The Warsaw Protocol Read online

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  For Frank Green, A Man of Inspiration

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Again, my sincere thanks to John Sargent, head of Macmillan; Sally Richardson, who serves as chairman of St. Martin’s Publishing; Jen Enderlin, who captains St. Martin’s Press, and my publisher at Minotaur, Andrew Martin. Also, a huge debt of gratitude continues for Hector DeJean in Publicity; Jeff Dodes and everyone in Marketing and Sales, especially Paul Hochman and Danielle Prielipp; Anne Marie Tallberg, the sage of all things paperback; David Rotstein, who produced the cover; and Mary Beth Roche and her innovative folks in Audio.

  A huge bow goes to Simon Lipskar, my agent and friend, and to my editor, Kelley Ragland, and her assistant, Madeline Houpt, both of whom are wonderful.

  A few extra mentions: Meryl Moss and her extraordinary publicity team (especially Deb Zipf); Jessica Johns and Esther Garver, who continue to keep Steve Berry Enterprises running smoothly; Anna Slotorsz, for making our trips to Kraków so much easier; Patrycja Antoniak, who twice guided us through the Wieliczka salt mine, answered my endless inquiries, then read the manuscript looking for errors; Jan Kucharz, one of the salt miners who showed us the hidden treasures; Iwona Zbela, for extending some great hospitality while we were in Wieliczka; Jolanta Pustuła Szeląg, who possesses an encyclopedic knowledge about the Spear of St. Maurice; Father Simon Stefanowicz for the wonderful tour of Jasna Góra; and Sonia Draga, publisher extraordinaire, who was there from the beginning, making all of my novels available in Polish.

  As always, though, my wife, Elizabeth, remains the most special of all.

  Twenty-nine years ago a man at a local community college asked me to join his creative writing group. I did, and so began a relationship that altered the course of my life. Here’s a fact: No one can teach anyone how to write. It’s impossible. But there are people who can teach you how to teach yourself to write.

  Frank Green was that for me.

  He was a tough taskmaster, but I would not be published if not for him.

  Thankfully he’s still there.

  In my head.

  Every day.

  Poland has not yet perished,

  So long as we still live.

  What the foreign force has taken from us,

  We shall with sabre retrieve.

  —POLISH NATIONAL ANTHEM

  PROLOGUE

  MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1982

  WARSAW, POLAND

  3:45 P.M.

  Janusz Czajkowski wanted to look away from the gruesome scene before him, but he knew that would be worse.

  He’d been brought here to Mokotów Prison for the express purpose of watching. This place had a long and storied history. The Russians built it in the early 20th century. The Nazis used it extensively, as did the communists after the war. Since 1945 this was where the Polish political underground, the intelligentsia, and anyone else considered a threat to the Soviet-controlled government was held, tortured, and executed. Its heyday had come during Stalin’s time, when thousands had been held at Rakowiecka Street Prison, which was how most Poles referred to it then. Sometimes, though, they spat out the German label: Nacht und Nebel. Night and Fog. A place of no return. Many were murdered in the basement boiler room. Officially, such atrocities had ended with Stalin. But that was not actually the case. Dissidents for decades after had continued to be rounded up and brought here for “interrogation.”

  Like the man before him.

  Middle-aged, naked, his body bent over a tall stool, his wrists and ankles tied to the bloodstained wooden legs. A guard stood over him with legs spread across the prisoner’s head, beating the man on his back and bare ass. Incredibly, the prisoner did not make a sound. The guard stopped the assault and slipped off the bound man, planting the sole of his boot into the side of the man’s head.

  Spittle and blood spewed out.

  But still, not a sound.

  “It’s easy to manufacture fear,” the tall man standing next to Janusz said. “But it’s even easier to fake it.”

  The tall man wore the dour uniform of a major in the Polish army. The hair was razor-cut in military style, a black mustache tight and manicured. He was older, of medium build, but muscular, with the arrogant entitled personality he’d seen all too often in the Red Bourgeoisie. The eyes were dark points, diamond-shaped, signaling nothing. Eyes like that would always hide much more than they would reveal, and he wondered how difficult maintaining such a lie must be. A name tag read DILECKI. He knew nothing about this major, other than having been arrested by him.

  “To manufacture fear,” Dilecki said, “you have to mobilize a large portion of the people to accept it exists. That takes work. You have to create situations people can see and feel. Blood must be shed. Terrorism, if you will. But to counterfeit fear? That’s much easier. All you have to do is silence those who call fear into question. Like this poor soul.”

  The guard resumed beating the naked man with what looked like a riding crop, a metal bearing hanging from its tip. Welts had formed, which were now bleeding. Three more guards joined the assault, each delivering more blows.

  “If you notice,” Dilecki said, “they are careful. Just enough force to inflict pain and agony, but not enough to kill. We do not want this man to die. Quite the contrary. We want this man to talk.”

