Dark Full of Enemies(53)

Petersen, from the dock, said, “You might consider abandoning your duty yourself. Look what it has done to you.”

McKay jumped up beside him. Somehow, Ollila appeared between the two, stepped in as smoothly as the Hardr?de gliding powerless over the fjord. McKay stopped. He was furious, more furious than even a martinet like Commander Treat had made him. Ollila did not look at him, but made it clear he would not move until McKay had cooled. McKay took a breath again and pointed at Petersen.

“You watch your goddamn mouth.”

He stepped back, and Ollila handed him his pack and Thompson. Petersen stood, sphinx-like, watching. McKay slung his Thompson and started for the house, Ollila beside him. As they stepped off the dock, he called back to Petersen without turning.

“Somebody’s got to fight this war.”

Petersen did not respond, but McKay did not notice. He had spotted Stallings.

Stallings stood in full view in front of the house, at the edge of the shore road. His arms hung limp. His face, in the darkness, was a mask, unreadable. McKay crossed the road at a trot.

“Grove?”

Stallings looked at him.

“What’s going on?”

Graves appeared from the deeper dark around the house and took Stallings’s shoulder.

“Sorry, sir—we’ve been having a word with some of the lads inside and he stepped out for a piss. We’ve only just missed him, sir.”

They slipped into the shadows and Graves led them up the back entrance into the kitchen. Two Norwegians sat at the table. They looked as grim as McKay felt. Now in the light, he marked Graves’s face, and Stallings’s as he sat and came around. Both looked worried.

“What’s going on?” McKay said. He looked at Ollila. As before, the Finn seemed to have divined the dire news before anyone had spoken. “Graves?”

Graves started to speak, but turned to the kitchen door. Petersen and J?rgen had stepped in. J?rgen sat at the table and would not look up. Petersen leaned against the doorpost and watched.

“Graves,” McKay said. “What happened?”

“Aye, sir. We—we went with the Norwegians here to set up the radio, right? We got it working all right. We made contact with the sub.”

“And?”

“Something’s gone tits up,” Graves said. “The blokes aboard the sub are spooked. They’re giving us twenty-four hours to finish the job, then they’re leaving.”





10





Something was up. Graves and Stallings, even during their escort to and from the house outside Narvik where they delivered the radio, had noted the activity in the channel. The Germans appeared to be on high alert, trembling with activity, preparing something big. The English-speaking Norwegian who greeted them in the tiny closet, waiting for Stallings’s training on the new equipment, confirmed—something had happened, or was happening, to the north, off the North Cape, even deeper into the arctic darkness than Narvik. The Germans were scrambling everything they had northward. But first, it would have to pass out of Ofotfjord, into the Vestfjorden, and either through or around Lofoten, joining vessels from farther south already underway. The Viking would be sitting, waiting, as an entire fleet steamed by.

McKay did not swear—he was too tired. He thanked God, halfheartedly, that he had twenty-four hours and that Treat had not simply sailed away. He could thank Treat for that much, at least.

It had taken them twelve hours or more to reach Narvik from the Viking. Treat had agreed to sail into the Vestfjorden to meet them, but they could still count on a nine hour run to meet the sub. They would have to go almost immediately, and that meant talking to Petersen again, immediately.

McKay rubbed his eyes and shook his head. It was now 0715. He would find no sleep.

He left his Thompson with the team in the basement as they stripped and cleaned their weapons again. He went again into Petersen’s house. Petersen sat at the kitchen table, finishing a plate of sausage and hard black bread. McKay sat across from him and waited. Petersen did not look up.

“I was out of line,” McKay said.

Petersen broke a piece from his roll and chewed it. Scales of crust showered the plate and table, caught and hung in his beard. “Is that how they say it in your army? Out of line?”

McKay suppressed the instinctive reply—I’m a Marine—and said, “Yes.”

Petersen nodded. He tried the term. “‘Out of line.’ A good image. I think J?rgen would approve. He believes everything is ordered by God, from before time, to the letter. Everything, even the evil of the Nazis.”

“God ain’t got nothing—He has nothing to do with the Nazis. I can tell you that.”

Petersen waved a hand. “You may argue with J?rgen. I long ago gave up on God. I merely comment on being ‘out of line,’ you see. But then—you outrank me. It is I who am out of line, no?”

“I can’t make you do anything.”

Petersen finally looked at him. “Can’t you?”

“Your cooperation is voluntary. But I’m here under orders.”

Petersen looked back at his bread and broke it again. “Yes, under orders. Under orders from men who don’t—give a damn about us here, about Norwegians in Norway, being killed by the Nazis for nothing.”

McKay understood. He understood as well what had happened the night he saw the Colonel and the Major. The dam was someone’s pet project—Commander Bagwell maybe, or someone else behind a desk somewhere. They had sent Keener and lost him and his team, and determined to try again, despite the reinforcement of the dam, the alertness of the guards, the thinness of any possibility that they might make it. The Colonel had refused, or at least balked. Bagwell—or whatever limey goon was behind it—had pulled rank. And so they sent McKay.