“There was no reason for me to have been in that part of the building. I couldn’t risk explaining myself.”
“So you did the next best thing and hid Birkeland’s key in Anders’s room for us to find.”
“I had planned on throwing it into the woods, but then I realized that it might incriminate Anders. If he couldn’t be hung as a traitor, then convicting him of murder would do.”
“Anders,” I asked. “What do you have to say?”
“We all have a part to play here, Billy,” he answered. “Some parts are just more complicated than others.”
I wished I could see Anders’s face, but I could only listen and think fast how to get the muzzle of Rolf’s gun out of mine!
“I am sorry about your friends, Boyle, but I had to get away,” Rolf said. “I know what they found out, and it would have meant my life if I was still in England.”
“So it was their lives instead?”
“This is war, Boyle. I’m trained to kill or be killed. If Anders reached the Germans with the invasion plans, it would mean death for thousands and the end of our hopes of liberation. I have to stop him and I couldn’t do that facing a hangman in England.”
“Just explain one thing to me,” I said. I wanted to keep Rolf talking. If I could get him to take his eyes off Anders long enough, well, I wasn’t sure what would happen. Anders might kill us both. Or not.
“How did you get Birkeland to write that note?”
“That’s all you want to know? You know everything else?”
“I know you never really lost the gold coin. You made up that story so you could leave it next to Birkeland’s body to suggest he was feeling remorse about stealing the gold. I know when you really killed him and how you tried to deceive us about the time of death. I know about Kayser Fisheries and what you hoped to gain. I know about the Tire Bomb. I can guess that you broke Birkeland’s neck with some fancy commando move. I just can’t figure how you got him to write that note.”
“It was simple. He had already written it. I destroyed the first page and left the last.”
That’s it, I thought. Keep talking. Keep telling us how smart you are.
“It was perfect!” He was gloating now. I had seen this before. No matter how smart a criminal, no matter how long he kept his mouth shut, once he started talking, it was hard for him to quit. He had been so clever and had no one to share it with. Once he started, it was too difficult to stop.
“Birkeland was writing his resignation from the government. Remember the page I left you? I know this is a great disappointment. I have always tried to serve Norway and my king as best as I could. This final step is unfortunately necessary given the current situation.
He was handing in his resignation; that was the final step. I knew the king would never accept it, that he would be forced to give Birkeland the senior adviser post instead. I had gone that night to try one last time to convince Birkeland that his policy was ruinous for all of us, for Norway itself. It would have utterly destroyed my family’s business. When he told me about the letter, even showed it to me, I knew what I had to do. It was his death sentence. Now, Lieutenant Boyle, have you come here to arrest me or to let a German spy get away? Make up your mind!” Rolf was sweating now, drops from his brow splashing my face.
“Rolf, put your weapon down!” Anders yelled. “I’ll shoot. Pull that trigger and I’ll shoot. No matter who or what each of us is, we’ve been through too much together for that.”
“Damn you, Anders, or whatever your name is! I wish we’d left you to those ski troops. It would have served you right for your own kind to have killed you!”
“I know I owe you my life, Rolf. That’s why I don’t want to kill you now. Let us each go our own ways.”
“Rolf, listen,” I said, trying to turn down the heat a bit. “I’m a cop but I also know what side I’m on. We can’t let this guy go. He knows too much.”
“True, but so do you. About me.”
“Yeah, but so do Jens and Major Harding and a bunch of others in England by now. If you vanish into the countryside, they’ll never find you. I won’t go after you. That was your plan, right? After you took care of Anders?”
I could see Rolf was confused. His only leverage over Anders was that Anders owed him and didn’t seem to want to kill him. Somehow he had to break the stalemate. I decided it was time to do it for him. I started to crawl toward my gun.
“Rolf, listen. We can’t let this guy go. Let me take him in. The lives of thousands of men depend on it!” I said.
“Stop! I’m warning you,” Rolf shouted. He was straddling me, the gun barrel shaking in his hands. I stopped inches away from my. 45.
“Rolf,” Anders yelled, “we can still work this out!”
“Rolf, let me help you!” I yelled at the same time.
“Stop! Stop it!” He was yelling, trying to drown out the voices that were confusing him. His hands were shaking. I watched his face. Involuntarily, his eyes squeezed shut for a second as he screamed.
I extended my arm and grabbed the automatic, in one motion bringing it up and firing into Rolf’s chest. I fired again as his mouth opened in shock. His eyes flickered back and forth between Anders and me. He staggered and tried to shift the barrel of the Sten back to me. I fired again and didn’t stop until he fell over on top of me, the Sten gun going off as he fell, kicking up dirt and rocks into my face, his ruined bloody chest hitting me like a side of slaughtered beef.
The next thing I remember, Rolf had been rolled off me and Anders was washing my face with a wet rag. I was covered in blood. It hurt.
“Can you get up, Billy?”
I tried to focus on him. It was hard to see.
“I think so.” I rolled over, got to my knees, and let Anders help me the rest of the way. He sat me on the bench.
“I’ll get you some water to wash your eyes out with. You’ve got powder burns on your face and dirt in your eyes, as well as cuts and bruises.”
“How long have I been out?” I asked as he brought back a pitcher of water.
“About twenty minutes.”
“You could have been long gone by now. What if some of Rolf’s men came along?”
“Waiting here is not as dangerous as what you did, Billy.”
“Something had to give. I could see he was getting shaky. We were about to lose control.”
I looked over to Rolf’s body. Things were clearing but still a little out of focus. He was a blurry mass of red. It was almost funny. He had come here to do the right thing, to be a good Norwegian soldier and save his country. Instead he’d gotten killed for doing the wrong thing, to the wrong person. I might have been tempted to let him get away with killing Birkeland, but I had to avenge Daphne.
The weapons had all vanished except for a Sten gun slung over Anders’s shoulder. As he set down the pitcher of water on the bench, he let it hang there, like an afterthought.
“I’d say we’re even. You’re a German spy yet you didn’t gun both of us down. That would have been a simple solution for you.”
“Simple, yes. Right, no.”
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I asked, feeling a pang of guilt at talking so matter-of-factly with the enemy.
“I think, Billy, that is a very difficult question for you and me at the moment.”
We sat there a while. There wasn’t much more to say. He got up. “I have to go, Billy. With all this shooting, someone may come up here.”
“Your side or mine?”
“Perhaps we both need to leave. In opposite directions.” Anders went inside the ruined hut. He came out with a blanket and laid it over Rolf.
“Whatever he was, and whatever I am, we were once comrades.” After a minute he went inside and returned with Rolf’s Sten gun and my pistol. He laid them on a rock, removed the clips, and tossed them down the trail. Far enough that by the time I found them, he’d be long gone in the opposite direction. He walked over to me. He had on an old green wool sweater and was wearing a small pack.
