Mac wingate 5, p.9
Mac Wingate 5, page 9
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I have a job to do. Stern is needed in my country. If you let him stay here, he’ll only end up in the ... well, you know what his chances are. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
“No, you don’t.”
“Then you understand that I have no choice but to take some kind of action.”
She turned her head to look at him. “How easily you Americans think in terms of action. Immediate action. No conferences. No doubts. Remarkable.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“No. You wouldn’t. It is so natural with you, you don’t even notice it. With you people, to think is to do. There seems to be no pause at all between thought and action.”
“Spare me your philosophy.”
For a moment Wingate thought she was going to smile. “No pause—and no philosophy.”
“Save me your condescension.”
“I didn’t mean to be condescending,” she said, suddenly serious. “Don’t you see? Your easy willingness to take action is something we have lacked all these centuries. Only now—when it is too late, when the mouths of the Nazi ovens yawn open before us—do we begin to act.”
He glanced at her. She was hugging her knees as she spoke, her gaze away from him, a tear moving down one of her cheeks. He reached out instinctively and took one of her hands. She did not pull her hand away.
“There’s a woman I keep seeing over and over in my mind’s eye,” Lisa said softly. “Over and over. I have wanted to tell someone about it, someone who is not a Jew. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“You will escape this place. We will not. You could tell others what I have seen—about this woman, for example. You see, it is not so much the big things the Germans do. It is the small, casual brutalities—almost as an afterthought—that are so terrible.”
“Go on.”
“I saw her last January. She was utterly wretched, disheveled. Over and over she kept calling out a child’s name. I saw her in the morning, then later that same day I found her on another street. Her skirt—it was soiled. She was filthy, distraught. At last, I could stand it no longer. I went up to her and tried to help her, but she looked right through me as if I were not there and just kept calling out, ‘Maksi! Maksi! I must find that rascal! Oh, there he is!’ And then she rushed off—toward nothing!
“Someone pulled me away and explained what had happened to her. On the deportation train to Warsaw, her little boy had annoyed a German guard. The guard flung the child off the train. He was less than five years old. The woman attempted to jump off the train after her boy, but the guard threatened to kill all the other Jews in the car if she did not remain seated. And so the other Jews added their voice to the German’s. They would not let her protest any further. By the time she reached Warsaw, she had gone mad.”
Wingate’s hand had grown cold as Lisa related her story. “What happened to her?”
“I don’t know. Or, yes, I do. Treblinka, more than likely. For her, a blessing.”
Wingate shuddered.
He did not want to hear more. But he found himself remembering something she had said the night before that still nagged at him. “You called those Germans we killed last night Frankenstein’s men. What did you mean by that?”
“Frankenstein is a German SS. He has been a guard at the Leszno Street gate for a year now. We even know his name. It is Josef Blosche.”
“Why do you call him Frankenstein?”
She pulled her hand out of his and glanced at him. “It is a mistake, isn’t it? We are mixing up the professor with the monster he created.”
“I suppose so.”
“Blosche likes to kill Jews. And evidently, he keeps score. If he finds any Jews on one of his sprees, he simply kills them—or rapes them, depending on the gender. Two weeks ago he spotted a small crowd of Jews on Chlodna Street. He raced to the crowd and shot three men before the rest escaped into the buildings. From the windows they watched him take out his notebook and make his tally. Now other German guards are doing the same thing, prowling the streets of the ghetto at night, hunting out likely targets. This is a preserve, you see. We are the game—and they are the game wardens, thinning out the population.”
“Why doesn’t someone kill Blosche?”
“He is on our list.”
“Good luck.”
“I will kill him,” she said softly.
He glanced at her. She was weeping. He put his arm awkwardly around her shoulder. He did not know what to say. How could this girl, now weeping so openly, be the same person who had charged down those stairs the night before, finishing with her oversized Walther the slaughter she had begun with a grenade.
Recovering her composure quickly, she pulled her shoulder gently away from his arm. In a small voice, she said, “Lazar needs your help, Captain. We all do.”
