Czajkowski felt a measure of freedom. For the first time in five years he had no BOR security people in tow. No media. No aides. Only Sonia. It had taken Michal Zima’s direct order to have his bodyguards stand down. Having Sonia with him helped soothe Zima’s concerns—if anything happened, it would be Zima who’d take the fall. But the head of the BOR had assured him that he was prepared for any consequences. He was reevaluating his opinion of Zima. The man seemed a team player, sensitive to the gravity of a delicate situation and its political effects, recognizing that everything, quite literally, seemed at stake.
A call had come a few moments ago to Sonia’s phone telling her that the car ferrying Cotton Malone and Stephanie Nelle was now parked in a lot adjacent to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. A strange place for two American intelligence officers to head. They were not tourists. He’d been down in the mine several times over the years for concerts and ceremonies. The whole place cast a surreal air, like being inside a shopping mall a hundred meters below earth. Still, the tourist areas were but a tiny part of the massive complex. He wondered if there was more hidden down there than new salt deposits.
“Why are they there?” he muttered.
Sonia drove the car she’d been using all day. He sat in the passenger seat, his tie and suit jacket gone, the collar to his white shirt open, his sleeves rolled up.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It is peculiar.”
“It has to relate to the Russians. What Fox said. The information is still in play, and somehow Malone got ahead of them.”
“Or maybe just even with them.”
She kept speeding down the highway, headed toward the salt mine. He imagined himself no longer president, his second term over, free of all political and personal entanglements, able to do as he pleased.
That would be a first.
His entire life had been one responsibility after another, working his way up until he achieved the pinnacle of Polish success. He recognized that the presidency was in many ways more ceremonial than practical, but there were areas where he possessed true power. One of those was in approving agreements with foreign governments.
This would be so much more difficult if Parliament had the final say. Good luck getting them to agree on anything. Not much had changed in the three centuries since the liberum veto was finally abolished. True, everything no longer had to be unanimous, but achieving a simple majority vote could prove equally vexing.
I freely forbid.
Poles took that declaration to heart—both then and now.
Thankfully, the decision to place missiles on Polish soil was his alone. There would be a great many within Parliament who would look favorably on an increased American presence, as was evident years ago when the first effort was abandoned. But there were others who would resent any and all foreign interference. He suspected they would be in the majority, though not by much. The missiles would be viewed as a slap to Moscow—there was no other way to view it—and that had never been taken kindly by Poland’s neighbor to the east. He doubted anyone in Europe or America would ever go to war to protect an independent Poland. NATO or no NATO. Poland had always been expendable.
And would remain so.
“This all rests in our hands,” he said in barely a whisper. “We can’t allow the Russians to get that information.”
“I won’t,” Sonia declared.
Her phone vibrated and she answered the call, which lasted only a few seconds before she ended it. “They’re headed into the mine. We need to delay them.”
He found his own cell phone and called Zima, explaining what he wanted. “Delay, but don’t stop them. We need another fifteen minutes.”
No surprise that Zima said he could handle it.
“What are we going to do, once there?” he asked her, after ending the call.
“Try to stay close without them noticing.”
He glanced down at his left hand and the ring he’d worn for decades, fashioned by a long-dead Warsaw jeweler. Not gold, as that was a rare commodity in Soviet-controlled Poland and remained so in the years thereafter. Instead pewter had sufficed in a simple statement of patriotism.
Back in the 10th century, Boleslaw the Brave had been the first to use the white, single-headed eagle as the symbol of the king. He was also the first to call the area Polona, after a local tribe that had occupied the land for a millennium. The display of the eagle was now mandated by the Polish Constitution in precise terms. White, upon a red field. The crown, eagle’s beak and talons, gold. The wings and legs outstretched, its head angled to the right.
He’d worn the ring every day for the past thirty years.
A reminder of his life’s dedication.
But for the first time in a long while he was afraid. Not since that day in Mokotów Prison had he felt so helpless. Only after, when he first met Mirek Hacia and realized that he actually had a choice, had his anxiety waned.
Here was the same.
There were choices.
