The Devil's Alternative (49 page)

As a backup, the gunnery officer could scan the target visually with the aid of a camera mounted high aloft, and issue fresh instructions to both radar and computer when he wished to change target.

With grim concentration, Captain Mike Manning surveyed the
Freya
from where he stood by the rail. Whoever had advised the President must have done his homework well. The environmental hazard in the death of the
Freya
lay in the escape in crude-oil form of her million-ton cargo. But if that cargo were ignited while still in the holds, or within a few seconds of the ship’s rupture, it would burn. In fact it would more than burn—it would explode.

Normally, crude oil is exceptionally difficult to burn, but if heated enough, it will inevitably reach its flashpoint and take fire. The Mubarraq crude the
Freya
carried was the lightest of them all, and to plunge lumps of blazing magnesium, burning at more than a thousand degrees Centigrade, into her hull would do the trick with margin to spare. Up to ninety percent of her cargo would never reach the ocean in crude-oil form; it would flame, making a fireball over ten thousand feet high.

What would be left of the cargo would be scum, drifting on the sea’s surface, and a black pall of smoke as big as the cloud that once hung over Hiroshima. Of the ship herself, there would be nothing left, but the environmental problem would have been reduced to manageable proportions. Mike Manning summoned his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Chuck Olsen, to join him

by the rail.

“I want you to load and lay the forward gun,” he said flatly. Olsen began to note the commands. “Ordnance: three semi-armor-piercing, five magnesium starshell, two high explosive. Total: ten.

Then repeat that sequence. Total: Twenty.”

“Yes, sir. Three SAP, five star, two HE. Fall pattern?”

“First shell on target; next shell two hundred meters farther; third shell two hundred meters farther still. Backtrack in forty-meter drops with the five starshells. Then forward again with the high explosive, one hundred meters each.”

Lieutenant Commander Olsen noted the fall pattern his captain required. Manning stared over the rail. Five miles away, the bow of the
Freya
was pointing straight at the
Moran
. The fall pattern he had dictated would cause the shells to drop in a line from the forepeak of the
Freya
to the base of her superstructure, then back to the bow, then back again with the explosive toward the superstructure. The semi-armor-piercing shells would cut open her tanks through the deck metal as a scalpel opens skin; the starshells would drop in a line of five down the cuts; the high explosive would push the blazing crude oil outward into all the port and starboard holds.

“Got it, Captain. Fall point for first shell?” “Ten meters over the bow of the
Freya
.”

Olsen’s pen halted above the paper of his clipboard. He started at what he had written, then raised his eyes to the
Freya
, five miles away.

“Captain,” he said slowly, “if you do that, she won’t just sink; she won’t just burn; she won’t just explode. She’ll vaporize.”

“Those are my orders, Mr. Olsen,” said Manning stonily. The young Swedish-American by his side was pale.

“For Christ’s sake, there are twenty-nine Scandinavian seamen on that ship.”

“Mr. Olsen, I am aware of the facts. You will either carry out my orders and lay that gun, or announce to me that you refuse.”

The gunnery officer stiffened to attention.

“I’ll load and lay your gun for you, Captain Manning,” he said, “but I will not fire it. If the fire button has to be pressed, you must press it yourself.”

He snapped a perfect salute and marched away to the fire-control station below decks.

You won’t have to, thought Manning, and I couldn’t charge you with mutiny. If the President himself orders me, I will fire it. Then I will resign my commission.

An hour later the Westland Wessex from the
Argyll
came overhead and winched a Royal Navy officer to the deck of the
Moran
. He asked to speak to Captain Manning in private and was shown to the American’s cabin.

“Compliments of Captain Preston, sir,” said the ensign, and handed Manning a letter from Preston. When he had finished reading it, Manning sat back like a man reprieved from the gallows. It told him that the British were sending in a team of armed frogmen at ten that night, and all governments had agreed to undertake no independent action in the meantime.

While Manning was thinking the unthinkable aboard the U.S.S.
Moran
, the airliner bearing Adam Munro back to the West was clearing the Soviet-Polish border.

