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And the last holdouts?
Two thousand coal miners in Silesia, barricaded underground in protest, cooped up in low, dark, clammy shafts, thick with winter dampness. No ventilation, no light. Just days before Christmas. To get them out, the government engaged in its own form of the Warsaw Protocol by feeding down false stories of ill family or wives in labor. Women impersonated their loved ones begging them to surrender. Anything to break their resolve. But the coal miners knew a lie when they heard one. They were tough. They’d always been regarded with high honor. The aristocrats of Polish labor. They’d not joined in previous labor unrest actions and were among the last to go on strike.
But strike they did.
With the result being just another stalemate.
And the only way out of a stalemate was to change the rules.
Which was what the Warsaw Protocol had done.
Attacking the SB at its core.
His limousine glided to a stop and he prepared himself to step from the car. He’d been driven fifty kilometers southwest of Kraków to Wadowice, population twenty thousand, a fairly unremarkable town beyond the fact that it was here, on May 18, 1920, that the future St. John Paul II had been born. That event turned an otherwise sleepy municipality into a place of pilgrimage, complete with all of the tacky tourist trappings. Everything of interest revolved around the central square, appropriately named Plac Jana Pawla II. The main attraction was the Wojtyla family house. Twelve hundred square meters of exhibition space over four floors that charted the great man’s life. Family photos, heirlooms, manuscripts, even the gun used in the 1981 attempt on the pope’s life were on display.
A renovation of the site had just been completed and he’d come to see the work and bestow his presidential blessing. The trip had been scheduled yesterday as camouflage on the pretext that since he was nearby, why not drop in for a quick visit.
Sonia had called two hours ago and said she was on her way back from Slovakia. He’d told her about the detail of BOR agents he’d dispatched, and she told him what had happened. They’d agreed that the agents would scrub the castle clean and dispose of the bodies, removing and destroying all the written materials distributed to the participants, along with the computers on site. Michal Zima would oversee it all. The hope being only they, the Russians, and Eli Reinhardt knew about what had happened.
Then there was Cotton Malone.
He doubted the Americans would make trouble. If so, they’d have to explain how one of their own made it out unscathed. Unlikely the Chinese, Iranians, or North Koreans would accept any explanation. Not to mention the French, a supposed ally. More likely, they’d all think that the United States had the information and Washington’s denials would fall on deaf ears.
He checked his watch. 3:20 P.M.
He exited the car into sunshine muted by clouds rapidly dominating the afternoon sky. Some of the local politicos were waiting to greet him and he took a moment to shake hands and chat with them, assuming a patrician but warm smile of welcome. Off to his right he caught sight of Sonia with a black box in hand. He grabbed the attention of the head of his security detail and motioned. He entered the house, greeted by the curator. They exchanged pleasantries and he asked if there was a room where he might have a moment. The man offered his office and he followed him there, where he was left alone. A soft knock came to the door, then it opened and Sonia entered. She laid the box on the desk. He took her in his arms, hugging her tightly.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“Do I need a reason?”
She smiled. “No. I suppose not.”
He was glad she was all right. “I’m told the location has been sanitized. No trace of the carnage remains, save for a few bullet marks in the floor. Everything found there was burned.”
“Only Jonty and his man DiGenti knew the hiding spot for the information,” she said. “I made sure of that before I killed him. He was going to use it as a bargaining chip. The Russians definitely wanted Olivier alive.”
“It’s still a risk—with that information out there, in the open.”
“We could not allow Olivier to walk away.”
“Yet we allowed Malone to walk away.”
“Because there was no reason to kill him,” she said. “He was drawn into this, not of his own accord. He has no idea where that information is located, so he poses no threat. It was bad enough that all of the others had to die. And Olivier. I’m in the intelligence business, not murder-for-hire.”
He caught the sharp tone in her voice. “I understand. You did what you had to do, and I appreciate it.”
They’d discussed it at length. He’d never asked or ordered her to kill Olivier. But she’d known what to do.
She pointed at the box. “I’ll return the spear to the castle.”
“That definitely needs to be done. Let’s make sure there are no loose lips there, either.”
A buzz disturbed their privacy.
His phone. He checked the display. His chief of staff back in Warsaw.
He answered the call, listened, then said, “Do it.”
Sonia stared at him.
“The president of the United States wants to talk to me. Now.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Cotton recalled a story he’d heard while growing up in middle Georgia on his grandfather’s onion farm. A local man ran for county sheriff and garnered only seventeen votes. The day after the election he paraded around town with a gun strapped to his waist. Someone asked him why and he said, With as few friends as I apparently have, I definitely need one.
He felt the same way.
He was back in Kraków, surrounded by strangers, walking straight for the American consulate. Sunshine filtered through broken pewter clouds. He had no idea where Stephanie might be, but this seemed like the best place to start. The time was approaching 4:00 P.M., the shops and eateries busy for late afternoon. He was stopped at the doors by the uniformed marines. This time they weren’t expecting him. He asked if Stephanie Nelle was there, and a few moments later he was allowed inside. He found her on the second floor, eyes dull and red-lined with fatigue, and made a full report, including Bunch’s death.
“Where’s the car?” she asked him.
“Parked down the street. With six of the most precious relics in the religious world locked inside.” He paused. “All yours.”
“I appreciate the gift. But I doubt it’s going to buy me any political capital with Fox. He wants missiles here and he’s not going to stop.”
“We don’t get everything we want.”
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Do you have your Magellan Billet laptop?”
She nodded.
He felt numbed, confused, and bewildered by all that had happened. He needed time to sort things out, to categorize, compartmentalize, make sense of the confusion. “Can I use it?”
“Is it about that book?”
And she pointed.
He’d brought the volume that he’d found at the castle. The City in Salt. The Wieliczka Salt Mine.
“That’s what I want to find out.”
She handed over her computer and he opened it to a search engine. He typed in the word BOBOLA and found a reference.
On May 16, 1657, Cossacks surprised a holy Polish Jesuit in the town of Pinsk. Father Andrew Bobola, aged sixty-five, fell to his knees, raised his h
ands toward heaven, and exclaimed, “Lord, thy will be done.” The Cossacks stripped him of his holy habit, tied him to a tree, placed a crown of twigs upon his head, then scourged him, tearing out one eye and burning his body with torches. One of the ruffians then traced, with his poniard, the form of a tonsure on the head of the priest and the figure of a chasuble on his back. Finally, all of the skin was stripped from the body. During this indescribable torture the priest prayed for his tormentors until they tore out his tongue and crushed his head. Father Andrew Bobola was declared Blessed on the 30th of October, 1853. He was made a saint by Pope Pius XI in 1938.
At least he now had a Polish connection to the name.
One more inquiry.
He typed in BOBOLA and WIELICZKA SALT MINE and found several hits, one that explained the relationship.
The deep Christian faith of the Wieliczka miners comes from their Catholic upbringing, as well as the difficult work conditions in the mine. They faced threats from fire, leakages of underground water, and collapse. Holy patrons were supposed to protect them from such dangers. For centuries, the miners cultivated a group of saints whom they worshipped with particular devotion, believing in their powers of intercession. Many were honored with carvings made in the salt, the miners themselves the artisans.
One of those carvings was of Father Andrew Bobola.
He found an image of the salt sculpture, created in 1874, still there in the mine. A little crude and eroded from time and water, it sat alone in a square-shaped niche. A caption indicated that the figure had once been colored white, red, and black, the same paint used for marking the mine’s work sites. It had been carved by a miner, in his spare time.
