DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television
series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers.
I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of
enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from
this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is
intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic
setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources,
they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility
for their imaginary actions.
Chapter 10 * The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:02 p.m. (GMT+1)
Alex Reese leapt toward the priest.
Kevin Reese stretched out his left arm toward the rifle.
Jaruslav Milowanowicz fired.
Kevin knocked the barrel of the weapon upward just as the projectile inside began its journey toward the man on the stage.
The Pole roared in rage at the attack and swung the rifle hard at his assailants, flailing wildly but effectively enough to cause the two men to back off just enough.
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:03 p.m. (GMT+1)
Glemp, unfazed by the shot which hit the brick of the building behind the stage, went on with the reading in an apparent effort to contain the crowd. "Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!' And having said this, he breathed his last…."
Lee and Amanda had seen a hand emerge from the doorway just as they saw the muzzle flash. They waited below the balcony for –
"Here he comes!" Kevin Reese shouted in plain English into his microphone, the first words spoken by either Reese since they went into the building on Piwna Street.
Jaruslav Milowanowicz came flying over the railing of the balcony, landing with force on his knees between the Stetsons and Ian and Francine on the other side. Amazingly, the crowd seemed focused on the stage and did not react to the presence of a deranged man in their midst.
The priest shook off his unceremonious arrival on the ground and took off limping toward Piwna Street. Glemp continued his reading. "Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, and said, 'Surely, this man was innocent.'"
Ian saw this; he motioned Francine ahead and waited for the shooter to get close enough for his "extended arms" to do some good. He saw Lee and Amanda following; Lee made eye contact and the men read each other's thoughts perfectly.
Father Milowanowicz slipped between Francine and the building, right into Ian's outstretched crutch. Francine turned and knelt down on the man's back as the Stetsons slowed to a stop with the wheelchair.
"Here, let's put him in here," Lee indicated, standing awkwardly with Amanda's support. "Hurry, Francine, the police have finally noticed."
Glemp droned on as they worked. "And all the multitude who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts."
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 5:05 p.m. (GMT+3)
The color drained from Kaminsky's face as he listened to the Polish state radio broadcast of the service in Castle Square. Glemp was still speaking, even though the announcers had reported a single gunshot a moment ago. No one was rioting – the crowd, in fact, seemed utterly oblivious to the shot, absorbed rather in the drama of the Passion story.
"He failed," Tolstoy said in a shaken tone.
"Find him and kill him."
"But we have – "
"Find him and kill him."
Georg Alexeivich nodded. "It shall be done."
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:07 p.m. (GMT+1)
Alex called the interception team over the radio, urging the group to move around the corner into the relative protection of the shoe shop entryway. When the Stetsons, Ian, and Francine rounded the building, a battered Kevin greeted them with a raised hand and a scowl at the unconscious man in the wheelchair. In the crook of his other arm he held a rifle, looking for all the world like John Wayne in a John Ford Western.
"What are we going to do with him now that we have him?" he asked, motioning toward the senseless priest with the gun.
No one had thought quite that far ahead. "Put him in the box with Scholk?" Amanda suggested flippantly.
Ian didn't think it flippant at all. "That might work. Who knows just how valuable he might be politically?"
"How do we get him out of here?" Alex asked.
"More importantly, what do we do with this?" Kevin rebutted, gesturing with the rifle.
They were saved from further discussion when a van bearing the emblem of the United States Embassy pulled up beside them and Leszek Wroebel rolled down the driver's side window. "Need a lift?" he asked in an exaggerated New England accent.
Lee smiled at the general. "How about the airport?"
The Agency * 9:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Billy sagged with relief when the translator finished his simultaneous interpretation of the intercept of the radio broadcast of the Good Friday service. He had never been so happy to hear verse 49 of Luke 23: "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance and saw these things." He thanked the man and sent him out with a thumb's up gesture and a winning smile.
"Well done, Melrose," Dr. Smyth congratulated him from the couch across the desk. "Your team seems to have averted an international crisis."
