“Does this operation have a name?” Wingate asked tiredly.

  “Why, yes,” Tyler answered, seemingly surprised that Mac did not know it. “We heard about it as ‘Operation Source.’”

  “Operation Source,” Mac repeated. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes, running his hands down over his face. He made an elaborate show of stretching. “So, Colonel,” he said sullenly, “what do you suggest we do now?”

  “We have no choice,” Tyler said indifferently. “We have to wait until Walters comes back.”

  “If he comes back,” Wingate said miserably, dragging himself over to the chair. He sat heavily, the very picture of a resigned, unhappy, subservient underling. “I’m sorry, Colonel,” he told Tyler. “I apologize. It was just the shock of losing two of my men ... the battle ...”

  “Of course, I understand,” Tyler said soothingly, rising from the bed and straightening his shirt. “Must have been a hell of a blow.” The colonel swept aside the curtains behind the bed. “I’ll rejoin the men. Believe me, Captain, I’ll let you know as soon as I get any word from Walters.”

  Tyler left the room shaking his head sadly. Kirsten watched him go, reacting to his sensitivity. She turned a warm, understanding face toward Wingate, who was still sunk miserably in the well-padded armchair.

  “I did not understand the words,” she told him in her native tongue, “but I could feel your pain.”

  Wingate’s voice rose from his slumped figure softly, but harshly clear. “I want to see this tailor of yours.”

  “W-what?”

  “I can’t wait for Walters. Who knows what that idiot is doing. Something is very wrong and it’s getting worse by the second. We’ve got to get to the bottom of Operation Source right now before the whole thing comes apart on our heads.”

  “But the colonel ...” Kirsten stammered.

  “We don’t have time to argue,” Wingate said, quietly but intensely. “We’re going out. We’re going out or I’m going to break your fucking neck.”

  “It was something Candy said,” Wingate explained as the couple walked slowly down the street. “His immediate superior told him that the mission would be cutting it close. So then we sail for three days and jack around with Sørum for another. Doesn’t seem to have the makings of haste, does it?”

  “But your colonel and Sørum have said that it was a matter of waiting,” Kirsten reminded him from under her shawl and drab ankle-length coat.

  “No, that’s what the Englishman and Norwegian said,” Wingate continued to whisper while trudging down the way. “My colonel said it was a mission of great urgency and importance. And I trust my colonel.”

  “Then why would anyone lie to you?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. And fast.”

  Mid-afternoon gloom had descended on the Alten fjord. The sun hardly shone this far north as the second half of the year arrived. Being so close to the polar axis, northern Norway missed much of the sun’s orbit. At times it seemed to hang in a perpetual gray purgatory. In town, no one seemed to look at the sky. Almost all attention was directed at the feet.

  It was all to Wingate’s benefit. That way no one paid attention to just another Norwegian peasant couple and it gave Mac time to study his new environment. It was the first time he had been outside the whorehouse and in the middle of town. Putting on drab, disguising garb, Wingate and Kirsten had come out a side entrance into an alley. There, Mac had seen that the building was partly held up by “Y”-shaped beams that attached to the edge of the wall. Between the buildings was a wood-paved alleyway. Out in front was a gravel-covered street.

  The wooden buildings that lined the street were architecturally complex but aesthetically mundane. Although obviously well crafted, the shapes were eccentric, and the only colors were the olive, brown, red, and dark green of the wood planks.

  It got so cold in the long winters that the town’s founding fathers made it a point to build everything nearby, so it was only a matter of moments before the pair arrived at the door of Henrik Erling, town tailor. Kirsten took Wingate’s hand and led him into an alley between the shop and the building next door.

  “Did you see someone?” Mac asked.

  “No,” Kirsten answered, knocking on a side door beneath an awning. “He could never let me in the front door. Remember, I am a tainted woman.”

  The side door suddenly opened and a little man with gray hair poked his head and one arm out. “Ach, evil woman!” he said. “Go away! Shah! Shah!”

  “Henrik,” she whispered, “Karl is dead.”

  The man dropped his pretense immediately. “Come inside. Quickly.”

