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  Roman Kłosowicz’s surprise was so great that for a while he forgot about his situation.

  A very brief while.

  He put the amber back in the flask and stuffed it behind a rock, telling himself he’d come back for it. A few minutes later he found an exit and slid over the tongues of ice like a half-dead, bloodstained scrap puked up by an unsatisfied ogre.

  At eight, the sun came out, but in the woods covering the side of the Bystra Valley, night still reigned. Weeping, panting, and spitting blood, Roman crawled uphill toward Kalatówki, which stood on the high moraine. He emerged from the woods just as the wind began to blow harder, tossing the snow aside, and the solid block of the hotel came into view. The vast windows of the café and restaurant shone yellow, a sign that life was on the go at Berghaus Krakau.

  Instead of shouting for joy, Roman sobbed even harder, this time out of happiness. He was too weak to stand, but he could see that he was close enough to crawl to the building. He stopped trembling like mad, stopped feeling pain and numbness, and instead felt a kind of warmth, a sleepiness pleasantly embracing him.

  He was a few dozen yards from the hotel, now within earshot of the pots clanging in the kitchen, when he sank, arms first, into a deep snowdrift. He hadn’t the strength to get up. But he thought it didn’t matter; he’d just rest awhile. He was proud to have remembered his mountaineering training, where he’d learned what to do if buried by an avalanche. You must dig out a little space in the snow so you can breathe, then wait for help to arrive.

  So he dug out a small hole near his mouth, inhaled with the sense of a job well done, and died.

  Outside the weather changed with a speed seen only in the Tatras. It stopped snowing, the wind blew away the clouds, and the sun lit up the rectangular block of Berghaus Krakau, bouncing dazzlingly off the desert of virgin snow left by the night’s blizzard. From the valley came the sounds of cars driving up, the Polish staff calling to each other, and the German barking of Hans Frank’s bodyguards, punctuated by laughter.

  The governor-general awoke after three hours’ sleep with a bad taste in his mouth and a sense of having done his duty. As every morning, the first thing he did was comb back his thinning hair with a slick of brilliantine. Then he stood at his apartment window and gazed at the white world outside. It was beautiful, but he was homesick for his beloved Alps. Luckily, if it all went well, he’d soon be home, and he felt calm about his future. The Soviets would probably have shot him right away—they were unpredictable eastern savages—but the conversation he’d have with the Americans in Bavaria would be very different. They were civilized people who asked questions first. And he had plenty to tell them and plenty to offer. It would make them cringe like dogs and was more than enough to guarantee him a safe future. Maybe somewhere in South America? They say the climate’s good in Argentina—it’d be worth keeping his bones warm in old age.

  It never occurred to him that soon he’d be ridiculed by the Americans and swiftly condemned at a show trial as a war criminal; in less than two years he’d be hanged at Nuremberg, his corpse burned and the ashes scattered—according to the official American communiqué—“by a river in German territory.”

  And all because of the man who at that very same moment, in the room directly above, was gazing at the same mountain landscape. Hans Frank was certain that Wilhelm was one of his most trusted men; he valued this great specialist in art history, his partner in crime. Meanwhile, Wilhelm’s real name was Henryk Aszkenazy; to his great sorrow, he was about to end the most daring espionage operation of the past six years. For fifteen minutes he gazed by turns at the landscape and the brass container in his hand, which held a vial of potassium cyanide.

  He thought how very, very much he didn’t want to do this.

  He thought about the fact that he was almost fifty, with a wonderful life behind him, travels, adventures, a fabulous woman, and he’d just done something that might possibly save his country from falling into a black hole. Millions of those who had recently perished and were now perishing too young, and for nothing, would dream of a life like his and of a death like this.

  He thought maybe he could still take a risk, cheat death a while longer, escape, and get back to Olga.

  And he told himself that avarice is a sin. And that he knew what people are capable of. If they caught him, he would crack.

  He considered whether his mission really was at an end or whether he ought to do something else. But what? He’d sent a message to Karol and another to Robert. He’d left a clue for them here.

