The Valkyrie Directive

by Peter MacAlan

  ‘We want to bring out Professor Stenersen’s entire medical team.’

  ‘Seven people in all?’ pressed Wallace.

  Lord Horder nodded.

  ‘Do we have any contact with this Professor Stenersen?’ Lord Horder glanced at Churchill before replying, ‘Not directly. He and his team were working at the Riks-Hospitalet in Oslo when the Germans invaded. So far as our knowledge goes, they are still there. All telephone links with Norway have been cut by the Germans. By coincidence, I was contacted earlier this week by a relative of Professor Stenersen who is currently studying bio-chemistry in London and asked me to do my best to help bring her uncle out of Norway …’

  ‘Her?’ Wallace picked up the feminine pronoun.

  ‘Yes. Inge Stenersen, the professor’s niece. She’s twenty-five, a good-looker and quite a determined young woman.’

  ‘She could be of invaluable help,’ observed Wallace.

  Horder took out his wallet and handed over a small card.

  ‘I thought you might say that, commander. This is her address. Naturally, she knows nothing about the situation so far as my patient goes.’

  Wallace glanced to the First Lord with a query in his eyes.

  Churchill sniffed.

  ‘Thank you, my lord,’ he said. ‘We will take the matter from here.’

  Lord Horder rose to his feet, and with a brief smile towards Wallace, left the room.

  ‘I give you full authority on this, commander,’ Churchill grunted as soon as the door closed on the eminent physician. ‘I want this operation mounted and I want this man Stenersen and his team in London by the beginning of next month.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Wallace, rising to his feet.

  Churchill gazed up belligerently for a moment.

  ‘This operation is to be absolutely top secret, understand? It has the highest priority. The highest.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  Wallace saluted and began to turn away, but Churchill’s voice brought him back sharply. He was slightly surprised. It was the first time he had seen something akin to embarrassment on the grim features of the First Lord of the Admiralty.

  ‘Commander, I’d like you to do me a personal favour in your capacity as head of the Norwegian Bureau.’

  ‘If I am able, sir,’ he said, phrasing his words carefully.

  Churchill sighed.

  ‘My nephew, Giles Romilly … he was in Narvik when the Germans captured it on April 9. He was sent there by his newspaper, the Daily Express. The Express received a ’phone call from him on Monday, that was April 8, and he was instructed to go by sea down the coast to Bergen. He was supposed to leave the next morning about eight o’clock … then the Germans … Well, he hasn’t been heard of since.’

  Wallace bit his lip.

  ‘A lot of our lads were captured in Narvik,’ he said gently. ‘Merchant seamen, crews off the Blythmore, Massington Court, North Cornwall, Riverton, Romanby … the British consul and his staff.’

  Churchill grimaced awkwardly as if troubled at bringing his personal problems into the open.

  ‘If you do get any news about Giles, I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ Wallace replied.

  Churchill nodded and then his features resumed their customary scowl.

  ‘Keep me posted on the operation. I want Stenersen here as soon as possible. Good morning, commander.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Back in his office, Wallace sent for his chief of planning, a tousle-headed, scrappy-looking RNVR lieutenant named Bill Gibson. He outlined the situation to him in brief terms. Gibson, in spite of his vagueness and his slapdash attitude to his personal appearance, had an extraordinary mind when it came to strategic planning. He had been a chess master at the age of twelve and, at the outbreak of war, his unusual talents had been quickly seized upon by Naval Intelligence.

  ‘The team should be a small one and composed of people with local knowledge, preferably Norwegians,’ he offered.

  ‘That means we’ll have to start from scratch, Bill,’ Wallace sighed. ‘We don’t have anyone in this department who is tried or trusted in field operations.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ Gibson replied as he perched himself on the edge of Wallace’s desk, a habit of his which irritated his superior, ‘we can start with this relative of Professor Stenersen’s.’

  Wallace pulled a face.

  ‘Inge Stenersen is a woman.’

  Gibson grinned.

