by Steve Berry
Free election.
What a mistake.
The whole thing was hard to imagine. Ministers, archbishops, vaivodes, castellans, and nobles gathered on vast meadows near Warsaw and arranged themselves into a circle. Contenders would send envoys who made presentations as to why their particular man should be king. Promises were extended. Lots of them. Disputes arose. Physical violence was common. Eventually a vote would be taken and the man with the highest count won.
Few other nations in the world chose its ruler in such a bizarre way.
It reflected the Poles’ strong belief in individual freedom and hatred of central authority. But the whole thing turned out to be disastrous. Kings, by definition, were meant to be independent and rule absolutely. But Polish kings were totally beholden to the nobles who elected them. Even worse, they had to abide by the promises they made to get elected. If they reneged, the nobles had the right to withdraw their allegiance.
The results from such insanity were predictable.
Monarchs became weak and ineffective. Most were not even Polish, as the tendency became to choose a foreigner with no local roots or connections. Those strangers cared little for the Polish nation, which led to countless unnecessary conflicts both foreign and domestic. Civil wars raged. The time between the death of one monarch and the election of the next eventually evolved into years, which caused even more unrest. In turn the power of the landowning nobles increased. They worked hard to keep the country rural, stifling the growth of cities and preventing the emergence of a middle class. None of which proved productive.
Corruption became institutionalized.
The Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliamentary representatives, grew in strength and stature, all at the further expense of the king, retaining for itself the final decisions on legislation, taxation, and foreign policy.
Nothing became law without their approval.
Then the liberum veto delivered the coup de grâce.
I freely forbid.
One member of the Sejm could stop any piece of legislation.
All votes had to be unanimous.
Even more incredible, if they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on an issue within six weeks, the time limit of a single session, their deliberations were declared void and all previous acts of that session, even if passed and approved, were annulled.
What insanity.
The liberum veto brought Poland to near collapse.
Good judgment finally prevailed and it was abolished in 1791. But far too late, as the Polish nation itself was dissolved four years later.
Thank goodness things had changed. But some of the bad tendencies remained. Poland still had a hard time moving forward. And still faced constant interference from foreigners.
Jak cię widzą, tak cię piszą.
How they see you, that’s how they perceive you.
An old Polish saying that still rang true.
The door in the suite’s outer room opened. It was manned by two of his BOR men, on guard in the hall. The hotel had been most accommodating with his last-minute booking. Luckily, the Royal Wawel Suite had been available and sat on an upper floor, at the end of a long hall, away from the elevators, an easy matter to secure access. He stepped from the bedroom and saw Sonia, who’d returned from the castle.
“What happened?” he asked.
“It went perfectly. Cotton took the spear and made his escape.”
“Anyone alerted?”
She shook her head. “I personally handled it, with the guards none the wiser. They thought he was an intruder. I gave him just enough resistance to move him along, and he eventually fled the grounds through the Dragon’s Den.”
He chuckled. “How appropriate.”
He stepped over to the small bar that had been set up for his visit and poured two generous measures of Irish whiskey. They’d discovered a mutual admiration for the beverage, so he’d asked that a bottle be made available, hoping she’d be here at some point.
“Now the question is, will we learn the location of the auction?” he asked, offering her a glass and sipping from his own.
“We will. Cotton will make sure of that.”
They wanted Malone to take the spear. They’d implanted a GPS marker in the wooden box that protected it, which should lead them straight to the auction site.
“What do you mean, he’ll make sure we know?”
“Janusz, Cotton is no fool. He certainly realizes that we allowed him to take the spear. He might be a little upset over the fall he took, but he’ll get over it.”
“If he knows, why take it?”
“It’s America’s ticket in, and he wants us to follow. He’s headed into a blind situation, and he’s being used by Tom Bunch and President Fox. He stayed in this because of Stephanie Nelle. It’s the only reason he would. They used that loyalty to get him to steal the spear and they’ll use it to force him to go to the auction with Bunch. But he knows the Russians are not happy. That was made clear in Bruges. There could be trouble, so he’s going to need some help. That’s where we come in.”
“Sounds like you know this man well.”
“He’s a pro. He’d also dealt with Ivan before. So he knows the man is not trustworthy. Cotton has to assume that the Russians are not telling us everything. Especially the auction location. So he’ll lead us there.”
“You have great respect for him.”
“Still jealous?”
“And what if I were?” he asked her.
“I’d say it’s a strange reaction from a married man.”
He appraised her with a cautious gaze, the whiskey warming his chest. “Why are you with me?”
He genuinely wanted to know.
“I work for you.”
“That’s not an answer, and you know it. Do you love me?”
He’d never asked her that question before.
“I do.”
Her admission pleased him. “I love you, too.”
She enjoyed more of the whiskey. “Was any of that in doubt?”
“Not doubt. But this whole thing is complicated.”
She smiled. “That it is. But isn’t the problem of this auction a bit more pressing than our personal lives?”
“They’re both important to me.”
