was told to keep our conversations to a minimum, but I just wanted to say I greatly appreciate your President trying to establish a permanent American base in Poland.”
“Too bad Congress dropped the ball.” He wanted to say “Dixon dropped the ball,” but he didn’t want to tip his hand.
“Yes. It seems only your President understands Poland’s strategic significance.” She slowed the car, hit the turn signal, and pulled into a parking lot fronting a large, gray concrete warehouse. Chain-link fence separated the front of the property from the side where the loading docks stood—at least twelve by Jack’s count, with trucks parked at each.
“We’re here,” she said as she yanked on the parking brake.
* * *
—
The single-wide glass door read STAPINSKY TRANSPORTOWE in small white sticker letters, faded but uniform. Liliana pushed through, followed by Jack.
They stood in front of a modest desk. A middle-aged woman with badly bleached hair sat behind it, staring at a computer screen, a pair of thick glasses perched on the end of her bulbous nose. The air smelled of stale cigarettes.
“Dzień dobry,” Liliana said with a musical lilt.
“Dzień dobry,” the woman replied halfheartedly, glancing over the top of her glasses with the sad, brown eyes of a basset hound.
Liliana launched into a cheerful but pointed discussion Jack couldn’t exactly follow, but the meaning was clear enough. He heard his name mentioned along with a few cognates, including “investor,” so he knew she was introducing him as they had arranged previously at the bank.
Finally, the woman pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, but the wide lenses only served to magnify her already enormous eyes. She turned in her rolling chair with a squeak and leaned in to a microphone, depressing the call button.
“Pan Kierownik!”—Mr. Manager!—thundered over the loudspeakers in the small waiting area and beyond.
The woman returned to her work on the computer and Liliana turned to Jack. “It shouldn’t be long.”
She’d hardly finished speaking when a steel door flung open and an older broad-shouldered man stormed into the room. His neck was too thick for the cheap, wide necktie and polyester shirt he wore, and his gut looked as hard as a beer barrel. Jack could tell by the way he moved that the man knew how to handle himself in a fight, which explained the large, veiny nose, clearly broken at least once before. He even stood like a boxer, leaning slightly forward, legs bent, ready to take a swing at whatever life might throw at him.
The man barked at the woman behind the desk, who only pointed a nicotine-stained finger in Liliana’s direction and muttered something without looking up. The man turned his steely blue eyes toward Liliana and barked another question.
She didn’t flinch, but in the same smiling, soft-spoken way, largely repeated what she had already explained to the woman behind the desk.
The manager turned toward Jack. His thickly accented voice sounded like he gargled with vinegar and steel wool.
“We don’t need no investors, so thank you and good-bye.”
Jack stepped toward the older, heavier man and extended his hand to shake. The manager stiffened at Jack’s first step, his eyes narrowing as he sized up the big American.
“My name is Jack Ryan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Jack’s display of respect softened the man, and he reluctantly took Jack’s hand. Poles were, if nothing else, ferociously polite and respectful of others, especially those they considered to be of a higher social status, which Jack clearly was, being both an obviously rich investor and an American.
The thick, callused hand closed around Jack’s. Mutual respect in a firm, solid grip.
“Are you Mr. Stapinsky?” Jack asked.
“No. My name is Wilczek. Pavel Wilczek. I am the manager here. Mr. Stapinsky is the owner. What is it you want, exactly?”
“As my assistant, Ms. Pilecki, suggested, I work for a financial firm that—”
“Pilecki, did you say?” He turned toward Liliana. “Any relation to—”
“My great-uncle.”
The man’s broad shoulders slumped as if in surrender. Jack swore he saw the hint of a smile creep across the leathery face. He raised a thick arm and pointed a catcher’s mitt–sized hand toward the steel door.
“Please, won’t you both step into my office?”
34
Jack, Liliana, and Wilczek sat in his cramped office, the shelves of the steel bookcases stuffed with decades’ worth of transportation and shipping records. His desk was littered with stacks of stained manila folders, shipping reports, and a hubcap-turned-ashtray overstuffed with butts. Wilczek clasped his thick hands across his wide, stiff belly as