The Saboteur

by Andrew Gross

  The Quisling’s scream was drowned out by the heavily churning engines as the Telemark Sun, chugging at ten knots per hour, pulled farther away.

  “Heil Hitler to you, as well!” Jens called after him, extending his arm.

  There was barely a noise as he hit the water.

  But someone must have seen him from the decks. Suddenly there were shouts. “Man overboard! Someone in the water!”

  On the top deck, people ran to the railing, pointing. The alarm began to sound, a big booming whorl, whorl. Passengers rushed out to see what was happening.

  The frigid March waters were probably no more than thirty-five or -six degrees, Nordstrum figured, and, coupled with the weight of the Quisling’s now water-sodden coat dragging the struggling man down, even the strongest of swimmers wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes before he succumbed.

  People were shouting now, gesturing toward the water. “Save him!” Two of the crew ran to the stern, one of them holding a life preserver and untying a coil of rope. Bravely, he climbed onto the rail, readying himself to throw it. “Hold on!” he called to the drowning man. But it was pointless to hurl it now; they were too far away.

  The boat’s engines slowed as the ship slowly came about. People streamed to the lower deck, passengers and crew, pointing toward the water as the Quisling struggled and flailed, the weight of his jacket and medals dragging him under.

  “Someone do something!” a woman yelled. “Help him!”

  “It’s the Quisling,” another said.

  “Oh. Let the bastard swim then.”

  One member of the crew gamely removed his jacket, about to dive in. Nordstrum held the man back. “Let him be.”

  “Let him be, sir?” The crewman looked aghast. “The man’s drowning.”

  “He’s not drowning.” Nordstrum shrugged. “He’s swimming.” And when the puzzled seaman looked back in confusion, Nordstrum told him again, “Just let him be.”

  In the minutes it took for the ferry to make a sweeping turn and come around, the Quisling had disappeared. All that was left was his gray, billed officer’s cap, bobbing on the surface.

  A woman crossed herself. “He’s gone.”

  The captain, a gray-bearded man in a thick sweater, finally made his way down from the bridge. “What the hell’s happened here?”

  Nordstrum shrugged and met the seaman’s gaze. “He wanted to take a swim. Who were we to hold him back?”

  “Take a swim…?” The captain glared accusingly. “There’ll be hell to pay when we make land.”

  “He was a fucking Quisling,” Nordstrum said. “Any problem with it?”

  People huddled around, on the main deck and on the deck above, staring.

  The captain’s eyes slowly drifted to the place in the water where the officer’s body had gone down. Then he looked back at Nordstrum and spat into the lake. “No problem at all.”

  No one uttered a sound.

  “Full speed ahead,” he shouted up to the bridge. “We’ve got a schedule to maintain.”

  2

  An hour later, at a café called The Gunwale along the wharf in the tiny village of Mael, Nordstrum, Jens, and Einar Skinnarland sat at a table having beers. The town was barely larger than a few docks and a rail depot, where cargo from the Norsk Hydro chemical factory in Vemork was carted down the mountain and loaded onto the ferries.

  Nursing his Carlsberg, Nordstrum noticed the surprising number of Germans in town, which made him uneasy. Up to now, any Germans he encountered this close, he usually killed.

  “You have to get used to it,” Einar said. “Things have changed since you’ve last been here.”

  “I hope I never get used to it,” Nordstrum said, his eyes roaming to the Germans milling about freely.

  “Before we start, I just wanted to say, Marte and I were very sorry to hear about Anna-Lisette.” Einar gave him a nod.

  “It’s war.” Nordstrum shrugged. “Things like that happen. But thank you. Tell Marte the same for me.”

  “It may be war, but it’s still a fucking shame. And what’s the word on your father?” Einar asked.

  “Not well, from what I hear.” Nordstrum’s father had been a train mechanic for twenty years, and now ran the small farm on the edge of town where Nordstrum had grown up. “Working around all that coal has finally gotten the better of him.”

  “I’m sorry to hear.”

  “Maybe you can get word to him for me. Let him know I’m okay.”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

  Nordstrum took a swig of beer. “Not since the war. Two years.”

