His boat passed the tip of Nordhavn, leading into Copenhagen’s harbor. The Trekroner Fort in the center of the channel hadn’t stopped German ships the night before, but Henrik wasn’t taking any chances. A dark cap covered his fair hair, and a black overcoat blotted out the bulk of his frame.
He slowed his pace to silence his strokes. When he neared thebreakwater extending from the fort, he folded himself low and let the boat glide past.
In a few minutes, he sat up and scanned for patrol boats.
Ahlefeldt Shipbuilding Company lay on the east side of the narrow harbor. Henrik would nap at the shipyard pier until his shift started. If he slept through his shift again, his father would rant. But Henrik had stopped living for Far’s approval at the age of fourteen and he’d stopped caring about Far’s opinion after Mor died.
He resumed rowing, slow and silent. Far would hate Svend’s idea, and a smile cracked Henrik’s chapped lips.
Then his smile drifted low. If rumors spread about an aristocrat rowing secrets to Sweden, it wouldn’t take long for them to arrest Henrik, well-known man-about-town and Olympic rower.
As empty as his life was, he didn’t want to lose it.
The boat glided toward the statue of Den Lille Havfrue.
Henrik planted his oars until the boat stopped. Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid sat on a rock with her bronze fins tucked beneath her, gazing wistfully to sea.
To gain what she wanted, she gave up her voice so she could have legs.
“What do I want?” Henrik asked as if the mermaid had the answer.
He already knew. He wanted to help someone other than himself for a change. Aid his country. But his voice would call attention to himself. His nobility stood in his way.
To have legs, he needed to sacrifice his voice.
To have mobility, he needed to sacrifice his nobility.
On the dark waters in the dark night before the wistful dark Havfrue, light flooded his mind. Baron Henrik Ahlefeldt had to disappear.
And in his place...
Henrik whispered his new identity. “The Havmand.”
1943
2
COPENHAGEN
MONDAY, JANUARY25, 1943
The light in the laboratory had a flat quality, but Dr. Elsebeth Jensen didn’t mind. Although indoor light lacked the brightness, the wildness of sunlight, it served its purpose. It illuminated.
At the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, the light illuminated Dr. Georg von Hevesy, a balding physical chemist in his fifties, a refugee from Hungary. Cages lined the walls, filled with rats, squeaking and skittering.
Else jotted down the quantity of phosphorus-32 Hevesy needed from the cyclotron. His research used radioactive indicators to trace chemical reactions in animals, research with exciting possibilities in medicine. She smiled at Hevesy. “We’ll bring the P-32 tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Jensen.” Hevesy spoke in English, the official language of the institute. “I do wish you were on my team.”
She’d never win the Nobel Prize continuing to serve as an assistant, so she tipped him a smile. “You already have Hilde Levi. Wouldn’t the others be jealous if you hadtwowomen on your team?”
The corners of his mustache bent up. “Ah yes. It’s only fair to spread the wealth.”
“It is.” High on a shelf sat two glass beakers full of brilliant orange liquid. The color of dreams dissolved, of dreams preserved for a brighter day.
Hevesy followed her gaze and winked at Else.
On that horrible day almost three years ago when the Nazis occupied Denmark, Hevesy had shown Else the beakers, full of aqua regia, a mixture of fuming hydrochloric acid and nitric acid.
