The Informer (Sabotage Group BB) Read online

  The Informer

  Steen Langstrup

  The Informer

  2 Feet Entertainment

  COPENHAGEN · November 1944

  Copenhagen · November 1944

  1

  BB sticks close to the wall, pulling his Walther P38 from his pocket. The darkness is complete. The gate only a few feet to his left is nothing more than a dim shape. It is shut—as it should be. Closing the distance to the gate, he pulls his hat down to shield his eyes from the needle-like rain.

  The gate is locked; no need to check on that. Super, the full-service garage is located beyond the gate in the backyard of this building. It is here that the Gestapo have their black Mercedes-Benzes repaired.

  Leaning over the gate to look down the darkened street, he is unable to see much due to the darkness. Copenhagen is as pitch black as the Devil’s soul. All windows are covered by thick, black curtains, all street lamps have been turned off. It has been like this since the Germans came four and a half years ago.

  He gives the all clear signal—a long, flat whistling note—and seeks shelter inside the gateway. It is not the best choice for a signal on a night like this. The sound could easily get lost in the howling wind, but it is too late to change that. For a moment he is almost certain he can hear a car cruising down Norrebrogade, and his blood runs cold.

  The Germans?

  The Hipo—the Danish Nazi Police Force?

  Borge appears next to him, seeming to materialize from out of the darkness carrying a backpack full of explosives. Gasping for breath as he releases the safety on his English submachine gun, he gives a curt nod of his head.

  BB slides a copy of the key into the lock on the gate. It clicks as it slides in. BB glances at Borge. Ready?

  Borge nods his head again—excited, impatient, high on adrenaline. His eyes are wide with anticipation.

  BB can feel the excitement himself. As always, it gathers in his crotch making him hard.

  He slowly turns the key, trying to avoid any noise. It is not a perfect copy and doesn’t fit too well inside the lock. He wiggles it back and forth a couple of times before it finally turns, unlocking the gate.

  He holds his breath. The first minutes will be the most dangerous. The guardhouse is situated on the right, just inside the gateway. There will be two guards patrolling the premises; both Danish SS veterans from the Eastern Front, and both armed. Right now, they should be inside the guardhouse playing cards and drinking ersatz coffee, but you never know. One of them could be taking a shit or might have slipped inside the garage to steal a couple of bolts for his bicycle.

  There is a direct telephone line from the guardhouse to the Gestapo HQ at the Shell House. If the guards are allowed to use that telephone, the place will be crawling with German soldiers within five minutes. The guards have to be taken out before they are given a chance to raise the alarm.

  When BB pulls the door open, the light inside the guardhouse will be blinding. Unable to see much of what is going on, they will have to disarm the two guards quickly.

  However, from that point it should be quite easy. BB will stay with the guards while Borge places the explosives inside the garage. After that is accomplished, it is all about getting out. Away. Home.

  BB leaves the key in the lock. Shifting the gun to his right hand, he meets Borge’s eyes. “This is it!” he whispers, easing the gate open.

  Instantly, the place explodes with a flash of pure white light as a giant searchlight is switched on with an audible pop that paralyzes him like a deer caught in headlights. Instantly, the place explodes with a flash of pure white light as a giant searchlight is switched on with an audible pop that paralyzes him like a deer caught in headlights. Someone is shouting in German. The rapid bam-bam-bam of a machine gun engulfs the words. His hat goes flying and something is pulling at his coat. Bullets hiss by his face; he can feel them whiz past. He will be dead in seconds and he knows it. Yet, he can’t move.

  At his side, Borge’s submachine gun opens fire. The noise is so loud that it hurts his ears. The searchlight dies with a cacophony of shattering glass. Borge must have hit it. The darkness is instant. BB remains blind—only now it is by yellow and red dots dancing in front of his eyes. Borge drags him back out through the gate.

  “Are you hit?”

  Shaking all over, BB tries to answer by shaking his head.

  Borge fires his Sten gun at the gate.

  “BB, goddammit! Talk to me!”

  A smack in his face, and then another has him gasping for air. “I’m okay. We gotta go.” Trying to shake the paralysis from his system. Trying to think.

  A truck turns down the street. The wet cobblestones sparkle in the meager light from the truck’s darkened headlights. Germans. BB turns around. Another car arrives, this one smaller. Muzzle flashes light up the street; Alis K is trying to cover them. Where the hell is Jens? BB looks back. The truck has stopped and soldiers are swarming. Jens was supposed to cover that side! Where is he? Has he fled? Is he dead?

  BB aims his weapon at the soldiers, firing off a couple of rounds. Borge slams a new magazine into the Sten gun and pulls away from the gate.

  “We’re surrounded!” BB yells. “This way!”

  He darts down the street towards Alis K, shooting at the car ahead of him, then dives into a stairway. Shots slam into the walls all around him, projectiles hiss through the air. Borge has drawn over to the other side of the street and is shooting in both directions. Alis K has disappeared.

  BB jumps back into the street, firing again and again as he goes for the next stairway. Finally, he spots her; she is at a gateway across the street with her own weapon spitting fire. Someone is screaming in pain. Crying. Weeping. BB swaps a new magazine in the Walther.

