The Warsaw Protocol

by Steve Berry

  She would not like the answer.

  He stopped walking.

  “Keep going,” Reinhardt said.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Sonia stopped.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked Reinhardt. “Shoot the president of Poland? How far do you think you will get. I doubt you’ll make it off this level alive.”

  Sonia’s eyes asked, What are you doing?

  His hands were down by his side, his right hand close to the side pocket where the gun she’d given him rested. When he’d first challenged Sonia, delivering the order of retreat, with Reinhardt focused on her, he’d managed to unzip the pocket.

  Now he had to reach in.

  But too much movement could be fatal.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Cotton saw that Munoz had finally decided on a vantage point. Even worse, his boat was drifting closer to that point, about eight feet above the lake’s surface, closing the distance between him and trouble.

  “I leave now,” Ivan said.

  He held up his gun. “I don’t think so.”

  “I think different.”

  Ivan motioned with his free hand and Munoz stood, gun aimed.

  “He make sure I leave.”

  The motor on Ivan’s boat came to life.

  * * *

  Czajkowski dug in. “You’re a dealer in information. Let’s deal.”

  “What do you offer?” Reinhardt asked.

  “A way out of here to begin with. What did the Russians pay you?”

  “Five million euros.”

  “All right. I’ll pay five times that for you to deliver what Jonty Olivier was going to sell. Do you have it?”

  Sonia knew they already had the answer to that question, which he hoped would alert her to pay attention and be ready. Her gun lay three meters away on the floor.

  “I have it,” Reinhardt said.

  “Really? The Russian allowed you to keep it,” he said. “That was quite generous of him, considering Moscow would love to use that information against me, starting with no American missiles in Poland. Where is the information?”

  “My associate, Munoz, went to retrieve it.”

  He doubted that, too. But—

  “Let’s get him back. Mr. Munoz,” he called out. “Please come here.”

  * * *

  Cotton heard Munoz’s name called out.

  So did Munoz.

  He turned his head for barely a second toward the source of the summons, but long enough for Cotton to raise his gun and take the man down with one well-aimed shot.

  Not bad for twenty feet away, eight feet up, in dim light.

  He immediately turned his attention to Ivan, who was disappearing into a dark tunnel that allowed the water to flow toward the next reservoir.

  Too late.

  He fired up his own electric motor.

  And headed after him.

  * * *

  Czajkowski heard the gunshot.

  And used that instant to wrap his fingers around the pistol in his pocket and grope the trigger. But he did not withdraw the weapon. Sonia could see what he was doing, but Reinhardt could not. Luckily, the pocket had been stitched to his front thigh high enough that he did not have to overextend his arm.

  “Don’t call out again,” Reinhardt said, pressing the gun into his hair to emphasize the point.

  “I don’t take orders from you,” he made clear.

  Reinhardt’s gun kissed his scalp again. “Brave words. Mr. President.”

  “True words.”

  Sonia stared at him, now knowing exactly what he was doing. Her eyes pleaded for him to stop, but she kept her features frozen, revealing nothing to the threat that stood behind him.

  “It’s time to decide,” he said to Reinhardt, his eyes locked on Sonia. “Time for you to make a choice.”

  “I’m not interested in selling anything to you. And twenty-five million euros is not even close to what it is worth.”

  “What if Munoz is dead?” he asked. “Was that the shot we just heard? If so, then you’re on your own. You going to shoot us both? Then walk out of here? You do realize that’s impossible. We have you trapped on this level.”

  He was pushing. Doing what he once did with the SB. Playing off fears and insecurities, aggravating paranoia, making adversaries doubt themselves, which was the fastest way to cripple them.

  “Shut up,” Reinhardt barked.

  His right hand stayed on the gun, the semi-darkness of the chamber helping shield his intent. Reinhardt was focused more on Sonia, since he felt he had one threat contained while the other was still loose, capable of striking.

  “Just put the gun down,” he said to Reinhardt. “Cut your losses before this gets totally out of control.”

  “I said, shut up.”

  Movement disturbed the darkness at the exit.

  A man stumbled into the chamber, one hand clutching a gun, the other his chest. The gait was short and strained. A face dissolved from the darkness.

  Munoz.

  Sonia turned her attention to the new arrival. Czajkowski used the moment of distraction to remove the weapon and, though he could not see to aim, he stuck the barrel behind him into Reinhardt’s belly and fired.

  He felt the vibration as the round tore through flesh.

  To be sure, he pulled the trigger again.

  Reinhardt collapsed.

  Munoz tried to raise his weapon, but Sonia kicked it from his grasp.

  Finish it.

  And what the foreign force has taken from us, we shall with sabre retrieve.

  He fired a third round into Munoz.

  * * *

  Cotton heard more shots echoing through the mine and wondered who else was shooting. Some help? Maybe. There’d been no way to determine if Munoz was dead, but he’d definitely hit him.

  Ivan was the focus now.