He’d not felt so vulnerable to a woman in a long time. Yes, he was still married and the country would disapprove. The church would disapprove. His wife? Only if the press discovered any of it would she care. Thankfully, his security team was discreet and understanding. And now he found himself inside a magnificent suite, with a beautiful woman he loved, night firmly embraced outside, the day over.
Another saying came to mind.
Nie chwal dnia przed zachodem słońca.
Don’t praise the day before sunset.
First, though, he wanted to know, “Will there be any mention of the theft?”
She nodded. “The castle is releasing a statement about the break-in, saying they are still determining what, if anything, may have been taken. The director was told this is a national security matter and secrecy is necessary. He’s the only one who knows that we planned it all. I assured him the spear would be returned within two days.”
“If we lose it, there’s going to be trouble.”
“I know. I’ll get it back.”
“Along with what’s being auctioned on me?”
“That too.”
He finished his drink and laid their glasses down. “Where is the box being tracked?”
She nodded. “Only on my phone.”
“And nothing more will be happening tonight?”
She shrugged. “I doubt it. But we’ll keep an eye on it.”
He took her into his arms.
“How about we both do that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Cotton found the U.S. consulate, located on a side street not far from Kraków’s main square. A message on his phone indicated he was to go there after leaving the castle. He still carried the woo
den box containing the Spear of St. Maurice, the walk over through the night crowd uneventful.
Two marines stood guard at the main entrance. Three American flags hanging from the stone above waved an indolent welcome. The soldiers opened the door as he approached, obviously briefed to expect him. Inside, he was ushered past the metal detector and up a steep flight of stairs to a second-floor office where Stephanie and Bunch waited.
He laid the box on a desk.
“Well done,” Bunch said, a smile on his face.
Stephanie did not appear to be as pleased.
Bunch called for a screwdriver, brought by an eager young man, which he used to remove the top. Inside lay a dull-pointed iron spearhead, about twenty inches long and three inches wide. Its color reminded Cotton of battleship gray. The tattered remnants of a copper sleeve wrapped its midsection, partially covering an aperture chiseled from the top third of the blade. He knew it once harbored a nail, like the Spear of Destiny in Vienna, but the spike was gone. At its lower end were two wings, above which stretched a crisscross of wire. Below that was the round receptacle that once attached it to a lance.
Bunch lifted out the artifact. “You think it might actually be the spear that pierced Christ?”
He couldn’t resist. “Does a big white bunny bring candy to kids on Easter?”
Bunch wasn’t amused. “I take it you are not a religious man.”
“I’m a practical man. No piece of iron, two thousand years old, would have survived this intact.”
“Why not? It’s possible.”
Actually, it wasn’t. But he decided not to argue.
He did notice the clear disparity between this spear and the one on display in Vienna. Though similar in size and shape, that Spear of Destiny had a more pronounced oval aperture chiseled from its center where a forged iron pin still rested. Supposedly a nail from the crucifixion. A bright-gold sheath protected it. Lots of testing had been performed on the Vienna spear, which had revealed that it definitely had been forged, not molded, and its size was a bit large for those used by the Roman army at the time. Metallurgy testing dated the iron to long after Christ.
But who knew?
It was all a matter of faith.
Something he’d never had much of.
Bunch replaced the spear in the box. “That’s the safest place for it.”
On that Cotton agreed.
Bunch sat at the desk, faced an open laptop, and began typing. He then hit one final button and said, “I just RSVP’d to the auction.”
The laptop immediately dinged, indicating an incoming message.
That was fast.
Had to be an auto reply.
Bunch read it, then turned the screen around so Cotton and Stephanie could see.
THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING. PLEASE EMAIL AN IMAGE OF YOUR ARTIFACT TO THIS ADDRESS. THEN HAVE YOUR TWO REPRESENTATIVES AT THE MAIN BRANCH OF THE TATRA MUSEUM IN ZAKOPANE AT 11:00 A.M. TOMORROW. THEY WILL BE RETURNED THERE AFTER THE AUCTION IS CONCLUDED. NO CELL PHONES, WEAPONS, OR ANY ELECTRONICS ARE ALLOWED. NO TRANSLATORS, EITHER, AS THE SALE WILL BE CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH ONLY. YOUR REPRESENTATIVES SHOULD BE FLUENT. PAYMENT VERIFICATION WILL BE MADE ON SITE. CONFIRMATION OF PAYMENT MUST BE RECEIVED BEFORE THE SALE IS CONCLUDED. PLEASE ENSURE THAT ALL NECESSARY ARRANGEMENTS FOR PAYMENT HAVE BEEN MADE. ANY VIOLATIONS OF THESE RULES WILL RESULT IN A DISQUALIFICATION TO BID.
Cotton thought about Ivan and his warning for the United States to stay out of this. He’d passed that on to Stephanie, who’d surely shared the information with Bunch.
“The Russians don’t care about any of that,” he said. “They’re going to either win or stop that auction, no matter what.”
“We’ve dealt with that, too,” Bunch noted. “President Fox has spoken with the Kremlin and related the same thing we told the Poles. He assured them we are not participating in the auction.”