  ‘I didn’t know you were old-fashioned that way, sir. It’s the age of female emancipation. Norway gave women the vote in local elections back in 1901 and full and equal suffrage with men in 1913. Anyway, some of our best operatives in the last war were women.’

  Wallace looked at his junior with a disapproving stare.

  ‘The girl is twenty-five years old, a bio-chemist, and while she has been trying to get her uncle out of Oslo, that doesn’t mean she’s prepared or capable of going there to fetch him.’

  ‘We could try,’ insisted Gibson.

  ‘Very well. Say the girl was part of the team, who else?’

  ‘We’d need someone with a certain amount of audacity and inventiveness …’ Gibson paused and clicked his fingers. ‘The very man!’

  Wallace glanced up curiously. ‘Who?’

  ‘The character who arrived in a German seaplane last week … what’s his name? Sweeny. Lars Sweeny.’

  Wallace’s face brightened. He remembered seeing the report from Naval Intelligence at Scapa Flow. The previous week a Royal Navy destroyer had come across a German Arado seaplane floating in the watery wastes east of the Orkney Islands. When they approached it they found two Norwegians in it. One was a Norwegian navy pilot who had flown the machine until lack of fuel forced him to land on a thankfully smooth sea, while the other man was a civilian. The two had met in the confusion of the invasion and were trying to make their way to the Allied positions. They had discovered the Arado moored in a fjord with its two-man crew carrying out some minor repair to the engine. The men had surprised the German pilots, disposed of them (Wallace’s mouth quirked as he remembered the phraseology of the report) and took off, following a westerly route toward the north of Scotland. Both men were eager to join the Norwegian fighting forces.

  ‘Get me the report on Sweeny, Bill,’ Wallace said.

  Gibson swung off the desk and moved to a filing cabinet, found a report and returned. Wallace ran his eye over it.

  The Norwegian pilot had been transferred immediately to a fighting unit. As a civilian, Lars Sweeny had presented a few problems. First, he had to be cleared by his own security. It was conceivable that the Germans were sending infiltrators among the numerous refugees flooding into Britain from Norway. Second, it was hard to place a man of Sweeny’s abilities. Wallace’s infant department had noted that Sweeny had impressed the interrogators of Naval Intelligence. The man appeared to be a born leader possessed of what the Jews called chutzpah, an audacity which was much needed in field operatives.

  ‘Has Norwegian security cleared Sweeny?’

  Gibson nodded. ‘Apparently he’s at Hatston airbase in the Orkney Islands, creating a fine old stink at not being allowed to join some fighting unit.’

  ‘Good. Have him flown down here immediately.’

  Gibson grunted acknowledgment. ‘We ought to have a third member of the team … that is, if the girl and Sweeny agree to go. I am thinking that the girl is the weakest link and if anything happens to her it might be difficult to persuade Professor Stenersen to come to London. We need someone else who knows Stenersen.’

  ‘Then let’s hope Miss Stenersen is able to help us with that. We’ll get her in for a chat first. In the meantime, make sure Sweeny is flown down here by this evening. I want the plan sorted out before I go home tonight because we only have a few days to get them into Norway. It’ll mean a parachute drop.’

  ‘I doubt whether they’ll know anything about parachuting, sir,’ Gibson pointed out.

&nb
sp; ‘They’ll have to learn as they go,’ responded Wallace.

  ‘That’s a hell of a tough order, sir,’ whistled Gibson.

  ‘It’s a hell of a tough war,’ retorted Wallace.

  *

  Lars Sweeny entered the drab nissen hut and frowned at the young lieutenant of the Royal Norwegian Navy who came forward to greet him. The young man, scarcely twenty years old, looked flustered and nervous.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Sweeny as he lowered his bulk onto a wooden chair before the solitary desk in the hut. ‘Have I proven myself to be a loyal Norwegian citizen? Am I now allowed to fight for my country?’

  The young lieutenant moved his arms awkwardly.

  ‘If you will wait here a moment,’ he said as he crossed to an inter-connecting door within the hut.

