by Steve Berry
“I spoke with our ambassador to Poland before we left,” she said as they walked. “He’s one of Danny’s holdovers. Fox has not filled the post yet. Needless to say he’s not a fan of our new president. I had him make a call. He knows the right people to get us inside, unnoticed.”
The time was approaching 5:00 P.M., and there was still a modest crowd waiting to gain entrance. Maybe a hundred people. Just past where the line to buy a ticket ended a short, petite blonde stood, dressed in official-looking coveralls. She seemed to be waiting for them and stepped right up, introducing herself as Patrycja. She said, “I was told you want access to Level IX.”
“Can we do that, and fast?” Stephanie asked.
“I’ve been instructed to do whatever you want. Let’s get you changed and we’ll head right down. You’re going to need some equipment. That level is not like the tourist areas, it’s on the miners’ route.”
He was not looking forward to this. Tight spaces were not his favorite. Stephanie seemed to sense his anxiety and said, “I’m told the tunnels are wide and there’s plenty of ventilation. Is that right?”
Their guide nodded. “It’s not cramped down there at all.”
But he wasn’t comforted.
He’d heard that disclaimer before.
What concerned him more, though, was the Russians and Eli Reinhardt. One or both could be headed here, too. The guy they’d just encountered was employed by one of them.
He glanced around, seeing nothing that caused alarm.
But that didn’t mean trouble wasn’t nearby.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Eli stepped from the car.
He’d hired a cab to drive him from Kraków to the salt mine. Not a long trip, though costly at a hundred euros. But the driver was an entrepreneur, too, just like him, so he couldn’t blame the man for predatory pricing. His entire business hinged on taking advantage of others.
He stood before the graduation tower, an enormous castle-like structure crafted of larch branches and blackthorn, upon which salt brine flowed twenty-four hours a day. The microclimate created within the gaudy wooden structure worked like a natural inhalator, the salt air able to penetrate the mucous membrane of the respiratory system, good for lungs, sinuses, intestines, even the brain. Salt baths had existed in the area for hundreds of years, the mine below producing an abundance of concentrated brine that had to go somewhere. So toward the end of the 19th century the locals started pumping it to ground level and created a spa.
He paid the price for an admission ticket and strolled into the tower, heading up a walkway that wound a path deep into the twenty-meter-tall wooden structure. Its working principle seemed simple. Take salt suspended in water, pump it to the top, then allow the brine to thicken as it flows down the branches, breaking up as it hits each twig, partially evaporating, saturating the air with a curative saline aerosol.
He sucked in a few deep breaths.
Which felt good.
He should take better care of himself, especially now that he was five million euros richer. Munoz had called and told him to come here, near the top of the tower, which sat within sight of the salt mine’s main entrance. He caught glimpses of the afternoon crowd, many headed to their cars to leave, through breaks in the outer walls. Not many people were partaking of the curative effects today. Which was good. He needed a little privacy.
He rounded a corner and saw Munoz and Konrad ahead.
“What is this about?” Konrad asked, with concern. “And how did you know where I live?”
“My business is information.”
“Where is DiGenti?”
He knew better than to tell the truth. “We’re handling matters now.”
“Mr. Olivier made it clear that all of this had to be held confidential. He said nothing about you being a part of that.”
“I was here last evening. I am a part of this.” He decided to soothe the man’s clear anxiety. “I require your assistance. For that I’m prepared to pay you one hundred thousand euros.”
Konrad’s face froze in surprise. “That’s far more than DiGenti ever paid me.”
“Unlike Mr. DiGenti, I believe that people should be adequately compensated for their services. Is that amount satisfactory?”
Konrad nodded.
He’d long ago learned that everyone had a price. The trick was finding it, then being able to pay. Luckily, neither was a problem here.
“What do you want me to do?” Konrad asked.
“Take us to the statue of St. Bobola, on Level IX.”
He watched as the request was considered. He’d learned of the connection between the saint and the mine from the internet.
“I think I know where that is,” Konrad said. “It’s inside a small chapel.”
“Excellent. How fast can you get us there?”
“Half an hour. Maybe faster. When do I get paid?”
“When we return from the statue. Of course, we need discreet access, with no attention whatsoever. The more anonymous the better.”
“I can take care of that. DiGenti wanted the same thing.”
“But I’m paying much more than he ever did, so I expect more.”
“As do I,” a new voice said.
He turned and saw Ivan waddle his way toward them, like a plow horse, bulky, bony, with black, oily eyes like a crow. He felt his head spiral upward toward a different reality, one where he wanted to stay. But he couldn’t. He had to maintain control of the situation, though he could feel the confidence draining out of his fingertips.
“Konrad,” he said, “could you go arrange for that access. Mr. Munoz will come with you. Art, come back and get me when all is ready.”
Munoz and Konrad started to leave.
“Add one more to tour,” Ivan said.
Konrad stopped.
Eli realized there was no choice. “Do it.”