  He raised the container to eye level; it was the size of a pistol cartridge. He noticed traces of oil paint between his fingers, the effect of his night’s work. Just in case, he went into the bathroom and washed it off. He cleaned his hands very carefully and spent a long time wiping them.

  He sighed.

  He went up to his desk, uncapped his fountain pen, and wrote in German on a sheet of paper, Life without the thousand-year Reich is meaningless. Then he buttoned up his black uniform, thought to himself in Polish, Hell and damnation, and closed his eyes. When all he could imagine was Olga’s smiling face, he smiled too, and quickly bit into the cyanide capsule.

  Down on the ground floor, the Polish staff of Berghaus Krakau were getting things ready for breakfast. Aniela was setting a table in the corner of the glazed café. She worked away, not thinking of plates, knives, forks, and cups, not noticing her workmates bustling about, not smelling the aroma of coffee or even feeling anxious about the huge swastika painted on the wall. She was furious that Roman had taken her for yet another ride. The day before yesterday he’d chickened out—she knew what men were like, especially city types. She figured he just needed some time to pull himself together. But no, he had disappeared for good. And she felt as if no one had ever been as shackled by their virginity as she was now, stuck in an occupied country where they could all die at any moment. The girls upstairs only ever talked about one thing—each of them either had a guy of their own here or went into town. She was the only one who just let Roman stroke her braids endlessly.

  Aniela stood up straight, smoothed her hair, and gazed out at the snow-powdered limestone rocks of Mount Giewont, at Dry Gulley as a family of deer raced by, and at the clearing stretching before the hotel, white as the icing on a wedding cake.

  She was the first to spot the corpse.

  May 1, 1946

  A year after the war ended, and eighteen months after Roman Kłosowicz died in a snowdrift and Henryk Aszkenazy bit into a cyanide capsule, the abandoned mountain hotel at Kalatówki was once again the stage for dramatic events.

  Timothy Beagley now stood in the exact place from which Aniela had spotted the corpse of her would-be lover. Unlike her, Beagley wasn’t admiring the view. Firstly, it was the middle of the night. Secondly, he had far more sinister things to look at—the barrel of a British Enfield aimed at him, a slim hand wielding a revolver, and part of a concentration camp tattoo protruding from under the sleeve of a thick woolen sweater.

  “I repeat,” Beagley said in English. “My name is Timothy Beagley, I’m a private in the American army, Baker company, 506th infantry regiment, 101st brigade . . .”

  The man holding the pistol sighed.

  “You know what?” he said in perfect British English. “I only spent a year in the camp before my family got me out. But ever since, I’ve taken a different view of time. I’m aware of every second, and I do my best to make use of it, to appreciate and relish it, in case it might be my last. But here you are, brazenly wasting my seconds. You really are an American, and your name really is Timothy Beagley. But you’re not a private in any brigade, you’re an officer in the secret operations department at the Office of Strategic Services—a ranking lieutenant, if my sources are correct. And you’re not just any old officer, but the right-hand man to Mr. Shepardson, the chief of Secret Intelligence—a superspy and a pretty big deal in the world of espionage.”

  Beagley wondered whether to continue putting
on his act. He didn’t know if they’d managed to catch his two companions as well. If not, then through cunning surprise, they should be able to deal with this skinny Pole and his entourage of three gloomy, bearded men.

  He decided to stall.

  “Your information is correct,” he said. “Indeed I am one of the officers who came to Poland along with some works of art we recovered for you from the Jerrys. Twenty-seven railcars filled with your national treasures—Leonardo, Rembrandt, the Wit Stwosz altar from Kraków Cathedral. That’s no reason to have me in your sights, is it?”

  The man twitched. “And what were you thinking, Lieutenant Beagley, as you rode across Poland on your train full of treasures?”

