The Informer (Sabotage Group BB) (2 page)

“Yes, she was nice enough. Her name was Gertrud. She got kicked to death by a mad horse the year after.”

“Where did you do it?”

“In the drying attic. What about you? How was your first time?”

“I think, we got betrayed,” she says, walking to the pulpit to get her overcoat hanging from a carved angel.

“Betrayed?” He feels lost, two steps behind.

“They were waiting for us…the Germans.”

“I’ve been thinking the same, but honestly, who could have betrayed us? As far as I know, there’s no one but the four of us who knew anything about tonight.” He helps her slip into the overcoat. It’s still wet from the rain.

“What about the guy who got you a copy of the key to the gate?”

“That’s one of Borges old comrades from the Spanish Civil War. Besides, he couldn’t have known when we’d be there and what we were planning to do. I can’t imagine the Germans waiting there night after night for a whole month.”

She ties her scarf. “Jens?”

“Jens?”

“Where was he when the Germans came?”

“Listen, Alis K…” he gently holds her head and looks into her eyes, “…Jens and I started this group. Jens is not an informer.”

“Then why wasn’t he where he was supposed to be?”

“I don’t know. Borge will talk to him. There will be a good explanation. Jens is the only one I truly trust.”

“What about me? I know your real name, Johannes.”

“And you, of course. And you.”

“Jens is a cop.”

“Yes, at least he used to be.”

“You can’t trust a cop.”

“Is that so?”

“Why didn’t he go to the concentration camps along with all the other police officers?”

“It wasn’t all the police that were sent…”

“No, some of them are in the Hipo.”

“I’m really not up to this. Go home and get some rest, Alis K.” He gently shoves her towards the door. “I’m too tired right now.”

“Can I have my money?”

“Your money?”

“We all got to make a living.”

“But I love you.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He sighs, shrugs, and finds his wallet. “You will be the end of me.”

3

In these early hours of the morning, the city’s still dark. A train with an endless row of wagons carrying trucks and tanks under green tarpaulins scrambles by. Jens smells a puff of steam and smoke in the cold wind. His hands are buried deep inside his pockets, his hat low on his forehead. It is blistering cold. There’s a thin layer of ice covering the puddles. His breath forms clouds around his face. The rain has stopped.

The city is waking up. Out on the major streets, the trams pass bicycles, horse wagons and very few cars. To the east, the first glow of the sun welcomes the day.

Jens crosses the street and heads towards the allotments. A rat runs along the hedge and disappears around the corner. The dirt squeaks under his shoes.

Behind him, a bicycle brakes violently. He stiffens at the sound of the tire plowing the dirt. He’s too tired to do anything else.

“Jens!” It’s Borge. It’s only Borge.

“Are you trying to scare the shit out of me?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Come on. We can’t stay here.”

“I wasn’t sure this was still your hideout,” Borge says soon after, as they sit inside a small, leaking allotment house.

“Grab a blanket! I can’t heat the place. Someone would notice the smoke coming from the chimney. Do you want a shot of schnapps to warm you up?”

“Where do you get schnapps these days?”

“I got it all. You can get whiskey or vodka. Vodka might suit a red devil like you better. Here, take a cigarette. I’m afraid it’s Danish tobacco. It’s so difficult to get anything else. Even for me.” He throws a package of cigarettes on the table and takes two small glasses from the cabinet. “A smuggler owes me a few favors back from my time as a cop. In fact, he was the guy who warned me when they took the police a couple of months ago.”

“You’re a dirty cop, and you know it.”

“Of course, but you’ve got to take care of yourself in this world. It might be different over in your USSR, but here, only the strong survive.”

“In the Communist world order, the black market will be eliminated.”

“If you say so. Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Borge empties his glass, grimacing as the schnapps burns his throat. So young, so naïve, so rich. Watching him makes Jens sick to his stomach. In a few years he will surrender and come crawling back to daddy to take over the family corporation. That Communist bullshit has nothing to do with struggling classes. Borge is not fighting for any working man; he is just fighting his dad.

“What happened tonight?” Jens asks, as Borge puts his glass down and looks back at him with watery eyes. “Did you allow them to hit the alarm?”

“No, they were waiting for us in ambush. Where were you?”

“At my post.”

“At your post?” One eyebrow goes up.

Jens sighs heavily, pulls his revolver out, placing it on the table. “I dropped my gun when the Germans came. The hammer bent and there was nothing I could do with a damaged gun. There was a whole truckload of Germans. I hid in a shit stinking privy in some backyard all night.”

Borge takes the revolver to investigate the bent hammer before putting it back on the table. “You will need a new weapon. I know a guy who has a few pistols stolen from the Danish Army.”

“I do not want any pistol. I’ll get myself a new revolver. Pistols never work when you need them.”

“Like tonight?” That infuriating smile.

“You got me there.”

Borge shakes a cigarette from the package and strikes a match. “The Germans were waiting in ambush. I can’t believe we all survived. BB and I were standing right in the line of fire. His coat was ripped into pieces.”

“All three of you got away?”

“That should have been your first question.”

Jens raises his hands. What else can he do? He’s not perfect; judging by what his wife said when he had to go underground he is quite far from perfect.

