He got up and went over to the bed, reaching down to pull out a square case from underneath. He had been hoping to hear that she was safely away from Norway, but that didn’t appear to be so. Vladimir unsnapped the case and flipped it open, removing the folded shirts and setting them on the bed. He lifted out the false bottom to reveal a variety of papers and codebooks. After quickly sorting through them, he extracted a codebook and replaced the false bottom, closing the case.
If she was heading for Namsos, it could be that she was on her way to an extraction point. He sincerely hoped that was the case, but if it wasn’t, all was not lost. Mikhail had his orders. If he found her before Eisenjager, he would get her across the border into Sweden, where Vladimir would meet them himself. It wasn’t ideal by any means, but it was far better than the alternative if Evelyn was trapped in Norway with Eisenjager.
Crossing back to the small desk, Vladimir set down the codebook and opened the drawer to pull out a telegram pad. It was time to send a message to the imbeciles in London. They were very close to losing an extremely promising young agent through their utterly careless stupidity. They had been given numerous warnings that Hitler was about to invade Norway, and yet they had disregarded all of them. Worse, they had sent a green agent, with no field experience in enemy territory, into Oslo. Vladimir was well aware of the so-called training MI6 provided its agents. It was deplorable, not to mention dangerous. She would have absolutely no idea how to navigate through German occupied territory and not be seen. It would be a complete waste. If Evelyn could only be properly trained, then she would be a force to be reckoned with, and one that would be unstoppable.
But first, she had to get out of Norway, and out of Eisenjager’s path.
Namsos, Norway
The man known as Mikhail leaned against a lamp post and bit into a sandwich, seemingly taking a break. His eyes, however, darted from one street corner to the other, memorizing every face that moved along the main street just blocks from the water. British troops had been marching through the small town for the past few hours, unloading from the cruisers and destroyers that had sailed into the fjord. The town was bustling, and an unsuppressed excitement buzzed through the streets. The British had come to help fend off the Nazis.
Yet he wasn’t interested in the streams of Royal marines pouring in from the quaysides. Instead, he was searching for a face that he had glimpsed all-too-briefly just outside of Steinkjer the day before. A face that no one could describe because, to his knowledge, no one had ever knowingly seen it before.
When Comrade Lyakhov contacted him and told him to find a British agent whom he believed was being hunted by the notorious Eisenjager, he had been skeptical. They all knew about Eisenjager; the man was a legend. But Mikhail had always been of the opinion that that was all he was: a myth. Yesterday all of that had changed.
His hunt for the woman had seemed doomed to lead him across Norway with only one dubious lead and nothing else. Mikhail was a stubborn man, though, and when Comrade Lyakhov told you to do something, you did it. Unless, of course, you preferred to spend your last days rotting in the Gulag. And so he had persisted, turning his attention instead to looking for a man who might also be pursuing the British agent. And yesterday that persistence had paid off.
Mikhail shook his head as he chewed. Following breadcrumbs left from Oslo to Trondheim and beyond, he had come to the roadblock on the way into Steinkjer yesterday. Recognizing the car stopped at the side of the road from a description given by a couple in a petrol station in Knutshøe, he had pulled his motorcycle into the woods and had gone the rest of the way on foot. Concealed in the trees, he had listened to the three SS soldiers talking at the barrier.
That was when he’d realized the man in the car was, indeed, Eisenjager, and he was most definitely on the trail of a woman. Less than twenty minutes later, Mikhail knew exactly what had happened in the ravine the night before, and he watched as Eisenjager returned to his car and was allowed through the checkpoint to continue on to the town.
Mikhail finished his sandwich and crumpled the paper, tossing it into a wastebasket nearby. He knew Eisenjager was here, looking for the woman. He had followed him here, losing him only after crossing the bridge into Namsos. And as soon as Mikhail had seen the ships in the harbor, he realized that the British agent would be trying to board one to leave Norway. If she wasn’t here already, she soon would be. Or, at the very least, Eisenjager thought she would be.
Brushing a few breadcrumbs off his coat, Mikhail began moving along the sidewalk. His orders were very clear: prevent Eisenjager from gaining control of the British agent, and ensure that she departed Norway safely. Failing that, he was to take control of her himself and get her to Sweden. He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and hunched his shoulders against