Konrad nodded and headed off with Munoz. Eli faced Ivan. “How did you know?”
“I been doing this long time. Reading people is talent I have. And, besides, I not trust you ever. So I watch close.” Ivan motioned to his eyes with his fingers. “You find something at castle. I saw in your face. Why you think I let Malone go so easy?” Ivan pointed. “You know what I want to know. I want information on Czajkowski.”
“I had hoped to sell it to you.”
Ivan chuckled. “Sure you did. But I have better deal. I let you live, in return for information.”
He’d known that was coming. “Why don’t you just go down without me and find it yourself. There’s no need for me to be involved any longer.”
“I disagree. You most important. We go down together. Cotton Malone is on his way here.”
Great.
“I have man trying to stop him.”
“Seems this whole venture is becoming crowded.”
“My thought, too.”
He definitely had a problem. Going down into that mine could be a one-way trip. But he doubted this Russian had come alone. So there was nowhere to run. No. Go down. Deal with things below, where the darkness and solitude might give him an edge.
“All right,” he said. “We go together.”
A disdainful smile worked at the corner of Ivan’s mouth. “You were paid much money. More than enough to cover information, too.”
“That information is worth far more than five million euros.”
“Not for you. Call it price of lying.”
Again, he had no choice. “Let us conclude our business and be done with each other.”
“Be grateful, Mr. Broker, I don’t kill you.”
“You don’t know where the information is hidden.”
“See how far that got Olivier. Not much. Don’t push me. I want information and I want to be done with this.”
But he was not buying a single word. Russians lied with uninhibited ease. A talent that came with them from the womb. He had to go down with this devil. That was the easy part.
But getting back up in one piece?
/> That was going to take some effort.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Czajkowski felt a measure of freedom. For the first time in five years he had no BOR security people in tow. No media. No aides. Only Sonia. It had taken Michał Zima’s direct order to have his bodyguards stand down. Having Sonia with him helped soothe Zima’s concerns—if anything happened, it would be Zima who’d take the fall. But the head of the BOR had assured him that he was prepared for any consequences. He was reevaluating his opinion of Zima. The man seemed a team player, sensitive to the gravity of a delicate situation and its political effects, recognizing that everything, quite literally, seemed at stake.
A call had come a few moments ago to Sonia’s phone telling her that the car ferrying Cotton Malone and Stephanie Nelle was now parked in a lot adjacent to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. A strange place for two American intelligence officers to head. They were not tourists. He’d been down in the mine several times over the years for concerts and ceremonies. The whole place cast a surreal air, like being inside a shopping mall a hundred meters below earth. Still, the tourist areas were but a tiny part of the massive complex. He wondered if there was more hidden down there than new salt deposits.
“Why are they there?” he muttered.
Sonia drove the car she’d been using all day. He sat in the passenger seat, his tie and suit jacket gone, the collar to his white shirt open, his sleeves rolled up.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It is peculiar.”
“It has to relate to the Russians. What Fox said. The information is still in play, and somehow Malone got ahead of them.”
“Or maybe just even with them.”
She kept speeding down the highway, headed toward the salt mine. He imagined himself no longer president, his second term over, free of all political and personal entanglements, able to do as he pleased.
That would be a first.
His entire life had been one responsibility after another, working his way up until he achieved the pinnacle of Polish success. He recognized that the presidency was in many ways more ceremonial than practical, but there were areas where he possessed true power. One of those was in approving agreements with foreign governments.
This would be so much more difficult if Parliament had the final say. Good luck getting them to agree on anything. Not much had changed in the three centuries since the liberum veto was finally abolished. True, everything no longer had to be unanimous, but achieving a simple majority vote could prove equally vexing.
I freely forbid.
Poles took that declaration to heart—both then and now.
Thankfully, the decision to place missiles on Polish soil was his alone. There would be a great many within Parliament who would look favorably on an increased American presence, as was evident years ago when the first effort was abandoned. But there were others who would resent any and all foreign interference. He suspected they would be in the majority, though not by much. The missiles would be viewed as a slap to Moscow—there was no other way to view it—and that had never been taken kindly by Poland’s neighbor to the east. He doubted anyone in Europe or America would ever go to war to protect an independent Poland. NATO or no NATO. Poland had always been expendable.
And would remain so.
“This all rests in our hands,” he said in barely a whisper. “We can’t allow the Russians to get that information.”
“I won’t,” Sonia declared.
Her phone vibrated and she answered the call, which lasted only a few seconds before she ended it. “They’re headed into the mine. We need to delay them.”
He found his own cell phone and called Zima, explaining what he wanted. “Delay, but don’t stop them. We need another fifteen minutes.”
No surprise that Zima said he could handle it.
“What are we going to do, once there?” he asked her, after ending the call.
“Try to stay close without them noticing.”
He glanced down at his left hand and the ring he’d worn for decades, fashioned by a long-dead Warsaw jeweler. Not gold, as that was a rare commodity in Soviet-controlled Poland and remained so in the years thereafter. Instead pewter had sufficed in a simple statement of patriotism.