“Oh, that’s why you’re here.” Jens laughs. His big, round belly wobbles. “You figured I was the rat? Get a grip, young man.” The laughter comes to a sharp end. He leans forward, resting his hands on the table. “I know
all
of your real names. I know where you live—BB, you, and that hooker. If I was the informer, don’t you think the Germans would have showed up at your places? BB and I make up the core of this group. Remember that. Hell, if there’s anyone the Gestapo would love to get their hands on, it would be me!”

“I’m sorry,” Borge mumbles. “You’re right, of course.”

“Forget it.” The chair squeaks under his weight as he leans back. “We are all under pressure.”

“I’ve met a young man.”

“Oh, that’s your thing?”

Borge blushes. He flicks the ashes from his cigarette. “A smith apprentice. A smith could be of great use to us. We could make our own Sten guns. They do that in some of the other resistance groups …
Holger Danske
for instance.”

“A smith?” More schnapps.

“We need to test him, of course.”

“I’ve got a traitor who needs to be liquidated, a Hipo officer. I have done all the preparations. It could be an obvious way to test him.”

“He is very young.”

“Apprentices always are.”

“All right. I’ll take care of it.”

“No. It is better Alis K does that. Let me organize it with BB.”

4

Poul-Erik Smith gets up on the footstool and lifts the top off the stand drill. The noise inside the workshop is a constant pressure against his eardrums. In the back of the workshop one of the smiths is grinding welds, a couple of workmen are cutting thick iron plates with mechanical shears while the Master Smith and his oldest apprentice are hammering on a ventilation pipe made from two pieces of thin iron plate.

Every single thing you do inside a smith’s workshop is noisy. The eardrums are singing for a long time after the work day is done. Some nights, Poul-Erik can’t sleep from the humming and hissing in his ears.

He takes an angle iron off the wagon and switches on the stand drill. Behind him, the smith has started welding. Blue flashes like distant lightning illuminate the workshop.

Poul-Erik presses the drill down into the marked spot on the angle iron. The hot drill cuttings dance up from the hole as the drill pierces the iron. He swallows the pain, clenching the angle iron with his left hand as the drill cuttings burn the skin on his hand. If the drill gets stuck, he has to be able to hold onto the iron. If it slips, it can cut him in half. There is not time to use clamps or anything else to secure the piece. Besides that, nobody tightens anything just to drill with a tiny five millimeter drill according to the Master Smith.

There are two hundred angle irons to drill. Soon his thoughts start to wander while his hands do the job. New angle iron, drill a hole in one end, drill a hole in the other end, put it away, repeat.

Poul-Erik’s mother is more than happy for this apprenticeship. He should be glad to even have a job, she says. He could have been forced to go to Germany to get work, like his father. She also takes most of his salary—for the little ones. We all have to do our share; or else it won’t do.

However, Poul-Erik has too many thoughts inside his head. He can’t just stand here and drill holes as the world is fighting the Great War. He feels useless and misused at the same time. He needs more than a shitty job and a shitty paycheck and the constant beatings from the smiths.

The smith’s big hand slams the side of his head—he didn’t even hear him coming! The force from the blow causes him to stumble, the terror filling him, as the angle iron drops to the concrete floor.

“
What are you doing?
” the smith yells, eyes watery and furious.

“I drill holes—” Poul-Erik answers, bowing his head in expectation of the next beating. It comes, hitting him on the other cheek.

“
You drill holes?
” the smith screams. His breath stinks. It’s ten in the morning and he is on his fifth beer.

“Yes.” Poul-Erik turns off the stand drill. “A five millimeter hole in both ends at the spots you’ve marked yourself.”

“Are you blind, you little piece of shit? It said three millimeter holes on the note.”

Poul-Erik goes for the note in his pocket, trying to keep his hands from shaking too much as he reads the note. The smith’s handwriting is close to unreadable, but it clearly says five millimeter. “Look,” he says, holding the note so the smith can see it.

“It says three millimeter. And don’t you get smart with me. You get what I’m saying?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

“How many did you drill?”

“Those.” Poul-Erik points at the stack on the floor.

The smith sighs. “That was not good. Did you get my beer?”

“No, not yet. I wanted to drill…”

“You are one sad excuse for an apprentice. Go get those beers and then I’ll talk to Master Smith about this shit.”

“Thank you.”

“Get the hell out of here.”

One of the other smiths shakes his head at him as he goes out to get the beers. It is tough to be the youngest apprentice. The only thing that makes it endurable is that, in a few months, a new kid will start here, and then he’ll be the one who gets all the beatings, has to get beer and sweep the floor at closing time and such.

There is a woman waiting at the tram stop by the grocery store as he stops the carrier bicycle on the sidewalk. She is looking at him. He blushes, he can feel it. He is not good with women. He is struggling with the bicycle outrigger, pretending she isn’t there, isn’t looking; but he can feel her eyes following him all the way inside the grocery store.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming at all,” the shopkeeper laughs, going straight for the usual crate of beer. “You are usually like clockwork.”

The woman is standing by the carrier bicycle when Poul-Erik exits the grocery store carrying the wooden beer crate containing fifty bottles.

“Are you Poul-Erik Smith?” she asks.

Poul-Erik nods his head without looking at her. He puts the crate on the carrier platform.

“We have a friend in common,” she says quietly, glancing down the street. “Borge.”

“B-Borge?” Poul-Erik mumbles. “He said nothing about women.”

“Have you got any plans for the evening?”

“I don’t trust Borge.”

“Why not?”

“He said something would happen last night, but I went past the
Super
garage this morning…and it was still there.”

“He said that?”