  The prisoner clearly was suffering, but he seemed unwilling to allow his captors the satisfaction of knowing that fact.

  “You’ve forgotten the kidneys,” Dilecki called out.

  One of the guards nodded and began to concentrate his blows to that area of the body.

  “Those organs are particularly fragile,” Dilecki noted. “With just the right blow, there’s no need to even bind or gag people. They cannot move or utter a sound. It’s excruciating.”

  Not a hint of emotion laced the shrill voice, and he wondered what it took for someone to become so inhuman. Dilecki was a Pole. The guards were Poles. The man being tortured was a Pole.

  Madness.

  The whole country was being held together by force and propaganda. Solidarity had risen from nothing and tried to eliminate the Soviets, but eight months ago Moscow finally had enough of concessions and ordered a crackdown. Overnight tens of thousands had been jailed without charges. Many more were seized, then bused out of the country. People simply vanished. All pro-democracy movements were banned, their leaders, including the famed Lech Wałęsa, jailed. The military takeover had been quick and coordinated. Soldiers now patrolled the streets of every major city. A curfew had been imposed, the national borders sealed, airports closed, road access to main cities restricted. Telephone lines were either disconnected or tapped, mail subjected to censorship, and classes in schools and universities suspended.

  Some had even died.

  No one knew the exact count.

  A six-day workweek had been ordered. The media, public services, health care, utilities, coal mines, ports, railroads, and most ke
y factories were placed under military management. Part of the crackdown involved a process that examined everyone’s attitude toward the regime. A new loyalty test included a document that pledged the signer would cease all activity the government even thought might be a threat. Which was how many had been netted, including himself. Apparently his answers had not been satisfactory, though he’d lied as best he could.

  The beating stopped for a moment.

  He forced his brain into action and asked, “Who is he?”

  “A professor of mathematics. He was arrested leaving a Solidarity meeting. That makes him, by definition, not innocent.”

  “Does he know anything?”

  “That is the thing about interrogation,” Dilecki said. “Many times it is merely a search for useful information. So what he knows remains to be seen.”

  A pause hung in the air.

  “Interrogation also has other purposes. It can frighten those not being tortured, allowing us to break down their resistance and rebuild them in more … pliable ways.”

  Now he understood why he was here.

  Dilecki’s eyes narrowed as his gaze focused. “You hate me, don’t you.”

  No sense lying. “Absolutely.”

  “I don’t care. But I do want you to fear me.”

  His legs began to tremble.

  Dilecki turned his attention back to the prisoner and motioned. One of the guards kicked the stool over, tumbling the beaten man hard to the concrete floor. The wrists and ankles were untied, and the man’s bleeding body folded in pain. Still, though, he’d neither cried out nor said a word.

  Which was impressive.

  More so, in fact, than Dilecki’s counterfeit fear.

  So he drew off that courage and asked, “What do you want with me?”

  “I want you to keep your eyes and ears open and tell me what you see, what you hear. I want you to report all that you know. I want to know about our friends and our enemies. We are facing a great crisis and need the help of people like you.”

  “I’m nobody.”

  “Which makes you the perfect spy.” Dilecki laughed. “But who knows? One day you might be a big somebody.”

  He’d heard what the instigators and supporters of martial law liked to say. Poland was surrounded by the USSR, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and Belarus, all Soviet-controlled. Martial law had been implemented to rescue Poland from a possible military intervention by those Warsaw Pact countries. Like what happened in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 when the Soviets crushed all opposition. But no one seriously believed such nonsense. This was about those in power keeping power.

  Communism’s entire existence depended on coercion.

  Polish communism seemed an odd mixture of socialism and fascism, where a small group controlled everyone else, along with all of the resources, while the vast majority lived in hunger and poverty.

  The prisoner on the floor stirred, his frail body twisted as if gripped by a terrible arthritis. One of the guards kicked him in the midsection. Vomit erupted from the man’s mouth. One part of Janusz desperately wanted to help the man. The other just wanted to flee, doing, saying whatever was necessary to make that happen. Dilecki, like an exacting schoolmaster, was challenging every conclusion, every statement, keeping him in confusion. With no choice, he said what was expected, “All right. I’ll do as you ask.”

  Dilecki stood, hands lightly clasped, the shrewd eyes steady. “I want you to remember that if you lie to me, or try to trick me, or hide from me, you will end up tied to a stool, too.” The thin lips curled into the faintest of smiles. “But enough threats. You have done right, comrade. As the song proclaims. Poland has not yet perished, so long as we still live.”

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

  The words came from the prisoner on the floor, lying amid his own vomit. Beaten. Bleeding. Making no attempt to conceal the triumph in his voice as the second line of the national anthem was repeated.

  Sacred words to every Pole.

  And ones Janusz would not forget.

  PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER ONE

  TUESDAY, JUNE 4

  BRUGES, BELGIUM

  Cotton Malone hated when two plus two equaled five. Over the course of his former career as an American intelligence officer, that troubling result had happened far more often than not. Call it an occupational hazard or merely just plain bad luck. No matter. Nothing good ever came from fuzzy math.

