by James R Benn
Finally, my arms hit an underwater rock a few yards out from the first outcropping of rocks. I let my feet down to see if I could touch bottom. I could stand, but the water was up to my nose. I bobbed along, trying to walk, bounce, and climb the slippery underwater slope. Grabbing onto a jagged piece of rock, I pulled myself up. Cold water ran off me as I stumbled and tripped along the line of rocks that led toward shore. I made it to a gravel-strewn beach and fell to my knees, taking in big gasps of air as I pulled off the life jacket. I felt dizzy. A shudder ran through my chilled body and I doubled over and threw up seawater, the salty taste mixing with bile, the foulness staying in my mouth. After a few minutes’ rest, I found a large flat rock that I could move. When I lifted it a few inches above the wet gravel, small crabs darted out. Just like playing at the beach back home. I stuffed the life jacket underneath it and let it down with a wet thump before sitting on it, my clothes soaked and cold against my skin, shivering, but alive.
Then I heard the crunch of boots on the shingle. I tried to open my coat to get at my .45 but my fingers were too numb to work the buttons. I was still fumbling with them when four men came around a large boulder. They were dressed like fishermen, except for the British Sten guns they carried. The first one said something to me in Norwegian. He sounded angry.
“I don’t speak Norwegian.”
“Napoleon,” another of them said slowly. That was the password. They were waiting for my response.
“Waterloo,” I said. Some of the tension left their faces. I stood.
“Why have you come now?” the English speaker demanded. “In daylight, with much shooting?”
“We had to—” I tried to explain.
They cut me off, speaking to each other in Norwegian. Their spokesman turned to me and said, “Is not good. We must go. Quickly.” They turned and walked off at a fast pace. I followed. Welcome to Norway. Is not good.
They took me to a rowboat, stowed their guns in a burlap sack, and rowed me to another island, Hugla, about one mile south of Tomma. I blew on my hands to warm them, but it didn’t help. They were red and raw from my cold scramble over sharp rocks. The icy water dripped from my clothes, making a dirty gray pool beneath my seat. As we beached the rowboat, I heard the drone of engines. From the south, coming from the mainland, a flight of three Bf 110 twin-engine fighterbombers flew over us toward the ocean.
“Is not good,” my new best friend in Norway repeated. “Is not good for boat. Not good.” He shook his head. I didn’t want to think about that boat right now.
“Cold,” I said. “I am cold. Not good. Understand?”
“Yes. Come.”
We walked across the pebble beach to a path that led through scrub brush, up over boulders and into a forest of small firs. A half hour later we were at a log cabin, at what was probably the highest point on the small island. The roof was covered with dirt, and moss, grass, and even some small fir trees grew from it. The cabin had a very narrow first floor, which was entered through a doorway above three granite steps in the middle of a rough-hewn pine-log wall facing a small clearing. The second floor was wider and jutted out over the bottom floor. The entrance led into a single room with a stairway and benches along the wall. I followed my rescuers upstairs and one of them got a fire going in the large stone fireplace. There were chairs and a table near the hearth. It was rustic but very comfortable, the kind of place that would have been great for a fishing vacation, if you weren’t being hunted by the Germans. From the single window I could see across to the mainland. The town of Nesna hugged the opposite shore, with steep mountains rising above it on two sides. There was an inlet—a fjord, I guess—that went past the town and vanished around a curve in the mountains. Fishing boats and other small craft went back and forth. It looked very peaceful. I knew looks could be deceiving.
Once the fire got going I undressed. They wrapped me in a blanket and sat me in front of the hearth. My clothes were hung to dry on wooden chairs they pushed close to the warmth.
“We sleep here, this night,” my talkative friend said. “Ferry to Nesna in the morning, yes? Is best.”
“Ferry is good?” I asked.
“No, ferry is not good,” he answered with what might have been a smile. Then he shrugged. “Is best.” He didn’t know many words of English, but the ones he knew, he seemed to know precisely.