  Sweeny let out an exasperated sigh. Since the British navy had landed him here in Scapa Flow, the main base of their fleet, he had spent several days being interviewed and interrogated by officers of both the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy. He had expected some such questioning because of the numerous refugees, both civil and military, who were flocking into Britain. But now he was tired of being passed from one bureaucrat to another. He had escaped from Norway in order to join up and fight against the Germans. Didn’t they want volunteers?

  ‘Ah, Lars Sweeny?’

  A broad-shouldered man had entered the room, closing the door softly behind him. He had a deeply etched, weather-beaten face and a shock of white hair, rebellious strands of which fell over his broad forehead. He had pale grey eyes, grey and cold, which gazed unblinkingly at the younger man. He wore the uniform of a commander of the Royal Norwegian Navy, with a white polo-necked jumper of the type submariners affected.

  Sweeny did not bother to get up. He stared insolently at the officer.

  ‘More questions?’

  The commander’s lips quirked in what might have been a suppressed smile.

  ‘No. The authorities are satisfied that you are who you say you are. You have been cleared.’

  Sweeny sat up and stared at the man.

  ‘About time. When can I join up?’

  The officer regarded him thoughtfully as he lowered himself into the chair on the other side of the desk.

  ‘You want to get back to Norway very urgently.’

  Sweeny took the observation as a question.

  ‘Doesn’t every loyal Norwegian?’

  ‘And yet you are half American. You don’t have to fight Norway’s battles. You were raised in America and America is neutral.’

  Sweeny snorted.

  ‘I am sure that you have read my file. It’s been twenty years since I went to live in my mother’s country with her family. I am a citizen of Norway. I have seen my uncle and my cousins killed during this invasion. Don’t tell me that this is none of my affair.’

  The commander stared at the suppressed intensity of the red-haired man’s expression and noted the controlled anger and the lines of determination around his mouth.

  ‘When can I join up?’ Sweeny repeated.

  The commander leant back in his chair. ‘Cigarette?’

  Sweeny took one and leant forward across the desk to accept a light.

  ‘You will be flying down to London in an hour’s time,’ the officer said abruptly.

  Sweeny raised an eyebrow. ‘To join up?’

  ‘The British Royal Navy have requested that you be transferred to them.’

  ‘The British?’ frowned Sweeny. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The commander blew a smoke ring and smiled faintly.

  ‘Doubtless our friends, the British, will explain to you in their own good time. However, through our goods links with the Admiralty I can tell you this: the British are thinking of sending a small mission into Oslo.’

  ‘Why?’ Sweeny felt an odd stirring, a quickening of his pulse.

  ‘Alas, we have no idea. All we in …’ the officer hesitated and shrugged. ‘All we know is that British intelligence are mounting some small-scale intelligence operation which involves people being sent to Oslo.’

  Sweeny stared at the officer. ‘You are from intelligence, right?’

  ‘In war there are many jobs that have to be done,’ replied the officer. ‘We Norwegians haven’t been involved in a war since Napoleonic times. We have to learn a whole new science but, at least, we are quick to learn. Let us say, yes, I represent an intelligence department.’

  Sweeny stubbed out his cigarette and regarded the officer with curiosity. ‘So? The British are going to send me to Oslo? I have no objections as to how I fight the Nazis so long as I am doing something to drive them out of Norway.’

  ‘That is good,’ replied the commander approvingly. ‘From our point of view, we have no objections to you accepting this job with the British provided we are sure that your first loyalty is to Norway.’

  ‘Is there a doubt?’ Sweeny spat out the words. The officer raised his hand to still the outburst that hovered in his flushed, angry face.

  ‘No doubt, my friend. The point is that we want you to work primarily for us. We want you to use the cover of the mission on which the British are sending you to undertake a task for us … for Norway.’

  Sweeny stared at the man’s cold grey eyes.

  ‘My first duty is to Norway and Norway’s liberation,’ he said softly.

  ‘Very well. Tell me, Sweeny, how much of the events at home have you followed in recent days?’

  ‘Not a great deal,’ confessed Sweeny. ‘I have tried to keep up with the reports from the war front.’

  The officer shook his head.

