“Hold it,” the ticket master called after him, “that’s way too much. Your change!”
Nordstrum sprinted onto the pier. The ferry’s ties were being disengaged. It was about forty meters to the boat, farther than it had seemed last night. He spied the place at the fence where they had crossed. Where Ox had been apprehended. A mother and her young daughter had just been let on board and the gangway was about to be reined in. He made it, just as the German officer made a signal that that was that.
“One more, please. Sorry.”
“It’s after ten.” The Gestapo man looked at his watch. “The ferry is preparing to leave.”
“It’s ten precisely. And the streets are blocked up by all the military vehicles,” Nordstrum protested. “Please, it’s the only ferry today. I have to be in Oslo.…”
The German looked at him with annoyance and put out his hand, his fingers beckoning. “ID.”
Nordstrum pulled out his papers, the ones he had carried for the past year, which showed his name as Knut Holgersen, and that he was a construction laborer from Tromso.
“Tromso, that’s a long ways north of here.” The German looked up, checking his face.
“Yes. I’m heading back to work. In Oslo. I was just seeing family here.” Nordstrum’s heart started to patter. All it would take was for the man to notice his gun bulging under his sweater and it would be over for him.
“Traveling light, I see?” the German commented, eyeing his rucksack. “From all the way in Tromso.”
“Well, I was only gone for the weekend.” It was now five minutes after ten. “Check.” He held out the rucksack to him. “You can see.”
“All right, get on, then. Quick!” The officer handed him back his papers. “But that’s it! Pull the gangway,” he ordered the crew.
“Danke, Major,” Nordstrum said, and leaped aboard.
On the main deck, a considerable crowd had gathered. It was the only trip across that Sunday, and was now awaiting the cast-off. Nordstrum quickly melded in, avoiding direct eye contact with any of the soldiers standing guard, who seemed to be everywhere, as well as several gray-uniformed Hirden too. To anyone, Nordstrum looked like any other workman heading back after a weekend in the country. His eyes went to the two open railcars in the bow, some thirty SS standing rigidly on guard, their legs spread, their rifles at rest, their faces implacably staring ahead, almost daring anyone to make trouble, and the thirty-nine drums of heavy water they were guarding stamped POTASH LYE, situated precisely where Nordstrum hoped they would be.
The horn sounded again—three sharp blasts—and the ferry slowly disengaged from the dock. People on the shore waved. The boat drifted a short ways into the water, its engines kicking in, and then the bow came around. In the sky, the sun was bright. The lake, clear and calm. A blessing, Nordstrum noted, thinking of the narrow space between the clock’s hammer and the contact circuit. Only a third of an inch. Even a choppy sea could connect them. All on board were merely expecting a peaceful hour and a half’s crossing. Whatever faces he fixed on—the grandfather in a cloth coat and floppy hat waving to his family back on the dock; the young boy tugging at his mother’s coat asking for hot chocolate; the two young lovers excitedly pointing to the snowcapped peaks, who looked like they were commencing their journey in life—Nordstrum knew in barely forty minutes their lives were about to be torn apart. Any of them might die. The luckiest of them would be scarred by terror.
Maybe if there was a way to reverse time he would have rethought it all and looked for another way. Each unsuspecting face reminded him of the choice he had made. The choice that was about to engulf them. But then he looked again at the steel drums in the bow on the railway cars and remembered why. Their contents were capable of tilting the balance of the war to Germany. Who would understand, one day, the significance of what had to be done here? Deep in his soul, Nordstrum felt certain once again he had done the right thing.
10:12 A.M. The charges were set to go off in just over thirty minutes.
His eyes ranged to the top deck, ready to search out Natalie and her grandfather, when he felt like something kicked him in the ribs. He saw the Hird, the one he had seen at the police station, looking down. The one who had imprisoned his father.
His throat went dry. Somehow in all the crowd their eyes seemed to find each other’s.
It was Dieter Lund.
76
Lund fixed on Nordstrum too.
One second he was breathing easily, proudly, totally in command; the next, his breath seemed to wrap around his heart and squeeze like a clenched fist.
Nordstrum.
He was sure of it as he stared down at the man who had just boarded. He could not clearly see his face, as a workman’s cap was pulled low on his forehead, but his size, his manner. Take away the stubbly beard and glasses. It was him! The face was as clear in Lund’s mind as his own. But how? What was he doing here? There was no way, not one in a hundred, a thousand, that it could simply be a coincidence. That today of all days, with the most valuable cargo in the Reich on the deck, he would be making this crossing.
A jolt of both nerves and anticipation rushed through Lund’s blood.
Whatever Nordstrum might be planning, he had him.
Lund looked away for a moment, his fingers tightly wrapped around the railing. There was sweat on his palms. He could stop him right here, of course. He had the men. All it would take was a snap of his fingers, one command. He could put an end to this game of cat and mouse for good.
But if he was here, Lund began to think, something had to be happening. There would be others involved. Nordstrum had already commandeered a boat once and made his way to England. Why not again? Maybe that was his plan now. But commandeer it to where…? If so, he would need men and arms. He seemed to be alone and carrying nothing. To attack the rail cars directly would be suicide. No matter how many others he had snuck onboard. Lund scanned around. Could they be coming from the shore? Was that his plan, hijack the ferry somehow and steer it to others in waiting? Lund looked away, but kept a watch on him out of the corner of his eye. If he arrested him too soon, whatever was afoot might still go on without him. For one resistance fighter, Lund would get barely more than a commendation and a pat on the back. Even one as highly sought as this one. But if he kept his eyes peeled and his men on alert, if he disrupted a raid, all the while making sure the ship was totally secure … If he saw who Nordstrum made contact with, a whole pack of them, rebels trying to sabotage the most valuable shipment in the Reich, well, that would earn him a whole lot more than praise. Lund could always arrest him. There was nowhere for him to go. He had the whole voyage. He had the men.
“Lieutenant, Sergeant…” Lund snapped his fingers for two of his men.
They appeared at his side. “Captain?”
“You see that man? The one with the beard. Who just came aboard?”