Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon Chapter 15 Summary

High Concentration

  • The teams clandestinely sneak toward the plant. This involves much dashing, rock-climbing, and crouching.
  • The doors to the plant are locked, so they find the air duct entryway and sneak in through there.
  • Ronneberg and Kayser break into the high concentration room and hold the lone workman inside at gunpoint while they go about strapping explosives to the eighteen heavy water machines.
  • They're about halfway done when their pal Birger Stromsheim decides to noisily break in through the window because he couldn't find the airshaft. Way to go, bonehead.
  • They finish setting up the explosives, and just before Ronneberg is about to light the fuse, the night worker begs him to retrieve his glasses from his desk. :::sigh:::
  • The cover team is impatiently waiting outside. They are relieved when the explosion finally goes off.
  • All ten men are able to scramble away. The Germans are still pretty confused about what's happened, and in their bewilderment our guys make a clean getaway.
  • Most of the Gunnerside team skies to the Swedish border (you know, only two hundred and fifty miles away, no big whoop), but Knut Haukelid and Arne Kjelstrup stay in Norway to help organize anti-German resistance.
  • To put it lightly, the Germans are ticked.