Atomic Winter Chapter One

Get ready for nonstop action. Schuss down slopes with two drunken anti-heroes: Samuel, the rugged Colorado skier, and Erik, a Norwegian fisherman. The men are given a mission that exceeds their integrity: to capture secret weapon plans from the Nazis. They are challenged not only by a mystic shaman of the woods who is the best skier in Norway and protector of the Sami, but also by the Nazis. Atomic Winter most certainly is the very first ski suspense thriller!

CHAPTER ONE

A line of grim-faced commandos in black sweaters and snow caps braced themselves against a pitching trawler. I stood to one side. A light bulb swung about the cabin. I needed another drink, but the British major was briefing his men, causing me to wait.

"Jerry has documents which put the Allies in great danger,” said the major, a gleam of sweat on his forehead. “The documents are stashed in a folder. We get the folder then leave. In and out. No heroics. The contents are of the utmost importance to our war effort. We’ll be ferried across the North Sea, dropped off at a village north of Kristiansund, and under assumed Norwegian names, we will push on to the objective. This is a double mission. After we run ashore, Norwegian resistance and their material will be brought aboard and ferried back to the Shetlands."

As he spoke, I watched the light pass over equipment on the table. The commandos had the best kit, an array of machine pistols, side arms, plus a Thompson with a drum magazine. I frowned while glancing at the Thompson. Someone had etched last month's date on its barrel: 12-1943.
The major finished speaking. As far as I was concerned the Nazis deserved everything thrown at them, but the major's story about papers didn't ring true. There was something else going on.

"Sir," I said, scratching stubble. "Will there be something in this mission for me?"

The major looked at me. There was no love lost between us. I was just a fish boathand drinking my way across the North Atlantic. He tugged at his shirt cuffs.

"Don't you have any work to do, Edwards? Doesn‘t your skipper have duties for you topside? The ship’s bell to polish or the deck to scrub?"

He smiled and his men laughed. They took their weapons from the table.

"This doesn't concern you. Why don't you go and find a bottle?"

I didn't like the way he was looking at me. They had commandeered the boat and Narvik was in the hands of the Nazis, what else was I going to do but drink?

"I just want to know, sir. When this is all done, where will I stand?"

"Stand, Edwards? What do you mean? I'd be surprised if you can stand at all."
He was putting on a show and the men obliged him by laughing at my drunkenness.

"I mean, sir, what will I get out of this mission? Or are you planning to leave me to the sharks?”

The major hesitated before answering. I knew that whatever he said next could not be accepted as the truth.

"Of course there's something in it for you. Big rewards if your skipper gets our men ashore safely. How does four hundred thousand American dollars sound? Good? You can buy all the beer you need."

I knew he was lying, the top brass would never agree to his reward.

"You're crazy," I told him.

I pushed myself to my feet. They all watched me closely.

"I'm serious," the major said. "You, my friend, will never have to work a day in your life if you help us succeed in this mission. Not that you look at all capable of a day’s work."

His men laughed again but I'd had enough. I began to push my way past them.

“You’re a liar. You’re all liars.” I staggered as rough hands helped me lose my balance.

“He’s lost his sea legs,” laughed one of the men.

They were all watching me as I pulled myself free.

“You’re all liars!” I shouted, breaking away from their hold.

I stumbled to the corner of the cabin, up the ladder and, in a rush of energy, punched open the hatch and pulled myself up onto the deck.

Under a bright moonlight, fierce waves struck the deck with spray. Every step was a slippery mistake. I held onto the bulwarks as the bow dug into a swell with breakwater. A colossal wave rolled very near the boat, almost toppling it, but the vessel rose and came out.

My mind surfaced from an alcoholic haze. I thought back to a bar in Colorado and all the times a bartender, rather than the major hollered at my drunken ways, verbal attacks which ended with a kick at me out the door.

The money I earned from the bartender in those days, if any, came from ski trips in the Rockies, weaving past the Feds, pulling sleds laden with homemade whiskey. The slim payoffs could make the stomach hurt worse than hunger! After too much injustice, I went overseas to find, if not my riches, a place where I could belong amongst a crew on a trawler flung out into the North Atlantic.

A smack on my back made me turn around to find a deckhand. I recognized his blond beard and weather-beaten complexion.

"Erik!" I shouted in a drunken slur.

"Bajas!" he snapped back, a Norwegian colloquial for clown.

"Whatcha doing out here?" I asked.
He held a red toy spaniel under his armpit.

"I hear mission is big," he said.

"Yeah, it seems it will be. But there's good money." I said.

"How much?"

"You won't believe it if I told you."
Erik came back with a retort.

"British are cheap," he said. "It will be a slap in back like last time. You serve Great Britain well and they leave us like dogs. You know what I think, bajas? If they pay like last job, we leave the skipper and herd goats. What you say, eh?"

"You stink of whiskey, my friend." I squeezed my nose against the stench arising from his blue coat, but what did Erik care? He was a sea bum.

"Well, there's big money. They said four hundred thousand." I felt better on deck; and the diminishing effects from the whiskey allowed for more control of my speech.

