Hella came over next to him and looked out as well. He was sure he smelled the scent he had sampled in her store. Persimmon. “How far do you have to go?”
“A ways.” He never told her where he stayed, in this case a hut by Lake Maure, if the Germans hadn’t burned it. A good fifteen kilometers. He was always careful about that. In case she was discovered. And not to involve her any deeper than she already was.
“Maybe it’ll stop soon,” Nordstrum said.
“It’s coming from the north,” she said. “Not the best sign.”
Their eyes met, and there was a moment between them, her braid falling over her chest and a silence long enough to take their thoughts to a place they might never have thought. She said, “If you want, there’s an extra blanket in the closet.…”
He looked at her. Why not? he heard the voice inside him asking. Anything could happen. Who knew if they’d be alive in a week. Or even tomorrow.
“Hella.”
“Make no mistake, I love my husband. But who knows when he’s coming back. Or if…?”
It would be so easy, Nordstrum thought. Putting his hand on her. He already felt her breaths going in and out. And it’s not like he hadn’t thought of it. But giving in would only make them careless, he knew. And expose them both. And feelings—in this war there was no place for them. After … That was another thing.
“When we go to Sweden.” He smiled, his eyes showing a tinge of regret. He put his hand on Hella’s shoulder. “You can wait?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She pulled away and smoothed her sweater. “I can wait.”
“Good. I ought to be going now. We both should. Those tracks outside might alert some uninvited guests. I’ll help you hide the radio.” They had made a false compartment in the bedroom closet that would be hard to find.
“Of course.” He detected a tremor of disappointment in her. As there was inside him as well. She stood up and looked at him with her dark, stolid eyes. “I have to be at the shop early tomorrow myself.” Still she smiled. “Until Sweden then.”
54
It didn’t take two years as thought for the Nazis to resume their heavy water production at Vemork.
It only took two months.
By May, with Nordstrum having successfully developed five agents now, Einar passed along the news that the high-concentration cells, which Nordstrum and his team had executed such a daring raid to eliminate, had been repaired enough that production of new deuterium oxide was already under way. Since the distillation of new heavy water required an existing supply of finished product, canisters of D2O that had previously been shipped to Germany were sent back to Vemork to accelerate the process.
Even more disturbing, according to Skinnarland’s source inside the plant, the mandate from Berlin was no longer the 1,000 pounds per month Norsk Hydro had previously been maintaining, but now 3,000. Word was that the recent collapse of the German Army in Stalingrad gave Hitler new urgency to develop a weapon that could tilt the war his way.
All of this had the Joint Command in London in a state of high alarm, more convinced than ever that the Nazis were getting close to something. And in Washington, General Leslie Groves, the military head of the Manhattan Project, as well. He urged the commanders in London that the heavy water production at Vemork must be stopped at any cost, and this time for good.
But the raid on the Norsk Hydro plant had convinced the Nazis to redouble security measures at the plant—tripling the detachment of guards and replacing the old ones with fresh, crack troops; ringing the plant with dozens of barbed-wire fences and additional layers of mines; stationing guards on the roof, who now manned searchlights full time; and bricking over all doors to the facility, save one, and covering all windows with iron bars, making it virtually impossible to gain access to the plant through forced entry.
Back in London, SOE planners came to the conclusion that another raid like Gunnerside was impossible. The contingent needed to carry it out would need to be of such size that merely landing them in Norway without notice would be a feat. The raid itself would need to be a full-out assault. The plant’s defenses were far too advanced now. And then escaping, even if they proved successful, across the vidda to Sweden, was another matter entirely. After the loss of life on Freshman, no one in Whitehall was prepared to sign off on such a risk: to send in highly trained soldiers and operatives with such a slim likelihood of ever returning.
There was one last option that loomed over the discussions. An option no one at SOE was in favor of.
In recent months, the United States Air Force had shown in other theaters that precision bombing was indeed possible now. Factions in Washington, D.C., and even in the Joint Command in London were pushing for such an action in Norway.
General Ira Eaker, in charge of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, in Britain, was tasked with studying the mission. But he could give no assurance other than saying such a raid could be carried off with only a “relative” prospect of success. The gorge was far too narrow and the target too protected by the canyon’s walls. The compressors lay in the basement of a heavily constructed seven-story concrete structure. And all the smoke and dust that would result from the first wave of bombers that dropped their payloads would make visibility practically nil for the ones to follow.
Not to mention the dozens of civilians living within a few hundred meters of the plant, Tronstad pointed out, and the town of Rjukan, with over five thousand people in it, only a kilometer away, if things truly went awry.
Nonetheless, in London and Washington, Churchill and Leslie Groves knew the costs of doing nothing would become a whole lot higher.
The summer passed. Nothing happened. Nordstrum thought maybe they had come to their senses.
In October, he received a cable through Ox: Most important to obtain exact information and conditions and volume of present production at Vemork. When is final production expected to commence? How will the product be transported? STOP.
He was assigned the task of finding someone of authority on the inside who could answer these questions.
Now that Jomar Brun was in London, that left only one person.
55