by Mike Maden
“And they want you to make a good impression on me so that I will report back to Gerry and twist his arm and make him get Congress to pass that forward base treaty, right?”
“Something like that. I’m told they want to call it Fort Ryan.”
“Are you kidding? That’s the fastest way to get the President to back off. Better to name it Fort Pulaski, after the Polish general who died fighting in the American Revolution. He was the founder of the American cavalry, and I think the First Cavalry Division might even be the unit that would be stationed there, so that’s a slam dunk.”
“So you do know your Polish history.”
“Sadly, only as it relates to my own.”
“I’ll pass your suggestion along.”
They arrived at the restaurant, hardly more than a hole in the wall. Jack opened the door for her. The tiny place was jammed with locals. The place buzzed with lunchtime conversation and the tink of silverware and ceramic plates.
A young waitress lit up when she saw Liliana. Her eyes drifted to Jack for a second, then a smile flashed across her round, Slavic face. She shouted something and motioned for them to come to the back of the small dining area.
“She’s making a place for us,” Liliana said as the two of them wedged between crowded tables. Jack kept muttering “Przepraszam” as they worked their way back, but nobody seemed to mind the intrusion.
The woman cleared a small table used for holding silverware and napkins, then pulled two unused chairs from adjoining tables just as they arrived.
Liliana thanked her profusely and gave her their order. Ten minutes later, a heaping plate of pierogi arrived. Liliana pointed them out—each plump little dumpling stuffed with sweet plums, minced mushrooms, and beef or pork. They drank bubbling mineral water served at room temperature. Not uncommon in this part of the world. Only America seemed fixated with ice in its water.
Halfway through their meal, Liliana asked, “So, have I made a good impression?”
“Yes, actually. The whole country has.”
“Poland is a great country. A country worth dying for.”
“Do all Poles feel that way?”
“It’s increasingly rare these days, I’m sorry to say. Especially among young people.”
“Same in my country.”
“Their allegiances are shifting to the EU or to globalism or climate change or a hundred other things they wouldn’t die for, either.”
“I know you’re not big on the EU, but it was meant to defeat nationalism and prevent another world war, wasn’t it?”
“If national borders were the cause of wars, then there would never be a civil war, would there?”
Jack thought about his travels in Bosnia and Herzegovina last year and its horrific civil war that still haunted the people there.
Liliana shook her head. “And there I go again. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for loving your country. I sure as hell won’t.”
She waved at their waitress, signaling for a check.
Jack paid this time, over Liliana’s protests, and they headed back to her office in reflective silence.
* * *
—
They spent the next four hours combing through the last records they could access. A summary of the day’s findings was crystal clear. Altogether they had discovered exactly nothing beyond the business relationship Gage had with Stapinsky, which they already knew about, and as far as Jack could tell, there wasn’t anything illegal about it or the business transactions they were engaged in.
Even Liliana’s constant cross-checking with another ABW database—which Jack wasn’t allowed to see—pulled up nothing.
“All I am authorized to tell you is that I can’t find any legal associations BGS has with any known criminal elements or enterprises.”
“Well, that’s something. Do we have anything else to look at? Something I’m not seeing?”
“That’s the last of what we have been authorized to examine. I’m sorry, Jack. What’s next for you?”
“The only thing I can think of is checking out the properties Baltic General Services owns in Gdynia and Gdańsk. Exactly three, by my count.”
“We can go there tomorrow if you like.”
“I would, actually.”
Liliana’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me, that’s my mother calling. Do you mind?”
“No, not all. Moms always come first.” He glanced at his watch. It was just after five-thirty local.
She spoke with her mother in Polish. Jack wasn’t trying to listen—what was the point, since he couldn’t understand them anyway? But he noticed her voice dropped to a near whisper as she turned her back and stepped away from the desk, her vocal inflections more intense. Finally, she turned around with her hand covering the receiver. Her face flushed with embarrassment.
“Excuse me, Jack. I have a question for you.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“It’s my mother. She wants to know if you would come over for dinner tonight. She is a great fan of your country and would like to meet you.”
Jack was conflicted. It was very kind of her mother to extend the invitation. On the other hand, he couldn’t help but feel this might be another test.
“I can see it in your face. It’s too much to ask. I apologize.” Liliana lifted her hand from the receiver to tell her mother the bad news.
“No, wait.”
Liliana paused.
Jack smiled. “What’s for dinner?”
45
Liliana parked the Audi at the curb of a modest two-story home north of the city center, across the street from a greenbelt or perhaps a park. The recent rains had slicked the heavily treed street with leaves that were just beginning to riot with fall colors.
She led them through a wrought-iron gate and up a few stone steps to a magnificent wooden door. Jack carried a small bouquet of flowers and a bottle of merlot. He insisted they stop on the way. His mother taught him long ago the power of flowers. Liliana opened the door and the sweet, peppery aroma of grilled steak came wafting out. Jack’s mouth began to water.
