The Saboteur
Page 35
He wrapped his arms around the case. His legs would no longer move.
Yes, it was beautiful.
He’d better get going, he thought. The water was at his feet.
They’d be waiting for him. Waiting. For him.
“Anna-Lisette,” Nordstrum said, as the water swallowed him.
79
High on the vidda, Gutterson and Larsen stopped on a ridge to catch their breath. The Yank looked at his watch. 10:49.
“It’s blown,” he said to Larsen. The charges would have gone off. “The heavy water drums should be at the bottom of the lake by now.”
They exchanged a brief, congratulatory smile.
“You think he made it, don’t you?” Larsen asked.
The Yank shrugged. “If anyone would, it would be him. You know that.” But in his heart, he knew he wouldn’t be seeing the Northman again. It was a whim for him to have gone back like he had. Everyone’s luck runs out in the end.
“We’ll go to the hut and wait?” the engineer said, holding out hope.
“Yes, of course, we’ll wait.”
They started off again. Climbing the ridge in a herringbone pattern. Ahead, he saw clouds form in the distance. A storm, perhaps. A good sign. It would cover their tracks. It would be a long journey to Sweden.
Yes, they’d wait.
But in his heart, Gutterson knew what Nordstrum himself would say.
Yes, we’ll wait—but not too long.
EPILOGUE
On February 20, 1944, thirty-nine drums of enriched heavy water on their way to Germany, over 162 gallons, enough to support all its atomic fissile experiments, sank to the bottom of Lake Tinnsjo, over a thousand feet below. Twenty-six passengers and crew aboard the ferry died in the sabotage, as well as many uncounted German soldiers.
Only a small trace of the Norsk Hydro heavy water was ever recovered. Four barrels did ultimately surface, containing eighty-seven kilograms, but of the lowest concentration, which explained why they did not fully sink. Gone as well were the German efforts to create an atomic weapon. After the war, speaking on the fate of the German uranverein research project and the sinking of the Hydro, Kurt Diebner, an atomic expert and head of the German Army Ordnance, said in an interview:
When one considers that right up to the end of the war in 1945, there was virtually no increase in our heavy water stocks in Germany … it will be seen that it was the elimination of German heavy water production in Norway that was the main factor in our failure to achieve a self-sustaining atomic reactor before the war ended.
Nine months later, the high-concentration plant at Vemork was disassembled in secrecy and shipped to Germany. It was discovered in the village of Hechtingen in Bavaria by English and American intelligence officers. An atomic pile was found in nearby Haigerlock with uranium and heavy water that was on the brink of going critical.
All it lacked was about seven hundred liters of additional heavy water.
One could look no further than to the brave men of Freshman and Gunnerside for why those experiments came up short. It’s been written: “Strong tough men who pushed themselves to the limits of human endurance and courage for the liberation of their country. During the hardest times, their focus was on the destruction of the heavy water plant. But they had another, even more important objective: they wanted their country back.”*
And on the Tinnsjo, as their lifeboat filled with survivors waited for sailors and fisherman to come rescue them amid the debris from the sunken Hydro, Natalie Ritter wept on her grandfather’s shoulder. She wept with biting tears for all the horrible deaths she had just witnessed. And for the man she knew nothing about, who had saved them. Who she would never see again, but still felt something for, something so deep and aching she knew she would carry it the rest of her life.
If you could truly love someone, she thought, knowing nothing of him—who he was, only what was in his heart, and just for a brief moment—then she did love that person with every part of her being.
Boats were coming out to meet them. The crewman on their lifeboat rowed toward them. Everyone sat, silent. Until someone pointed to the lake and cried out, “Look!”
Bobbing on the surface a ways away was a black case. An instrument case.
“Oh my God, Papa!” Natalie’s heart suddenly lifted. “It’s your cello!”
It was like a gift of life and hope amid all this carnage. They’d picked up whoever they could. Now there was only silence out there.
“My cello! You must get it, please,” August Ritter begged the crewman. “It’s been with me forty years.”
“Leave it, old man,” one of the Hirden scoffed. “It’s just a fucking piece of wood.”
“No, there might as well be some good that comes of this,” the ferry crewman said, overruling him and picking up the oars.
They rowed toward it, maybe thirty meters away. It was just a black shape bobbing up and down on the black, oil-slick surface, not far away from the final eddy where the ferry had gone down. As they got close, the crewman leaned forward and attempted to fish it out, when, to his shock, he saw what he first thought was merely a piece of wood attached to it, but then, as he rowed closer, realized was an arm. An arm straining to hold on. And he turned to Natalie jubilantly, and shouted, “My God, miss, there’s a man attached to it.”
“A man?” Natalie stood up, feeling her heart quicken, hesitating a moment before allowing her faintest, deepest hopes to rise.
“Yes,” the crewman said. “And he seems to be alive!”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a novel, of course, but a novel based on true events, and out of respect for the heroic men who participated in them, I have done my best to keep the two principal military events in the story—the raid on the heavy water facility at the Norsk Hydro factory and the sabotage of the Hydro ferry—as loyal as I could to what actually took place.