  “Two years … A lot’s changed in two years. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “I’d be in your debt,” said Nordstrum. “But, more important, tell me, how is your son?” Karl was merely a baby when Nordstrum had seen him last.

  “Booming.” Einar’s face lit up with pride. “He’s going on three now. His vocabulary’s already larger than mine.”

  “Now that’s not much of a surprise,” Nordstrum said with a grin, and took another sip of beer.

  Einar laughed obligingly. “And we already have him up on skis.”

  “Of course. Like any Northman. He’ll be beating you down the Hawk’s Nest before you know it. And then, he’ll—” Nordstrum stopped mid-sentence as his gaze shifted to two SS officers who took seats at a table at the opposite end of the café. They were polite and removed their caps. The proprietor of the place hurried over to them with napkins and silverware. “Look over there.”

  “Relax.” Einar shrugged. “You don’t have to worry about them. They’re far too busy to care about us. It’s the stinking Quisling militia you’ve got to worry about. They’ve got their noses in everything now.”

  “Well, we know one less you’ll have to pay attention to.” Jens sniffed, pushing a blond curl off his forehead.

  “How do you mean?”

  “There was one on the ferry putting the fear of God into some woman and her boy, probably a poor Jew on the run,” Nordstrum explained. “Anyway, he had this sudden urge for a swim.”

  “A swim? It’s freezing in the lake this time of year.”

  “You know these Quislings.…” Nordstrum’s face barely twitched. “Hard to stop them when they get their minds set on something.”

  “Jesus…!” Einar’s eyes went wide and he said under his breath, “You sent him over the side. What are you trying to do, hang a sign around your neck, ‘Come and get me—I’m right here’?”

  “Couldn’t be helped,” Nordstrum said with a glance toward the Germans.

  “These bastards…” Einar sipped his beer with an eye to the soldiers as well. “They’re all over, like fucking crickets in June. Rjukan’s overrun with them.”

  “Rjukan?” Rjukan was Nordstrum’s home, about as unstrategic a place as could be. “Why here?”

  “The Norsk Hydro plant. Up in Vemork. They’ve got something big going on up there.”

  “Norsk Hydro? I thought all they made up there was fertilizer,” Jens chimed in.

  “Ammonium nitrate.” Einar nodded. “But that’s all small potatoes now. Now it’s run by the Germans.” Nordstrum gave him a look of surprise. “All very top secret. It’s actually why I asked you here.”

  He reached into his pocket and took out something, careful to conceal it from the German officers on the other side of the café, who had ordered sardines and beer.

  It was a toothpaste tube, halfway rolled up.

  “Trying to tell me something, Einar?” Nordstrum said. “I know I’ve been up in the hills a long time.”

  “Perhaps. But this one’s likely the most important tube of toothpaste in all of Europe. It was smuggled to me by Jomar Brun. He’s the chief engineer at Norsk Hydro. There’s something inside it.” Einar took a cautionary glance at the Germans, who were trying to gain the waiter’s attention for two more glasses of beer. “Microfilm.”

  “Microfilm?” Chief engineer was an important job, Nord
strum thought, and the Norsk Hydro factory was one of the largest operations in all of Norway. It was built into the narrow gorge a mile up the valley, since the rivers and cataracts that came down from the vidda were an excellent source of hydroelectric power. Truth was, the Norsk Hydro plant was the only reason Rjukan even existed as a town in the first place.

  “He says we have to get it into the hands of Leif Tronstad, Kurt. That it’s a matter of the highest importance.”

  “Tronstad?” The name got Nordstrum’s complete attention. “Tronstad’s in England, is he not?” Leif Tronstad was a world-renowned scientist whose name was known to most Norwegians. In fact, he had run the Norsk Hydro plant years earlier, before he escaped to London. Word was, he was a leader in the Free Norwegian Army there now. Nordstrum inspected the tube. If Tronstad needed to see this, one could be sure it was of the utmost importance. He handed it back to Einar. “Microfilm, huh? Of what?”

