THE LAST GOOD WAR: A Novel (35 page)

14 April 1943. Prime Minister Sikorski's Office, London

“T
hat bastard Goebbels knew about our statement before we released it. There must be a German agent in this building. Your job is to find him—or her. Quickly.”

Sikorski was talking to Cyn and Rowecki, the chief security officers in the Polish government's London offices. Cyn, the senior officer, responded.

“Perhaps, sir, we might begin by making a list of those who knew about our appeal to the Red Cross.”

Sikorski responded, identifying the five people present when the topic was discussed. He could vouch for Brig. Piotrowski. The investigation should focus on the three junior officers—Korbonski, Jankowski, and Tomczak. Perhaps, on second thought, they ought to include Piotrowski.

Cyn and Rowecki glanced at one another.

“There was no one else in the room, sir?” Cyn asked.

“No. Oh, wait a minute. Sgt. Szostak came in briefly. But I don't think he could have heard our decision. Come to think of it, we didn't make a final decision at the time. Just a tentative decision to appeal to the Red Cross.”

“Did any of the three officers
definitely
know of the decision, sir?”

“Yes, Korbonski. He worked with Piotrowski on the press release.”

“So others could have known—the clerks who typed the release, and anyone else who handled it.”

“I'm not sure; you might check on that.”

Within two hours, Cyn came back to Sikorski. He had questioned Korbonski, who pointed out that the clerks could not be responsible. Of course, they knew that there would be a press conference and when it would occur. They had informed the media. A whole lot of people knew about the timing of the press conference—including lots of people in the press. But very few knew about the Red Cross. The clerks did not get the statement to type until 20 minutes before the press conference; he and Piotrowski had been working on the wording until that time.

Cyn suggested a plan of action, and left.

Sikorski had his secretary summon Korbonski.

“I've been talking to a senior member of the British government, major, and they've agreed to drop weapons to the Home Army tomorrow night, at point Cmk-137.” The map of Poland had been divided with a very detailed grid; the Home Army would be able to identify the location precisely. “I'd like you to send a message to the Home Army, informing them of the drop. As usual, you can go to Cyn to handle communications with Poland. The message should be sent at once.

“And, oh, yes. As I said, I've arranged this directly at a senior level. Your contacts in the British Army are unlikely to know about the drop. Don't mention it to them. Or to anyone else except Communications, of course.”

Sikorski then called in Jan. His instructions were similar to those of Korbonski, with one exception. The location of the drop was different. Jan wondered why he would be handling the drop, but said nothing. Orders were orders.

Sikorski was interrupted by a call from the British Foreign Office, which distracted him almost an hour. Finally, he got a chance to complete Cyn's plan. He called in Kaz, and gave him similar instructions, again with a different drop location.

Two days later, Cyn was back.

“We have our culprit. Of course, I didn't tell the Home Army to expect a drop. As planned, I only asked them to look out for any unusual sign of German patrols in the specified areas. And to be careful. One area was crawling with Jerries last night—Hla-318. Jan Tomczak's our traitor.”

Sikorski sighed. “He seemed like such a good officer. But I don't suppose a good spy snarls at people or flits around in a trench coat. There's one consolation. Apparently Jankowski's not in it with him. They've been so close for so long, I was afraid they might both be involved.”

Cyn's brow furrowed; he was deep in thought. Sikorski paused for almost a minute to let him think through whatever it was that was bothering him.

“Are we sure, sir? If the two of them were in it together, Tomczak may have informed Jankowski. An hour later, when Jankowski got a similar instruction—with a different location—they would realize it was a setup. It might already have been too late for Tomczak to protect himself; he might already have gotten in touch with his German contact. But Jankowski would know about the setup; he wouldn't pass information along to the Germans.”

Sikorski wondered. Cyn's theory didn't make sense. Suppose Tomczak could contact the Germans so quickly, within an hour—which seemed implausible. Then he also would have been able to get back to them and cancel the patrols, once he talked to Jankowski and discovered it was a setup. Sikorski would have to give this some thought.

He ordered Tomczak arrested and held in a makeshift cell in the basement. For the moment, there would be no court martial and no execution. Cyn was to work out a trap for Jankowski, to find out if he were also a traitor. But Cyn should not set the plan in motion without Sikorski's approval.

