Douglas Jacobson - The Katyn Order

While he was scraping screens in the workshop on the other side of the church, someone killed Leopold. But why? And where was the priest? It was almost certainly the priest’s shoe Rabbit had found. Kicked off during a struggle? Did whoever killed Leopold, abduct the priest?

Rabbit checked the courtyard one last time, then sprinted to the gate. He glanced down the long, walled street, then dropped the poker and walked away from the church without looking back.

Twenty minutes later Rabbit found himself at the same pathway leading down to the Vistula River where he’d met Natalia after going to “confession” at the church on Tuesday. There was no one around, so he followed the path to the bench and sat down, staring out at the slow-moving water. Was it the NKVD? They’d been hunting for him ever since Natalia shot two of their agents three weeks ago. Did they follow him to Krakow and to the church?

Did they get Natalia?

Rabbit stood up and paced around. Something didn’t make sense. Why would they arrest the priest? And why didn’t they come into the caretaker’s quarters and get him? They killed Leopold, why not him?

Then it dawned on him. They weren’t after him. Whoever it was came to arrest the priest. This had nothing to do with the NKVD agents Natalia shot. This was something else, and Leopold had gotten in the way.

He walked down to the riverbank and tossed a stone in the water, watching the ripples drift outward in ever-widening concentric circles. When he met Natalia after going to confession at the church on Tuesday, she had told him about her friend who was on some type of mission. She had instructed him to ask the priest about Jastremski. But it was obvious there was more to it than that. And whatever was going on, it was also obvious by what just happened that the whole thing was starting to fall apart.

Rabbit walked back up the hill to the pathway and looked in both directions. A man on a bicycle rode past, and he could see other people strolling toward him from the direction of the castle. He couldn’t stay here. He wouldn’t be meeting Natalia at the wireless site until noon, and he had no idea where she was now. He needed to get lost for a couple of hours.

Natalia paced around the tiny third-floor room, checking her watch every five minutes. She tried to sit and read the newspaper she’d picked up earlier that morning, but she found herself reading the same sentence over and over, with no idea what it said. The walls seemed to be closing in on her. She was frustrated and angry. She should have gone up to Nowy Targ yesterday, though she had no idea what she would have done once she got there.

But something had gone terribly wrong; she was certain of it. And here she was, still in Krakow, waiting for a reply to her wireless message while Adam might be… She checked her watch again. Still two hours before she was to meet Leopold and Rabbit at the wireless site, but she had to get out of the room or she’d suffocate.

Hunched over with her cane and wearing the gray scarf and flower-print skirt, Natalia took a different route from Kazimierz to the Stare Miasto, then wandered about aimlessly, blending in with the crowd. An hour later she stopped on Avenue Mickiewicza. Across the street was the Copernicus Memorial Library.

Where Ludwik Banach had worked.

And Jerzy Jastremski.

Natalia stood and stared at the stately, modern structure that occupied an entire block. A heavy weight of helplessness pressed down on her. Adam was somewhere up in the mountains looking for Banach, and Jastremski was the only one who knew exactly where.

And now he was gone.

Time crawled past and still she watched people going into and coming out of the library. She had to move on. She was going to draw attention to herself. She consulted her watch again and was relieved to see that it was time to meet Rabbit and Leopold. She headed for the rendezvous.

As she approached the ramshackle garage, Natalia spotted Rabbit waiting outside. He walked up to her and took her elbow, turning her away from the garage door. “I’ve got to talk to you,” he said. They moved around to the back of the garage. Rabbit’s eyes darted around. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “They killed Leopold.”

Natalia took a step back and stared at Rabbit. “Leopold… when?”

“Early this morning. I found him in the priest’s dining room. He was…” The boy made a slitting gesture with his forefinger across his throat.

“What about the priest?” she demanded.

Rabbit shook his head. “He was gone. Someone took him away.”

“Tarnov,” Natalia said. It slipped out before she could stop herself.

“Who?” Rabbit asked.

“I haven’t told you the whole story. I will, but not now. First we have to find out if there’s a reply to our message.”

They walked around to the front of the garage again, and Rabbit pulled open the door. The same bearded wireless operator sat hunched before the radio. He looked at them with a frown. “Where’s Leopold?”

“Murdered,” Natalia said, removing the scarf and running a hand through her hair. “At the church this morning.”

The young man dropped his cigarette on the earthen floor and ground it out with his boot. “Who did it?”

“NKVD,” Natalia said.

“Shit! I’ve got to get this unit packed up and moved out of here. We can’t risk any further transmissions.”

“What about my message?” Natalia asked. “Did you get a reply?”

He nodded. “Just before you arrived.” He handed her a slip of paper with scribbles on it.

“It’s not decoded?”

The man started disconnecting wires. “Leopold does that.”

Natalia clenched her teeth, forcing herself to stay calm. “Can you do it?”

He stopped and stared at her. “You want me to decode it? You don’t even know me. What if it’s something you don’t want me to know? Or something I don’t want to know. That’s Leopold’s job.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Rabbit blurted out. “Didn’t you hear the lady? Leopold is dead!”

The young man leaped to his feet. “Hey, you little shit, I don’t take—”

Natalia stepped in front of him and poked a finger into the man’s chest. He was taller than she was but skinny and, despite the scrawny beard, didn’t appear to be more than about twenty years old. “Listen to me, and listen carefully. I’m on a mission authorized by the British SOE. Several people have already been killed, and if you don’t decode this message right now other people will die.” She slipped her right hand under her sweater, feeling for the handle of the Browning 9mm pistol tucked in the waistband of her skirt.

“That’s not my concern, lady.”

Natalia took a step back, pulled out the pistol and aimed it at the skinny young man’s head. “You’d better make it your concern, mister. And you’d better do it right now!”

His eyes widened, and he held up his hands, backing away. “Hey, take it easy. I don’t want—”

“Just shut up and decode the damned message!”

Beads of sweat appeared on the young man’s forehead. His eyes darted back and forth between Natalia and Rabbit. Then he snatched the paper from Natalia’s hand and sat down at the stool. “You’re fuckin’ crazy,” he sputtered. “Just put away the gun. I’ll decode the Goddamn message, then I’m packing up and getting out of here.”

It took only a few minutes, and he handed Natalia the decoded message.

“June 22nd? That’s not until tomorrow! What the hell are they—”