The Valkyrie Directive

by Peter MacAlan

  Sweeny had decided that there was no need to post a guard but, nevertheless, he was the last to retire, making a final round of the hytte before entering the room which he was sharing with Woods. There were many things occupying his mind and jostling for attention, but he fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion almost as soon as he lay down.

  Something was pressing against his face. It awoke him, causing him to start forward. A soft chuckle came out of the darkness and a cool hand touched his face.

  ‘I’m sorry that I startled you,’ Trina Lanstrad’s voice was a soft purr above him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sweeny frowned, trying to ease himself up.

  ‘Wrong? Nothing.’ The girl’s voice was reassuring. ‘I just wanted to be with you, that’s all.’

  Her voice was deliberately demure, with an undisguised tone of coquettishness in it.

  Sweeny felt a tingle of excitement in spite of his exhaustion. Then he frowned.

  ‘Hush. You’ll disturb Woods,’ he said, gazing across the darkness-shrouded hut towards the other cot.

  Trina giggled softly.

  ‘Doctor Woods is not here. That’s why I seized the opportunity to come in.’

  ‘Where …?’ began Sweeny in bewilderment.

  ‘Really,’ replied the girl. ‘I suppose you don’t know that there is anything between Woods and Inge Stenersen? You are supposed to be a perceptive man, Lars Sweeny. He went to her hut half-an-hour ago and he won’t be back before dawn, unless I am no judge of character.’

  Sweeny heaved a sigh and reached out for his cigarettes.

  ‘What time is it?’

  Trina pouted in the darkness.

  ‘Really, Lars Sweeny! A girl, against all her moral upbringing, comes to a man’s bed in the middle of the night with no nice moral intention in mind, and all he can ask is — what’s the time?’

  Sweeny grimaced and reached for the girl’s hand.

  ‘I’m not an easy person to be with, Trina,’ he said awkwardly.

  The girl said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘I don’t know whether I shall ever forget my cousin.’

  ‘One doesn’t forget. One adjusts,’ she replied. ‘I told you of my affair with the married man, didn’t I? That’s the worst type of affair to have, especially with a man who is prominent in public life. You cannot be seen anywhere together. You sneak into a cheap hotel to snatch a few hours in bed. That’s all he has to offer. You cannot go out to a restaurant, to a theatre, or on holiday, just in case … Yet I endured it. I endured it for nearly two years.’

  Sweeny nodded slowly.

  ‘Perhaps we can help each other.’

  The girl leaned forward, her lips moving softly towards his mouth.

  ‘I hope so. I hope so very much.’

  Her mouth closed, soft and moist, on his and his arms came up, pressing her slender form against his chest.

  *

  Inge Stenersen turned on her side, resting on one elbow and supporting her head with one hand. She smiled down at Michael Woods.

  ‘What’s going to happen to us, Michael?’ she asked.

  ‘Marriage, kids, a country practice in some nice rural English village …’ grinned Woods. ‘Or maybe some stipend, a reward from a grateful country for placing myself in peril in their behalf … Sir Michael Woods, surgeon by appointment.’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense,’ she said, smiling broadly.

  ‘All right,’ Woods said. ‘Would you settle for the marriage and kids?’

  ‘After the war, perhaps.’

  He frowned.

  ‘The hell with the war. It might go on forever. Did you know that in England the marriage rate increased dramatically last autumn, out of all proportion to normal? No one waits until after a war.’

  ‘I told you, Michael, I have to offer myself to the Norwegian service.’

  Woods sighed. ‘You must do what you consider is right, Inge. But you are a biochemist. That’s important work even in wartime. The medical services are just as important as the military. Don’t forget, we have to sew back the pieces which men like Sweeny tear apart.’

  ‘That’s unfair, Michael,’ Inge sniffed. ‘Sweeny is a good man. If it hadn’t been for him …’

  ‘I know. I know. And you’re right. Absolutely right. But there is a lack of emotion in Sweeny that I don’t like.’

  ‘I think it’s merely a cover. I think it’s a sign of his having been hurt.’

  Woods grinned at her.

  ‘Since when did you qualify in psychiatry?’