They brought out bread, cheese, and dried fish. We ate in silence. We heard more planes overhead. They pointed out German patrol boats passing the island. I nodded. Is not good, I knew. It was nine o’clock at night and still bright outside. They kept the fire stoked to dry my clothes, and I stared into the flames, wondering. About Kaz, about Rolf, about Diana, her father, and Harry. About Uncle Ike and how I’d let him down, not even able to complete my first assignment without screwing up and disobeying orders. Hell, forging orders.
Finally the heat made me sleepy. There were wooden bed frames along the walls with feather mattresses on them. I flopped down on one and let my weariness take over. My last thought before I drifted off was that I didn’t want to dream. But I did.
There was smoke and fog, and Daphne was back. I couldn’t see her clearly and it was like slogging through molasses to get to her. We were on a boat and then we weren’t. It was all jumbled up. We were in a log cabin, then in my house back in Boston, in the kitchen. Daphne was sitting at the table, talking with Higgins. She looked up at me, placed a hand on Higgins’s arm, and said, “I didn’t ask for this, Billy. Why are you doing it?” Higgins looked up at me, too, a question forming on his lips. Thankfully, I woke up before he asked it. Or before I had to answer Daphne.
Two of the Norwegians were gone. The English speaker was still there. I tried to make conversation. “No names. No talk.” That was all I got. Well, I thought, they’re used to Englishmen, I can’t really blame them. He made some awful coffee and we ate bread and cheese. When I made a face after trying the coffee, they both laughed. “Ersatz.” The German word for a manufactured substitute for any item unavailable due to wartime shortages had become slang for anything fake. I didn’t ask what was in the brew.
There was a single knock at the door. They both grabbed their Sten guns and stood at the head of the stairs. A voice spoke to them in Norwegian. They answered and returned to the table frowning.
“No ferry today. Germans stop all boats. Search Nesna. Is not good.”
“Is not good for us?” I asked, wanting to know how serious this was.
“No. Good for us. Search Nesna for British fliers. Boat. . . .” He tried to think of the right words in English.
“The fliers the boat was to pick up?” I asked slowly.
“Yes. Boat not pick up.”
“How do the Germans know about the fliers?”
He shrugged. “Someone talk too much. Maybe they have boat crew. They talk too much. Maybe.”
“Why is it good for us?”
“Germans will find British fliers. Eight men too many to hide. Then they stop search. Then we go. Easy.”
“Easy is good,” I said.
“Yes! Easy is good!” He smiled as if pleased with a new way to say “is good.” I didn’t. I thought about eight bomber crewmen who were going to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp, in the service of justice. My justice.
We sat around after breakfast. I cleaned my .45 and dressed in dry clothes. That was the highlight of my day, until someone brought some more food, bottles of beer, and the news that the British fliers had been captured. The search was off. We drank a toast to our good fortune. For them, the war was over. Is good for us.
We took the ferry the next morning. There were German sentries at the ferry landing, but they were inattentive. Probably all searched out. There were other fishermen and locals on the ferry and we didn’t attract any attention. We walked through town and up a steep road to a farm-house. They stashed me in a hayloft, inside a long stone barn, above the cows. As hiding places go, I’d smelled better, but it was warm. My escorts brought me more bread a
nd cheese from the house, and a bottle of apple juice.
“I must go fish,” my friend told me. “We go. Good luck.” We shook hands and he left me alone in the barn.
For the next four days, I was moved in small leaps westward, toward Leirfjord. Always by somebody different, sometimes through the woods, other times on the road, via horse cart or on foot. I didn’t see a single German. I didn’t make any more friends either, although one farmer lent me a razor and his wife heated water for a bath. That might have been in their own self-interest, though. Either way, it felt good. There was always enough to eat—plain food, usually dried fish, cheese, bread, a few eggs, and even butter. I walked so much that I sacked out easily enough each night, usually in a barn or a small cabin in the woods. Never in anybody’s home. They could always claim they didn’t know about the American gangster hiding in their barn, but if the Germans found me in a house, it meant a bullet in the head for the owners.
