‘Makes no odds. It’s a local one. We left nothing in it. Tell you what. I’m going to have a beer. I’m bloody whacked.’ Sandstrom took a can from the locker beneath the settee.
‘Yuk. That fat doctor.’ Julie shivered. ‘I wouldn’t have him examine me. Those podgy fingers. Like a string of sausages.’
Nunn looked at Julie curiously. The towelling wrap she was wearing was doing a poor job of concealment. She was getting into his hair and it disturbed him. His marriage was just recovering from a trauma for which he’d been responsible. It had been nearly wrecked by one Wren, he didn’t want to repeat the experience with another. He wasn’t looking for more trouble. His manner became brusque. ‘Okay, Julie. We read you. Now let’s get down to business.’ He looked at the saloon clock. It showed one seventeen. ‘We sail at 0200. Olufsen and Co. move fifteen minutes later. See any snags?’
Sandstrom said, ‘Only the weather. The mist has thickened. Fog can complicate things.’
‘There are always complications,’ said Nunn. ‘Makes life more interesting.’
Julie yawned. ‘I’m off to bed while the going’s good.’
It occurred to Nunn that it would be pleasant to join her there but he said, ‘In the Service we call it “turning in”. I’ll give you a shake five minutes before we sail.’
‘I call it bed,’ she said. ‘Sounds more exciting.’
Her smile was a queer mixture of affection and mischief.
Dr Gustav Kroll left the Kestrel a puzzled man. He was convinced that Krasnov had been abducted by the British. It was the sort of thing they’d do. Like the raid on the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant near Venmork. They were amateurish, their planning was half-baked, much left to chance, but their operations were always conducted with great determination. Kroll hated the British. He had suffered much because of that raid. What did they know of the pressures to which a man had to submit in an enemy-occupied country? Britain hadn’t been occupied for a thousand years.
Krasnov was not in the Kestrel. Where had they taken him? And where was Olufsen? Kroll’s mind was at full stretch. Olufsen — Inga Bodde. Ah, that was it. He remembered seeing them together in the post office, their whispered conversation, the message sheets she’d taken from a drawer under the counter. Messages Olufsen had put into his pocket without reading. Kroll had had his suspicions then. The whole island knew of Olufsen’s relationship with Inga Bodde.
What could be more simple? Having abducted Krasnov, where — if you were Olufsen — would you hide him? In Inga Bodde’s house of course. And then, when the hue and cry had died down, you’d take him off the island under cover of darkness.
Because Inga Bodde was a much-respected woman on Vrakoy, Kroll was not prepared to share his suspicions with Dahl and Petersen. She lived with an invalid father. There was no one else in the house. It was a situation he could handle alone.
Back at the radhus they reported failure to the Ordforer and bade him goodnight. Kroll thanked Dahl and Petersen for their services and they parted.
When he had gone a short distance in the direction of his own house, Kroll turned away and set off up the hill, his mind full of resolve. It was dark and the mist had reduced visibility, but he knew Kolhamn like a book and he walked unhesitatingly along the path which led to the Boddes’ house. It was steep going because the house was well up the slope. Land was cheaper there and the Boddes had little money.
Kroll was a heavy man, unused to exertion, and the climb made him breathless. Several times he rested. Once he thought he heard footsteps behind him and stopped to listen. But all was quiet except for the distant barking of a dog, the thump of the town’s generator, and the sound of a fishing boat’s diesel somewhere in the fjord. As he drew close to the house a new sound intruded… the long-drawn blare of the foghorn at the mouth of Kolfjord. A few minutes later the house loomed out of the mist. He stopped. It was then that he heard again something behind him. This time it was no illusion, for a man’s voice called from the darkness. ‘Doctor Kroll. Doctor Kroll. Excuse me. I have a message for you.’
When Ferret reached the hospits and reported events in the kafeteria, Strutt told him to join up with Plotz as soon as possible. ‘Krasnov has disappeared. Okay? So your objective now’ — Strutt’s dark eyes fixed Ferret’s in compelling concentration — ‘is to get Gerasov. The prospects don’t look too good, Ed, but keep right on that boy’s tail. Maybe something’ll come up for us.’
Ferret sat on the bed, scratched his head and sighed. ‘What are you going to do, Vince?’
Strutt got up from the bed where he’d been reading, stubbed out a cigarette, put on a raincoat, and pulled a cloth cap low on his head. ‘I guess I’ve a job to do, Ed.’
Ferret’s expression showed only too clearly how much he’d like to have known what it was. Presumably the other leg of Gemini. He’d already been told it was none of his business. He sighed again. ‘Be seeing you some place, Vince?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Strutt shrugged his shoulders.
Ferret looked at him glumly. ‘Things haven’t been going for us, Vince. I wonder who the bastards are that snatched Krasnov.’
Strutt shook his head. ‘Maybe the French boys. They’ve not shown up. Whoever it is, they’ve sure screwed things up for us.’ He went towards the door, put his hand on the latch. ‘Bye now. Look after yourself.’
‘Bye Vince. See you.’
For Jim Potz it was a night of endless frustration. After Martinsen, Dahl and Gerasov had left the kafeteria he’d followed them down to the hospits, kept watch while they went inside, latched on to them again when they came out, kept discreetly behind them all the way to the radhus.
There he’d waited outside in the cold misty night, miserable, bored and alone, until he was joined by Ferret. In brief staccato sentences they exchanged news before settling down to watch the radhus, Plotz in front, Ferret at the back. Some time later three men came out of the front door. Gerasov was not with them. Plotz recognized Kroll, Dahl and Petersen. They disappeared in the direction of the harbour. The American’s assignment was to tail Gerasov. The sub-lieutenant had not left the radhus. For Plotz there was no alternative but to continue his miserable vigil.
From the hospits Strutt made for the radhus. He knew that sooner or later the principal characters in the hunt for Krasnov would collect there.
He hadn’t long to wait, and he wasn’t disappointed. From where he hid in the shadows he saw three men go in. He didn’t know or recognize Martinsen and Dahl, but he’d seen recent photographs of Kroll at the CIA briefing. He’d have picked out the fat, bearded doctor anywhere. Later another man went in. Strutt didn’t know that he was Hjalmar Nordsen, the Ordforer. In due course Kroll emerged with the two men he’d gone in with originally. Strutt tailed them down to the harbour, saw them go aboard the Kestrel He waited patiently in a dark alleyway between fishing sheds until they’d climbed back on to the jetty. They set off and he followed them back to the radhus. For a man with Strutt’s training and experience, shadowing in a fishing village with virtually no street lighting, on a dark misty night with most inhabitants in bed, was not difficult. But he took no chances and even Plotz and Ferret failed to see him when he moved into a doorway diagonally opposite the radhus.