by James R Benn
“Cheery,” I said.
He laughed. “It’s also a story about the theft of gold. Sound familiar? There are many parallels to Europe today. We have our own Engulfer of Corpses, and this is certainly an axe-age and a wolf-age.”
“And men certainly do know misery, some more than others.”
“Some deservedly so, some not.” He gazed out over the fjord with a distant look in his eyes.
“Well,” I said into the silence, “let’s hope tomorrow is Rolf Kayser’s ruin, not the world’s. Or ours.”
Anders put down the book and looked at me. “Remember, Billy, I need Rolf alive. He has information to give me about the Underground Army in Nordland. It is very important. Once I have that, he’s yours.”
“I understand. It should be easy if he doesn’t suspect anything.”
“He may be very careful. He knows that at this rendezvous is the only location anyone in England knows he will be at.”
“Right. But I can’t think of any better way to take him alive.”
Our plan was simple. I would sit right out front tomorrow, dressed in Anders’s British battle dress. I would watch for Rolf coming up the trail. There were several places where it was visible, and with binoculars you could even make out the road below in the valley. As soon as I saw him, I’d wave him up and walk inside the hut before he got too close. Anders would be hidden in the woods, about twenty yards from the hut. He’d have a clear view of Rolf all the way and would follow him inside, once Rolf had gone through the door. Easy.
“Yes,” agreed Anders. “Alive, there is no better way.”
He closed his book.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was another beautiful day. I was surprised at how nice it was this far north, especially after all those rainy and chilly summer days in England. What I did on my summer vacation, I thought idly, remembering childhood September essays. Never anything like this. I leaned back on the bench, so that its front legs came off the ground and my back rested against the hut. I felt the sun warm my face and would’ve taken off the wool jacket I wore if it hadn’t been a disguise. A black bird cawed above me, drifting on the wind with its wings outstretched. I put the binoculars up to my eyes and scanned the road down in the valley for the hundredth time.
There it was. The milk wagon on its morning run. It stopped at the path and a figure got off, dressed in the same British browns I wore. He didn’t stop to wave good-bye to the old lady. I could almost make out the rhythmic metal clanking sounds of the milk cans echoing up the hillsides as the cart wobbled on down the dirt road. I signaled to Anders, who was hiding at the tree line. We were on.
I caught sight of Rolf several times as he hustled up the trail. He was faster than I had been. I made a show of walking back and forth in front of the hut, so he would see me. I guessed he’d signal me as soon as we sighted each other. That was my cue to go into the hut.
Finally, I saw him stop. He put his hand across his brow, to block out the sun. It felt like he was looking straight into my eyes. I waved one arm back and forth in a slow, deliberate motion. He waved back. I changed to a “come on up” motion, and stood watching him for a few minutes. He disappeared and reappeared as the trail dipped and turned. His head bobbed up once and I could almost make out his features. Time to go. I made sure he could see as I opened the door to the hut. I stepped inside and pulled out my automatic, flipped off the safety, and chambered a round. The sharp snick of the slide snapping back was reassuring, comforting in a lethal sort of way. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I felt my heart thumping against my chest and breathed deep again, willing myself to slow down, to listen to every sound outside, and not to my own blood pumping through my veins. I waited.
I stood away from the windows so he couldn’t see me as he approached. I tried to watch the path from the back of the room, but the window was too small. I sat down on the edge of one of the beds, pistol ready. I figured he’d come in tired, expecting to find his friend, and his guard would be down. It should be easy. I told myself that three times. Piece of cake. I waited.
Ten minutes passed. What the hell was he doing? Maybe he was winded and had taken a break. I got up, sneaking a peek out one of the windows. Nothing. I opened the door just a bit and listened. Nothing. A slight breeze blew through the fir trees and made a gentle swishing sound. I stepped outside, onto the stone step below the door, and craned my neck to either side. Nothing. I stepped to the side and looked over to where Anders was hiding. I heard a bird singing, then the flutter of wings as it flew away. The sound of glass breaking was louder than the wind.
I barely had time to realize that sound was completely out of place when a tremendous blast came out of nowhere. My eardrums felt as if they had split. A flash of bright light, then a vortex of glass and wood came fly-ing out of the hut, slamming the partially open door flat against the wall. It knocked me to the ground. Everything was spinning, the hut and the pine trees all revolving as if I were tumbling through space. My gun wasn’t in my hand anymore. I tried to get up. It didn’t work out too well. Dust and debris from the explosion settled over me. Blood from my hands and face made red rivulets in the gray dust. I tried to shake off my confusion; a little voice from the back of my head was telling me to find my gun.
I heard somebody yelling. I looked up and saw Rolf Kayser standing six feet away, Sten gun gripped tightly in his hands, the murderous snub-nosed barrel pointed at my chest. The only thing I had going for me was the look of utter surprise on his face. His dark eyes were wide, and his whole body seemed to be shaking, as if not killing me then and there was causing him to short-circuit.
“Boyle! Gud forbanner De! What are you doing here? Where is Anders?”
I could barely understand him over the ringing in my ears, but I could hear and see his confusion, which at least bought me time.
