by Kris Tualla
Falko’s grin dimmed. “Right.”
Teigen nodded slowly. There was a clear danger in what the Resist—Milorg soldiers were expected to do. Before he was arrested, Teigen read enough cautionary tales about men who resisted being shot in the Nazi-controlled newspapers, or heard it on the Nazi-controlled radio, to know that.
He was embarrassed to admit this to himself, but until he was arrested he never understood how widespread the network was, nor how much they did to support the citizens of occupied Norway.
Damn Elsa and her parents. He had been a fool.
Time to make up for the past two-and-a-half years.
“Well…” he began. “I’ve already been arrested and sent to a labor camp, and I survived. The brown bastards had their chance to break me and they blew it.”
He stared at Falko. “Let’s pay them back.”
*****
Teigen stood at the back of the eager crowd waiting behind the theater for the actors and tried not to be noticed, which was somewhat difficult considering he was the tallest man there. He kept an eye on the SS officer standing opposite him, carrying flowers, and smiling smugly toward the stage door.
Teigen leaned over and spoke over Falko’s shoulder. “Do you know which one you’re looking for?”
“The star of the show—Dahl Holter.” Falko didn’t look at him. “They said he always escorts the lead actress, Selby Sunde, to make sure she isn’t swarmed.”
Teigen’s gaze sifted to the sharply uniformed Nazi. “Looks like she has a suitor.”
Before Falko answered, the Nazi captain’s head turned and the man’s eyes bored into Teigen’s.
Teigen dropped his gaze and swiped the back of his mouth with a nervous hand. Rule number one. Do. Not. Be. Noticeable.
And he’d just blown it.
The officer began to ease toward Teigen.
Falko shifted away from him under the guise of picking up something someone had dropped.
Teigen was in trouble.
He pretended to ignore the captain though he could see him out of the corner of his eye. He stared at the stage door, willing it to open with every ounce of his frame.
A German-accented voice said, “Excuse me—”
The captain got no further when the door did swing open. The excited crowd pushed him forward as they strained to get closer to the famous thespians on the raised platform.
Teigen took a step back.
Cries of ‘Miss Sunde’ resounded from the crowd and flashes from camera bulbs lit up the area like machine gun fire.
The captain pivoted away from Teigen to look at the actors who stood on the raised platform. When Miss Sunde’s searching gaze landed on the Nazi she smiled.
The handsome actor, who must be Dahl Holter, helped the smiling, red-lipped, and Arctic fox-clad blonde on his arm down the uneven wooden steps to the paved alley. As she approached the officer in front of him, Teigen recognized her with a sickening clench to his gut.
She’s the one. The one on the pier. In Trondheim.
The day I sailed north.
Teigen took another step back, afraid she might notice him.
“My dearest Selby,” the officer cooed, and then kissed the backs of both her gloved hands. “Bear with me a moment while I question this gentleman—”
Falko stumbled into the captain, whirled around, and shouted at the man closest to him, “Watch yourself, you fool!”
Teigen recognized a diversion when he saw one. He stepped back again, intending to slip behind the corner of the theater.
“What are you talking about?” the man bellowed. “I didn’t touch you!”
Falko shoved him.
Teigen turned the corner.
As soon as he did a shot rang out momentarily silencing the stunned crowd until shouts and heels on pavement signaled the panicked scattering of the formerly adoring fans.
Teigen swung back around to see what happened. Falko lay on the ground, grasping his bleeding thigh, and bellowing in pain. The Nazi was standing near him, but his attention was being pulled in the opposite direction by the actress.
“No! Leave him,” she pleaded as she tugged on his arm. “Let’s go now, before someone decides to be a hero. No one needs to die here tonight.”
With horrified shock, Teigen saw the wrapped parcel sticking dangerously out of Falko’s pocket.
The actor, Dahl Holter, was nowhere in sight.
Teigen made a split-second decision and dove through the confused crowd for his friend while the captain’s attention was diverted. He grabbed the parcel and jammed it inside his shirt.
Miss Sunde continued to pull on the captain’s arm and beg him to come with her, “Please don’t ruin our evening, Rolf.”
Teigen, his belly lurching in fear and anger, stood and glared at the actress as she grabbed the Nazi and pushed her lips against his.
Then Teigen turned and ran.
*****
If only I knew how to reach someone.
The phrase pounded through Teigen’s brain in cadence with his strides as he zigged, zagged, and wheezed his way through the back streets of Bergen until he found the hotel. He leaned against the stone building’s side wall, panting, with dots of black swimming through his vision, and wondered what he should do now.
If only I knew how to reach someone.
He had not been followed, he was sure of that. The handful of brown-clad soldiers behind the theater was so concerned with getting out of the way of the small but randomly stampeding crowd that no one appeared to have noticed his exit.
Once he caught his breath enough to appear composed, he strolled inside the hotel, hiding his shaking hands in his pockets.
“Good evening, Mister Hansen,” the clerk greeted. “How was your evening?”
Teigen forced a grimace that he hoped passed for a smile. “Fine. Thanks.”
He climbed the three stories of stairs rather than get in the elevator with the cheerful attendant, and was out of breath once again when he reached the room he shared with Falko.