  He’d been thinking how sorry he felt for these likable people. How sad to be born in this country that was always battling uphill. It was really awful to think they’d spent so many years living together with the Jews—the two most defeated peoples in the world, side by side. If God existed, he had a strange sense of humor.

  “I was thinking it’s a good thing the war is over. This country has suffered too much.”

  The man burst out laughing.

  “Over? This country is only going to continue to suffer. For six years we fought on all fronts, for six years we were slaughtered like sheep, for six years we were herded into the gas chambers. But then you handed us over to Stalin. Just like that. A worse murderer than Hitler. Who on a whim starved eight million Ukrainians to death in a single year.”

  “I’m not the one who carved up the world at Yalta,” said Beagley, shrugging.

  “Sure, nobody is ever responsible. At the end of the day we’re all nothing but tiny cogs in the machine of history, which drives itself. How convenient.”

  “Why don’t you act like an adult?”

  The Pole glared at him. “Where is it?” he asked.

  “Sorry?” Beagley was surprised at the question.

  “Where is it?”

  “Are you telling me you don’t know?”

  “We don’t have time for this,” said the Pole, signaling to the bearded men, who grabbed the American and painfully stretched him out on a long table that for Beagley had unpleasant associations with an autopsy slab. “Don’t insult my intelligence—I’m sure you’ve been trained to know that everyone talks eventually.”

  “This is crazy . . .”

  One of the bearded men covered Beagley’s mouth, while a second grabbed his leg and twisted it. Something crunched.

  “Lieutenant,” said the Pole when Beagley stopped vomiting. “You’re an intelligent, well-educated man. You know that we’ve got to have it. Not you, not the British, and definitely not the Reds. We’ve got to have it, because for my nation it’s the only chance of getting out of the black hole of history that you’re trying to push us into.”

  “But—”

  “Each ‘but’ will cost you another joint. Where is it?”

  He realized his position was hopeless. This crazy Pole would never believe that he had come here to ask him the same question. He’d go on torturing him endlessly. It crossed his mind that maybe he should do something to force a speedy death.

  Suddenly the windows were smashed by bullets. Cool mountain air came into the room with the two frontline heavies assigned to Beagley to help in his OSS operations. Seconds later, the three bearded men were dead on the ground, their leader on his knees with a silenced Welrod pressed to his temple. Beagley tried to stand up without vomiting from the pain. It took a while.

  “Mr. . . .”

  “Lorentz. Robert Lorentz.”

  “Mr. Lorentz . . . I should be asking you where it is, but there wouldn’t be much point, would there?”

  The Pole just stared at him with the calm resignation of a man who had evaded death so many times that when it finally caught up with him it didn’t make much of an impression.

  For a while, Timothy Beagley tried to come up with an excuse not to kill the man with the number tattooed on his forearm. But he couldn’t find one. This man knew what to look for, and that posed a threat to the new order.

  Reasons of state demanded it.

  PART TWO

  THE YOUNG MAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Tatra Mountains, the present day, September

  1

  Anatol Gmitruk was hanging a few dozen yards above the ground with his face pressed against the warm rock, trying to keep his balance on a granite step half an inch wide. He had one hand squeezed into a crevice, while trying with the other to wedge a metal climbing nut into the same crack. Once he was sure the damn thing was finally in place, he latched a garish orange rope onto it, which linked him to his climbing partner, nine yards below. He sighed with relief. If his foot slipped now, he’d be stopped by the nut, rather than his partner’s head.

  “Slack!” he shouted, and moved upward.

  He’d been a recreational climber for more than twenty years, but during this trip he’d woken at the shelter hoping for bad weather. He suddenly dreaded waking at dawn, lugging his backpack to the wall, and putting in the effort. He was ashamed to admit it, but with each passing season he felt more afraid. Being fastened to a nylon rope fixed to a piece of metal wedged into a bit of mossy stone when you’ve got several dozen yards to fall—well, there are few situations to fear more than that.

  Ten feet higher, he stuck the next nut into another crevice and moved on. The terrain seemed easier; he quickly covered the next few yards of vertical wall and reached a smooth, solid slab.

