Tom Clancy Enemy Contact

by Mike Maden

  Not wanting to get his sport coat and slacks dirty, Jack used the steel staircase to ascend back onto the warehouse floor.

  Jack grinned as he watched the two Ukrainian boys doing their best to stack boxes onto their hand trucks while trying to flirt with the pretty Polish woman who was clearly interested in talking to them. They finished stacking their trucks and heaved them away toward the trailer as Jack approached.

  “Looks like you might have a date lined up tonight.”

  “Two, if I play my cards right.” She laughed. “See anything interesting?”

  “Nothing much. What did you find out?”

  “The best pub around here is owned by the tall boy’s uncle. Says he can get us beers at half price after he gets off work.”

  “Sounds like an investable proposition. Anything else?”

  “They just load and unload trucks. Paid in cash, probably to avoid taxes. They said the trucks mostly travel to Polish and German cities, but sometimes as far as Spain, Italy, and France.”

  “Ready to go?”

  “If you are.”

  “Let’s say good-bye to Mr. Wilczek.”

  “Then what?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?” Liliana asked.

  “Your dating plans.”

  She smiled. “My Ukrainian boyfriends can wait a few days, I think.”

  * * *

  —

  Wilczek hung up the phone and lit a cigarette just as Jack and Liliana stepped back into his office.

  He yanked open a desk drawer and fished out a crumpled business card. He handed it to Jack.

  “Mr. Stapinsky’s main office is located in Kraków. You can usually find him there.”

  “Thanks for this.” Jack pocketed the card.

  “Better still, let me call him for you.” Wilczek reached for his phone.

  “You don’t have to bother—”

  “No bother at all,” the big man said, punching numbers on the dial with his middle finger. The end of his index finger was cut off and healed over like melted wax.

  The phone rang twice before a female voice answered in Polish on the other end. Wilczek growled a few questions, then took a long drag as he waited impatiently for the woman’s voice to come back on the line. Wilczek frowned, thanked her—or so Jack assumed—and hung up the phone.

  “I am sorry to inform you that Mr. Stapinsky is out of town and not interested in any investment opportunities you might have.” He stabbed the butt out in the hubcap.

  “That’s too bad,” Jack said.

  “Thank you for trying,” Liliana added.

  The three of them shook hands. Wilczek picked up the phone and dialed another number as Jack and Liliana cleared the office.

  * * *

  —

  Liliana beeped open the car doors and the two of them fell in.

  “Now where?” Liliana said, punching the start button.

  “Kraków, of course.”

  “Stapinsky isn’t there. Unless you think Wilczek lied to us.”

  “Not Wilczek. Stapinsky. And I want to find out why.”

  “What if he really isn’t there?”

  “We can still check out his stuff. If that’s okay.”

  Liliana searched his eyes. “You are a stubborn man, aren’t you?”

  “Only when it counts.”

  She shrugged. “Makes no difference. My assignment is to take you where you want to go, so we go.”

  35

  Liliana pulled into a gas station and called her supervisor while topping off the Audi.

  Jack knew it was too early in the morning in Alexandria to call in to Gerry and give him an update. They were six hours behind on the East Coast, and it wasn’t as if he had any hard data to pass along. He wasn’t convinced the trip to Kraków was going to be any more productive. It was a thin lead, but it was all he had.

  Liliana returned the nozzle to the gas pump, slapped the gas door shut, and slipped into her seat.

  “Ready?”

  “I love me a road trip.”

  “Me, too. And I think you’ll love Kraków.”

  She fired up the car and stomped the gas, burning rubber and turning a few heads.

  * * *

  —

  Jack and Liliana rode along in silence.

  Liliana felt she might have crossed a line with her impassioned history lessons, and Jack was still fighting jet lag; his eyelids felt like lead weights. She focused on the road while he buried his nose in his smartphone, researching about Stapinsky and his business.

  Other than a few advertisements for firms that he thought Stapinsky might have owned, or, at least, someone named Stapinsky did own, he didn’t come across much. He couldn’t even make a connection between Baltic General Services and Stapinsky Transportowe, let alone with Stapinsky and Christopher Gage or, for that matter, Senator Dixon, the true target of his investigation.

  He wished Gavin was available for a search. He could ferret out anything if it had a digital footprint. But Gerry said Gavin was off-limits for this assignment, so no point walking down that road.

  It was starting to feel like a wild-goose chase, and he had better things to do than waste time chasing his tail. He had an obligation to Cory to fulfill. The sooner, the better.

  Hitting yet another dead end, Jack yawned and set his phone between his legs. His eyes wandered to the scenery sliding past his window. The roadside businesses, strip malls, warehouses, and billboards—some of them in Chinese—diminished the farther they got from Warsaw, giving way to tractor dealerships, greenhouses, and nurseries.

  Liliana pointed at the radio. “Music?”

  “Sure.”

