Mila 18 - Leon Uris

“Son,” Alex said, “get Andrei at once. Wanda has arrived from Krakow with a package. Tell him to send one of the Farber girls to the Old Town Square. He’ll understand. Time is important. Wanda will pass at two o’clock.”

When Wolf arrived at the loft over the Workman’s Theater, only Adam Blumenfeld was there on radio watch.

“Where is everyone? A runner is in from Krakow.”

“Lord,” Blumenfeld grunted. “She wasn’t expected till tomorrow. Andrei, the Farber sisters, and Berchek are all on the Aryan side. Pinchas Silver can’t go. Get back to your father and tell him right away. He’ll know what to do.”

Alex drummed his fingers on the desk top, trying to think. It was one o’clock. Only an hour to the pickup. It was so unexpected that all four of the Bathyran runners were on the other side.

Think, dammit, think, Alex said to himself.

His usual unalterable calm became thready. Eight to ten thousand dollars were in the package. Nice, wonderful, untraceable dollars from Thompson at the American Embassy.

He looked at the phone. Call up Romek over the wall. No, that would be breaking the cardinal rule. Never phone a contact on the Aryan side under any circumstances.

What if Wanda saw there was no contact? They had completely lost one package like that.

Alex lifted the phone and dialed the Orphans and Self-Help Division at Leszno 92, Simon Eden’s headquarters and asked to speak to Atlas.

In several moments Simon Eden was on the phone.

“Atlas, here.”

“Brandel.”

“Yes?”

“I got an invitation from Romek to be at Yetta’s house for lunch at two o’clock. I simply can’t get away from my desk. Could you keep it for me?”

“That’s less than an hour. Hold on a moment and I’ll see if I can rearrange my appointments.”

Three more precious minutes ticked off. It was twelve after one.

“Alex.”

“Yes!”

“Can’t do it. Impossible.”

Alex put the receiver on the hook slowly. Lost! The package is lost! He looked up slowly and saw his son at the edge of the desk.

“I’ll go, Poppa.”

“No.”

“I’ve got false papers and I’ve been in training—”

“I said no!”

“Poppa ...”

“It’s damned well bad enough I let you talk me into this business of leaving the farm. It has nearly killed your mother.”

“I swear,” the boy said softly, “I’ll never talk to you again.” Wolf turned and walked toward the door and unbolted it.

“Wolf, for God’s sake, don’t ask me to—” He knew his boy. Gentle but stubborn. Even more stubborn than Andrei. Alex steadied himself. “All right. Leave everything identifying you on the desk. Take only your false papers. Time is running short You’ll have to go out of one of the three northern gates—there should be a guard ‘playing’ at one of them.” Alex opened a drawer. “Here, twelve hundred zlotys, mixed notes. That will get you in and out of the ghetto. Go to the Madam Curie Museum in the Old Town Square. Buy some blue violets on the way and wrap them in a newspaper. Wanda is Rebecca Eisen. You know her.”

“Anything else?”

“If ... anything happens ... you are not Wolf Brandel.”

“Don’t worry, Poppa. Nothing will happen.”

“Son, we haven’t spent enough time together—now, all of a sudden—”

“Poppa, you mean so much to so many people. I’ve always been very proud of you.”

Wolf walked briskly for the closest gate at Dzika and Stawki streets, only a few blocks from Mila 19. He made a false run past the gate to study the Jewish militiamen on guard. He did not recognize any of the three, so it was certain they did not know who he was.

He walked to the man of highest rank and snapped out his Kennkarte. The guard unfolded the three-part document and deftly palmed the folded hundred-zloty note. The guard studied the document. It was obviously a false paper, for it was not marked with a J . A clue that this was underground work or smuggling. He’d try for more.

“My old mother is very sick,” the guard said.

“She should see a doctor,” Wolf answered, slipping the man another hundred zlotys.

A windfall. “What time are you coming back?”

Bastard wants more, Wolf thought “Few hours.”

“Too bad. I won’t be on duty. Try my cousin Handelstein at the Gensia Gate. Tell him you spoke to Kasnovitch.”

“Thanks,” Wolf said.

Fifty zlotys on the other side of the gate took care of the Polish Blue Police.

Wolf walked rapidly for the Old Town Square. Time was running out.

For several weeks the Gestapo had been watching the movements of Tommy Thompson at the American Embassy in Krakow. They knew his sympathies and were relatively certain he was passing money and information to the Jews. The Gestapo allowed him to continue, in the hope that they could trail his contacts successfully and break up the ring at the Warsaw end.

Recently Thompson started a new activity. The Home Army, a large Polish underground, was forming and growing quickly and he had been working with them. This was a more serious matter. He was earmarked to be thrown out of Poland shortly.

The Gestapo decided to make an arrest of the next runner who left Thompson. From the moment that Thompson passed a package of eight thousand dollars to Wanda, the Bathyran runner, they were on her.

Trained and alert Wanda became suspicious when there had been a dragnet at the Warsaw railroad terminal and she was allowed to pass through the inspection far too easily, her fake papers not scrutinized and her package unchallenged.

She entered the Old Town Square with the intuition she was being tailed. The square was not badly crowded—only thirty of forty people. Yet it was impossible to spot a stakeout because the quadrangle of five-story buildings could have hidden a hundred pairs of searching eyes. She entered on purpose from the corner opposite the Madam Curie Museum and walked cater-corner over the cobblestones. From the corner of her eye she glanced at the partly bombed-out museum. A lanky young man leaned against the wall. She came closer, still moving diagonally, calculated to pass him at a distance of some twenty or thirty meters in order to study him.

Click-click-click went her heels on the cobblestones.

Blue violets wrapped in newspaper. She shot a glance upward. It was Wolf Brandel. Smart boy, Wanda thought. He sees that I am going to pass him by.

Now Wanda had put a block and a half of open space behind her. If she was being tailed they would have to show themselves in the vast square or face the danger of losing her. She wanted to look back but dared not She. could not make her contact with Wolf until she was certain.

Wanda spotted a grate next to a sewer hole. Perfect! She walked over the grate and intentionally jammed her high heel into it so it would stick. She knelt down to free herself and in doing so stole a look behind her. Two men stopped dead in their tracks halfway over the square.

Trap!

Wolf was watching her closely. He saw the men trailing her. He saw her quickly throw the package into the sewer, pull her heel loose, and walk from the square. In a moment the place was flooded with Germans rounding everyone up. Wolf held fast.

“Violets for your mother, sonny?”

Wolf looked into the eyes of a pair of waiting Gestapo.

Chapter Twenty-three

AS A MATTER OF standard operational procedure, any Jew caught on the Aryan side was personally interrogated at Gestapo House by the chief, Gunther Sauer.

A few moments after Rebecca Eisen, known as Wanda, disposed of her package of dollars she was arrested and the forty-two people in the Old Town Square were rounded up and hauled in for questioning. Four hidden Jews were found among them.