At STS 61, near Cambridge, Colonel Jack Wilson was about to pack it in for the night.
Gunnerside had been back in Norway for nine days. For the first six, until the team met up with Grouse, they hadn’t had word from them. Whether they were alive or dead. Finally, Knut Haugland, the Grouse radioman, in his understated way, messaged in: “All parties together. Good to see the mates and building ourselves back up. Will advise on future preparations.”
Since then, it had been quiet again.
The last thing Wilson wanted to do was flood them with questions. German wireless antennas were desperately trying to narrow in on anyone transmitting in the area. It was best to keep traffic low. Still, they were aching for some news. Major General Gubbins checked in every day, with entreaties from Lord Mountbatten. “Winnie wants to stay informed.” Which only went to show the importance behind this mission. Wilson would be on that vidda himself, he knew inside, if only he was twenty years younger and could ski.
Still, the silence was like a prod that kept him awake most nights. On his way out that night, out of sheer frustration, he stopped in on Tronstad, who was in the midst of drafting a letter to his family, sipping a whisky, his ubiquitous pipe in a bowl on his desk.
“Colonel.” The scientist looked up. “Drink…?”
“I wouldn’t turn one away.” Wilson pulled up a chair.
Tronstad opened a drawer and took out a half-finished bottle of eighteen-year Aberlour. “Picked this up in Scotland,” he said. “Made all that damn waiting a bit more worthwhile.” He poured one out for Wilson.
“How do you keep it together?” Wilson asked, tilting his glass in salute.
“I’m Norwegian. Give us a little wind and rain, we don’t worry about much else.”
“You don’t?” Wilson took a long sip and nodded. “To our success.”
The scientist smiled. “At least, on the outside. On the inside we’re just as riled as—”
There was a knock and the door sprang open. It was Corporal Finch, out of breath, who had come after Wilson from down the hall. It was his job to field the wireless traffic from Norway. “I’m glad I caught you, sir.”
Wilson put down his drink and stood up. “What is it, Corporal?”
“This just came in. From Grouse.” He handed the message to Wilson.
Tronstad stood up too.
It was from Haugland. He and Einar Skinnarland had broken away from the main group, as it was vital that information be sent back to England, and God forbid the only person capable of transmitting it was killed in the raid.
“What’s it say, Jack?” Tronstad stood waiting.
“It says, ‘Everything ready. Festivities set for tonight. Will advise upon completion.’”
Wilson looked up. “So it’s tonight, then.” His ruddy face grew bright with excitement. “Corporal, see my car is canceled. Looks like I’ll be spending the night.”
It was going to be a long one, Wilson knew. Ten brave men were about to put their lives on the line. The funny thing about bravery, sometimes it was no more than people being afraid to shrink from doing the right thing. When the story of this war was written, he reflected, the outcome might well rest on a team of ordinary Norwegians pulling off what the best-trained troops of the British army were unable to do.
“To my boys, then,” Tronstad said, tipping his glass toward Wilson.
“Yes, to your boys.” Wilson clinked glasses, and they both threw back a gulp. “And I’m sure Winnie will want to know as well.”
*
An ocean away, an aide slipped into the Blue Room next to the Oval Office, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt used as a greeting room, interrupting a reception between the president and a group of female volunteers from Indiana who had won a contest for outstanding results under the War Bonds program.
“I have to excuse myself for just a moment,” Roosevelt informed the group’s headmistress, a Mrs. Lois Ingram. “Please be assured I will return as soon as I can.”
In the adjoining office, Henry Stimson, his secretary of war, was waiting for him. “We just received a cable from Whitehall, Mr. President. The prime minister thought we’d like to know that that effort to derail the Nazi heavy water facility in Norway we all spoke of back in June last year—”
“Yes, up in New Hyde Park.” The president nodded. “I recall.”
“That’s correct. Anyway, they want us to know, it’s scheduled for tonight,” said the secretary of war.
“Tonight?” The president wheeled himself to his desk. “After that last fiasco, they actually threw more Brits on it. I’ll be damned.”
“Not Brits.” Stimson handed him the transmission. “A bunch of Norwegians, it seems.”
“Norwegians…?” Roosevelt read over the cable. “I’ll be damned.”
Ever since Albert Einstein had first alerted him to the prospect that a nuclear chain reaction might be used to create bombs of unimaginable destruction, it had become a race that would decide the war. The ultimate race, he knew. An outcome determined by a clear, harmless liquid fit for even a child to drink, where the world’s total supply lay in ten small drums held at the most-guarded scientific facility in the world.
“Inform General Groves,” the president said. The military head of the Manhattan Project. “And let me have a few minutes, if you would, Henry.”
“Of course, Mr. President.” Stimson went to leave the room.
Roosevelt sat back and closed his eyes. He remembered Churchill’s worry on this matter, and anything that could make that man worry must be quite a scare. Hell, he recalled Albert Einstein’s worry, and that’s what really troubled him.
He laughed.
“Sir?” Stimson turned at the door. “Something struck you as funny.”
“Nothing, Henry.” He shook his head. Other than the fate of the world now resting in the hands of ten bloody Norwegians, there was nothing funny about it at all.
In fact, it was the most serious damn thing Roosevelt had had to ponder as president since the attack on their navy at Pearl Harbor had brought his country into the war.
39
The ten crept silently along the tracks and came upon another shed, this one a tool shed, no more than a hundred yards from the wire gate. It was all that barred the way to one of the most important military sites in Europe. It was dark, and other than the whir of the giant turbines the place was deathly quiet.
Nordstrum checked along the perimeter of the wire. There was no sign of anyone around.
“Arne.” Ronneberg called Kjelstrup forward. “I think this is your moment.”
“Aye, Lieutenant.” Kjelstrup grinned. He reached into his rucksack and took out the wire shears he’d lugged all the way from England. “I told you these would come in handy.”