  She punched the Bluetooth button on her audio console. Piano music poured through the Bang & Olufsen sound system.

  “Chopin?” Jack asked.

  Liliana smiled, delighted. “You know him?”

  “Not well enough. I know he’s Poland’s most famous composer.”

  “I hope you don’t mind. This piece is Piano Concerto Number One in E minor. That’s Martha Argerich on the piano. Just brilliant.”

  The music was a perfect accompaniment to the pastoral landscape emerging outside his window. The gray clouds were shot through with blue sky and sunlight that illuminated the variegated greens all around them.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  Jack sat up straighter; slumping in the plush leather seat wasn’t helping him to stay awake.

  “What else can you tell me about OstBank?”

  “What I am allowed to tell you is that OstBank is a German financial institution headquartered in Berlin, with branches in the Federal Republic, Italy, Spain, and Poland.”

  “And off the record?”

  “There is no such thing as off the record. But I suppose you can read a newspaper? Especially the financial section?”

  “Not without moving my lips.”

  “Did you ever read about the ‘Russian Laundromat’? From a few years ago?”

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, your government and mine and several other Western countries levied harsh economic sanctions not only on the country but on the individual oligarchs that empowered President Yermilov. But the last thing a Russian wants to do if he wants to remain rich is keep his money in Russia. He needs to get his rubles converted into dollars and out of the country before the currency collapses entirely.”

  “Otherwise, all that ill-gotten cash turns to Monopoly money.”

  “The Russian Laundromat was an ingenious scheme that moved out over twenty billion dollars from inside Russia to fake shell companies the Russians set up. Those fake companies secured fake loans secured by Russian ‘investors.’ Then the fake companies declared bankruptcy a
nd the ‘investors’ were forced to pay back the fake loans by the Western bankruptcy courts.”

  “You mean they figured out a way for our judges to force them to send their money out of the country? That’s freaking slick.”

  “In the reports I read, laundered money was found in seven hundred and thirty-two Western banks, everything from small regional institutions to the biggest international giants. Many of them are accused by their respective governments of being complicit.”

  “And would one of those banks happen to be OstBank?”

  “Funny you should ask.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “That would be a mistake.”

  Jack frowned, confused. What was she trying to tell him?

  Oh. Okay. Yeah.

  “But that doesn’t mean OstBank couldn’t be involved in some other kind of money-laundering scheme, though. Right?”

  “As a financial analyst, I leave you to draw your own conclusions.”

  “And you think the German agent was killed because he was getting close to whatever scheme was going on inside of OstBank?”

  “That’s our assumption, but the German government isn’t confirming or denying at this point. OstBank has powerful friends in the Bundestag.”

  “Banks have powerful friends in every legislature, and they’re seldom held accountable for the issues that really matter. Even Thomas Jefferson said that private banks are more dangerous than standing armies.”

  “Strange that a financial analyst for a private equity firm would hold such an opinion.”

  “I work with money, I don’t worship it. It’s a means to an end, or should be. For too many people, money becomes the purpose for their existence.”

  “You sound like a Communist.”

  “I sound like my old parish priest. It’s in the Bible, I think. The love of money being the root of all evil or something like that.”

  “It sounds like you missed your calling.”

  “I’m just tired of politicians and corporations always doing what’s best for themselves instead of doing what’s right for the country.”

  “You’re quite passionate on the subject. Have you ever thought about running for office?”

  “The only way I’d run is in the opposite direction.”

  She laughed.

  Jack was smitten. Liliana was lovely and intelligent and had a good sense of humor. But he nearly got his head shot off last year by falling for another beauty back in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  And then there was Ysabel.

  “So tell me, Mr. Ryan. How do you plan on looking into Mr. Stapinsky’s businesses if he’s not around?”

  “Well, we can just show up in Kraków and start asking around and try to find out what we can. We might get lucky right away. Or it might take several hours, or even days. Hell, weeks.”

  Jack searched Liliana’s face for a reaction, but there wasn’t one.

  “Or . . .” he offered.

  “Or?”

  “If you want to get back to your case assignments and get me out of your hair, maybe you can access your public tax records and get us some addresses.”

  “Who says I want you out of my hair?”

  Her blond hair danced in the wind rushing in from the cracked window, and her eyes locked with his. A familiar tingle ran up and down Jack’s spine.

  Flirting? Maybe.

  Or maybe a test.

  “Nice deflection. How about it?”

  “We’re not on official ABW business.”

  “You don’t know that. We already have a tie into OstBank, which is operating on Polish soil and is already suspected of something that might have gotten a German BKA agent killed. I’m not asking for anything that isn’t publicly available or that requires a warrant. I just don’t have access to Polish tax records, and my Polish is about as good as my Martian.”

  That cracked another smile. “Okay. I’ll call my boss and get approval.”

  “Might go faster if you didn’t.”

  She glanced over at him. “Never kid a kidder, Mr. Ryan.”

