Mac wingate 5, p.5
Mac Wingate 5, page 5
Wingate was about to push open the door when an armed Pole stepped through it, a German rifle, complete with bayonet, pointed at him. At the same time, from out of the shadows at both corners of the building, came four other armed men.
“I am Captain Wingate,” Wingate told the Pole standing in the doorway.
At once the Pole smiled and lowered his rifle. Then he began to speak rapidly in Polish.
“Regnais!” Wingate called. “Get over here!”
Regnais slammed out of the truck and hurried over.
“Tell these men we’ve got some SS we’d like him to take charge of for us, and find out what you can about Stern.”
Regnais nodded and began speaking rapidly to the local partisans as they quickly crowded around him. Wingate and Aldini returned to the truck.
“Get those SS into the garage,” Wingate told Martens. “Quickly.”
Martens stood up and ordered his prisoners in German to get out of the truck and into the garage. Captain Reitsch, however, had not been gagged. With an ugly bark, he countermanded Martens’ order, and the Germans remained seated.
With an impatient curse, Martens cocked his Sten and squeezed off a short burst that stitched holes in the canvas just inches above the Germans’ heads. Instantly the Germans—Reitsch in the lead—sprang to their feet and flung themselves out of the truck. With their hands still tied securely behind their backs, all four of them sprawled face down as soon as they struck the ground. But with the still infuriated Martens riding herd on them, they scrambled awkwardly to their feet and ran into the garage.
Wingate followed after them, and while Martens was lining them up against the wall of the garage, he and Aldini walked on through the office and into a back room.
What Wingate saw caused him to pull up short. Aldini gasped.
A dead partisan—more than likely the one who had called Botnowski from his garage—was hanging from the wall with a meat hook in his back. He had been brutally beaten about the face, and what was left of his crotch was a dark, untidy hole. Before him on the floor—lying face down, their backs chewed to a shiny gum by heavy caliber bullets—were the two dead SS officers who had been interrogating him. Now Wingate knew why Captain Reitsch and his men had been so sure they would find someone hiding in the hay wagon.
Wingate glanced away from the grisly scene.
“Looks like them Polacks outside got here too late to save the poor sonofabitch, Captain,” Aldini said, his voice raw. “I think I knew him. He was at the safe house when we first got there.”
“Yes, Aldini. He’s the same one, all right. Botnowski sent him here. Check out the upstairs, will you? Maybe we’ll get lucky and find Stern hiding in a closet.”
As Aldini headed for the stairway that led upstairs, Wingate returned to the garage. Regnais and a partisan Wingate had not seen before approached him.
“This is Peter Cosluski, Captain,” Regnais said. “He just got here, and he’s got news of Stern.”
Cosluski was as lean as a rake handle, with a lantern jaw, unkempt flaxen hair, and eyes that peered at Wingate out of deep hollows. Wingate shook the partisan’s hand.
“Does he speak English?” Wingate asked.
“I speak English, Captain,” Cosluski said. “Stern has left Kutno. He leave before these Gestapo pigs come. Yesterday. We try to help him. But he will not trust us.”
“Where in hell has he gone?”
“Warsaw.”
Wingate groaned. “Warsaw?”
“Yes. To the ghetto there—to be with his people, he say.”
Wingate took a deep breath.
“And for that foolish Jew, so many of our people here must suffer. To find this Jew, the SS burn and kill.” Cosluski shook his head bitterly, then brightened as he turned to feast his eyes on the four Germans standing with their faces to the wall. “But you have brought us these SS and their Captain Reitsch. He is the butcher who sends his mad dogs among us. We know what to do with him and his Nazi swine.”
“I am sure you do.”
“We will bury them in the forest alongside our comrades and townspeople. For that, we thank you, Captain.”
“Save your thanks, Cosluski,” Wingate told him with obvious disgust. There was nothing he could do, he realized, to prevent the execution of these SS butchers. “I need something else.”
