The Katyn Order (34 page)

And she didn't know what to say.

Finally it was her turn, and Natalia made the sign of the cross and stepped over to the confessional. Today was Thursday, and it had been well established for years that contact was only to be made on Wednesdays. But surely the priest would recognize her voice. She cleared her throat and said, “In the name of our Lord I come seeking.”

There was silence. Finally the voice from behind the screen whispered, “What have you done with the gift you received from our Lord and Provider?”

Natalia's eyes darted around the semi-darkness of the sanctuary. “It is safe, Father.”

“Do you seek consultation?”

“Yes.”

Another moment of silence, then the priest said, “Tonight, eight o'clock, on the Rynek Glowny, the southwest corner of the Cloth Hall.”

The colossal Renaissance edifice of the Cloth Hall, adorned with Italian gargoyles glaring down from an ornately sculpted roof, dominated the center of the Rynek Glowny. Dozens of arcades and merchant stalls lined both sides of the ground floor where traditionally all manner of goods could be purchased, from dishware to clothing, candy, cigars, amber jewelry and artwork. Though few of the stalls had anything of value to sell in the aftermath of the war, and few of the people milling about had money to spend, it was still one of the busiest locations in Krakow on this warm Thursday evening.

Natalia took up a spot on the southwest corner providing a good vantage point from which to observe the comings and goings of the teeming square. She was still nervous about being out in public in a big city surrounded by thousands of unfamiliar faces. Ever since her escape from Warsaw, and especially since she'd been forced to shoot the two NKVD agents near the Bolimowski Forest, Natalia expected at any moment to feel a heavy hand grip her shoulder.

The priest arrived a few minutes past eight. Tonight he was dressed in a gray suit and fedora, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other men milling about the area.

“We should take a walk,” he said in his usual clipped manner.

Natalia nodded, and they walked slowly around the perimeter of the vast building.

“I know that Ludwik Banach is the Provider,” she said after a moment.

The priest stopped as abruptly as if he'd walked into a wall. His face was sheet-white. “Where did you . . .?”

“It was in the journal—the ‘gift' you left for me. Didn't you read it?”

“Of course not. I've never read any of the information received from the Provider. I just pass it along.”

Natalia doubted that was true.

“And, as I told you,” the priest continued, “the Provider is no longer among us.”

“I'm aware of that,” Natalia replied, “but I must find him. It's extremely urgent. The gift—his journal—has also revealed the existence of a document that could help save Poland. He's the only one who can tell us where it is.”

“I suspect it's a bit late for that, my child.”

“No, it's not too late. But time is short.”

The priest didn't respond.

“I'm not the only one searching for him.”

The priest's eyes darted around. Groups of people passed by in all directions, carrying on their own conversations, the sound of a trumpet from a nearby café drowning out most of the chatter. He turned back to Natalia and whispered, “This is very dangerous.”

“I know. That's why we have no time to lose.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Your contact. The other person in the channel.”

“Impossible! You know I can't tell you that.”

Natalia took his arm. “Please, it's absolutely crucial. This is our only chance.”

The priest shook his arm free. “You know the rules. I cannot divulge the name of a contact. None of us can.” He began walking again.

Natalia hurried to catch up to him. “Stop!” she hissed. “Stop and listen to me, Goddamn it!”

He stopped and turned to her. His bony face was crimson. “How dare you—”

“Just listen for one moment . . . please.”

His mouth tightened. “As you wish, one minute.”

“The NKVD is hunting for Banach. We both know what they're like. They'll eventually find out about all of us. It's only a matter of time. Our only chance is to locate the document, and the only way to do that is to find Banach before they do.”

The priest glared at her, looking down the length of his pencil-thin nose as though she were a gnat he wanted to swat away. But he was sweating and there was a flicker in his eyes that gave him away. He was afraid.

“It's the only way,” Natalia whispered.