Back in the 10th century, Bolesław the Brave had been the first to use the white, single-headed eagle as the symbol of the king. He was also the first to call the area Polona, after a local tribe that had occupied the land for a millennium. The display of the eagle was now mandated by the Polish Constitution in precise terms. White, upon a red field. The crown, eagle’s beak and talons, gold. The wings and legs outstretched, its head angled to the right.
He’d worn the ring every day for the past thirty years.
A reminder of his life’s dedication.
But for the first time in a long while he was afraid. Not since that day in Mokotów Prison had he felt so helpless. Only after, when he first met Mirek Hacia and realized that he actually had a choice, had his anxiety waned.
Here was the same.
There were choices.
But none seemed good.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Cotton zipped up the green coveralls that he’d donned over his clothes. He and Stephanie were inside a locker room, part of a building that accommodated one of the shafts used only by the miners. The tourist shaft was in another building, still busy ferrying visitors up and down. Another set of elevators was located farther away, where special groups for a miner’s experience made their way below. Their guide had avoided those hot spots and led them to this employees-only area. The gun from the castle was now safely tucked at his waist beneath the coveralls. He assumed bringing weapons into the mine was not allowed, so he’d kept its presence to himself. But after what happened on the road, he was not about to leave it up here.
“Not much in the way of fashion,” he said to Stephanie. “But functional.”
She donned her helmet with light. “We look like the Mario Brothers.”
He grinned.
That they did.
Stephanie sat on a bench and slipped on the boots their guide had provided. He’d already laced his up, which fit snugly.
“Here we are,” she said. “We have a trunk full of sacred relics out in the parking lot, and below may be some extremely damaging blackmail on the president of Poland. The people I’ve dealt with for the past few decades, the people I worked with to protect the country, the vast majority of them would have never placed me, or themselves, in this untenable situation. Yet here I am.”
“You have to play the cards you’re dealt. And you know that.”
“That’s the problem, Cotton. I don’t even have a pair of twos here.”
“If we find those documents, you’ll have a royal flush.”
“To do what with?”
“Maybe Senator Danny Daniels can use them to make a move on Fox. I’m sure trying to blackmail the president of a foreign nation qualifies as high crimes and misdemeanors. Perhaps he could encourage the House to impeach the idiot.”
She shook her head. “That only amplifies the problem. Everybody loves to scream impeachment. But that’s not a tool to undo elections. The people chose Warner Fox. The fact that he may be incompetent is really not at issue. They’ve already decided they want him to lead them.”
“You’ve become quite the fatalist.”
“Just a realist.”
He had to say, “I assume you wouldn’t wait here while I go below?”
She smiled at him. “You’ve always looked after me.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“Back that first day we met,” she said, “in the Duval County jail, I wasn’t quite sure I’d made the right decision going there. The reports on you were all glowing. But that first impression? You shot a woman.”
“Who murdered her husband, then tried to kill me.”
“I know. You handled yourself well in that situation. As you did in that first assignment. I knew then I had a winner.” She finished tying he
r boots. “For the record, I’m not interested in having Danny fight my battles.”
“You’ll have a hard time keeping him out of it.”
“I know. And I love him for it. But this is my problem to solve.”
“Fox has wanted you gone from the start. The only bargaining chip you have may be waiting below.”
“Which isn’t saying much, since I think this whole thing stinks.”
The door to the locker room opened and their guide returned.
“Arrangements are all made,” Patrycja said. “We can head down in a few minutes. I brought a map of Level IX.”
She laid out a large sheet of heavy paper that detailed a labyrinth of twisting tunnels and chambers.
“St. Bobola’s statue is one of hundreds scattered around the entire mine,” Patrycja said. “It was carved in the 19th century. I’m told it’s not in a good state of repair. Strange that it seems so important.”
He realized they needed to maintain this woman’s cooperation while revealing as little as possible. But there was also an element of danger here, especially if the Russians or Eli Reinhardt decided to show up. He could only hope that he was ahead of them, as he did not want to place this woman in jeopardy.
“Let’s just say that it might be what’s near it that’s important,” he said. “That’s why we need to have a look.”
“The statue is located here.” She pointed to a spot on the map, inside a small chamber along a secondary drift on Level IX. Several tunnels led in and out.
“It’s a junction point,” Patrycja said. “Many of the chapels were placed where tunnels joined.”
“How did Jonty Olivier get those documents down there?” Stephanie asked. “I assume that’s not a spot someone could just wander into.”
Patrycja nodded. “Only the guides can get there.” She unzipped a pocket in her coveralls and removed a small plastic fob. “This unlocks the elevators for the lower levels. About fifty of the guides carry these on a daily basis. We have to turn them in at the end of each day.”
He glanced at Stephanie. That meant Olivier had arranged for a way down, too, one that included a guide. And if the Russians wanted down, they’d have to do the same. That might work in their favor and provide them enough time.