Inge nodded.
‘My friends,’ Stenersen turned to his colleagues. ‘This is my niece Inge, and some of you may remember Doctor Woods, who used to work here some years ago. They have come from England.’
The surgical team continued to stare in bewildered silence.
‘There is no need to explain to you what is happening in our country. I have heard that our forces in the north cannot hold out much longer, even with the aid of the Allies. Soon poor Norway will be under total occupation. I have been contacted by London. It seems my presence, and indeed your presence, is needed to perform an operation which will benefit the Allied war effort and help achieve ultimate freedom for our country. On this basis I have agreed to accompany my niece and Doctor Woods to England. What is more … I have promised that you will accompany me so that we can continue our work in a free country.’
‘This is insanity, Herr Professor!’
A small, dark man with a flushed, excitable face pushed forward.
‘Doctor Hersleb,’ Stenersen said, as if to introduce the anaesthetist. ‘I have given the matter much thought. The situation is quite simple …’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘This is an order from the new Reichskommissar. It gives me until tomorrow to pack my bags and be ready to leave for Berlin where I am ordered to serve the Third Reich.’ Stenersen gazed at each of his team in turn.
‘Which is it to be, my friends? Serve our conquerors in Germany or serve Norway in England until such time as we can return, free people in a free country?’
There was a hesitant shuffle and then one of the other doctors said, ‘I’ll go with you, Professor.’ One after another, the rest of the team joined in a chorus of agreement. Only the little man, Hersleb, shook his head in disapproval.
‘The entire scheme is madness. Of course the Germans won’t remove us to Berlin if we do not want to go. The Germans are civilized people and we are not soldiers. They came to Norway to protect us from the imperial policies of the Allies …’
Inge stared at the little man in disgust.
‘I don’t know what world you are living in, Doctor,’ she said softly, ‘but it certainly is not this one. The Germans are removing the Czechs and Poles, men, women and children, to act as slave labour in order to free their young men for the fighting forces. If you think that the Germans will treat Norwegians any differently from the other peoples they have conquered, then you are a fool or worse.’
Hersleb flushed.
‘I don’t have to put up with insults. We Norwegians are a Nordic-Germanic people. Aryans. We are not like the mongrel mixes of Poland and Czechoslovakia!’
Woods moved forward and thrust the point of his automatic hard into the little doctor’s midriff. Hersleb grunted in pain. ‘Like it or not, you are coming with us,’ he said coldly. He glanced at the others. ‘I’m afraid that is enough discussion on this matter. There is no time for debate. The two SS guards will start wondering about the delay and they’ll be breaking in here in a moment. We must move.’
Stenersen nodded agreement.
Inge moved across to the firedoor in the corner of the washroom, threw the bolts and pulled it open.
‘Down the firestairs into the basement,’ she ordered. ‘Keep close and no talking.’
Hersleb scowled.
‘I refuse to take part in this madness,’ he snarled.
‘Like it or not,’ Woods repeated grimly, ‘it’s too dangerous to leave you behind to chat with your Nazi friends.’
‘This is abduction. I protest!’ Hersleb was white faced.
‘You’ll be able to make an official protest to the Norwegian authorities … in London. Now get a move on. I would hate to use this …’
He gestured with the Webley and suddenly remembered that he had not slipped off the safety catch which Commander Wallace had shown him. He doubted whether Hersleb knew enough about firearms to have perceived his mistake.
Inge was already leading the way down the spiral iron staircase which led down three floors into the large basement area. The heat was fairly powerful and the distant hum and throb of the dynamos created an oppressive atmosphere. At the foot of the stairs Inge halted until Woods caught up.
‘Through the walkway to those metal doors,’ he called to her. While his attention was momentarily distracted, the little anaesthetist, Hersleb, suddenly darted away across the boiler room, yelling ‘Help! Help! I’m being abducted!’ The man ran like a rabbit down the walkway. Woods let out a curse and raised his Webley automatically, but found himself hesitating.
‘I’ll get him!’ he yelled to Inge. ‘You take them through the passage.’
