“No such man…?” Lund looked both ways. “Impossible, he only just came out a second—”
Before he could utter the word “ago,” Lund bolted back inside the building. Down the narrow hall they had come through, there was a door just off the lobby. A janitorial closet. Lund stopped at it, removed his pistol, and wrapped his hand around the doorknob.
He stood aside, his gun readied against his chest, and yanked the door open.
Hanging on the handle of a mop in a pail was a navy seaman’s coat and a gray wool hat.
Lund’s eyes lit up and he smiled almost triumphantly. “Nordstrum.”
“He’s here!” he said, and sprinted to the end of the hallway, searching for a tall man with short light hair, exactly how he remembered him.
Nothing. Again.
“Lieutenant, come with me!” Lund pushed his way to the front entrance, hurrying past the guards, outside.
He raised his gun and spun, his finger tensed on the trigger, in both directions.
No one.
Still, it didn’t stop his blood from racing like a swollen stream spilling over a dam in long, held-in validation.
From his first impulse, months ago, about who had killed the Hirden on the ferry. And now, who was behind the sabotage at the Norsk Hydro. And he could be here, at Gestapo headquarters, where his father was being held, for no other reason than to try and free him, fool that he was.
“Captain, who was it?” Norberg finally caught up to him out on the street.
“An old friend.”
“Old friend…?” The lieutenant looked at him, puzzled.
“Kurt Nordstrum, Lieutenant. Sound the alarm. And circulate the photos we have of him through town. He can’t be far.”
53
Hurrying past the guards, pretending to recognize a woman on the street and running to catch up with her, Nordstrum turned at the corner and ducked through the stalls on Market Street, fishmongers and meat suppliers hawking their catches, until he wove his way to a cousin’s bicycle warehouse on King Olaf Street, which had been shut down since the war. He ducked into the loading dock as the tramp of boots on pavement and the shrill of whistles could be heard piercing the streets nearby. Soldiers hurried by.
“Look down there!” a man’s voice ordered in Norwegian. “You three, check these buildings.”
He kept his gun close to his side and held his breath, waiting to see if he’d have to use it.
The footsteps passed.
After an hour or so, the sounds of pursuit diminished. Nordstrum found a yellow fisherman’s slicker in the entrance and slipped away, taking the back streets past the cemetery out of the town.
It was three kilometers to his father’s farm. Every once in a while he saw an NS police car speeding by, its siren wailing. He waited for darkness and hid in the shadows of the church, down from his father’s home. He was in need of a warm jacket and skis. He noticed a car parked on the street not far away, two darkened shapes inside. Too risky, he decided. NS or Gestapo, they were watching.
Now they knew who he was and that he was nearby.
Deciding where he would go, he tramped through a field knee-deep with snow and then hooked back onto the main road a mile west of town. He flagged down the public bus to Vigne and Mosvatn, which was about twenty kilometers away. The old driver, a man he recognized, merely nodded at Nordstrum as if he had seen him daily for the past three years. He went to the back and put himself across from the rear exit, near a bundled old woman doing her knitting and a girl of maybe sixteen or so, perhaps on the way home from work. At each stop he prepared to bolt out the back if the wrong people stepped on.
They didn’t.
In Vigne, he ducked off the bus and, pulling up the collar of his jacket, walked about a mile to the Nils road. It began to snow. He found the pleasant stone house with an Opel in front at the end of a large field. He waited behind a tree until he made absolutely certain no one had followed him. When he was satisfied, he went up to the porch and knocked on the front door.
Einar Skinnarland answered, his eyes wide with surprise. “Kurt?” He looked past him to be sure no one was watching. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Sorry to bother you, friend. But I need a jacket and some skis and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Of course. Come in.” Einar knew if Nordstrum had showed up at his door it was not an ordinary situation. “What the hell’s going on? You really shouldn’t be here, Kurt. Jesus, you look frozen.”
“I’m sorry, but there was no other choice. I had to ditch my gear in Rjukan.” He greeted Einar’s wife, who he hadn’t set eyes on since the war. “Marte.” He took off his boots so as not to wet the rug. “Sorry to intrude.”
“Kurt.” He couldn’t tell if she was angry that he had shown up like this or merely concerned at his condition. She took a look at him dripping with snow. “Go and stand near the fire. Let me get you a blanket and some tea.”
“That would be great. If you don’t mind, I will.”
When she left, Einar said to him, “It’s too dangerous for all of us for you to be here, Kurt. My little one’s upstairs. What possibly brought you into Rjukan?”
“I won’t be here long. I promise.” Then he looked at him. “I couldn’t just let him rot there, Einar, without seeing it for myself.”
“Your father?” Einar lowered his voice. “And seeing if you could what, Kurt, break him out? I told you not to do something stupid. So what did you find?”
“That it could be done.” Nordstrum warmed his hands over the flames. “It would take three of us maybe. At night. Depending on what we encountered downstairs. A car could be pulled around back.”
“And then what? Even if you pulled off another miracle, your father’s in no shape to be on the run. You’d get yourselves both killed. One thing you learn, Kurt, it just takes one stupid act to undo all the good you do in this war.”
“I hear you.” Nordstrum wiggled his fingers as the warmth slowly came back into them. “I saw him though, Einar.”
“Your father…? How?”
“Not him. Our old school mate. He walked right past me in his Hirden grays.”
“Lund?”
“Yes. And he saw me as well.”
“So that’s what all the commotion was about. Now it’s starting to make sense. Still, it was damn foolish, Kurt. People are counting on you. You’re far too valuable to be caught up in a game of personal vengeance. Next time—”
“Next time I’ll put a bullet in him, that’s my promise.” Marte came back in with a tray of biscuits and a mug of hot tea. “Marte, you’re too kind. I didn’t mean to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble at all, Kurt.” She hesitated. “But our son is upstairs. You can’t stay long.”
“I won’t. Just let me drink my tea. It’s been a long time since a woman made some for me.”