  ‘Probably the same time you obtained your certificate in cynicism,’ replied the girl, turning onto her back.

  ‘Touché!’ Woods rolled his eyes. ‘Anyway, perhaps Sweeny won’t remain in the doldrums for long.’

  Inge frowned. ‘Doldrums?’

  ‘Those parts of the ocean about the equator where calm and baffling winds prevail,’ recited Woods. ‘A word used to indicate low spirits.’

  ‘What makes you say that Sweeny might get out of the doldrums?’

  ‘Haven’t you noticed how friendly he and your uncle’s head nurse are becoming?’

  ‘Well, good luck to them.’

  ‘I don’t know. I wish I knew what it was about Sweeny … He never seems to drop his guard. There’s this coldness …’

  Inge turned over.

  ‘Ouch,’ grunted Woods. ‘Mind my shoulder.’

  ‘Damn your shoulder,’ whispered the girl. ‘I’m not cold.’

  Woods chuckled. ‘I can certainly vouch for that,’ he replied, taking her in his arms and ignoring the minor spasm of pain from his wound.

  *

  It was snowing steadily as Sweeny made his way back from Rottnedal through the pine forest towards the hytte. The snow had been falling since early that morning. It fell silently and he was conscious that there were no sounds at all, not even the moaning of the wind through the tall dark conifers which stretched ahead of him.

  Everything seemed to be going according to plan. He had telephoned the British Embassy in Stockholm and asked for Captain Jones, giving the codeword ‘Valkyrie’. When he gave the message, ‘Baldur had risen again’, a curt voice had asked him where his party was located, then told him that the embassy would send transport within eight hours. By the next day they would be on their way to London.

  Sweeny felt strangely deflated, almost depressed, as if he missed the adrenalin which had been flowing in him so often during the past week. He walked swiftly, head down against the cold. He had expected to be away in Rottnedal most of the day, but as things had turned out, the journey had taken him only half that time. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the transport to arrive from the embassy.

  He came within sight of the hytte and thought of Trina Lanstrad. His expression lightened a little. The girl was full of surprises. Perhaps … perhaps they had some kind of chance, some hope for the future. Two emotionally hurt people made cynical by the weight of experience. It might work out.

  He was passing the end hut, which Professor Stenersen had been allocated, intending to go straight to the room which Trina Lanstrad was sharing with the nurse Kristine, when he heard a muffled cry.

  Sweeny halted, frowning. Then he turned and hurried to the door of the hut and flung it open without ceremony. He stood poised on the threshold, his eyes wide. Just as he had swung open the door he heard the soft ‘phutt’ of a small-calibre automatic. Professor Stenersen was gazing towards him in bewilderment, one hand outstretched. There was a reddening patch on his shirt front. He opened his mouth to say something and then collapsed slowly to the floor and was still.

  Sweeny raised his eyes to the other figure in the room. The one who was still gripping the small automatic and smoking silencer.

  Trina Lanstrad stood opposite Sweeny, her face chalky white, the blue eyes hard and cold. The automatic came up swiftly to cover him.

  ‘I’m sorry that you had to come back now,’ she said, although there was no softness in her voice. ‘Yo
u weren’t supposed to see this. A pity. We could have been good together.’

  Sweeny’s face was a brittle mask. His only sign of emotion was a blink of his eyelids.

  ‘Why?’

  The word was almost a sigh.

  ‘I am under orders not to let you take Professor Stenersen to London.’

  Sweeny shook his head.

  ‘Orders?’

  ‘I am of the Nasjonal Samling. I hold a commission in the Hird. I have been an agent of the Sicherheitsdienst for a year now.’

  ‘The Sicherheitsdienst?’

  ‘The security service of our allies, the Third Reich.’

  A cold realization began to sweep through him.

  ‘Then it was you, you all along, and not Hersleb? Hilde, Birkenes …?’

  She shrugged as if it were of no importance.

  ‘You pretended to twist your ankle in the cemetery to hold us up. It didn’t occur to me even when it appeared to heal so miraculously. Now I can see it.’

  Trina Lanstrad nodded.

