“I assume there’s a place where we can watch that elevator?”
The man nodded. “There is a spot. Not far away, down on Level III. The passageways here move between the three levels. We’ll continue to ferry people up, and, as you asked, we’ve stopped selling tickets for the day. I’ve had all of the guides instructed to keep their groups near the elevators, or in the café and the adjacent dining hall.”
He’d never been one to solve problems from the bottom. Smart people started from the top. And he’d always considered himself smart. Never had he done anything legally wrong or corrupt in his life. The Warsaw Protocol? That was war. Different rules. But if he was forced to defend himself and reveal the truth to counter the documents, how many would agree with him?
Not enough.
Most would see him as a spy for the communists, providing information on his friends, family, and acquaintances. That he sold out his country. Few would believe the Warsaw Protocol ever existed. Those who did might think him a murderer. A classic lose–lose. And the resulting firestorm would not be survivable. Candidates had been destroyed with far less damaging slander. Things like being called insensitive to war veterans. Labeled narcissistic. Elitist. Bragging about their education. Poor health. Even staring too long at a video monitor during an interview. All had been used in attempts to destroy campaigns. But an even greater danger existed, one that history cautioned should not be ignored. The possibility of dividing Poland.
Something similar had happened before.
Not here, but in France.
He knew the incident well.
In 1894 a traitor was discovered within the French army. A spy, passing information to the Germans. An investigation revealed the potential culprit. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery officer of Jewish descent, who was found guilty and sent to solitary confinement on Devil’s Island. Two years later an investigation unearthed the real culprit, who was tried. But officials suppressed vital evidence and the man was acquitted. The army then accused Dreyfus of more charges with more falsified evidence. Dreyfus was retried and found guilty again, but was pardoned and set free. Eventually it was proven that all of the accusations against Dreyfus were baseless.
But the whole thing bitterly divided France.
One half defended everything. Pro-army, mostly Catholic, screaming absolute loyalty to the nation. Dreyfus was a Jew who could not be trusted. He had to be a spy. The other half, anti-clerical, pro-republican, wanted justice for all, regardless of religion.
Political parties chose sides. Families split, sometimes for more than a generation. The debate continued for decades and remained even today with the “France for the French” nationalism clashing with a more global vision of the rule of law and a nation for everyone.
Incredible.
One court case created unresolvable divisions between people who never knew they disagreed with each other. It also revealed two vastly different views of what people thought was France.
The same would happen in Poland.
Revealing the Warsaw Protocol would open wounds that had never healed. What happened from 1945 to 1990 remained as fresh as yesterday in the minds of many Poles.
Divisions already existed.
Attacks on foreigners were steadily increasing.
Just recently, a fourteen-year-old Turkish girl was beaten on the street while her attackers shouted Poland for Poland. Anti-Semitic demonstrations had become commonplace with Jews burned in effigy. Jokes about the Holocaust were no longer unacceptable. Pro-fascist rallies happened monthly. Crimes committed from racial prejudice were on the rise. There’d even been a massive neo-Nazi march during last year’s celebration of Polish independence.
It would be easy for the populace to add one more divide to that mix.
Some would agree with the protocol’s radical tactics. Traitors had it coming. Solidarity did what it had to do. Others would find the lies and deaths no different from what the communists did, Solidarity nothing but hypocrisy.
The debate would be endless.
There’d be political shifts. Ones, as in France, that would split families and friends, cut across social classes, and rearrange long-standing alliances.
Old wounds would bleed again.
Sonia was staring, allowing him his thoughts. He wanted to talk to her, to explain, seek her help, but knew better. This was better kept to himself.
At least for now.
One of the curses of being president.
But the fact remained that much more was at stake here than just his political career.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Cotton ran his hand along the walls. Parts were smooth, like glass, others sharp and rough, easily capable of slicing skin.
“Why is it gray?” he asked Patrycja.
“The salt is impure. It has some magnesium and calcium mixed with it, which is good for you. That’s what once made this salt so highly valued.”
They walked in the center of the tunnel, over grooves made long ago by heavy carts. All around were stalactites and stalagmites in the irregular shapes salt crystals adopted from water intrusion. One wall was totally sheathed in bright-white cauliflower-like formations.
“Do a lot of people come down here?” Stephanie asked.
“Oh, yes. It is a busy place. When the Austrians controlled the mine in the 18th century, they set up the first tourist routes. The price of a ticket then depended on the quality of the light provided. Torches were a basic fee, but fireworks were expensive.”
“They actually set off pyrotechnics down here?” he asked.
“As crazy as that sounds, they did. And the price depended on the color used.”
The sound from earlier continued to bother him, but Patrycja explained that it was probably just another tour group. Many ventured to Level IX during each day, but, as she explained, they all stayed closer to the elevators. None ventured this deep into the tunnels.
Their path drained into another chamber, larger than the ones they’d already encountered, and different in that pillars had been left across it from floor to ceiling. He counted eight, along with spotting two other exits.
“Is this some sort of junction?” Stephanie asked.
Patrycja nodded. “The miners would use this as a starting point, then dig to the next deposits. That’s why there’s a chapel here.”
Her light revealed a small room, separate and individual, that jutted from one wall into a square-shaped cavity. Heavy timbers framed out its entrance, a set of beams securing the opening on all four sides, supported by a thick center post. Across the top, scrawled in white chalk, was KAPLICZKA ŚW. FRANCISZKA.
Patrycja pointed at the words. “Chapel of St. Francis. Kapliczka means ‘small chapel.’”
Cotton stepped across to the framed opening. Past it, in his headlamp, he spied a crucifix relief chipped from the wall. Beneath, a thick salt shelf rested on two projecting wooden dowels. A few feet away a wooden pew had been constructed of plank boards and faced the altar. Neighboring walls held small niches with crude statues, one he recognized from the book back at the castle.
St. Bobola.
Stephanie and Patrycja came up beside him and added more illumination.
“This is it,” he said.
* * *
Eli stopped.
Both Konrad and Ivan had halted, too, along with Munoz behind him.
“I heard voices,” he whispered.