Falko. What had happened to his friend?
If only I knew how to reach someone.
And that Dahl Holter. What a useless…
Teigen tucked the packet under his pillow before he stripped the clothes from his sweating frame. Adrenaline aftermath, weakness, and the over-heated room made him feel faint. He pulled back the curtains and opened the window.
The rush of freezing air cleared his head. His breathing slowed. Then his heartbeat. His knees folded and he sank to the floor.
Tomorrow he would return to the theater, but during the day. He’d look for that Dahl character and give him a dressing down for running tonight. Only then would he hand off the package.
Teigen closed the window on the cooled room and stripped to his skin before he went into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and stepped under its soothing spray. He wondered how he would be able to sleep tonight.
If only I knew how to reach someone.
Chapter
Fifteen
The soft snick of a key turning in the hotel room door lock zinged through Teigen like a jolt of electricity. Was Falko back?
He opened his eyes in time to see a young boy’s silhouette against the dim hall lights before the door closed and the room was once more enveloped in darkness.
Someone was in the room with him, and it wasn’t Falko.
Teigen waited, unmoving, breathing as if he was asleep. His eyes were accustomed to the dark, so by the light of the moon outside the window and the crack under the door he saw the figure start to move.
First the boy went to the dresser. His hands slid over the top. He silently opened the drawers, one by one, and rifled through the contents before closing them. If Teigen was being robbed, the youth was going to be sorely disappointed. How long should he wait, he wondered, before jumping the thief and bringing him to justice.
The boy turned toward the bathroom.
Now.
With a shout meant to te
rrify, Teigen threw back the covers and launched himself from the bed.
The boy yelped and Teigen pulled him to the ground and held him there with no effort. “What’re you after, you thieving little lout?” he growled.
“Let me go!”
The boy was younger than Teigen expected; his high-pitched voice sounded almost feminine. “Tell me how you got the key!”
“Jensen’s pocket, you big ass!”
“Big ass?” He laughed. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
The boy’s answer was to swing his heel up between Teigen’s legs and crash it into his groin. His flannel pajama pants offered no protection whatsoever.
Teigen shout was entirely different this time. He let go of his prisoner and curled on the carpet. Multicolored shards of bright light obscured his vision, and while he knew for certain that the thief was going to get away, he couldn’t do one damn thing about it.
But instead of bolting out the door, the boy clambered to his feet and switched on the ceiling light.
“Where is it?”
Teigen squinted up at the backlit youth. The boy’s dark knitted cap was pulled to his eyebrows and the rolled-up neck of his sweater obscured his mouth.
“Where is what?” he croaked.
“Jensen’s packet. Where is it?”
Teigen was coming back into his mind. “Are you Res—Milorg?”
“Brilliant.” He folded his arms. “Just tell me and I’ll get out of here.”
“How old are you?” Teigen grumbled as he rolled to his hands and knees.
The boy backed away. “Is it under the bed?”
Their eyes met for an instant before both of them dove on a bed, sliding their respective hands under the pillows.
“A-hah!” Teigen held up the packet. “Now tell me who you are!”
The youth stared at him, pale blue eyes narrowed in anger. “Do you even know what that is?”
“No.” Teigen waved it over his head. “Should I open it?”
That question presented a clear conundrum. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Teigen flashed a sarcastic grin and lowered the packet. “Why? Because if I see what’s in here you’ll have to kill me?”
The boy pulled a gun.
It was the smallest gun Teigen had ever seen, true, but at this close range it could probably do some damage.
“Oh. So you will,” he said.
There were two ways to go here, and Teigen chose the wiser path. He stood between the beds and held out the packet in his left hand.
“Take it.”
The boy climbed off the opposite side of Falko’s bed and walked around the footboard. He kept the gun pointed at Teigen as he reached for the parcel.
As soon as he was close enough Teigen grabbed the slim wrist with his right hand and forced the boy’s arm straight upward. Then he dropped the packet on the floor and yanked the cap from the boy’s head.
What he discovered stunned him. “What the hell?”
The pale blue eyes that glared up at him were familiar to him as were the red-tinged lips pressed together in fury. The only part that didn’t match was the short light brown hair. Cut boyishly, it accentuated the delicacy of the woman’s bone structure.
“Selby Sunde?” he asked incredulously, though he knew the answer.
She jerked her wrist from his loosened grasp and bent down to pick up the fallen packet. When she straightened, she stuck her pistol in the pocket of her jacket.
“Say anything about this to anyone, anyone at all, and I swear I will kill you,” she snarled. “I’m not kidding.”
She grabbed the knitted cap and pulled it over her head while she turned to go.
“Wait. Wait!” Teigen jumped forward and grabbed her arm. “I know you.”
She huffed a laugh. “Everybody knows me, you idiot. I’m famous.”
Teigen shook his head “No! Not like that. I saw you. In Trondheim.”
This laugh declared that he did, indeed, possess lower intelligence than a common rock. “I’m sure you did. We perform in Trondheim four times a year.”
Again she pulled from his grasp and headed toward the door.