  “Brun would only say that it was vital to get it safely into Tronstad’s hands in the fastest possible way. He knew I had contacts.” He put the tube back into his pocket.

  “Getting to England isn’t exactly an easy thing, Einar.” Nordstrum took a pencil and sketched a map on his napkin. “Sweden would be the best route. But that’s not an easy journey. The sun may be shining here, but in the mountains it’s still winter. And even if you make it there, through the storms and German patrols, there’s still no guarantee.”

  “That’s why I contacted you, Kurt. You know the way. You’re at your best up there on the vidda. I’m hoping you’ll come with me.”

  “With you? You’re an engineer, Einar, not an agent. You belong in the field, checking for cracks on dams, not playing with guns. Besides, you have a family to take care of. It’s two hundred and fifty kilometers to Charlottenberg.” The town closest to the Swedish border. “You’re truly willing to take this on?’

  “I can hold my own as well as any in the mountains, Kurt. Brun said it was vital. And besides…” He trailed off.

  “Besides, what…?” Nordstrum took another sip of beer.

  “Besides,” Einar gave him a smile, “I already took my full vacation allotment to do this. Twelve days. If I can make it back by then, they’ll never even know I was gone.”

  “Twelve days…” Nordstrum shook his head. “Even if you do make it, I can promise it won’t be much of a vacation. Does Marte know?”

  Nordstrum knew her from back in school. Pretty and no pushover. His friend had chosen well in that department.

  “The country needs this, Kurt. Maybe the world needs this. So yes, I am prepared. But I’d be a damn sight happier if I had you along with me. And, of course, you too, Jens, if you’re game?”

  Jens shrugged. “I’m game for whatever the sergeant here says.…” He took a swig of beer, leaving a foam mustache on his lip.

  “Sergeant?” Einar widened his eyes. “I’m not surprised.”

  “All it means is that I can point a rifle and pull the trigger.” Nordstrum waved it off.

  “Still, I’m sure you’ve seen some things.” Einar’s eyes grew serious and Nordstrum knew exactly what he meant.

  “We’ve all seen some things, Einar.” He nodded grimly. “But getting across the vidda is no easy feat. You know the difficulties. Storms, German patrols. It surely won’t be twelve days, no matter how we ski.”

  The weather on the vidda could change in an instant. There would be days when travel would be next to impossible. They’d have to arrange food, clothing. “And even if we get to Sweden,” Nordstrum took a sip of beer, “what do we do, just put out a hand and hail a taxi to England?”

  “Brun felt certain he could arrange transport for us through the British embassy in Stockholm,” Einar said.

  “He felt certain, did he? You know if you’re caught by the militia there they just ship you right back. And there are Germans waiting with big smiles and their hands out on the other side of the border to pick you up. It’s what almost happened to me.”

  “I know all that,” Einar said. “But I’m still going. With you or not.”

  Nordstrum shook his head and sniffed, as if it were folly. He knew his name was on a list of fighters in the resistance. Lately, it was getting far too dangerous here. It was only a matter of time before he and Jens ended up shot or handed over to the wrong side. And Tronstad … A true hero. A man the whole country admired. And it would be good to join up with the Free Norwegian Army there and one day return to take his country back for good. As part of a real fighting force. That was the true new front in this war, the way to make a real difference.

  “The fastest way, you said…,” said Nordstrum, thinking.

  Einar smiled, his hope rising. “Yes.”

  Nordstrum tapped his index finger against the table. “And you’re one hundred percent willing to put your life at risk and take this on? Who knows when you’ll be able to make it back?”

  “In my view, the importance far outweighs the risk,” the engineer said. “So, yes.”

  “And you’re in as well, I assume?” Nordstrum turned to Jens. “Though in your case, I know I hardly need to ask.”

  “I don’t exactly have a vacation to devote to it,” Jens said. “But my dance card is surprisingly free.”

  “All right then … In that case, the fastest way to England would be by ship,” Nordstrum said, turning to Einar.

  “Ship…? Across the North Sea? That’s crazier than the vidda.” Then, as he ran the thought in his head, his eyes grew brighter. “It would certainly have to be a large one.” He seemed to be warming to the idea.

