A Secret Life (45 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
At home, Kuklinski gathered some personal possessions, including some photographs and the small World War II flask the CIA translator had sent him. Kuklinski considered it his lucky token, his symbol of survival. He poured into it a small amount of cognac. Waldek had already left for his usual run through the Warsaw bookstores. Bogdan was at the farm. When Hanka arrived at home, they left separately for Skron.
Hanka met Waldek in the city and went to a movie. They slipped separately out of the theater before the film ended. At the farm, Bogdan wrote a letter to Iza, who had left for Berlin to buy the medicine for her father. In the note, Bogdan said he had to leave Poland unexpectedly but, as their relationship had soured, “it would not matter to you anyway.”
Bogdan belabored his farewell. “Please forget about me,” he wrote. “Don’t write. Don’t call. Don’t look for me. When you read this letter, I’ll be already far away. Good-bye.”
The note was a fake, meant to mislead the SB.
He then wrote a second letter, which instructed Iza to hand the first note to the SB if she was questioned. The second letter should be destroyed immediately. Bogdan drove into Warsaw, stopping at Iza’s empty apartment and slipping the fake note under her door. He gave the second one in a sealed envelope to a trusted friend, asking that it be given to Iza when she returned.
At 10:15 P.M. Kuklinski arrived at Skron, a location on a sidewalk near a sheltered alley that ran between an apartment building and a garage. Within minutes, the rest of his family arrived. They hid in the dark, waiting by the garage.
It was midmorning as the Ryans began their long drive to Warsaw. They sped down the autobahn, as they could not leave the main highway in East Germany. Once they crossed the border, their usual practice was to stop in Poznan, the first major city in western Poland, where there was a consulate and they could refill their tank. Instead, they turned off the main road and cruised into the countryside, into parts of Poland where Americans rarely went. They knew these woods from one of their “bird-watching” trips. They turned off their lights and parked the car, covering themselves with wool blankets because of the cold. They took turns napping, and after dusk, they started up again, driving toward Warsaw. They entered the city limits and continued toward Skron. With Lucille holding the map, Tom drove on carefully, so as not to violate any traffic laws. As he made the last right turn, Lucille put down the map.
A figure emerged from the darkness, and Ryan slowed down. Kuklinski rapidly gestured to Hanka and his sons to follow. They clambered into the Volvo, squeezing into the backseat and onto the floor as Lucille and Tom leaned back and covered them with wool blankets and raincoats. As Tom began to drive, Lucille handed back a flashlight and a short note in Polish, cautioning the family to remain as quiet as possible.
They drove in silence. Kuklinski, his body wedged close to the floorboard, could feel every bump in the street, and he imagined the route they were taking. Ten minutes passed, and the Volvo glided through the gate to the American Embassy and pulled into a dark corner of the compound, where Ryan parked in his regular space, which was sheltered by a carport. As the family got out of the car, Kuklinski embraced Ryan and handed him a bag containing the Iskra, his camera, his Polish military identification documents, and the cyanide pill. He and Hanka and their sons were introduced to two officers―Wilcox, who would drive the van that would take them out of Poland, and the communications officer who had joined the operation. Each family member was then helped into a large packing carton that had been placed in the rear of the van. Kuklinski had to lie flat on his back; Waldek, Bogdan, and Hanka were able to crouch in their cramped spaces. The van, which had American diplomatic plates, would appear to be making a routine delivery of packages to West Berlin, where there was a military post office that was used for large shipments.
At 10:55 P.M., the van pulled out of the lot. The officers talked to the family as they drove, offering reassuring accounts of their progress. At one point between Warsaw and Poznan, Kuklinski heard the officers discussing the route they were taking, and he tried to help them with directions.
When the van reached the East German border, Polish guards motioned it out of line, and Kuklinski could hear them barking orders. It turned out that the license plate of the van, which had been recently obtained by the embassy, was not yet on a list of updated plate numbers kept at the border. The guards were calling Warsaw to see if the van was authorized to leave the country.
