“I think Danny Daniels might disagree with your assessment of his eight years in office.”
“I’m sure he would, but I’m going to do what it takes to get the job done.”
“When you mess with Stephanie, you’ll be messing with Daniels.”
“I doubt the junior senator from Tennessee could do much to harm me.”
No sense arguing with a fool who clearly underestimated his opponents.
“Just steal the spear, Malone, and win that auction.”
“And if I do, what happens to Stephanie?”
“Not a thing.”
“You do know that you’re not the most trustworthy person.”
“I’m all you have. Take it or leave it.”
Normally, he’d leave it. But two factors urged otherwise. One, he did not want Stephanie to experience the misery Fox would enjoy heaping on her. And two? Janusz Czajkowski was not the fool he wanted people to think he was. The U.S. announces a missile initiative then, because Poland simply doesn’t want it, they reverse course? That might happen, as it did years ago, when a bunch of time had passed so everyone could save face. But not this quick. Not by a long shot. Czajkowski was up to something, too, in playing along. And he suspected what that might be. But neither the moron driving the car nor the one on the phone had a clue.
Which almost made him smile.
“Do you have any assistance from American intelligence on this operation?” he asked Fox.
“Only the great Stephanie Nelle and her wonderful Magellan Billet.”
“Besides that.”
“That’s all. This is a White House–based initiative, everything held close.”
As he suspected.
Which clinched the deal.
“I’ll get the spear,” he said.
* * *
He was driven back near the cloth market, Bunch leaving and providing a cell phone number for contact. He walked to where his own vehicle was parked and called Stephanie, reporting all that had happened.
“I should resign,” she said. “I can’t work for these people.”
“I hate that I’m even about to say this, since it’s not my problem. But if we walk away, America could be in real trouble. The Russians are heavy into this, along with the Poles, and they’re not fooling around. This could take a bad bounce.”
“I agree. I’ve had an awful feeling from the start. I can’t tell you how relieved I was when they told me you were in Bruges.”
That was about as close to warm and fuzzy as she would ever get, and he appreciated the sentiment.
“I’ll get the spear,” he said. “Then we’ll decide what’s next for both you and the country.”
“I’m in Warsaw, at the embassy. But I’m headed south for the consulate in Kraków. I’ll be there in a few hours.”
He’d assumed she hadn’t left, or had even been ordered away. “I’m going to do a little recon, then handle things tonight. The info you’ve already provided was helpful.”
“You think the Poles will be waiting for you?”
He’d told her his hunch. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”
“Then why go?”
“Because they need me to do it, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Jonty arrived back at the castle, still shaken by the meeting. He could not decide if Reinhardt was being truthful or merely posturing, trying to edge his way into a deal that he had no part in making. Prior to obtaining the evidence on Janusz Czajkowski he’d done some extensive research, all designed to ascertain if what he’d been offered was real.
That was where he’d come across what happened to Lech Wałęsa.
An electrician in the Gdańsk Shipyard, working long hours for little pay like everyone else, Wałęsa became a trade union advocate and one of the co-founders of Solidarity. Images of his mustachioed face, being borne aloft by workers, became an inspiration for anti-communist movements across the Soviet bloc. He was arrested many times and imprisoned, but eventually led the charge to end communist rule, winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But he did not travel to Stockholm to get it, fearing he would not be allowed back in the country. He was the first to be elected to the renewed position of president of Poland. But his popularity waned, and he was defeated for reelection in 1995 after only one term.
Charges of collaboration had long dogged Wałęsa.
Two hundred and seventy-nine pages of documents eventually surfaced, all from the widow of a former communist interior minister, who’d tried to sell them. The similarities with what was happening here, with Czajkowski, were frightening. The difference being that Wałęsa’s dirt went public. The Institute of National Remembrance studied it in detail, hiring experts who concluded that the documents were authentic. The story they told was of a Wałęsa who led protests and strikes that shook communist rule in the 1980s, but had also apparently been a paid informant for the secret police in the 1970s. Wałęsa claimed fraud, saying they were created by the government to discredit him. A valid charge, considering the parties involved, and a court exonerated him.
Questions remained, though.
The issue of collaboration recurred when the conservative Law and Justice party, run by a former anti-communist activist, an enemy of Wałęsa’s, assumed power. Eventually, Wałęsa admitted signing a commitment to inform for the SB, but denied ever fulfilling it. There were at least thirty reports bearing the signature of “Bolek,” the code name assigned to Wałęsa, all deemed authentic. In addition, there were cash receipts for payments to him that also bore his verified signature.
Quite the PR disaster for a legend.
One Wałęsa never really recovered from.
Enough, Jonty had hoped, to scare Czajkowski into not tempting fate, making him willing to do whatever the holder of the information on him might want.
He entered the castle and told Vic, “Let the man in the basement go.” He’d already explained on the drive back what had happened inside the restaurant. “We need to go back to the mine. Eli included. Can you arrange it?”
Vic nodded.
“Please do it fast. I want this matter resolved in the next few hours.”
He’d made a deal with Reinhardt on the condition that the cache still existed and was marketable. If so, there’d be a joint auction. If not, he’d agreed to pay twenty million euros for his competition to stay out of the way. The Arma Christi should bring that amount. The rest from the auction would be all his. He had not liked making the deal, but there was plenty of money to go around, so he decided to spend what it took to keep Reinhardt at bay. Of course, if the cache was there, and relevant, many more millions could be made.
By them both.
So what did he have to lose by taking a look?
* * *
Czajkowski sat inside the Royal Wawel Suite at the Sheraton Grand Kraków. The hotel, a modern precast-concrete-and-steel structure, faced the River Wisła, within the shadow of Wawel Castle, displayed in all its glory beyond the room’s east windows. He’d decided to stay over for the night to be close to what was about to happen, the move camouflaged by a meeting arranged with local officials, many of whom had been clamoring for a moment of his time. He’d managed to contain his anger with both President Fox and Tom Bunch. Both were treating him like a fool and Poland like a second-rate nation.