The commander sat back watching the expressions chasing each other across the red-haired man’s face. He himself remained expressionless. He knew Lars Sweeny from the numerous interrogations which were on file; knew the man and was certain of the outcome.
‘While you are in Oslo, Sweeny, you will seek out and eliminate Paal Olav Berg. He is the cornerstone of the Council of Administration. His name is respected throughout Norway. His elimination will shock the people, especially those who toy with the idea of serving the Germans, into a realization of what this war really means.’
Sweeny gazed silently into the man’s hard features for a while and then he sighed.
‘Are you certain that the British intend to send me to Oslo on some errand for them?’
‘We are absolutely certain,’ the officer assured him gravely.
‘What must I do?’
The commander permitted himself a fleeting smile of satisfaction.
‘We can give you few specific instructions. When you are in Oslo you will simply seek out and eliminate Paal Berg. You will act as, and when, the opportunity presents itself. That is all.’
Sweeny pursed his lips.
‘I am new to this sort of thing,’ he said slowly. ‘Shouldn’t I have some authority … some written instruction?’
The officer chuckled.
‘We are not fighting a Boy Scouts’ war, Sweeny. Go and find out what our British allies want; use them to get to Oslo. When you have an opportunity, contact my department either through the embassy in London or headquarters here in Orkney. You will ask to speak to Hlodver and your code-name will be Sigurd.’
‘Are you Commander Hlodver?’ frowned Sweeny.
The officer smiled tightly.
‘You should remember your history, Sweeny. Hlodver was a great Viking jarl and Sigurd was Hlodver’s son. Should you wish to confirm the authenticity of any message from us, we will address you as Sigurd and sign ourselves Hlodver. Do you have a good memory, Sweeny?’
‘I think so. Why?’
‘I am going to recite some lines from Njal’s Saga which, with the codenames Sigurd and Hlodver, will be proof of genuine contact. All right?’
Sweeny nodded.
‘Good. Remember these lines:
‘Sigurd fell in battle’s blast,
From his wounds there sprang hot gore.
Brian fell, but won at last. '
Sweeny repeated the lines.
‘Excellent,’ said the officer, nodding in approval. He stood up and turned for the door without proffering his hand. ‘Be ready to leave for London within the hour. Good luck, Sweeny.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Michael Woods entered his flat with a large package under his arm and felt his way in the blackness to the table, where he set it down. Then he felt his way to the window and secured the blackout curtain before moving back to the door and switching on the light. He closed the door and returned to the table, picking up the parcel and tearing away the paper packaging. After a moment he stood holding a streamlined bakelite object and regarding it with a certain amount of pride. It was the very latest thing in wireless sets and had cost him I6V2 guineas. The Pye International 8, it was claimed, was capable of picking up any station in Europe. He checked the cord and plug which had been fitted in the shop for him and then connected it, switched on and began tuning. He had been promising himself a new radio for a year or more and had been saving towards this day.
He found the BBC Home Service and caught the tail end of a current affairs programme. A solemn-voiced man was talking about the Budget which had been introduced in the House of Commons the previous day. Apparently, if the neutral-sounding statement was right, there was some opposition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s new tax on purchases which meant increases on tobacco, spirits, beer, petrol and telephone charges. Woods grimaced. It seemed all the news was bad. He tuned to the Light Programme, found some dance-band music being played by Peter Fielding and his Orchestra, and went into the kitchen to prepare his evening meal.
Just then he heard knocking on the door, a heavy, officious type of knocking.
Frowning, Woods went to the door. Two men in grey trilbys and belted raincoats stood there. The word ‘police’ flashed through his mind.
‘Doctor Michael Woods?’ asked one of the men.
‘Yes.’
‘May we come in?’
Woods assumed they were police. They certainly had the attitude of ‘Busies’. Woods enjoyed a good Edgar Wallace thriller and knew the argot off by heart.
‘Have I parked my car in the wrong place?’ he asked as they pushed into the apartment.
‘No, sir.’
Woods closed the door behind them and stood gazing at them uncertainly.
‘What is it?’