From the toyshop on Dzerzhinsky Square, Munro had gone to a public call box and telephoned the head of Chancery at his embassy. He had told the amazed diplomat in coded language that he had discovered what his masters wanted to know, but would not be returning to the embassy. Instead, he was heading straight for the airport to catch the noon plane.

By the time the diplomat had informed the Foreign Office of this, and the FO had told the SIS,

the message back to the effect that Munro should cable his news was too late. Munro was boarding.

“What the devil’s he doing?” asked Sir Nigel Irvine of Barry Ferndale in the SIS head office in London when he learned his stormy petrel was flying home.

“No idea,” replied the controller of Soviet Section. “Perhaps the Nightingale’s been blown and he needs to get back urgently before the diplomatic incident blows up. Shall I meet him?”

“When does he land?”

“One-forty-five London time,” said Ferndale. “I think I ought to meet him. It seems he has the answer to President Matthews’s question. Frankly, I’m curious to find out what the devil it can be.”

“So am I,” said Sir Nigel. “Take a car with a scrambler phone and stay in touch with me personally.”

At a quarter to twelve, Drake sent one of his men to bring the
Freya’s
pumpman back to the cargo- control room on A deck. Leaving Thor Larsen under the guard of another terrorist, Drake descended to cargo control, took the fuses from his pocket, and replaced them. Power was restored to the cargo pumps.

“When you discharge cargo, what do you do?” he asked the crewman. “I’ve still got a submachine gun pointing at your captain, and I’ll order it to be used if you play any tricks.”

“The ship’s pipeline system terminates at a single point, a cluster of pipes that we call the manifold,” said the pumpman. “Hoses from the shore installation are coupled to the manifold. After that, the main gate valves are opened at the manifold, and the ship begins to pump.”

“What’s your rate of discharge?”

“Twenty thousand tons per hour,” said the man. “During discharge, the ship’s balance is maintained by venting several tanks at different points on the ship simultaneously.”

Drake had noted that there was a slight, one-knot tide flowing past the
Freya
, northeast toward the West Frisian Islands. He pointed to a tank amidships on the
Freya’s
starboard side.

“Open the master valve on that one,” he said. The man paused for a second, then obeyed. “Right,” said Drake. “When I give the word, switch on the cargo pumps and vent the entire

tank.”

“Into the sea?” asked the pumpman incredulously.

“Into the sea,” said Drake grimly. “Chancellor Busch is about to learn what international pressure really means.”

As the minutes ticked away to midday of Saturday, April 2, Europe held its breath. So far as anyone knew, the terrorists had already executed one seaman for a breach of the airspace above them, and had threatened to do it again, or vent crude oil, on the stroke of noon.

The Nimrod that had replaced Squadron Leader Latham’s aircraft the previous midnight had run short of fuel by eleven A.M., so Latham was back on duty, cameras whirring as the minutes to noon ticked away.

Many miles above him, a Condor spy satellite was on station, bouncing its continuous stream of picture images across the globe to where a haggard American President sat in the Oval Office watching a television screen. On the TV the
Freya
inched gently into the frame from the bottom rim, like a pointing finger.

In London, men of rank and influence in the Cabinet Office briefing room grouped around a screen on which was presented what the Nimrod was seeing. The Nimrod was on continuous camera roll from five minutes before twelve, her pictures passing to the Data Link on the
Argyll

beneath her, and from there to Whitehall.

Along the rails of the
Montcalm
,
Breda
,
Brunner
,
Argyll
, and
Moran
, sailors of five nations passed binoculars from hand to hand. Their officers stood as high aloft as they could get, with telescopes to eye.

On the BBC World Service, the bell of Big Ben struck noon. In the Cabinet Office two hundred yards from Big Ben and two floors beneath the street, someone shouted, “Christ, she’s venting!” Three thousand miles away, four shirt-sleeved Americans in the Oval Office watched the same spectacle.

From the side of the
Freya
, midships to starboard, a column of sticky, ocher-red crude oil erupted.