“Name it, Captain.”
“I need transportation.”
“Back to Stettin?”
“No. To Warsaw. Then I’ll need help to get into the ghetto. If that’s where Stern is, that’s where my men and I are going. Can you get someone to help us make it into the ghetto?”
“You are a fool, Captain. Worse, I think, than that crazy Jew. Everyone pay gold, diamonds, all they have—to get out of that fearful place. And you want to go in there after this Jew.”
“Can you help me?”
The man shrugged. “I know a man in Warsaw. Very powerful. He can do anything.”
“Good. I want to leave for Warsaw immediately.” Wingate saw the look of dismay on both Aldini and Regnais’ faces. He moved on past them without a word and walked out into the night—away from the stench of death still emanating from the next room—only to find himself staring at the angry sky over Kutno.
It appeared that the fires had renewed themselves and spread to other parts of the town. All of Kutno was in flames now. He shook his head. It was madness, all of it. He thought once again of Morrell’s hope that this mission of his might be important and significant enough to halt finally this senseless, awesome slaughter of a continent.
Though he wished he could share that hope, after viewing that torn body hanging from the wall in there, he no longer had much faith that anything could bring this madness to an end. And yet maybe—just maybe—bringing Stern back might help. If that were so, then out of this nightmare, something positive—something hopeful—would have come.
For a moment Wingate felt silly thinking such a thought. But maybe Morrell was right in hoping. What else, after all, could have kept that old man functioning for so long in the midst of this Nazi terror?
Chapter Four
It was still dark when an old Model T truck, groaning under its load of fresh vegetables for that morning’s market, came to a halt outside an apartment building in the outskirts of Warsaw. Before the gears—their teeth clashing in shrill protest—were able to get the ancient truck under way again, Wingate and his three men had dropped from its rear and vanished into the building, entering through a cellar door Wingate had been instructed to use.
In the damp, musty darkness just ahead of Wingate, a flashlight winked on, then off.
“This way,” a low male voice told them.
Wingate ducked his head and started in the direction from which the light had come. A door opened, revealing a dimly lit back stairway. Their guide hurried through the door and up the stairs, Wingate and his men following silently.
Once they reached the topmost landing, they were led through another door, down a hallway that smelled faintly of cabbage and potatoes, then into an apartment. The small, slightly hunched fellow who was guiding them closed the door swiftly and silently and with a nod of his head indicated that Wingate and his party should proceed further into the apartment.
Wingate moved on down a hall and into a spacious living room. There was a large double window facing him, a long sofa sitting in front it. The window was covered by a cotton blackout curtain. A very dim light came from a small carbide lamp sitting on a table in a corner, its feeble rays just enabling Wingate to see the man sitting in a large armchair by the window.
As Wingate started toward him, the man got to his feet and extended his hand.
“We do not need any more light for now,” the man told Wingate, as the two shook hands. “The Gestapo has big eyes. Any unusual activity this early in the morning would surely alert them. I am Leo Gimolka. You had better be the American, Captain Wingate.”
“Yes,” said Wingate, “and these are my men.”
“Save me the introductions, Captain. The less I know the better.”
As Gimolka sat back down in his chair, Wingate slumped onto the sofa. Martens and Aldini found chairs, while Regnais relaxed casually on the far end of the sofa.
Gimolka spoke softly in Polish to the man who had met Wingate in the cellar. Wingate caught the name Boris. When Gimolka had finished—it sounded as if he was ordering something for Wingate and his men—Boris turned and disappeared down the hallway.
“I understand the Nazi swine have left Kutno in flames,” Gimolka said, addressing Wingate in perfect English.
“Yes. What they started evidently got out of hand.”
“And you and your men managed to capture the infamous Captain Reitsch.”
“Yes, with the help of some partisans.”
“You will be interested to know that Reitsch and his cohorts have already been disposed of—in the approved Nazi manner, I might add.”
Wingate did not bother to reply to this news.