  Like now.

  He was standing inside what the Belgians called Heileg Bloed Basiliek, the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a foreboding 12th-century edifice, home to one of Europe’s most sacred reliquaries. The ancient church was tucked into a corner of the castle square, squished between the old city hall and a row of modern shops. He’d traveled to Bruges for the largest antiquarian book fair in Europe, one he’d attended several times before. In fact, it was a favorite. Not only because he loved the city, but also thanks to the best dessert in the world.

  Dame Blanche. White Lady.

  Vanilla ice cream, drenched in warm Belgian chocolate, topped with whipped cream. Back in America they called them sundaes. Fairly ordinary. Not here. The locals had elevated the treat into an art form. Each café possessed its own version, and he’d definitely be enjoying another incarnation after dinner tonight.

  Right now he’d come to see a spectacle. One he’d never witnessed before, but had heard about. It used to happen only once a week. Now it was every day, either mornings between 11:30 and noon or 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon, according to the placard out front.

  It even had a title.

  The Veneration of the Precious Blood.

  Legend said that, after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea was granted Christ’s body. With solemn devotion he cleaned the corpse, catching all the blood flowing from the wounds into a sacred vessel, which he supposedly passed down to his descendants. Depending on which version was to be believed, drops of that blood made their way to Bruges either in the 12th century by way of Jerusalem or in the 13th century through Constantinople.

  Nobody knows which tale was true.

  But here that blood had stayed, occasionally hidden away from Calvinists, revolutionaries, and invaders. Pilgrims had come for centuries to see it, encouraged by a papal bull from the 14th century that granted indulgences to all who prayed before the relic. The whole thing ranked as beyond strange given that the Bible mentioned nothing about any of Christ’s blood ever being preserved.

  Yet that had not deterred the faithful.

  The basilica consisted of two chapels. The lower dark and Romanesque, and the upper bright and Gothic. Twice destroyed, each time rebuilt. He glanced around at the upper chapel. The soaring ceilings of three richly embellished naves drove the eyes heavenward. Impressive stained-glass windows allowed golden rays of afternoon sunlight to seep inside. An elegant ceiling, like an upturned boat, stretched overhead, all in stunning polychrome woodwork. A bronzed pulpit hung high on one wall, shaped like a globe. A gold-laden altar stood before a series of ascending murals, rich in color, that, appropriately, depicted Christ shedding blood. Tourists filled the rows of wooden chairs before the communion rail, and even more loitered about snapping pictures.

  But back to that weird math of two plus two equaling five.

  Starting with three men.

  Different from the other visitors. Young, cautious, unshaven for a few days, with plain, even features. Their faces also wore a different expression from those surrounding them, as if they had a more urgent reason to be here than mere sightseeing. Their alertness bothered Cotton, projecting a tension that said these were not tourists. A final red flag came from their positions, strategically around the chapel, near the exterior walls, their focus more on one another than the reverent surroundings.

  He glanced at his watch. 2:00 P.M.

  A bell sounded.

  Showtime.

  In the side nave, beyon
d the arches, a door opened and a priest emerged.

  The veneration had begun.

  A robed prelate carried a rectangular-shaped, glass-sided box. Inside, atop a red velvet pillow, lay the reliquary. The phial itself, which harbored pieces of sheep’s wool clotted with blood, was about six inches long and two inches wide. Mainly rock crystal of a clear Byzantine origin, the neck was wound with golden thread, the end stoppers sealed with wax. It lay inside a larger glass cylinder with golden coronets ornamented by angels. He’d read enough about the outer cylinder to know that engraved on the frame was a date in Roman numerals.

  May 3, 1388.

  The priest paraded across the chapel, his face an expression of great piety, to what was known as the Throne of the Relic, a white marble Baroque altar, its top covered by more red velvet. The prelate gently laid the glass-lined box atop the platform then sat in a chair, ready for the faithful to pray before the relic.

  But not before they each made a donation.

  A line formed to the left where another priest stood before a collection bowl. People dropped euros into it before stepping up the short stairs and spending a few moments in silence with the relic. Cotton wondered what would happen if someone failed to drop a coin but still wanted to venerate. Would they be turned away?

  The Three Amigos had shifted position and, along with everyone else, moved from the main nave toward the side chapel. Several attendants shepherded the crowd and shushed any voices that rose too loud. Pictures, pointing, videos, gawking, and donating were allowed.

  Talking, not so much.

  One of the Amigos worked his way into the veneration line. The other two stayed back, near the archways, watching the spectacle from twenty feet away. A bank of devotional candles separated the Throne of the Relic from the crowd, a couple hundred little glass sockets, many of them flickering with flames. Several of the visitors approached and lit a candle of their own. After, of course, dropping a coin into a metal container.