Cotton pointed to the box. “What happens when they find out that the spear has been stolen?”
Bunch shook his head. “None of the other thefts have been made public. We’ve kept a lid on them.”
Incredible. These people really were stupid. “None of the other thefts happened on Polish soil. That spear is not a Catholic relic, stolen from a church. It’s a national historical artifact. What’s to stop President Czajkowski from telling the world it’s gone? He has to know, by now, that you double-crossed him. Sonia Draga was there, waiting for me.”
He omitted the why from that statement.
“Who cares? What can Czajkowski do about it?” Bunch asked. “Not a damn thing. Same with the Russians. We’re the United States of America, for God’s sake, and we’re going to that auction with it.”
Cotton glanced at Stephanie, who kept her face stoic, but he could read her mind. The Russians and the Poles were working together. To what degree? Hard to say. If it was all that close a relationship, then the Poles would have simply stopped the theft of the spear. Instead they allowed it to happen. That confirmed they were, to some degree, in the dark. How far?
Another unknown.
“You and I will be at that museum in the morning,” Bunch said to Stephanie. “I assume Malone is done. Right?”
“You assume wrong,” Cotton said.
And he saw the surprise on Stephanie’s face.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
Bunch smiled an irritating grin. “That’s what I like to hear. A team player. Loyal to the good ol’ US of A. We appreciate your dedication.”
He decided to not take that bait and instead said what was probably expected, “And my $150,000. Let’s not forget that. Paid in advance.”
“No. Of course not,” Bunch said. “A man has to make a living, right? We can appreciate that. I’ll arrange the transfer of funds.”
Better for Fox to think him a greedy mercenary than a loyal friend. No way he was going to allow Stephanie to walk into that quagmire of an auction alone. And that was precisely what Tom Bunch represented.
No help.
Cotton considered himself an expert in only a few things. One was the ability to deal with a tight situation and think on his feet. The old cliché was true. Desperate people did desperate things. And this scenario seemed the precise definition of the word.
“Are you sure?” Stephanie asked him.
He nodded.
“Absolutely.”
* * *
Cotton and Stephanie stepped from the office while Bunch talked on the phone with Fox, motioning that he wanted to speak to the president in private.
“I wonder if there are classes in ass kissing that idiots like him go to,” he said to her. “He has no appreciation for what’s going on here.”
“Not a drop.”
“My guess is the box is GPS-tagged,” he said, “and they’re tracking it right now. We’ll need to take a look.”
“I know. We’ll deal with that when he’s done with his important call.”
He caught the sarcasm.
“Sonia set it all up, with just enough resistance to make it look good. Though shooting that rope was a bit much,” he said. “I owe her for that one.”
Stephanie smiled.
“It all means that the Poles didn’t get an invite,” he said. “The Russians must have tipped them off to the whole thing. That would explain their partnership in Bruges. But it was a limited engagement. The Russians would not want anyone else involved after that.”
“Unless they force themselves in, or allow us to lead them to it.”
He agreed. “They’ll put out a story on what happened tonight. They have to in order to stay consistent with the other thefts. And they can’t allow the Russians to think they are cooperating with us in any way.”
He could see she agreed.
“Czajkowski will probably call Washington and raise hell at the lies,” he said. “That would be expected. Our problem is that the GPS marker will never make it to the auction. Based on the email we just saw, our transport tomorrow will check for tags and, if discove
red, the U.S. will be disqualified.” He smiled. “We could leave it in and this will all be over quickly. Bunch would even have to take some of the blame.”
“I wish. But that information would still go on sale.”
“I’m actually a little curious as to what’s being offered. It’s got to be pretty big. The White House didn’t tell you?”
She shook her head. “Not a word. And I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t curious, too. It has to be both personal and politically fatal. I say we keep going and see how it goes.”
He was okay with that. “The Russians are not going to lose that auction.”
“I know. But maybe it would not be a bad thing if they won.”
He caught the twinkle in her eye.
“I like the way you think.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jonty climbed into bed.
He’d chosen the largest chamber in Sturney Castle for his own, the one used long ago by the castle’s lord, the room fully furnished with period pieces, all representative of Slovakia’s past. Eli Reinhardt was down the hall, since he’d thought it a good idea to keep his newly acquired partner close.
They’d left the cache of documents in the mine, replacing the salt wall and disguising their invasion as best they could. Konrad had assured them that Level X was rarely accessed, since it was not actually part of the working mine. More a reminder from the past when the Soviets were in control, one few today cared to recall.
So the secret should be safe.
He’d promised Konrad some additional money, both to assure his silence and to cement his loyalty. They would need more visits to Level X in the weeks ahead as they determined what, if anything, there was to find. Unfortunately Jonty would be of little help, since his Polish was weak and his Russian nonexistent. Eli, of course, was fluent in both. But he was not about to allow his “partner” unfettered access. That would only end with Eli keeping the most valuable information for himself. No. He’d hire a surrogate and pay him or her enough to ensure that person stayed loyal. To further cement the relationship, Vic would accompany them at all times, since a little fear was a good thing. Both for Eli and for the hired help.