For twenty-five minutes, the family waited in the dark in terrified silence. They could hear the Polish guards walking around the van, but no one looked inside. Then the engine started again, and the van hurtled forward. They began their drive through East Germany.
At 9:55 the next morning, they arrived at an American military base in West Berlin. The next day, Kuklinski and his family flew to Frankfurt, where they were examined by physicians and given a few days to recover. At one point, the Kuklinskis were taken to a small office, where an American diplomat greeted them. “Don’t tell me who you are,” he said. “I don’t want to know anything about you.”
He pointed to an aerial photograph of Washington, D.C., that hung on his wall. The Mall and the monuments were clearly visible. “The next time you see this, it will be for real,” he said.
The family boarded a military plane and landed under a gray sky at Andrews Air Force Base in Suitland, Maryland, on the morning of November 11―Veterans Day in the United States and Independence Day in Poland. The runway was protected by Air Force guards and CIA security officers. After the plane taxied to a stop, a small door opened near the cockpit. Kuklinski poked out his head and walked down the stairs, followed by Hanka and their two sons. On the tarmac were Air Force ground crews and security officers. Standing somewhat to the side by himself was Daniel.
Kuklinski smiled and burst into tears as he embraced his friend. It had been five years since they had last seen each other. He proudly introduced his wife and sons for the first time.
As security officers whisked the family to a safe house in suburban Virginia, cables flashed between Berlin, Warsaw, and Langley. “Well done, Warsaw!” declared one.
At General Staff headquarters, General Skalski asked an aide to summon Kuklinski. The aide returned to say Kuklinski was not in his office and no one had seen him at work. Skalski instructed the aide to call Kuklinski at home, but there was no answer. Skalski summoned General Szklarski. “We must find out what is going on,” Skalski said. He was afraid Kuklinski was ill, and he needed him. Several officers were sent to Kuklinski’s home on Rajcow Street. They reported that the doors were closed, and no one seemed to be home.
“Break down the door,” Skalski ordered. He was told the house was empty, and the family gone. An investigation was opened, and the authorities questioned Kuklinski’s friends and colleagues. Iza was repeatedly called to the SB offices in Warsaw, where she was interrogated a half dozen times. She turned over Bogdan’s phony letter and said she had no idea what had happened.
Zula, meanwhile, barked and cried for days, and on November 10, Zula’s new owner took her to a dog pound on Paluch Street. Three weeks later she was put to sleep.
When Kuklinski and his family arrived at the CIA safe house in Virginia, they found a full refrigerator and a bouquet of flowers on the dining room table, prepared by Ruth Brerewood, the Polish desk officer. On their first evening in America, the family was in shock. Kuklinski felt drained, and Bogdan broke down in tears. Waldek was withdrawn. Only Hanka seemed to hold herself together. In the following days, the agency helped the family settle in, providing them with new names and identification papers.
Kuklinski also had a present for Daniel, a piece of art that had once hung in his home. It was an 1899 etching of a once-splendid sailing ship that lay on its side, half-submerged off a sandy shore. It was called
After the Storm.
After the Storm.
Kuklinski’s arrival remained a closely held secret within the U.S. government. One person who knew, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser, met Kuklinski at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown and solemnly addressed him with words traditionally conferred when a Polish soldier is decorated: “
Pan sie dobrze Polsce zasluzyl
. You have served Poland well.”
Pan sie dobrze Polsce zasluzyl
. You have served Poland well.”
Debriefings of Kuklinski began soon after his arrival. The CIA sent Aris Pappas, the martial-law analyst, to meet with him. Victor Kliss, who had handled the correspondence between Kuklinski and the CIA, acted as the interpreter.
Pappas was not told the identity of the man he was debriefing, but merely that a new Polish defector had arrived, as if there had been no previous relationship with him. But as the interviews progressed, Pappas felt a growing sense of recognition.