On the day before the planned meeting between Anders and Rolf, I found myself on a country road with an old Norwegian farm woman. Her horse cart was filled with milk cans, and we slowly clip-clopped through the town of Leirfjord before dawn, heading east. Without speaking a word, she pulled up on the reins and stopped her horse. She pointed in the direction of a well-worn dirt path that disappeared into a stand of pine trees. I got down, smiled, and waved. She shook her head and must’ve said “giddyup” in Norwegian, since the horse quickly started down the road. The creak of the wooden wheels, the sound of the empty metal milk cans clunking against each other, and the rhythmic sounds of the horses’ hooves faded as the road curved to the left, off into a deep pine forest. In a minute I was alone. It was quiet. I looked around. Green fields and meadows of wildflowers stretched out on either side of the road. Steep mountains rose up around the little valley. Pine forests climbed halfway up the mountains, then pale gray rock took over, jutting up into a beautiful clear blue sky with lazy white clouds drifting across it. The air smelled clean and fresh, the smell of the outdoors. A bird sang. I took a deep breath, turned, and began my hike up to the hut. To kill a man.
CHAPTER ▪ TWENTY-FIVE
JENS HAD SAID IT would take an hour to reach the hut. Well, maybe for him, but we didn’t have mountains in Boston and I wasn’t used to this. I had to stop a few times and catch my breath. It was pretty steep, with lots of switchbacks and boulders to scramble over. After about two hours I spotted the hut up ahead. By my count it was July 21st and Rolf wasn’t due to show up until the next day. I decided to play it safe, in case Rolf was early or Anders was trigger-happy. I watched the place for a while. Finally I saw Anders emerge and go around to the side of the hut. He was dressed in civilian clothes, dark green pants with suspenders over a heavy gray shirt. A woodman’s work outfit. I began to hear the sound of an ax hitting hard wood; he was splitting firewood.
I walked up to the hut, watching each step, trying not to make a sound. I reached the door, still hearing the sound of the ax, and of pieces of wood falling into a pile of kindling. Another swing of the ax, and I stepped around the side of the hut, my arms outstretched to show I wasn’t a threat.
“Anders—”
I stopped. A revolver pointed square at my chest. The ax was sunk into a stump that had a pile of wood next to it. Anders stood behind the stump, facing me, with two hands gripping the gun, knees slightly bent, in a classic shooter’s pose. I had as much chance as a paper target at ten paces, if he fired.
“Anders, don’t shoot. It’s me, Billy.” He didn’t speak or relax. But he didn’t shoot either, so I figured I was ahead of the game. A quizzical expression replaced the grim look on his face, as he tried to take in what he was seeing and hearing.
“Why are you here?”
“It’s a long story, Anders—”
“Who is with you?”
“I’m alone.”
He looked skeptical. He also looked all around, resting his darting eyes on me every couple of seconds. I didn’t move a muscle.
“All right, you’re alone. Are you armed?”
Funny question, I thought.
“Not enough to suit me. Just my .45.” I opened my jacket to show him. The gun stayed aimed at my chest.
“Let’s go inside.” He casually pointed at the hut with the revolver. It wasn’t aimed at me anymore, but it wasn’t back in his holster either. He let me precede him, opened the door and motioned for me to enter first. I didn’t think he was being polite. The hut was one open room, with a table and chairs, a bench in front of the hearth on the left where a woodstove served for cooking and heating, and a couple of beds along the other wall. There were windows on either side of the door and one at the back. It was a nice place in the mountains, except for the gun in my back.
“Have a seat, Billy.” I sat at one end of the table and he poured a glass of water from a wooden jug and placed it in front of me. One-handed, since the revolver dangled from his right hand. He walked to the other end of the table and sat down, placing the gun on the table. Within easy reach. I took a drink and put my glass down, within easy reach. It wasn’t as comforting as a gun. The cabin smelled of pine and ashes.
“Don’t get much company up here, Anders?”
He smiled. “I’m very careful about who gets invited here. And you are not on the guest list, Billy. Tell me why you are here, and how you know about this place.” Anders leaned forward, locking his gaze on to me. His arms were folded, his right hand just inches from the revolver.