Woods started after Hersleb and found one of the doctors coming with him. The man smiled. ‘It’s our necks as well. I’ll help you.’
Hersleb had disappeared among the mass of pipes and boilers. Woods halted, listening. There was nothing to be heard above the hum of the machinery and the sigh of escaping steam. He bit his lip. Then there was a sudden scurry, shoe leather slapping on iron. Hersleb had doubled back to make a dash up the firesteps.
Woods rushed forward and reached the foot of the stairs as Hersleb was scrambling upwards. He lunged up and grasped the man by the bottom of one trouser leg and heaved. Hersleb was not holding the rail. He tottered, tried to regain his balance and came tumbling down on top of Woods. For a moment Woods lay winded while Hersleb sought to scramble away, but the young doctor who had followed Woods grabbed the anaesthetist and caught his arm in a vice-like grip. Hersleb swore violently and tried to struggle.
‘Now, now, Doctor,’ hissed the young man, ‘this is for your own good as well as ours.’
Woods climbed to his feet, retrieved his automatic and took hold of Hersleb’s free arm.
‘Thanks, Doctor …?’
‘Jan Birkenes.’
‘You’ll not get away with this,’ hissed Hersleb. ‘Terrorists! Bandits!’
Woods pocketed his gun and tore off his tie and the tie Hersleb was wearing. He deftly twisted them round the man’s wrists and, with the help of Birkenes, trussed the man’s hands behind him.
‘Swine!’ yelled Hersleb.
Birkenes smiled thinly as he reached into the little man’s pocket, drew out a handkerchief and tied it across the anaesthetist’s mouth to form a gag.
‘Things will be much better if you are quiet for a while, Doctor,’ he said gently.
Woods pushed Hersleb before him and proceeded along the walkway toward the iron doors to the passage. Inge and the others were standing anxiously by the doors. She looked relieved as they came up.
‘I thought I told you to go on up the passage,’ Woods frowned.
The girl bit her lip.
‘Allright,’ said Woods, ‘let’s not lose any more time.’
He bent to the bolts. The assistant janitor had not obeyed Sweeny’s instruction to oil the bolts. They were very rusty and it took the combined strength of Woods and Birkenes to free them. The men had barely forced open one of the doors when a sound rang out, vibrating across the expanse of the boiler room. ‘Halt! Hände hoch!’
Woods spun round. He was so tense that the action was automatic. Maybe if he had thought about it he would have obeyed the order. Instead, his finger squeezed on the trigger of the Webley. The gun bucked in his hand and the shot went whining across the basement.
‘Get going! Get going!’ he yelled.
Inge dived through the door, pulling her uncle with her. The others followed as a couple of pistol shots rang out. Luckily the equipment, the boilers and dynamos and the mass of pipes, were obstructing the aim of the German guards and their shots went wide and ricocheted. Woods pointed the gun in the direction of the shots and squeezed the trigger twice more. Never having fired a gun in his life, he found it extraordinary how the metal object jumped in his hand. Birkenes had dragged Hersleb through the door in the wake of the others and now Woods followed. The passage was about six feet wide and ten feet in height, with an arched roof. It smelt musty and damp. Ahead
of him, Inge was lighting the way with a torch and the dim glow revealed that the brick walls were covered with green mould and dripping water. The atmosphere was putrid.
‘Get them to the other end!’ cried Woods. ‘I’ll try to hold off the guards from here.’
‘But …’ Inge began to argue.
‘Christ! Get going!’
The girl turned, the doctors and nurses behind her, Birkenes prodding the reluctant Hersleb, forcing him to stumble along. Woods glanced out into the basement and let off another shot. The whine of the bullet suddenly stopped when it hit a pipe and then there was a sudden scream as steam escaped at high pressure. He glanced across his shoulder. The glow of Inge’s torchlight was fading away along the passageway. He turned and scrambled after it.
The passage curved after a short distance and he halted. Looking back, he could see the light of the boiler room coming through the open iron doorway. If the Germans came that way they would be silhouetted. If only he was a marksman. They would be sitting targets to someone who knew about guns. Behind him he was suddenly aware of some light. Then he heard Sweeny’s voice.