“Maybe we should start off with why did you try to kill me with that grenade?” I asked as I started to get up. I noticed my. 45 lying a few feet to my right. I took an unsteady step toward it and fell back to my knees as if I was weak, which wasn’t hard to do. This maneuver brought me closer to my piece.
“I didn’t try to kill you, you fool! I came here to kill a traitor. I didn’t expect to find you here. Now, where is Anders?”
Good question, I thought. Rolf advanced until he stood next to me. He kicked at my shoulder with his boot until I was flat on the ground, looking up at him. I could see how tightly his left hand was gripping the magazine of the Sten gun and the little black hairs on his trigger finger. He was unshaven and there were bags under his eyes, so that they looked bruised. I wondered if he had sleepless nights.
“Where is Anders?” he demanded again, through gritted teeth.
“Right here.” The calm voice came from behind me. I could see Rolf’s eyes look up. He didn’t move the Sten gun.
“Well, hello, old friend,” Rolf said, a maniacal smile creeping onto his lips. “I’m sorry this didn’t end quickly, as I had planned.”
“Let him go, Rolf,” Anders said evenly. “There’s been enough killing.”
“Not enough! Not while you live, traitor!”
“Rolf,” I said, “what are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” Rolf demanded, keeping his eyes firmly on Anders and the barrel of the machine gun about twelve inches from my nose. It didn’t inspire me with confidence in our plan.
“Anders, I assume you’ve got him covered, right?”
“Yes, Billy, just as he has you covered.”
“Put the gun down, Anders, or I’ll kill him,” Rolf growled.
“And then me,” Anders answered. “If I am a traitor, why would I care about an American’s life? It’s just one life among many.”
“Boyle,” Rolf said, jabbing the gun at me, “what are you doing here with this turncoat?”
“You came here to kill him?”
“Of course. I am many things, Boyle. You know that much by now. But I’m not a traitor. I know somet
hing about my friend Anders, something I couldn’t tell you back in England.”
“Because it would have incriminated you.”
“Yes. I couldn’t tell you that the night Birkeland died I saw something. I was someplace I wouldn’t have been if what I had told you was true.”
Two and two were adding up pretty fast.
“You saw Anders go into the map room. When you came down from Knut Birkeland’s bedroom. After you killed him.”
For the smallest part of a second his eyes flicked downward toward mine. In a flash they were locked on to Anders again.
“There was no reason for me to have been in that part of the building. I couldn’t risk explaining myself.”
“So you did the next best thing and hid Birkeland’s key in Anders’s room for us to find.”
“I had planned on throwing it into the woods, but then I realized that it might incriminate Anders. If he couldn’t be hung as a traitor, then convicting him of murder would do.”
“Anders,” I asked. “What do you have to say?”
“We all have a part to play here, Billy,” he answered. “Some parts are just more complicated than others.”
I wished I could see Anders’s face, but I could only listen and think fast how to get the muzzle of Rolf’s gun out of mine!
“I am sorry about your friends, Boyle, but I had to get away,” Rolf said. “I know what they found out, and it would have meant my life if I was still in England.”
“So it was their lives instead?”
“This is war, Boyle. I’m trained to kill or be killed. If Anders reached the Germans with the invasion plans, it would mean death for thousands and the end of our hopes of liberation. I have to stop him and I couldn’t do that facing a hangman in England.”
“Just explain one thing to me,” I said. I wanted to keep Rolf talking. If I could get him to take his eyes off Anders long enough, well, I wasn’t sure what would happen. Anders might kill us both. Or not.
“How did you get Birkeland to write that note?”
“That’s all you want to know? You know everything else?”
“I know you never really lost the gold coin. You made up that story so you could leave it next to Birkeland’s body to suggest he was feeling remorse about stealing the gold. I know when you really killed him and how you tried to deceive us about the time of death. I know about Kayser Fisheries and what you hoped to gain. I know about the Tire Bomb. I can guess that you broke Birkeland’s neck with some fancy commando move. I just can’t figure how you got him to write that note.”
“It was simple. He had already written it. I destroyed the first page and left the last.”
That’s it, I thought. Keep talking. Keep telling us how smart you are.
“It was perfect!” He was gloating now. I had seen this before. No matter how smart a criminal, no matter how long he kept his mouth shut, once he started talking, it was hard for him to quit. He had been so clever and had no one to share it with. Once he started, it was too difficult to stop.
“Birkeland was writing his resignation from the government. Remember the page I left you? I know this is a great disappointment. I have always tried to serve Norway and my king as best as I could. This final step is unfortunately necessary given the current situation.
He was handing in his resignation; that was the final step. I knew the king would never accept it, that he would be forced to give Birkeland the senior adviser post instead. I had gone that night to try one last time to convince Birkeland that his policy was ruinous for all of us, for Norway itself. It would have utterly destroyed my family’s business. When he told me about the letter, even showed it to me, I knew what I had to do. It was his death sentence. Now, Lieutenant Boyle, have you come here to arrest me or to let a German spy get away? Make up your mind!” Rolf was sweating now, drops from his brow splashing my face.
“Rolf, put your weapon down!” Anders yelled. “I’ll shoot. Pull that trigger and I’ll shoot. No matter who or what each of us is, we’ve been through too much together for that.”