  He kept motoring through the dark tunnel, this one longer than the others, as the light at the other side was still another fifty-plus feet ahead. Ivan had enough of a head start that he could be lying in wait, so it seemed foolish to just pop out the other side.

  He’d spoken the truth when he’d told Ivan about the salt brine. Once, years ago, he’d taken a dip in the Dead Sea, floating easily on the thick water. He’d had to shower right after, so as not to leave a layer of salt on his skin for too long, which would burn thanks to the heat of a Middle Eastern day. Signs had warned about protecting faces from the water and not to swallow it.

  The same dangers were here, compounded by freezing temperatures.

  Ivan was surely waiting to see what the whine of an electric motor was bringing his way. Munoz? Or trouble? With no choice, he slipped over the side and into the frigid water. Coldness wrapped him like a coat. He could only take this for a few minutes. But that was all he’d need. The pitch and timbre of the electric motor never changed as he clung to the boat’s low side, floating high in the brine, unable to go down even if he wanted to. His right hand held the gun, which remained dry in the boat. There’d be a moment or so of confusion on Ivan’s part when he first saw a pilotless skiff, then realized his target was in the water.

  That would be his opportunity.

  The boat kept moving, the lower part of his body numbing from the cold. He emerged from the darkness into the lit lake. Sure enough, Ivan was floating to one side, below another wooden railing, standing in the boat, gun aimed.

  Ivan fired.

  He dipped down below the skiff and got a little of the freezing water on his face. The bullet whined by as he continued to glide across the lake. The buoyancy now became his ally as he no longer resisted the push upward and relaxed his grip. He popped from the water like a cork, aimed, and fired, catching the big Russian right in the midsection.

  Ivan winced.

  One hand found the wound.

  The other released his grip on the gun.

  Balance faltered and Ivan dropped backward from the boat into the water, making a large splash
that sent waves in every direction.

  Cotton dropped his gun inside the boat and propelled himself up and over the side, reentering the skiff. His legs were freezing, but he grabbed the motor and turned the boat toward Ivan, who was thrashing in the brine. He swung around to one side and saw Ivan roll over, face to the water.

  Then all movement stopped.

  Blood continued to leak from the wound, staining the clear water with red clouds. The body flipped and Ivan floated high, on his back, eyes open, two black orbs boring into the ceiling.

  He shut the motor off and caught hold of the other boat.

  The plastic packet lay inside.

  He relaxed and moved his head gently, trying not to disturb the spots before his eyes, clicking and clacking off one another in all directions, sending his brain spinning from the cold. His legs were stiff and throbbing, but seemed to work.

  Ivan lay dead.

  Like all the others.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Czajkowski lowered the gun.

  Sonia rushed over to him. “You okay?”

  He nodded. But he wasn’t all that okay. He’d just killed two men. Add them to the list. He’d killed before. Not directly, but every bit as deadly with the Warsaw Protocol.

  “It had to be done,” she said to him. “You had no choice.”

  He stared at her, his grip on the gun still firm.

  “Let’s see if we can find Ivan,” she said.

  Before they could leave the chamber they both heard someone approaching from the direction Munoz had come from. Sonia motioned and they shifted to the shadows and waited.

  Cotton Malone entered and stopped. One hand held a gun, the other the plastic packet. Two-thirds of his clothes were soaking wet.

  They stepped forward.

  “I heard the shots and your voices,” Malone said before motioning at the bodies. “Looks like you have this under control.”

  “Ivan?” she asked.

  Malone nodded. “Floating in the salt brine, which by the way is quite brisk.”

  Sonia smiled. “You must be freezing?”

  “To say the least.”

  Czajkowski pointed at the packet Malone held. “Is that the information?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “You get right to it, don’t you? No wining or dining from you. Just wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”

  “I don’t have the luxury of time.”

  “No. I suppose not. But, to answer your question, I’m still deciding.”

  “May I ask your options?”

  “Keep it and do my job, giving it to the asshole who calls himself the president of the United States.” Malone paused. “Or not.”

  “We could take it from you.”

  “You could try.”

  He smiled. “I like you, Malone. I liked you the moment I realized you hated Tom Bunch. Who was a liar, by the way.”

  The American shrugged. “More just a guy in way over his head. An amateur, playing with professionals, trying to make himself a big deal. Which got him killed.”

  “This is now an Agencja Wywiadu operation,” Sonia said. “We’ll take full responsibility for all of the deaths here. Including Ivan.”

  “That’s fairly decent of you, considering you both had a part in that slaughter in Slovakia.”

  “That wasn’t us,” Sonia said. “We had no idea that was what they intended. We needed you to lead the way to that castle.”

  “So your warning in Bruges for us to stay out of their way was just idle chitchat? You knew what they were going to do. Maybe not in so many words. But you could add up the two and two.” Malone faced him. “Did you order Olivier to be eliminated?”

  “He did not,” Sonia said. “That was my call.”

  “But,” Czajowski said, “it is all my responsibility.”

