A Secret Life (43 page)
Authors: Benjamin Weiser
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Germany, #World, #True Crime, #Espionage
For the rest of the day, Kuklinski tried to concentrate on the details of assignments and movements of troops in the martial-law preparations, but he could think of nothing but that night’s meeting with the CIA. He arrived home at about 6:00 P.M., greeted Hanka and his sons, patted Zula, and entered his study. He began a three-page note to the CIA.
Dear friends,Everything is pointing to the end of my mission. I have a choice of taking my own life, early arrest, or the help which was once offered me.Yesterday via Iskra, I asked for instructions for evacuation of my family, first of all, and then for myself. I know that it is not an easy operation, the more so in view of the probability that the border is closed for suspected persons and their families. However, I see no way of saving even my own head. That is why I request that an attempt be made to evacuate to the West, in first order, my wife, son Waldek and son Bogdan, and only then, giving me assistance.The family can leave the country at any time, even immediately, and I, by Thursday; any day between 1700 and 0800 of the following day, or during days free of work beginning at 1600 hours on Friday.
Kuklinski said that to Polish officials, “it is clear that in the close and confidential circle of the leadership, an agent of American intelligence is operating. However, it will not be difficult to identify him because also known are other data transmitted by him.”
Kuklinski described the meeting with Witt and the Polish counterintelligence officer and the invitation to coffee. “Could this be the beginning of the end?” he wrote. He concluded with a demand, which he felt entitled to make, given that the leak of the martial-law plans he had passed to the United States had placed him in peril.
Pure chance, and to certain degree careless handling of data provided by me, places me face to face with the most difficult test. I have decided to leave the country as soon as this is possible. The condition for fulfilling this step is giving assistance to my family, equal to that given me.
He went downstairs and embraced each member of his family. He then had Bogdan drive him around the city and drop him near the Warsaw fire academy in northern Warsaw. While Bogdan drove off in the direction of Iza’s apartment, hoping to draw any possible SB surveillance in that direction, Kuklinski, wearing a drab dark parka, walked toward the Straz site. At precisely 10:30 P.M., he entered a path that led into a cement courtyard in the center of a quadrangle of apartment buildings. A small-framed blond woman appeared before him in a beige coat. She approached with a confident smile.
“Dobry wieczor,”
she said cheerfully. “Good evening.”
she said cheerfully. “Good evening.”
“Dobry wieczor
,” Kuklinski replied.
,” Kuklinski replied.
Gull was shorter than Burggraf had expected. Of course, she had always viewed him from the vantage point of a car seat in the dark.
He seemed courtly but was shaking noticeably. Burggraf put her arm around his waist and drew him closer. She could see his face closely for the first time. He seemed to be much older than she was, and he looked drawn and tired. She whispered two words―“Jack Strong”―and pulled him into an embrace as if they were lovers. Gull was whispering rapidly in Polish, and Burggraf found him hard to understand. She tried to communicate in her stilted Polish, then switched to German, which she knew well. But Gull did not appear to understand her. Finally, Burggraf placed the card in his hands so that he could read the message in Polish. Kuklinski looked frantic: He gestured that he did not have his reading glasses. She took the card back and began to read in Polish. They fell into a natural gait, with Burggraf keeping her arm around Kuklinski’s waist. “Please be assured,” she read, “that we are ready to assist you if you feel your security and that of your family is in serious jeopardy.”
Kuklinski said he could not go without his family. Could he return with them all, and they would leave immediately? He slipped Burggraf his three-page letter. Burggraf said she could take him with her now, but it would take another twenty-four hours to move the entire family. She did not express her real fear―that if the family somehow was seen moving into the embassy, the SB would surround the compound, and the result would be a dangerous standoff. Burggraf continued to read from the card: The CIA would appear the following night, Wednesday, November 4, at a site code-named Klatka to pick up the family. The backup plan was Skok, Thursday, November 5. If Kuklinski felt he was under surveillance both nights, he should try Klatka on Friday, November 6, with the Skok again as the backup on Saturday, November 7.
Burggraf described the emergency chalk signals that both sides should use to communicate with each other. She gave Kuklinski the card and asked him to show it to his family. She kept her face close to his.
“We will be there tomorrow night,” she said. “If not me, someone else. If we have surveillance, do not worry. We will continue until we are able to meet.”
The rendezvous lasted no more than ten minutes. She pulled him closer and hugged him. “See you,” she said, turning and leaving.
Kuklinski crumpled the card in his pocket and left the quadrangle. He returned to where Bogdan was to meet him, but saw only a Polski Fiat containing two men parked about fifty feet away and three other men standing near the car. Feeling nervous and lightheaded, Kuklinski changed plans: He crossed the street, boarded a bus, rode a few blocks, changed to a second bus, rode again, switched to a third bus, and got off at Ulica Marchlewskiego and then began to walk home.
Several blocks away, at Ulica Freta, he noticed another man, perhaps in his forties, wearing glasses, who was slowly approaching him. Without warning, the man abruptly turned around so that he and Kuklinski were walking in the same direction. Kuklinski slowed in order not to overtake the man, but the man slowed down as well. The man suddenly stepped sideways into the archway of a building entrance and watched Kuklinski’s face as he passed.
Kuklinski reached home at about 11:30 P.M. Bogdan had not yet arrived, and they waited nervously. It occurred to Kuklinski that even if he was the only suspect, the SB might not confront him immediately. It seemed possible that they would watch him for several days, in hopes he might lead them to others involved in any conspiracy.
Bogdan finally arrived and explained that he had gone back to meet his father, but had also seen the Fiat and the three men on the street. Bogdan had waited about 100 feet away, and after fifteen minutes, he decided to drive away alone.
