“Please to wait here,” the woman said and stepped inside the office. A moment later she reappeared and motioned for them to enter.
The office was about the same size as the parlor of the mansion Adam and Meinerz were staying in and just as lavishly furnished, complete with oriental rugs and soft leather chairs. Enormous, oak-framed windows, two of them still boarded up, covered the wall opposite the door, offering a gut-wrenching view of the ruins of Berlin. On the wall to the left was a fireplace flanked by oak shelves filled with books, photographs and various trophies.
Adam studied the books while the woman laid a file on the general’s desk, spoke a few words to him and left the office. The books were all German—military texts by Clausewitz, Guderian, Rommel, von Kluck, and works of philosophy and science by Goethe, Engels and Einstein. Adam wondered whose office this might have been before the Russians took over. Goering’s perhaps?
The tall, broad-shouldered Red Army general that Adam remembered from that night on the other side of the Vistula River stood behind the desk with his hands clasped behind him. Now, however, instead of the dusty field jacket he’d been wearing the last time, General Kovalenko wore a crisp dress uniform with gold epaulettes and rows of campaign medals. Adam thought he looked older, his close-cropped hair grayer, his face more heavily creased.
Sitting on one of the two settees in front of the general’s desk was the aerodrome major. He did not stand up.
“I am General Andrei Kovalenko,” the general said. His voice was deep and coarse, but his English was as fluent as Adam remembered. He gestured toward the major, who had not looked up or acknowledged their presence. “This is Major Dmitri Tarnov, of the NKVD. I believe you met.”
Meinerz stepped forward and held out his hand to the general. “Colonel Tim Meinerz, American First Army, now assigned to the Judge Advocate General.”
Kovalenko nodded but did not offer his hand. He turned to Adam, his dark, sunken eyes moving up and down, taking in his civilian clothing. There was not the slightest hint of recognition.
Adam stood where he was and kept his hands at his side. “Adam Nowak, Civilian Liaison Officer, also assigned to the Judge Advocate General.”
Kovalenko stared at him for a long moment then said, “You’re an American, Mr. Nowak?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And what is your connection to the Polish Government, which is in exile in London?”
Adam thought that either Kovalenko did not remember him or that he was very accomplished at deception. Based on his previous experience, he decided on the latter. “I was asked by the British to serve as the representative of the Polish Government for the purpose of investigating war crimes.”
Silence hung in the room for a moment as the three men stood on either side of the mammoth desk. Finally General Kovalenko gestured to the settee opposite the one where Major Tarnov sat and then lowered his husky frame into his desk chair. He shook a cigarette from a pack of Lucky Strikes and lit it with a gold-plated lighter. He took a long drag, exhaled a cloud of smoke and asked, “So, what service may we provide, Colonel Meinerz?”
Meinerz leaned forward. “As we indicated in our correspondence through General Parks’ office, the Allied War Crimes Investigation Team requests assistance from our Russian allies to visit the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at Oranienburg.”
Kovalenko’s dark eyes were blank. “Correspondence? We received no correspondence.” He took another drag on the cigarette.
Meinerz pressed on. “The correspondence was sent by courier from General Parks’ command center to your attention here at the Soviet Military Administration last week.”
Kovalenko shrugged. “You have seen the size of this building, Colonel Meinerz. Many hundreds of Russian officers work here. Perhaps it will turn up.”
“Yes, perhaps it will,” Meinerz replied. “However, since we are here now, shall we discuss arrangements for a visit?”
Kovalenko blew out another cloud of smoke, then he turned to Adam. “So, an American diplomat is representing the interests of Poland and investigating war crimes?”
“Several million Polish citizens were sent to concentration camps,” Adam replied.
“German concentration camps,” Kovalenko said. “You are investigating German war crimes.”
Adam thought about the hundreds of thousands of Poles sent to Russian gulags, and the murder of thousands of Polish officers at the hands of the NKVD in the Katyn Forest. But he wouldn’t talk about that . . . not now. “Yes, General, German war crimes.”
