Adam slumped down in the chair next to him. “It’s not going to last. I’ll be leaving for Krakow soon.”
Meinerz set the file on a round, wood-topped table between the chairs and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Adam and lit both of them. “Has SOE located your uncle?”
“I don’t know. They received a message that our contact in Krakow discovered something important.”
Meinerz cocked his head. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting into here, Adam? A few days ago you almost got arrested by the NKVD and now you’re going off to Poland? We can’t help you if anything happens over there, you know.”
Adam nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?” Meinerz leaned forward, looking him in the eye. “There are a lot of desperate people out there trying like hell to cover up all the atrocities they committed. One more life isn’t going to matter to any of them. That NKVD prick accused you of harboring a fugitive. That’s all the excuse he needs.”
Adam smiled to hide his irritation. Meinerz had no idea what he’d seen and done the last four years, and that was the way it had to stay. “I appreciate your concern, and I’ll be careful. But I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. I sure as hell don’t want my uncle’s name associated with mass murderers like Hans Frank, regardless of what the damn Russians think. Besides, I may dig up some evidence that will be useful in the war crimes trials.”
Meinerz shook his head. “Listen to me, Adam. We’re making up these damn laws as we go because we won the war—along with our Russian allies. We can’t trust those bastards further than we can throw one of their tanks. None of this ‘war crimes’ crap is ever going to stick. The American people don’t care. We’ll eventually just get tired of the whole tedious process. Then, very quietly, we’ll let them all go.”
“So, you think we’re all just wasting our time here? We’re discovering evidence of mass genocide, for Christ’s sake! You think everyone will just forget about it?”
“What I’m saying is, we can do all the investigating we want because we’re the victors. But there is no legal precedent to conduct war crimes trials against individuals.”
“What about the Moscow Declaration? The London Charter?”
Meinerz shook his head again. “Written by Churchill with support from Roosevelt and Stalin during war time. It won’t stand up under the scrutiny of international law.”
“Then what about the Hague Convention, which protects the rights of civilians in occupied countries?”
“The Hague Convention holds governments responsible for war crimes, not individuals. Look, Adam, I agree with you. All of these Nazi bastards should hang for their crimes—”
“And a lot of Russians.”
“My point, exactly. It’s certainly not fair treatment under the law, is it? No one knows better than you the extent of the crimes committed by the Russians against the Poles. But since they’re our allies—”
Adam held his hands in the air. “I know, I know!” Meinerz’s words cut right through to his heart. Was this all just an exercise, a grandstand show by the victors? Could the Americans and British really put Germans on trial for war crimes and ignore what the Russians did in all those hundreds of Polish villages? Could they ignore what the Russians did at Katyn?
Meinerz stubbed out his cigarette and held out his hand. “Look, I’m cynical by nature. Don’t pay any attention to it. We’ll do our best to hang these bastards. You just watch your back… and stay safe.”
Adam gripped his friend’s hand and nodded.
Adam left the next day and spent most of the trip from Berlin to Krakow sitting alone in the train’s first-class dining car, smoking cigarettes and staring out the window. Morning became afternoon, rain turned to sunshine, but he didn’t notice. All he could think about was Natalia.
When he’d given her name to Whitehall, it was with only the slightest hope that SOE would find her. He wasn’t even sure she’d made it out of Warsaw, much less avoided capture by the NKVD for the last ten months.
Adam had just barely made it out of Warsaw himself after being wounded when the SS assaulted the AK hospital in Raczynski Palace. The bullet that mangled his ear had knocked him unconscious, which turned out to be a stroke of luck since he’d been left for dead by the SS troopers. When he finally came to, he had managed to crawl out of the palace, and into the street where he’d passed out again. An elderly couple found him and took him to their hiding place, a cellar in an adjacent building. They had tried their best to nurse him, but with the lack of medical supplies, infection had set in. He had been so dizzy most of the time he couldn’t stand, much less walk. It had taken a month to recover, and by the time he managed to slip out of the city, Natalia, like everyone else, had disappeared in the chaos.
And now he was on his way to meet her.
The only time in five years he had let his guard down had been with Natalia. They’d only spent a few hours together, sitting in a church, then huddling in the ammunition shelter. But there was something about her, something that had penetrated the protective shell he’d so meticulously created, the shell that sealed off his emotions and kept him going. And it frightened him. It had frightened him that last night in Warsaw, when he had run off on the futile mission to Raczynski Palace… then watched her from a window like a schoolboy.
Adam forced himself to think about something other than what he would say when he met her. Had she found Banach? Could his uncle still be alive after all this time? Was it possible he might be re-united with the man who meant more to him than life itself?
And the phrase—pathetic pawns on the perilous chessboard—the phrase Banach used in his paper, the same phrase Hans Frank used. Where would she have learned it, if not from Banach?
He looked out the window, rubbing the numb left side of his face, and watched the Polish countryside slip past: gray buildings in war-weary, gray towns, dusty roads winding through the wheat fields, wagons pulled by horses and oxen. He imagined it looked the same as it always had, century after century… war after war.
Adam reflected on his conversation with Whitehall the other day when they were alone in the drawing room of the mansion before dinner with Kovalenko. One of Whitehall’s comments had struck a chord: Get proof about Katyn, something even the Americans can’t ignore. He thought about the comment, remembering the Poles he knew in Chicago—most of them, like himself, first or second generation immigrants, and all of them patriotic Americans. While they kept alive their Polish heritage, they were as fiercely proud to be an American as he was.
But Whitehall’s comment had made him think. If there were solid proof of Russia’s treachery at Katyn, would the Americans stand up to Stalin and help Poland? Would his adopted country stand beside the country of his birth at the hour of her greatest need?
Adam knew what the answer would be if he asked any of the hundreds of AK commandos he’d fought with over the years, the proud, stubborn Poles who were fighting to the death to win their freedom. The British and the French may have let them down, but Adam knew that every one of them believed America would be there when it counted. He hoped it was true.
He suddenly felt very tired. He let his head fall back on the seat and closed his eyes, wondering what he would say when he met Natalia.
Thirty-Nine
THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN was quite warm when Adam exited Krakow’s Central Station with his suit coat draped over his arm. For the first time since he’d been deported by the Germans in 1939, he walked the familiar streets leading to the Stare Miasto District, grateful the city that had once been his home had survived the war with little damage.