M
ajor Leslie “Mike” Tate, U.S. Army Intelligence, didn't quite know what to make of his instructions. But however the Germans were getting information, it was important to plug the leak. He called Major Cyn at the Polish government and asked if they could get together. Cyn made various excuses, but Tate insisted. Finally Cyn agreed. They could get together as soon as Tate wanted—that very evening, if the American wished. Tate did.

As he hung up the phone, Tate was trying to remember the precise details of their earlier encounter. Had he been sufficiently casual and subtle, trying to coax information out of the Pole?

The evening was unusually warm for May, almost balmy. The smell of lilac was in the air. Tate, Cyn and Rowecki escaped to the small, walled back garden of the Polish offices. Cyn had asked Kaz and Korbonski to be on call, in case they were needed. They both agreed. You don't say no to Security. Especially now, with the spy scare.

The three sat at a round wooden table—hemlock green, but not recently painted. Chips revealed its previous color, a bilious yellow. It really was too large. The three had to lean forward, their elbows on their knees, to be sure their conversation would not be overheard. But it was the only table available.

Tate began in a noncommittal manner, designed not to tip his hand. “Quite a coincidence—Goebbels and Piotrowski's announcements.”

“Not exactly a coincidence, Major. But we caught the spy. One Captain Jan Tomczak.” Cyn gave a brief summary of Tomczak's background. “Unclear what his motives were.”

Tate was interested in how they caught Jan. Cyn obliged, explaining the phony instructions to the Home Army to expect a weapons drop.

“Exactly who knew about the Red Cross request ahead of time?”

Rowecki was irked; why was Tate asking for a repeat? How could anyone rise to the rank of major in U.S. Intelligence without the intelligence to remember a few names? Trying hard not to show his exasperation, he slowly went back over Cyn's list—“Sikorski, who was beyond suspicion; Piotrowski, Korbonski, Jankowski, and Tomczak.”

“You laid a trap only for the last three? What about Piotrowski?”

Cyn and Rowecki exchanged glances. Tate noticed.

“Sikorski told us to focus on the other three,” responded Cyn.

“We got our man,” added Rowecki. “So that closes the case.”

“Please humor me.” Tate was looking directly at Rowecki in the dimming sunlight. “We're interested in how spies are trapped. Want to make sure there are no loose ends. As you probably know, we work closely with the British on security matters. You're sure nobody else knew about the Red Cross request?”

“Actually, I also knew ahead of time,” Cyn said slowly. Then, after a lengthy pause: “So did the President. No surprise there.”

“That's all?”

No answer. Cyn looked intently at Rowecki.

Rowecki nervously pulled at his earlobe, then dropped his hand back below the table.

“OK. Let's go back a bit,” said Tate. “How did you find out, Major? You weren't at the original meeting with Sikorski and the others?”

“No.”

“And you found out...?”

Cyn clearly didn't want to answer, but saw no alternative. “As chief of security, I'm privy to a lot of very confidential information. In this case, I was in the room when Prime Minister Sikorski got the President's approval to ask for a Red Cross investigation.”

“Anyone else in the room?”

“I was at that meeting,” said Rowecki, rather too quickly.

“Why didn't you say so, when I asked if anyone else knew, and Cyn said that he and the President did?”

Rowecki answered smoothly, “Because I didn't know. I had just had a beer and two cups of tea over lunch and had to go to the loo. That must have been when the Red Cross issue was discussed. It didn't happen when I was there.”

“So it was a long meeting, with a number of subjects discussed?”

“That's right,” replied Cyn.

Tate thought he was going to go cross-eyed, trying to keep his eyes on both Poles at once. Cyn was staring hard at Rowecki. Cyn opened his mouth and was about to say something.

There was a loud shot—a 9 mm pistol—followed immediately by the sound of four globs of putty being hurled against a cement wall: thp, thp, thp, thp.

Tate was on his feet at once. In his hand was a pistol, with silencer. It was pointed directly at Cyn's heart.

