Skou nodded seriously, looked around the room as if it were lined with countless eavesdropping bugs, and did everything but put his finger to his lips: he radiated secrecy.
“If I could tell you I would. I cannot. Within a very short time you will know all about it Now—can we leave? I’ll take your bag.”
Nils grabbed it up before the other could touch it and stood, jamming his uniform cap onto his head. He was six feet four inches tall in stockinged feet: now, in uniform, cap, and belted raincoat, he loomed large enough to fill the small room. Skou opened the door and Nils stamped out after him. They exited through the back door of the operations building where a cab was waiting for them, a Mercedes diesel hammering and throbbing while its engine idled. As soon as they had entered the driver put down his flag and started, without instructions. When they left the airport they turned right, away from Kastrup.
“That’s interesting,” Nils said, looking out of the window, the scowl now vanished from his face. He could never stay angry very long. “Instead of going to Kobenhavn, and the exciting world beyond, we head south on this little pool table of a potato-growing island. What can we possibly find of interest in this direction?”
Skou reached over into the front seat and took up a black topcoat and a dark beret. “Would you be so kind as to take off your uniform coat and cap and put these on. I am sure that your trousers will not be identified with an SAS uniform.”
“Cloak and dagger, by God,” Nils said, struggling out of his coat in the cramped back seat. “I suppose this good and honest cab driver is in on the whole thing?”
“Of course.”
The capacious front seat now yielded up a small suitcase just large enough for the discarded coat and cap. Nils pulled the collar of his new coat up, pulled the beret down over his eyes and buried his big chin in the collar.
“There, do I look conspiratorial enough now?” He could not stop himself from grinning. Skou did not share his humor.
“I’ll ask you, please, not to do anything that will draw attention to us. This is a very important matter, I c you that much.”
“I’m sure of it.”
They rode in silence after that, through a drab landscape of freshly plowed fields waiting for the spring sowing. It was a short drive to the fishing village of Dragor, and Nils looked suspiciously at the old red-brick buildings as they passed. They did not stop, but continued on to the harbor.
“Sweden?” Nils asked. “Aboard the car ferry?”
Skou did not trouble himself to answer, and they drove right by the ferry slip to the small harbor. A few pleasure craft were tied up here, including a fair-sized inboard launch.
“If you will follow me, please,” Skou said, and grabbed Nils’s bag before he could get it himself. He led the way out on the dock, carrying both bags. Nils followed meekly after, wondering just what the hell he was getting into. Skou climbed aboard the launch and put the bags into the cabin, then waved Nils aboard. The man at the wheel appeared to ignore all this, but he did start the engine.
“I’ll say good-bye, then,” Skou said, “I think it will be most comfortable traveling in the cabin.”
“Traveling where?”
Skou left without answering and began to untie the mooring lines. Nils shrugged, then bent over to get through the low cabin door. He dropped onto the bench inside and discovered, tardily because of the dim light that filtered through the small portholes, that he was not alone.
“Good afternoon,” he said to the muffled figure on the far end of the other bench, and received a noncommittal answer in return. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that there was a suitcase at the other man’s feet and that he was wearing a black coat and dark beret.
“How about that,” Nils laughed. “Looks like they caught you too. We’re wearing the same uniform.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the other said testily, pulling off the beret and jamming it into his pocket Nils moved along the bench to sit opposite him.
“Oh yes you do. That Skou with his mysterious ways. Very little imagination though when it comes to disguise. I’ll bet you were drafted for a secret job in a big hurry and rushed over here.”
“How do you know that?” the other asked, sitting up.
“Instinct.” Nils pulled off his beret and pointed to it—then looked closer at the other man’s face. “Don’t I know you from somewhere? A party or something—no, from the magazine. You’re the submarine fellow who helped salvage that Seven-oh-Seven off the coast. Carlsson, Henriksen or something…”
“Henning Wilhelmsen.”
“Nils Hansen.”
They shook hands automatically after this exchange of names, and the air of tension lessened. It was warm in the tiny cabin and Nils opened his coat. The motor chugged steadily as they pulled away from shore. Wilhelmsen looked at the other’s uniform.
“Now isn’t that interesting,” he said. “A naval commander and an SAS pilot wallowing out into the Oresund aboard a scow. What could this possibly mean?”
“Maybe Denmark has an aircraft carrier we don’t know about?”
“Then why me? It would have to be a submarine aircraft carrier, and that I would have heard something about. How about a drink?”
“The bar isn’t open.”
“It is now.” Wilhelmsen pulled a leather-covered flask from his side pocket. “The motto of the submarine service is ‘Be prepared.’”
Nils smacked his lips unconsciously as dark liquid was poured into the metal cup. “I can’t if I’m going to fly in the next twelve hours.”
“Little chance of that out here, unless this barge sprouts wings. Besides, this is navy rum, alcohol free.”
“I accept your offer.”
The rum tasted quite good and put a better temper to the afternoon. After a certain amount of circling around the topic they exchanged information, only to discover this merely doubled their lack of knowledge. They were going somewhere for reasons unknown. After squinting at the setting sun they agreed that the only bit of Danish la dscape that lay in this direction was the island of Bornholm, which was an impossibility in their light craft. A half-hour later their question was answered when the launch’s engine was cut and the portholes on the starboard side suddenly darkened.
“A ship, of course,” Henning Wilhelmsen said, and poked his head out of the door. “The Vitus Bering.”
“Never heard of her.”
“I certainly have. It’s a Marine Institute ship. I was aboard her last year when she was mother ship for Blaeksprutten, the small experimental sub. I did the trial runs.”
Feet thudded to the deck and a sailor poked his head in and asked for their baggage. They passed it out, then followed him up the heaving ladder. A ship’s officer invited them to the wardroom, then showed them the way. There were more than a dozen uniformed men waiting there, representatives of all the armed forces, as well as four civilians. Nils recognized two of them, a politician he had once had as a passenger, and Professor Rasmussen, the Nobel prize winner.
“If you will sit down, gentlemen,” Ove Rasmussen said, “I’ll tell you why we are all here.”
By dawn the next morning they were far put in the Baltic, in international waters, a hundred miles from land. Arnie had slept badly; he wasn’t much of a sailor and the pitching of the ship had kept him awake. He “was the last one on deck, and he joined the others as they watched Blaeksprutten being swung up out of the hold.
“Looks like a toy,” Nils Hensen said. The big pilot, although he wore his SAS cap was, like all of the others, now dressed in high rubber boots, sweaters, and heavy wool pants to stop the cutting arctic wind. It was a lowering winter day with the clouds pressing down and the horizon close by.