No, the alarm hadn’t sounded. Or gunfire. If they’d been caught, they would surely know by now. They just had to be patient and maintain the watch. But every minute that passed stretched on as if it were an hour. Poulsson, who spoke a little German, strained to listen to what was being said inside the guard hut.
They heard a sound from within. Suddenly the door flung open.
Gutterson’s heart stood still.
A German came outside, stretching his arms. He wore no jacket or helmet. His uniform shirt was open. The stripes on his arm indicated he was a corporal. “It smells like a barnyard in there tonight. I’m going to take a piss,” he called back over his shoulder.
The guard took a look around, basically staring directly at Jens and Poulsson, crouched behind the drums, as if he knew they were there.
Gutterson wrapped his finger around the trigger.
Then, slapping his sides for warmth, the guard stomped around the back of the hut, and shortly they could hear the tinkle of urine as he relieved himself in the snow with an audible sigh.
“Every time he pees, Helmut sounds like he’s having sex,” someone said inside, loud enough for all to hear, followed by a cackle of laughter.
“Yes, well, at least I know the difference,” the peeing guard shouted back. “Which is more than I can say for any of you.”
When he finished, the guard hustled around again, with a “Brrrr…” and opened the door and ducked back inside.
Poulsson and Gutterson took their fingers off their triggers. Another situation like that, both seemed to know, and it would be hard to hold back.
Where were Nordstrum and Ronneberg? They had to be out soon.
It was now 12:51.
42
Stromsheim hurried back into the high-concentration room, now holding his Colt. Nordstrum tossed him the open rucksack of explosives. Immediately, the sapper expert began setting them out.
The watchman’s eyes went wide.
Eighteen adhesive, sausage-shaped charges, each about a foot long, made of nitro-cellulose, with a detonator fuse 120 centimeters long. Since it took one second for each centimeter to burn, two minutes were all they had to get safely out of the building.
As he saw what was happening, the watchman stood up. “That’s enough to take the whole building down. You’ll never get out of here.”
“Then at least we’ll die knowing we did the job, don’t you agree?” Nordstrum said. “Now sit back down.”
Where the hell were Ronneberg and Jens? One way or another, they should have been in here by now. Time was running short. If no one showed, he’d have to put down his gun and help Stromsheim with the charges or they’d never get it done in time.
12:53.
“Don’t make a move, Gustav,” Nordstrum said, heading to help his friend at the concentration cells. “Otherwise, I’ll be forced to—”
Suddenly there was a crash, the sound of glass shattering. Nordstrum spun and aimed his tommy at the blackened windows behind the desk. Shards of glass fell onto the floor, a rifle butt coming through.
“Just keep at it!” he yelled to Stromsheim. “If they’re Germans, set the fuses to go.” If it was indeed someone unwelcome, he’d give his friend as much time and cover as he could. He leveled his gun at the person climbing through, prepared to pull the trigger at the first face he saw.
To his delight, it was Ronneberg’s.
“Jesus, another second and I would have pulled the trigger,” Nordstrum said, scurrying over. “Where the hell have you been?”
“What did you expect us to do—knock? This was the only way we could find to get ourselves in,” Ronneberg said, maneuvering an arm through, kicking out a last piece of glass, and pulling himself through. “I’m glad to see you here though.”
He jumped onto the floor.
Jens was next, tossing the lieutenant his backpack of explosives. “Lieutenant.” He nodded, pleased to see him there.
“Say hello to Gustav.” He introduced the watchman in English.
“Lord in Heaven, just how the hell many are you?” The watchman stretched his eyes wide.
“Gustav says the Germans come by every hour to check the water levels. At around ten after,” Nordstrum said.
“Not around, exactly,” the watchman declared. “There’s usually two of them. They leave their guard hut on the hour, but that’s what it takes to get here and maybe have a smoke on the way.”
“That gives us about five minutes before they leave the hut, and we’d better be out of here.” Ronneberg looked at the clock. “Kurt, how long did you say it would take?”
“Seven minutes. Depending on what we found in here.”
“Seven minutes…” Ronneberg checked his watch concernedly. “We’d better get cracking.”
Donning rubber gloves, each of them knelt and worked their tasks with the precision of a craftsman who could do a specific job over and over in his sleep, molding the charges to the belly of each steel compressor tank and connecting the wiring.
Each tank was four feet, two inches tall, jacketed in stainless steel with lead pipes, condenser tubes, water seals, rubber tubing, anodes, cathodes, water jackets, flanges, and dials coming out of them. Things Nordstrum knew nothing about or how to read, only that the microscopic extract of the concentrated solution that fell drop by drop into the cylindrical metal tanks was more important than the largest rocket in the Nazi war machine.
It had been four minutes now since Jens and Ronneberg had come in.
“Be careful. There’s a lye discharge that comes off them,” the watchman warned. “It’s very caustic, so avoid getting it on your skin or clothing.”
“Thanks,” Nordstrum replied. The last thing he wanted was to have to kill a fellow Norwegian, and for what it appeared, Gustav was doing his best to cooperate with them.
They had wired twelve of the eighteen compressors.
Five minutes now.
There were eighteen fuses altogether, but Ronneberg went from processor to processor, coupling the finished ones, so there would only be nine to light at the end. Then he attached a second thirty-second fuse to one, which would presumably ignite them all, the longer ones acting as a form of insurance in case the shorter fuse failed. They could not take the chance that once they left someone would stumble on them before the charges exploded and defuse them.
When Stromsheim and Nordstrum had finally molded the last of the charges to the cells, Ronneberg set another around the group of steel storage canisters in the corner, next to a water drain.
The entire inventory of finished heavy water product in the world.
When he was done, everyone stood silently for a second. All they could hear was the steady drip, drip, drip of the deuterium oxide into the collection bins.
“Okay.” Ronneberg let out a breath of anticipation. Everything was set. Seven minutes had elapsed, exactly as planned. That left them ten to get out before the watch arrived and back to the gate before the whole building became a giant fireball.
Nordstrom and Stromsheim went from cell to cell, doing a final check on the charges and detonators. “They’re all good.” Birger gave a thumbs-up to Ronneberg and removed his gloves.