“I’m afraid it’s the heavy water again, Eric,” Nordstrum said, switching to English. “They’re back in business, bigger than ever.”
The Yank nodded disappointedly. “Yes, I’d heard they’d bombed the plant before Christmas, so I suspected we hadn’t completely finished the job. You’re not planning on sneaking your way inside the factory again?” He glanced at Diseth, with his white hair, a little suspect. And Ox, with his heavy waistline and who was well over 250 pounds.
“No. Security is far too tight. Anyway, as of Sunday, it will all be on the move. It’s being shipped back to Germany. In metal drums marked POTASH LYE. Tell me, how did you get here from Oslo?”
“I took the train from Nottogen to Tinnoset. Then the ferry to Mael.” He grinned. “Just a bit easier than the last time we arrived here.”
“That’s the truth. Anyway, that’s pretty much how they’re planning on getting it out.”
“We’re going to attack the train?” Gutterson lit up, seemingly up for the challenge.
“Not the train. The ferry you just came on. We’re going to sink the ship and send their precious cargo to the bottom of Lake Tinnsjo.”
68
There were a few more details that needed to be gone over the next day, specifically what each person would do after the operation took place. No one wanted to be around to face a possible interrogation by the Gestapo.
Ox planned on going back to Uvdal and officially joining the resistance. Einar, who was forbidden from taking part in the operation, came up with the idea of checking himself into a hospital in Oslo on Saturday for an appendix operation Monday morning.
“My doctor’s been telling me for months it has to come out.” He clutched his side.
“Just be fucking careful what you say under anesthesia,” Nordstrum said, only partially in jest.
Nordstrum, Gutterson, and Larsen would make their way across the vidda to Sweden.
They also had to be sure the shipment would be boarded on the ferry as planned and not further delayed. They needed to know for certain that the drums were on the train and in motion before placing the charges, otherwise the ferry would blow and casualties would result for no good end.
That night, Larsen called Einar and said, cryptically, “Fried fish tonight for dinner, please,” confirming that his Nazi watchdog was close at hand, but that the loading of the drums onto the rail cars had begun.
The train would leave for Rjukan the next morning.
And they needed a car to get from Rjukan to Mael Saturday night. Ox knew someone who was in the country illegally who maintained one. He arranged that they could borrow it at ten o’clock Saturday night. A bunch of partygoers, he explained. They’d have it back the next morning.
“Hopefully, in one piece,” the man said.
“Safe and sound,” Ox assured him. “You have my word.” If all went well, of course.
And they went over and over the plan, this time clueing in the Yank. He, Ox, and Nordstrum would be the ones going on board. If there was a guard, Ox would try to distract them. He had a routine of someone who had drunk just a bit too much aquavit that they hoped would do the job. Once onboard, they’d sneak below and set the charges. Twenty minutes max should account for it. If anyone had to be subdued all they could do was make sure the bodies were hidden well and hope for the best.
Word had come back from Larsen that the Germans were on heightened alert that their plans had gotten out. There were now, it seemed, more Germans than Norwegians in the area, and rumors were buzzing that something was afoot. The saboteurs dared not trust anyone now. They spent that night in Diseth’s workroom above his shop. For the first time all week, Nordstrum felt his mind wander to a place he’d kept it from going recently. To Natalie. She and her grandfather had a concert that Sunday and then they would be off the next day. Back home. Of course, by that time, the Hydro would be at the bottom of Lake Tinnsjo and Nordstrum on his way to Sweden. There was a part of him that felt the need to explain this to her—who he was, what he was doing—though he had only known her a few days. That in another life, another time, perhaps, things might have been different. Inside, he felt there was a part of him buried deep in his core that longed to feel attached to someone again, to love again. One day. It was a part of him that the hole in his heart over Anna-Lisette hadn’t killed, that had suddenly surfaced again, like a whale breaching the thawing ice in spring and majestically showing its face. Lying there, awake, Ox snoring, Gutterson drifting in and out of sleep, it made Nordstrum angry that he had met her in this time and not some other. That they had not somehow passed on the street a year from now, or two, say at the Karl Johans gate in Oslo, when there was no longer the smell of smoke in the air or the sounds of boots on the pavement. And that their eyes had met each other’s and they both suddenly stopped. Maybe her hat would fly off, just as it had on the ferry, and Nordstrum would sprint after it and pick it up, as fate had bound them. Instead, they met when there was no hope of a future. When it was all just another dream. After tomorrow their lives would part and never intersect again. She would be gone. And he might well be dead, or on the way to Sweden, and weeks later, back in the war.
He wanted to tell her these things—things he had never had the chance to say to Anna-Lisette or even Hella—though he knew it was foolish and far too risky. And though he felt he knew what was in her heart as well, he also knew she and her grandfather were still the guests of the SS.
Still … A beat of doubt persisted inside him. He realized he wanted to tell her what he felt almost as much as he wanted the mission to succeed.
“Eric,” he whispered, hearing the Yank turn. “Are you awake?”
“This wooden floor isn’t exactly meant for sleeping. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve gotten used to mattresses over the past months.”
“Tomorrow I have to go into town. Before our work. There’s someone I have to see.”
“Who?” Gutterson pushed up on an elbow. Ox snored.
“A friend.”
“A friend…?”
“Yes.”
By his inflection, it was almost as if the Yank instinctively knew what sort of friend he meant. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“You know me. I’ll be careful.”
“If you have to, I suppose. But just remember what’s at stake.”
“Yes,” Nordstrum agreed, vaguely.
“Yes, there’s a lot at stake…?” the American asked after a pause.
Nordstrum put his head back down. He wrapped himself in his blanket. “Yes, I have to.”
69
Friday night, in the glare of the klieglights, Dieter Lund walked the length of the train that would carry the heavy water down to Rjukan the next morning.