A group of people staggered past, singing and laughing. One of the men waved a half-empty bottle of vodka. The priest waited until they were out of earshot. “We can never meet again. You can never come back to the church. Is that clear?”

Natalia nodded.

“Never,” he repeated.

“I understand.”

The priest hesitated then said, “His name is Jerzy Jastremski.”

“Does he know where Banach went?”

“Yes. He's the
only
one who does.”

15 J
UNE

W
HEN THE TELEPHONE RANG
in Adam's room at the Hotel Polonia he had been awake for a long time, worrying about his uncle. He snatched the receiver off the hook on the second ring.

It was Natalia. “The service is at nine o'clock,” she said. “Bring some flowers.”

“Christ, it's been—” The line went dead.

Adam placed the receiver back on the hook and stared out the window at the street below, watching the city slowly come to life. He wondered if they could survive this.

At five minutes to nine Adam left the hotel. He paused on the sidewalk. The sun was bright, and there was a warm breeze. It would be hot again today. He spotted the flower stand just a few meters down the street. Natalia leaned against the wall of the adjacent building, reading a newspaper. Ignoring her, Adam walked up to the stand and picked out a bouquet of daisies. As he paid for the flowers, Natalia walked away.

Adam followed her at a safe distance, across the Planty and the Rynek Glowny, into the Mariacki Church. Inside, the sanctuary was quiet. Friday morning was an off time and only a handful of people knelt here and there, praying the rosary to themselves. Adam slid into the pew next to Natalia and laid the daisies on the seat beside him.

He waited while Natalia sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking straight ahead. Finally she turned to him and said softly, “I thought I'd never see you again. I know where you went that last night in Warsaw, and I know why, but . . .” She turned away, shaking her head.

Adam rested his arms on the back of the pew in front of them. How could he explain his actions on that chaotic night? He didn't understand what he'd done any more now than he did then. In the few brief hours they had spent together in Warsaw, Natalia had stirred emotions inside him that he had thought were long dead, emotions that had driven him to try to defend the AK hospital.

He glanced at Natalia. She was as tough and battle-hardened as he was, not hesitating to kill the enemy before they killed her. But there was a difference, something he saw in her eyes every time he looked at her, a tenderness that he doubted he could ever return.

She touched his arm and motioned for him to sit back. Then, as if she had read his mind, she leaned close and whispered, “Don't.”

He slid back in the pew. “Natalia, I—”

“Don't,” she repeated. “You're here now. That's all that matters.”

“Natalia, I . . . Natalia, I don't think . . .” Christ, he had to get this out! He tried again, keeping his eyes on the floor as he spoke. “When I went to Raczynski Palace, I knew I'd die there. I couldn't go with you. I couldn't escape. I wanted to. But I couldn't.” He paused and took a deep breath, grateful that she didn't try to stop him before he could get it out. “I wasn't trying to be a hero. But I had to do
something
that would have some meaning. I just needed . . . I needed . . .”

“Redemption?” she asked quietly.

Adam blinked, taken aback by how easily she could see into his soul.
Was that it?
After all the murders, the hatred, the years of cold-blooded killing . . . Was he seeking
redemption?
Was that even possible after everything he'd done? He gripped the edge of the wooden pew, willing himself to go on. “I wasn't the only commando in the palace that night,” he said. “There were six of us. The SS opened fire on the building with machine guns and mortars. They kicked in the doors and tossed grenades through the windows. Then they charged in. They shot the patients, doctors, nurses. They went from room to room. We took out a lot of them, but they picked us off one-by-one. I was the only one left at the end. I was driven back to a corner on the ground floor. And then my head . . .” He brushed his fingers over the scar on the left side of his face and slumped back in the pew as the events of that last night rushed back: the anguish on the faces of the doctors, the terror in the nurses' eyes, the crushing frustration and the feeling of absolute futility.

