The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(42)

Being a field agent entailed doing things that most people shied away from. Like trespassing and breaking and entering. He’d grown accustomed to those violations as a means to get the job done. But they represented a path, he’d had to remind himself, that was no longer readily available now that he was retired.

An inner staircase led up, which he avoided. Instead, he followed a whitewashed corridor and turned right. A carpet runner lined the stone floor, and closed doors at periodic intervals on both sides led into offices. No cameras here. Nothing to steal. This was a workplace. He followed the drawing etched into his memory and found a vestibule, where a wide stone staircase led up at right angles.

At the top of the first rung of risers a small wooden door, encased within a stone frame, led from this building into the castle. He climbed to the landing and noticed that the entryway was protected by two locks. One was a simple keyed tumbler, easy to pick, the other a piece of braided wire threaded through two holders, one on the door, the other the jamb, the ends twisted together and sealed with a clamp. A simple and effective way to know if the door had been opened.

Now the hard part.

He had to disappear for a few hours.

He descended the stairs back to ground level.

The intel he’d reviewed offered little in the way of hiding places. He assumed there were people still in the building, though he hadn’t seen anyone as yet. They would soon all be gone but for the guards. He could not just hang around in the halls. The vestibule before him was empty, save for a huge rosewood chifforobe. He walked over and opened it. Empty. The inside plenty large enough to accommodate him.

Why not?

He’d hidden in worse places.

He wiggled his way into the space and settled his spine against one of the side walls, his knees folded up but not all that uncomfortable. He’d be fine for a few hours. He closed the doors. Hopefully, no one would inspect inside.

He found his phone and made sure it was set to silent.

A text had come from Cassiopeia.

WHERE ARE YOU?

He knew she wasn’t going to like the truth.

IN POLAND, HIDING INSIDE A CABINET, WAITING TO STEAL A 1000-YEAR-OLD ARTIFACT.

So he opted to not reply.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


7:50 P.M.

Jonty was back inside the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Vic had arranged for another special tour, this time for three people. Eli had supplied some of what he knew, and their guide had brought along another map that, hopefully, would lead them where they needed to go.

“This is an old drawing,” Konrad said. “From when the communists ran this place.”

They stood inside the magnificent Chapel of St. Kinga, a hundred meters underground. Twenty thousand tons of salt had been removed to create it. Thirty meters long, fifteen wide, nearly twenty tall, its floor spanned five hundred square meters of polished salt. One of the largest underground churches in the world, it was laid out in the late 19th century with loving devotion.

He admired its lavish decoration and iconography.

Once, when miners lived underground for weeks at a time, exchanging sunlight for lamps and candles, religion played a big part in their lives. Hymns accompanied their descent. They greeted each other with a reverent God bless. Eventually, to pass the time, some of them became artisans, carving in the salt, molding larger-than-life statues and dioramas scattered across the mine. Forty chapels were eventually created and, since the 17th century, Catholic services had been routinely held in many of them. St. Kinga’s was the crown jewel. More a cathedral than cha pel, decorated by five massive chandeliers made of elaborate salt crystals, numerous sculptures, and three-dimensional bas-reliefs of breathtaking detail, all inspired by New Testament themes, a tribute generations of the miner-sculptors left to their Christian faith.

Jonty studied the map.

Nazis occupied the mine during the war and tried to use it as an underground factory, employing slave labor. But the Soviet advance thwarted the effort. After the war the communists assumed control and kept possession until 1990. Then the new Polish republic took over and had operated it ever since.

“I’ve worked here for a number of years,” Konrad said. “We’ve all been told stories of when the communists were in charge. We were still extracting salt then. I’ve heard that they also used this place as a storage facility. There’s a huge chamber down on Level IX, in a part of the tunnels that’s off limits. But I’ve seen it.”

Eli seemed intent on what he was hearing.

“It’s filled with wooden shelving,” Konrad said. “The iron frames are all corroded, though. The salt has eaten them away. Why they used iron, I have no idea. It doesn’t last down there.” With his finger, Konrad traced a route on the map. “That chamber is here.”

“How far down?” Eli asked.

“Over three hundred meters.”

His competitor clearly was not pleased with that information. “You don’t like closed spaces?”

“I don’t like prisons,” Eli said.

“You’re welcome to wait here,” Jonty said.

“I appreciate your concern for my comfort. But I’ll suffer through it and come along.”

“What are we after?” Konrad asked.

Jonty wanted to hear the answer to that question, too, as did Vic, who’d stood silent.

“A chamber named Warszawa,” Eli said.