  The inside was utilitarian. The three stepped into a short, rectangular room with one sewing machine in the corner. The space was kept warm by the racks and racks of clothes that filled every inch of three walls.

  “What happened?” said the tailor. “The Quislings?”

  “The Germans,” Wingate said.

  “And who is this?” Erling asked of Kirsten.

  “Captain Wingate of Allied Command.”

  The tailor looked at Wingate with great joy, taking his hand and smiling widely. “Captain Wingate! At last you’ve come. I, Kirsten, all of us have been waiting for your arrival! Now, at last, we can throw off the yoke of oppression and rid ourselves of the occupying forces.”

  Wingate thought he was overstating just a bit, before Kirsten uncomfortably corrected the old man. “No, Henrik. He is not the one. He is just one lone soldier who needs help.”

  The tailor’s face collapsed from great happiness to vast disappointment, then reconstructed itself into a hopeful tenacity. “Oh, I am sorry for the misunderstanding, Captain Wingate. What can I do to help you?”

  Ignoring the psychic drama that had just occurred, Mac filled him in. “I need a uniform. A German officer’s. High enough not to be stopped and questioned, but not high enough to attract attention.”

  The tailor smiled again. He crooked a finger at Wingate and led him over to a rack on the side wall. He pushed the hanging clothes aside to reveal another rack. Behind that was another clothes-filled rack. Finally, behind that was a wall with two hooks nailed in. Henrik pulled on one of the hooks, swinging out a secret door. Inside was a narrow closet filled with Nazi uniforms.

  “While I repair the originals,” he bubbled happily, “I duplicate them!”

  Wingate chose the outfit of a lieutenant. Erling merrily did some fast measuring and went to work on the necessary alterations. The American hovered nearby until Kirsten sidled over and took his hand. He turned and she motioned for him to follow. He didn’t like the looks of it. The girl’s face was infused with a strange look of desire. It was at odds with the MILORG fighter he had dealt with thus far.

  “This will take a while,” she said of Erling’s sewing, walking over to yet another clothes rack. When she pushed some garments aside there was a door on the other side. As the two went through and up a flight of steps, Wingate inquired, “What was that all about? That thing about the ‘yoke of oppression’?”

  “Oh,” Kirsten said lightly, waving it away. “He thought you were a representative of a large Allied expeditionary force that Sørum has been promising would land and aid us in our quest for freedom. I know it is just a lie, but it gives the others hope.”

  They came out in a single, simple room, mostly taken up by a bed. There was one window in the small wall between the sloped ceilings. It looked out onto the water of the fjord. Wingate shook his hand free from Kirsten’s grip and moved over to the glass for a closer look, being careful not to hit his head on the low ceilings.

  Next to the water was a dock. Next to the dock was a low building. Next to that was a slightly higher building. Next to that was another, higher establishment, and next to that was the window Wingate was looking out of. The roofs made a makeshift stairway to the tailor’s bedroom.

  When Wingate turned, Kirsten was half-sitting, half-lying across the bed. She had taken off much of her drab peasant disguise and was wearing just the skirt and tight, crew-necked wool undershirt. “You wanted to know about the trolls,” she said. Wingate did not reply. “I told you I’d tell you about them when you got back from the Harald commune.” The words drifted up into the little white room. Kirsten continued talking quietly, soothingly—almost for her own sake. She did not look at him.

  “I remember the stories my mother used to tell. She said they were very large and very ugly, except to other trolls.” Kirsten laughed at the memory of it. “She said they liked to capture princesses and carry them off to their castles inside the mountains.”

  Wingate saw the tears. They were big and clear and rolled down her smooth cheeks without interruption. They did not affect Wingate. There was a lot to cry about. The Norwegians needed little encouragement for that. The bleak day outlined her profile through the window. Her attractiveness had not fled her. But that did not affect Wingate either.

  Deliberately, and almost with resignation, Wingate stepped over and joined her on the bed. They made love without passion. They had sex without hate. As such, it was something completely different for Kirsten. She began professionally, making the right moves, making the right sounds at the right time. Mac would not let her lie to him. He changed his approach every time he felt she wasn’t responding naturally.

