“No names.” Henrik lifted a hand between them. “I must know as little as possible. If I’m caught...”
“We have many Nielsens.”
Henrik smiled. “Ja. Will you be the leader at Ahlefeldt’s? You will know the head of each group here, but not his men. Each group must not know about the other groups.”
“I see.” Koppel’s pale eyes shifted to the side. “If one person is arrested and talks, only a few others will be in danger.”
Henrik tugged at his jacket sleeve. “Do you know anyone at Burmeister og Wain? The other shipyards? People on our side?”
“I do. From the union.”
“Give them code names. Arrange meetings between me and them. Use my code name—Anker.”
“Anker.” Koppel chuckled. “You know, Andersen, there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.”
The man had no idea.
Henrik stepped off the line 2 tram at Raadhuspladsen, and he turned up his jacket collar against the rain. The timing of today’s meeting and the rain had led him to splurge on tram fare.
Copenhagen’s grand redbrick city hall rose to the gray clouds, and Henrik crossed the cobblestoned square to the last building he wanted to enter—Dagmarhus, headquarters of the German administration.
A modern streamlined gray building, and on the ground floor, below six stories of German offices, rested a bookstore, Nordisk Boghandel.
Arranging a resistance meeting at Dagmarhus was either the height of stupidity or the height of brilliance. Would Germans expect freedom fighters to meet right beneath their feet?
Henrik crossed the square with a stream of pedestrians and cyclists.After university, he’d never bothered with reading. Since the occupation, he’d rediscovered his love of reading, but his identity forbade frequenting bookstores.
Yet there he was, a laborer among politicians and businessmen, entering a bookstore.
Tall bookshelves lined the walls. He wanted to linger, browse, buy, but he couldn’t.
No German uniforms, no faces he recognized, so he made his way to the back.
A fair-haired man about Henrik’s age, but nowhere near his size, approached the counter, and his light eyes widened. “May I help you?”
Henrik pulled off his rain-soaked cap. “I would like to speak to Mogens Staffeldt.”
“I am he.”
“Do you have a book about the white stork and its habitat?” His code phrase.
“I might. In my storeroom in the basement. Come with me.”
Henrik followed the man into the back and down a narrow flight of stairs. From behind one door, voices arose and the clanking of machinery. Farther down the hall, Staffeldt opened a door to a room not much bigger than a closet.
Gaffel sat inside in one of two chairs.
Staffeldt left and shut the door behind him.
Henrik took the empty chair. Now he could get a better look at his contact. Gaffel was young, university age if that, and he wore a gray suit of lesser quality.
Narrow-set gray eyes assessed him. “Good evening.”
“Good evening.” As Anker, Henrik had yet another identity, one that required Hemming’s roughness but quicker wits. “We need a new meeting place. I’m not the sort of man who visits Frederiks Kirke or bookstores. I draw too much attention here.”
“Oh. I didn’t think.”
“You will need to think of such things.” Henrik kept his voice soft. “For today, let’s take advantage of this location to speak freely.”
