Enemies and Traitors: The Norsemen's War: Book One - Teigen and Selby (The Hansen Series 1)

by Kris Tualla

  “Quisling’s starting to panic,” Oskar Jung stated to the small group of seasoned teachers at their lunch table.

  Teigen was spreading the remainder of his liver sausage on the last and admittedly stale piece of lefse from his mother. “How do you know?”

  “I know a man who knows a man.” Oskar winked. “He says a member of Quisling’s office is feeding information to the resistance.”

  Teigen chuckled and looked at Jorgen Lasse. “Do you believe this man who knows a man?”

  The middle-aged Norseman sporting a halo of gray grinned back at him. “Well, we can’t believe the radio or newspaper, so I suppose we have to believe in something.”

  Teigen lifted one shoulder in agreement. “So tell us more, Oskar.”

  The principal’s eyes twinkled. “There have been thousands of letters of declination pouring into Quisling’s Norwegian Teachers Union, and Reichskommissar Terboven knows all about it.”

  Teigen’s eyebrows shot upward in surprise. “How many thousands?”

  “Eight. Nine. Maybe more.” Oskar ate a large bite of his fried potato klubb and talked while he chewed. “That’s about three-quarters of all the teachers in Norway.”

  Jorgen blew a whistle of appreciation. “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “He can’t arrest us all, that’s for sure.” Teigen licked his fingers and said another silent prayer of thanks for his mother’s thoughtfulness.

  Oskar’s secretary Sophia entered the lunchroom in a flurry of waving arms and rapid steps. “Overlærer Jung! We’ve just received word!”

  Oskar turned in his seat to face Sophia. “Word about what?”

  The secretary thrust an official-looking paper in his face. “Minister-President Quisling has ordered all the schools to close. For the entire month of March.”

  “Close?” Teigen and Jorgen blurted in tandem.

  “Why?” Oskar’s eyes moved over the paper and his lips moved as he read silently.

  “Is this a punishment for the teachers protesting?” Teigen looked at Jorgen and spoke the first thing that came to his mind. “So we lose a month’s wages?”

  “What about the children?” Sophie’s hands worked around each other in an unending chase. “Where will they go when their parents are at work?”

  Oskar snorted his disgust. “Clearly that pompous idiot hasn’t thought this through. Those parents are going to be furious if they have to forgo their own livelihoods and stay home with their school-aged children as a result.”

  “My senior students are preparing to take their university exams,” Jorgen grumbled. “They can’t spend a leisurely month forgetting what they’ve learned.”

  Teigen leaned closer to the science department’s chairman. “I’m willing to help you tutor them while we’re banished, if you’d like.”

  Jorgen nodded. “Thank you, Teigen.”

  “I am, too,” offered Dierks Halle, the senior physics teacher who had been listening without comment up to this point. “I’ll go crazy if I have to stay at home cooped up with my wife and kids for a whole month.”

  Oskar folded the notification and tucked it inside his coat. “I can’t believe this—especially in the winter. What a consummate ass.”

  *****

  The students were told what was officially happening, and then sent home to inform their parents that they were not welcome back into the building until April first. In the hasty staff gathering which followed, Oskar casually mentioned that teachers were free to secretly tutor students if they were asked to do so in the meantime.

  Judging by the looks they gave each other, the teachers at Oslo Secondary School were bright enough to understand the veiled suggestion.

  They also understood that those who would receive the illegal tutoring should be communicated with privately to keep that information from accidentally falling on German ears.

  “What about our wages?” the music teacher asked.

  Oskar looked like he aged ten years with the unwelcome question. “If the school is paid, you’ll be paid. Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “At least I can give lessons,” the tall, thin man mumbled as he turned around and pushed his way out of the room.

  When the meeting ended, Teigen returned to his classroom and packed up everything in his desk that he didn’t want to go missing in his absence. The school was to be locked, of course, but he knew as well as anyone that the Nazi soldiers would pilfer whatever they found remotely interesting in the process.

  They think they own the damn place.

  Teigen carried a box of personal items to the boarding house in the waning afternoon light and then hurried back to the school to collect textbooks for the tutoring he volunteered to do.

  As he selected the necessary books and thought about the coming weeks, he wondered how he would handle the isolation of his increasingly singular situation.

  Teigen had met Elsa soon after finishing his university training and accepting the teaching position at Oslo Secondary. She was just twenty years old and still a student, but he was a twenty-two-year-old full-grown man with his first real job.

  That was five years ago, before Hitler turned the world upside down. Three years later they were planning a wedding. Now, two years after that plan was literally blown up, he was alone.

  With his few leisure hours taken up with the beautiful Elsa Borg, Teigen hadn’t made many friends in Oslo. Sure, he was acquainted with the men and women he worked with, but his focus had always been on keeping ahead of his students first, and keeping Elsa happy second.

  “What will you do with your time now, Teig?” he chided himself as he tucked one of each of his science textbooks into the box. “You have a whole month to fill.”

  He rested his hands on his hips and turned a slow circle in the classroom, evaluating what else he should grab while he could. His gaze rested on a hinged and locked case of basic chemicals used for classroom experiments.