Cyn shouted in pain as he fell sideways off his chair. Rowecki was ashen and sank slowly forward. As his head hit the table, it bounced slightly, and his body gradually slumped leftward. As he fell to the ground, Tate saw a pistol in his hand. Just below his ribs were four closely spaced shots. Blood was flowing freely through the holes in his shirt. He was dead.

Tate was keeping his pistol aimed at Cyn. He bent over the fallen Pole, who had a bullet wound to his thigh, probably not too serious. And not much blood. At least, not much external bleeding. Tate patted him down. No weapon.

Tate unscrewed the silencer and returned his pistol to its holster. “Suppose,” he said, “you tell me what you know.”

K
az was delighted that Jan was released, but had no idea why until the flight to Gibraltar. He knew that there had been a commotion in the yard that balmy May evening, and that the two Polish security officers had disappeared. But it wasn't until the last hour of the flight that Sikorski looked up from his papers and began to chat with his junior colleague.

“We let Jan go—with apologies—when we discovered the real traitor: Rowecki. To throw suspicion away from himself, he had to frame somebody—somebody who knew about the Red Cross proposal. That wasn't a problem. As Cyn's colleague in Security, he had access to messages being sent to the Home Army. He looked at the three messages and guessed that a trap was being set. He simply gave the Germans one of the three locations. Their patrols showed up on cue.

“As far as we can tell, he picked Jan at random. Just think. You could have drawn the short straw. If we'd acted hastily, you'd have been shot.”

Somehow, Sikorski wasn't inspiring much confidence. One chance in three. Perhaps that wasn't so bad. Not compared to what he'd been through in the past few years. But Kaz didn't relish the idea: Anna being told that he was shot as a spy. It might also have messed up her career. Kaz wondered what she really was doing.

Sikorski continued. “Rowecki was pressured into treason when the Germans threatened to kill his older brother. Understandable, I suppose; he idolized his brother. The Yanks saved us from a mess. Tate, of U.S. Army Intelligence, had already suspected Rowecki for some time, and was unsure about Cyn. Tate shot Rowecki that memorable May evening. He really had no choice. Rowecki started the shooting, firing at Cyn. It's not clear why; perhaps he knew that Cyn suspected him. At any rate, Tate killed him before he could get off a second shot.”

“So Cyn was killed, too?”

“No. Just a superficial hip wound. He recovered quickly. But we couldn't keep him around; he was chief of security, and had missed a traitor right under is nose. He said he had no suspicion about Rowecki until the day before the fateful evening, when he got a call from Tate. Cyn put two and two together, partly by thinking back to a puzzling conversation he had had with Tate a month earlier. Cyn guessed, correctly, that the Americans suspected there was a German mole in our security section. To Cyn, that probably meant Rowecki. But he wasn't sure.

“Anyhow, as far as we're concerned, Cyn is a non-person. He wasn't very cooperative with Tate; he tried to put him off; he didn't seem very eager to find the truth. He was given a new name and assigned to the American marines in the Pacific. They're pretending he came from Chicago.

“There's also something else you need to know for our meetings in North Africa. We were right: there will be an invasion across the Mediterranean. In the not-too-distant future. Unfortunately, we were also right on another score: it won't be Crete.”

Kaz was obviously disappointed.

“I'm afraid, when push came to shove, we simply didn't carry much weight. Roosevelt made patronizing comments, that he didn't want to bargain with Poland or other small states. The big powers would settle things. And we couldn't even count on Churchill, not when it risked offending the Russians. When his colleagues tried to raise the Katyn massacre with him, he abruptly cut them off. He simply didn't want to hear about it.”

As the wheels touched down, Kaz was left to wonder: Sicily or Sardinia? He knew enough not to ask.

They were planning a short refueling stop in Gibraltar before proceeding to Tunisia. There was a delay, however, as some high-priority communications equipment—for the coming invasion?—was loaded into the Liberator bomber. Then Kaz got the news: the plane was already over its safe weight, and he was being bumped. If he could catch a ride to Tunisia within the next 24 hours, he should do so; otherwise, he was to stay in Gibraltar. Sikorski would pick him up on the way back.

The pilot was in a hurry to take off. He had skimped on fuel, and wanted to get off while the engines were still warm; he didn't want to waste fuel on a preflight runup.