‘You must come with us, I’m afraid, sir.’
‘What for?’
‘You will be told on arrival, sir.’
‘Arrival where?’ Woods was growing annoyed now. ‘Look, I’ve had a busy day at the hospital. If it isn’t about the car, what is it about?’
He suddenly realized that he had not even asked them for their warrant cards and cursed himself for an idiot. ‘Where are your identity cards?’
The first man smiled thinly.
‘No need to worry about that, sir. Just come along with us.’
Woods was immediately suspicious.
‘I don’t believe you are policemen.’
‘We never said we were, sir,’ the man replied calmly. ‘Please don’t cause us any trouble, there’s a good fellow.’
Woods made a sudden lunge for the door but the second man had slipped a squat, black little object out of his pocket which brought Woods up with a start.
‘That’s better, sir. We don’t want any trouble, so please move slowly down to our car and don’t be rash.’
Incredulously, Woods found himself being propelled out of his flat and down the stairs to the street below. Unfortunately, it was deserted and there was nothing to do but precede the two men towards a dark Humber Snipe which stood waiting outside the apartment block with its engine running. One of the men slipped into the back seat while the second man pushed him inside. Nothing was said to a third man, seated behind the wheel, but the car suddenly shot forward, turned into Victoria Street and proceeded at a brisk pace towards Parliament Square.
‘I demand to know what is going on!’ Woods tried to summon some air of dignity.
The muzzle of the gun dug sharply into his side.
‘Please, sir,’ sighed the gunman.
Woods shut up. The car sped up Whitehall and into Trafalgar Square and round under the Admiralty Arch into the Mall, then swung off into a courtyard with high gates enclosing it. The driver did not pause, but drove across the courtyard and into a garage. Then the man with the gun was pulling him from the vehicle. In total silence Woods was propelled up a short flight of stairs and into a well-lit corridor. With the two men at his elbows he was guided to a lift. The lift deposited them in another corridor, along which he was marched to a door which one of the men knocked on and swung open.
To Woods’s astonishment a man in his late forties, wearing a smart naval commander’s uniform, was seated within the room behind a desk. The room was a pleasantly furnished office with panelled walls and a carpeted floor. There were several leather upholstered chairs. The blackout curtain was drawn across the window and a heavy brass reading lamp cast a circle of harsh light on the top of the massive mahogany desk.
‘Come in, Doctor Woods,’ invited the naval officer. His voice was soft and formal.
‘Who the hell are you? Why have I been kidnapped?’ Woods entered, his voice strident.
The officer glanced at the two men who had brought him, his eyes falling on the automatic carried by one of them.
‘Trouble?’
‘A little reluctance to accompany us, sir.’
‘All right. Outside.’
The two men removed themselves and closed the door.
&
nbsp; ‘Sorry about the unorthodox method of bringing you here, doctor. Sit down. Have a cigarette.’
A packet of Players was pushed across the desk. Woods shook his head. His anger did not abate.
‘I am waiting for an explanation and it had better be a good one.’
‘Doctor, my name is Wallace. Please have a little patience. We are at war and in wartime expedience takes precedence over social niceties. Now, take a seat.’
There was something commanding about the man’s soft tone. Woods hesitated and then sat down.
‘Doctor Woods, the situation is simple. I am — how shall I put it? — involved with intelligence. We want you to volunteer for a special job.’
Woods stared, open-mouthed.
‘Am I dreaming this?’ he muttered.
‘You are acquainted with Miss Inge Stenersen, I believe?’ The doctor’s eyes widened further.
‘Inge Stenersen? Good Lord, yes. She came to see me last night with some sort of petition, and …’
‘Miss Stenersen is under the impression that you would be willing to volunteer to help get her uncle out of Nazi-occupied Norway.’
Woods began to chuckle and shake his head.
‘This has to be some sort of practical joke.’
‘It’s no joke, believe me, doctor.’
‘Then it’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m a doctor …’ Commander Wallace smiled tightly.
‘We know all about your professional background, doctor. That is why we agree with Miss Stenersen that you are a man who is extraordinarily fitted to our urgent requirements.’