"Four hundred thousand! You drunk, bajas." He let out a belch.
I stared out at the sea. The skipper's trawler, with its snug keel, weathered decks and puttering diesels looked ready to be sunk. I only hoped it could navigate the beachhead without being lit up by Nazi E-boats. Those racing demons always waited behind shoals, then bam, a searchlight shot down upon a vessel followed by horrendous machine gun fire. It had happened to many of my friends' boats, good fellows too, and they all went in a horrible way.

The trawler lurched to port, caught on a wave, and I grasped the bulwark railing
to catch my fall.

Muffy wriggled about in Erik's hands. He bent over, but instead of letting go, he fitted her head with a bonnet. The dog looked silly, her ears hidden behind straps. He let her down and she ran about the deck.

"Look a beauty, she looks. She a queen, she is. Made it from me own linen, the white bonnet."

I gave her a passing glance.

"You know what Erik? Let's have another drink."

"But I threw away last liquor left in whole boat," Erik said.

"You didn't touch the moonshine," I answered, remembering the stash in my cabin, kept as a surprise for occasions like the presence of ladies onboard or a handsome catch, but tonight only the war hung around us, and it was hard to celebrate such a tragedy. With aid of drink, it could be much easier forgotten.

I took my hands off the railing and flashed him a grin.

"Erik! Let's go have a look at it down in my cabin."

Erik ran for the prow and threw away a floor hatch. I nodded for him to go down before me, but he froze in a drunken stance, his arm hanging in front and leg out to steady his body upon deck.

"Go down, you fool!" I ordered.
He fell backward into the scuttle. A clatter rang from each banged rung of the ladder.

I ran to the hatchway and looked down. "Are you all right?"

"Bah, it is nothing,” he said, stumbling up.

"Nothing? You just about hit every rung with that fall."

"I hit lucky steps."

"Yeah," I said, descending into the cabin under light from a bulb strung between its walls. I patted my hair, confident we would make it to Norway. The sheets and pillow on my mattress were sweat-stained and malodorous. I threw aside the pillow, but it still stunk.

"So, this brew you make?" Erik pressed, standing next to me.

"It's over in the sea chest. I'll be getting it. Hold your horses."

A desk for charts took most of the space, so Erik and I stood very near each other. He broke away by jumping on the mattress. I knelt and searched underneath the bed, felt a handle against my fingers, and in elation, pulled a chest out. I flipped open latches, threw open the lid, then sifting inside, brought out a bottle. Erik snatched it from me and spat out the cork.

"Don't trick me," he warned. "This is not gasoline for engine?"

"Now, why would I do such a thing?"
He sipped the bottle, coughing after a swallow.

"Too much?"

"Ack!" Erik cried, his face twisting into a grimace. "Bajas! You make good liquor. Strong drink."

I sat next to him on the bunk, pawing at the dew on my hair, which felt miserable in these crammed quarters, whose warmth pinpointed every damp place to produce small little pains. It took more than a brush to make it dry. I remembered a box of dominoes underneath my bunk and dug them out.

"Want a game?" I asked.

Erik laughed. "But you always win, bajas!"

"You're a poor sport, come on I'll give you a chance!" I threw open the box, dominoes exploding on the mattress in their shiny lengths. "I'll go first." I said, got my stack, and put down the first piece.

"You cheat!" Erik said, his mouth fresh with liquor. "I do not trust you."

"Trust? Don't you remember who got you out of Bergen, huh? Remember the guards?" The memory arose amongst the scatter of white dots on the dominoes, shouting at me never to forget.
.
"You, bajas," Erik said, connecting his piece to my domino, and then grinned at me. "Yet Clara, eh. She was not so lucky."

"Don't you talk about her. You know we were helpless."

But I knew I could have done more to save her. It had occurred at midday, the worst time to make an escape from an espionage mission. Dogs had sniffed us out of a sailboat in dock. The first bark sent me in a sprint out of a pilothouse and into the water. Erik followed and we swam to an oar boat, making a quick getaway, but without Clara.

She ran down the pier as we swam away, her brown hair crashing into shoulders. Police caught up, shooting her.

"She was a good girl," I said.

"I know," Erik giggled. "What did you do in cabin with her, bajas? Did you kiss her, sleep with her?"

"You spy!" I shouted. "Clara wasn't some cheap dame. She was a romantic." My mind flashed to the memory of the Nazis shooting her. "I'll never forgive the Jerries, what they did! They'll get what's coming to them, just you see."

"Do you hear it?" Erik said.

"What?" I said, believing he had heard nothing but the buzz from our diesels.

"That sound? Listen?"

I thought Erik had quickly grown drunk, but the sound arose, first a plop, then a stomp. Feet shuffled above us.

"It's just our trusty commandos up there on watch," I said to Erik, trying to reassure him. "Let's hope they haven't been drinkin' as much as we have."

A shout broke above, followed by a holler. I could not make out the words at first, but when I went under the ladder well, they rang clear.

