It took about eight or nine minutes while some last-minute freight was loaded on and a few latecomers scrambled aboard. There was time, and then there was ferry time, it was known, and the two didn’t often coincide. Nordstrum took a seat in the upper compartment as far away from the party of German officers as he could. He’d heard how people were being stopped lately for ID checks and for inspection of large bundles. All they had to do was ask what was in his case and he’d have no choice but to come out shooting.
Once away from the dock, it took about thirty-five minutes for the ferry to come about and chug its way to the middle of the lake. Here, and for the next ten minutes or so, it was over 1,300 feet to the bottom. He thought, if he could place the charges in the bow, once it blew and filled with water, the stern would rise out of the water, sending the railway cars on deck loaded with heavy water drums toppling into the lake. At this depth, there was no possible way they could ever be salvaged. He calculated he should set the timer for about forty-five minutes after departure, in order to account for five or ten minutes of possible delay. That would be 10:45 A.M. Five minutes either way, it would still be deep enough. He also noted that the Tinnsjo was a long, narrow lake shaped like a finger, and even at its center point it was not more than a couple of hundred yards to either shore, ensuring that if he could somehow slow the sinking of the ship, the locals should have no trouble rescuing the majority of those onboard. Yet not too slow, he made a note to himself, that the Germans could salvage their precious cargo.
He took a look at the passengers onboard. People heading back from work or to families across the shore. Some keeping to themselves, smoking, reading. Others talking and laughing in groups. The crew just doing their job. They had no stake in any of this, other than on Sunday morning to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They would be faces just as these. Panic would take hold. Clearly some would die. He’d seen a lot of innocent people die in this war already. Anna-Lisette. His father. Still, the stakes demanded this be done. Even Einar saw there was no choice. It was either ten or twenty, or ten or twenty thousand. A hundred thousand. One day, would he be looked at not as a patriot, as someone who had done his duty, but as a murderer? A killer of innocent civilians no better than the Nazis? He wondered, if there was a God, are ten thousand innocent lives, even a hundred thousand, worth more than only ten or twenty? Or is one just the same as a thousand? Or ten thousand?
It was hard to calculate things like that. He was just a soldier. He was under orders to destroy the cargo. Who knew, perhaps the Germans would do him a favor and close the Sunday ferry to outside traffic. He could hope.
The ferry split the lake, heading closer to the Tinnoset side. Nordstrum checked the group of German officers who were chatting and laughing among themselves, oblivious to the rest, and got up. He took the stairs down, past the main deck, below. He made his way toward the bow. He heard the churning rumble of the engine room. He looked around. In the hold of the engine room he came across a water-tight compartment. If this would fill up with water, he calculated, the bow would dip and be brought under. It might take up to an hour for the ship to fully sink, but at some point, the pitch would send the train carriages of heavy water drums bursting through their bindings and plunging into the lake.
Yes, many might perish, but there would be time enough for the rescue efforts on shore to save most, he hoped.
“Excuse me, can I help you?” someone said from behind, startling him.
Nordstrum went rigid. He expected to find himself face-to-face with one of the Germans, and gripped the handle of his “violin” case, but it was merely an engine room worker.
“I must be in the wrong place,” Nordstrum said apologetically. “I was searching for the loo. Someone said it was down here.”
“There’s toilets on the main deck. Near the gangplank. Nothing down here but the engine room.”
“Sorry.” He feigned embarrassment. “I should have seen.”
“By the café,” the crewman said again, pointing upward.
“Yes. I’ll find it.”
He went back upstairs, and just to cover his tracks, slipped inside the bathroom for a minute, in case the crewman happened to follow him. When he came back out, the ferry was almost at Tinnoset. The mountains gave way to flatter terrain. Here, the Nazis’ cargo would be loaded off and hooked up to one of two transport trains that would take it to Skien—one fake, the other real—on its path to the North Sea.
Nordstrum stepped out on deck. Passengers had formed a queue, waiting to disembark. Travelers with suitcases; mothers and children holding hands. The ferry slowed as it approached the dock. People on the shore waved. A few German vehicles could be seen on the wharf. Tinnoset was a far larger town than Mael, with a commercial railway yard that linked it to the capital. Nordstrum’s plan was to stay out of sight for an hour and go back on the 5 P.M. ferry.
He noticed that the group of German officers had come down and, as the ferry came about to dock, were edging their way to the front of the line.
With a smile, Nordstrum placed himself behind a woman and her boy of eight or nine as if to appear to be all together. A crewman threw a rope to a hand on the dock, who tied it to a post. A few people on the shore waved to those onboard.
Then one of the Germans, the major, with SS bars on his lapel, seemed to notice Nordstrum’s case.
“Die geige?” He looked at Nordstrum curiously.
Nordstrum did his best to pretend he hadn’t heard. “Sorry?”
“De geige. Die violine.” The officer pointed to the case and made a violin-playing motion with his hands.
“Ah, ja.” Nordstrum nodded, his gut tightening inside. The crew was readying the ship for arrival. If the officer asked to see it, Nordstrum knew he would have to shoot it out and run.
“I played myself,” the German indicated, tapping his chest with his index finger. “Zehn jahre.” Ten years. He drew his hands like a bow, humming the opening of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” with a laugh with to his fellow officers. “Bach, Beethoven. Handel. Skalen…” Scales. “Drei stunden, three hours, every day.” He rolled his eyes, as if to say, Such drudgery.
Then he turned back to Nordstrum and smiled with curiosity. “May I see?”
Nordstrum froze, his heart jabbing tremulously against his ribs. Once he opened the case there would be no choice what he would have to do. Besides the Germans, there were a lot of people waiting to disembark. Women, children. Smiling back, he looked to the dock, which he could now leap to if he had to, and went over what to do. There was only so much longer he could pretend he didn’t understand. The officer beckoned again with his fingers. “May I see it, please?”
With a glance at the other officers, Nordstrum put the case on the ground. Each carried only a Luger in their belts. They’d be dead before they got them out of their holsters. He knelt and drew in a breath. He put his hands onto the clasps. “Of course, Herr Major, I’d be honored to—”
At that moment the ferry glanced against the dock, sending a few in the line back a step to regain their balance. The boy next to Nordstrum fell back into him and, pretending to bolster the lad, Nordstrum sent the boy back over his foot onto the deck, virtually falling at the German officer’s feet.