  He flashed a boyish smile. “Wouldn’t dare try.”

  “Charming, witty, manipulative. Are you quite sure you’re not a politician?”

  “Me? Oh, hell no.”

  Liliana shook her head, hardly believing she had fallen for Jack’s blarney. She spoke to the Audi’s MMI—multimedia interface—and a number pulled up.

  Jack pretended not to listen, but he was, since the two women were chatting it up in Polish over the Audi’s amazing sound system. He didn’t understand a word.

  But so far, so good.

  36

  Twenty minutes later, Liliana’s phone chirped with a text message and a file from a friend in the Polish Tax Office. She opened up the file and read it.

  “We have a list of places to visit,” she said.

  “Perfect. How many?”

  “Four, not counting his house.”

  “Hopefully we can knock them out quickly.”

  “You’re in a hurry to get back home?”

  “I have a lot going on.” He wasn’t in the mood to tell her about Cory’s promise.

  “A woman?”

  Jack shook his head, smiling. “Hardly.”

  “Oh. More than one?”

  “Are you kidding? I don’t have time for a pet goldfish.”

  “Never married? No kids?”

  “Someday, on both counts, I hope.”

  “Family is important.”

  “The most important,” Jack said. “Everything comes from that.”

  “Your father was good to you, growing up?”

  “Yeah. The best. Yours?”

  “The finest man I ever knew.”

  “Then you are a lucky woman.”

  Jack felt something stirring inside him. He admired her loyalty. She was a very impressive woman.

  Time to change the subject.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mr. Wilczek wasn’t exactly a warm and cuddly teddy bear, especially when we first met him. But after you mentioned your great-uncle, he softened up. What was that all about?”

  “Do you know World War Two history very well?”

  “Mostly the American version of it. My grandfather fought the Germans as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division.”

  “My great-uncle’s name was Witold Pilecki. His story is really the story of Poland. If you understand him and what kind of a man he was, then you understand the heart of the Polish people.” She stopped herself. “I don’t want to bore you.”

  “No, please. Tell me about him.”

  “His active military career began after World War One, when he started fighting the invading Bolshevik armies charging west.”

  “Wait. Remind me again. I’m a little fuzzy on that period.”

  “After the Bolsheviks defeated the counterrevolutionary White Armies in the Russian Civil War, Lenin and the other Bolsheviks saw their opportunity to invade Europe. The Allied armies were exhausted, and the Axis armies defeated. Lenin ordered Trotsky and Stalin to conquer the West with a Red Army of eight hundred thousand men and thirty thousand horses. They could have swept away every Western government and created a Red Communist empire from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Except for one problem. An army of barefoot Poles under Marshal Piłsudski stopped them at the gates of Warsaw in 1920. We call it the Miracle on the Vistula. It is the greatest battle of the twentieth century that no one outside of Poland has ever heard of.”

  Jack didn’t remember reading about any of that in his history courses.

  “And that wasn’t the first time Poland saved Western civilization, either,” Liliana said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “In 1683, the Ottoman E
mpire was marching across Europe undefeated and driving toward Vienna, which they surrounded and besieged with two hundred thousand troops. But the Polish king Sobieski amassed a relief force, and though greatly outnumbered, he led the Winged Hussars in a charge that smashed the Turks and saved Vienna.”

  “Wait. I remember now. The Winged Hussars were badasses. Heavy armor polished bright, nineteen-foot-long lances and poles strapped on their backs with eagle feathers that whistled like Stukas when they rode into battle.”

  “Were it not for King Sobieski and the Polish Hussars, all of Europe might well have fallen to the Muslim invasion. The Ottoman Empire was never a threat to the Christian West again.”

  “I suppose as a Westerner and a Christian, I should thank you.”

  “Twice. Or perhaps three times.”

  “Three?”

  “Polish mathematicians broke the German Enigma code just before World War Two and passed it along to the British, with instructions to Turing on how to build the electromechanical components of his code-breaking machine.”

  “I had no idea. So finish the story about your great-uncle.”

  “He fought very bravely both at the front and also behind enemy lines during the Polish–Soviet war and was twice awarded the Cross of Valor.”

  “He sounds like a stud.”

  “He was only just getting started. Between the two world wars he established a cavalry training school and later commanded a cavalry squadron. He fought the Germans when they invaded on the first of September, 1939, and then turned around and fought the Soviets, who invaded on the seventeenth of September. His unit was defeated by the Communists, so he fled to Warsaw and cofounded the Secret Polish Army under German occupation.”

  “Did he survive the war?”

  “While still one of the commanders of the Polish underground, he heard rumors there was something horrible taking place in a camp called Auschwitz, near Kraków. You know it, of course.”

  “Horrific. Inhuman.”

  “At the time, most people thought it was just another POW camp. My uncle knew the only way to find out the truth was to get himself arrested and imprisoned there.”