The Informer (Sabotage Group BB) (3 page)

“Sure did.”

She remains quiet for a long time; just standing there, looking at the tram rumbling by. Poul-Erik glances at her while she looks away. He can’t decide what to do—stay or get the hell back to the workshop with the beer for the smiths.

“Meet me tonight, six o’clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I’m not there, you leave straight away. Got it?”

“Sure.”

She walks away without saying any more. Poul-Erik stares after her until she turns the corner a block down the street. Then he gets on the carrier bicycle and heads back to the workshop where he is greeted by the Master Smith with a smack to the side of his head. Fortunately, he will not have to pay for the ruined angle irons with his own salary…this time.

5

Silently, the rain is falling from a dark, gray sky. Borge rushes down the sidewalk with his hands deep in his pockets and a nervous pain in his stomach. Living underground, even walking the streets gets nerve-racking. You try to make yourself invisible, especially around your hideout. The neighbors can’t be allowed to notice your comings and goings. Anybody might be an informer. It is getting even harder to find a safe place to hide out during the day. People are afraid. There is a death penalty for hosting a wanted saboteur.

Borge stays in the attic of a small villa in Vanlose. In a quiet suburban street like this, it is almost impossible to go out in daylight without being spotted; he has to be extremely careful leaving or returning to the hideout during the day. He is hungry all the time.

He has been living underground since last year when the Germans captured most of his comrades in the Communist resistance group of which he had just become a member. The villa in Vanlose is his twelfth hiding place since then. He’s seen his family only twice in that time. It is too painful. His mother’s repeated cries—praying for him to flee to neutral Sweden.

Borge buys half a loaf of bread at a bakery in Osterbro and walks the streets towards the harbor, ripping pieces off and eating them. A factory producing parts for the caterpillars on the German Panzer tanks is located just outside that harbor. It has to go. He pulls the cap down low; fooling himself into believing that the cap is making him look a little like Lenin.

Two men in dark SS uniforms riding a motorcycle with sidecar pass by in the street. Borge fights the urge to look at them. He is fully equipped with false papers, even a fake gun license. Right now, the gun license is back in his attic hideout along with his Sten gun. It is easier to get past a German street raid without weapons. License or no license.

He lights a cigarette, inhaling the smoke as he wanders along. Not much tobacco in that one. It tastes like old newspapers and saw dust.

He heads towards the factory. Barbed wire and guards in bunkers. Dogs. He passes by. No stopping here. No too-obvious glances. He is just a regular Dane out for a walk.

They can’t sabotage this one alone. One of the other groups has to come along—the Communist group
Bopa
, maybe. It will take at least ten men to waste that factory.

A taxi slows down and stops at the curb a few meters ahead of him. He stiffens for a second, but he can’t turn around here. Not in front of the German guards. There is nowhere to run. So, he continues towards the waiting taxi.

Through the rain that washes down the rear windshield of the taxi, he gets a glimpse of a figure moving in the back seat. The back door swings open just as he reaches the taxi. He steps to the side to get around the open door, his pulse hammering in his ears.

“Borge!” a voice calls from within the taxi. “Get in!”

He stops and looks inside. Alis K. A hand in her pocket pointing something at him.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Get in!”

He gets in. No need for more words. Alis K tells the driver to go, and the cab slowly starts to move.

“We’ll talk when we get there,” she says, and Borge nods his head.

The taxi goes north on Strandvejen following the coastline. Through the windows, Borge is watching the wet city go by. The grand villas of the rich, and behind them, the beach and Oresound, the narrow sound between Denmark and Sweden. He smokes one more of his terrible cigarettes. Doesn’t offer any to Alis K. She has still got her hand inside her pocket. Borge doesn’t like this. If she thinks he is the rat, informing the Germans of the hit on
Super
last night, she will kill him.

They drive in silence. The taxi crawls along the streets. Downhill it tops at 40 kilometers per hour. It is a gas generator car driving on gasses made from kindling wood, and this is top speed. Only the Hipo, the Germans, and some rescue vehicles are allowed the use of gasoline.

The taxi halts at Dyrehaven, the old hunting fields of the Renaissance Kings. Alis K pays the driver as they exit the taxi.

“The rain’s stopped,” she says as the taxi puffs away. “Let’s go for a walk in the woods.”

“What’s all this about, Alis K? I want an explanation.”

“You are the one who’s got something to explain.”

“Me?”

A royal stag crosses the path up ahead. The deer in these woods are used to humans. Alis K stops to look at it. “I talked to the smith apprentice today.” Her voice is calm. She doesn’t look at Borge.

“Hm,” Borge says. “He’s a good boy.”

“Maybe so.”

“He will be able to make Sten guns,” Borge says, unable to stand the silence. “We are always in need of decent guns. We can all have submachine guns.”

“He doesn’t trust you.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure,
I
trust you.” She starts to walk again.

“Now, listen …”

“Somebody ratted us out last night.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“At first I figured, it could’ve been Jens…but BB says no way.”

“Stop it!” Borge grabs her by the shoulders. “Now, you listen to me! I’m not an informer. I waited the whole night out at Jens’s hideout because I also figured it could’ve been him ratting us out.”

“How much did you tell the smith apprentice?”

Borge staggers. Looking away. “Fuck.”

“I just can’t comprehend, that
you
, Borge, of all people, couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“He knew we were to hit the garage last night. He drove past it this morning to see the destruction, but there wasn’t any destruction. That’s why he doesn’t trust you.”