  Malone shook his head. “It’s not yours to take. This one is all on President Warner Fox. He started the whole thing. You just did what you had to do in order to survive. What Fox forced you to do. I just shot two men, and all because of Fox. Tom Bunch’s children are fatherless thanks to the same idiocy. Reinhardt and Munoz here died for the same reasons. Fox owns this one.” Malone motioned at the bodies. “By the way, who bagged these?”

  “I did,” Sonia said.

  “Then why is the president holding the gun.”

  “Because I shot them both.”

  Malone gestured with his own weapon. “A little unpresidential, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Desperate times, Mr. Malone.”

  “Yeah, speaking of that. Here.”

  And Malone handed over the packet.

  He was shocked. “Why are you doing this?”

  “America should not have to blackmail somebody into doing something. Either they want to do it, or they don’t. If they don’t, we should respect that. It’s who we should be.”

  “I don’t disagree,” he said.

  “My report will be that Ivan found nothing. Neither did I. The information is lost. That will probably bring some American agents snooping around, but since there’s nothing to find, who cares. I assume that the stuff in that packet will be torched.”

  He nodded. “President Fox won’t be happy.”

  “Which is the cherry on the whipped cream here. Making it all worthwhile.”

  He heaved a euphoric sigh of relief, moved by the sweet purity of the moment. He’d been set free, granted a reprieve. Back from the dead.

  Like Lazarus.

  Now it was truly over.

  “Everything that happened here will be stamped top secret by the AW,” Sonia said. “We’ll get the bodies out once the mine is closed for the night. We’ll scrub this place clean like we did Sturney Castle. It will all have a tight lid placed on it. The Russians will be told there was a gunfight and Eli Reinhardt shot their man. I killed Reinhardt and Munoz. No mention will be made of anyone else.”

  Czajkowski realized that included not only Malone, but himself. Sonia was handling everything with dispatch and characteristic efficiency, like the agent she was.

  “There’s another corpse down on Level IX. One of the guides that Ivan or Reinhardt killed.”

  “I hate to hear that,” Czajkowski said.

  “Can I get out of here without a lot of hassle?” Malone asked.

  Sonia grinned. “We can do that, and get someone to dry your clothes, too.”

  “Now, that I would appreciate.”

  Czajkowski stepped forward and offered his hand, which Malone shook, hard and firm. “Thank you. For what you did, and for your honor.”

  “It was my pleasure, Mr. President.”

  * * *

  Cotton stepped out into the bright evening, which struck him like a blow, his eyes struggling to focus after the gloom within the mine. Sonia had made good on her promise and had his clothes dried in the mine’s laundry. They were a bit wrinkled, but felt a damn sight better than the previous salty cold. Stephanie waited for him outside.

  “Patrycja okay?” he asked.

  “She’s good. Somebody else is calling the shots here. I tried to get the security people on board, but nobody was listening. The next thing I know, Patrycja is gone and I’m in the elevator and out the door, told to wait out here.”

  He reported all that had happened, leaving nothing out.

  “Sonia’s in charge,” he said. “Czajkowski is there, too. Though she was working to sneak him out when I left. I gave the information to Czajkowski.”

  “I’m glad. If you hadn’t, I would have.”

  “Your career is over.”

  “I know. But maybe it was time for me to leave.”

  He felt for her. But there was nothing he could do, and the last thing Stephanie Nelle would ever want was pity.

  “Let’s head back to Kraków,” he said.

  “Cotton.”

  He turned at the call of his name.

  Sonia was exiting the building and approaching. “I wanted to say th
ank you. I appreciate what you did down there. All of it.”

  He’d noticed something while talking to the Polish president. “He’s your new man, isn’t he? Your love.”

  “How did you know?”

  “The look in your eyes. The willingness to take all the blame.”

  She nodded. “He and I have been seeing each other for a while now. His marriage is over. I don’t know where we’re headed. But we’re together.”

  “I’m happy for you, Sonia. Go for it.”

  And they hugged.

  She gave him a soft kiss to his cheek. “Like I told you in Belgium, that girl of yours is a lucky woman.”

  But he wasn’t going to accept that praise.

  Not then.

  Or now.

  “I’m definitely the luckier one.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  SUNDAY, JUNE 9

  6:15 P.M.

  Czajkowski stared at the fire.

  He was back in Warsaw at the presidential palace, the events from three days ago in the salt mine still weighing heavy on his mind. He’d managed to leave Wieliczka unnoticed, making it back to the hotel in Kraków under cover of darkness. Sonia supervised cleaning up the mess. There’d been some press coverage about the gunshots since so many had been witnesses, but according to the reports the perpetrator had not been caught and no one had been injured.

  God bless Sonia.

  But he could not forget Anna, either. She’d obtained what Father Hacia had withheld from him. The proof about the Warsaw Protocol. Which was no longer needed, though it was still good to have, along with the documents that Jonty Olivier had wanted to auction. Which lay on the table beside him, free of their vacuum-sealed packet. He’d studied every one of them, recognizing his handwriting, his signature, and the disgusting code name Dilecki assigned him.

  Baran. Sheep.