"We would expect nothing less. I'm sure it was a piece of cake." His easy tone was a sham and both men knew it.
"I'm sure," Smyth agreed in tones evocative of the Sahara Desert. "I have a question for you, William."
Billy noted the shift in tone warily. "Okay."
"Are you ready for a promotion?"
The dark-skinned civil servant sat up straight in his desk chair. "What did you have in mind?"
Smyth grinned and finally took the cigarette holder out of his mouth. "Retirement."
It was all Billy could do to maintain a straight face. "How would it affect me?"
The dapper Agency leader rose and came to Billy's desk, where he sat on the edge and tried his best to look congenial. "I want to recommend you as my replacement."
"Really?" Billy Melrose almost choked on the word in surprise.
"Melrose, the Soviet Union is imploding. When that happens, there will be people in the intelligence community who will say that the Cold War is over. I know that you will have the common sense to know better. This country is going to need you – you're the only straight shooter in the entire upper echelon of the intelligence world. And it doesn't hurt the cause that you'd look good as a presidential appointment."
That, Billy knew, was an unspoken way of saying that adding an African American to the top leadership of any government bureaucracy, even one less public like the National Security Council on which the head of the Agency sat, would make the administration look good. "I'm flattered," he answered after a moment.
"Don't be," Smyth cautioned with a broader smile. "You'll hate the job, but you're perfect for it. And, don't forget, it isn't yours yet." The head of the Agency gesticulated his departure with his cigarette holder and strolled out of Billy's office.
"Head of the Agency," Billy allowed himself to muse for thirty seconds before he turned his focus to the next challenge of the day: getting his team safely out of Poland, something over which he wished he had far more control than he did.
Warsaw International Airport * 3:55 p.m. (GMT+1)
"Just leave this to me," Wroebel cautioned his American passengers. Wroebel had worn a brown Western business suit with a crisp khaki shirt that was only the beginning of his disguise. As to the need for the subterfuge, "I am," he had said with some asperity, "a reasonable well- known figure, after all."
Not anymore. His smooth, unwrinkled face made the beep brown wig less ridiculous than it might have been; caps over his naturally yellow, crooked teeth gave him a classic American smile. His English was so good that even Alex had a hard time remembering that the man wasn't a native Bostonian.
When the guard at the tarmac gate stopped the van and asked for his identification, Wroebel produced a set of credentials that the FBI would have had a hard time proving false. "Diplomatic pouch delivery for the 4:25 KLM flight to Amsterdam." His Polish suddenly sounded thick and hesitant.
"Any personnel traveling on the flight?"
"Five Americans and a guest from West Germany returning to America." Wroebel turned to the men and women in the van. "Passports, please," in English.
Three of the passports were authentic – two military and one bearing the authority of diplomatic immunity. Three were covers, including Lee's as West German Rainer Volkmeister. They held their collective breath as the border guard crosschecked his lists.
"Thank you. Herr Volkmeister, I'm to apologize for your inconvenience earlier this week and to wish you a speedy recovery from your ordeal with the agitators."
Wroebel translated and waited for Lee to give the man a reply, which he translated back.
"Thank you. Gate 9," the guard indicated. Then the gate opened and the Polish general – soon to be a defector – drove the van onto the airport tarmac. A tangible whoosh of air moved through the van as everyone breathed again.
"I can't believe he didn't even open the back of the van," Amanda whispered to Lee.
"Protocol. Once we say it's for the pouch, it's sacrosanct."
"Thank God."
Gate 9, Warsaw International Airport * 4:05 p.m. (GMT+1)
The infantry captain really didn't understand the reason for his orders, but he supposed that somewhere up the chain of command, someone did, so he stood with his men at the cargo door of a KLM Boeing 737 searching every piece of luggage that came on board. When he saw the van from the American Embassy arrive, he called to his men. "We can't search anything or anyone coming off that van," he reminded them. "Diplomatic courtesy."
The radio on his belt crackled. He put the unit to his mouth and acknowledged, then listened as someone much higher up countermanded the order he had just given. "But sir, that's illegal," he complained, wondering if this were a test.
