Thirty-nine metal drums marked POTASH LYE, loaded onto two flatcars pulled by an engine. There, they would spend the day garrisoned in Rjukan under heavy guard. The following morning at eight o’clock they would proceed to the ferry landing at Mael where they would be put aboard the Hydro for the final journey across the lake.
Lund’s handprint was on every aspect of the security. By any scrutiny, it was tight as a drum. Still, rumors were flying that something was afoot. An Allied bombing raid in Rjukan. A commando sabotage of the train. He and Gestapo chief Muggenthaler had gone over every step in great detail, shoring up every possible point of vulnerability. Once the shipment left the region, Lund knew his own importance would be diminished. The “golden goose,” as his Gestapo colleague liked to call it, would be gone. Rjukan would go back to being the remote, sleepy village it had always been, without its vital treasure. His Nazi overseer had promised that if all went well, a promotion would be in the works. Perhaps to major. Perhaps over the entire Telemark region. With that kind of title there was influence to peddle no matter who won the war. That was why it was vital no mistakes were made at the end. If this was the last point where the “golden goose” could shape his destiny, Lund would make sure it got to where it was going without a single drop being lost.
There were one hundred elite SS troops who would line the railcars and, to much fanfare, accompany the heavy water drums on their trip down to Rjukan. Lund had pointed out that the tracks went right past the Norsk Hydro explosives bin, where two tons of dynamite were stored. They stationed ten men to stand guard over it for the next day and night.
They also decided to send a trial train, a single engine, down the track an hour before the heavy water shipment, just to be certain no explosives had been laid. Fieseler Storch reconnaissance planes would patrol the skies above them, scanning for suspicious activity on the ground, and coastal watchers along the North Sea were on high alert for the first sign of Allied bombers. In Rjukan, where the cargo would be garrisoned Saturday night, the exact location of where it would rest had not been revealed—only Lund and Muggenthaler knew for sure—and it would be guarded by the full detachment of a hundred SS troops. To try something there would be suicide, for not only would it take a substantial force to even get close to their target, but individual charges would need to be set to destroy each of the drums—thirty-nine in total. The next morning, the procession would make the journey to the ferry port of Mael, where it would be quickly loaded onto the ferry. Even the ferry dock had guards stationed on it that night.
Lund had also decided that he and five of his most trusted men would accompany the cargo across the lake. It was important to make a show that he was fully in control. What happened after, he could not vouch for, but nothing would interfere with the shipment while it was entrusted in his hands.
Yet there were always rumors, rumors that something might be happening. In the plant, there were workers, scared of reprisals, who said there was an attempt in the works to sabotage the shipment. He couldn’t prove it, of course. The work had slowed a bit and the entire transfer process had been delayed a day to Sunday. Lund didn’t like that. And he didn’t trust that wormy chief engineer a bit. He’d had the man watched twenty-four hours a day. And if something was up, he knew who it was who was likely behind it. Though it had been months since he had actually seen him, Lund knew he was still here somewhere.
Nordstrum.
The man’s face was like a picture indelibly etched in Lund’s mind. If he was there, he would be spotted. There would be no risk acceptable, no margin for error tolerable, until the shipment crossed the lake to Tinnoset. Every base was covered.
To this day, Lund still had no idea of the exact importance this “golden goose” bore. Only that it had the highest military value to the Germans. And that his own future had now become inextricably tied to it. Major. He imagined how it would feel. The rank suited him. He thought of the leaves on his jacket. Trudi would be pleased. He would show all the gossiping housewives and petty civil servants his schoolmates had become just who had made the right choices and who held the true power now.
On Sunday, he would be on the train and the ferry himself.
If Nordstrum showed his face, Lund would be there.
70
Saturday afternoon, Nordstrum asked a boy in town to drop a note at the front desk at the King Olaf Hotel in Rjukan, addressed to Fraulein N. Ritter. Natalie, if you are free, please meet me at the Mintzner Café on Prinzregent Street for coffee at 3:00 P.M. It is important that I see you. He signed it, One who maintains a keen interest in your hats.
The Mintzner was a small, Austrian style café on a narrow street near the stock pens, where Germans were not known to go. Nordstrum prayed the letter had made it into her hands and that the time was all right for her. Just before three, he waited across the street, in the entrance of a small curio shop that closed Saturday afternoons. In case of any problem, he had his Colt tucked into his belt. It had begun to snow. By three, Natalie hadn’t arrived, and every passing minute convinced Nordstrum all the more she would not come. Why would she? Why would she even think of him? He had not contacted her all week.
Yet at 3:09, just as he had begun to lose hope, he saw her come up the street and his heart brightened. She was dressed in her hooded wool shawl, a long skirt, and her boots in the snow, and she stood in front of the café to make sure it was the right place and then opened the door and went inside. Nordstrum waited two or three more minutes to be certain she had not been followed. When he was convinced everything was all right, he crossed the street, and after another look up and down, went in also.
He saw her at a table in the corner. Her shawl was off, her hood down; she wore a pretty red sweater and her hair was in a bun. If she was angry at all at him for not being in touch, she did not show it. Her face grew pleased as she saw him come in. It was clear she felt the same as him. A few other tables were occupied, mostly couples talking. Coffee was a luxury in Norway these days, so what they served was watered-down beans, brewed multiple times.
“Tea would be better,” he said as he sat across from her. “The coffee’s terrible. At least for us.”
“I was happy to hear from you,” she said, ignoring the inference that perhaps the coffee shared by the Germans was fresher. “I had hoped it would be a bit sooner. I wasn’t sure.”
“I’m sorry. I had to go away for a few days,” he lied. “Some business matters. And the reason it was important I see you today is that I’m afraid I have to go away again tonight as well. I am sorry to have to miss your concert again.”
“Tonight? Again?” She seemed disappointed. “Just that sudden?”
“Yes, very sudden, I’m afraid.”
“Where do you go?”
“Up north,” he lied again. “Trondheim.”
“Trondheim? You have a building project up there?” she asked. But something in her eyes said she was just being coy with him.