“Not yet, apparently,” Ronneberg said. “But let’s not hang around too much longer to find out.”
Quickly, they edged themselves through the same gap in the gate they’d come through when they arrived, which Ronneberg did his best to fit back together so it would not be obvious how they had gotten in. Then they hurried back along the tracks. Nordstrum knew that the feeling of elation he had would be completely in vain unless they got back across the river and up the other side to safety. Inside the plant, the two watchmen likely would be running their mouths off about now. Brits. Sabotage. Every second was vital. At any moment, the sirens might sound. Nordstrum recalled what Tronstad had told him somewhat whimsically: “There’s a pretty good chance you’ll blow the compressors. But only a fifty-fifty chance you’ll make it out alive.”
Maybe the odds had tilted just a bit in their favor. Sixty-forty now. But they had to put as much distance between themselves and the plant as possible before the alarm was sounded.
The trip down the ledge proved to be far easier than the climb up. Helberg went ahead and found a more forgiving route, without the vegetation they used to hoist themselves up. The warm foehn wind that had blown in within the past hour had softened the ice and snow. They slid and lowered themselves down the rock face, all of them making it without incident.
But crossing back over the river was another matter. What had been a frozen trickle only two hours earlier had now become a rising current. The warming breeze they’d felt had melted away much of the ice, which had cracked into large, floating chucks, the current slicing through them. Jumping from loose chunk to chunk, they all leaped onto the far bank, helping each other over. Another hour, and it was likely that their route to cross back over would have been totally swept away.
The urgency now was to get back to their skis and rucksacks and get up to the vidda as fast as they could. By now, the Nazis had to have discovered what had taken place and, any second, the alarm would sound. If the searchlights on the factory’s roof and the bridge fixed on them in the ravine, they’d be trapped there with no hope of escape. Even if they did somehow make it to the Ryes Road, there would be hundreds of troops on their tails. They headed along the bank until they found the rutted path they had used to slide their way down the slope two hours before.
Then they began to climb.
The snow, which had been packed on their descent, was now soft and deep, just what they didn’t need. Their boots sank in up to their knees, making each step grueling exertion. They knew that every second that delayed them could mean their lives. Grabbing at bushes and branches, reaching for whatever they could, they pulled themselves up, doing their best not to start a snow slide that would drag them or a teammate back down.
Six hundred feet.
Where are the searchlights? Nordstrum wondered. Why haven’t the Germans responded?
Huffing and sucking for air, they finally saw the main road winding a hundred feet above them, where they had stored their skis and packs.
Nordstrum grinned at Jens. They were almost home.
That was the moment they heard the penetrating wail of sirens behind them.
44
In Rjukan, Dieter Lund shot up in bed. “Trudi, what is that?”
Out his window, sirens were blaring. The clock read 1:20 A.M. He knew in an instant something wasn’t right.
“It sounds like an air raid,” his wife said. “Dieter, we should head to the basement!”
“No, wait!” Lund ran to the window.
It wasn’t an air raid. There was huge commotion on the streets. The Germans were organizing. He could hear truck engines starting, commands shouted. The clop of heels and boots as troops were assembling. A line of trucks with soldiers in them, along with armored vehicles heading up the road at a fast clip.
The road to Vemork.
From that direction, there was a shifting glare in the sky. Searchlights, Lund realized. And the wail of sirens.
It could only mean one thing.
“My God, something’s happened up at the factory,” Lund said. The troops were being sent up there; the searchlights fanned over the entire valley.
Sabotage.
He ran to the closet and threw on his uniform, for once not worrying if it was neatly pressed.
Trudi leaped out of bed and went to the dresser. “Dieter, wait. Your cap.”
“My cap? Trudi, there’s no time. The plant’s been attacked. I have to go.”
45
Adrenaline surging, sirens wailing behind them, the saboteurs picked up their pace, grabbing at anything—rocks, vegetation—that would support them, propelling themselves up the other side.
They had to make it to the road before the searchlights fixed on them.
From the bridge and the factory’s roof, the beams from searchlights crisscrossed the valley, once or twice missing them only by a matter of meters.
Panting, drenched with sweat, they finally made it up to the lip of the main road. Exhausted, they toppled over the edge and caught their breath. For a moment all seemed clear. Their skis and rucksacks were on the power line road just a few yards above them.
But as they went to cross, the rumble of fast-moving engine noise and the beams from headlights rapidly approaching sent them scurrying back to the ground.
Two trucks came around the bend fifty yards in front of them, chugging up the hill.
The first pushed along a large plow to clear the road, whose switchback turns made the drive up the mountain a treacherous one. As it passed by, barely six feet away, the group buried their faces in the drift the truck created. Twenty yards behind, the second truck motored toward them, the back crammed with German troops from Rjukan.
They pressed their bodies into the snow.
With a grinding shifting of gears, the troop truck roared past them as each heart stood still.
They remained there, their fingers on their triggers, until the two trucks continued on and did not stop. The next bend in the road took them out of sight.
One by one, everyone pulled themselves up to their feet and sprinted across the road, scrambling to the ledge above them—the power line road where they had stashed their gear. Quickly, they put on their suits and skis. Each had prepared packs with their civilian clothes, forged identity papers, local kroner, food and water.