Douglas Jacobson - The Katyn Order

When she finally cleared the forest, Rabbit was waiting for her at the edge of the village. It was a dusty, ramshackle collection of thatched-roofed wooden cottages, a cinder-block grain elevator, and a two-story wood-frame building with peeling paint that housed a post office and a blacksmith shop. The most substantial building in the village was a tiny church of white-washed brick with a faded red-tile roof. In a grassy area next to the church stood the weekly market—a dozen wooden stalls with faded canvas awnings covering plank tables set on sawhorses.

“I already checked it out,” the boy chirped triumphantly, leading the way to the market. “They have potatoes and beets. I choose potatoes.”

Natalia laughed. “You always choose potatoes. Why not beets?”

“Because I won the race, that’s why.”

Natalia and Rabbit filled their backpacks with the potatoes and a few beets, along with a half-dozen strips of salted pork, a bag of ersatz coffee and two bars of lye soap. They paid the merchants a few zlotys. Mounting their bicycles, they headed down the pathway toward the forest. As they neared the gravel road that headed west out of the village, Natalia noticed two men standing next to a black, four-door auto parked alongside the road.

“This doesn’t look good,” Rabbit said. “Maybe we should—”

Natalia cut him off with a sharp look, shook her head and continued on, instinctively sliding her hand in and out of her jacket pocket, feeling for the Browning 9mm pistol. One of the men wore the khaki uniform and gray-green hat of an NKVD trooper, and turning back now would look entirely too suspicious.

They were about to pass the auto when the uniformed trooper abruptly stepped out into the path. Natalia almost fell off her bicycle as she swerved to avoid him.

“Izvin í tye,” the trooper said and grabbed the handlebars to steady the bike. He was short and plump with a grisly growth of red beard and thick hands.

He had said “excuse me,” one of the few Russian phrases Natalia understood. The hair on the back of her neck stood up at the sound of Russian. The trooper said something else, which Natalia didn’t understand. She glanced at Rabbit, who shrugged. Then she turned back to the trooper. “It’s fine,” she replied in Polish. “No problem.”

The trooper continued to grip the handlebars.

Rabbit stopped his bicycle next to Natalia, and the trooper launched into a long string of Russian. The boy shrugged again. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand?”

“He said to get off your bicycle,” the second man said in Polish.

Rabbit dismounted but kept a firm grip on his handlebars.

This man was taller than the trooper and clean-shaven. He wore a dark blue suit, with a black tie and a red hammer-and-sickle pin in his lapel. He was clearly an NKVD agent and the one in charge. He approached Natalia and said, “May I see your papers, please?”

Natalia reached into her pocket and produced the identification card that Zeeka had obtained from the forger at the AK cell in Zyrardow. Obtaining new identification cards and ration coupons had been one of their first orders of business after arriving in the area last fall, but up until this moment, Natalia had never had to use hers. Trying to control her breathing, Natalia handed the intentionally weathered-looking card with her picture on it to the agent.

The Russian studied it for a long time, glancing back and forth from the card to Natalia. Finally he asked, “Where did you get this?”

Natalia feigned surprise. “Where did I get it? At the city clerk’s office in Warsaw, as you can see.”

The agent frowned. “Yes, I can plainly see that is what is printed on this card. But where did you get it?”

Natalia felt her face flush and cursed silently. Stay calm. Just stay calm. “I got it at the city clerk’s office in Warsaw, in 1938, when I applied for a job in the civil service.”

The agent took a step closer. He had a ruddy complexion and narrow, dark eyes. He glanced at the card again, then back at her. “And your name is Katolina Archowski? You were born in Warsaw in 1915?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And what are you doing in this filthy little backwater, Katolina Archowski? Working for the ‘civil service’?”

“No, I’m not. As you know, everyone was forced out of Warsaw by the Germans last September. My brother and I”—she motioned toward Rabbit—“are temporarily staying in the area, doing odd jobs, just trying to survive.”

“Staying where, exactly?” he asked.

“In a cottage owned by my family, about three kilometers down this pathway.” Natalia pointed toward the spot where the pathway disappeared into the forest. She watched the agent’s expression as he studied the pathway, obviously not eager to hike several kilometers into the forest to check out her story.

“Your family owns this cottage?”

Natalia nodded. The four of them had rehearsed the cover story many times. “Our father used it occasionally with some of his friends—for hunting and fishing.”

“And your family is there now, in the cottage?”

“No, just my brother and I, and two cousins. Our parents were both killed during the Rising.”

“How convenient. And the documents proving your family’s ownership of this cottage?”

“I assume they’re on file at my parent’s bank in Warsaw.”

“A bank which is now destroyed, of course.” The agent exchanged a few words with his comrade, who still gripped the handlebars of Natalia’s bicycle. “You will both have to come with us until we get this cleared up,” he said.

“Come with you?” Natalia asked. Her heart pounded so loudly she was surprised the agent couldn’t hear it. “Where?”

“That is not your concern. Trespassing is a serious offense.”

Suddenly Rabbit lunged toward the agent and rammed his bicycle hard into the man’s groin.

The stunned agent doubled over and dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Rabbit jumped on the bicycle and pedaled hard toward the forest.

The trooper let go of Natalia’s handlebars, pulled a pistol from the holster on his belt and spun around, taking aim at the escaping boy.

It all happened in an instant, but it was just the diversion Natalia needed. She pulled the Browning from her jacket pocket and fired into the back of the trooper’s head before he could get off a shot.

The NKVD agent stared wide-eyed at the trooper, who collapsed to the ground with a gaping hole in his forehead. But he recovered in an instant. He struggled to stand up, reaching inside his suit coat for his gun.

He wasn’t fast enough.

Natalia pointed the Browning at him and shot him in the stomach.

The agent stumbled backward then fell to his knees, gazing down at the widening circle of blood on his white shirt. He mumbled something as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and tried to raise the pistol in his right hand.

Natalia took three quick steps and kicked the gun out of his hand.

He looked up at her with glassy eyes, his mouth opening and closing, producing only a raspy wheeze.

The blood from his wound was pooling on the ground, and Natalia was amazed he was still on his knees. She grabbed him by the hair, jerked his head back and thrust the barrel of the Browning into his mouth. She leaned close and whispered. “This is for my brother, you son of a bitch.” Then she pulled the trigger.

Natalia stood for a moment staring down at the two dead men, wondering if either of them had actually been among the murderers at the Katyn Forest five years ago. She decided it didn’t matter. They were NKVD. That was close enough. She retrieved her identification card and took both of their pistols before jumping back on her bicycle and pedaling quickly into the forest after Rabbit.