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the binoculars to the youth. "What can you
make out?"
    Olaf eagerly took them and pressed them to his eyes, looking
in the direction Sten indicated. "Yes, I can see it."
    Sten's eyes rolled back in their sockets; he sighed, but
mustered patience that he didn't know he had and said, "I know you can see
the boat, but what exactly do you see? Do you see anything on deck, any crates
or tarps covering anything? Are there Germans on board? How many? Are they
armed?" Sten paused. He knew he would loose his temper if he continued, so
he bit his lips while he waited for a reply from Olaf.
    Olaf adjusted the focus and looked very carefully at the
distant ferry, his tongue flicking out to moisten his lips while he performed
what he hoped Sten would consider a thorough inspection of the craft. After a
moment he cleared his throat as if about to begin a rehearsed speech.
    Sten almost reached out to grab him by the shoulders and
shake the response from him but, having surveyed the ship from stem to stern,
Olaf finally replied, "There are no boxes or tarps on deck but there are
soldiers. I count eight on the main deck and two patrolling the upper deck.
They are all armed but I can't make out what kind of rifles they carry except
for two near the bow who are manning a machine gun partly surrounded by sand
bags. I'm sorry, that's all I can see. I can't see any special cargo."
    "It's there. They never have that many soldiers on the
ferry and never a machine gun."
    "What do we do now?"
    "We wait and hope that the others have done their job
properly so we can report the mission was a success." Sten turned back to
the lake and once more stared out at the water, a few glimmers of morning sun
streaking the surface as the last of the mist dissipated. Olaf stood with the
binoculars extended for several minutes before Sten even noticed him and it was
with reluctance that he now took them. He had been lost for that short
interval, out there on the lake, alone with only the sparkling reflection of
the sun and the gentle chop of the cold waters; alone in a place he did not
want to leave.
    The Hydro was closer now and as he brought the image into
focus he could see a few passengers walking the deck, strolling in the cool
morning air, trying, he imagined, to ignore the German soldiers and pretend it
was simply a routine trip on the ferry on a not unpleasant day in February. He
tried not to think of the sadness that lurked just outside his awareness,
wanted to return to the quiet of the glittering water.
    Suddenly the ferry seemed to inhale, to noticeably expand
and rise slightly out of the water. A red yellow ball enveloped the craft,
expanding outward, followed almost instantly by fragmented parts of the deck
and superstructure as a massive explosion ripped the ferry apart. Fire, smoke
and debris were projected through the air along with the people that had been
walking the deck and the German soldiers that were meant to protect the
precious cargo. The sound reached them several seconds later and he could sense
Olaf's involuntary shudder. Still looking, Sten watched as the hull, which had
been lifted a good two feet, fell back and debris rained down, sending up a
thousand tiny plumes in an almost perfect circle around the boat. What remained
of the Hydro quickly sank beneath the surface leaving only a small cloud of
black smoke and pieces of litter and burned bodies to bob on the quiet chop of
the lake.
    Sten slowly lowered the binoculars. He did not offer them to
the boy standing next to him. Olaf sucked in a great mouthful of cold morning
air for he had, unknowingly, been holding his breathe as the scene unfolded. He
was visibly shaken and his breathing now came rapidly. "It's all gone. The
whole boat, the passengers, everything. Did they have to destroy it all?",
whispered Olaf. He turned to Sten. "Was it really that important? There
were civilians on board!"
    Sten looked up at him and said in a quiet, but emotionless
voice, "There are no civilians in