Kovalenko stared at him in silence and took another long drag on the cigarette before crushing it out in a silver ashtray. Then he abruptly stood up. Major Tarnov stood as well.
Adam and Meinerz both got to their feet. Meinerz said, “General, about the visit—”
Kovalenko cut him off. “I am very busy right now. There are many demands on my time. When I receive your correspondence I will look into the matter.”
Behind them the door opened, and a Red Army officer stepped into the office carrying a thick folder. He said something in Russian that included the name “Marshal Zhukov,” the Supreme Commander of Russian forces in Berlin.
General Kovalenko glanced at Meinerz and signified with a quick nod of his head that the meeting was over.
Twenty-Eight
21 MAY
NATALIA PEDALED HER BICYCLE up the long hill that ran alongside the Rawka River, pushing hard to keep up with Rabbit. Following the winding pathways through dense stands of birch and aspen trees, they often raced the three kilometers from the thatched-roof cottage buried deep in the Bolimowski Forest to the village. It was a race she routinely lost to the skinny, but deceptively strong, lad. He seemed to have grown a head taller in the last eight months, and much hungrier.
And today was no different. As they embarked on their weekly ride to the village to replenish their supplies, Rabbit had challenged her to another race, the winner getting the first pick of whatever vegetables might still be available at the village’s market. Natalia knew he would win, of course, and she certainly didn’t care. It was fun, and eight months after the nightmare of Warsaw she was thankful for just being alive, let alone having a bit of fun now and then. Especially since they’d been cooped up in the tiny cottage all winter.
Finding the abandoned cottage had been a godsend after their narrow escape from the collection point outside Warsaw, Natalia thought as she watched Rabbit disappear around the bend. The escape had been a stroke of pure genius, planned by the streetwise youth, who had a knack for getting out of tight spots. Natalia, Zeeka and Hammer, along with Rabbit, had blended in with the civilian exodus and slipped out of Warsaw following the defeat of the Rising. When they met up at the first collection point, Rabbit snooped around—just a curious boy asking questions—and learned that every train included a baggage car at the end, used by the Germans to haul supplies beyond Prushkov. Natalia still wore her Polish railway conductor’s jacket, Rabbit had pointed out, and though it was filthy and tattered, she didn’t look any worse than anyone else. Besides, the train would be packed with fatigued, hot and ornery people, who wouldn’t give a damn about anything except getting to the next stop. If Natalia could exert some authority and lead a small group to the baggage car at the back of the train, it might work.
It had succeeded as planned. The four of them had concealed themselves among crates and large canvas sacks filled with everything from works of art to sterling silver, jewelry and clothing that the Germans had plundered during their systematic destruction of Warsaw.
The following day, wearing new clothing and toting two suitcases filled with winter coats, sweaters and hats they’d pilfered from the baggage car, along with a few thousand zlotys that Rabbit had found in the lining of a black leather briefcase, they departed the train at Zyrardow, forty kilometers west of Prushkov on the edge of the Bolimowski Forest. Two days later, as they trudged through the dense forest, Rabbit had spotted the abandoned cottage.
As Natalia pedaled past a meadow, now alive with red poppies and blossoming apple trees, the bright mid-afternoon sun warming her back, she thought about the long, cold winter they had endured in the tiny cottage. The forest had provided ample firewood, and they had been able to find odd jobs with the farmers in the area in return for a stockpile of potatoes, turnips and a bit of salted pork before the weather turned and the snow set in. Hammer had even bartered a log-splitting job for a Russian Mosin-Nagant rifle and some ammunition. Armed with the rifle, he had managed to provide an occasional treat of fresh venison. He had also obtained a Browning 9mm pistol, which Natalia carried in the pocket of the gray woolen coat she’d stolen from the baggage car. She had never asked Hammer exactly how he’d gotten the Browning.
