The Warsaw Protocol: A Novel(93)

They stood in absolute darkness.

“Is our destination just ahead?” he whispered.

“Around the next bend,” Konrad breathed out.

“Somebody already there,” Ivan said.

Both Ivan and Munoz were armed, the darkness now concealing that fact from Konrad. Eli knew what had to be done.

“Konrad, stay here,” he said to the blackness. “We have to investigate.”

“We go ahead with one light, pointed to floor,” Ivan added.

“Agreed.”



* * *



Cotton narrowed the choices and decided there could only be one solution.

The wooden pew.

It was the only thing not built of salt in the makeshift chapel.

Crude and simple in construction, fashioned from rough-cut one-by-six and one-by-eight planks nailed together. About four feet wide. With a bench for sitting and an angled platform for resting hands or a hymnal while kneeling.

He stepped over and lifted the structure, setting it to one side. Beneath, the salt floor was solid and undisturbed. He brushed it with his shoe. Little to no give was returned. Like concrete. He looked at Stephanie. Who nodded. They were thinking the same thing. Nothing buried.

He tipped the makeshift pew over.

Nothing.

Its base was composed of one-by-eight boards fashioned into rectangles. One was set at the rear beneath the bench where a penitent could sit, while the other formed a kneeler. They were tacked together with headless nails.

“There’s a compartment formed in both of those,” he said.

The trick was opening them.

He threw his weight and gave two swift kicks with his boot. The thin wood split and parted from the frame. He pushed through the splinters and saw he was right. There was a compartment. But it was empty. He turned his attention to the other base support and pounded it, too.

Inside, taped to the boards, was a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch. Now the machine he’d spotted back at the castle made sense. It contained a manila envelope, similar to the one in which he’d found the book back at the castle.

He wrenched it free. “This is it.”

And a gun fired.





CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN


Czajkowski sat at a long wooden table inside a spacious hall adorned with salt chandeliers, the room available to rent for large cultural and business events. He’d once attended a concert here—the Wroc?aw Philharmonic, if he recalled right, with a wonderful cello concerto—a treat at 125 meters underground, the acoustics near perfect. Adjacent to the hall was the miners’ tavern, hacked from more gray salt, which served an excellent array of Polish food. Two years ago he hosted a dinner here for participants in a European energy summit. He especially recalled the chocolate tart served that day. What a delight. Nobody was in the hall, or the café, at the moment, as business was clearly winding down early thanks to the mine manager.

Incredibly, there was cell phone service courtesy of hard lines from the surface and repeaters stationed throughout the tourist levels. Which made it possible for him to speak with his wife, who’d called.

“I just left Jasna Góra,” she said to him through the phone. “Brother Hacia and I had a lovely chat.”

He could only imagine. “Is he still refusing to cooperate?”

He kept his voice low and a hand up, covering his mouth.

“Once he knew that I knew the truth, his attitude changed. Of course, he berated you for telling me and simply denied everything. What he didn’t know is that while we were chatting, I had the BOR search his room.”

He smiled. Nothing about her was subtle or sublime. “Find anything?”

“A thick file.”

He was shocked. “You have it?’

“I do. And by the way, you two are a lot alike. But I assume you already realized that fact.”

Long ago, in fact. He was perhaps one of the few people in Poland who could call the Owl a friend. But that had seemed to count for little.

He decided to keep to himself what was happening in the mine. There was nothing she could do about any of it. But if things went wrong here, having a record of the Warsaw Protocol could prove helpful.

“You did good,” he told her. “I appreciate it.”

“Just doing my part.”

And she ended the call.

He stared around at the hall and its stage at the far end. What an amazing place. A huge cavity, carved entirely from salt. A hole in the earth, which reminded him of Boles?aw the Brave and the legend of the sleeping kings. Every schoolchild knew the tale. Once a year, at midnight on Christmas Eve, the mighty Sigismund bell rung, and the Polish kings woke from their eternal sleep and gathered in a grand underground hall. A place with plenty of light, like a cathedral. Some say it lay beneath Wawel Castle, but others said it was much farther south, in the Tatra Mountains. Or maybe it was here, in Wieliczka?

Who knew?

They came dressed in their coronation robes, sitting before a round table, discussing the fate of the country. Boles?aw himself presided, holding the famous Szczerbiec, Poland’s coronation sword.

What a sight that would have been.

But they were not the only ones who arose that night.

The Sleeping Knights of the Tatra also roamed on Christmas Eve. They would leave the mountains on their white horses and ride off in search of the kings. Once found a loud knock would come to the hall’s door. Then again. And one more time. Always three. The kings would fall silent as Boles?aw opened the door, telling the knights, No. The time has not yet come.