Teigen didn’t follow her. He merely said, “You put your hand over your heart.”
Selby stopped. For the space of two breaths, she didn’t move. Then she turned slowly and looked up at him—really looked at him for the first time.
“It was back in April. I was getting on the ship.” Teigen felt like he needed to keep talking because he needed her not to leave. Not yet. “There were too many men but they were putting us on that ship anyway. I stopped and looked at you. You looked at me, and then…”
Selby’s hand drifted up to her heart. “Is it really you?”
He nodded. “And then the guard pushed me with the barrel of his gun because I stopped.”
“You don’t look the same.”
“I got a shave and a haircut my first night back.”
Selby’s eyes widened and she gasped; for some reason that unremarkable statement seemed to surprise her.
He shrugged. “When you saw me I hadn’t shaved—or changed clothes—for nearly a month.” He pulled a steadying breath. “It got a lot worse after that, though. A lot worse.”
“But you still remembered me?” she whispered.
“I did.” He took a step closer. “And I recognized you tonight. At the theater.”
“Oh.”
Selby crossed to the only chair in the room and dropped slowly into its embrace. Teigen sat on the foot of his bed.
“So now you remember me?” he ventured.
Her unfocused gaze cleared and jumped to his. “Of course. I never forgot you. I was at the dock when the first ship brought teachers back in September hoping to see you again.”
Teigen shook his head and said stupidly, “I wasn’t on it. Or the next one, either.”
She smiled softly. “I know. I waited in Trondheim for the second ship to see if you were.”
“You did?” Teigen felt the sting of tears behind his lids and he rubbed his eyes to keep them from forming.
Her cheeks pinkened under her pale blue eyes. “I thought of you as my personal connection to what was happening. You became a symbol to me—if you survived, then I would survive. Norway would survive.”
One side of Teigen’s mouth lifted. “That seems to be a widely held sentiment.”
Selby chuckled. “I suppose so.”
Teigen stared at his hands as his fingers intertwined. “I didn’t forget you, either.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “You were my symbol. My hope that I would someday be returned to a normal life.”
Teigen untwisted his fingers and slapped his thighs as he met her eyes again. “The joke is that life will never be normal again. Not for any of us.”
“I don’t suppose so,” Selby said sadly. “But we need to fight for that anyway.”
“You said you’re Milorg?”
Selby cleared her throat. “Yes. The whole troupe is. We travel up and down the coast and carry information, supplies—” She held up the packet. “And things that will get us killed.”
Teigen’s regard moved from Selby to the brown-wrapped parcel and back again. “Falko wouldn’t tell me what’s in it.”
“So you aren’t in our ranks, then.”
“I’m trying. I was supposed to meet with a Major Helgesen tomorrow, but—” Teigen bolted upright. “What happened to Falko?”
“We took him to the hospital. He’s going to be okay.” Her calm tone reassured him.
Teigen flopped back onto the bed. “It’s all my fault. I accidentally caught that Nazi captain’s attention and Falko tried to divert him. That’s when he got shot.”
A sudden memory jarred him. “Hold on!”
Teigen sat upright again. “You kissed him!”
Selby made a face. “It’s nothing.”
“What do you mean it’s nothing?” he demanded. “He’s the enemy.”
&nbs
p; “That’s the point. Isn’t it?” She stiffened in the cushioned chair. “Part of my job is getting information.”
A glaring light illuminated Teigen’s mind in a very unpleasant way. “You trade your feminine wiles for secrets.”
She pointed at him, suddenly angry. “Only up to a very clear point. I never take them to my bed. Never!”
Teigen put up his hands in surrender. “Okay.”
“Never,” she repeated, her eyes flashing. “And if they press me too hard, I drop them. Like that!” She snapped her fingers.
The gal clearly had spunk.
In spades.
“I believe you, Selby.” He fought the grin that fought him back. “Don’t pull your gun again.”
She folded her arms and glared at him. “That gun can be amazingly persuasive when pointed—” Her gaze dropped to his lap then returned to his eyes. “In the right direction.”
Teigen fought the urge to cross his legs. “I believe you.”
She sighed. “I can make sure you meet with Hans tomorrow. Major Helgesen,” she added when his brow furrowed.
“Thank you.”
“Come by the theater tomorrow morning at eleven and ask for Bennett. He’ll bring you to the dressing room. That’s where it’s safe for us to talk.”
“Okay.”
Amusement sculpted her expression. “By the way, what’s your name?”
Teigen laughed at that. “I’m Teigen Hansen.” He tipped his head. “Pleased to meet you, Selby Sunde.”
“Hovland, actually. Sunde is my stage name.” She looked puzzled. “Why do I know your name?”
Teigen shrugged and laughed again. “Because I’m famous?”
“No,” she answered as if he was serious. “It’s not that. Where are you from?”
“Originally? Arendal,” he answered. “But I’ve taught high school chemistry in Oslo since thirty-seven.”
Her expression lit up like the lights in the northern sky. “Your fiancée!”
A dagger slid into Teigen’s heart. “My what?”
“Your fiancée, Elsa Borg, right?”
Teigen recoiled. “No. Not anymore, anyway.”