It wasn't. A voice spoke in clipped, Russian-accented Polish. "Search them, search the van, and search everything they want to put on that airplane. Or you'll be shot before you leave the airport."
The captain looked around, now knowing that there were eyes watching him that he couldn't see. "Yes, sir." He called to his men. "Search them."
The Polish troops advanced toward the van, guns at the ready. The captain motioned to the driver to get out, which he did with a shrug toward his passengers.
"One at a time," the captain told his men, assigning several to watch the passengers as another group opened the back of the van.
The platoon sergeant climbed inside the van and opened one of the three big boxes in the back. He pawed through the Styrofoam peanuts for several seconds before he felt something harder under his hand. He extracted three or four big handfuls of the packing material, revealing the top of a human head. "Defector!" he screamed at the top of his voice.
Chaos ensued. The 4-man KLM cargo crew proved to be something else as they pulled out .44 caliber Smith and Wesson pistols and began to fire selectively into the troop of infantry, dropping soldiers with each shot but careful to avoid fatal shots if possible. The army men reacted, but not quickly enough; within seventy five seconds the only man left standing was the captain himself, who held the driver in front of him as a shield as he made his way around the van.
Wroebel made eye contact with one of the cargo loaders, a tall, gaunt man with a nasty scar on his face. Then the general bent double in the captain's grasp.
The cargo loader fired, hitting the captain between the eyes. Wroebel shuddered but shook off his revulsion as he called for the others to join him and ran for the plane.
"Nice timing," the scarred man said to the general.
"Thanks, Stefan," Wroebel returned. "Get the boxes. We don't have much time."
"Right."
The Polish general showed his American friends where they could board the plane for the passenger cabin. Alex Reese stayed back for a moment as he watched his son, the two injured men, and the women who loved them go up the jet way stairs.
"Are you sure about this?" Alex asked his long-time friend and agent.
"I have to, Alex. I have to stand and face the music so you can get out with the three in the boxes."
"But…"
"I have to. Go – I hear sirens." The Pole took the American in a bear hug and slapped him on the back soundly. "Nail Scholk good." He turned and walked away, never looking back.
General Reese boarded the plane with a heavy heart.
ICU, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 10:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Water," the pale figure in the bed croaked, almost inaudibly. "Need water."
James Johnston knelt beside the bed and reached for the young woman's hands, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. "Sandra," he whispered.
She smiled, a weak grin that faded with alacrity as though the muscles couldn't hold the strange shape. "James."
Warsaw International Airport, Warsaw, Poland * 4:25 p.m. (GMT+1)
"We're in trouble," Lee commented, looking out the window to the ground below. "Wroebel never made it onto the plane."
Alex Reese, sitting on the aisle with Amanda between him and Lee, leaned over to speak in a low voice. "He's sacrificing himself so we can get Scholk, Borodin, and Milowanowicz out of the country."
Amanda sucked in a breath. "A true hero," she said, not surprised but saddened.
*****
Wroebel waited with Stefan at the bottom of the cargo ramp. "Thank you for continuing the struggle for true freedom," he said to the dissident.
"You're welcome." The first of the Interior Ministry vehicles came into view at the far end of an unused runway. "General, if you don't mind me saying so, you'd be a bigger help to the cause if you were still alive."
"Oh, I know. I have a plan."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Now would be a good time to implement it," Stefan urged.
"I think you're right." Wroebel removed the wig and the teeth caps, as well as the suit coat, revealing his military shirt underneath. "When they come, you and I are going to assume command of the operation and board the plane through the passenger cabin. Well, I am – you're going to make your escape through the terminal."
Stefan looked at the general with a crooked smile. "You just didn't want to go in the box, did you?"
"Not when there's food service in the cabin!"
The Interior Ministry troops, taken aback by the presence of a ranking Army officer, did just as Wroebel predicted and let him handle the boarding with his own man. The two men shook hands one last time before they parted, then they each went on to fight the battle against Communism in his own way.
