by Steve Berry
Ivan deposited them near the main square in Kraków, surely on his way to the nearby Russian consulate and home soil. He wondered how long it would take for the carnage at Sturney Castle to be discovered. Surely the staff had returned by now. But perhaps the Poles had cleaned up the mess and disposed of the bodies. That would make more sense. The last thing they would want was public attention.
The time was approaching 3:00 P.M. and he was hungry.
But he also needed information.
He knew that Jonty had visited the nearby Wieliczka Salt Mine twice in the past forty-eight hours. Once to find the Pantry, but the other visit, the first one, had been all Olivier’s call. Munoz had told him about the torture with the electrical wire down the throat and how he’d finally coughed up a name. Ordinarily he’d be upset with such weakness. But here it told him that Jonty had returned to the mine after learning that a competitor was watching.
Had he hedged his bets?
Perhaps.
And Vic DiGenti would have been right there with him.
In his pocket he found the paper that he’d lifted off the corpse.
9 Bobola
What did it mean? Was it relevant here? Or did it have nothing to do with any of this?
He believed Olivier when he’d said that no documents were at the castle. That would have been a wise precaution, one he himself would have taken. Was it possible that Jonty had decided the salt mine was the perfect place to stash his prize? Why not? It certainly was isolated and there were endless possibilities for secreting something away. He should at least investigate before dismissing the thought entirely.
Kraków was not unfamiliar to him. He’d visited many times, and one of his favorite places to eat was Pod Aniołami. It sat about halfway between the main square and Wawel Castle, on a busy pedestrian-only side street. It served traditional Polish cuisine, using the old recipes, all cooked on a charred beechwood grill. The ambience was lovely, too, reminding him of places he’d visited in the countryside, its décor the kind of knickknacks you’d find in people’s homes.
He led Munoz to the restaurant. They took a table in the cellar, surrounded by rough stone walls and arches straight from the Middle Ages. Nobody else was enjoying a late lunch, so they had a measure of privacy in the dimly lit chamber.
“I want you to find a man who works at the Wieliczka Salt Mine,” he whispered to Munoz. “He’s a guide named Dawid Konrad. I met him last evening. Go there. Ask around. Find him. I must speak with him immediately.”
Munoz had worked for him before, and Eli knew him to be dependable. Of course, getting caught by Olivier had not been one of the Bulgarian’s finest moments, but it all worked out in the end. He prided himself on being adaptable. Being here, right now, seemed proof positive of that. He’d managed to eliminate a competitor and secure an unobstructed path to information that could prove quite valuable. But he would not make the same mistake Jonty had made. If found, he’d sell directly to the Russians for a fair price, taking every euro earned as icing on the cake of the five million he’d already pocketed. Of course, the Poles might pay more. Either way, the information would be suppressed and no missiles would be deployed.
Right now he wanted food.
He and Munoz discussed a few more details, then his acolyte rose and climbed the steep stone steps back to ground level.
For the first time in the past few days he relaxed.
No one was left to interfere. All of the parties had either been killed or placated.
He again found the paper with the writing on it.
9 Bobola
He needed to know if it was relevant, especially before speaking with Konrad. He still had control of the Pantry, now his alone to sell. But what he wanted was the information on Janusz Czajkowski. Olivier’s fate had offered a glimpse at the disaster that came to those who tied themselves to limited capabilities. He wanted to be freer. More flexible. He felt a panicky need for some assurance that he could escape the path he’d just taken with his life. What he should do was walk away. Leave it alone. He had more than enough. But that was not his nature. He was a broker. Buying and selling every day. Taking risks. And out there, right now, waiting to be found, was something of great value.
And not only in money.
But also to his reputation as a dealer.
So go for it.
He found his phone and typed BOBOLA into a search engine.
What appeared both surprised and intrigued him.
* * *
Cotton approached the light-colored BMW that he’d seen on the monitor upstairs in the room where Vic DiGenti had been killed. He’d retrieved the keys from the body, hoping they were for the vehicle, and was pleased when the fob opened the door locks.
On the rear seat he spotted various containers that held the relics of the Arma Christi. He noticed that there were six. When he subtracted the one Sonia had taken, it made for seven. Where had the seventh come from? Earlier, one had been missing on the table in the great hall.
Another mystery.
No matter, though, he now had the relics and he was certain that the churches from which they’d been taken would be grateful beyond measure for their return. It would be quite a feather in Stephanie’s cap to be able to make restitution. He needed to call her, but had no way at the moment. It would have to wait until he was back in Poland. Right now he just needed to get as far away from here as possible before the crap hit the fan.
He was still playing a hunch.
One he knew Stephanie would want him to pursue.
And though he no longer had any dog in this fight, he was intent on finding out if the information on Czajkowski was still out there, capable of being located.
Was the threat still active?
The silence around him was broken by the cawing of a crow.
An omen?
