“No.”
Meinerz stood up and paced around the terrace. “Do you know that Hans Frank is in the custody of the American Army? That he is being held in Nuremberg, charged with war crimes?”
Adam felt as though he were drifting through some macabre dream. “Yes, I know.”
“Jesus Christ, Adam, the Russians will jump all over this. Most of the big Nazi fish got away from them and surrendered to us—Goering, Speer, Jodl, Frank. They’re really pissed off about it and grabbing anyone still out there. You’re damned fortunate those prison guards and your driver were Red Army officers. When the NKVD finds out about this, you can bet your ass we’ll be hearing from them.” Meinerz pulled out a pack of Camels, lit one and blew out a long column of smoke. “Who was this person anyway—the one released into Frank’s custody?”
“His name is Ludwik Banach.”
“Yeah, that’s fine, but who the hell is he? And why was he on that list?”
Adam studied Meinerz. He seemed like a straight-up sort, an honest army officer and JAG lawyer. Adam felt he could trust him, and he owed him something after the deception. But he couldn’t tell him everything. “He’s my uncle.”
“He’s what… your uncle?” Meinerz stood with his hands on his hips, glaring down at Adam. “What the fuck is going on here, Adam… Mr. Nowak… or whoever the hell you really are? Why didn’t you tell me right up front what you were looking for?”
“I couldn’t. I’m under orders from the British SOE.”
“Well that’s just great! You’ve got some secret orders from the British spooks that I don’t know anything about. What else haven’t you told me? Do the Russians know that Banach is your uncle?”
“Yes, it’s possible they do. I know that they’ve investigated my background. I lived with my uncle when I was going to law school in Krakow. It wasn’t a secret.”
“But I’ll bet they didn’t know that your uncle was sent to Sachsenhausen and then released into the custody of Hans Frank.”
Adam shook his head. “I’m sure they didn’t. I didn’t know that until yesterday.”
Meinerz stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “Why would Hans Frank have had any interest in your uncle, a university professor?”
Adam tried to focus, to come up with an answer, but it was hard to concentrate. His emotions were drained from anxiety over what this could mean. Finally, he just said, “I don’t know.” It was true. He had no idea, though he had been thinking about nothing else since reading the extraordinary entry in “volume 293.” He stood up, so that he was face-to-face with Meinerz. “Look, I’m sorry about the deception. I had no idea about this business with Hans Frank. But I need your help. I’ve got to report this to SOE, and I’ve got to do it quietly. It can’t go through channels.”
Meinerz was silent for a long moment, looking Adam in the eye. Finally he nodded. “Yeah, sure, whatever you need.”
Thirty-One
ADAM SAT ON THE FRONT PORCH of the former Nazi’s mansion, reading Stars and Stripes, trying unsuccessfully to relax. The front page article was an optimistic report on the upcoming Potsdam conference, filled with flowery references to “freedom across Europe.” Adam snorted and tossed the paper to the ground. Obviously the reporter had never dealt with the Russians.
Adam’s message had been delivered by special courier to Colonel Whitehall the day before, and he’d received a return message earlier this morning to expect Whitehall’s assistant, Tom Donavan. He’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours trying to sort out the stunning revelation about Banach and Hans Frank, but nothing made sense. Especially troubling was the date of his uncle’s release—July, 1940. Adam had been sent back to Poland by the SOE in the winter of 1940 and spent the next four years on his covert mission of murder, never knowing his uncle had survived Sachsenhausen and was back in Krakow. How many German officers had he assassinated avenging his death? Did it matter? They were all monsters who deserved to die, weren’t they?
Adam sighed, pulled back to the moment as a British army staff car pulled up in front of the house. Donavan exited from the backseat, wearing the same bow tie he’d worn in London and lugging a thick briefcase. They exchanged a brief greeting, and Adam led him to the library.
It was a dark, heavy room of walnut shelving laden with leather-bound books. A large, bronze plaque, emblazoned with the coat-of-arms of the Teutonic Knights, hung above a granite fireplace. They sat facing each other across a mahogany table.
“Your message was a bit of a shock, to say the least,” Donavan said without preamble. “Ludwik Banach released from Sachsenhausen by order of Hans Frank—quite extraordinary. If it gets out, it’ll cause quite a stir within SOE—and with the Polish Government in London, I should think. Whitehall’s keeping a lid on it for now, but it won’t last.”
Adam kept silent, though it was difficult. Cause a stir within SOE? What the hell did these people think it did to him?
“We’ve been doing some homework on Herr Frank since your call,” Donavan said. He opened the briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers. “Obviously, you have no idea why Frank would have ordered Banach’s release.”
“I can’t imagine,” Adam said. “Frank didn’t arrive in Krakow as governor until a month or two after my uncle’s arrest and my deportation from Poland.”
Donavan nodded. “Well, let’s review a bit about this chap, shall we? Our people have prepared a summary.” He pulled a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket and scanned the top page of the stack of documents. “Frank is a lawyer, one of Germany’s most noted jurists, a degree in economics, as well.” He ran his finger down the page. “… associated with fascists during his university years… joined the German Workers Party in 1919… became connected with National Socialist Party around 1928.”
Donavan continued flipping through the pages. “Hmmm… elected to the Reichstag in 1930… became president of the Reichstag after the Nazis came to power in 1933, appointed to the post by the Fuhrer himself.”
Donavan turned over the last page. “He served as the Reich Commissar for Administration of Justice, the Bavarian State Minister of Justice, and he was President of the Academy of German Law from 1933 until 1942. That’s quite—”
Adam held up his hand. “Excuse me, what did you just say?”
Donavan looked back at his notes. “He was the Bavarian—”
“No, the next thing.”
“Ah, he was the President of the Academy of German Law.”
Adam turned the words over in his mind, trying to remember.
“Does that mean something to you?” Donavan asked, peering over the top of his glasses.
“What were the dates?”
Donavan looked back at the notes. “1933 until 1942.”
Adam absently rubbed the thin scar on the left side of his face, though it was numb and he barely felt it. “Banach was very involved in the development of Poland’s judicial system,” he said, thinking back, reconstructing details from past conversations with his uncle. “He’d studied the system in Germany for many years. In one of his classes on constitutional law he talked about a conference he’d attended a few years earlier, in 1935, I believe. The conference was organized by this group, the Academy of German Law.” Adam paused. “Yes, I think that’s right, a conference of the Academy of German Law.”