Adam couldn’t help but smile as he pushed open the oak door and walked into the main hall. He could hear the voices behind him, Łukasz’s voice rising above the others, until the heavy door clicked shut with finality, blocking out all outside sounds.
Łukasz’s diversion had worked perfectly. The picturesque, round building of pale golden stones waited quietly on a tree-lined street in Ochota, an area in the south of the city, not expecting any trouble. Storming through the doors of the Archiwum Akt Nowych, the Central Archives of Modern Records, Łukasz had demanded immediate access.
The nervous young woman working behind the desk hadn’t known what to do. She glanced at the armed guard standing near the main entrance, but his attention was on the street, not her desk. Seeing her discomfort, Łukasz had soldiered on, demanding to be allowed to review the documents from the secret police that were still housed there, claiming the right of the journalist to free access to information.
When at first the young woman hesitated, and almost seemed like she was about to grant Łukasz the access he wanted, he switched tacks, raising his voice and spitting out insults about the archives, their management, and the people who used them.
Finally realizing this was not something she could handle herself, the young woman picked up the phone and called her supervisor, the director of the archives himself. He appeared from a back room, a portly gentleman with a sour face. Too many hours peering at faint documents, Adam supposed.
He took one look at Łukasz and promptly called over the guard. Which was the moment Adam had been waiting for.
While the director and the guard were engaged in quieting Łukasz and trying to drag him off to a side room, Adam approached the young woman.
Smiling apologetically, he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Polish. But I have a letter granting me access to these files. Is that okay?” Looking over at Łukasz, he added, “Should I come back another time?” He smiled again.
The woman smiled gratefully back at him from behind the brightly polished, lemon-scented desk. “I am sorry, sir, this does not usually happen. I appreciate your understanding.” She glanced at the letter Adam held in his hands. “Let me see that, perhaps I can help you.”
She read through the letter carefully, then looked back up at Adam. “This is from Minister Kapral. He says you are here on his authority and require free access to all of the records. This is very unusual.”
Adam shrugged. “I understand if this isn’t something you can help me with. Perhaps we need to ask the director?” He gestured toward the portly man, now turning bright red in the face as Łukasz turned his venom onto the man’s innocent family.
“No, no,” the young woman answered quickly. “I think it would be best not to bother him. This is clearly an important request. Of course we will honor it.”
She smiled as she returned the letter to Adam, pressing a button underneath the desk. Adam heard a click as the oak door to his right unlocked. He thanked her as he headed through it, but she had turned her attention immediately back to the director and to the police, who had just arrived.
Following signs for the public reading rooms, Adam took one flight of stairs up, stepping out into a narrow carpeted hallway that followed the circular curve of the building. On the left, windows looked down into the paved central courtyard, where a few benches waited for spring and warmer weather. Walking along the hall, Adam carefully pushed doors open, checking the rooms on his right.
One was a large conference room, lined with artifacts and displays of Polish history — paintings, historic documents, mannequins in earlier versions of army uniforms. The air was stuffier in here and Adam suspected this was a ceremonial space, not often used.
Other doors opened onto reading rooms, as Adam had supposed they would. Readers occupied small wooden desks tucked away under looming shelves. Each reader had an assigned desk, and as the materials he or she had requested became available, archivists would stack the materials, clearly labeled and numbered, on the shelves above the desks.
Fewer than half the available desks were occupied and the rooms were painfully quiet; only the occasional turning of a page or stifled cough could be heard above the hum of the dehumidifiers. Tall, rectangular windows that looked out over the city allowed in only limited light, and dust motes danced across the rooms in the narrow beams that reached into the musty space. Adam was surprised to catch the scent of roses in one room, lingering traces of a woman’s perfume. The quiet young woman at the front desk, perhaps.
He continued his way around the hall, heading toward the main storage building, when he spotted something he wasn’t expecting. A stroke of luck.
A lone pay phone hung in a booth at the end of a short corridor jutting off of the main hallway. He stepped in and slid the doors closed behind him.
“Pete, don’t say anything, just listen to me.” He spoke quickly before his partner could say anything to let the others in the squad room hear who was calling. It was risky bringing Pete into his problems like this, but he had no choice. He was only glad his credit card still worked and hadn’t been cut off already.
“What the hell have you gotten into, partner?” Pete’s words were muffled, preventing others in the squad room from overhearing. “The captain’s getting calls about you left and right. You killed someone? What the hell?”
“Cut it out, Pete, you know I didn’t kill anyone.” Adam smiled despite himself, glad to know that Pete still trusted him. “And you know what’s going on here. Whoever’s behind Basia’s death wants me out of the way. I still need to figure out who it is. Did you find anything else that will help?”
“Not much,” Pete answered softly. “I’m still looking into the names you gave me, but they each seem to check out. I gave you all the background I had last time you called. Without going through the captain, there’s not much more I can find.”
“Better not alert the captain you’re working on this. Not yet, anyway. He’ll have your skin.”
“I think you should be more worried about your own skin, Kaminski. He said he wanted you to solve the murder — not get convicted for it.”
“I know, partner, I’m working on it, believe me. I’m pretty sure I know who killed them. A man named Stefan Wilenek, former Polish secret police. Killer for hire. Nasty character.”
Pete whistled. “Good work, Kaminski. Do you have enough proof to go to the Warsaw PD?”
“Almost. Łukasz is writing up what he does know.”
“Writing up? Like for the police, or for the paper?” Pete asked quickly.
“For the paper. I know…” Adam cut off Pete’s objections. “But we still don’t have enough to stand up in a court of law, just our own testimony — and you know what my testimony is worth right now. His editor wouldn’t even publish what he wrote the first time. He’s working on revising it now, making sure it’s defensible against a libel suit. Meanwhile, I need to find out who hired Wilenek.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line as Pete thought about what Adam was saying. “What can I do to help?”
“I need you to reach out to the rest of the team from the Philadelphia International Council. Did they all make it back safe?”
“Yeah, they came back yesterday. The captain has already called each of them to let them know we’re still on the case to find out who killed Jared.”
Adam felt himself relax. “I’m glad he did that. He’s a good man. I still need you to visit them, Pete. They’ll be hearing things about me now, and I need you to let them know I’m fine. That I’m on the case, too, and I won’t leave here until I solve it.”
“Kaminski…” Pete started to say something, then cut himself off. After a pause, he continued, “You need to know this is hurting our case against Luis.”
“Luis? What does he have to do with this?”
“Nothing, partner, absolutely nothing. But it’s not just him. All your recent arrests are going to come under scrutiny.”
Adam said nothing, thinking about the truth behind Pete’s words.
“Luis is only locked up on our request that the judge wait until you’re back in Philly. And if you can’t testify…”
“Or if my testimony isn’t worth crap…” Adam took a breath. “I get it. I know. I’ll figure this out.”
“I know, partner. And I’ll talk to the people who were on your delegation. What about Jared White’s family? What can I say to them?”
Adam shut his eyes, picturing Jared sitting on the train drinking coffee that was far too strong for him, talking about teaching, dreaming of a future he would never see. “Tell them I will catch whoever did this. And tell them I will explain everything I know to them in person when I return.”
“Uh-huh. And Julia? Anything I can tell her?”
Adam realized with a start how all of this must look to his little sister. Her brother accused of murder, running from the police. He couldn’t even call her himself without implicating her in his alleged crime. He shook his head in the dark phone booth. “Take care of her, Pete. Just take care of her for me.”
“Will do, partner,” Pete answered. “And you take care of yourself.”