They had escaped the clutches of the Germans and, so far at least, they had managed to avoid Red Army troops and NKVD agents. But Natalia knew the enemy was out there. Zeeka had made contact with an AK cell in Zyrardow that had a wireless radio. She had brought back reports of the NKVD tracking down AK operatives all over Poland and arresting them—or shooting them on the spot.
Natalia took one last glance at the shimmering meadow and inhaled the sweet scent of the apple blossoms before she pedaled back under the green canopy of budding birches and aspens. They’d survived one war, but they were entering another.
When she finally cleared the forest, Rabbit was waiting for her at the edge of the village. It was a dusty, ramshackle collection of thatched-roofed wooden cottages, a cinder-block grain elevator, and a two-story wood-frame building with peeling paint that housed a post office and a blacksmith shop. The most substantial building in the village was a tiny church of white-washed brick with a faded red-tile roof. In a grassy area next to the church stood the weekly market—a dozen wooden stalls with faded canvas awnings covering plank tables set on sawhorses.
“I already checked it out,” the boy chirped triumphantly, leading the way to the market. “They have potatoes and beets. I choose potatoes.”
Natalia laughed. “You always choose potatoes. Why not beets?”
“Because I won the race, that’s why.”
Natalia and Rabbit filled their backpacks with the potatoes and a few beets, along with a half-dozen strips of salted pork, a bag of ersatz coffee and two bars of lye soap. They paid the merchants a few zlotys. Mounting their bicycles, they headed down the pathway toward the forest. As they neared the gravel road that headed west out of the village, Natalia noticed two men standing next to a black, four-door auto parked alongside the road.
“This doesn’t look good,” Rabbit said. “Maybe we should—”
Natalia cut him off with a sharp look, shook her head and continued on, instinctively sliding her hand in and out of her jacket pocket, feeling for the Browning 9mm pistol. One of the men wore the khaki uniform and gray-green hat of an NKVD trooper, and turning back now would look entirely too suspicious.
They were about to pass the auto when the uniformed trooper abruptly stepped out into the path. Natalia almost fell off her bicycle as she swerved to avoid him.
“Izvinítye,” the trooper said and grabbed the handlebars to steady the bike. He was short and plump with a grisly growth of red beard and thick hands.
He had said “excuse me,” one of the few Russian phrases Natalia understood. The hair on the back of her neck stood up at the sound of Russian. The trooper said something else, which Natalia didn’t understand. She glanced at Rabbit, who shrugged. Then she turned back to the trooper. “It’s fine,” she replied in Polish. “No problem.”
The trooper continued to grip the handlebars.
Rabbit stopped his bicycle next to Natalia, and the trooper launched into a long string of Russian. The boy shrugged again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand?”
“He said to get off your bicycle,” the second man said in Polish.
Rabbit dismounted but kept a firm grip on his handlebars.
This man was taller than the trooper and clean-shaven. He wore a dark blue suit, with a black tie and a red hammer-and-sickle pin in his lapel. He was clearly an NKVD agent and the one in charge. He approached Natalia and said, “May I see your papers, please?”
Natalia reached into her pocket and produced the identification card that Zeeka had obtained from the forger at the AK cell in Zyrardow. Obtaining new identification cards and ration coupons had been one of their first orders of business after arriving in the area last fall, but up until this moment, Natalia had never had to use hers. Trying to control her breathing, Natalia handed the intentionally weathered-looking card with her picture on it to the agent.
The Russian studied it for a long time, glancing back and forth from the card to Natalia. Finally he asked, “Where did you get this?”
Natalia feigned surprise. “Where did I get it? At the city clerk’s office in Warsaw, as you can see.”
The agent frowned. “Yes, I can plainly see that is what is printed on this card. But where did you get it?”
Natalia felt her face flush and cursed silently. Stay calm. Just stay calm. “I got it at the city clerk’s office in Warsaw, in 1938, when I applied for a job in the civil service.”
The agent took a step closer. He had a ruddy complexion and narrow, dark eyes. He glanced at the card again, then back at her. “And your name is Katolina Archowski? You were born in Warsaw in 1915?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“And what are you doing in this filthy little backwater, Katolina Archowski? Working for the ‘civil service’?”
