Sweat inched down his temple. He was trapped.
He slumped as low as he could so that his eyes were the height of the dashboard. The two soldiers were now about halfway down the street. Larsen cracked the window. He was suffocating. His undershirt was soaked with sweat. They swung their lanterns, trying to see down the block. Thank God the car they’d borrowed was black.
“Anything down there?” he heard one of them ask the other. Over the past two years he’d become fluent in German.
Larsen’s throat went dry and he didn’t move a muscle.
The Germans just stood there, following the trail of light.
“Nothing I can see,” the other said.
“Fuck it,” the first said. “We’ve got a dozen more streets to clear and it’s cold as shit out here. Let’s go on.”
“Your call.” His partner seemed to agree.
Larsen’s heart leapt with hope.
He heard their boots on the snow and pavement retreating, suddenly heading away from him. Larsen slowly let out an exhale. His neck was covered in sweat. He looked at the gun and put it back on the seat.
An hour and ten minutes now. He knew he couldn’t take much more of this. He wasn’t meant for this type of work. He rolled the window down, letting much-needed cold air into the car, then threw his head back and took a big gulp into his lungs. Gradually, his heart regained its normal rhythm.
He checked his watch again. How much longer?
*
Inside the bilge, Nordstrum and Gutterson taped the alarm clocks and batteries to the hull. They found a spot above the water line that was dry and where the tape would stick and nestled them inside one of the wooden girders.
Then Nordstrum unwrapped the nine-foot sausage of plastic and molded it to the ship’s skin in the form of a circle just above the waterline. Working quickly, but still carefully as possible, Gutterson handed him the four detonator fuses one by one—tubes filled with gunpowder—and Nordstrum tied two to each end of the mound of plastic. The loose ends of the fuses he let rest for a moment on the tops of the alarm clocks. Then he set each clock to the prescribed time they had determined was best, when the ferry would be over the deepest part of the lake:
Allowing for a few minutes’ delay on the dock—10:45 A.M.
Twenty minutes had passed since they came aboard. Nordstrum wondered what the watchman must be thinking upstairs. They continued to hear voices above them from what Nordstrum remembered was the ship’s bar. Hopefully Ox was keeping him occupied, either with whisky or some stories.
Now the more dangerous part began.
Diseth had warned him that this was a most delicate thing: wires, fuse ends, and battery terminals would break if too much pressure was applied, and here they were, in a bilge half full of water, mindful of a crew that would surely turn them in if they even had an inkling of what was going on, and only a limited time more to keep their suspicions at bay. Nordstrum’s heart beat heavily; he felt a bead of sweat roll down his face.
Asking Gutterson to hold the detonators well away from the fuses, which were attached to the bomb, Nordstrum connected the battery terminals to one of the alarm clocks, doing his best to keep his breathing steady and ignore the rising drumbeat of his heart. In his mind he went over Diseth’s warning of just what would result if the hammer of the clock’s bell—merely a third of an inch away—came in contact with the live circuit once it was connected. It would all be over. Nordstrum had to pull away and take a deep breath.
“Steady, Kurt,” Gutterson urged. “I’d like my grave to be in one place, not a hundred,” he said with a crooked smile.
Nordstrum nodded back with a small smile of his own. “Yes, mine too.”
He went back at it a second time. With steady hands this time, and a deep, calm exhale, he managed to connect the batteries.
It didn’t blow.
They both looked at each other with a smile of relief. Hopefully, the only time it would ring would be 10:45 A.M., a little over seven hours from now.
Then there was the last, but most dangerous step in the process—connecting the electric detonators to the fuses.
Nordstrum calmed himself and drew in a few deep breaths. His hands were steady yet he couldn’t deny an inner nervousness. Who wouldn’t be? A sudden jerk, the wrong movement, and they’d all be blown to kingdom come. Carefully, he wrapped the wire of the fuse to the terminal Diseth had made on the clock.
“Eric, above my right eye, please…” A bead of sweat had made its way there. Gutterson took the burlap and brushed it away. “Thanks.”
His hands firm, Nordstrum made the final, delicate connection. Then he took his hands away. He looked at Eric with a relieved smile. Everything held. The clock was ticking. All the wires were in place. When the alarm rang and the hammer touched the fuse contact, the plastic charges would blow. By that time, they’d be on the vidda, miles away.
“I think that’s it,” Nordstrum said, exhaling.
Gutterson nodded resolutely. “Let’s agree not to make any sudden movements on our way out.”
“Fine with me.”
With caution, they crawled aft and climbed out of the bilge compartment. Their shoes and pants were soaked with oily water, their undershirts wet with perspiration. Once out, they hurried upstairs. The watchman and Ox were in a heated debate about politics.
“Thanks for allowing us a bit more time,” Nordstrum said. “It would seem that things have passed now.”
“Watch out when you get off,” the crewman said. “The Germans are all over the wharf tonight.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Nordstrum said.
“So are you on watch for the night?” Ox asked the man. He’d taken a risk for them and the last thing they wanted for him was to be blown up or go down with the ferry. Yet they dared not tell him, as his bigger loyalty would be to his crewmates.
“Yes, but I go off when the train arrives at eight A.M.”
“Train…?”
“Something important is coming down from Norsk Hydro, we’ve been told.”
“Is that so?” The saboteurs looked at each other. It was comforting to know the watchman wouldn’t be anywhere near the ship when the charges blew. Ox grinned. “Lucky man.”
“I guess I am lucky,” the watchman said with a conspiratorial wink, “what with the likes of guys like you around.”
They all shook hands and then the three saboteurs headed back up on deck. It was two fifteen. An hour and a half had passed since they had left Larsen. The night was cold but moonless, which gave them cover. The closest guard was halfway down the dock, continuing his rounds. On the wharf, a switch engine was being turned into position, the engine that would likely load the disengaged rail cars carrying the heavy water onto the ferry. They waited, crouched by the gangway, until the guard turned around again. The switch engine made its share of noise, hissing steam and gears in motion.