But none seemed good.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Cotton zipped up the green coveralls that he’d donned over his clothes. He and Stephanie were inside a locker room, part of a building that accommodated one of the shafts used only by the miners. The tourist shaft was in another building, still busy ferrying visitors up and down. Another set of elevators was located farther away, where special groups for a miner’s experience made their way below. Their guide had avoided those hot spots and led them to this employees-only area. The gun from the castle was now safely tucked at his waist beneath the coveralls. He assumed bringing weapons into the mine was not allowed, so he’d kept its presence to himself. But after what happened on the road, he was not about to leave it up here.
“Not much in the way of fashion,” he said to Stephanie. “But functional.”
She donned her helmet with light. “We look like the Mario Brothers.”
He grinned.
That they did.
Stephanie sat on a bench and slipped on the boots their guide had provided. He’d already laced his up, which fit snugly.
“Here we are,” she said. “We have a trunk full of sacred relics out in the parking lot, and below may be some extremely damaging blackmail on the president of Poland. The people I’ve dealt with for the past few decades, the people I worked with to protect the country, the vast majority of them would have never placed me, or themselves, in this untenable situation. Yet here I am.”
“You have to play the cards you’re dealt. And you know that.”
“That’s the problem, Cotton. I don’t even have a pair of twos here.”
“If we find those documents, you’ll have a royal flush.”
“To do what with?”
“Maybe Senator Danny Daniels can use them to make a move on Fox. I’m sure trying to blackmail the president of a foreign nation qualifies as high crimes and misdemeanors. Perhaps he could encourage the House to impeach the idiot.”
She shook her head. “That only amplifies the problem. Everybody loves to scream impeachment. But that’s not a tool to undo elections. The people chose Warner Fox. The fact that he may be incompetent is really not at issue. They’ve already decided they want him to lead them.”
“You’ve become quite the fatalist.”
“Just a realist.”
He had to say, “I assume you wouldn’t wait here while I go below?”
She smiled at him. “You’ve always looked after me.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“Back that first day we met,” she said, “in the Duval County jail, I wasn’t quite sure I’d made the right decision going there. The reports on you were all glowing. But that first impression? You shot a woman.”
“Who murdered her husband, then tried to kill me.”
“I know. You handled yourself well in that situation. As you did in that first assignment. I knew then I had a winner.” She finished tying he
r boots. “For the record, I’m not interested in having Danny fight my battles.”
“You’ll have a hard time keeping him out of it.”
“I know. And I love him for it. But this is my problem to solve.”
“Fox has wanted you gone from the start. The only bargaining chip you have may be waiting below.”
“Which isn’t saying much, since I think this whole thing stinks.”
The door to the locker room opened and their guide returned.
“Arrangements are all made,” Patrycja said. “We can head down in a few minutes. I brought a map of Level IX.”
She laid out a large sheet of heavy paper that detailed a labyrinth of twisting tunnels and chambers.
“St. Bobola’s statue is one of hundreds scattered around the entire mine,” Patrycja said. “It was carved in the 19th century. I’m told it’s not in a good state of repair. Strange that it seems so important.”
He realized they needed to maintain this woman’s cooperation while revealing as little as possible. But there was also an element of danger here, especially if the Russians or Eli Reinhardt decided to show up. He could only hope that he was ahead of them, as he did not want to place this woman in jeopardy.
“Let’s just say that it might be what’s near it that’s important,” he said. “That’s why we need to have a look.”
“The statue is located here.” She pointed to a spot on the map, inside a small chamber along a secondary drift on Level IX. Several tunnels led in and out.
“It’s a junction point,” Patrycja said. “Many of the chapels were placed where tunnels joined.”
“How did Jonty Olivier get those documents down there?” Stephanie asked. “I assume that’s not a spot someone could just wander into.”
Patrycja nodded. “Only the guides can get there.” She unzipped a pocket in her coveralls and removed a small plastic fob. “This unlocks the elevators for the lower levels. About fifty of the guides carry these on a daily basis. We have to turn them in at the end of each day.”
He glanced at Stephanie. That meant Olivier had arranged for a way down, too, one that included a guide. And if the Russians wanted down, they’d have to do the same. That might work in their favor and provide them enough time.