A flight attendant stopped Wroebel at the cabin door. "You can't come on board, sir. We've been given clearance to depart," she admonished in her lilting Dutch accented English.
"Then my timing is impeccable. I'm defecting to the custody of General Alexander Reese of the United States Army."
The woman blinked; a strong male voice behind her startled her into action. "Let him on, Miep. We are, after all, carrying the diplomatic pouch of the American Embassy."
"Yes, Captain," she replied, leading Wroebel into the aircraft and showing him an empty seat – next to Ian Marlowe, of all people.
"Figures," the colonel growled to Francine. "No such thing as an empty seat…"
The expression on Francine's face made him look at his new seatmate. "General Wroebel?"
"In the flesh. Better tighten those seatbelts. It may get bumpy." He smiled as he felt the plane push back from the gate.
*****
"Yes, sir!" The Interior Ministry major, following the command from nosebleed levels, ordered his troops to get back into their trucks and speed after the departing jet. They chased it across the taxiway as Air Traffic Control tried in vain to get the pilot to turn the plane around.
The aircraft reached the end of the runway and began to rev up for departure; the major sent three of his largest trucks across to block the intersections in hopes of forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff or to risk a catastrophe.
*****
"I see what you're doing, you bastard," the pilot uttered through clenched teeth. "Attention passengers, this is the captain," he said in as normal a voice as he could muster over the PA system. "There is some debris on the runway that we will have to avoid as we roll down toward lift off. Don't be alarmed and cross your fingers that we miss it all, or the landing in Amsterdam will be just a bit on the hairy side."
He released the brakes and the big jet rumbled toward the first truck in a game of chicken writ large.
The driver of the truck blinked first and burned rubber as he moved his vehicle out of the path of the Boeing workhorse.
The driver of the second truck had miscalculated his position by about two meters. The plane sped past without deviating a centimeter from its course, earning the pilot an unheard curse from the driver and his commander.
The third truck was perfectly placed. Its crew had learned from observation and scrambled away.
The pilot muttered a curse of his own as the army vehicle loomed large in his windshield. He and the co-pilot watched the speedometer as it crept toward minimum takeoff speed, not quickly enough.
With 25 meters and 5 knots an hour to go, the pilot threw caution aside and pulled back on the yoke. The front wheel came up, clearing the top of the truck by maybe 10 centimeters. The back of the plane stayed on the ground for a second too long, finally lifting clear but taking the top of the truck with it as the underside of the tail snagged the hard metal shell of the army vehicle.
"Any damage?" the pilot asked the co-pilot after a deep, shaking breath.
"No lights. We might want to ask for a visual before we land."
"Great idea." The two men laughed as the co-pilot took the controls and turned the plane toward the free world.
International Arrivals Terminal, Dulles International Airport * 9:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Billy greeted his agents, General Reese, Kevin, and the man with them with several pieces of good news. "Sandra is awake and starting to remember what happened, which will help us build a case against Scholk. Dr. Smyth announced his retirement today and has formally recommended me for the job. Ian, you are now officially Colonel Ian Marlowe rather than Lieutenant Colonel, and your new assignment as of April 10 is as military liaison officer to the Agency. Oh, and the Red Sox beat the Yankees in both games of a spring-training double header."
General Reese did a victory dance as the group moved past customs to the cars Billy had waiting. The Reeses and the man the general never introduced got into the one with a driver while he led his agents – all four of them – to the other sedan. Billy got in the driver's seat while Francine and Ian got in the front with him and Amanda and Lee got in the backseat.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Billy finally asked the question they had all been waiting for. "So, who was that man with General Reese?"
"An old family friend we happened to meet in Amsterdam," Amanda replied for the others.
"Right," Billy nodded, not believing it.
"Really, he is. An old family friend," Ian added. "He is, in fact, Sandra's godfather."
"Oh." Then perhaps it was true, just a simple coincidence in a very complicated operation. "The packages will be taken to a safe house for interrogation, by the way."
He got no answer; all four of the dedicated agents with him were sound asleep.