  He didn’t ravage her, he appreciated her. He didn’t bang her, or rape her, or fuck her. He worshiped her. With acknowledged consideration, almost forced sensitivity, he loved her body until he felt the spell broken. Then he rose from her warmth and sat on the edge of the bed, feeling nothing. He looked at the empty wall in front of him, seeing nothing.

  Kirsten lay behind him, savoring the moment. She had never felt appreciated. She had never felt valued. She had never felt sexual affection. Her mind demanded that she say some sort of false compliment, something to bolster the male ego, but she found she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. For the first time, the actual sexual act had not been the primary force, the one and only consideration. Because of it, it was the most glorious moment she had ever had.

  Wingate exhaled deeply to prepare himself for what he had to do afterward. “Tell me your part in it,” he said.

  She couldn’t bring herself to talk. She knew if she opened her mouth, it would be to lie. Wingate knew it too.

  “Don’t make me play the scene,” he warned. “It’s the one where Bogie says, ‘You’re going to take the fall.’ I’ve seen it too many times.”

  Kirsten didn’t know what he was talking about. She had never heard of Humphrey Bogart and she had never seen The Maltese Falcon.

  “The lies are getting dangerous,” Wingate went on, still not turning around. She saw his back while she heard his voice. “I’m not going to die like Baker and Biggins. Like Karl.” Her tears were real this time as she listened. “Tell me where you fit in,” he demanded with no emotion.

  There was a terrible pain in her chest. She wanted to tell him, but the words “Ja, vi elsker, Yes, we love with fond devotion”—the Norwegian motto—were loud in her mind. And in her mind they were being said by Einar Sørum. But she couldn’t lie. So she destroyed the moment by trying to avoid it.

  “What is the matter, Mac?”

  She saw Wingate’s head lower and his hand come up to rub his forehead. She heard his sigh. “Very well,” he said. “You were talking to Tyler. Either you know English or he knows Norwegian. Either way, someone isn’t telling me something.”

  “That?” she said with relief. “That? On the bed, when you came back from the ammunitions camp? But Mac, we weren’t talking. He was trying to make me understand that Walters had disappeared.”

  This time Wingate did turn around. His expression was one of whimsical disappointment. He had caught her hand in the cookie jar. He would never trust her again. She felt as if her insides were being torn out.

  “I quote,” Mac said, “‘I went into the kitchen for something to eat and when I returned, he was gone.’ Then you said, ‘It’s true. We looked everywhere for him.’ Only Tyler spoke in English. You backed him up in Norwegian.”

  Kirsten remembered. She had been swept away in the emotional intensity of Wingate’s survival. She was drawn into the battle of words between him and Colonel Tyler. She had spoken without thinking. Her clothes were off, but she hadn’t felt naked until now.

  “Understand,” Wingate told her, “I don’t know anything about your part in this. As far as I know, you could be a Quisling. Don’t lie and don’t try to move. If you do, I’ll kill you.” He did not emotionally threaten her. That would have been acting. Instead, he told her in the plainest of tones. She had no doubt that he could and would do it.

  “I am a loyal member of the Militoer Organisajonen,” she said to the ceiling. “Einar had told me that two Allied colonels needed my help desperately if their plan was to work. He said I had to be your shadow. I had to keep you from interfering in the colonels’ work. He said it was the most important part of the operation. He said you were a well-meaning, but overeager gunman who might jeopardize the entire mission.”

  Wingate tried to be objective. He tried to see any truth in Kirsten’s statements. He had to discover whether he felt any part of him was an “overeager” hothead who would jump the gun. It didn’t hold up under his scrutiny. It was the colonels’ way of maintaining their own fragile egos, he decided.

  “Did Sørum say who told him this?”

  “No.”

  “What is the mission?” As soon as she paused before answering, Wingate knew what the answer would be. She didn’t know how he would react. She was afraid he would get mad at her ignorance. He was nodding when she finally did speak.

  “I do not know.”

  He surprised her by moving right on to the next subject. “You’re going to have to choose now. You’ve seen me in action and you’ve seen Walters and Tyler. You will have to judge for yourself who you would trust more with your life.”