"E-boat! E-boat off starboard bow!"
The exclamation hit me with dread. I turned to my friend. "Come on, Erik! We've got company!"

I went up the ladder, did not look up, and hit my head against a hatch.

"Ow! Damn roof. This ladder's bad luck."

"Those lucky steps, bajas," Erik said below me. "Lucky steps."

"Don't say it," I growled. "I'll lose my grip and land on top of you."

"I be smooshed."

The hatch did not budge, shuddering with the weight on top of it.

"Someone's standing on it," I muttered.

"Heh, heh," Erik smirked. "We have fools onboard...fools who stand in wrong place."

"Yeah. I just made em' fall. But he's on the wood." I knocked at the hatch. "Ahoy up there! Get off, you hooligan, whoever you are! We need to get out!"

The hatch swung away, thrown to the side by a commando who grabbed my arm, hoisting me topside.

"Edwards," he said. "Just sighted an E-boat in the waves. Look for yourself there."

"Where?"

The commando gave me his binoculars and I looked. Dank clouds came up close in the lenses, a swell curled over, and it felt like being in the water.

"Show me. I don't see anything but soup."

"Over there at the starboard side." He pointed to our prow rising with the breakwater.

"I see it!" Erik shouted.

I jerked the binoculars up and about a hundreds yards out spotted a speedboat slicing through a swell. Crewmembers scurried about its deck for a mounted flak gun and as it came closer, its superstructure appeared in the lenses, a sloped tombstone of steel with lines as dark and sinister as those of a knight's helmet.

"We've got an E-boat coming at us. Here have a look." I gave Erik the binoculars.

"So we have trouble?" asked the commando. His face shone pale.

"Yeah, get down below. I'll have to tell the skipper and hope we can lose it in the squalls," I said and spat on deck.

"Are you sure?''

"Yeah, the skip will handle this, but we need you down below. The decks are going to get a little heavy with the sea, you know ... and I mean heavy, if we give her all she's got.''

"I wish your skipper luck. I'll be in my berth.''

"That boat from Deutschland!" Erik cried, throwing me the binoculars. "It's a Schnellboot."

"She's readying her guns, isn't she?"

"Yes.”

"She's been chasing us."

I neared the pilothouse, a white block of steel and sent a hesitant look at the face of the skipper, standing behind windows at the pilot wheel. He held firm the steerage and glanced to his left side at the E-boat. He then stared at me, revealing through the shaking of his thin shoulders a confusion in regard our dilemma.

"Skipper!" I yelled at him.

"What's your bearings on the situation, Edwards!" he hollered back.

A flash sprang from the side of our boat. The vessel shook with the explosion. I fell on deck. Boards shot out of their ruts and smoke surrounded us, blinding me. I coughed out its bitterness in my mouth.

"My God!" I shouted.

Erik fell beside me, his eyes shut, and coat sprinkled with woodchips.

"We've been hit." Yet the flak gun on the E-boat had never fired a shot. I jolted for the bulwarks and leaned over to examine the hull. No holes blasted into the waterline. I glanced back at the E-boat. The chances of having fallen prey to an underwater mine seemed scanty.

Smoke arose from below, clouding the deck. As it lingered in front of me, obscuring the pilothouse and the crouched figure of Erik, I wondered if the E-boat had shot a torpedo at our trawler. Maybe it was a hunter, sent to end our voyage. Their code breakers had possibly intercepted our outgoing radio messages and then relayed our coordinates to patrols.

The trawler, listing to port, sputtered to a halt and pools of water rose from below, splashing against my feet.
A glance back at the pilothouse revealed a splattered red mess at the pilot wheel.

"Get the lifeboat! Cut off the lines!" I shouted. "We gotta get out."

"We will drown in the storm," Erik protested, as a wave passed by my heels, splashing against the bulwarks.

"Looks as if we don't have a choice. We're drowned if we stay."

"I will go," Erik said, sprinting behind the pilothouse to our ship's lifeboat.

"The E-boat's gonna fire," I shouted, seeing crewmembers readying their forward flak gun.

"Reel it down! The boat!" I yelled.
"Yes, bajas. But we'll drown, I know we will."

Erik threw off the lifeboat's canvas and reeled out rope from its overhead tackle, the mechanism creaking as the dinghy dropped into the sea. He leapt into it.

"Poor skipper," I said, gesturing to the pilothouse. "He was a good captain."

"He and the crew went down with the ship," Erik replied. "A good captain goes down with his boat."

"I'm coming aboard."

The skipper's toy spaniel brushed against my leg, wagging its tail as it sniffed my ankles.

"Muffy!" Erik cried. "Bring the little Miss down! She comes with us."

I picked the dog up and dropped her over the side. Muffy shot out of Erik's grasp and hid under a seat. I held on to the rope and braced myself against fierce winds.

I jumped into our lifeboat, putting a foot onto a seat. As the stern rose on a swell to fall away, I dropped into Erik's lap. I got to my feet and sat on the center seat. On the side, a whitecap rolled by and brought out a loud groan from the keel.