  Olaf shouted something from below.

  “What?”

  “Don’t fall off!”

  Superb advice. He leaned back on his straightened arms to shout an abusive retort. He looked down and was extremely displeased by what he saw. The two nuts he’d so painstakingly put in place had jumped out of the rock and run down the rope to Olaf, and were now jingling against his hands like charms on a bracelet. The rope was hanging loose, swaying in the wind.

  Inwardly he cursed. He never swore out loud while climbing, because the echo could carry a long way, and mountaineering savoir vivre was the one kind he observed.

  The situation didn’t look great. Between him and Olaf there was fifty feet of rope. Which meant that if he fell, he’d fall freely for those fifty feet. If he were unlucky, he’d land on his partner’s head, killing them both. If he were fortunate, he’d miss him and fall another fifty feet before the rope stopped him. Or failed to.

  Nevertheless, Anatol could see that descending was pointless. There was only one way to go. There was no more than thirteen feet of tough climbing between him and a beautiful horizontal crevice that he’d be able to grasp like the rung of a ladder.

  “OK!” he screamed. “Climbing!”

  He took four small steps and tried not to think about the fact that he couldn’t make even the slightest error.

  “What’s it like up there? OK?” he heard from below.

  He didn’t answer. A drop of sweat trickled down his nose, briefly hung on its tip, and splashed onto the rock.

  Five more feet to the crevice. He was scared as hell—his left foot was starting to shake, his muscles trembling. He tensed and relaxed his calf muscles a few times. The trembling stopped.

  At that moment, suspended from the harness, his phone rang and vibrated: the whistled theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai—dada, dadada da da daaa.

  “Don’t answer it!” It was clear Olaf realized the seriousness of the situation and the probability that a 175-pound missile might land on his head traveling at thirty miles an hour.

  Just a few small steps to go. The goddamn phone vibrated like mad.

  Dada, dadada da da daaa.

  “Slack!” screamed Anatol, and jumped the last foot and a half to the crevice. He clipped himself to an old hook left in the wall by the fathers of mountaineering and answered the phone.

  2

  The cableway to Kasprowy Peak consists of two lines. The first takes a small bite out of the crowd teeming at the foot of the
mountain and carries it on a quiet journey above the tall spruces to a midway transit station. There the travelers must transfer to another car, which starts gently, then climbs sharply upward along the jagged crag of Kasprowy Peak. A summit that at a modest height of six thousand five hundred feet is the tourist center of the Tatras, the gateway to the highest mountains, the sacred mountain of skiers, and above all a place where a can of beer is astronomically priced at twelve zlotys, and the restroom facilities cost twice as much as usual.

  For the past few hours, the cableway had been fitted with extra equipment in the form of cameras made by the Russian firm Polus-ST, famous for its portable wireless security systems. They’d been mounted to allow for nonstop observation of all the cable cars and cableway platforms. The most vital one, installed at the very top, showed the wall into which the carrying cables disappeared—two for each car—and the far thinner haulage cable, which served to propel the car. It also showed some small black rings attached to the carrying cables, which looked like rubber doorstops but were actually containers filled with nano-thermite—a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum that burns at a temperature of 5,432 degrees Fahrenheit. The explosive charge contained in those inconspicuous rings was enough to burn through a steel rope in a second.

  The man sitting on a stone by the tourist trail, currently answering to the name Jasper Leong, was checking all the camera images from a tablet. Everything was working perfectly. The downward cable car was empty—in such good weather people chose to stay on the summit longer—while the one heading up was packed with adults and children, their faces pressed to the glass.

  He put away the tablet, adjusted his backpack, and set off downhill at a rapid pace, toward civilization. It never occurred to anyone he passed on the trail that he could be anything other than a tourist, probably from abroad—Polish men of about fifty don’t look like that—with a slender figure, a head of thick black hair straight from the salon, snow-white teeth, and eyes so intensely green that people suspected him of wearing colored contact lenses.