Another Man's Freedom Fighter

by Joseph Carter

  President Sebastian Berka had been transferred here from the Masovian General Hospital after the doctors there had assessed his physical state. After a series of X-rays, MRIs, a blood panel, and a thorough check of all vital organs, the physicians had realized that there was not much they could do for him. They gave him saline solution via an IV and a few vitamin shots to strengthen his weak physique.

  The senior physician strongly suggested not to move him too much in his current state. Taking him to the Kraków University Hospital was too long a drive. He was suffering from an unspecified psychosis, probably hallucinations of various forms. That state needed immediate treatment but taking him on a road trip for another three hours in the presence of armed soldiers was too much after all he had been through. They had also refused to sedate him for the trip. The dose he had been given by the Territorials to make him sleep through the exfiltration in a wooden box on a Russian KamAZ truck was very close to a lethal level. A healthy younger man might have easily taken it. This nutrition and sleep deprived middle-aged man, though, could have suffered complications and eventually have died.

  The doctors’ strong recommendation was to keep him at the psychiatric hospital for a day or two, see what the professionals there could find out about his state and start treatment.

  Two Tarpan MPVs slowly crawled up to the iron gate. Their headlights were taped off, and only slits illuminated the guard house and the blue-and-white sign outside the fence. A private got out and jogged up to the guard house.

  “Proszę Pana, the Chief of General Staff Generał Pułaski to see the president,” the young man announced to the completely dumbfounded retiree.

  “The who?” the old man asked.

  “The president, proszę Pana. Please call whoever is in charge around here and let us pass through the gate,” the soldier grew somewhat impatient.

  “Right, I will call the night-time nurse,” the guard murmured, put the newspaper aside, and dialed a single digit on the keypad of the gray telephone. Five minutes later, the Tarpans were inside the compound and parked outside the main entrance.

  ✽✽✽

  General Roman Konstantinovich Kuvayev sat with his elbows resting on his desk, his face buried in his hands. He had just sat through a meeting with his senior officers, the Warsaw rezydent and the ambassador slash high commissioner also had joined by video-conference.

  The mighty Russian Armed Forces had been dealt a horrible and very public blow this day. That was bad. Even worse, neither SVR nor GRU had any idea how this could have happened. There had been no warnings, no prior knowledge of a clandestine organization with such a high level of effectiveness.

  It’s not that they did not expect an insurgency, in fact, most of their scenarios predicted armed insurgents to blow up a building or kill a patrol in the first four weeks. They expected the losses by guerrilla attacks to gradually rise with time. This assessment was one of the reasons they insisted on quickly ending the state of war.

  But a coordinated attack in multiple cities with assault rifles and RPGs, losses in the thousands in only one day, that had been beyond their imagination.

  Come morning, the president would demand a background briefing and an action plan. Dealing with the president directly was new to him. He knew that the former KGB officer did not look kindly upon incomplete information or indecisiveness. Kuvayev had nothing to tell him. Kuvayev needed a plan, badly.

  ✽✽✽

  The president was sleeping when his Chief of General Staff arrived at the psychiatric hospital. The doctors insisted that he must not be disturbed. It was his first unassisted sleep cycle after being dragged out of isolation by armed soldiers. That these soldiers were his and there to rescue him from further torture was of little consequence for his psyche. He was deeply traumatized by the isolation and the violence. The over-dosed drugs added to his problems.

  General Pułaski did not have the time the president would need to fully recover, but he saw that his supreme commander would need a good night’s sleep before he could join the fight. If he was deemed unfit for office, Pułaski’s plan might be shredded to pieces by the remaining political pundits.

  Pułaski made use of the waiting time. He could not find sleep anyway. He set up a temporary office in the cafeteria where most of the special forces soldiers detailed to the president’s protection were resting when not on patrol. He asked for Berka’s wife and daughter to be awoken. He would want to talk to them and see how they, together, could help the president to get fit.

  Kamila Berka was in her late forties, a high school teacher, and she looked the part. Short blond hair, a stern face, without makeup she looked even stricter than usual. Pułaski’s wife had once said she looked very much like Claire Underwood on House of Cards. She also said characterwise the two were also quite alike.

  The general had no idea what that meant, but Pułaski knew her from the various official occasions and had always had the impression that she was a well educated, no-nonsense woman.

  He very much wanted to meet the daughter, too. She, too, had been held hostage, and while she might not know any of the plans, she might still be able to give him a first-hand impression of how the Russians behaved. Did she think they were under pressure? How did they treat her? Did they try to use her to put pressure on the president? An agent of AW and a captain from military intelligence had already debriefed her. Pułaski had read the report, but first-hand accounts always give a much richer picture than two pages of dry, filtered commentary.

  The general knocked at the door to room 102 on the second floor. He entered when a woman’s voice said, “Please, come in.”

  “Pani Berka, I am sorry to disturb you at this hour,” Pułaski said with his hat in his left hand. He held out his right to the first lady. She got up from the chair in the corner of the room and shook the general’s hand with a tight grip.

  “Thank you for getting my husband and daughter back to me alive,” she said. “Even though I wish Sebastian were in a better condition.”