On December 11, Pappas, who had continued the debriefing, concluded the Poles had made a final decision to declare martial law and were merely waiting for the appropriate opportunity. He summarized his views in a short memo, which was intended for the president.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, December 13, Pappas was driving south on Route 95 in his white Volkswagen Rabbit, returning from a Christmas party in Baltimore. His wife, Eva, a schoolteacher, was asleep next to him; their infant daughter, Lara, slept in a car seat in the back. Pappas fiddled with the radio and heard the news. A reporter was announcing that martial law had been imposed in Poland.
Holy shit,
Pappas thought.
They can’t do it when I’m not on duty.
He roused his wife and said they would have go to his office, which was located in a satellite building off the Langley headquarters compound. As they pulled up, Pappas ran up to the guard’s desk, realizing he did not have his CIA badge. “I’m coming from a party,” he explained to the guard, who recognized him and let him in.
Pappas thought.
They can’t do it when I’m not on duty.
He roused his wife and said they would have go to his office, which was located in a satellite building off the Langley headquarters compound. As they pulled up, Pappas ran up to the guard’s desk, realizing he did not have his CIA badge. “I’m coming from a party,” he explained to the guard, who recognized him and let him in.
Pappas ran to the door to his office, dialed the combination, and entered. It was empty. He called the agency’s operations center and reached Ben Rutherford, who ran Theater Forces Division. “We’ve been trying to get you all night,” Rutherford said; he started to relay what was known about the crisis. The crackdown was unfolding just as the documents said it would. “We need you right here,” Rutherford said, instructing Pappas to bring his files―Kuklinski’s material.
Pappas grabbed one of the paper bags with red stripes that signified it as a “burn bag” (contents to be destroyed). He unlocked the safes, took the folders of sensitive martial-law documents, and filled the bag. Under different circumstances, a person could get shot for doing this, he realized. After locking up, Pappas returned to the guard desk and said he had to take the material to headquarters. As he jumped into his car, he handed the files to Eva. “What’s this?” she asked. Pappas could see the absurdity of the situation. With all this material, he joked, they could get a dacha on the Black Sea.
As he drove to headquarters, Pappas had visions of being rear-ended and classified documents flying around the Tysons Corner intersection. At headquarters, Pappas kissed Eva and Lara and ran to the operations center.
There were no surprises as the reports filtered in from Poland. The Polish people had awakened to find tanks in their streets and communications disrupted. More than 6,000 Solidarity activists, including Lech Walesa, had been detained. Every hour, interspersed with the music of Chopin, Jaruzelski’s speech announcing the imposition of martial law was rebroadcast for the nation.
Jaruzelski declared, “Our country is on the edge of the abyss.”
11
PATRIOT or TRAITOR?
ONE MONDAY EVENING in September 1986, an unusual procession of guests arrived at a two-story brick house in the suburb of Oakton, Virginia. The visitors were all intelligence officers and their spouses. They had organized car pools to reduce the number of vehicles parked on the quiet street. And though the night was warm and the garden spacious, the festivities were kept indoors.
The owner of the house greeted each guest at the door. His neighbors knew him by an assumed name, a fictional identity created for him soon after he had left Poland. His guests knew him by his real name, Ryszard Kuklinski, and they had come to celebrate his initiation as an American citizen, which had taken place earlier that day in a secret proceeding at a local courthouse.
It had been almost five years since Kuklinski and his family had been exfiltrated from Poland. Now fifty-six, Kuklinski vigorously shook the hands of his guests or embraced them. Many had worked on the Gull operation at CIA headquarters and were meeting Kuklinski for the first time. Others, including officers who had been based in Warsaw and seen him only furtively on the street or who had helped engineer his perilous escape, were renewing old ties. Someone broke out a bottle of champagne. David Forden―“Daniel”―clinked his glass and offered a toast to Kuklinski and his new life. Then Kuklinski began to speak. His voice was barely audible, for he was still self-conscious about his heavily accented English.
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