Chapter 10 * The Sniper's Nest, Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:02 p.m. (GMT+1)
Alex Reese leapt toward the priest.
Kevin Reese stretched out his left arm toward the rifle.
Jaruslav Milowanowicz fired.
Kevin knocked the barrel of the weapon upward just as the projectile inside began its journey toward the man on the stage.
The Pole roared in rage at the attack and swung the rifle hard at his assailants, flailing wildly but effectively enough to cause the two men to back off just enough.
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:03 p.m. (GMT+1)
Glemp, unfazed by the shot which hit the brick of the building behind the stage, went on with the reading in an apparent effort to contain the crowd. "Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!' And having said this, he breathed his last…."
Lee and Amanda had seen a hand emerge from the doorway just as they saw the muzzle flash. They waited below the balcony for –
"Here he comes!" Kevin Reese shouted in plain English into his microphone, the first words spoken by either Reese since they went into the building on Piwna Street.
Jaruslav Milowanowicz came flying over the railing of the balcony, landing with force on his knees between the Stetsons and Ian and Francine on the other side. Amazingly, the crowd seemed focused on the stage and did not react to the presence of a deranged man in their midst.
The priest shook off his unceremonious arrival on the ground and took off limping toward Piwna Street. Glemp continued his reading. "Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, and said, 'Surely, this man was innocent.'"
Ian saw this; he motioned Francine ahead and waited for the shooter to get close enough for his "extended arms" to do some good. He saw Lee and Amanda following; Lee made eye contact and the men read each other's thoughts perfectly.
Father Milowanowicz slipped between Francine and the building, right into Ian's outstretched crutch. Francine turned and knelt down on the man's back as the Stetsons slowed to a stop with the wheelchair.
"Here, let's put him in here," Lee indicated, standing awkwardly with Amanda's support. "Hurry, Francine, the police have finally noticed."
Glemp droned on as they worked. "And all the multitude who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts."
KGB Headquarters, Moscow, USSR * 5:05 p.m. (GMT+3)
The color drained from Kaminsky's face as he listened to the Polish state radio broadcast of the service in Castle Square. Glemp was still speaking, even though the announcers had reported a single gunshot a moment ago. No one was rioting – the crowd, in fact, seemed utterly oblivious to the shot, absorbed rather in the drama of the Passion story.
"He failed," Tolstoy said in a shaken tone.
"Find him and kill him."
"But we have – "
"Find him and kill him."
Georg Alexeivich nodded. "It shall be done."
Castle Square, Warsaw, Poland * 3:07 p.m. (GMT+1)
Alex called the interception team over the radio, urging the group to move around the corner into the relative protection of the shoe shop entryway. When the Stetsons, Ian, and Francine rounded the building, a battered Kevin greeted them with a raised hand and a scowl at the unconscious man in the wheelchair. In the crook of his other arm he held a rifle, looking for all the world like John Wayne in a John Ford Western.
"What are we going to do with him now that we have him?" he asked, motioning toward the senseless priest with the gun.
No one had thought quite that far ahead. "Put him in the box with Scholk?" Amanda suggested flippantly.
Ian didn't think it flippant at all. "That might work. Who knows just how valuable he might be politically?"
"How do we get him out of here?" Alex asked.
"More importantly, what do we do with this?" Kevin rebutted, gesturing with the rifle.
They were saved from further discussion when a van bearing the emblem of the United States Embassy pulled up beside them and Leszek Wroebel rolled down the driver's side window. "Need a lift?" he asked in an exaggerated New England accent.
Lee smiled at the general. "How about the airport?"
The Agency * 9:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Billy sagged with relief when the translator finished his simultaneous interpretation of the intercept of the radio broadcast of the Good Friday service. He had never been so happy to hear verse 49 of Luke 23: "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance and saw these things." He thanked the man and sent him out with a thumb's up gesture and a winning smile.
"Well done, Melrose," Dr. Smyth congratulated him from the couch across the desk. "Your team seems to have averted an international crisis."
"We would expect nothing less. I'm sure it was a piece of cake." His easy tone was a sham and both men knew it.