  Yes.

  That.

  “I don’t know why, but it seems like a good idea for you to come with me,” he said to the wooden box as he grabbed the leather handle. “Let’s see what we can do with you.”

  March 23, 1942

  “Make bombs?”

  The question was so fervent that Teigen had to laugh. “We could, yes, but that won’t be on your exams.”

  “Come on, Nilsson. Do what the book says to do and stop fooling around.” Jorgen pointed at the instructions. “We have to be out of here in forty-five minutes.”

  Jorgen had been able to talk one of the Lutheran pastors into letting him and Teigen use the enclosed storage space behind the altar for tutoring during the day. But they were limited to just four hours each afternoon.

  The arrangement made sense. If the Nazi soldiers patrolling the city popped into the church, they wouldn’t see or hear anything. And if the boys were stopped either going in or coming out they would claim they were catching up on their catechism classes while the schools were closed. If questioned, Father Haldstrom would earnestly confirm their story.

  Teigen and Jorgen, on the other hand, entered and exited through the basement, one at a time, wearing work clothes and carrying their teaching supplies in worn metal toolboxes. Holding class while the schools were closed was strictly forbidden under Quisling’s governmental policies; consequently the men needed to be cautious.

  Three weeks had passed since all of the schools in Norway had been shuttered and, if Oskar Jung’s friend-of-a-friend was trustworthy, the tens of thousands of protest letters from the teachers was a light sprinkle compared to the overwhelming deluge from outraged parents.

  “I think they’ve lost count,” Oskar said over a stein of weak beer in his dining room. “But my informant claims it’s twenty times the number, based on the space the letters take up.”

  Teigen clunked his mug against Jorgen’s. “Reichskommissar Terboven can’t be pleased with his incompetent Norwegian counterpart.”

  Jorgen snorted a derisiv
e laugh. “And the idiot has only been in power for seven weeks!”

  “How are your students doing?” Oskar asked.

  “Other than demanding to learn how to build a bomb, they are coming along. Maybe I’ll dangle that knowledge as a promise if they pass their exams.” Teigen flashed a grin and sipped his beer.

  Jorgen shook his head. “Be careful, Teigen. Even jokes can be turned against you.”

  Teigen felt his cheeks flush. “That’s all it was. A joke.”

  “I know.” Jorgen scowled at him. “But those joking words in the minds and mouths of teenage boys can be much more dangerous than an actual bomb.”

  Oskar lifted his mug. “To parents! And their outrage!”

  The jarring toast was an obvious attempt to return the conversation to its previously optimistic tone and halt the burgeoning argument between the colleagues.

  Jorgen’s smile was strained. “To parents.”

  Teigen lifted his mug. “Yes. To parents.”

  March 24, 1942

  Someone was pounding on Teigen’s door. His head ached from both the evening’s earlier beer and the conversation that took a sudden turn, stealing the camaraderie from the trio.

  The pounding became more insistent.

  “Hold on!” Teigen bellowed. He pulled his pants over the long underwear he slept in, tucked his tee-shirt into the waistband, and grabbed last night’s thick wool sweater from its resting place on the floor.

  He was still sticking his arm through the sweater’s second sleeve when he opened the door. What waited so impatiently on the other side nearly buckled his knees.

  The stern pair of brown-uniformed SS officers was well-armed, and their appearance in the middle of the night could not be good by any stretch of the imagination. “Teigen Jakob Hansen?”

  Teigen nodded and straightened his sweater.

  One of the officers squinted at him. “You are Jewish?”

  The question caught Teigen off guard. “What? No. Why do you ask that?”

  “Jakob is Jewish name,” he answered in broken Norse.

  Teigen decided to take the offensive. He lifted one brow as he spoke. “I was named after an ancestor. A royal knight who served both King Christian the Second and England’s King Henry the Eighth.” He paused. “You do know of them?”

  The second officer snarled. “Get your boots.”

  Teigen didn’t move. “Where are we going?”

  The answer was a fast and hard fist to his belly.

  Teigen bent in half and stumbled backwards, struggling to inhale.

  Chapter

  Four

  March 24, 1942

  Bergen, Norway

  Selby Hovland stared at herself in the mirror, unsmiling and evaluative. In spite of the perfectly coifed platinum blonde hair, pale blue eyes lined in dramatic black, and lipstick as red as Eve’s apple, the image looking back at her was hardened beyond her twenty-eight years.

  The role she played was draining. If she hadn’t hated men as much as she did, she would have quit a long time ago.

  Or never started in the first place.

  Selby closed her eyes, drew a deep breath and held it, then spritzed expensive French perfume on her bare throat. The SS officer she was meeting tonight gave her the silly luxury, hoping she would repay him by giving him freedom with her body.

  Typical behavior of all of them.

  Selby had lines that she absolutely would not cross, and that was the most resolute of them. Intimate but playful caresses were her limit, and the fact that the Royal Shakespearean Acting Troupe never stayed too long in any one town kept her many powerful connections from becoming too serious.

  It was the hope that the next time they saw her, they might finally convince her to give in, that kept her carefully selected Nazi officers faithfully coming to the stage door in every town the troupe performed in.