“Then something happened,” he went on, still avoiding her eyes. “I remembered that last moment in the ammunition cellar, when the lights went out and you took my hand. And I wanted to live. Suddenly, at that moment, more than anything I've ever wanted in my life, I wanted to live.”

Natalia placed her hand on his knee and rubbed it gently. “We've been given a second chance, Adam. We can make this mean something.”

He finally looked at her and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

They decided it would be safer if they kept moving, and a few minutes later they were walking along Avenue Grodzka heading south, away from the Rynek Glowny. They circled around Wawel Castle and followed a path down to the bank of the Vistula River. There was no one else around, and they sat on the grass beneath a giant willow tree. Ducks swam lazily on the river, and a rowboat glided past. Natalia held the bouquet of daisies in both hands, looking down at them.

After a few minutes she laid the daisies on the ground and reached into the vest pocket of her jacket and withdrew a thin, leather-bound book. “We can't take much time now, but there are some sections of this you must read before we do anything else.”

Adam watched in silence as she opened the journal written by his uncle, Ludwik Banach. She thumbed through the pages, then handed him the journal, pointing to an entry near the end.

Adam held the journal in his hands for a moment, then began reading. His uncle told of working in the Copernicus Memorial Library six days a week, of sleeping most of the rest of the time, of feeling tired, with a hacking cough. He wrote about a friend, Jerzy Jastremski, who urged him to see a doctor, but he declined, remembering the “hospital” at Sachsenhausen from which no one ever returned.

Then Adam read the account of a meeting his uncle had with Hans Frank, once his colleague, now his jailor, a meeting in which Frank told him about the discovery of a mass grave in the Katyn Forest where thousands of Polish officers had been murdered in 1940.

14 April 1943

He said that he had known about the murders for some time. He asked if I recalled his visitor last November. Thanks to this visitor and the gift he brought, Frank said, he has proof that it was the Russians who committed this despicable act. He said that proof—solid evidence—was always useful.

Adam set the journal down, staring out at the river.
Frank's visitor was Tarnov.
It had to be. It all fit with what Captain Andreyev had reported that night on the terrace. Tarnov's lady-friend said they went to Krakow in the fall of 1942 and Tarnov gave Frank a document. The document Frank referred to as a “gift.”

Natalia touched his arm. “You should read the last two entries.”

15 January 1945

Today I discovered the “solid evidence” Hans Frank boasted about back in April of 1943. It is a carbon copy of a single document authorizing the massacre in the Katyn Forest! I found it neatly folded in a non-descript envelope intermixed with dozens of other envelopes and file folders in the final box of documents left on the table in room L-3.

Adam's eyes leaped to the next entry, dated 16 January:

I have translated the document. It took more than two hours . . . this is the essence of its contents:

On 5 March 1940, at the request of NKVD Commissar Lavrenty Beria, an order was signed by Joseph Stalin and every other member of the Soviet Politburo, authorizing the execution of twenty-seven thousand Polish “nationalists and counterrevolutionaries.” The various groups of Poles and their places of execution were itemized—including the four thousand officers of the Polish army whose graves were discovered by the Germans in the Katyn Forest.

A little later, came the last words his uncle had written:

Now, I have but one last thing for which to live. This will be my final entry of the journal. I have been up all night, and I know what I must do. The copy of Stalin's order authorizing the massacre in the Katyn Forest must not fall into Russian hands.

To whoever reads this journal: find Adam Nowak and tell him that we shall never be pathetic pawns on the perilous chessboard of the NKVD.

Adam dropped the journal and closed his eyes, barely able to comprehend what he'd just read: his uncle, obviously quite ill after years in captivity. It was almost more than he could bear. He now realized with absolute certainty that it was all true. Tarnov had given a copy of Stalin's Katyn Order to Hans Frank in 1942. And now he had to get it back. A chill crept down his spine as he thought about the last thing General Kovalenko had said that night on the terrace: “Dmitri Tarnov hasn't yet found what he's looking for . . . and now he's going after your uncle.”