"I'm sure," Smyth agreed in tones evocative of the Sahara Desert. "I have a question for you, William."
Billy noted the shift in tone warily. "Okay."
"Are you ready for a promotion?"
The dark-skinned civil servant sat up straight in his desk chair. "What did you have in mind?"
Smyth grinned and finally took the cigarette holder out of his mouth. "Retirement."
It was all Billy could do to maintain a straight face. "How would it affect me?"
The dapper Agency leader rose and came to Billy's desk, where he sat on the edge and tried his best to look congenial. "I want to recommend you as my replacement."
"Really?" Billy Melrose almost choked on the word in surprise.
"Melrose, the Soviet Union is imploding. When that happens, there will be people in the intelligence community who will say that the Cold War is over. I know that you will have the common sense to know better. This country is going to need you – you're the only straight shooter in the entire upper echelon of the intelligence world. And it doesn't hurt the cause that you'd look good as a presidential appointment."
That, Billy knew, was an unspoken way of saying that adding an African American to the top leadership of any government bureaucracy, even one less public like the National Security Council on which the head of the Agency sat, would make the administration look good. "I'm flattered," he answered after a moment.
"Don't be," Smyth cautioned with a broader smile. "You'll hate the job, but you're perfect for it. And, don't forget, it isn't yours yet." The head of the Agency gesticulated his departure with his cigarette holder and strolled out of Billy's office.
"Head of the Agency," Billy allowed himself to muse for thirty seconds before he turned his focus to the next challenge of the day: getting his team safely out of Poland, something over which he wished he had far more control than he did.
Warsaw International Airport * 3:55 p.m. (GMT+1)
"Just leave this to me," Wroebel cautioned his American passengers. Wroebel had worn a brown Western business suit with a crisp khaki shirt that was only the beginning of his disguise. As to the need for the subterfuge, "I am," he had said with some asperity, "a reasonable well- known figure, after all."
Not anymore. His smooth, unwrinkled face made the beep brown wig less ridiculous than it might have been; caps over his naturally yellow, crooked teeth gave him a classic American smile. His English was so good that even Alex had a hard time remembering that the man wasn't a native Bostonian.
When the guard at the tarmac gate stopped the van and asked for his identification, Wroebel produced a set of credentials that the FBI would have had a hard time proving false. "Diplomatic pouch delivery for the 4:25 KLM flight to Amsterdam." His Polish suddenly sounded thick and hesitant.
"Any personnel traveling on the flight?"
"Five Americans and a guest from West Germany returning to America." Wroebel turned to the men and women in the van. "Passports, please," in English.
Three of the passports were authentic – two military and one bearing the authority of diplomatic immunity. Three were covers, including Lee's as West German Rainer Volkmeister. They held their collective breath as the border guard crosschecked his lists.
"Thank you. Herr Volkmeister, I'm to apologize for your inconvenience earlier this week and to wish you a speedy recovery from your ordeal with the agitators."
Wroebel translated and waited for Lee to give the man a reply, which he translated back.
"Thank you. Gate 9," the guard indicated. Then the gate opened and the Polish general – soon to be a defector – drove the van onto the airport tarmac. A tangible whoosh of air moved through the van as everyone breathed again.
"I can't believe he didn't even open the back of the van," Amanda whispered to Lee.
"Protocol. Once we say it's for the pouch, it's sacrosanct."
"Thank God."
Gate 9, Warsaw International Airport * 4:05 p.m. (GMT+1)
The infantry captain really didn't understand the reason for his orders, but he supposed that somewhere up the chain of command, someone did, so he stood with his men at the cargo door of a KLM Boeing 737 searching every piece of luggage that came on board. When he saw the van from the American Embassy arrive, he called to his men. "We can't search anything or anyone coming off that van," he reminded them. "Diplomatic courtesy."
The radio on his belt crackled. He put the unit to his mouth and acknowledged, then listened as someone much higher up countermanded the order he had just given. "But sir, that's illegal," he complained, wondering if this were a test.
