13
“Look at that!” Nils said. “Just look at it.” He had the early edition of Berlingske Tidende propped up against the coffeepot while he sawed away angrily at his breakfast bacon. “I’m just not used to seeing headlines like that in a Danish paper. Shocking. Night watchman killed… foreign minister’s office burglarized… documents missing. It’s like reading the American papers.”
“I don’t see why you mention the States,” Martha said. “These things happened right here, not in America. There’s no connection.” She took the pot to pour herself some coffee, and his newspaper fell down.
“I would appreciate it if you would keep my paper out of the preserves, it makes it hard to read.” He picked it up and brushed at the red smears with his napkin. “There is a connection, and you know it. The U.S. papers are always filled with murders, rapes, and beatings because that sort of thing always happens there. What was the figure? There are more murders in the city of Dallas in one year than in all of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales combined. And I’ll bet you could throw in Denmark too.”
“If you hate Americans so much—why did you ever marry me?” Martha asked, biting into her toast.
He opened his mouth to answer, found that there was absolutely nothing he could say to this fine bit of female logic, so he growled instead and opened to the soccer scores. Martha nodded as if this was just the kind of answer that she expected.
“Shouldn’t we get going?” she asked.
Nils glanced up at the clock over the kitchen door. “A few minutes more. We don’t want to get there before the post office opens at nine.” He put the paper down and reached for his coffee. He was wearing a dark brown suit instead of his uniform.
“Won’t you be flying any more?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know. I would like to, but Skou keeps talking about security. I suppose we had all better start listening a little closer to Skou. You better get your coat now. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
A door led from the utility room into the garage, which made this bit of deception easier. Skou had agreed that the chances were slim that Nils’s home was under surveillance, but one could never be sure. The way Skou talked, he made it seem as though every flight into Denmark had more secret agents than tourists aboard. He might be right at that; there wasn’t a country in the world that didn’t want the Daleth drive. He opened the back door of the big Jaguar and slid in. His knees crunched up, and he realized that he had never sat in the back seat before. Martha came in, looking chic and attractive in the brown suede coat, a bright silk band on her hair—and a lot younger than her twenty-six years. He rolled the window down.
“Child-bride,” he called out. “You never kissed me goodbye.”
“I’d cover you with lipstick.” She blew him a kiss. “Now close the window and hunker down before I open the garage door.”
“Hunker down,” he grunted, forcing his massive frame down on the floor. “American. You learn new words every day. Can you hunker up too?”
“Be quiet,” she said, getting into the car. “The street looks empty.”
They pulled out, and all he could see were the treetops along Strandvejen while she closed the door again. When they started up there was just sky and an occasional cloud.
“Very dull back here.”
“We’ll be there soon. The train is at nine-twelve, is that right?”
“On the button. Don’t get there too early, because I don’t feel like standing around the platform.”
“I’ll go slow through the forest. Will you be home for dinner?”
“No way to say. I’ll call you as soon as I know.”
“Not before noon. I’ll do some shopping while I’m in Birkerod. There’s that new little dress shop.”
“There’s some new little bills.” He sighed dramatically and unsuccessfully tried to shift position.
, It was nine minutes past nine when she pulled into the parking space next to the railroad station, just across the street from the post office.
“Is there anyone around?” he asked.
“Somebody going into the post office. And a man locking up his bike. He’s going into the station, now—no one is looking this way.”
Nils pushed up gratefully and dropped into the seat.
“A big relief.”
“You will be all right, won’t you?” she asked, turning about to face him. She had that little worried pucker between her eyes that she used to have when they were first married, before the routine of his flying pushed the concern below the surface.
“I’ll be just fine,” he assured her, reaching out and rubbing the spot on her forehead with his finger. She smiled, not very successfully.
“I never thought that I would wish you were back at flying those planes all over the world. But I do.”
“Don’t worry. Little Nils can take care of himself. And watchdog Skou will be with me.”
He watched the graceful swing of her figure as she crossed the road—then looked at his watch. One more minute. The street was empty now. He climbed out of the car and went to buy a ticket. When he stepped out on the wooden platform the train was just rounding the bend on the outskirts of town, moaning deeply. There were a few other people waiting for the train from Copenhagen, none of theim looking at him. When the coaches squealed to a stop he boarded the first one. Ove Rasmussen looked up from his newspaper and waved. They shook hands and Nils sat down in the empty seat next to him.
“I thought Arnie would be with you,” Nils said. “He’s going up with Skou in some other complicated and secret manner.”
“It’s stopped being a game, hasn’t it?”
“You’re right about that. I wonder if they’ll be able to find the swine who did it?”
“Highly unlikely, Skou told me. Very professional, no clues of any kind. The murdering bastards. Did them no good either. There was nothing about the Daleth drive in the office.”
They were silent after that, all the way to Hillerod where they had to change trains. The Helsingor train was ready to leave, a spur line, one track, and just three cars. It rattled off through the beech and birch forests, skirting the backyards of red-roofed white houses where laundry blew in the fresh wind from the Sound. The woods changed to fields and, at Snekkersten, they saw the ocean for the first time, the leaden waters of the Oresund with the green of Sweden on the far side. This was the last stop before Elsinore and they climbed down to find Skou waiting for them. No one else got off the train at the tiny fishing village. Skou walked away without a word and they followed him. The old houses had high hedges, and the street was empty. Around the first corner a Thames panel truck was waiting, KOBENHAVNS ELEKTRISKE AR-TIKLER painted on the sides, along with some enthusiastic lightning bolts and a fiercely glowing light bulb. He opened the back for them and they climbed in, making themselves as comfortable as they could on the rolls of heavy wire inside. Skou got into the driver’s seat, changed his soft hat for a workman’s peaked cap, and drove off.
Skou took the back roads into Helsingor, then skirted the harbor to the Helsingor Skibsvaerft. The guard at the gate waved him through and he drove into the shipyard. There were the skeletons of two ships on the ways. Riveting machines hammered, and there was the sudden bite of actinic light as the welders bent to their work. The truck went around to the rear of the offices, out of sight of the rest of the yard.
“We have arrived,” Skou announced, throwing wide the back door.
They climbed down and followed Skou into the building and up a flight of stairs. A uniformed policeman saluted them as they came up and opened the door for them. There was the smell of fresh-brewed coffee inside, mixed with rich cigar smoke. Two men were seated with their backs to the door, looking out of the large window that faced onto the shipyard. They stood and turned around when the others entered, Arnie Klein and a tall middle-aged man dressed in a rusty black suit and vest with an old-fashioned gold watch chain across the front. Arnie made the introductions.