‘Come on, man! Run! I’ll cover you.’
He rose and pounded along the rest of the passageway towards the faint light coming from Sweeny’s end.
Sweeny had opened the door of the mausoleum and moved the group through into the cemetery.
‘Come on, Woods,’ he called. ‘I’ll hold them up for a while. You get everyone across the cemetery to Branting’s coach.’
Woods moved out of the mausoleum into the cemetery. Inge and the others were waiting there. He led them away through the gravestones, helping Birkenes haul the still reluctant Hersleb along.
In the passageway, Sweeny saw a figure outlined in the doorway at the far end. He aimed carefully and fired. The figure gave a cry and crumpled. Sweeny let off two more shots. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a grenade — one of two which he had acquired from Arne Branting. He pulled the pin and counted the seconds before lobbing it down the passageway. Almost immediately there was a roar and a blast of heat before acrid black smoke trickled from the entrance. Sweeny did not look back. He was already running after the rest of the party.
He moved swiftly around a tall memorial and nearly collided with one of the nurses, who was kneeling on one knee. She glanced up, startled for the moment, with fear in her grey eyes.
‘I fell,’ she muttered, rubbing her ankle. ‘Twisted it, I think.’
Sweeny bent down and felt it with some expertise. Years at sea had qualified him with some degree of first aid experience.
‘Can you put weight on it?’ he grunted.
‘I don’t think so,’ she replied hesitantly.
The girl suddenly gave a gasp of astonishment as the tall red-haired man swung her suddenly across his shoulder without apparent effort. He held her in an easy fireman’s lift and hurried on along the path.
Branting had eased the old motor bus into the entrance to the cemetery and sat behind the wheel, engine running. Inge had already managed to get the whole party aboard. She was standing at the door with Woods. Pistols in hand, they were staring anxiously across the cemetery to the mausoleum, from which black smoke was rising like a signal. Sweeny lumbered into sight with the girl across his shoulder. He simply brushed by them onto the bus and dumped the girl unceremoniously into the nearest unoccupied seat. Stenersen moved over to the girl with an anxious face to see if she was all right.
‘I just stumbled over a root or something,’ the girl muttered. ‘I’ll be fine, Professor.’
Sweeny had gone forward to Branting’s side while Inge and Woods had climbed aboard and slammed the door shut.
Branting put the coach in gear immediately and drove swiftly out of the cemetery. Once outside, though, he did not drive very fast because there were several German military vehicles on the roads. He hoped they would mistake the coach for a regular bus. Within a few turns he had left the main streets behind and increased his speed a little through the narrow streets of the city’s eastern quarter, moving along the wharves fronting the Akerselva river until he came to a warehouse whose doors stood open. He drove in and halted. Sweeny and Woods immediately jumped down and swung the large doors shut behind them and threw the bolts. Only then did Sweeny grin and take out a packet of cigarettes.
‘So far, so good,’ he said softly.
CHAPTER TWO
Hauptmann Eschig arrived at the Riks-Hospitalet in answer to the alarm call which had been forwarded to his office. Feldwebel Weiss drove the staff car to the hospital entrance, where a number of SS guards and green-uniformed Feld Polizei stood in uncertain groups. They snapped to attention when Eschig climbed out of the car.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ he demanded.
A black-uniformed SS man answered him. ‘Sturmbannführer Knesebeck, Herr Hauptmann.’
At that moment Knesebeck came down the hospital steps. Eschig frowned.
‘Herr Sturmbannführer.’ He gave a punctilious military salute.
The Gestapo man frowned.
‘Eschig. What are you doing here?’
‘My office was informed of some attack on the hospital. An exchange of gunfire. Naturally, security in the city …’
‘There is no need for your office to worry about this affair. It is a Gestapo matter.’
‘I appreciate that, of course, Herr Sturmbannführer.’ Eschig kept his voice purposefully even. ‘Still, I have to make a report to my superiors.’
Knesebeck scowled.