‘Nothing doing,’ Woods grinned. He began rising from the chair.
‘Sit down!’ snapped Wallace, causing Woods to drop back into his seat in surprise at the sharpness in the officer’s voice. ‘I think we are misunderstanding each other, doctor. We are sending a team into Norway to arrange to get Professor Didrik Stenersen and his surgical team out of that country. For reasons which I will explain later, it is absolutely essential that the professor and his team are in London within a matter of weeks. We need a person who knows Oslo, knows Stenersen and is young and fit enough to accompany our little mission.’
‘I’m not your boy, commander. I’m not a death-or-glory merchant,’ replied Woods. ‘Why don’t you ask Miss Stenersen to volunteer?’ he sneered as an afterthought. ‘From my impression I would think she is very keen to do so.’
‘Indeed, she is,’ agreed Wallace. ‘In fact, Miss Stenersen is one of the team of three that we propose to send in.’
‘Well, bully for her,’ retorted Woods, not at all abashed. ‘But so far as I’m concerned, I’m not prepared to be one of your little team.’
Wallace regarded Woods bleakly for a moment. He stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Very well, Woods, let us level with each other, as I believe our American cousins say. The situation is this: you are going to volunteer because, like it or not, we need you. If you don’t volunteer then I can guarantee that within three weeks you will be in an army uniform in the far from pleasant conditions of the Maginot Line.’
Woods gazed at him, appalled.
‘You … you can’t do that!’ he protested.
‘You may recall that conscription was brought in last year as a war contingency. We are at war, doctor, and we need men.’
‘But I’m a doctor. I’m in a reserved job,’ Woods protested vehemently.
‘The front line needs doctors. You will be entitled to make your protests when you write home from your unit … in a few months’ time.’
Woods sat shaking his head.
‘I don’t believe this is happening.’
‘I assure you, doctor, that it is,’ Wallace said tightly. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Now, I don’t have much time. There is an aircraft that will leave Northolt in two hours’ time. We want you to be aboard it.’
‘This is blackmail.’ Woods stared aghast.
‘Yes.’
Woods hesitated.
‘What about my job? My flat? My car?’
Wallace smiled.
‘We will look after those for you. And you may rest assured that your job at St Thomas’s will be waiting for you on your return from Norway.’
‘If I return,’ muttered Woods bitterly.
‘Does that mean that you will volunteer?’
‘You’ve made it obvious that I have no choice in the matter.’ ‘
That’s right,’ nodded the commander. He pushed forward a piece of paper. ‘Just something for you to sign, the Official Secrets Act and all that nonsense. Then we can go and meet your companions in this venture.’
As Michael Woods followed Commander Wallace into the adjoining room, Inge Stenersen rose and came toward the doctor with an outstretched hand and a happy smile.
‘I told them that you would volunteer to help my uncle,’ she said warmly. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
Woods caught Wallace’s cynical glance and flushed.
‘I’ll do whatever I can, Miss Stenersen,’ he said stiffly, avoiding the girl’s green eyes.
Wallace had closed the door and turned to the other occupant of the room — a tall, broad shouldered, red-haired man who was regarding Woods through slightly narrowed eyes.
‘This is Lars Sweeny. Sweeny, Doctor Michael Woods will be the third member of the team.’
Woods felt the firm handshake and observed the aggressive stance of the tall man. He was surprised when Sweeny greeted him in English with a pronounced American accent.
Sweeny was weighing Woods up. His first thought was ‘a dandified doctor’. He wondered if the man could be relied on in a tight spot. The more he thought about matters, the more it seemed that he had been lumbered with the task of playing nursemaid to a young girl and a foppish doctor.
‘Right,’ Wallace was saying. ‘You all know the purpose of this mission. Professor Stenersen and his surgical team must be brought out of Norway and escorted to London as quickly as possible. How this is to be accomplished will be left entirely to your discretion. The circumstances in Oslo will dictate your course of action. We can’t tie you down. Let me impress upon you one thing and one thing only: I have had it from a very high source that it is imperative that the professor should be in this country within the next week or two. He is, so I am told, the only man who can perform a particular piece of surgery which may save the life of a prominent person. That is all I can say.’