“No, I’m not. As you know, everyone was forced out of Warsaw by the Germans last September. My brother and I”—she motioned toward Rabbit—“are temporarily staying in the area, doing odd jobs, just trying to survive.”
“Staying where, exactly?” he asked.
“In a cottage owned by my family, about three kilometers down this pathway.” Natalia pointed toward the spot where the pathway disappeared into the forest. She watched the agent’s expression as he studied the pathway, obviously not eager to hike several kilometers into the forest to check out her story.
“Your family owns this cottage?”
Natalia nodded. The four of them had rehearsed the cover story many times. “Our father used it occasionally with some of his friends—for hunting and fishing.”
“And your family is there now, in the cottage?”
“No, just my brother and I, and two cousins. Our parents were both killed during the Rising.”
“How convenient. And the documents proving your family’s ownership of this cottage?”
“I assume they’re on file at my parent’s bank in Warsaw.”
“A bank which is now destroyed, of course.” The agent exchanged a few words with his comrade, who still gripped the handlebars of Natalia’s bicycle. “You will both have to come with us until we get this cleared up,” he said.
“Come with you?” Natalia asked. Her heart pounded so loudly she was surprised the agent couldn’t hear it. “Where?”
“That is not your concern. Trespassing is a serious offense.”
Suddenly Rabbit lunged toward the agent and rammed his bicycle hard into the man’s groin.
The stunned agent doubled over and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Rabbit jumped on the bicycle and pedaled hard toward the forest.
The trooper let go of Natalia’s handlebars, pulled a pistol from the holster on his belt and spun around, taking aim at the escaping boy.
It all happened in an instant, but it was just the diversion Natalia needed. She pulled the Browning from her jacket pocket and fired into the back of the trooper’s head before he could get off a shot.
The NKVD agent stared wide-eyed at the trooper, who collapsed to the ground with a gaping hole in his forehead. But he recovered in an instant. He struggled to stand up, reaching inside his suit coat for his gun.
He wasn’t fast enough.
Natalia pointed the Browning at him and shot him in the stomach.
The
agent stumbled backward then fell to his knees, gazing down at the widening circle of blood on his white shirt. He mumbled something as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and tried to raise the pistol in his right hand.
Natalia took three quick steps and kicked the gun out of his hand.
He looked up at her with glassy eyes, his mouth opening and closing, producing only a raspy wheeze.
The blood from his wound was pooling on the ground, and Natalia was amazed he was still on his knees. She grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head back and thrust the barrel of the Browning into his mouth. She leaned close and whispered. “This is for my brother, you son of a bitch.” Then she pulled the trigger.
Natalia stood for a moment staring down at the two dead men, wondering if either of them had actually been among the murderers at the Katyn Forest five years ago. She decided it didn’t matter. They were NKVD. That was close enough. She retrieved her identification card and took both of their pistols before jumping back on her bicycle and pedaling quickly into the forest after Rabbit.
“We can’t stay here,” Zeeka said, pacing back and forth in the cottage’s living area a few hours later. “We should get out now, while we have the chance.”
Hammer glanced at his watch. It was a little after seven o’clock. “The sun will set in about a half hour,” he said. “If they haven’t come by now, they certainly won’t attempt to find this place in the dark.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Zeeka said. “With two of their agents shot to death, the NKVD will be swarming over this entire area like flies on a manure pile.” She looked at Natalia and held up her hand. “I know, I know, you had no choice. Getting in their automobile would’ve been a death sentence.”
“You’re damn right,” Hammer growled. “We should take out these Bolshevik bastards every chance we get. Besides, I’m certain the villagers had both bodies buried in the forest and the auto hidden away before Rabbit and Natalia got back here.”
Zeeka glared at the big man with her hands on her hips. “And when those two agents don’t report in at the end of the day? Then what? Do you suppose their superiors are just going to go home and have their dinner?”
The Katyn Order Page 18