  ‘I was thinking more of the political developments. The political developments within the occupied territories.’

  Sweeny shrugged. There had not been much to learn from the newspapers which he had seen.

  ‘I know that Major Quisling claims that he is the head of the Norwegian Government and those idiots of the Nasjonal Samling and their stormtroopers, the Hird, are fawning over the Germans in Oslo.’

  The officer nodded slowly.

  ‘I am pleased to say that Major Quisling has not lasted long in his attempt to establish a pro-German fascist regime in Oslo. Half of the men named by Quisling to serve in his Government as ministers have been too frightened to take up their posts and have sent their personal messages of support to the King and his elected Government. Quisling has become a character out of a farce and now he is a liability to the Germans. They wanted to establish a pro-Nazi Norwegian regime … but one that had some credibility. Quisling has become a bad joke. I am not saying that Quisling and his Hird stormtroopers are not dangerous. They are. But what the Germans wanted at this point in history was a credible collaborationist regime.’

  He paused.

  The Germans, in fact, dismissed Quisling on April 15 and the next day established a Norwegian Council of Administration for the occupied territories.’

  ‘Who would serve in it if the Germans have thrown out Quisling? No respectable Norwegian would have any truck with the Germans.’

  ‘In that, my friend, you are wrong. The Council now exists under the presidency of Chief Justice Paal Olav Berg, the president of the Norwegian Supreme Court. It consists of several leading Norwegian citizens such as Bishop Eivind Berggrav, the head of the Lutheran Church of Norway, and Doctor Didrik Seip, the Rector of Oslo University.’

  Sweeny whistled softly.

  ‘These men have become collaborationists?’

  ‘It would appear so. For whatever reasons, Paal Berg and his associates have set themselves up to act as the civilian administration under the Germans. This is more worrying to us than the pantomime clowns of the Nasjonal Samling. This council consists of respectable and prominent citizens and gives the Germans some semblance of legal authority in Norway.’

  ‘I thought Paal Berg was a Leftist,’ Sweeny said.

  ‘He was a member of the Venstrepartiet and as such was social minister in Gunnar Knudsen’s second government and minister of justi
ce in Mowinckel’s first government.’

  ‘That’s right. He’s chairman of the International Labour Organization based in Geneva. How can a man like that collaborate with the Nazis?’

  ‘A lot of people are doing some strange things these days,’ replied the commander.

  ‘What is this to do with me, anyway?’ Sweeny wanted to know.

  The officer’s face was a bland mask as he gazed at him; only the cold grey eyes seemed to have any animation.

  ‘You will soon be in Oslo, thanks to the thoughtfulness of our British allies. You may well be in a position in the next few days to strike a blow which will deter any collaborationists or would-be traitors from acting against the King and the legally elected Norwegian Government. The Germans are anxious to establish a puppet regime in Oslo. We must demonstrate publicly and immediately that any Norwegian traitor seeking to co-operate with the Germans may expect no mercy.’

  It suddenly became clear to Sweeny what this man was implying.

  ‘Are you saying that you want the members of this Council of Administration assassinated?’

  The officer’s mouth formed a thin smile.

  ‘Let us put it this way, Sweeny. It would be to the advantage of the Norwegian Government and it would contribute to the eventual liberation of our country if the Germans found no respectable citizens to serve their cause, however unwitting or misguided those people may be in their motivations.’

  Sweeny shuddered slightly. There was a dreadfully cold logic to what the man was saying, he thought. Any Norwegian who willingly served the Nazis was a traitor, and there was only one punishment for such betrayal. He thought about the bloody body of poor old Tenvig as he collapsed against the wheelhouse. He suddenly saw the bodies of Freya — dear, beautiful Freya — and Erik. His hand closed over the small buttonhole badge he still carried with him — the Nasjonal Samling Badge with its membership number … 5684 PL. He wanted revenge on the killers. He had no compunctions about killing those who were responsible. And the traitors who betrayed the Norwegian people were endorsing the murder of Freya, weren’t they? Freya and Erik and poor Uncle Tenvig.