Woods became genuinely interested in their mission for the first time.
‘Stenersen is an abdominal surgeon, specializing in cancerous growths.’
Wallace glanced at him and nodded.
‘Can’t you tell us more?’ pressed Woods.
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘What about the practicalities of this little trip?’ Sweeny interrupted. He didn’t particularly care who Stenersen was nor what he was wanted in London for. He was faced with a problem which wanted a solution. ‘You say that you are putting us in Norway and leaving it up to us to find Stenersen and his team and spirit them out. Any advice on how this should be done? I mean, how we can get these people out?’
‘The war front in Norway remains pretty fluid at this time,’ replied Wallace. ‘The Allies are holding a line around Lille-hammer, and one possible method would be to contact them in that area, get transport to Andalesnes or another port controlled by us and come back that way. The alternative would be to get across the Swedish border and make contact with our embassy in Stockholm. The embassy will make arrangements for your transportation to London.’
‘Bureaucrats are the same everywhere,’ pointed out Sweeny. ‘How do we convince your embassy people that we are genuinely working for British Intelligence?’
Wallace’s lips thinned.
‘Quite simply. The code name for this operation will be “Valkyrie”. You will be aware that in Scandinavian mythology a Valkyrie was one of the minor goddesses who conducted the slain from the battlefield to Valhalla. Professor Stenersen will be designated by the c
ode name “Baldur” for a warrior who rose again after he was slain. When you reach Allied territory you will transmit a message to the Admiralty saying “Baldur has risen again” and signing it “Valkyrie”. If you reach the Swedish border you will ask the embassy for Captain Jones and use the same message. Everything will then be arranged for you, but only on receipt of that message. Can you all remember that?’
The three of them chorused their affirmatives.
‘And just how are we getting to Norway?’ asked Sweeny.
Wallace hesitated.
‘We need to get you to Oslo fairly quickly. You will be dropped from an RAF aircraft in the region of Dalane, the fairly high wooded country to the north of Kristiansand.’
Woods gazed at the officer in disbelief.
‘Now I’ve heard everything. Did you say “dropped from an RAF aircraft”?’
‘By parachute, of course,’ replied Wallace humourlessly.
‘I’ve never used a parachute in my life,’ protested Woods weakly.
‘Nor have I,’ broke in Sweeny, gazing at Inge Stenersen. The girl shook her head. ‘Surely there is a better way into the country?’
Wallace sighed. ‘If there was, we would use it. But there is not in the time allowed. Your method of entry must be by parachute or nothing. If we try to send you by submarine it will take some time and, I’m afraid, the German navy have the southern coastline of Norway pretty well bottled up by now. I’d say that the odds against a submarine landing you safely on the south coast are about one hundred to one.’
‘But if none of us have made a parachute descent before … ?’ Woods began.
‘In a moment you will be driven to Northolt airfield,’ Wallace cut in sharply. ‘You will be flown to Manchester, where you will spend the night. Tomorrow morning you will be taken to the Parachute Training School at Ringway, where you will be given some instruction. Tomorrow night you will be flown to Hatston Airfield on the Orkney islands. From there you will be flown to Norway, where you will be dropped just before dawn on Saturday morning. That is the schedule.’
He gazed at them each in turn before going on.
‘We have come up with some documents which will provide you, Sweeny, and you, Woods, with new identities. We find it is safer to use as much of the truth as we can, therefore Miss Stenersen will simply be herself, omitting the fact that she has spent the last few years in this country. Sweeny will be Lars Olsen, a seaman who has been working in the whale boats, of which I understand you know a great deal. You are looking for a new berth. We have a seaman’s union card in that name. As for you, Woods, you are Bryn Poulsson, a ship’s doctor. We have documents for you including a letter from Ingve Haugen, the secretary of the Norwegian Seaman’s Union, reminding you of the consequences of not paying your subscriptions.’
The Valkyrie Directive Page 6