‘One of my men has been killed by terrorists. Another has been seriously wounded.’
‘How did it happen?’
‘The men were guarding Professor Stenersen, who was due to leave for the Reich tomorrow. Stenersen and his entire team appear to have been spirited out of the hospital by a gang of terrorists. They removed them from the operating theatre, down a fire escape into the basement and then along an underground tunnel into the cemetery across the way there. They had transport waiting on the far side of the cemetery and have disappeared.’
Eschig pursed his lips.
‘Stenersen? Isn’t he a well-known surgeon?’
Knesebeck glowered. ‘Yes. He was one of those who had been ordered to work in the Reich.’
‘Any idea who these terrorists were?’
‘No. A soldier in front of the hospital managed to catch sight of one of them as he fled through the cemetery. The dumkopf didn’t fire because the man wras carrying a woman over his shoulder. He said that the man he saw was tall, well-built and had red hair.’
Eschig’s jaw dropped in surprise.
‘Where is this soldier?’
Knesebeck turned and pointed at one of the Feld Polizei.
‘Repeat your description of the man you saw in the cemetery,’ snapped the Gestapo officer.
‘Zum Befehly Herr Sturmbannführer. He was a tall man. He had red hair, very bright red hair, and he was extremely well built.’
Lars Sweeny? It seemed impossible. Yet it had to be him.
‘These terrorists, they managed to abduct the entire surgical team of Professor Stenersen?’
Knesebeck nodded.
‘Why would they want to do so?’
‘To prevent them going to work in the Reich, why else?’ snapped the Gestapo man. ‘I am putting the other Norwegians on my list into protective custody until they are flown off tomorrow. I have established roadblocks throughout the city. The swine will not be able to get out of Oslo.’
Eschig nodded, saluted politely and turned back to his car. His mind was a kaleidoscope of racing thoughts. What was Sweeny’s purpose in Oslo? To seek out the killer of Freya and Erik Hartvig or to spirit prominent Norwegian citizens out of German hands? Was he acting on his own out of some desire for personal vengeance or did he have some definite mission to accomplish? The captain climbed into his car and snapped at his sergeant, ‘General von Falkenhorst’s headquarters, Weiss. Make it fast.’ Eschig had an idea — only a hazy idea at this
point, but enough to decide him on a definite course of action.
*
When everyone had disembarked from the bus, Branting took charge.
‘Please follow me,’ he said shortly.
Sweeny went to the nurse who was limping. She smiled at him.
‘I can manage,’ she asked in answer to his unasked question. ‘It’s not as bad as I thought at first.’
Branting led the group through a side door and past a series of deserted warehouses which stretched along an entire section of the river. After a short distance Branting entered another warehouse, in which stood an ambulance.
‘Courtesy of the Didemark Mental Asylum again?’ smiled Woods.
Branting grinned.
‘Different vehicle but the same principle. Inge will ride up front with me. There’s a nurse’s uniform on the seat. The rest of you will have to cram yourselves into the back as best you can.'
Professor Stenersen examined the ambulance thoughtfully.
‘You have thought things out well, Inge.’
Inge grimaced. ‘Not me, Uncle. This is Lars Sweeny; he is in charge.’
The professor extended his hand.
‘I’m afraid there isn’t much time to get acquainted, Professor,’ Sweeny said. ‘We must move off immediately.’
‘Where are we making for?’ asked Stenersen.
‘Across the border, eventually.’
Stenersen nodded and turned to Woods. He smiled as he shook the younger man’s hand.
‘I haven’t said that it is good to see you again, Michael. I’m very glad to see you, although I wish it was in better circumstances.’
Woods grinned as he returned the handshake.
‘We’ll have a long chat when we get back to London, sir.’
Stenersen nodded and then turned to where Hersleb was standing, hands still secured behind his back, red in the face, the gag still in his mouth.
‘Can’t we leave him behind?’
Sweeny shook his head.
‘We do not want him to pass on information to his Nazi friends and, besides, we promised London to deliver the full medical team.’
The Valkyrie Directive Page 16