  ‘And I managed to ’phone my contact so that a patrolboat was waiting for us at Kongsvinger. I slipped up to the old man’s house and when I returned, to create confusion, I encouraged that pathetic little man, Hersleb, to slip away so that, if anything went wrong, you would think he was the one making the ’phone call.’

  She was not boasting, merely being factual.

  ‘I am actually sorry, Lars Sweeny,’ she said as she raised the gun to his chest. The chill had left her eyes now and they were slightly moist and bright.

  The blast of the explosion knocked her back with a crash, slamming her against the wall of the hut. Her mouth opened in a small ‘o’, her eyes widened with shock. The bullet had caught her in mid-chest, just above the heart. The little automatic fell from her nerveless hand with a clatter onto the floor.

  ‘Lars …’ she gasped.

  Sweeny’s face was still a cold, brittle mask as he watched her fall. He had not moved from where he stood in the doorway, but now he took his hand from his pocket, still clutching the Webley automatic which he had fired through the cloth of his coat. Coldly and deliberately he raised the gun and fired once more into her prone form. Not a muscle of his face betrayed an emotion.

  There were sounds behind him. The others came running from the nearby huts. Woods was the first to reach the door and peer in. He pushed Sweeny aside and bent to the girl. Then he turned, bewildered, to Professor Stenersen. He raised his eyes to meet the horrified gaze of Inge and bit his lip. The girl could tell from his expression that her uncle was beyond help. Behind her, Doctor Arendt and the nurse Kristine could only look on helplessly.

  Woods brought his gaze to Sweeny.

  ‘What happened?’ He did not recognize his own voice; it was hoarse with emotion.

  Sweeny was silent for a moment, his curious mask-like face still directed Howards the body of Trina Lanstrad.

  Then he looked up and met Woods’ gaze.

  ‘The bitch misled us all,’ he said. His voice was flat and cold. ‘She was a Nazi agent the whole time. Hilde, Birkenes … she was responsible. She killed them.’

  ‘But Hersleb?’ Woods intervened.

  ‘Hersleb was just a poor stooge.’

  Inge was still in shock.

  ‘But why? Why now? We are in Sweden. The British are picking us up soon. Why?’

  Sweeny turned to look at the girl and, for the first time, his gaze softened.

  ‘She was under orders, Inge,’ he said. ‘She had been told to prevent your uncle reaching London. That’s why.’

  *

  It was a week later when Hauptmann Karl Eschig made the final entry in the file he had opened on ‘The Red Haired Man — Lars Sweeny’. He sat back at his desk and reached for the coffee which Feldwebel Weiss had just brought in. Weiss was standing impassively by the desk. Eschig sipped the coffee and then inclined his head towards the file.

  ‘And that is that, Weiss,’ he sighed.

  ‘Herr Hauptmann?’

  ‘What shall we call it? The Stenersen case? The Sweeny case?’ A slight frown passed across the sergeant’s bland features. ‘There are many things I do not understand, Herr Hauptmann.’ Eschig put the coffee down and looked at his sergeant with a condescending smile.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The Lanstrad woman, for example.’

  ‘Ah. Lanstrad. She was an ardent convert of Quisling’s Nasjonal Samling. She was an early recruit to a small elite female branch of the Hird. When Quisling took some of the Hird to the Reich last summer for training, she was one of that number. The chief of the SD, the Sickerheitdienst, recruited her. She became one of our best agents in Norway. She became the mistress of a very close friend of the Norwegian Crown Prince Olav, an industrialist with a lot of economic and political power. She managed to persuade the man that his hope, the hope for the future, lay with Vidkun Quisling and the Nasjonal Samling. The man then became involved with Quisling’s secret plans to take over the Government and welcome our troops into Norway.’

  ‘I see, Herr Hauptmann,’ nodded the sergeant. ‘It was coincidence, then, that she was Professor Stenersen’s chief nurse at the time when the British decided to attempt to get him to London?’

  Eschig nodded.

  ‘The biggest coincidence in the whole affair was the fact that the British chose Sweeny to lead this operation. You did say that you were not acquainted with Schiller, didn’t you, Weiss?’

