“Right over there, Bombel,” Laska directed his comrade toward the parking bay. “We’ll unload directly into the elevator. With the key, we can directly enter the apartment, and the elevator is programmed not to make any stops in between. Let’s keep our contact to the neighbors at a minimum.”
As the elevator doors opened, the four soldiers in disguise were astonished. Even though far from finished, the new penthouse impressed by its sheer size and the new, two-story windowfront. A spiral staircase led up to the rooftop deck.
Laska pushed the platform cart with the five long, black plastic boxes toward the windows. He slid open the two large doors leading out to the narrow French balcony and the tarp-covered scaffolding. The railing of the balcony was not yet fixed, so he stepped directly out on the planks. With his tactical knife, he cut a short slit into the tarpaulin.
Down on the grass strip of the Babice airfield, he saw six Mi-24 Hind gunships. They were currently outfitted with AT-6 Spiral anti-tank missiles by a ground crew. He could hear an airman curse as he struggled pushing the cart with a load of missiles across the grass. Two others ran across the field to help him.
“Direct line of sight to the choppers’ starboard doors,” Laska said. “Get set up. Looks like they’re almost done.”
The three others put on white-and-red armbands over their workers’ coveralls, and each pulled a black box from the cart. They put thin foam mattresses on the floor next to the windows and pulled the parts of their Sako TRG-22 sniper rifles out of the boxes. They assembled the rifles calmly and loaded the box magazines with 7.62 mm NATO rounds.
Laska cut four squares into the tarpaulin, each time he had to check that the hole was big enough to allow a shot at the intended target, even with the tarp moving in the wind. He checked the wind conditions and relayed them to his team. Then, he went to assemble his own Sako while his squad pushed and pulled their mats into place and checked their telescopic sights.
As all four were in position, Laska reminded them, “Make sure to get the pilot as he enters his bubble. The door he uses is the only way to identify him, but once he’s inside our rounds can’t touch him. Those things are flying tanks.”
“What about the Stinger?” the man on the far right side asked.
“For emergencies only,” Laska replied. “Better get the crew, that’s their real weak point. No pilot, no sortie. We know they are spread thin, at worst they have one or two surplus crews resting somewhere near here.”
“The szef is right, we have a chance to get out of here alive by keeping a low profile,” Bombel reminded his less experienced comrades. “Once we fire that Stinger, even their dumbest airman will know where we hide out.”
“All right, in position,” Laska ordered his men. “Everbody has sight of their assigned target? Confirm one and two.”
The men confirmed the choppers they were assigned with a number from left to right. The experienced men, Laska and Bombel, had two each. The newbies each had one target to cover, numbers five and six, respectively.
“Fire at will.”
✽✽✽
Mark sat on a concrete bollard playing with his phone and looking left and right down Motzstraße in intervals. He watched people walking to and from nearby Nollendorfstraße U-Bahn station. Every now and then it was a pretty girl, and his eyes lingered a little longer than usual. Berlin is only beautiful in summer, he thought.
After an hour, though, he grew somewhat impatient and asked himself whether or not he should call Svetlana and see how she was doing?
She came back out of the building just as he was struggling with the decision. “It’s him alright,” she said and raised her right hand for a high-five.
“Well done, Sherlock,” Mark replied with a smile and returned the high-five. “When do we start?”
“That’s the big question. He is holed in up there, security cameras everywhere. It took me twenty minutes to make him open the door,” Mlada said with an annoyed expression on her face. “He doesn’t trust anyone. While I was in there, he constantly got messages about the riot police violence. The situation in the big Russian cities, Moscow especially, is closer to a revolution than ever.”
Mark slapped his right fist into his left palm. “That’s it. Time’s right for us to move.”
“Agreed,” Mlada said.
“Then we need to go up there and make him come on board. We need to do this now.” Mark moved toward the house, Mlada grabbed him by the elbow.
“He needs a little time. Let’s talk in the car,” Mlada said. “I’ve found us a nice Mini around the corner,” she said waving her smartphone and lead the way.
Once they were moving, she relayed her conversation with Dernov to Mark. The Russian entrepreneur feared to become the target of an assassination like Skripal or Litvinenko. He was living on canned food and tap water currently so no one could possibly poison him. At least not without killing the whole neighborhood. He had also considered running, but he had figured being on the move, he was too exposed. He could be shot or taken while in the open. The whole story unfolded too quickly for him to use his pre-arranged exit routes.
That made Mark think briefly about the viability of his own exit plans.
“He did understand that we offer him the silver bullet, right?” Mark asked while they drove back toward Prenzlauer Berg. “If we do this, the people he is afraid of are going to run themselves. Just like Yanukovich. Once exposed for what they are, the kleptocrats will lose their power.”
“He understood that. I gave him a sample of our wares. I explained our line of reasoning. He told me he thinks it might work.”
“What else does he need to go ahead?” Mark asked.
“Time.”
Mark closed his eyes and said nothing.
“He needs to trust us first. It might all be an elaborate scam to lure him out into the open,” the hacker explained. “Just give him a day to check me out. I told him I was friends with his former roommate. I also told him to check with the C-Base crowd, and I gave him my contact info.”