  “So what did you tell them at your job that you’d be doing while on vacation?” Nordstrum drained the last of his beer.

  “A few days of skiing … Helping out a bit with the kids…”

  “Maybe instead you should have told them you were thinking of going on a cruise.

  “Three more!” Nordstrum called to the proprietor with a friendly wave toward the table of Germans, who raised their mugs back to him. “We’re Vikings, aren’t we?” His gaze drifted to the wharf. “For Vikings there are always ships.”

  3

  The road out of Rjukan toward Vigne was usually quiet after dark. Nordstrum huddled in the shadow of the stone wall that ran from the church to the border of his father’s farm. The old stabbur wooden farmhouse, situated on four hectares, that Nordstrum grew up in was built in the traditional Norwegian style: a narrow first floor suitable for storing grain and hanging meat, and larger living quarters situated on top. Tonight, the house was dark. The room Nordstrum had as a boy was over the front door and faced the street. His father still kept a couple of Telemark cows on the property and a few hens, which his mother had tended when she was alive. After she died, when Nordstrum was only twelve, his father took his pension from the railway company and retired to the farm. In his tastes, Alois Nordstrum was a simple man, but in action, he was as large as anyone Nordstrum knew. A man who could sustain himself for weeks alone on the vidda in winter with only his hands and his wits. He taught Nordstrum how to shoot, how to make a shelter, how to make a fire with only dried vegetation in all that snow, how to melt water. When Nordstrum was eleven, his father took him into the mountains in the dead of winter to a hut above Mosvatn, fifteen kilometers from town. “If you are to be a man you must find your way back,” his father said to him. “Otherwise, you are still a boy.” Then, leaving only a rifle and a few liters of water, his father skied away.

  It took Nordstrum six hours to make it back down. A squall picked up on the way and he had to ski through snow so thick and blinding he could barely see his hand in front of his face. If it hadn’t blown through quickly, he would have had to shoot his own food and make a camp to survive. Hours later, in darkness, Nordstrum finally trudged back to the house—exhausted, frozen, so spent and cold his skis just fell out of his hands and he collapsed to his knees inside the door. Furious, his mother scolded his father for what he had done, but the old man just told her to shush and waved
to Nordstrum. “Come here, Kurt.” Wet and famished, and a little angry too, Nordstrum did. His father picked him up and held Nordstrum’s blue face close to his chest and said, “‘In the Northlands, a true man goes on until he can go no further—and then he goes twice as far.’ Remember that, boy. One day, you may be called on to give a lot more than you think you have. Now you know you have it in you. In the meantime…” He put Nordstrum back on his feet and mussed his hair. “Tonight, you sit here.” He lifted Nordstrum into his own chair at the head of the table. “You’ve earned it.” As the biting wind cut through him on his miserable journey home, Nordstrum had cursed his father the whole way, but now he felt proud and knew the old man was right. He had been called on to do more. More than he knew he could. And while other children doubted themselves as they grew into men, Nordstrum always had this strength he could count on. He knew what he had inside, and others felt it.

  On the road now, a beer truck clattered by, carrying Ringnes to the taverns in Rjukan. And shortly after, two Germans zoomed by on motorcycles. It was March and the wind was still sharp and brisk, and Nordstrum watched the house in his woolen jacket, huddled against the chill. He knew it wasn’t wise to go inside—he was a known conspirator and the NS could easily be watching—but as it grew dark he thought, What the hell, and looped around back from the neighbor’s property, through the fence, past the cow sheds and tractor stall, and snuck inside through the storage room door, which they always kept unlocked. He knew his father had been sick, though he was helpless to do much for him. This might well be the last time he would see him for a while. Perhaps for good. In the hearth, the fire was low. He saw his father’s reading glasses on a table by a book. The Master Builder, by Ibsen. Nordstrum smiled. The drama was one of his favorites. His father always saw himself as kind of an uncompromising figure himself. Growing up, Nordstrum had heard about the hubris of Halvard Solness and the wanderings of Peer Gynt a hundred times.