Kurt Nordstrum, as those familiar with this subject will know, is drawn from the real-life figure of Kurt Haukelid, an unassuming, yet courageous man, whose irrepressible will and sense of duty helped pull off the most important and improbable sabotage of WWII. Several others who appear in the book are also drawn from real-life figures as well: Einar Skinnarland, who in fact did make it to the UK by hijacking the Galtesund along with several others; Joachim Ronneberg and Joaquim (Jens-Anton) Poulsson, the leaders of their respective sabotage teams; Claus Helberg, Birger Stromsheim, Hans Storhaug, and Knut Haugland, all part of Grouse and Gunnerside. These men were brave and resourceful fighters who fought Nature as well as the Nazis and deserve their names to be remembered. Nordstrum’s pal, Jens, and the American, Eric Gutterson, were characters invented by me—though Gutterson’s remarkable escape after the raid described in chapter 67, did, in fact, take place, almost as written, but it was Claus Helberg, who survived this harrowing ordeal and ultimately made it back to the UK after three months avoiding the Germans. The characters of Hella, Ox, and Reinar are all fictional as well, though are based on many who contributed to Norway’s resistance in the war. And Natalie Ritter is also fictional, though a well-known German violinist visiting the area at the time and aboard the Hydro did manage to survive, and his instrument case later rose to the surface. And Kristian Kristiansen, the hunter encountered on the vidda by Gunnerside after they waited out the storm, turned out to be a bit luckier in real life, as, against the strong urging of the SOE command in their training, he was not executed but held captive by the men of Gunnerside in a hut and later released. Sadly, Major Leif Tronstad finally convinced SOE command to let him go back to Norway in March of 1945, but he was killed in a botched interrogation of a local collaborator in Rauland.
Real events as they unfold do have their undramatic sides (not always perfect for a thriller), and as the seconds ticked away before lighting the fuses in the high-concentration room of the plant, the bumbling watchman, Gustav Fredrickson, did, in fact, interrupt the countdown to locate his misplaced spectacles, not once but twice. (The first time his e
yeglass case turned out to be empty.) And it is hard to fully believe that with such a vital cargo at stake, which the Nazis had gone to inexhaustible efforts to protect, they would not have stationed guards on the Hydro as it sat at the dock in Mael the night before its fateful journey, but they did not.
I came across this story while researching my previous novel, The One Man, and immediately thought it a tale of such extraordinary valor and survival that had not been adequately told. Two or three books and countless historical references were instrumental in the creation of this novel. First, Kurt Haukelid’s own firsthand account: Skis Against the Atom (North American Heritage Press, 1989) as well as The Real Heroes of Telemark, by Ray Mears (Hodder and Stoughton, 2003). Richard Rhodes’s vast and iconic work, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Simon and Schuster, 1986), was where I first read of it. Since I started the book, the subject of the heavy water sabotage has received much more attention: a November 26, 2016, New York Times article on Joachim Ronneberg, the last surviving member of the raid; a June 2016 article in National Geographic; and a 2016 BBC series, which to date I have not watched. The 1976 Kirk Douglas action classic, The Heroes of Telemark, on new viewing, remains fun, but dated, as only a forty-year-old, studio-made WWII action drama can be. What is inalterable is that the story of the Norsk Hydro raid and the sabotage of the Hydro ferry were two of the most selfless and stirring acts of the war, in which any sense of logic would have insisted there was almost zero chance of success, but where the stakes were so high and the determination of the participants to succeed so strong, that logic simply took a backseat to daring and courage. It is perhaps the ultimate, yet most pleasing irony of their acts that against such immeasurable odds against them, not a single member of either Grouse or Gunnerside was lost and each of them went on to survive the war.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped this book through various stages, some of whom I have already thanked in the Author’s Note. But Roy Grossman and Lynn Gross, for their perspicacious early reads; my editor, Kelley Ragland, for truly hammering this story into shape (and removing words like perspicacious which conspicuously stood out); Andy Martin, Sally Richardson, Paul Hochman, Hector St. Jean, Maggie Callan, and the entire SMP team for their warmly felt support; Simon Lipskar and Celia Mobley Taylor of Writers House, for always getting it done for me; my wife, Lynn, again, for all the other things beyond the book done daily, without which I would be just an unfinished mess; and as long as I’m at it, my kids who have grown into adults I am truly proud of; and last, my four-legged chorus of barking muses who sit with me for hours every day, Lily and Remy, whose ranks were sadly diminished by one this year, our little warrior, Tobey, who has left a hole here we struggle to fill every day just a bit, like by writing books like this.
Also by Andrew Gross
The One Man
One Mile Under
Everything to Lose
No Way Back
15 Seconds
Eyes Wide Open
Reckless
Don’t Look Twice
The Dark Tide
The Blue Zone
Novels by Andrew Gross and James Patterson
Judge & Jury
Lifeguard
3rd Degree
The Jester
2nd Chance
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANDREW GROSS is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of nine novels, including No Way Back, Everything to Lose, and, most recently, The One Man. He is also coauthor of five #1 New York Times bestsellers with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury and Lifeguard. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, Lynn. They have three children. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Part Two: Tracks in the Snow
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Part Three: The Ferry
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Also by Andrew Gross
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE SABOTEUR. Copyright © 2017 by Andrew Gross. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover photographs: landscape © Ian Brodie; pilot parachute courtesy of Australian War Memorial
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Gross, Andrew, 1952– author.
Title: The saboteur / Andrew Gross.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011869 | ISBN 9781250079510 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781466892170 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Fiction. | Special operations (Military science)—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Historical fiction. | War stories.
Classification: LCC PS3607 .R654 S23 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011869
e-ISBN 9781466892170
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First Edition: August 2017
* Ray Mears, The Real Heroes of Telemark (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2003), p. 230.