win the country back from the Russians. So the Americans were in the know, possibly they were part of an offensive that may have started even on this day with the killing of Startsev.

  The attacks were apparently coordinated. Small independent terrorist cells, amateurs like the Irish Republican Army or the German Red Army Faction would hardly be able to get their hands on automatic weapons and RPGs so quickly and then strike effectively on such a scale. This was a planned effort by a state-sponsored guerilla army.

  The Russians had aimed at cooling off and possibly freezing this conflict like they had done earlier in Georgia, Moldova, and East Ukraine. But the Poles, and Mark guessed, the Americans as well, seemed to reignite the conflict. Mark quickly came to the conclusion that running this war with only a guerrilla army, even if they had tens of thousands operating in the occupied territory, would not be enough to drive the Russians out. Mark had briefly studied the history of the Armia Krajowa during his time in Warsaw University’s summer school. While they had killed tens of thousands of SS and Wehrmacht soldiers, they had failed to expel the Nazis from Warsaw.

  Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the conflicts in these countries had dragged on for years with hundreds of thousands dying on both sides. Both the Russians and the Americans had their history with long-lasting and bloody insurgencies. Neither the occupants nor the occupied ever emerged out of this kind of conflict as a winner. There would only be losers.

  Mark felt his guts wrench at the thought. The only way this war could end without too much harm to Poland was if the NATO members finally stopped sitting on their thumbs and put together a strong force to drive the Russians out. Maybe a strong show of force and an open door would be enough for the Russians to accept a peace treaty.

  ✽✽✽

  “This is it, malchiki, boys,” Oleg said. The KamAZ stood at the end of a service road in the middle of the forest.

  “Thank you, Oleg,” Bombel said. “Please turn the truck around, so we can unload facing the forest.”

  Laska got out of the truck to give directions. Oleg expertly K-turned the truck on the narrow dirt road. When he was done, Laska opened the lid in the back. Two other soldiers in captured Spetsnaz uniforms jumped out. Bombel joined the trio, and together they unloaded two coffin-sized wooden boxes. Bombel closed the lid of the load bed and banged on it twice. He waved to Oleg who was visible in the rear view mirror. The Russian also waved, and the truck slowly moved back the way it had come.

  Once the truck had vanished behind a bend, Laska and one of the other soldiers opened the lid of one of the boxes.

  Agnieszka Berka emerged from the box, she sat up and squinted her eyes which had endured complete darkness for hours. She also took off the oxygen mask that had assisted her breathing during the uncomfortable journey. She watched as the soldiers opened the second box to check her father’s pulse and respiration. She hoped that this was her last trip in a coffin in the next five or six decades.

  The soldiers closed the lid on the president’s box again, and all four started carrying their supreme commander down a narrow walking path. Agnieszka followed them, silently worrying about her father’s health.

  ✽✽✽

  “I really want to write an angry post to the editor. They still call them terrorists even though they are Polish military. The TDF are a regular branch of service,” Ofelia voiced her feelings toward the German media’s categorizations again. She had never gotten over the terminology the German state TV used to describe the Russian invasion.

  Mark silently agreed.

  After the eight o’clock news, another special report was hastily scheduled to replace the airing of an episode of the third season of Babylon Berlin. He and Ofelia chose to watch the special, they hoped to get information that might tell them something about Michał’s fate.

  “The objective of this attack is still unclear. It was well known that the ambassador and his senior staff would be attending the Russia Day celebrations,” the reporter standing in front of the embassy said. The remains of the Ford were just transported off with a military flatbed truck. “While the Kremlin claims, this was an assassination attempt gone wrong, rumors emerged that President Sebastian Berka had been held hostage somewhere in the mission. The president had been missing since the start of the war,” the reporter continued.

  “What the fuck is going on? Do you think, the Russians held Berka hostage?” Ofelia asked her husband shaking her head in disbelief.

  Mark blew some air out. “No idea, I would think there was some sort of protocol prohibiting this. Maybe there is some rule in the Geneva conventions or something.”

  “The Kremlin has condemned the attacks as cowardly murders of young men and women,” the voice droned from the TV.

  Mark turned it off.

  ✽✽✽

  The 32nd Command and Control Center of the Polish Air Force is a nondescript square building surrounded by high trees next to Kraków’s John Paul II airport. Officially it is part of the 8th Transport Aviation Base, few knew that one week ago it was repurposed as the temporary General Staff building. Its modern communications infrastructure, previously used to manage the Polish contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the centerpiece of the Polish effort to free the northern part of the country.

  General Bilinski stormed into Bonifacy Pułaski’s ready room without knocking. “Success, Panie Generale, they’ll arrive in the hospital in Radom within the next ten minutes,” he shouted with excitement. “Both, the president and his daughter are physically unharmed.”

  “Fantastic, Bilinski. This is great news, and an important win in this war,” the Chief of General Staff got up and shook the Head of Military Intelligence’s hand. “Let’s go and share the good news with the men and women who have worked so hard to achieve it.”

  “Panie Generale, there is however a problem with the president’s psychological health,” Bilins
ki added and curbed his superior’s enthusiasm. “The soldiers who found them had to sedate him. He was very agitated and did not seem to understand that they were a rescue team.”

  Pułaski frowned and took a deep breath. “Alright, then, let’s congratulate our troops on the win and keep it quiet otherwise until we’ve assessed the president’s fitness for office.”

  He remembered what the constitution states for the case of an incapacitated head of state or the office falling vacant. Temporarily, the president would be replaced by the Marszałek Sejmu, the speaker of the lower house of parliament. But the Marshal of the Sejm was missing. Next in line was the Marshal of the Senat, the speaker of the upper house, who was dead.

  He had shot a Russian soldier when they had dragged him out of bed. The somewhat paranoid single man had slept with an old Makarov under his pillow since the 1980s. While he managed to shoot one soldier, another immediately opened fire and killed the politician with three rounds to the chest.

  The Marshal of the Sejm would have to order new elections within fourteen days. That deadline would lapse this very day. Even though the Marshal was missing, the MPs who had made it out of Warsaw would insist on putting some sort of process into motion.

  Pułaski prayed for the president’s mental health as he walked the corridor toward the command center. He needed a legitimate and strong political leadership. Otherwise, his plan to regain full sovereignty would fail. Weeks of debates and elections would slow him down, time was of the essence.

  His staff and a professor of constitutional law from Jagiellonian University in Kraków had drawn up an alternative plan. They called it a ‘temporary military regime’ with Pułaski as the leader.

  He had hated that idea from the beginning. He would not want anything to do with it. Up until this point he had done everything to avoid it. The general remembered his father who had fought for democracy so hard and endured so many years of harassment by the communist regime. He surely would not want his son to become a dictator.