The Katyn Order Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the building across the street. In the distance she could hear the dull thump of artillery.
    It was only a matter of time—another few weeks, maybe less—before the Germans crushed the Rising. The AK insurgents were fighting valiantly, but less than a third of them had real weapons, and most of those were rebuilt relics left over from ’39. Ammunition was scarce, the food and water supplies were running out, and the corpses were piling up. It couldn’t last much longer.
    Then what? The Russians weren’t coming in to help. That much Natalia knew for certain. Where she grew up, danger had always come from the monster to the east. She inhaled the stale cigarette smoke deeply and thought about her brother, Michal, and the one letter she’d received, sent from a Russian prison camp somewhere near Smolensk. Most of the words had been crossed out with thick black ink, but he had said he was being well-treated and would be home soon. That had been five years ago. Natalia took a last drag on the cigarette then grimaced and ground it out. If there was a force on earth more evil than Hitler’s Germany, it was Stalin’s Russia and his secret police, the NKVD.
    A drink, she needed a drink to clear her head. She took a bottle of vodka from one of the brightly painted, green-and-yellow cabinets on either side of the sink, poured some in a glass and swallowed it. She poured another, carried it back to the table and sat down, looking out the window again.
    Gradually, her thoughts turned to the AK commando standing off by himself during last night’s briefing, the same one she and Rabbit had encountered in the hospital square that day—the sharpshooter. The man they called Wolf.
    Natalia had heard about him. She’d heard he was an American, trained by the British and dropped into Poland years ago. Perhaps it was just a myth, or a rumor: things like that were rampant among the operatives of the AK. But it could be true. There were some like him, she knew, covert agents trained as assassins and dropped behind the lines with instructions to kill high-level German officers. They were highly skilled and deadly, with no identity, no background—and nothing to lose.
    Another burst of artillery jarred her back to the moment, and Natalia flinched at a shadow in the doorway.
    Berta stepped into the kitchen and whispered, “Sorry if I startled you. I couldn’t sleep. Apparently you couldn’t either.”
    â€œOh, I’m fine, just a little restless. But you were snoring up a storm when I left the room.”
    â€œThe damn artillery fire woke me. Christ, sometimes I have this dream that one of those screaming cows lands right in my bed. Probably be as good a way to go as any, I guess.”
    Natalia took a deep breath and held up the glass of vodka. “Maybe this will help. Want one?”
    â€œNo, if I get started I’m not going to want to stop. I’ll save it for your birthday party.”
    Natalia smiled but felt a sudden twinge in her stomach. Her birthday was a week away, and she would turn twenty-nine. She wondered if she would live to see thirty.
    â€œYou didn’t go with Falcon last night?” Berta asked with a shiver and grabbed her coat from the hook.
    â€œHe was drunk again, and I don’t need that.”
    â€œGetting a bit tired of him are you?”
    â€œI don’t know . . . maybe . . . it’s getting annoying. He’s way too possessive, like I’m a piece of his property.”
    â€œWell, if you decide to dump him, let me know. I could use a good roll in the hay right now.” Berta sat down and dropped her elbows on the table with a heavy sigh. She was several years older than Natalia, with gray streaks running through her short brown hair. She had been a dispatcher for the railway during the time when Natalia was making her courier runs from Krakow to Warsaw.
    â€œIt looks like I’m losing my ‘cocktail