  Feldwebel Weiss pursed his lips. He had done some research since Eschig had last mentioned the name.

  ‘Schiller, Herr Hauptmann? He was an eighteenth century poet.’

  Eschig nodded thoughtfully and recited: ‘“What the reason of the ant laboriously drags into a heap, the wind of accident will collect in one breath”.’

  Weiss stood silently, not sure what kind of comment to make.

  Eschig raised his head and smiled thinly.

  ‘You see, Weiss, we are ruled by coincidence, by chance. We are its servants and its slaves.’

  ‘I am confused, Herr Hauptmann.’

  ‘The coincidence was in sending Sweeny to the Riks-Hospitalet. You see, Sweeny’s cousin, Freya Hartvig, was a journalist on the newspaper Dagsbladet …’

  ‘I remember, Herr Hauptmann.’

  ‘Good. Under Schanche, the special features editor, Freya Hartvig was working on an expose of certain prominent people who had connections with the Nasjonal Samling. The plan of Quisling to take over the Government and invite the German Government into Norway to protect the Norwegians was uncovered. But Freya Hartvig had also uncovered something else. The prominent industrialist, the friend of Crown Prince Olav, and his role in the matter had been discovered. Freya Hartvig was about to publish this.

  ‘Trina Lanstrad was not only this man’s mistress but an agent of both the Hird and the Sicherheitdienst. Her orders were explicit. She was to protect the man at all costs and prevent the Dagsbladet from revealing the truth. She went to Stavanger on the night of April 8. She killed Freya Hartvig, killed her very clinically according to the Stavanger police reports. She used her medical skill and cut her throat. She was about to leave Freya Hartvig’s apartment with the dossier Freya had collected for her articles when Erik Hartvig came in. Trina Lanstrad reacted quickly and shot him. Then she left.’

  ‘It is hard to believe that a woman could be so cold-blooded, Herr Hauptmann,’ Weiss observed.

  Eschig grimaced. ‘If you have not read Schiller, Weiss, then I do not suppose you will have read the English poet, Rudyard Kipling?’

  ‘No, Herr Hauptmann.’

  ‘There is a poem of his that begins:

  When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,

  He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.

  But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.

  For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

  Eschig paused reflectively.

  ‘A few hours later the inv
asion started. Trina Lanstrad had not been let into the secret. Had she known, there would have been no need for her journey to Stavanger, no need for her to kill Freya Hartvig or her husband or for her to steal the documents relating to her lover. The affairs of man are made up of such “if-onlys”, Weiss.

  ‘As it happened, the invasion took place that morning. Sweeny came to find his cousin. The Stavanger police, looking for a motive, still think that Sweeny is the killer they are searching for because it so happened that he had been in love with his cousin. There were enough gossips in Stavanger to make the police think that Sweeny killed her and her husband out of jealousy.’

  ‘But, Herr Hauptmann, according to Schanche, Sweeny found a Nasjonal Samling badge clutched in the dead hand of Freya Hartvig. He, quite rightly it seems, assumed that it came from Freya’s killer. How was it that Sweeny, who you have said is a man of exceptional intelligence, did not link that Nasjonal Samling badge with Trina Lanstrad? Nasjonal Samling badges, I have discovered, give the membership number and initials.’

  ‘The badge Sweeny had was 5684 PL,’ Eschig said with a wry smile. ‘Petrina Lanstrad. The clue was in front of him the whole time.’

  Feldwebel Weiss sighed.

  ‘As you say, Herr Hauptmann, it is a remarkable coincidence that Sweeny, having escaped to England, was returned to Norway to conduct Stenersen’s escape and that Stenersen’s head nurse was the very person who had killed his cousin. The very person that he sought.’

  Eschig brought his gaze back to the closed file.

  ‘I wonder what other ironies there are in the story which we will never know, which will never be placed in the file?’

  ‘Shall I destroy the file, Herr Hauptmann? After all, I suppose it comes under state security secrets.’

  Eschig hesitated.

  ‘No. We will keep it. Who knows, the true story of Trina Lanstrad may need to be told one day. What you can do is get me a cognac, though. I feel the need for some stimulation.’