  “But Sørum …”

  “Sørum is up in the mountains. He only knows what he is told. He will do nothing to help us on this mission. You heard him say so yourself. Your only choice is between helping me or helping Walters. Choose. Now.”

  It had begun to snow as Mac Wingate moved toward the dockside tavern. His new uniform felt wonderful. It fit perfectly—the tailor had done a great job. He felt warm and at ease inside it. It was the inside of his mind that needed the work. He had to switch his mental system from Norse to German. The words had to be different, the dialect had to be changed, and his whole attitude had to be altered.

  He was now a lieutenant of the Wehrmacht, stationed in Alten fjord, near North Cape, the northernmost tip of Norway. And a freezing, godforsaken hole it was, too. The gently falling snowflakes did nothing to improve his artificially dark mood. It wouldn’t be snowing in Germany this time of year. Germany had lovely autumn months. He made himself look forward to getting inside the warm hostelry with his many friends and associates.

  He was eager to talk to one in particular: a Norwegian who worked at the Post Exchange at the Nazi infantry camp on the mountain. A man named Arne Larsen.

  The close-knit village didn’t give Wingate much time to prepare his mental defenses. The tavern was practically right around the corner from the tailor’s—just a few doors down from the first squat building Mac had seen out the seamster’s bedroom window.

  He navigated the wooden steps off the road down onto a moored wooden path set over the quietly lapping water of an inlet. Which was more than he could say for the two German seamen who staggered toward him, arms around each other’s shoulders. Middle of the afternoon, Wingate made himself think, and already stinking drunk.

  His Nazi-based attitude worked true. Instead of moving to the side to let them pass, he stopped right in front of them, blocking their way. His appearance sobered them up quickly. Their dopey smiles shrank and their bandy legs suddenly grew steel. Each gave him a slightly wobbly salute, which he returned crisply. Then he let them move around him.

  Their footsteps disappeared rapidly up the steps to the Alten main street. He heard one say to the other, “Quick, John, let us see the prostitutes. They can warm a man’s bones on such a frigid night.”

  “Not like my wife,” said the other. “She could break a man’s bone being frigid all night!” They both laughed into the distance.

  Wingate stopped in front of the tavern. It lay in the center of the dock like walkway, marked by a glowing, swinging lantern on either side of the entrance. Mac looked down the path. All he saw were serene snowflakes drifting down on a quaint, quiet seaside town. He looked out to sea, deeper into the fjord. He saw the shadow of the battleship Tirpitz on the water. It was effectively camouflaged even at this distance. It lay peacefully, silently, motionless on the calm surface of the ocean. It seemed majestic, proud, noble, and more than anything else, alone.

  Mac turned away from the ship and went inside the small tavern. Even though the sky was darkening in preparation for North Cape’s early night, the inn was at its mid-afternoon lull. Only a few men sat around its many round tables, which were squeezed together under the low-beamed ceiling. Two fireplaces warmed the fairly empty space, one at the back and one on the right side, near the carved wooden bar.

  More hanging kerosene lamps lit the interior, casting a golden yellow pall on the clammy interior. No one looked up from his drink or food as Lieutenant Wingate of the Third Reich walked in. Only a general or admiral could pull them out of their seats and that high-ranking an officer would always have an underling with him to scream, “Achtung!”

  The only other thing noticeable about the place was that there were no pure Norwegians in it. There were some men Wingate identified as Quislings, but not one hard-working, Thor-fearing, salt-of-the-earth Norseman. The meeting place had been taken over by the Nazis and transformed from a rustic watering hole to a place to drown your miseries.

  Wingate sauntered in. He passed a table of sailors near the door. They hardly glanced at him as he passed. He noticed a particularly Aryan group carousing by the side fireplace. They were all dressed casually in the exact same thing. Dark turtlenecks, thick slacks, and slick boots. They were a team of some kind. They were all good looking, muscular, and blond. Hitler’s chosen children. Unlike their tavern compatriots, they were having a good time. One even tossed a cocky salute at Wingate as he passed.

 

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