Night of Flames: A Novel of World War II (25 page)

“So, that’s where he is now?” Whitehall asked, wiping sweat from his brow again.

“Looks that way,” Morgan said, scanning the fi le. “According to this he’s put in for intelligence work in Poland, but nothing’s come up.”

“Until now,” Whitehall interjected.

“Yes, until now.”

“Languages?”

“Polish, of course. The fi le says he’s also fl uent in German, decent in French and coming along pretty well in English since he got over here.”

“I’d guess his German would be pretty good if he got away with impersonating a Gestapo agent in Krakow,” Whitehall remarked with a yawn as he hoisted himself from the chair, tucking a shirttail back under his sagging belt-line. “God, this bloody heat’s enough to put you to sleep in the middle of the day. So, how’s this chap’s health?”

“According to this, he’s recovered. Seems like it was shrapnel wounds and a badly fractured leg.”

“Anything else?” Whitehall asked, anxious to get out of this suffocating of-fi ce and over to the Lion’s Head for a drink.

“Yes, this may be important,” Morgan said, looking back at the fi le. “When he went on that mission to Krakow, he apparently found out that his wife had been arrested by the SS and imprisoned.”

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“Really? How do we know that?” Whitehall asked.

“It’s a note written in by one of the doctors at the hospital. Probably something Kopernik told him—or a nurse; you know how it is with wounded soldiers.”

“Hmmm, yes . . . quite right. Well, that obviously explains why he’s offered to go back. Has it affected his work at all?”

“There’s nothing in the fi le about depression or anything of that sort,”

Morgan replied. “His fi tness reports are all fi rst class. He appears to be a top-notch offi cer.”

“Who’s itching for a reason to go back to Poland and look for his wife.

Certainly would solve the problem of retrieving whomever we drop in there.”

“You mean . . .”

“Why not? We drop him in, he verifi es the identity of the contact in Poland and the accuracy of these reports, then he’d be free to go off looking for his wife.”

Morgan squirmed in his chair. “But . . . the army is going to want him back.”

Whitehall waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll take care of that with MI-6. If they want this done, they’ll have to square it with the army chaps. Besides, by the time they sort it all out, the invasion will be on. There are a million troops in England at the moment, and thousands more arriving every week. One of-fi cer more or less, and a Polish offi cer at that, who the hell’s going to notice.

Get him down here for a chat. I’ve got to get moving on this. MI-6 is getting their knickers in a tizzy about verifying the contact in Poland, and Kopernik here is the only one we know of that’s ever met this bloke . . . this . . . what’s his name again?”

“Slomak.”

“Yes, Slomak. Well, that
was
his name, anyway.”

Jan had not been back in London since he was transferred up to Scotland over a year ago. He remembered how it had been then, during the blitz. The constant blackouts, air-raid sirens blaring in the night, the fi res he could see in all directions from the windows of the hospital. But now the city was bustling with activity as he stood in front of King’s Cross station trying to hail a taxi.

Finally, one of the venerable black vehicles pulled up, and a middle-aged Night of Flames

165

man wearing a bowler hat stuck his grizzled face out the window. “Hop in, laddy. Where to?”

“The Northumberland Hotel,” Jan remarked as he climbed into the backseat of the spacious automobile, throwing his bag on the seat.

“Right-O,” the man said as he whipped the car into the traffi c, right in front of a red double-decker bus. “Don’t recognize that uniform, laddy—where you from?”

“Poland,” Jan replied.

“You don’t say. You’re the fi rst I’ve met from Poland. Pretty tough, I guess, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” Jan said. He stared out the window, not knowing what else he could add that would matter now.

The room on the fi fth fl oor of the hotel was completely bare except for a battered metal desk and two wooden chairs. The windows were open to let in what breeze there was, and a fan had been set on the fl oor doing little good. Jan removed his coat, following the invitation of the portly man sitting behind the desk who introduced himself as Colonel Whitehall of the SOE.

Whitehall looked up from the fi le he was studying, took off his reading glasses and folded his pudgy hands on the desk. “So, Major, how are you getting on in Scotland?”