It wasn't. A voice spoke in clipped, Russian-accented Polish. "Search them, search the van, and search everything they want to put on that airplane. Or you'll be shot before you leave the airport."
The captain looked around, now knowing that there were eyes watching him that he couldn't see. "Yes, sir." He called to his men. "Search them."
The Polish troops advanced toward the van, guns at the ready. The captain motioned to the driver to get out, which he did with a shrug toward his passengers.
"One at a time," the captain told his men, assigning several to watch the passengers as another group opened the back of the van.
The platoon sergeant climbed inside the van and opened one of the three big boxes in the back. He pawed through the Styrofoam peanuts for several seconds before he felt something harder under his hand. He extracted three or four big handfuls of the packing material, revealing the top of a human head. "Defector!" he screamed at the top of his voice.
Chaos ensued. The 4-man KLM cargo crew proved to be something else as they pulled out .44 caliber Smith and Wesson pistols and began to fire selectively into the troop of infantry, dropping soldiers with each shot but careful to avoid fatal shots if possible. The army men reacted, but not quickly enough; within seventy five seconds the only man left standing was the captain himself, who held the driver in front of him as a shield as he made his way around the van.
Wroebel made eye contact with one of the cargo loaders, a tall, gaunt man with a nasty scar on his face. Then the general bent double in the captain's grasp.
The cargo loader fired, hitting the captain between the eyes. Wroebel shuddered but shook off his revulsion as he called for the others to join him and ran for the plane.
"Nice timing," the scarred man said to the general.
"Thanks, Stefan," Wroebel returned. "Get the boxes. We don't have much time."
"Right."
The Polish general showed his American friends where they could board the plane for the passenger cabin. Alex Reese stayed back for a moment as he watched his son, the two injured men, and the women who loved them go up the jet way stairs.
"Are you sure about this?" Alex asked his long-time friend and agent.
"I have to, Alex. I have to stand and face the music so you can get out with the three in the boxes."
"But…"
"I have to. Go – I hear sirens." The Pole took the American in a bear hug and slapped him on the back soundly. "Nail Scholk good." He turned and walked away, never looking back.
General Reese boarded the plane with a heavy heart.
ICU, Johns Hopkins University Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland * 10:20 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Water," the pale figure in the bed croaked, almost inaudibly. "Need water."
James Johnston knelt beside the bed and reached for the young woman's hands, ignoring the tears streaming down his face. "Sandra," he whispered.
She smiled, a weak grin that faded with alacrity as though the muscles couldn't hold the strange shape. "James."
Warsaw International Airport, Warsaw, Poland * 4:25 p.m. (GMT+1)
"We're in trouble," Lee commented, looking out the window to the ground below. "Wroebel never made it onto the plane."
Alex Reese, sitting on the aisle with Amanda between him and Lee, leaned over to speak in a low voice. "He's sacrificing himself so we can get Scholk, Borodin, and Milowanowicz out of the country."
Amanda sucked in a breath. "A true hero," she said, not surprised but saddened.
*****
Wroebel waited with Stefan at the bottom of the cargo ramp. "Thank you for continuing the struggle for true freedom," he said to the dissident.
"You're welcome." The first of the Interior Ministry vehicles came into view at the far end of an unused runway. "General, if you don't mind me saying so, you'd be a bigger help to the cause if you were still alive."
"Oh, I know. I have a plan."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Now would be a good time to implement it," Stefan urged.
"I think you're right." Wroebel removed the wig and the teeth caps, as well as the suit coat, revealing his military shirt underneath. "When they come, you and I are going to assume command of the operation and board the plane through the passenger cabin. Well, I am – you're going to make your escape through the terminal."
Stefan looked at the general with a crooked smile. "You just didn't want to go in the box, did you?"
"Not when there's food service in the cabin!"
The Interior Ministry troops, taken aback by the presence of a ranking Army officer, did just as Wroebel predicted and let him handle the boarding with his own man. The two men shook hands one last time before they parted, then they each went on to fight the battle against Communism in his own way.