While they were still standing in the foyer, a handsome, middle-aged woman came out of the kitchen, a flowery apron wrapped around her well-kept figure. Jack saw instantly where Liliana got her good looks. Apart from a few strands of gray in her light brown hair and laugh lines around her eyes, the two women almost looked like sisters. He remembered a line his mother told him years ago. “If you want to see your wife in the future, meet her mother.” It wasn’t always true, but this looked like a sure bet.
Jack held out the bouquet of flowers. Liliana’s mother lit up like a candle.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have.”
Oh, but I’m so glad I did.
Thanks, Mom.
The woman extended her hand. “Mr. Ryan, it is such a pleasure to meet you.”
Jack shook hers. A warm, firm grip, wet from washing dishes. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Pilecki. And please, call me Jack.”
“And I’m Maria.”
“Like Madame Curie?”
“Very good. Yes, like me, born in Poland. But I never left, except to go to school at Oxford.”
Yikes. A brainiac.
“Please, make yourself comfortable. I hope you came hungry.”
Jack sniffed the air. “I am now.”
“Mother is the best cook in Warsaw.”
“Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Beer? An aperitif?”
“I’m fine right now, but thanks.” He handed her the wine. “Almost forgot. For you as well.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I told him not to, Mother. But he’s persistent.”
A door slammed toward the back of the house. Stockinged feet thundered down the hallway.
Liliana knelt down just
as a greased ball of blond lightning crashed into her, wrapping his little arms around her neck.
“Tomasz!” She kissed him as she stood.
Jack grinned ear to ear as he stepped toward them. “And who’s this little fellow?”
“This is Tomasz. He’s my son.”
* * *
—
Clinging to his mother’s neck, the boy’s large, luminous blue eyes searched Jack for some sign of evil intent.
Jack smiled at him. “Hello, Tomasz.”
Tomasz locked eyes with him fearlessly.
“Tomasz, be a good boy and say hello to Mr. Ryan,” Liliana urged.
“You can call me Jack.”
“Jack is having dinner with us tonight. Are you hungry?”
The boy nodded furiously.
His grandmother spoke to him in Polish. He reached for her and she took him.
“He’s, what, two, two and a half?”
“Two and a half next week,” Liliana said.
“He’s a beautiful boy.”
“Thank you.”
“And he’s obviously bright if he speaks English and Polish already.”
“Mother only speaks to him in Polish, and I only speak to him in English.”
“That’s brilliant. I studied languages in college. They didn’t stick so well.”
“It’s always better to learn them when you’re young. The brain is wired for it.”
“Let’s get you washed up for dinner,” Maria said in Polish, and carried Tomasz off to the bathroom.
“I apologize for my son’s rudeness,” Liliana said.
“He wasn’t rude at all. He was just checking out the stranger. He’s the man of the house. It’s his job. How long will his father be deployed?”
Liliana’s eyes narrowed, curious. “Why do you ask that?”
Jack nodded toward the fireplace mantel on the far wall. A handsome soldier in a Polish uniform stood inside a silver frame.
“He’s a good-looking fellow. I see where Tomasz gets it from.”
“Yes. Tadeusz was a very handsome man . . .” Her voice trailed off, nearly cracking.
“I’m so sorry. How did it happen?”
“Six months after Tomasz was born. He was a lieutenant with Task Force White Eagle, attached to the American First Cavalry Division in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. A roadside IED took out his vehicle.”
“It’s a shitty war that never ends.”
“He served his country faithfully and bravely. I would rather be the widow to a brave man than a wife to a coward.”
When she said death wasn’t a stranger, she wasn’t kidding.
Now Jack felt like a pile of shit. She was a grieving widow and a single working mom and he had allowed his mind to go places it shouldn’t have gone. All he wanted to do was leave.
“I need to secure my weapon and wash up a bit. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’m sure dinner will be ready soon.”
Jack turned toward the front door.
“Jack?” It was Maria.
He turned back around. Tomasz was in her arms, staring at him. They approached.
“Come, let’s get you something to drink.”
“I hate to be a bother—”
“Nonsense.” She sniffed the air. “My steaks!” She set Tomasz down and pointed at a box of toys in the living room, urging the boy in Polish to go play with them. Tomasz scampered off with a squeal while she dashed to the kitchen, shouting, “Excuse me, Jack—” over her shoulder as she went.
Jack watched Tomasz attack the toy box, yanking out each piece one at a time, obviously searching for something. He leaned over into the box and emerged with a triumphant grin on his face, with a plastic giraffe in one hand and a lion in the other.
He glanced up at Jack and then the animals in his hands, and then held up the giraffe toward Jack. “Play?”
“Me? Heck, yeah, bud. Let’s play.”
Jack dropped down on the floor with him and the two began their plastic safari adventure.
* * *
—
Fifteen minutes passed before Liliana came back out into the front room in a fresh change of clothes and with her face washed.
“What are you two up to?” she asked.