He hoped not.
He was alive thanks to Sonia’s intervention, and what he was doing by keeping in pursuit might be deemed a problem by her.
She’d wanted this to be over.
But something told him there was still a way to go.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Czajkowski wanted this day to end. It had been one of the most nerve racking of his life—and he’d experienced some pretty harrowing ones. Speaking with Anna had brought back memories he preferred not to relive.
It happened so fast on the night of December 12, 1981.
When the Polish military swept in and imposed martial law.
Most of Solidarity’s leaders were rounded up and herded to freezing detention centers, cast on the mercy of brutal guards. Over forty thousand people. Neither he nor Mirek Hacia was part of that roundup. Hacia because he constantly stayed in the shadows, and himself as a nobody.
It had all been horrible.
But people had debated for years whether Poland, without martial law, would have made it through that winter.
Widespread famine seemed imminent. The health care system was about to collapse. The economy was gone. Anarchy loomed, and neither the government nor Solidarity possessed the ability to develop workable solutions. With power came responsibility. Leaders had to get along. Put petty differences aside. Avoid division over trivial matters. But Solidarity had constant problems with unity. At least it wanted to compromise, but the Red Bourgeoisie, who would have had to relinquish many of their class privileges, refused to budge.
No deals.
By then, all that remained of the Polish Communist Party was the complacent, the incompetent, the corrupt, and the evil. Thankfully, the army stayed at bay. Polish soldiers refused to fire on Polish workers. But the militia, the SB, and the special forces were another matter. They did the dirty work, one person at a time.
He recalled the sense of defeat that dominated throughout that winter.
Poles seemed to know that Poles always lost.
It had been that way for centuries. Doomed by geography and ideology, they had never effectively governed themselves. The whole idea of
martial law had been to isolate and neutralize any obstructive groups and deprive the people of knowledge, save for what the government decreed. For years Solidarity had existed out in the open, keeping the people informed. Now it was gone. Subverted. Made illegal. There was no more information network: Phone lines were cut, television shut down. Everything required a permit. Even typewriters had to be registered.
So implementing the Warsaw Protocol had been easy.
Feeding the SB false information had been easy. Turning one against the other, setting up traitors, even easier.
Their deaths just the price to be paid.
And the last holdouts?
Two thousand coal miners in Silesia, barricaded underground in protest, cooped up in low, dark, clammy shafts, thick with winter dampness. No ventilation, no light. Just days before Christmas. To get them out, the government engaged in its own form of the Warsaw Protocol by feeding down false stories of ill family or wives in labor. Women impersonated their loved ones begging them to surrender. Anything to break their resolve. But the coal miners knew a lie when they heard one. They were tough. They’d always been regarded with high honor. The aristocrats of Polish labor. They’d not joined in previous labor unrest actions and were among the last to go on strike.
But strike they did.
With the result being just another stalemate.
And the only way out of a stalemate was to change the rules.
Which was what the Warsaw Protocol had done.
Attacking the SB at its core.
His limousine glided to a stop and he prepared himself to step from the car. He’d been driven fifty kilometers southwest of Kraków to Wadowice, population twenty thousand, a fairly unremarkable town beyond the fact that it was here, on May 18, 1920, that the future St. John Paul II had been born. That event turned an otherwise sleepy municipality into a place of pilgrimage, complete with all of the tacky tourist trappings. Everything of interest revolved around the central square, appropriately named Plac Jana Pawła II. The main attraction was the Wojtyła family house. Twelve hundred square meters of exhibition space over four floors that charted the great man’s life. Family photos, heirlooms, manuscripts, even the gun used in the 1981 attempt on the pope’s life were on display.
A renovation of the site had just been completed and he’d come to see the work and bestow his presidential blessing. The trip had been scheduled yesterday as camouflage on the pretext that since he was nearby, why not drop in for a quick visit.
Sonia had called two hours ago and said she was on her way back from Slovakia. He’d told her about the detail of BOR agents he’d dispatched, and she told him what had happened. They’d agreed that the agents would scrub the castle clean and dispose of the bodies, removing and destroying all the written materials distributed to the participants, along with the computers on site. Michał Zima would oversee it all. The hope being only they, the Russians, and Eli Reinhardt knew about what had happened.
Then there was Cotton Malone.
He doubted the Americans would make trouble. If so, they’d have to explain how one of their own made it out unscathed. Unlikely the Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans would accept any explanation. Not to mention the French, a supposed ally. More likely, they’d all think that the United States had the information and Washington’s denials would fall on deaf ears.
He checked his watch. 3:20 P.M.