“Of course, Reitsch’s disappearance will undoubtedly bring still more destruction to Kutno.”
“We had no alternative.” Wingate described the circumstances surrounding the battle with Reitsch’s men, then their drive through the burning town.
“And all that suffering and death just to retrieve this one scientist, this man Stern,” Gimolka commented, when Wingate had finished.
Wingate was pleased that Gimolka did not refer to Stern as a Jew. “Yes,” he told Gimolka. “All for this man, Stern. He is a brilliant physicist, and my government evidently needs him for a top-secret project.”
Gimolka was a small, yet powerfully built man. His head was completely bald. It had a shine to it that reminded Wingate of a brass doorknob. He had a dark, gleaming mustache, the corners of which extended almost beyond his jutting chin. His eyes were dark and slanting and peered out at Wingate from under beetling brows. The expression in them reminded Wingate of a painting he had seen once of Genghis Khan—or was it Stalin? In either case, Gimolka appeared more Russian than Polish.
“So now you and your men wish to go into the ghetto and seek Stern out,” Gimolka said.
“We don’t wish it. But that’s what we have to do.”
“Yes. Of course. Do you have any idea what it is this Stern does so well, that he is pursued by both the Nazis and your government?”
“All I know is what I just told you. He is a physicist of some kind.”
“And he was working in that secret installation outside Stettin.”
“Yes.”
“Bombs. Secret bombs. He’s an expert on munitions, then.”
“I guess that’s it.”
Gimolka leaned slightly closer, his eyes narrowing as he studied Wingate. “Do you know what, Captain? I have a feeling it might be something more than that—considerably more.”
“More than what?”
“Than just another bomb.”
Wingate realized at once that he was being pumped, that Gimolka was not asking for himself alone and that it was very important to those behind him—the Communists, perhaps—that Gimolka find out just what it was Stern was working on.
Wingate decided to change the subject. “Do you anticipate any difficulty in getting us into the ghetto?”
“Getting you in will be simple, Captain. Getting you out will be another matter entirely. London has given me a great deal of leeway, however. Indeed, I have been told that this operation is to be given top priority. You can count on the PPR, therefore, to give you whatever help we can.”
“Does that mean you will work with the Home Army?”
“The AK? Of course. In this matter we are all Poles. And all enemies of the Nazis. London need have no fear of that.”
“It isn’t London that’s asking.”
“Oh?” Gimolka leaned back in his chair and regarded Wingate warily. “You have your own doubts, do you?”
“Yes.”
Gimolka took a deep breath. “There is no sense, Captain, in making this a political issue. I assure you, the PPR is loyal to the Polish government-in-exile. As I say, we are all fighting a common enemy, and the sooner we forget politics and get down to the pleasant task of killing Nazis, the better.”
Boris returned with a tray carrying cheese and glasses of whiskey for all of them. Wingate took his whiskey gratefully and sipped it. He found it so powerful, he wondered why it didn’t smoke. He felt his eyes water slightly, but enjoyed exceedingly the fire it kindled in his gut.
As soon as Boris had served them, he set the tray down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and removed the blackout curtain from the window. The room was immediately flooded with the first rays of the morning sun. Boris turned off the carbide lamp, then retreated from the room.
Wingate glanced around him. What he saw in the morning’s fresh light took him by surprise. Gimolka appeared to be living amidst a display of wealth that was astounding, considering the fact that he was in the middle of an occupied country caught up in the dislocation and hardships of a devastating war.
The room was filled with sumptuous furnishings, every piece polished to a dark, gleaming luster. The tapestries and paintings that hung from the walls were breathtaking in their beauty, and certainly arrogant in their display of wealth. For a Polish Communist this was most unusual, prompting Wingate to remind himself how often the most rabid followers of Marx sprang from the affluent middle class.
And yet, as Wingate studied Gimolka, he was not convinced that this was the entire explanation.