Jack sat cross-legged on the ground and proudly pointed at his giraffe standing in the back of a dump truck that Tomasz was pushing around with the help of the lion. There was also a plastic hammer, a Thomas the Tank Engine figure, and a green plastic knight with a broadsword held high over his helmeted head.
“Seems we’re on some kind of construction-related safari.”
“He loves to play. He’d rather play than watch TV any day.”
She reached out her hand toward her son. “Come, it’s time for dinner.”
“Nie,” Tomasz said, half pouting.
“Put your toys away right now, Son. You can play later, after Mr. Ryan leaves.”
“Nie.”
“Can we play some more after dinner?” Jack pleaded with Liliana, like a trial attorney on behalf of his young client.
Liliana shrugged. “Only if Tomasz eats all of his dinner.”
Jack turned to Tomasz. He nodded. “Hey, bud. That sounds like a pretty good deal. Okay?”
Tomasz grinned and bobbled his head exactly like Jack, nod for nod.
“Great!”
Jack stood up.
Tomasz reached up.
To Jack.
Jack picked him up. “Here we go!”
Jack tossed him up in the air a little. The toddler giggled.
“Again!”
Jack tossed him one more time.
“Again!”
“After dinner, okay?”
“Okay.”
“If you two are done fooling around, dinner is served.”
46
Jack and Liliana feasted, raving about Maria’s steaks and the side dishes as they ate, especially the sour rye soup with sausage and bacon. Tomasz sat next to Jack, who cut up his steak into little boy-sized bites.
Maria instructed Alexa to play Spanish guitar instrumental music during dinner. The conversation flowed from favorite music to movies, then to history, and finally politics, which Jack quickly deflected, feigning ignorance and disdain for the subject to avoid conjuring up any possible connections with his famous father, to whom he still bore a strong resemblance despite the beard. When the subject finally turned to economics, Maria’s professional expertise, Liliana threw her hands up.
“Oh, no. When we start talking about inverted yield curves and Smoot–Hawley, I know it’s my turn to wash the dishes.” Liliana stood and gathered plates.
Jack stood as well. “Here, let me help you.”
“Nonsense. You’re our guest,” Maria said, laying a hand on his arm. “As soon as she clears the table, we’ll have dessert.” She turned to Tomasz and told him the name of the dessert in Polish. The boy laughed and repeated it. “Szarlotka!”
Maria quizzed Jack about the American stock market—he was a financial analyst, after all—and what direction he thought the market would take after the recent announcement by the Fed to hike interest rates a half-point. He gave his opinion and fired back at her about the European Central Bank and its latest round of quantitative easing. And so it went for the next twenty minutes.
Somewhere in that conversation, Tomasz had managed to slip out of his chair and into Jack’s lap, his bright eyes flitting back and forth between Jack and Maria as if he were following the conversation word for word.
Liliana fell into her chair. “Okay, Mother. Where’s that szarlotka you promised?”
Jack sniffed the air. “Oh, I’d say it’s right around the corner.” A timer went off a second later.
“Coming right up.” Maria stood. “Coffee?”
“Please.” He said this as Tomasz was rubbing Jack’s beard with his stubby little fingers, slick with steak grease.
“Tomasz! What are you doing?” Liliana pointed at her son. “Do you want me to take him?”
“Nah. He’s fine. I used to hold my younger brother and sister like this, a million years ago. I kinda miss it.”
Maria arrived, setting bowls on the table heaping with szarlotka—steaming-hot apple pie, along with big scoops of vanilla ice cream that was already starting to melt.
“Oh, Mother. This is too much.”
“Ridiculous. You’re skinny as a rail. And Jack packs so much muscle he’ll burn it off just sitting there.”
She returned with a small bowl of the same confectionary concoction for Tomasz and set it down on his place mat in front of his chair.
“Leave Mr. Ryan alone to eat his dessert in peace,” she said in Polish, or so Jack assumed.
“Nie” was the boy’s familiar reply. He leaned over the table and reached for the corner of the place mat, which he seized with his little fingers, and gently pulled the apple pie over to himself. He picked up the spoon and jabbed it into the pie and lifted it to his mouth.
“Careful, bucko. It’s hot.” Jack blew on his spoon to demonstrate.
Tomasz gave him a quizzical look, then did the same to his before taking a bite.
“You’re ruining my son,” Liliana said. “Or is it the other way around?”
Jack shrugged and smiled, and kept eating. “Man, this pie is awesome.”
* * *
—
They finally finished dinner, and while Maria and Liliana cleaned up the rest of the kitchen, Jack and Tomasz finished their plastic safari adventures.
Twenty minutes later, Liliana reappeared and told her son in no uncertain terms, “It’s time for bed.”
Tomasz shot a worried look at Jack. Back me up, dude.
Jack shrugged. “Sorry, buddy. When the boss says it’s time, it’s time.”
He stood, and Liliana reached down to pick up her son. The boy laughed and squirmed. She finally got ahold of him and lifted him up like a sack of potatoes, holding him upside down, to his squealing delight.
