34
Jonas Stern leaned out of the back window of Greta Muller’s black Volkswagen and saluted a Wehrmacht private as they passed through Dettmannsdorf.
“Don’t press your luck,” McConnell snapped from behind the wheel.
Stern laughed and leaned back inside. He made a striking figure in the gray-green SD uniform and cap, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. Anna had planned to meet the Polish partisans alone, after feigning illness near the end of the day’s work shift. But when Stern heard that she intended to borrow Greta Muller’s car for the journey, he had insisted on going along.
“I believe,” he had said in an arrogant voice, “that a young woman escorted by Standartenfuhrer of the SD will be much safer than a woman out driving alone.”
Anna had been unimpressed. Ultimately he’d had to threaten to abandon the idea of saving the prisoners before she submitted.
While waiting in the cottage for her to get off from work, McConnell had decided to accompany them as well. He saw no point in waiting for the SS to arrive at the cottage and inform him that his fellow spies had been caught and he was under arrest. You’re the big cheese, he’d told Stern. I can be your driver or something.
So that was how they played it. McConnell drove the car, while Anna and Stern sat in back like privileged passengers. The rendezvous was only ten miles from Anna’s cottage, in a small wood northeast of Bad Sulze. As the VW rolled past the hamlet of Kneese Hof, she told them they were halfway there. They bypassed Bad Sulze proper by swinging south and crossing a small bridge over the Recknitz River. Two kilometers of gravel road carried them onto a moor and to the edge of the wood.
“Pull into the trees,” Anna instructed. “Off the road.”
McConnell obeyed. Stern got out and looked around the car, his Schmeisser at the ready. McConnell followed, carrying a bag containing bread, cheese, and his own Schmeisser.
“I’ll go ahead,” said Anna. “Stan is very careful. I’ll talk to him first, explain things before you come out. In those uniforms, he’d shoot you down without a second thought.”
But when they arrived at the meeting place, no one was there. Stern and McConnell crouched in the snow while Anna walked into the middle of the clearing. A half hour later, a thin, nervous young man walked out of the trees and began speaking to her. He was unarmed, and looked strangely familiar to McConnell. They spoke a full five minutes before Anna motioned for Stern and McConnell to come out.
“Say something in English,” she told McConnell. “Hurry.”
“Well . . . fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty—”
“Good enough?” she asked the thin Pole.
The young man mulled it over.
“Stan already saw both of you,” she told Stern. “He could have killed you any time. I’m glad he’s in a good mood today. Put your gun on the ground.”
Stern reluctantly obeyed.
“They don’t have their radio.”
“
“They share it among three resistance groups. But they can get to it by midnight tonight.”
“That gives Brigadier Smith less than twenty-four hours to set up the bombing raid,” Stern said. “It’s going to be close.”
McConnell started as a giant of a man stepped from the trees less than twenty meters away. He had a thick black beard and carried a World War One vintage bolt-action rifle — probably a Mauser — which he pointed right at Stern’s chest. McConnell didn’t blame him. Stern looked every inch an officer of the SD.
“
The big man’s face brightened. “
Stern switched to German. “A little. I was born in Rostock. I knew some Polish seamen.”
The bearded man held out a meaty hand. “Stanislaus Wojik,” he said, vigorously shaking Stern’s entire arm. “That’s my brother, Miklos.”
Stan Wojik looked like a man who had lived by his hands before becoming an amateur soldier, but his brother Miklos was almost a caricature of a starving artist — a second-chair violinist in an orchestra of modest reputation. Hollow cheeks, and large eyes as sincere as a child’s. McConnell suddenly realized where he had seen the brothers before. They were the two other members of the “reception party” that had met the Moon plane on the night he and Stern landed in Germany. He reached into his sack and took out a block of English cheese. Stan nodded thanks and tossed it to his brother.
“Stan speaks fair German,” Anna said.
“Good,” said Stern, squarely facing the big Pole. “I think I should hold my gun on you while we talk. If someone comes up on us, I’ll say you’re both our prisoners. We stopped to eat.”
Stan Wojik shrugged and laid down his rifle. Stern picked up his Schmeisser. McConnell noticed that Stan Wojik had a heavy meat cleaver hanging from a leather thong on his belt. The big man patted it and laughed.
“I used to be a butcher,” he said. “I still cut meat occasionally.” He grinned. “Nazi sausage, when I can get it.”
Stern laughed appreciatively, then in a mixture of Polish and German began explaining what they wanted. Stan Wojik listened intently, nodding during each pause. McConnell only followed about half of the exchange. Stern and the elder Wojik ate cheese while they talked, but Miklos sat quietly beside Anna, his eyes hardly leaving her face.
When the conversation was finished, Stan turned to McConnell and said in German: “You are American?”
“Yes.”
“Tell Roosevelt we need more guns. We need guns in Warsaw, but Stalin won’t give us any. Tell Roosevelt with guns we can beat the Nazis ourselves. We aren’t afraid to fight.”
McConnell saw no point in trying to explain that the odds of him ever talking to FDR were slim to none. “I’ll tell him,” he said.
He was surprised when Stern took a sheet of notepaper from an inside pocket and handed it to Stan Wojik. The Pole seemed surprised too. McConnell walked over to read it. Stern had hand-printed a message in English, followed by Polish and German translations:
“Is this smart?” McConnell asked. “What if he’s caught?”
Stern shrugged. “If he’s caught, that note will be the least of our problems. Without that air raid — in the right place and at the right time — our plan won’t work. You said that yourself. It’s worth the risk of him carrying the note to get the message right.”
Stan Wojik nodded.
“Where do these men live?” McConnell asked, unable to curb his curiosity.
Miklos laughed. “We are from a place called Warsow, on the Polish border.”
“Warsaw?”
“War
Stan Wojik understood enough of this to add, “Much experiments still go on. Rockets fly all across Poland. Airplanes without pilots. Very dangerous weapons.”
“Is there still an SS garrison at Peenemunde?” Stern asked.
“Some SS, yes.”
“They forced you out of Warsow?” McConnell inquired.
Stan shrugged. “Hard to fight the Germans in towns.”
“You live in the forests now?”