Wingate did not reply.
“If ... you could get us arms, perhaps we could convince Dr. Stern to go with you.”
Wingate frowned. “You mean that’s your price for letting us take Aaron Stern out of here?”
She straightened up and looked at him. Her eyes were still swollen from the weeping, but they were defiant now, as well. “Yes. That’s our price.”
“Does Stern know about this?”
“No. But I am sure he will listen to us if we put the matter to him. He wants to help us, and this would be a great help. We need more weapons, Captain. Weapons and ammunition.”
“And you think all I have to do is snap my fingers and they will be provided.”
“The Allies want Stern.”
“Yes.”
“Then they will have to pay. They are perfectly willing to arm the Polish partisans. Now all we ask is that they arm us as well.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“Speak to Barack. You are on good terms with that Communist, are you not?”
“Is anybody on good terms with him?”
“You are hurrying back to him now.”
“Corporal Aldini and two more of my men are waiting for me in his bunker.”
“Only two men are waiting for you, Captain.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of your men is a Belgian—a man called Martens, Jon Martens?”
“Yes.”
“He has left Barack’s bunker and joined the Wild Ones. He is killing Germans at a prodigious rate, I understand.”
Wingate shook his head. He should have figured it. Martens had been a loose cannon ever since he joined their team. If the purpose of their entry into the Warsaw ghetto had been to kill as many Nazis as possible in the shortest possible time, then perhaps Jon Martens deserved a medal, not a reprimand. But that wasn’t why they had come here.
“All right,” Wingate said wearily, “I’ll get in touch with the partisans.”
“Then you’ll get us the weapons we need?”
“Do I have any choice—if I want to get Stern out of here?”
“No. I suppose you don’t.”
Wingate considered his options. And the task ahead of him. He would simply have to make it clear to London that shipping in arms—or taking arms from the Polish underground and giving it to the Jews—was the only way the Allies could be sure of getting Aaron Stern out. And he would have to make it just as clear to Gimolka that unless the partisan leadership went along, they would have to rely on their Russian cousins to supply them with arms in the future. So far, the Russians had been pretty stingy, leaving it to the Allies to supply the partisans, and Gimolka was surely not unaware of that.
“Perhaps you have a deal.”
She relaxed and leaned back against the skylight. “Where will you get the weapons? From the Allies?”
“Or the Polish partisans.”
“Will they do it? The Poles are as bad as the Germans. They hate us as much as the Germans do.”
“I figure we can make them go along. But you’re right. It won’t be easy. Those partisans London has found most effective are in the PPR. They’re Communists. And that means Party first, Poland and the Allies second. So I can’t really predict what they’ll do. But, for now, it is good politics for the PPR to deal with the Allies.”
She got up and brushed off her dress. “Good,” she said. “We’ve got a deal. Let’s go, Captain.”
Without a word, Wingate got up also and followed Lisa along the catwalk. He realized now why she had come with him: to strike this deal—Stern for the weapons the ZOB needed so desperately. And now that it had been struck, Wingate felt just a little bit manipulated. Berensen had obviously decided that Lisa would make a better advocate than he would.
But what the hell, he thought. Berensen had been perfectly correct.
A day later, a little after midnight, Wingate was waiting with Lisa and a member of the underground, Comrade Paul, in the latter’s small apartment on what Wingate had begun to call—like the Jews—the Aryan side of the wall.
An untidy, splotched blackout curtain hung over the only window. The usual smelly, inefficient carbide lamp was burning on a wire stand against a wall, its smell clashing with that of the ersatz coffee Comrade Paul was heating on the gas stove. The damp, splotched green walls needed to be repainted. The old paint was peeling off, giving the walls a hideous, diseased aspect. Or was it, Wingate reflected, just his own mood that made them appear so?