I didn’t like the way this was going. I knew it would be tricky, coming up on Anders unexpectedly, but I thought that after he saw it was me, there’d be slaps on the back and old home week. Not the third degree, with a gun on the table.
“You could’ve killed me out there, you know.”
“Or you me. In my business, a man sneaking up on a secret location usually means trouble. For me, unless I make it trouble for him.”
“I can explain that. Rolf Kayser is due here tomorrow, right?”
“Yes,” Anders answered. “Why, and how do you know that?”
I relaxed a bit. He was curious—that was better than suspicious. “Jens told me. He told me about this place and how to get to it, and that Rolf Kayser was due to meet you here tomorrow.”
“Yes. The underground brought the message several days ago. I was surprised to learn Rolf himself was meeting me. I didn’t know he was in on this mission. What are you doing here, Billy?” His hand went up to rub his chin. Away from the revolver, a good sign.
“I’ve come because of the murder of Knut Birkeland. And the murder of Daphne Seaton.”
“What! Daphne? Who killed them? Was it Rolf?” Shock and surprise showed on his face, his mouth hanging half open as he tried to take in what I’d told him. Now he was hooked.
“Yes. He also tried to kill Kaz.”
“My God! But Kaz is alive?”
“Barely. Do you know much about the Kayser family?”
“No. What do they have to do with this? Slow down, please, and explain.”
I told him. About the pictures, the explosion, the family fish-oil business. I left out the part about Victoria Brey and how she had seen Anders early on the morning Birkeland had been killed. It didn’t seem necessary, especially with a loaded gun on the table.
“So you must have suspected me also?” Anders asked.
“I did, but I couldn’t see a motive for you. But Kaz found out about Kayser’s property from those propaganda photos.”
“Billy, propaganda is what the other side does. We do public relations. But what about the timing of the murder? Didn’t you say that it took place while Rolf was out shooting with the king?”
I told him my theory. He sat back and thought a while.
“Yes, it all fits, except for the note. How could Rolf have gotten Knut to write such a note? He was hardly the type of man to give in to intimidation.”
“I don’t know for sure, but I got an idea when Jens doctored my orders.”
I told him abou
t how we had concocted a new set of orders authorizing this trip.
“So you are not here officially? Only Jens knows you are here, and he could be court-martialed if his collusion became known?”
I hadn’t looked at it that way before. I didn’t like the direction the conversation had taken.
“I’m sure he’s told Harding by now. Both he and Major Cosgrove must be aware of it.”
Anders spread his fingers on the rough wood table. It was marked with cigarette burns around the edges; a thin layer of varnish had long ago faded into the grain. He looked at the tabletop, as if it held an answer to a question. Then he looked up at me.
“Billy, you are playing a dangerous game. You are on a secret mission within a secret mission. You could be betrayed and no one would ever know.”
“Except my betrayer.”
“Yes. For some, that would be a burden. For others, a relief. Tell me, why have you come?”
“For Rolf Kayser.”
“I didn’t ask for whom. Why?”
“He’s a killer. A murderer. He killed for his own gain first, and then to cover it up, he killed Daphne. He’ll probably escape into a new identity and never be brought to justice if I don’t stop him.”
“Billy, people are being killed every day. Innocent or not. By accident or design. Bombs fall from the sky on cities all across Europe. Ships sink. Soldiers are shot, blown apart, maimed. Think how meaningless those two deaths are in the midst of all this killing.”
“They’re not meaningless to me. I knew Daphne. I know what she wanted out of life. What she’ll never have. What Kaz has lost. I don’t know all those other people. There’s nothing I can do about that. That’s war.”
“But justice for one person, that you can do something about?”
“Yes, I can. I have to.”
“Why? Why you?”
Fair question. One night, long enough after his shooting that we didn’t think about it all the time, I was having a beer with Dad down at Kirby’s. We were finishing up, about to head home for supper, when I blurted it out. I asked him what Basher had given him that day when they argued and he had thrown the package away. He knew I was asking a bigger question, but those were the only words I could get my mouth to utter.