“Damn you, Anders, or whatever your name is! I wish we’d left you to those ski troops. It would have served you right for your own kind to have killed you!”
“I know I owe you my life, Rolf. That’s why I don’t want to kill you now. Let us each go our own ways.”
“Rolf, listen,” I said, trying to turn down the heat a bit. “I’m a cop but I also know what side I’m on. We can’t let this guy go. He knows too much.”
“True, but so do you. About me.”
“Yeah, but so do Jens and Major Harding and a bunch of others in England by now. If you vanish into the countryside, they’ll never find you. I won’t go after you. That was your plan, right? After you took care of Anders?”
I could see Rolf was confused. His only leverage over Anders was that Anders owed him and didn’t seem to want to kill him. Somehow he had to break the stalemate. I decided it was time to do it for him. I started to crawl toward my gun.
“Rolf, listen. We can’t let this guy go. Let me take him in. The lives of thousands of men depend on it!” I said.
“Stop! I’m warning you,” Rolf shouted. He was straddling me, the gun barrel shaking in his hands. I stopped inches away from my. 45.
“Rolf,” Anders yelled, “we can still work this out!”
“Rolf, let me help you!” I yelled at the same time.
“Stop! Stop it!” He was yelling, trying to drown out the voices that were confusing him. His hands were shaking. I watched his face. Involuntarily, his eyes squeezed shut for a second as he screamed.
I extended my arm and grabbed the automatic, in one motion bringing it up and firing into Rolf’s chest. I fired again as his mouth opened in shock. His eyes flickered back and forth between Anders and me. He staggered and tried to shift the barrel of the Sten back to me. I fired again and didn’t stop until he fell over on top of me, the Sten gun going off as he fell, kicking up dirt and rocks into my face, his ruined bloody chest hitting me like a side of slaughtered beef.
The next thing I remember, Rolf had been rolled off me and Anders was washing my face with a wet rag. I was covered in blood. It hurt.
“Can you get up, Billy?”
I tried to focus on him. It was hard to see.
“I think so.” I rolled over, got to my knees, and let Anders help me the rest of the way. He sat me on the bench.
“I’ll get you some water to wash your eyes out with. You’ve got powder burns on your face and dirt in your eyes, as well as cuts and bruises.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked as he brought back a pitcher of water.
“About twenty minutes.”
“You could have been long gone by now. What if some of Rolf’s men came along?”
“Waiting here is not as dangerous as what you did, Billy.”
“Something had to give. I could see he was getting shaky. We were about to lose control.”
I looked over to Rolf’s body. Things were clearing but still a little out of focus. He was a blurry mass of red. It was almost funny. He had come here to do the right thing, to be a good Norwegian soldier and save his country. Instead he’d gotten killed for doing the wrong thing, to the wrong person. I might have been tempted to let him get away with killing Birkeland, but I had to avenge Daphne.
The weapons had all vanished except for a Sten gun slung over Anders’s shoulder. As he set down the pitcher of water on the bench, he let it hang there, like an afterthought.
“I’d say we’re even. You’re a German spy yet you didn’t gun both of us down. That would have been a simple solution for you.”
“Simple, yes. Right, no.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked, feeling a pang of guilt at talking so matter-of-factly with the enemy.
“I think, Billy, that is a very difficult question for you and me at the moment.”
We sat there a while. There wasn’t much more to say. He got up. “I have to go, Billy. With all this
shooting, someone may come up here.”
“Your side or mine?”
“Perhaps we both need to leave. In opposite directions.” Anders went inside the ruined hut. He came out with a blanket and laid it over Rolf.
“Whatever he was, and whatever I am, we were once comrades.” After a minute he went inside and returned with Rolf’s Sten gun and my pistol. He laid them on a rock, removed the clips, and tossed them down the trail. Far enough that by the time I found them, he’d be long gone in the opposite direction. He walked over to me. He had on an old green wool sweater and was wearing a small pack.
“I’m going over the mountain, Billy. Can you make it down the trail?”
“Yeah, I can make it.”
“You have a plan to get back home?”
“Home? No. England? Maybe. I probably shouldn’t say too much about that.”
He laughed. “We both should probably not say too much about this entire affair.”
“I can’t promise what I’ll say,” I said, thinking about how I’d explain all this if I ever got back to England.
“I understand, Billy.” He smiled weakly and reached into his pocket.
“Please accept this gift from Captain Karl Fredriksen.” He handed me the book of poetry. The Edda, it said on the cover, which displayed three Viking warriors holding their shields proudly.
“Karl. OK, Karl. Take care of yourself.” He walked away, then stopped and turned.
“There’s one thing I’d like you to know, Billy. This whole operation was my own idea, to get my father out of Dachau. He’s an opponent of the regime. Not anybody important, just an old man who complained too often and too loudly to the wrong people. He fought in the last war, and did not wish to see his son fight in another.”
“Yeah, same with my father.”
“The difference, Billy, is that in my country opposition meant imprisonment. The Nazis do not like anyone to speak as their conscience dictates.”
“How are you going to get him out?”