  “Yes, I heard he is in a bad place.”

  “I’ve never seen him like that, he is not himself, he suffers from near-constant anxiety, paranoia, he refuses to let the nurses give him food. If it doesn’t come from Agnieszka or me, he won’t eat it. We were glad that he fell asleep without drugs just before midnight. The doctors said it was a good sign that he allowed the exhaustion to take over.”

  “Yes, that sounds like a good first step,” the general said. As the door opened, he turned around.

  Agnieszka Berka came in, her long blond hair was slightly wet.

  “Aga, so good you came,” Kamila Berka said. “Please meet Generał Bonifacy Pułaski, the Chief of General Staff.”

  “Very pleased to meet you,” the general said with a nod and held out his hand.

  Agnieszka shook it with a firm grip and returned the pleasantry.

  “I’m glad you are well,” Pułaski said. “You went through quite an experience, being at the epicenter of a war.” The general hoped this would come out the right way, he was not really used to talking to young women anymore.

  “Yes, it was terrible at first but, I don’t know, at some point, I just decided to get through this and do whatever is necessary to survive,” Agnieszka said without showing much emotion.

  Kamila Berka put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and kissed the back of her head.

  The general nodded, he said nothing.

  “Thank you for getting us out of there,” Agnieszka looked up at the general’s face. “I was treated alright most of the time, but my father probably wouldn’t have survived another week. The doctors told you what he is like, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. Actually, that’s my foremost concern at the moment. Please let me explain myself before I tell you more about the situation we, the nation, are in,” the general started his pre-arranged explanations. “Your husband, your father and I did not always agree. Especially lately, we had a few run-ins. I was very much opposed to using mi
litary assets to investigate the anthracite scandal. I also opposed the military solution of the East Ukraine crisis.” The old soldier made a short pause to let that sink in.

  “You made that abundantly clear when you refused the promotion to Marszałek Polski,” Kamila said with a slightly aggressive undertone.

  “Yes, that was the fall-out of our latest run-in. I’m sorry for the bad publicity, but that was my way of maintaining my personal integrity,” Pułaski made his case. “Anyhow, we now need a strong and united leadership to expel the invaders from our country.”

  Pułaski went on to explain what his working group had come up with regarding the constitutional issue. Kamila Berka was well aware of the fourteen-day deadline running out. Agnieszka caught up with the problem quickly, she had passed her course in constitutional law the previous semester.

  The general made clear that there were two ways of dealing with the problem. First, presenting a president to the world in the morning or second, proclaiming a temporary military regime with Pułaski as supreme commander, as a leader.

  “You can’t really think this military dictatorship is going to work,” Kamila exclaimed. “You of all people should know this is the road to hell.”

  Agnieszka looked at her mother not quite knowing what she meant.

  “I hate the idea,” Pułaski turned toward the window and looked out into the night. “My father would slap me in the face just for considering this solution.”

  “Well, there you go,” the first lady responded. “This is not an acceptable solution.”

  The general shook his head. “If you agree, I would like to call my assistant upstairs and then show you our plan to retake our country. Then I would like us to make a decision.”

  ✽✽✽

  Sergeant Major Sergei Ivanovich Krug stood at attention while the tall, brown-haired colonel walked around his bulky frame. It was 0630, and this talk was the first business of the day for both soldiers. Colonel Valeri Ivanovich Popov had just arrived in Warsaw a day earlier with the minister of defense. He had planned to merely congratulate his men from Spetsnaz GRU on their accomplishments, then go back to Moscow. Now, it seemed, he would be staying for a while to clean up the mess.

  “You know, I really had to stick my head out for you, Shashka,” he said like he was talking to a misbehaved youth. “It’s good that Kuvayev still remembered you from his own time in GRU. He helped me get your head out of the noose. Now his head is in the noose.”

  “I understand, Comrade Colonel,” Shashka replied. “Thank you, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Alright, be at ease, while I brief you on your new responsibilities. Your specialty is manhunts and de-briefing those persons of interest once apprehended. This is what you will be doing from now on.”

  “Thank you, Comrade Colonel,” Shashka said unemotionally.

  The colonel called in a GRU captain, he informed the colonel and Shashka about the latest insurgent activity. The first wave of attacks aimed at large gatherings of soldiers on Russia Day was without a doubt prepared by a highly professional organization. Coordinating attacks in multiple cities at almost the same time of day with automatic weapons, sniper rifles, military grade explosives, and a large, trained force is not something a few patriotic locals could achieve. Even though they would continue calling them terrorists, they knew they were dealing with the Polish Armed Forces operating behind their lines.

  The Poles had caught them by surprise. The Russians had made the mistake to read the quick withdrawal of the Polish forces as a sign of weakness when in fact it was a device to gain time and regroup.

  The second wave of attacks followed during the night after the first. In multiple cities, Russian materiel was sabotaged, mostly personnel carriers and other light combat vehicles. The Rzepin incident had been reported just a few hours earlier during the night. More reports of similar incidents came in from Pruszków, south of Warsaw, Luboń, south of Poznań, and Wolin island.

