“Let’s get the hell out of here before they blow our fuckin’ heads off!” the boy yelled as soon as he spotted Adam and Natalia. Even from two meters away, Adam could smell the stink of sewage on him.
Through a swirling vortex of shrieking artillery shells, deafening concussions and raging fires, Rabbit led the group into the ancient maze of winding streets bordering Old Town’s main square. Only a few skeletal brick façades remained standing, their dark, blown-out windows looming eerily like the eyes of a death’s-head. The commandos kept their heads down, circling around the ruins of St. John’s Cathedral, its magnificent spires, archways and statuary now pulverized into dust. A few minutes later they rendezvoused with a second group, hunkered down in front of St. Jacek’s Church—incredibly still intact—at the head of Dluga Street.
Rabbit glanced at his watch, then turned to the combined group of commandos, shouting to be heard over the thundering detonations. “Bobcat is at the sewer at the south end of the street, at Place Krasinskich. That’s where the manhole is. In exactly ten minutes he’ll signal with a flashlight, twice. I’ll return the signal by flashing three times. Then you all run like hell! Single file. Just follow me!”
Adam put a hand on Natalia’s shoulder. “You stay right behind Rabbit.”
She grabbed his coat and pulled him toward her. “What about you?”
“I’ll be along later. I have another assignment.”
“I’m coming with you.”
He shook his head. “You can’t. We have orders. You have to go now and I’ll—”
She jerked harder on his coat. “I’m not leaving without you!”
He bent down and kissed her. Then he gripped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You’re going now. I’ll find you.”
Defiance flashed through her eyes, and she turned away.
Rabbit shouted again at the group. “No matter what happens, keep running, and don’t stop until you’re in the sewer! When we’re down there, follow me; I know the way. Bobcat will bring up the rear.”
The fires and bursting artillery shells lit up the midnight sky, giving Adam amazingly clear glimpses of Dluga Street—from the stout façades of St. Jacek’s at the north end to Place Krasinskich at the south end. From his vantage point on the top floor of Raczynski Palace, he spotted Natalia in her blue coat kneeling next to Rabbit in front of the church.
Adam did not want it to end this way. But he knew it would. There was a part of him that wanted to run back into the street and take her in his arms. But that part was just barely alive, buried under years of murder, rage and the quest for revenge that had driven him since Whitehall sent him back into Poland.
He leaned against the edge of the window, watching her in the flashes of light. He had to make her go. He knew that. The AK were out of options. They were trapped in Old Town, and the route through the sewers held the only way out. Surrendering to the Germans would be a death sentence. And when the Russians finally decided to enter Warsaw, Adam knew the terror squads of the NKVD would be right behind the Red Army. Any AK commandos still alive would spend the rest of their days in a Siberian gulag.
But Adam wasn’t headed back to the sewers. Raczynski Palace served as a field hospital for hundreds of wounded AK commandos who couldn’t escape. If the building survived the bombardment, he knew that SS storm troopers would move in and finish off the wounded men. Colonel Stag knew it too. But there was nothing he could do about it. And Adam knew there was nothing he could do about it either. He couldn’t stop it. But, when the time came, he could take out some of the storm troopers with him. Perhaps, at long last, all of the killing might actually mean something.
A light flashed twice from the south. Then three flashes from the north, and a moment later Rabbit’s group was on the move, running single file down the street, dodging around the rubble.
A burst of artillery shook the palace building and lit up the street like a searchlight. Adam stood ramrod stiff and clenched his fists, watching the slender figure in a blue uniform running right behind Rabbit. Silently, he urged her along. Run! Run!
Then a massive concussion knocked him to the ground. Adam groped around to retrieve his glasses and scrambled to his feet. He fumbled to slip them back on, then looked in horror through a cracked lens at the street below where a massive cloud of dust billowed up from a crater three meters across. The runners in the second half of the single-file line had disappeared.
Frozen with fear, Adam watched helplessly as the runners in the front half of the line stopped and looked back. There was instant commotion. Natalia waved her arms, frantically pointing back up the street at the smoking crater. Rabbit tugged at her arm. Some of the others pushed her forward.
Natalia hesitated and continued to point at the crater.
Adam pounded on the window frame and shouted out loud, “Run! Goddamn it, Run!” Only the hospital patients in the next room heard him.
But that’s exactly what she did.
And then she was gone.
Nineteen
THE SMELL WAS OVERPOWERING. Sharp sulfurous gas and the stagnant stench of mold and human excrement swept over Natalia. She fought off a wave of nausea as she stepped off the climbing iron into the foul, knee-deep wastewater with muck up to her ankles. Torrents of water swirled around her, and she stumbled forward, almost falling. Hammer, the husky commando in front of her, grabbed her around the waist as she struggled to lift her right foot from the muck.
“The rope! Grab the damn rope!” Rabbit shouted from the head of the line, the faint glow from his lantern swinging back and forth, briefly illuminating the slime-covered walls.
Natalia put one hand on Hammer’s shoulder and felt around in the filthy, rapidly flowing water until she found the rope. It was slippery, and she had to hold tight with both hands to keep from falling. She heard Rabbit shout something, and the rope suddenly went taut, jerking her forward as the group set off into the dark, forbidding labyrinth. Natalia hung on, swallowing hard to keep from vomiting. She concentrated on lifting one foot at a time, praying she wouldn’t lose a boot.
They plodded forward, the rope jerking back and forth as people slipped and stumbled, splashing in the squalid wastewater. Suddenly, the rope went slack and someone in front of Hammer cried out, “Jesus Christ, it’s a body!”
“Keep moving!” Rabbit yelled back.
The rope went taut again and a moment later Natalia stumbled over a squishy hump underfoot. She clung fast with both hands and kept her eyes forward, focusing on Hammer’s broad silhouette to force the grisly image out of her mind as she stepped over the submerged corpse.
They continued on, torrents of putrid water rushing past, carrying not just human waste, but rotting plants, sticks, gravel and broken boards that slammed into the back of Natalia’s legs. Her trousers were shredded by the jagged splinters. Wastewater oozed through the brick roof, dripping on her head until her hair was sticky and matted, and her eyes burned.
“Step up!” Rabbit yelled as the group made a left turn into a smaller tunnel with the main flow of water rushing off in a different direction. It was drier and the footing better, though the tunnel’s low ceiling forced them into a crouched position. Natalia banged her head a few times and, in front of her, Hammer crawled on all fours.
Overhead she heard crunching noises and the unmistakable clatter of steel tank treads as Rabbit called out, “Passing under Holy Cross Church!”