✽✽✽
“Panie Generale, we just received ready status from all units in the field, also the stay behind operatives. We are ready to strike,” the duty officer, a captain, said from behind his desk. Generals Pułaski and Bilinski acknowledged with a nod.
“So we fight for the people of Poland and the people of Europe. For our freedom, and for theirs,” Pułaski shouted to the command center crew while Bilinski started giving orders and set the war machine into motion.
At sunset on June 19th the decisive offensive war began. If successful, they would retake Poznań and Warsaw. If not, Poland would remain a divided country robbed of its primary industrial centers, with a population scattered in all four winds and in constant danger of being attacked again.
Forty-Three
The sun had just set in Berlin. The house on Am Kupfergraben was all quiet. The souvenir shop in the souterrain had closed at eight p.m., some windows were lit, some were open to let in fresh evening air. The impressive Pergamon Museum across the canal was lit as usual. Its mighty roman columns looked as if they were a thousand years old.
The house itself was quite usual for Berlin, high windows that hinted at high ceilings, a beige façade, and a door opening system with a camera in a brass casing polished to a shine. Unusual were only the two policemen on station in front of the house round the clock.
They were not very impressive, a near-retirement cop with a slight obesity problem and a young woman with just the opposite problem. They did not wear body-armor, their primary task seemed to be confirming to tourists that the Bundeskanzlerin actually did live in this building. They answered truthfully that yes, she did live here and yes, that was her principal residence. When asked whether she was at home, they respectfully declined to answer.
The gay flutes of a Shostakovich piece sounded through the large topfloor condominium as the chancellor’s husband entered the living room with two glasses of white wine.
“This is the Ries
ling I told you about. It will lift your spirits, dear,” he said to the woman resting on the couch. He put one glass on the coffee table in front of her and sat down next to his tired wife.
“Thank you, that’s very sweet of you,” she replied and took the glass. “Only one glass. I will have to go to the study later. Maybe, I’ll even have to go back to the Chancellery. Things in Poland will develop tonight, so the BND told me.”
The Cisco phone next to the couch rang. The professor turned around and wrestled the receiver to his ear. The voice of the Russian president told him to hand over the phone to ‘her’.
“The Russian president for you,” he said as he got up from the couch and handed over the receiver. His wife made a tired expression and signaled him to give her the room. He turned off the music and left.
“Hallo,” she said into the mouthpiece.
“I thought, I had made myself clear,” the Russian said in German, still without any trace of an accent. He sounded controlled but angry. “I told you that I would consider any delivery of weapons or support of the Polish military an act of war.”
“Well, if you are referring to the International Brigade in Szczecin, you knew they were there when you attacked them,” she said.
“I’m not talking about your little parade brigade, they were finished on day one. I’m talking about the clandestine deliveries of C4, ammunition, and the infiltration of guerilla fighters across your border that has been going on for weeks.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Herr Präsident,” she said audibly tired. “And I am not willing to listen to more threats. Your troops are retreating, they don’t stand at our borders anymore. The way things are, you will have a very hard time trying to hurt us militarily. The Americans are shipping more troops in across the Atlantic, as you must know already. I might just let them cross through Germany more easily.”
“Don’t you dare threaten me, Madame Chancellor,” the president scoffingly said. “I could very easily let a mob loose on you that will make the French Revolution look like a kindergarten excursion.”
There was a moment of silence. The chancellor feared more civic unrest in Germany. After a series of terrorist attacks and murders by Arab refugees, many towns in East Germany had seen violent protests by right-wing groups a year earlier. She knew that Moscow’s clandestine services were running Syrian asylum-seekers as agents in Germany and that the SVR’s troll army had the power to pour an unlimited supply of fuel to any fire the Russian-steered agents provocateurs might start in Germany.
“Well, there might be a simple solution for our problem without us getting anymore agitated,” the president said.
The chancellor listened quietly.
“We are currently identifying the Polish couriers and their contacts in Germany. We will then deploy a small force of operators to apprehend them. All I need from you is to let them do their work.”
The chancellor closed her eyes and breathed in and out audibly.
“You are asking me to give permission for your intelligence agencies to hunt down people in Germany. Did I understand correctly? Is that what you are asking?”
“Either that or the alternative we discussed earlier,” the president said adamantly. “This is my only offer.”
“I will think about it,” the chancellor sighed, got up, and put the receiver back onto the cradle.
✽✽✽
Mark Sander’s phone chirped just as he wanted to climb into bed. He walked back to the corridor to read Svetlana’s TLKS message. The message was ‘He’s in. We’ll go to see him first thing in the morning. Meet me 8 a.m. at Nollendorfplatz station. U2 platform’.
Ofelia and Xandi were both fast asleep. Mark did not want to wake them. Yet, he felt too excited not to celebrate. He pulled the charger from the phone and went to the living room. He helped himself to a glass of rum from the bottle of the twelve-year-old Ron Abuelo he had brought back from Panama all those years ago.
He sat on the couch and looked at the smooth, mahogany liquid in the tumbler. He smelled its aroma, a strong caramel and leather scent with a hint of orange. Then finally, he took the bottle in his left hand, tilted it and through the dark tinted glass he looked at the pitiful rest at the bottom. It was shot glass’ worth of rum. Maybe less.