Comrade Paul left the stove and sat nervously across from them at the small kitchen table. He could not seem to keep from glancing furtively at Lisa. The man knew she was a Jew, Wingate surmised. So of course he could not understand how she could be so beautiful. He had a mottled, squarish face that had been poorly shaved. His lips were pendulous, his faintly mournful expression reflecting the stoic acceptance of the typical Polish peasant—those tillers of the Polish soil Adolf Hitler had seen fit to label as sub human.
Wingate and Lisa had been waiting for the others to arrive for about ten minutes. Lisa had come along because only she knew Warsaw well enough to direct Wingate to this apartment building. Wingate had left Regnais and Aldini back in the ghetto with instructions to find Jon Martens and do what they could to bring him to heel. He would be needed soon—alive.
There was a rap on the door, the prescribed two short raps followed by a pause, and then a third rap. Comrade Paul bounded to the door and pulled it open. Leo Gimolka strode in, followed by Casimir Botnowski.
And Guy Morrell!
Wingate jumped to his feet and greeted Morrell, shaking the old man’s bony hand enthusiastically. Until that moment, Wingate had not realized how much he had come to like the man during their short hiatus outside Stettin.
Introductions were swift and curt. The party assembled around the table and Wingate had a chance to look a bit more closely at Gimolka. The man looked considerably different than he had the last time Wingate had seen him, though Wingate wasn’t exactly sure what it was that made him appear so transformed, almost youthful. He was dressed roughly but warmly in a heavy woolen suit, with a dark shirt and no tie. He was wearing a golf cap over his bald skull. His cheeks appeared more ruddy and he seemed to have lost a few pounds. And then, with a start, Wingate realized what it was. Gimolka had shaved off his magnificent walrus mustache.
Botnowski was still as youthful and insolent as Wingate remembered him. At the moment—as Comrade Paul set down before them the cups of ersatz coffee and the tins of sardines he had evidently hoarded for this occasion—Botnowski was busy regarding Lisa with suspicion.
Wingate looked at Gimolka and tipped his head quizzically. “You seem to have undergone a transformation.”
“My cover was blown,” Gimolka said, shrugging. “It was inevitable, I suppose. But I would feel better if I knew who was responsible. For myself, I prefer to think a member of the Thirteen has infiltrated the ZOB. I would be careful, if I were you, Wingate. For myself, I will soon join my partisans in the forests outside Warsaw.”
“And who will take over here in Warsaw?”
“Botnowski.” Gimolka glanced at the young partisan. The fellow was attempting to hide his pleasure at this promotion by scowling fiercely and pretending indifference. “He has waited a long time for this. I am sure his youth and audacity will add much to our effort against the Nazis. He will be your liaison with the underground now.”
“Good. We do not agree on all things. But we agree on who the enemy is.” Wingate looked squarely at Botnowski. “Is that not true, Casimir?”
Grudgingly, Botnowski nodded. “That is true, Captain.”
“Now,” said Gimolka, “what’s this about a deal to get Stern out of the ghetto?”
Wingate leaned back in the wooden chair and glanced at Lisa. “I will let Lisa tell you. She is one of the ZOB’s most trusted commandants.”
Gimolka settled his gaze on Lisa and waited.
“Aaron Stern would prefer to stay with us in the ghetto, with his people,” Lisa told him. “If need be, he will die with us. But we are sure we can convince him to leave with Captain Wingate—for a price.”
“What do you want?” Gimolka demanded.
“Arms—and ammunition. Automatic weapons. Perhaps some antitank weapons.”
“Impossible,” said Guy Morrell softly, smiling at Lisa.
She looked at him, her face coloring angrily. “We need those weapons for our survival.”
“There is no chance you can survive against German armor.”
“To fight then. To the death.”
“The Jews will never fight,” snapped Botnowski, not bothering to hide his contempt.
“They have already fought,” said Wingate, “and they have transformed the ghetto into a fortress.”
“You will be committing suicide if you fight,” said Gimolka, watching Lisa closely.
“No,” Lisa snapped. “It was suicide before—when we let our old men and women, our mothers and their children march off to the gas chambers of Treblinka. Now it is resistance. Now we fight!”
“You people,” Gimolka said softly. “You know about Treblinka then?”