“Boris will serve as liaison with the ghetto insurgents,” Gimolka told Wingate. “If you need anything, contact him. He will be in constant touch with one of the ZOB commandants in the ghetto.”
“Your butler?”
Gimolka smiled. “Do not be deceived by what your eyes tell you about me, Captain. After all, what better cover for one of the underground’s leaders than that he be one of the Nazis’ most notorious collaborators?”
Wingate frowned. “Collaborator?”
“I am what you would call the deputy mayor of Warsaw, Captain. At the pleasure of our German masters, of course. Whatever they want, within reason, I give them. Himmler is very pleased with the warmth and enthusiasm of my collaboration with the Third Reich.” He smiled thinly. “I may get the Iron Cross before this is over.”
Wingate’s eyebrows lifted. “A Polish Quisling. I don’t envy you the role you are playing. It could prove fatal.”
Gimolka nodded. “Those few who know who I am refrain from spitting on me when I pass. The rest show their contempt for me with great enthusiasm. I bless them even as they heap execrations on my head. They are true patriots, true lovers of Poland and haters of tyranny. In my heart I am one of them. In truth, I am their servant.” He smiled. “And, of course, London’s also.”
“You speak excellent English.”
“Thank you. I served in the Polish embassy in Washington during Hitler’s rise to power. I must say, your people seemed to have had as little appreciation of Hitler’s importance as did mine.”
“Not all of our people were blind to Hitler’s meaning.”
“Perhaps not. But, like mine, they did little to discourage him. Tell me, what do you know of conditions in the ghetto?”
“That they are bad, presumably.”
“Yes, presumably. The Germans have long since herded most of the Jews surrounding Warsaw into the ghetto. Not long after that was accomplished, they forced the Jews to wall themselves in. That wall, Captain, encompasses one hundred city blocks—all told, close to one thousand acres. At one time over four hundred thousand Jews were living within the ghetto walls.”
Wingate frowned. “Go on.”
“Tuberculosis and typhus have thinned their numbers, and since the resettlement program, their number has decreased still more.”
“Resettlement? To where?”
Gimolka paused a moment, regarding Wingate carefully, as if he were trying to judge Wingate’s ability to comprehend the incomprehensible. Then he said, softly, “To the gas chambers of Treblinka.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Don’t you, Captain?”
“You mean ... the Germans are gassing the Jews, killing them, murdering them?”
“Yes,” snapped Gimolka coldly. “That is precisely what I mean.”
Wingate put his glass of whiskey carefully down on the coffee table before the sofa. “In gas chambers?”
“Yes. It is all very systematic and very efficient. Very German, Captain. Not far from Warsaw, in a death camp completed for just that purpose, the Nazis are systematically gassing, then incinerating those Jews they feel are no longer useful to them. Of course, that means the women and children are the first to go, the rest when their labor has brought them so close to death they are no longer able to work.”
“I’d heard some word of this in London, I admit. But nothing specific, and there seemed to be no way to get a handle on it. Just rumors, they were. Terrible rumors. I admit that I did not wish to give them any credence. It seemed so ... so incomprehensible.”
“It is not at all incomprehensible to those Polish peasants who live within range of Treblinka’s smokestacks. As a matter of fact, Captain, the Dutch underground has a letter from a Nazi technician detailing the entire process. This functionary is even now supplying some of the death camps with the gas they use. It is a new, quite lethal gas, called Zyklon B.” Gimolka smiled, a mirthless, bitter smile that caused Wingate to shudder slightly. “This German, as I understand it, has sent the same letter—describing his gas and how his superiors are using it in Auschwitz—to the Catholic archbishop of Berlin, as well as to the Swedish embassy. The Church has apparently ignored him and the Swedes seem to have done nothing with the letter.”
“What about the Dutch?”
Gimolka pursed his lips. With just a trace of contempt, he said, “My informants tell me that the Dutch do not think anyone would believe them if they published the letter’s contents.”
