Witald Biale

Witald Biale grew up in a wealthy mixed Polish-Russian family in eastern Poland. His parents were idealistic enough that they did not assist him in avoiding his compulsory military service, which he found surprisingly enjoyable. Although he was only a mediocre marksman he was popular with his fellow soldiers. Witald graduated from the University of Gdansk with a degree in physics but chose to return to the army, serving for several years in the quartermaster's corps. He was attached to the 2nd Mechanised Division as a lieutenant commanding a supply company. The war saw his platoon isolated from the rest of the Division and caught in a pocket of Polish forces in the border area. The deaths of several higher ranking officers and the breakdown of communications meant that by early 1986 Witald was the only officer left in a unit of about 300 men and women, made up of the survivors of several smaller units. Witald made the decision to withdraw from contact and take up a defensible and sustainable position around Klodzko.

Witald's main motivation is loyalty to his family. He married a local woman and she is pregnant - although he previously had no roots in the area, he now considered Klodzko his home and wants to protect it. His second motive concerns a fact only he knows - there is a hidden room in the Klodzko fortress that contains a small but viable store of chemical weapons. Witald feels little loyalty to either of the competing Polish governments, nor to the Soviets, and is mostly concerned about keeping the weapons from being deployed. He is worried that a record of their storage will be found somewhere in the Polish military's archives, but he does not trust anybody to move them.

Witald does not look much like a soldier. Although in his early thirties he looks older. He has a round head, a comb-over, prematurely grey hair and watery eyes. A paunch bulges over the belt of his uniform trousers. He wears a stained but intact Polish lieutenant's uniform. Generally he doesn't impress others when they first meet him, but his eyes betray a sharp, calculating intelligence. He speaks Russian with a flawless accent and good, but accented English and German.