A flight attendant stopped Wroebel at the cabin door. "You can't come on board, sir. We've been given clearance to depart," she admonished in her lilting Dutch accented English.
"Then my timing is impeccable. I'm defecting to the custody of General Alexander Reese of the United States Army."
The woman blinked; a strong male voice behind her startled her into action. "Let him on, Miep. We are, after all, carrying the diplomatic pouch of the American Embassy."
"Yes, Captain," she replied, leading Wroebel into the aircraft and showing him an empty seat – next to Ian Marlowe, of all people.
"Figures," the colonel growled to Francine. "No such thing as an empty seat…"
The expression on Francine's face made him look at his new seatmate. "General Wroebel?"
"In the flesh. Better tighten those seatbelts. It may get bumpy." He smiled as he felt the plane push back from the gate.
*****
"Yes, sir!" The Interior Ministry major, following the command from nosebleed levels, ordered his troops to get back into their trucks and speed after the departing jet. They chased it across the taxiway as Air Traffic Control tried in vain to get the pilot to turn the plane around.
The aircraft reached the end of the runway and began to rev up for departure; the major sent three of his largest trucks across to block the intersections in hopes of forcing the pilot to abort the takeoff or to risk a catastrophe.
*****
"I see what you're doing, you bastard," the pilot uttered through clenched teeth. "Attention passengers, this is the captain," he said in as normal a voice as he could muster over the PA system. "There is some debris on the runway that we will have to avoid as we roll down toward lift off. Don't be alarmed and cross your fingers that we miss it all, or the landing in Amsterdam will be just a bit on the hairy side."
He released the brakes and the big jet rumbled toward the first truck in a game of chicken writ large.
The driver of the truck blinked first and burned rubber as he moved his vehicle out of the path of the Boeing workhorse.
The driver of the second truck had miscalculated his position by about two meters. The plane sped past without deviating a centimeter from its course, earning the pilot an unheard curse from the driver and his commander.
The third truck was perfectly placed. Its crew had learned from observation and scrambled away.
The pilot muttered a curse of his own as the army vehicle loomed large in his windshield. He and the co-pilot watched the speedometer as it crept toward minimum takeoff speed, not quickly enough.
With 25 meters and 5 knots an hour to go, the pilot threw caution aside and pulled back on the yoke. The front wheel came up, clearing the top of the truck by maybe 10 centimeters. The back of the plane stayed on the ground for a second too long, finally lifting clear but taking the top of the truck with it as the underside of the tail snagged the hard metal shell of the army vehicle.
"Any damage?" the pilot asked the co-pilot after a deep, shaking breath.
"No lights. We might want to ask for a visual before we land."
"Great idea." The two men laughed as the co-pilot took the controls and turned the plane toward the free world.
International Arrivals Terminal, Dulles International Airport * 9:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Billy greeted his agents, General Reese, Kevin, and the man with them with several pieces of good news. "Sandra is awake and starting to remember what happened, which will help us build a case against Scholk. Dr. Smyth announced his retirement today and has formally recommended me for the job. Ian, you are now officially Colonel Ian Marlowe rather than Lieutenant Colonel, and your new assignment as of April 10 is as military liaison officer to the Agency. Oh, and the Red Sox beat the Yankees in both games of a spring-training double header."
General Reese did a victory dance as the group moved past customs to the cars Billy had waiting. The Reeses and the man the general never introduced got into the one with a driver while he led his agents – all four of them – to the other sedan. Billy got in the driver's seat while Francine and Ian got in the front with him and Amanda and Lee got in the backseat.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Billy finally asked the question they had all been waiting for. "So, who was that man with General Reese?"
"An old family friend we happened to meet in Amsterdam," Amanda replied for the others.
"Right," Billy nodded, not believing it.
"Really, he is. An old family friend," Ian added. "He is, in fact, Sandra's godfather."
"Oh." Then perhaps it was true, just a simple coincidence in a very complicated operation. "The packages will be taken to a safe house for interrogation, by the way."
He got no answer; all four of the dedicated agents with him were sound asleep.