“Very well,” Jan said, “but we’re all getting a little restless to get back into action somewhere.”

“Yes, yes, I can imagine,” Whitehall said. “Lot of fi ghting ahead of us yet before Jerry throws in the towel, I should think.”

Jan nodded but didn’t respond.

Whitehall cleared his throat, looked at the fi le and then back at Jan. “Major, according to the notes in this fi le, you apparently believe that your wife was arrested by the SS back in ’39. Is that correct?”

Jan sat back in the chair, stunned by the unexpected reference to Anna’s disappearance. He stared at Whitehall. Did this man have some information about her? No, he knew better than that. The army wouldn’t go through this elaborate setup just to tell him they’d located his wife. Besides, thousands of soldiers were worried about their families, and it wasn’t the army’s concern.

This was something else. “Yes, Colonel, that’s correct,” he said.

“And how did you happen to come by this information?”

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Douglas W. Jacobson

Jan hesitated. Where was this going? He leaned forward and locked eyes with Whitehall. “I’m sure that fi le you have there, Colonel, makes reference to the undercover mission I was sent on to Krakow in 1939. While I was there I tried to fi nd my wife. Our apartment had been ransacked by the SS

and . . .” Jan paused and took a breath. He hadn’t talked about this in a long time. “What’s this all about?”

Whitehall closed the fi le folder. “Well, Major, we may be able to help each other out. We’d like to send you on another mission—a very important one—

back in Poland.”

Jan remained silent and continued to stare at Whitehall.

The colonel stood up and walked to the window. He turned around and lowered his bulk onto the windowsill. “I think it goes without saying that anything we discuss here is strictly between us. Nothing leaves the room.

Understood?”

Jan nodded.

Whitehall looked at him for a moment then continued. “A little over a month ago the RAF carried out a massive bombing raid on an enemy facility near a small village named Peenemunde located on an island in the Baltic just off the coast of Germany. The raid was prompted by reports that British intelligence had received concerning German
wunderwaffen.
Do you know what I mean, Major?”

“Wonder weapons?”

“Yes, quite. Wonder weapons. In this case, rockets, unmanned rockets carrying warheads. The Germans were building them in secret at Peenemunde.”

Jan ran a hand through his hair. Unmanned rockets?

Whitehall continued. “Well, we now have some new information that suggests the raid was only partially successful. Information, you will be interested to know, supplied by agents of the
Armia Krajowa.
You’re familiar with them, Major?

Jan nodded. “Armia Krajowa, the AK. It means ‘the home army,’ the Polish Resistance.”

“Yes, quite correct,” Whitehall said, “a courageous group.”

“They were just getting started when we were ordered to escape,” Jan said.

“Well, according to these reports from the AK, the Germans have shifted much of the work on the
wunderwaffen
to a new facility located in Poland near Night of Flames

167

a village by the name of Blizna. Do you know where that is?”

Jan had to think a moment. “Blizna . . . yes, I think so. It’s in the south, east of Krakow, I believe.”

Whitehall pushed himself off the windowsill and plodded around the small room. “Major Kopernik, when you were sent from Hungary on the mission to Krakow, you made contact with a man named Slomak. Is that right?”

Jan leaned forward, now very curious. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, this Slomak now goes by a different name. But he is supposedly the one sending the messages about the rocket facility at Blizna. Needless to say, the British government is very concerned about this but, quite frankly, we have no way of knowing if these reports are real or just a ruse to throw us off. The Germans sealed off Poland like a drum after driving out the Russians, and it’s almost impossible to get anything out of there except for these messages from the AK. Bottom line is someone has to go over to Poland, verify the identity of this chap and fi nd out what the hell is going on.” Whitehall paused and managed a thin smile. “And I’m afraid that you, old fellow, are the only one we know who would recognize him.”

They looked at each other in silence. Finally Jan stood and walked over to the window watching the traffi c on the street below. The building across the way was boarded up, apparently a casualty of the blitz. “It’s a one-way trip, isn’t it,” he said, turning back to Whitehall.