It was thick as a man’s torso. Impelled by the power of the
Freya’s
mighty pumps, the oil leaped the starboard rail, dropped twenty-five feet, and thundered into the sea. Within seconds, the blue- green water was discolored, putrefied. As the oil bubbled back to the surface, a stain began to spread, moving out and away from the ship’s hull on the tide.

For sixty minutes the venting went on, until the single tank was dry. The great stain formed the shape of an egg, broad nearest the Dutch coast and tapering near to the ship. Finally the mass of oil parted company with the
Freya
and began to drift. The sea being calm, the oil slick stayed in one piece, but it began to expand as the light crude ran across the surface of the water. At two P.M., an hour after the venting ended, the slick was ten miles long and seven miles wide at its broadest.

The Condor passed on, and the slick moved off the screen in Washington. Stanislaw Poklewski switched off the set.

“That’s just one fiftieth of what she carries,” he said. “Those Europeans will go mad.” Robert Benson took a telephone call and turned to President Matthews.

“London just checked in with Langley,” he said. “Their man from Moscow has cabled that he has the answer to our question. He claims he knows why Maxim Rudin is threatening to tear up the Treaty of Dublin if Mishkin and Lazareff go free. He’s flying personally with the news from Moscow to London, and he should land in one hour.”

Matthews shrugged.

“With this man Major Fallon going in with his divers in nine hours, maybe it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, “but I’d sure be interested to know.”

“He’ll report to Sir Nigel Irvine, who will tell Mrs. Carpenter. Maybe you could ask her to use the hot line the moment she knows,” suggested Benson.

“I’ll do that thing,” said the President.

It was just after eight A.M. in Washington but past one P.M. in Europe when Andrew Drake, who had been pensive and withdrawn while the oil was being vented, decided to make contact again.

By twenty past one, Captain Thor Larsen was speaking again to Maas Control, from whom he asked at once to be patched through to the Dutch Premier, Jan Grayling. The patch-through to The Hague took no time; the possibility had been foreseen that sooner or later the Premier might get a chance to talk to the leader of the terrorists personally and appeal for negotiations on behalf of Holland and Germany.

“I am listening to you, Captain Larsen,” said the Dutchman to the Norwegian in English. “This is Jan Grayling speaking.”

“Prime Minister, you have seen the venting of twenty thousand tons of crude oil from my ship?” asked Larsen, the gun barrel an inch from his ear.

“With great regret, yes,” said Grayling.

“The leader of the partisans proposes a conference.”

The captain’s voice boomed through the Premier’s office in The Hague. Grayling looked up sharply at the two senior civil servants who had joined him. The tape recorder rolled impassively.

“I see,” said Grayling, who did not see at all but was stalling for time. “What kind of conference?”

“ ‘A face-to-face conference with the representatives of the coastal nations and other interested parties,’ ” said Larsen, reading from the paper in front of him.

Jan Grayling clapped his hand over the mouthpiece.

“The bastard wants to talk,” he said excitedly. And then, into the telephone, he said, “On behalf of the Dutch government, I agree to be host to such a conference. Please inform the partisan leader of this.”

On the bridge of the
Freya
, Drake shook his head and placed his hand over the mouthpiece. He had a hurried discussion with Larsen.

“Not on land,” said Larsen into the phone. “Here at sea. What is the name of that British cruiser?”

“She’s called the
Argyll
,” said Grayling.

“She has a helicopter,” said Larsen at Drake’s instruction. “The conference will be aboard the
Argyll
. At three P.M. Those present should include yourself, the West German Ambassador, and the captains of the five NATO warships. No one else.”

“That is understood,” said Grayling. “Will the leader of the partisans attend in person? I would need to consult the British about a guarantee of safe-conduct.”

There was silence as another conference took place on the bridge of the
Freya
. Captain Larsen’s voice came back.

“No, the leader will not attend. He will send a representative. At five minutes before three, the helicopter from the
Argyll
will be permitted to hover over the helipad of the
Freya
. There must be no soldiers or Marines on board. Only the pilot and the winchman, both unarmed. The scene will be observed from the bridge. There will be no cameras. The helicopter will not descend lower than twenty feet The winchman will lower a harness, and the emissary will be lifted off the main deck and across to the
Argyll
. Is that understood?”