He exited the car into sunshine muted by clouds rapidly dominating the afternoon sky. Some of the local politicos were waiting to greet him and he took a moment to shake hands and chat with them, assuming a patrician but warm smile of welcome. Off to his right he caught sight of Sonia with a black box in hand. He grabbed the attention of the head of his security detail and motioned. He entered the house, greeted by the curator. They exchanged pleasantries and he asked if there was a room where he might have a moment. The man offered his office and he followed him there, where he was left alone. A soft knock came to the door, then it opened and Sonia entered. She laid the box on the desk. He took her in his arms, hugging her tightly.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Do I need a reason?”
She smiled. “No. I suppose not.”
He was glad she was all right. “I’m told the location has been sanitized. No trace of the carnage remains, save for a few bullet marks in the floor. Everything found there was burned.”
“Only Jonty and his man DiGenti knew the hiding spot for the information,” she said. “I made sure of that before I killed him. He was going to use it as a bargaining chip. The Russians definitely wanted Olivier alive.”
“It’s still a risk—with that information out there, in the open.”
“We could not allow Olivier to walk away.”
“Yet we allowed Malone to walk away.”
“Because there was no reason to kill him,” she said. “He was drawn into this, not of his own accord. He has no idea where that information is located, so he poses no threat. It was bad enough that all of the others had to die. And Olivier. I’m in the intelligence business, not murder-for-hire.”
He caught the sharp tone in her voice. “I understand. You did what you had to do, and I appreciate it.”
They’d discussed it at length. He’d never asked or ordered her to kill Olivier. But she’d known what to do.
She pointed at the box. “I’ll return the spear to the castle.”
“That definitely needs to be done. Let’s make sure there are no loose lips there, either.”
A buzz disturbed their privacy.
His phone. He checked the display. His chief of staff back in Warsaw.
He answered the call, listened, then said, “Do it.”
Sonia stared at him.
“The president of the United States wants to talk to me. Now.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Cotton recalled a story he’d heard while growing up in middle Georgia on his grandfather’s onion farm. A local man ran for county sheriff and garnered only seventeen votes. The day after the election he paraded around town with a gun strapped to his waist. Someone asked him why and he said, With as few friends as I apparently have, I definitely need one.
He felt the same way.
He was back in Kraków, surrounded by strangers, walking straight for the American consulate. Sunshine filtered through broken pewter clouds. He had no idea where Stephanie might be, but this seemed like the best place to start. The time was approaching 4:00 P.M., the shops and eateries busy for late afternoon. He was stopped at the doors by the uniformed marines. This time they weren’t expecting him. He asked if Stephanie Nelle was there, and a few moments later he was allowed inside. He found her on the second floor, eyes dull and red-lined with fatigue, and made a full report, including Bunch’s death.
“Where’s the car?” she asked him.
“Parked down the street. With six of the most precious relics in the religious world locked inside.” He paused. “All yours.”
“I appreciate the gift. But I doubt it’s going to buy me any political capital with Fox. He wants missiles here and he’s not going to stop.”
“We don’t get everything we want.”
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Do you have your Magellan Billet laptop?”
She nodded.
He felt numbed, confused, and bewildered by all that had happened. He needed time to sort things out, to categorize, compartmentalize, make sense of the confusion. “Can I use it?”
“Is it about that book?”
And she pointed.
He’d brought the volume that he’d found at the castle. The City in Salt. The Wieliczka Salt Mine.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
She handed over her computer and he opened it to a search engine. He typed in the word BOBOLA and found a reference.
On May 16, 1657, Cossacks surprised a holy Polish Jesuit in the town of Pińsk. Father Andrew Bobola, aged sixty-five, fell to his knees, raised his h
ands toward heaven, and exclaimed, “Lord, thy will be done.” The Cossacks stripped him of his holy habit, tied him to a tree, placed a crown of twigs upon his head, then scourged him, tearing out one eye and burning his body with torches. One of the ruffians then traced, with his poniard, the form of a tonsure on the head of the priest and the figure of a chasuble on his back. Finally, all of the skin was stripped from the body. During this indescribable torture the priest prayed for his tormentors until they tore out his tongue and crushed his head. Father Andrew Bobola was declared Blessed on the 30th of October, 1853. He was made a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1938.
At least he now had a Polish connection to the name.
One more inquiry.
He typed in BOBOLA and WIELICZKA SALT MINE and found several hits, one that explained the relationship.
The deep Christian faith of the Wieliczka miners comes from their Catholic upbringing, as well as the difficult work conditions in the mine. They faced threats from fire, leakages of underground water, and collapse. Holy patrons were supposed to protect them from such dangers. For centuries, the miners cultivated a group of saints whom they worshipped with particular devotion, believing in their powers of intercession. Many were honored with carvings made in the salt, the miners themselves the artisans.
One of those carvings was of Father Andrew Bobola.
He found an image of the salt sculpture, created in 1874, still there in the mine. A little crude and eroded from time and water, it sat alone in a square-shaped niche. A caption indicated that the figure had once been colored white, red, and black, the same paint used for marking the mine’s work sites. It had been carved by a miner, in his spare time.