“We know. Those of us who are capable of believing it. We know.”
“You misunderstood me,” said Guy Morrell. “What I meant was we could not bring you antitank weapons. But rifles, automatic weapons, yes. We could prevail upon our allies here, the PPR, to part with some of their weapons, I am sure.”
“And ammunition.”
“That, too, of course.”
Lisa leaned back and glanced around the table. “You give in too easily, I think.”
Gimolka smiled. It was clear he liked Lisa. Then he looked at Guy Morrell. “Can you really speak for us, Morrell?”
Morrell cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, we have here a tiger by the tail. Aaron Stern is so highly regarded by the Allies, that I am afraid we dare not let him go. Trust me when I say this is so important that Churchill and the American president, Roosevelt, are both personally involved. Need I remind you what that can mean—in the way of future arms drops for the Polish underground?”
“By that you mean,” said Gimolka carefully, “the PPR?”
“Yes,” Morrell said, just as carefully. “The PPR.”
Gimolka nodded emphatically and slapped Botnowski on the back. “You are right, Morrell. You can speak for us.”
Guy Morrell looked at Lisa and smiled, his ancient, craggy face losing years in the process. “Young lady, the deal is made. Tell your people that if they will help us bring Aaron Stern out of there, we will see to it that you have all the weapons you will need.” His expression saddened slightly then. “Of course, I wish these weapons could be enough to ... save you. But that, you must know, is impossible.”
“Yes, we know.”
“It is a deal then?”
“The weapons first, then Aaron Stern will leave.”
“But we do not have much time.”
“The weapons first.”
Guy Morrell sighed and looked to Botnowski. “You heard her. See to the details. I suggest we give them most of that last arms drop. There will be more on the way. As soon as I get back to Stettin, I will radio London to see to it. With the prospect of Stern’s liberation as an incentive, there will be no difficulty in our sending you more weapons.”
“And perhaps some antitank guns?” Botnowski asked, his eyes gleaming.
Morrell hesitated only an instant. “Yes, of course. Why not?”
The details were simple. The next night at two in the morning, the weapons would be delivered by the underground to a sewer entrance that had not been used until now, since it was a particularly nasty sewer in which the waters were deep and not swift running. For that reason, the Germans were unlikely to have any men watching it.
The Jews were to look for a fleet of baker’s trucks. The trucks were Morrell’s idea. There would be four in all, loaded to the teeth with weapons and ammunition. Wingate saw Lisa’s eyes gleam with anticipation.
The meeting broke up.
Gimolka shook Wingate’s hand. The grip was firm. “Do not stay too long with these Jews, Captain,” he warned. “They are a fatalistic people. Get this man Stern out of there as soon as the weapons are delivered. A German SS officer, Brigadier General Jurgen Stroop, has been ordered by Himmler himself to begin ‘a special action’ to empty the ghetto as soon as possible. I have seen the orders myself. And Stroop has almost two thousand troops at his disposal.”
“When will they attack?”
“I do not know. But soon, I am sure.”
“We will stop them,” Lisa said. “Now that we have the weapons.”
Gimolka leaned close to Lisa. Abruptly, he pinched her cheek. “Little Iron Maiden,” he said, “leave with Stern. Come join us in the forests outside Warsaw. Fight with us as a Jew—and as a Pole.”
“I am not Polish. I am German.”
“Become a Pole. Join us. Together we will destroy the Nazis. Have you not heard, little one? They have been defeated at Stalingrad!”
“I will stay with my people. As you say, we Jews are a fatalistic people.”
Gimolka shrugged, turned, and left the apartment, Botnowski and Morrell following him. Morrell paused a moment to say goodbye to Wingate. They spoke quietly for a moment, then Wingate closed the door. Comrade Paul was beaming. He had just participated in a high level meeting of the underground. For just a moment Wingate found himself recalling Gimolka’s warning about spies. But when he looked into Comrade Paul’s utterly guileless face, he realized that the man could not be other than what he appeared.