  Liberal amounts of aquavit made certain they couldn’t consummate even if they grew overly insistent.

  Between the ample liquor and her sultry flirtations, tongues were loosened and secrets spilled. Selby was very good in all of her roles.

  She opened her eyes and set the perfume bottle on her dressing table. Another deep breath, a shake of her shoulders, and a swallow of her revulsion were followed by blazing smile and a complete transformation of her countenance.

  “Are you ready, Selby ‘Sunde’?” She adjusted her breasts to deepen the valley between them. “It’s show time.”

  Selby stood, lifted her Arctic fox coat from a nearby bench, and opened her dressing room door.

  *****

  “Miss Sunde! Miss Sunde! Over here!”

  Camera bulbs flashed in Selby’s eyes, leaving jagged blue blotches of blindness in her vision. She smiled through it all, knowing that she must appear beautiful, happy, and approachable in case the photos were ever printed in Norwegian magazines or newspapers. She was, after all, a bit of optimistic celebrity in a country buried in brown oppression.

  Selby tightened her grip on Dahl’s arm as the lead actor from their troupe steadied her at the top of the stairs. Together they descended the icy steps from the stage door platform into the crowd of brown-uniformed soldiers and wealthy Norwegians waiting behind the theater.

  With one last squeeze of thanks, Selby kissed Dahl on the cheek, then turned an inquiring gaze over the crowd.

  There he is.

  Captain Rolf Schmidt grinned at her from the far side of the enthusiastic admirers. In another world, Selby might have thought of the forty-ish man as handsome. Maybe even kind. But they lived in this war-shaped world and Rolf was just one more grasping German SS officer, and thus the physical embodiment of pure evil.

  Selby flashed him a mischievous smile and held out her arms.

  Rolf pressed through the mixed crowd until he stood in front of her. He knocked his heels together and dipped his head. “You look captivating as always, my dear.”

  The warm scent of alcohol stung her nostrils, proving that young Bennett, the troupe’s props manager, had done his job, generously serving the Nazi officer while he waited for the hour she required to remove her costume and stage makeup, and redress in seduction-worthy modern clothes, hair, and makeup.

  “And you are your impressive self, Captain.”

  He gave her a chastising look. “Why must we do this every time, Selby? Call me Rolf.”

  Selby laid her hand on his chest. “You are your impressive self, Rolf.”

  The German kissed her forehead. “Much better.”

  Selby took his elbow and turned him away from the crowd. “Shall we?”

  Someone spat on the ice-rimed sidewalk beside her.

  Rolf stiffened and whirled back toward the crowd. “Watch yourselves,” he growled.

  Selby tugged on his arm. “Let’s just go. Please.”

  “Nazi whore,” someone hissed.

  Rolf pulled back the edge of his uniform’s coat to expose his holstered nine-millimeter Luger and unsnapped the black leather strap. “Be warned. I have no problem shooting into a rebellious crowd.”

  Selby dropped Rolf’s arm and walked away from the theater, prompting him to abandon the gathering and hurry after her.

  The distasteful reaction to her apparent treason was common and expected. To the citizens of Bergen she was nothing more than a mid-rate actress in a traveling troupe; a vapid and ornamental slip of femininity, using her sexuality to survive the occupation.

  None of them could know who she really was: twenty-eight-year-old Selby Hovland of Trondheim, former seamstress, and member of the Norwegian Resistance.

  She escaped Norway soon after the occupation and trained in England with the Special Operations Executive—a force preparing resistance fighters to conduct military operations in their home countries.

  Selby’s lips curved in a wry smile.

  I could probably shoot that Luger with more accuracy than Rolf.

  Hopefully she wouldn’t need to prove that. And even though she embraced the subversive a
nd secretive role she had chosen, the scorn of her countrymen still hurt.

  How could it not.

  “I’m sorry, Selby,” Rolf offered as he draped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “Not everyone understands that we are now living under a new regime.”

  Selby tamped down what she really wanted to say, settling for, “Norsemen are known to be stubborn.”

  Rolf forced a dry chuckle. “They even put us Germans to shame in that arena, I have to admit.”

  She glanced at the captain who was only a few inches taller than her five-foot-eight inches—in tall stiletto pumps. “So where are we going tonight, Rolf?”

  *****

  Selby unlocked the door and slid into the quiet sanctuary of her tidy hotel room. She couldn’t wait to shower away the smoke of the tavern, the stench of Rolf’s cologne, and the feel of his rough palms on her skin.

  The captain had acted the gentleman for the first part of their evening, but the more he drank, the more his hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They slid across the exposed expanse revealed by her low-backed gown. They slipped up her thighs and under the garters holding her silk stockings in place—a gift from another one of her many German suitors.

  Selby gently redirected his hands while stifling her shudder of revolt. Based on her experience men were only nice to women as long as they got what they wanted. Cross them, and you risked your life.

  Selby felt safe enough to do what she did because the men she chose to spend time with were easily plied with alcohol and gladly imbibed to excess. She pretended to meet them glass for glass and flirted with exceptional skill, until they whispered classified answers to her seemingly innocuous questions.