  In total, 157 combat vehicles had been rendered useless. The Russian losses in men amounted to 1,259. On the opposite side, fifteen had been killed, and twenty-eight Territorial Defense Force soldiers and civilian associates had been taken prisoners.

  A rap at the door interrupted the captain mid-report.

  “Come,” Colonel Popov shouted.

  A sergeant entered, saluted, and reported. “Comrade Colonel, a report just in. There is massive fighting in the city of Świnoujście and on Wolin island. Insurgents have taken over the Świnoujście naval base and our defenses of the Świna river and canal. We currently have no control over the entrance to the Szczecin lagoon. Three transport vessels were ready to ship out this morning to bring back a new rotation of conscripts next week. The captains set sail as soon as the base was attacked, but they’re trapped inside the lagoon now.”

  The colonel went pale.

  The captain had his mouth open. Shashka stood there and listened dispassionately.

  The colonel shook his head in disbelief. “What’s the body count, soldier?”

  “About 800 dead when the report came in. The garrison was 2,600 strong, and we have no communications at this time,” the sergeant replied.

  Another sergeant came running along the long corridor, stopped at the colonel’s door, and breathlessly stepped into the room. He saluted and reported to the group. “Comrade Colonel, another report just in. Across the whole Bug river bridges were taken down. Domachewo, Brest, Kozlowichi, apparently by remotely detonated satchel charges. The key routes of resupply from the rodina.”

  “I know, blyad, what they are,” the colonel barked. “Are you telling me we are being attacked on a grand scale?”

  “Comrade Colonel, I don’t know,” the sergeant said.

  ✽✽✽

  “Nobody outside this room must know,” Pułaski told the two women, both sat on Kamila Berka’s bed now. The general sat very straight in the visitor’s chair, yet, the women on the high hospital bed looked down on him even in their crouched position. Both stared at the window, past the soldier.

  “I’m not sure at all. To be honest, I’m starting to like the plan of a military dictatorship more,” Kamila Berka said dumbfounded.

  The general had explained the military situation and his battle plan to the two women in the simplest terms possible. He had also made clear that the plan was already in motion and for the next phase to be successful would need a strong political and military leadership working hand in hand. Otherwise, the military alliances he had forged with the Americans, the British, the Danes, the two neighbors to the south, and in secret also the Bundeswehr might break apart before they even produced the first results.

  Agnieszka and Kamila Berka agreed that the Europeans would have a hard time getting their contribution to the war past their parliaments with Poland not having a leader. They also believed that they would not be able to get favorable votes in their parliaments to support a military regime. The Americans might be less sensitive as long as the temporary nature of military rule would be made very clear.

  The general had to concede that he had similar fears, yet, a military regime would at least give the country a clear direction and give decisive and fast orders to the military. This option, while a bad one, was still favorable to losing momentum on their currently very successful campaign through politicking inside the country and losing international support altogether.

  “You’re right, if our partners in Europe and America have no one to talk to, they will not talk,” Kamila agreed. “Worse, they will do nothing.”

  “So, what do we do, now,” Agnieszka asked her mother.

  “We give the world a Polish president,” the first lady said decisively.

  Thirty-One

  Six F-16 with the Polish checkerboard on their tailfins approached the North Sea coast from the south at subsonic speed. They carried Maverick air-to-surface missiles. Two unarmed Eurofighter Typhoon with the Iron Cross of the German Luftwaffe painted on their fuselages accompanied the squadron.

>   “Luftwaffe leader to Polish leader,” a voice came from the headset.

  “Copy, Luftwaffe leader,” the Polish major spoke into his mouthpiece.

  “This is where we leave you, best of luck,” the German pilot said on the radio. Officially, this was an escort from Spangdahlem airbase out of German airspace. Officially the Poles were relocating their fighters to an undisclosed alternate location in Denmark. The German pilots knew that for a relocation the Falcons were too heavily armed, they would get to see action, that was clear to the experienced pilots.

  “Copy that, Luftwaffe, thank you and auf Wiedersehen,” the Polish leader replied. The Typhoons dropped four-hundred feet and turned hard starboard to return to base in Kerpen near Cologne.

  The six Polish fighter jets also turned right and crossed the North Sea in a long curve. Thirty-five miles north of the German island of Sylt they reached land and crossed the Jutland peninsula from west to east.

  On the centrally located Royal Danish Air Force base Skrydstrup, an array of eighteen pneumatic catapults launched small unmanned aircraft. With their stubby wings and one of the three engines mounted above the aft fuselage, they looked like toy versions of the notorious V-1 flying bomb that terrorized London during World War II.

  The Do-DT25 UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, are almost 10 feet long. This version had a dolphin-like nose and was painted gray with the RDAF roundel, a red circle, on the sides. The Polish F-16s opened up their formation and widened the distances between the six aircraft. The drones locked onto their respective assigned F-16 accompanied by a series of beeps and three blinking dots on the pilot’s head-up display. Fighters and drones split into six new diamond formations.

  “Skrydstrup base to Polish leader, come in Polish leader,” another voice in the major’s headset called.