Kuklinski was awed by his son’s performance under pressure. He showed his family the card he had received from the CIA officer that evening. They studied it together, and then Kuklinski destroyed it in the fire. Kuklinski gave Bogdan the Iskra and asked him to hide it at the farm.
After Bogdan left, Hanka mentioned that their neighbor, General Wladyslaw Hermaszewski, had left a message asking Kuklinski to stop by. Because of the late hour, Kuklinski called first, but his friend urged him to come over. Hermaszewski greeted Kuklinski and led him into his basement, a handsome room outfitted with rustic wooden furniture and the walls adorned with hunting rifles, bugles, and antlers. Hermaszewski said he wanted to discuss the defection of their neighbor, Ostaszewicz. How would the Russians react? He surmised that Ostaszewicz had been preparing his defection for some time, because his house appeared neglected. Kuklinski nodded politely as Hermaszewski talked. Finally, Kuklinski said he had to go home and get some sleep.
Before the family left the country, Bogdan had wanted to see Iza, and he picked her up at her mother’s house. As they drove toward her apartment, Bogdan swore her to secrecy. His father was in trouble, he said, and the whole family was going to try to leave Poland. When they had arrived safely somewhere else, he said, he would send word to her.
Iza was caught completely off guard. She pulled her green wool jacket tightly around her body, shivering in the night air. What a time for such news! Her father was ill with cancer, and she was about to make a special trip to West Berlin to obtain a chemotherapy drug for him that was not available in Poland. She would be back in Warsaw in a few days, but by then Bogdan and his family would be gone. They both realized that once the regime learned Kuklinski had fled Poland, she would not be allowed to leave to join him.
They drove for a while as she tried to make sense of the news. Might she want to go? Bogdan asked tentatively. No, she replied. She could not. They sat in silence, both devastated.
The next morning, Wednesday, November 4, Daniel and his staff reviewed the cable from Burggraf describing the meeting with Gull and his note. Daniel immediately sent a message back directing Burggraf to send all further cable traffic by “Flash” priority.
“We are prepared to be here around the clock to assist you,” Daniel wrote, “and try and answer/respond to any question or problem. Sending further instructions, recommendations re: exfiltration within next hour.”
Daniel knew the undertaking would be a challenge. He remembered Kuklinski’s personal appeal in one of his letters that Daniel take care of Kuklinski’s family in such an emergency. Kuklinski had written: “In the name of our friendship, I charge you personally with the responsibility for their fate.”
That day in Warsaw, Kuklinski decided he had to find a home for his beloved dog, Zula, who was thirteen years old. Kuklinski thought immediately of Czeslaw Jakubowski, the elderly father of his late friend Barbara. Czeslaw was now a widower, and the dog would be a good companion for him. Kuklinski whistled Zula into his car, packed some food and supplies, and drove to the Jakubowski house. The old man greeted him warmly and was surprised to hear that Kuklinski was being sent on an overseas assignment that would last several years.
“I can’t take her,” Kuklinski said. “But I know your wife and your daughter loved Zula, and she can’t get better care from anyone else.”
“Ryszard, I will try,” Czeslaw said.
Kuklinski knelt and hugged Zula tightly, then left quickly in tears. As he climbed into his car, he could hear the dog yelping and scraping her paws on the door.
The Kuklinski family members went their separate ways until they were to meet at night. Bogdan drove his pickup truck from the farm to the outskirts of Warsaw in the evening and parked in the lot of a restaurant on the south side of Ulica Bronsilawa Czecha. From there, he caught a bus into the city. Waldek spent the afternoon browsing through Warsaw bookstores. Hanka went to see an Andrzej Wajda film,
Man of Iron,
and slipped out of the theater after about thirty minutes. Kuklinski left work, telling his colleagues he was going to dinner. They all then headed for Klatka by taxi or tram, getting on and off and reversing direction. At 10:30 P.M., the four convened at Klatka.
Man of Iron,
and slipped out of the theater after about thirty minutes. Kuklinski left work, telling his colleagues he was going to dinner. They all then headed for Klatka by taxi or tram, getting on and off and reversing direction. At 10:30 P.M., the four convened at Klatka.
They waited in the dark for fifteen minutes, but no car arrived to pick them up. Kuklinski, Hanka, and Waldek took separate routes home. Bogdan, carrying the Iskra, took a taxi to where he had parked his truck and drove it to the farm, where he spent the night.
Burggraf was anguished that Warsaw Station had been unable to pick up Kuklinski and his family Wednesday night. She and Davis had left the embassy on separate surveillance detection runs, and she had driven around Warsaw for almost two hours. Just as she concluded she was free of surveillance, she spotted a car that appeared to be following her. Davis also had surveillance. Neither of them got near Klatka, and the run was aborted. Burggraf spent another restless night in her apartment.
On Thursday morning, November 5, Burggraf arrived exhausted at her office. She cabled Langley, recounting her frustrations at the events of the previous night and saying they would try again that night at Skok. A few hours later, she heard from Daniel and his staff: “Share frustration over conditions last night that prevented run to Klatka but you made the right decision. Concur with plan for tonight. . . . Good luck tonight. We are thinking of you every moment of this anxious time, and wish you well.”
That morning, Kuklinski was summoned to see Skalski. The general did not mention the leak investigation, but asked how Kuklinski was progressing on the Defense Ministry’s five-year plan, which detailed the military’s requirements from 1981 to 1985. Consumed by the martial-law preparations, Kuklinski had tried to squeeze in his work on the plan, but he had not finished, he said. Skalski said he needed a report by the following day at 8:00 A.M. because it was supposed to be presented to Jaruzelski.
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