“Who would have guessed that this bottle would last longer than the kleptocrats? Not me,” he whispered with a chuckle.
✽✽✽
It sounded just like distant thunder. The artillery aiming at Russian positions in southern Warsaw could also be heard through the single pane windows of the former elementary school turned into a barracks for the occupation army. Colonel Popov had already banged on the door at the end of the long corridor multiple times. He grew impatient. The door opened slowly and revealed a slightly disoriented Captain Smagin.
“Comrade Colonel,” he saluted sloppily wearing nothing but his striped undershirt and shorts.
“Smagin, pack up. We are redeploying to Berlin,” the colonel barked and walked off.
Smagin looked after him as he walked down the dark corridor. Cool, I hoped Berlin would be next, Smagin thought suddenly reanimated, closed the door and started packing his duffle.
✽✽✽
“Are we going to do it on the quiet like the Babice job?” one of the newbies asked Laska from the van’s back seat. They had all got their man and before the Russians even knew where the snipers had fired from they were back in the van and on their way to the safe house.
“I liked it quiet, but not tonight,” Laska answered. “This one’s going to be louder. We’ll use the Stinger to down an airplane.” He continued to brief his three comrades.
The plan was to go to Grabów on the outskirts of the capital. The village lies just south of the Słuzewiec racecourse and south-east of Chopin airport. Planes taking off from either one of the two runways would fly over the place. Either little ways to the north or to the south. A crew with MANPADs sitting quietly on a field near there could adapt to any change of runway quickly.
They were after a specific plane, a Tupolev Tu-154M painted red-and-green, the Belarusian national colors. According to their intelligence service, the complete Belarusian General Staff were on board that plane. They would fly back to Minsk after consultations with the Russian theater commander in Warsaw. If they had made agreements to support the Russians openly with men and materiel, their war would not last very long, it would end right there on a field near Grabów.
✽✽✽
“We’ll fly piggyback with a Belarusian government plane to Minsk and catch a civilian flight to Vienna from there, then another civilian flight to Berlin,” Colonel Popov explained to Smagin in the back of the Tigr. Shashka sat in the passenger seat and listened with one ear.
“We’ll need papers, no?” Smagin asked.
“Once in Minsk, we will be issued with Belarusian diplomatic passports, new names and all. You have until Vienna to get acquainted with your legend, your new self,” the Colonel continued. “Our team will be reinforced by civilian contractors already in the country.”
“Civilian contractors?”
“Yes, twenty Volking Group mercenaries. We use them from time to time. Former Spetsnaz, all of them. Some even have the German nationality and can stay inside the EU indefinitely as well as travel without visa restrictions to almost every country in the world.”
“The world’s most powerful passport,” Smagin said speculating that some of these mercenaries probably had a Kazakh-German great-grandmother or were born in East Germany as children of a Red Army father and a German mother. Those family histories usually got one a German naturalization certificate quite quickly.
The colonel did not comment on the remark. Instead, he continued his briefing. “Your job, Bravlin, will be to identify and locate the Polish operators in Germany. The embassy has more than enough empty space. We will be given a whole floor for our operations, and another for quarters. The SVR rezydentura will let you use their infrastructure, you s
hould find everything you need.”
“And then Shashka and the mercenaries go hunt the people like they did in Warsaw, yes?” Smagin asked the obvious question.
“Yes, only we will have to be much more discreet than in Warsaw. We are not at war with Germany.” He leaned forward and spoke up. “Shashka, since most of the mercenaries will keep a low profile anyway, I just need you and your specialists to fully understand what low profile means. Civilian clothes, discreet Kevlar vests, small arms only, and no exploding rooftops.”
The sergeant major turned around. “Da, understood, Comrade Colonel.”
The Tigr overtook a white van on ulica Wołoska and then passed a checkpoint right in front of a giant shopping mall just before Rondo Unii Europejskiej, the European Union roundabout.
✽✽✽
“Okay, this will be the one obstacle to get past tonight. Remember our story, we are a work crew going home after an extra shift our asshole boss had made us work. We painted the walls of his private residence,” Laska said audibly nervous as they neared the checkpoint just before Rondo Unii Europejskiej.
Two Russian trucks formed a small maze through which passing vehicles would have to crawl. A Gaz Tigr with a Kord 12.7 mm heavy machine gun stood in front of the first truck. A conscript pointed it right at the van’s cab. Another soldier with an AK-74 resting on his heavy body armor raised his left hand and signaled the van to stop. Bombel slowed, stopped, and lowered the window.
“No passing,” the soldier said in heavily accented Polish.
Bombel suspected he only knew some standard phrases. “We come from work and want to go home in Ursynów,” he said very slowly.
“No passing,” the soldier said and made a ‘turn around’ gesture with his right hand.
Laska got slightly nervous and explained their cover story in Russian. He dumbed down his grammar and inserted some Polish and Ukrainian words to keep up the plausible assumption that he was a clever crew chief who picked up some words during the six weeks of occupation.
Another Man's Freedom Fighter Page 39