“Listen, Alis K, I’m sorry. Maybe I was a little too keen on getting him into our group. It won’t happen again. If he is the one who betrayed us, I’ll take him out myself.” He lights a new cigarette. His hands shake.

“I don’t think he’s the informer.” She snatches the cigarettes, pulling one from the package herself. “Thank you.”

“It could’ve been him. He knew we were to sabotage the
Super
garage last night, but he doesn’t know who we are, or where we live. I’ll handle him.”

“He’s not the problem. The problem is you, Borge.” She looks him straight in the eye, placing the cigarette between her full lips.

“I haven’t told anybody else, Alis K. I promise. It was a stupid thing to do. A mistake.”

“Are you still capable of getting guns?”

“Maybe. I know a guy. It’s pistols from the Danish Army stolen from a weapons stock on Amager a few weeks ago.”

“Get me one for tonight.”

“You’re not planning to…”

“Your smith apprentice has to be tested. He is to kill the Hipo bastard as arranged. I’m meeting him at six o’clock by the gates of the municipal hospital.”

“What if he refuses? We’ve never forced anyone to terminate a traitor.”

“Then he’ll refuse and we won’t have anything to do with him ever again.”

Borge is glancing at the tall trees. The gray trunks. The gray sky above. The brown, dead leaves on the ground. Alis K’s green eyes. “I’ll get you a gun.”

“All right. Then let’s talk no more.” She turns to the left, taking a shortcut through the forest. “Come along, we have to take the train from Klampenborg station.”

“What if there’s a Gestapo roundup? Do you have a license for the thing you pointed at me from inside your pocket?”

“A license for what? My finger?”

6

BB is sitting in his study, staring at the blank piece of paper in the typewriter. He bites his lip, typing a few words.

We are gathered here today to pay our last respects to William Birkegaard Hansen. He will be remembered and missed, not only as an enterprising businessman, but also as a loving

BB halts in the middle of the sentence, letting his head fall back. “I am a hooker,” he whispers to the stucco on the ceiling. “I’m a fucking whore!”

He slowly pulls the paper from the typewriter, letting it drop down into the trash can. He feeds a new piece, turns the reel until the paper is placed correctly, and starts typing.

There is hardly anybody who will miss William Birkegaard Hansen, as he was an asshole if there ever was one. How often have we who live in this neighborhood heard the fighting taking place in his house, only to see the marks on his wife’s face the day after?

“You can’t say something like that, Johannes!” BB’s wife, Grete, says, placing a tray with coffee and cookies next to the typewriter. “It is a funeral after all.”

“The man’s a bastard anyway.”

“Sure, he was.” She stands there looking at him. Touches his neck. “I worry about you.”

“About me?”

“I am not blind, you know. I can see what you are doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sneaking out at night. You think you’re so clever, but you’re not.” She pours a cup of coffee, handing it to him. “Either you’re a saboteur, Johannes, or you’ve got a mistress.”

“I can’t sleep at night,” he lies, gently taking her hand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Sometimes I get up and go for a walk. It helps most of the time. That’s all it is.”

“Even when there’s a curfew?”

He drums a finger at the typewriter. Looking down the coffee cup. She’s been a good wife to him for many years. She’s so thin. Always has been. But nice tits. Light, almost white hair. At night she looks like a ghost in her white nightgown. Once, he used to kid her about that. Her hands are beautiful, and she lights up when she smiles with those cute dimples. Johannes fell in love with those dimples back in the day. Back then she smiled all the time. The reverend’s daughter from Struer. So well-behaved and nice. Wild in bed, though…and in the hay…and in the forest. How many years have passed? BB lets out a deep sigh.

“Yesterday I heard you talking to a man down at the church. I was out in the back. You were both whispering, but I could hear every single word. You were talking about a garage called
Super
. You were going to sabotage the garage last night.”

“You must have gotten something wrong there. We were talking about a broken gas generator. He was thinking they might be able to fix it at that garage.” BB gets up and walks to the heater to stir up the fire.

“What’s going to happen to me if you get killed?” she asks with no emotion. “How am I going to manage on my own? Tell me, Johannes.”

“Grete …” What can he say? He waves his hands. “I have to finish this eulogy.”

She scans his face like she’s searching for something. He meets her stare. She’s got wrinkles around her eyes. He hadn’t noticed that before. Actually, he can’t seem to remember the last time he looked into her eyes. For a brief moment, he wants to kiss her…grab her around the hips and take her right there on his desk on top of William Birkegaard Hansen’s funeral eulogy. Then the moment passes.

“Suit yourself,” she says, closing the door as she leaves the room.

He stands there in the middle of the room, looking at the closed door. The paint is starting to peel off the top of the door. Everything decays. He pulls the chair to sit down in front of the typewriter, but instantly gets up again. He empties the cup of coffee in one big gulp. Ersatz coffee, tastes terrible, but at least it’s warm. He falls back into the chair, running his hands down his face.

Everything’s a mess. He’s losing his grip. His life’s a jigsaw spilled on the floor.

7

It is ten minutes to six. Riding her bicycle along the four lakes in central Copenhagen, the pedals scratching the chain guard, and the wind making it a struggle to get anywhere, Alis K knows, she’ll be at the hospital on time; she has to.

If you are not on time, you don’t come at all. Lingering at the gates for everyone to notice is far too dangerous. Someone might call the Hipo or the Gestapo, trying to make some easy money. You simply can’t let yourself be noticed. An assignment is instantly canceled if you’re not there on time.