  A sharp pain pounds into his left thigh, and the magazine goes flying from his hands as he stumbles back into the stairway. Touching his thigh, he sees blood on his fingertips. A humming ache builds in his thigh like a bee sting. Luckily, the leg still seems able to carry his weight.

  The magazine lay out on the sidewalk. Might just as well be in China. It was his last one. All his ammo spent, he looks back at the garage and sees the soldiers closing in, seeking cover by the walls.

  “BB! Let’s go!” Borge shouts.

  BB leans out to look in the other direction. Dead Germans everywhere. Alis K is going for the car. Borge is already behind the wheel. How did that happen?

  He jumps out from the stairway and runs for the car. The instant he has one foot inside the vehicle, Borge steps hard on the gas. If it wasn’t for Alis K grabbing his collar and pulling him in, he wouldn’t have made it inside.

  Behind them, the Germans send a hailstorm of lead. The rear window explodes in a shower of broken glass. BB and Alis K throw themselves down on the back seat.

  “Jens?” Alis K asks, her lips brush BB’s ear. “Where is Jens?”

  “Don’t know.”

  A few minutes later, they leave the car at Runddelen and part without saying a word. Borge slips away in one direction, Alis K and BB in another.

  2

  Alis K moans as BB slowly moves inside her. She grabs his neck, whining words that make no sense as she pushes up to receive him. The echoes of the noise rolling down the high church walls blends in with the sounds of the storm from outside. He pushes her skirt up higher to get a firm grip on her ass and lifts her up. Kissing her mouth, squeezing his tongue inside. Pumping harder.

  On the altar above them, the flames of the candles dance to the rhythm of his thrusts; the shadows in the dark church come alive.

  Afterwards, he rolls on to his back. Her hands sliding through his hair. He is freezing; he gets up and buttons his trousers.
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  “You’re hurt.” She touches his thigh.

  “It’s nothing. Just a flesh wound.” He moves away from her.

  “Let me have a look.” She pulls up her panties and attaches the stockings. Smoothes down the skirt. “A wound like that can get infected very easily.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he goes for the altar wine. “Do you want a glass? It’s the good bottle. Not the cheap stuff I use for the Holy Communion.”

  “Let me have a look at that wound. You can’t let your wife see it, you know.”

  “She won’t. There is absolutely no danger of that happening. She hasn’t seen me naked since June. We…” He hands her a glass of wine. “…don’t even sleep in the same room anymore.”

  She sips the wine. Bites her lip. “It was close tonight.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You lost your hat. Your coat is ripped to pieces.”

  “That kind of experience could make a man turn to religion.”

  “So says the reverend.”

  He kisses her in the hair. “So says the reverend…yes, he does.”

  She rests her head against his chest, and for a brief moment, she’s nothing but a little girl hiding from the cruel world. He puts his arms around her.

  “I shot so many Germans,” she mumbles.

  “I know. You saved my life. And Borge’s life as well.”

  “Tomorrow…”

  “Don’t think about that,” he whispers, looking up at Jesus hanging on the cross.

  The same Jesus he once believed could save the lost souls, but not in this world. Not now. The Germans have their own way of avenging dead soldiers. They simply shoot and kill the same number of innocent Danes in the streets. Terror against terror. An eye for an eye. You kill a German; you kill a Dane in the same shot.

  Alis K shot five Germans tonight, Borge and BB easily as many. BB doesn’t want to think about tomorrow. The retaliation killings—and the reprisal bombings of Danish properties as revenge for sabotage of German factories—are done by a special corps of Danish SS soldiers called the Schalburg Corps; named after the Danish Nazi hero, Christian Frederik von Schalburg, who died on the Eastern Frontier in 1942. Hence, the retaliation terror is nicknamed Schalburgtage.

  BB deliberately avoids reading any newspapers the day after a hit.

  He empties the wine glass, using his fingers to wipe his lips.

  “Hold me a little longer.” Alis K lowers her cheek back against his chest.

  He hesitates for a second; he then places the glass on the altar and pulls her close. He senses that she wants to say something and he squeezes her even harder, hoping to stop the words from coming. If they begin to talk about the Schalburgtage, about the reprisal killings, he will not be able to think about anything else. Next time, he might restrain himself—and then he will get himself killed.

  “Tell me about the first time you ever slept with a woman,” she says as he finally releases his grip.

  “Excuse me?” A silly laugh, even to his own ears.

  “You can tell me.” She looks at him with her big bluish-green eyes. He can see the orange flicker from the candles reflected in her pupils. Twenty-two years old. Not a single wrinkle anywhere. He feels old.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you do. Was it your wife?”

  “No.” He pours another glass of wine for both of them. “It was a long time before I met her.”

  “How old were you?”

  “When I met my wife?”

  “No, fool. The first time you made love to a woman.”

  He swallows. “I might have been sixteen. It was in 1920. Why do you want to know?”

  “1920? I wasn’t even born.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me. What happened? Was it the neighbor’s daughter?”

  “If you insist. It was a maid down the street. Nothing worth remembering.”

  “Was she nice?”

  “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?”