Whitehall shrugged. “Well, retrieval does pose some diffi culties at the moment, as I’m sure you can understand. We’ll be in communication, of course, through the chaps in the AK . . . and conditions may change in the next few months. If our boys make some progress in Italy it may open up some airstrips and perhaps . . .”

“Yes, I think I understand, Colonel.”

Tadeusz Kaliski perched on a rock at the top of a hill overlooking a small grassy fi eld near Blizna, Poland. On the other side of the fi eld lay a dense forest and beyond that the SS training grounds. It was from this forest, three weeks ago, that he had fi rst seen the extraordinary airplane without wings streaking toward the heavens.

Today, Tadeusz had a radio transmitter and a compass, taking his three-hour shift watching the launch site. If a launch occurred he would send a 168

Douglas W. Jacobson

coded message indicating its direction and alerting the AK cell in that area to begin a search for the crash site.

He was nervous. When the wind was right, he could hear the barking of the German guard dogs that roamed through the woods with the sentries. Off to his left, less than a half kilometer away was the newly constructed railroad spur that ran from Blizna, through the forest and into the training grounds.

An hour ago a freight train had rumbled along the tracks toward the training grounds. Tadeusz had counted twenty-seven freight cars draped with canvas tarps, moving slowly as though heavily loaded. Armed sentries guarded every car. If he were caught out here he would be executed on the spot. Of that, he was certain.

A thunderous roar suddenly jolted Tadeusz out of his reverie. He lost his grasp on the compass and reached down to grab it before it rolled down the hill. He looked up just in time to see an enormous cylinder emerge from the trees, trailing a blazing white fi re. With his ears ringing and his hands shaking, Tadeusz scrambled to his feet and checked the compass.

In a few seconds it was over. The rocket had vanished from sight as quickly as it had emerged. The rumbling noise trailed off leaving behind an uneasy silence in the forest.

Chapter 32

Anna sat in a wicker chair on the porch of the chalet and watched Andrew swing the axe, cleanly splitting another log. Justyn picked up the two pieces and stacked them on the pile.

The late October air was crisp, and the leaves had begun to turn. They would need the fi rewood for the winter, and she was grateful for the help of the American aviator. Andrew’s ankle had healed nicely, and judging by the way he was swinging the axe, his cracked ribs had mended as well. Anna watched as he pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his forehead, then picked up another log and set it on its end. He seemed pleased at the opportunity for some exercise after being confi ned to crutches for so long.

Andrew had been with them for almost two months. He was no longer reticent and enjoyed talking about his family and his life back in America, where his father worked as a welder at a factory in Milwaukee that produced bomb casings, and his mother was as an administrator in a hospital. He described their home and the neighborhood where he grew up. Anna found herself en-thralled with his tales of America and excited by the opportunity to practice her English, which she had studied during her university years.

She was surprised to learn that this city in the heartland of the United States was home to thousands of German and Polish immigrants. She found the irony of Germans and Poles living and working together in an American city while they slaughtered each other in Europe distressing but, in another way, hopeful. It sounded like a nice place to visit with Jan when all of this was over.

Her thoughts turned to Jan, as they inevitably did, wondering where he was and if he was safe. She never allowed herself to dwell on her fear for his 170

Douglas W. Jacobson

safety—but it was always there, right beneath the surface.

Anna stood up to go inside and prepare lunch when she heard the snort of a horse and the creak of wagon wheels. She stepped around the corner of the chalet and saw Leon Marchal climbing down from the wagon.

Marchal waved at her then glanced toward the cleared area where Andrew and Justyn were still at work. He motioned her over to the wagon. “Van Acker needs to see you today. There’s been a development.”

“What’s going on? What development?” Anna asked.

“He didn’t say. He just asked me to drive out here and tell you he needed to see you.”

Anna let herself in the back door of van Acker’s butcher shop. His assistant was not there, but she could hear van Acker’s gravelly voice in the front of the shop. She slipped into his small, cluttered offi ce and waited. A few minutes later the bell jingled on the front door of the shop as the customer left, and van Acker lumbered into the offi ce, sliding his large frame around her and sitting down at the desk.