The Devil's Alternative (50 page)

“Perfectly,” said Grayling. “May I ask who the representative will be?”

“One moment,” said Larsen, and the line went dead. On the
Freya
, Larsen turned to Drake and asked:

“Well, Mr. Svoboda, if not yourself, whom are you sending?” Drake smiled briefly.

“You,” he said. “You will represent me. You are the best person I can think of to convince them I am not joking—not about the ship, or the crew, or the cargo. And that my patience is running short.”

The phone in Premier Grayling’s hand crackled to life.

“I am informed it will be me,” said Larsen, and the line was cut. Jan Grayling glanced at his watch.

“One-forty-five,” he said. “Seventy-five minutes to go. Get Konrad Voss over here. Prepare a helicopter to take off from the nearest point to this office. And I want a direct line to Mrs. Carpenter in London.”

He had hardly finished speaking before his private secretary told him Harry Wennerstrom was on the line. The old millionaire in the penthouse above the Hilton in Rotterdam had acquired his own radio receiver during the night and had mounted a permanent watch on Channel 20.

“You’ll be going out to the
Argyll
by helicopter,” he told the Dutch Premier without preamble. “I’d be grateful if you would take Mrs. Lisa Larsen with you.”

“Well, I don’t know—” began Grayling.

“For pity’s sake, man,” boomed the Swede, “the terrorists will never know. And if this business isn’t handled right, it may be the last time she ever sees him.”

“Get her here in forty minutes,” said Grayling. “We take off at half past two.”

The conversation on Channel 20 had been heard by every intelligence network and most of the media. Lines were already buzzing between Rotterdam and nine European capitals. The National Security Agency in Washington had a transcript clattering off the White House teleprinter for President Matthews. An aide was darting across the lawn from the Cabinet Office to Mrs. Carpenter’s study at 10 Downing Street. The Israeli Ambassador in Bonn was urgently asking Chancellor Busch to ascertain for Prime Minister Golen from Captain Larsen whether the terrorists were Jews or not, and the West German government chief promised to do this.

The afternoon newspapers and radio and TV shows across Europe had their headlines for the five P.M. edition, and frantic calls were made to four Navy ministries for a report on the conference if and when it took place.

As Jan Grayling put down the telephone after speaking to Thor Larsen, the jet airliner carrying Adam Munro from Moscow touched the tarmac of Runway 1 at London’s Heathrow Airport.

Barry Ferndale’s Foreign Office pass had brought him to the foot of the aircraft steps, and he ushered his bleak-faced colleague from Moscow into the back seat. The car was better than most that the Firm used; it had a screen between driver and passengers, and a telephone linked to the head office.

As they swept down the tunnel from the airport to the M4 motorway, Ferndale broke the silence. “Rough trip, old boy?” He was not referring to the airplane journey.

“Disastrous,” snapped Munro. “I think the Nightingale is blown. Certainly followed by the Opposition. May have been picked up by now.”

Ferndale clucked sympathy.

“Bloody bad luck,” he said. “Always terrible to lose an agent. Damned upsetting. Lost a couple myself, you know. One died damned unpleasantly. But that’s the trade we’re in, Adam. That’s part of what Kipling used to call the Great Game.”

“Except this is no game,” said Munro, “and what the KGB will do to the Nightingale is no joke.” “Absolutely not. Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.” Ferndale paused expectantly as their car

joined the M4 traffic stream. “But you did get the answer to our question: Why is Rudin so pathologically opposed to the release of Mishkin and Lazareff?”

“The answer to
Mrs
.
Carpenter’s
question,” said Munro grimly. “Yes, I got it.” “And it is?”

“She asked it,” said Munro. “She’ll get the answer. I hope she’ll like it. It cost a life to get it.” “That might not be wise, Adam old son,” said Ferndale. “You can’t just walk in on the P.M., you

know. Even the Master has to make an appointment.”

“Then ask him to make one,” said Munro, gesturing to the telephone.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to,” said Ferndale quietly. It was a pity to see a talented man blow his career to bits, but Munro had evidently reached the end of his tether. Ferndale was not going to stand in his way; the Master had told him to stay in touch. He did exactly that.

Ten minutes later, Mrs. Joan Carpenter listened carefully to the voice of Sir Nigel Irvine on the scrambler telephone.

“To give the answer to me personally, Sir Nigel?” she asked. “Isn’t that rather unusual?” “Extremely so, ma’am. In fact, it’s unheard of. I fear it has to mean Mr. Munro and the service’s

parting company. But short of asking the specialists to require the information out of him, I can hardly force him to tell me. You see, he’s lost an agent who seems to have become a personal friend over the past nine months, and he’s just about at the end of his tether.”

Joan Carpenter thought for several moments.

“I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of so much distress,” she said. “I would like to apologize to your Mr. Munro for what I had to ask him to do. Please ask his driver to bring him to Number Ten. And join me yourself, immediately.”

The line went dead. Sir Nigel Irvine stared at the receiver for a while. That woman never ceases to surprise me, he thought. All right Adam, you want your moment of glory, son, you’ll have it. But it’ll be your last. After that, it’s pastures new for you. Can’t have prima donnas in the Firm.

As he descended to his car, Sir Nigel reflected that however interesting the explanation might be, it was academic, or soon would be. In seven hours Major Simon Fallon would steal aboard the
Freya
with three companions and wipe out the terrorists. After that, Mishkin and Lazareff would stay where they were for fifteen years.

At two o’clock, back in the day cabin, Drake leaned forward toward Thor Larsen and told him: “You’re probably wondering why I set up this conference on the
Argyll
. I know that while you

are there you will tell them who we are and how many we are. What we are armed with and where the charges are placed. Now listen carefully because this is what you must also tell them if you want to save your crew and ship from instant destruction.”

He talked for over thirty minutes. Thor Larsen listened impassively, drinking in the words and their implications.

When he had finished, the Norwegian captain said, “I’ll tell them. Not because I aim to save your skin, Mr. Svoboda, but because you are not going to kill my crew and my ship.”

There was a trill from the intercom in the soundproof cabin. Drake answered it and looked out through the windows to the distant fo’c’sle. Approaching from the seaward side, very slowly and carefully, was the Wessex helicopter from the
Argyll
, the Royal Navy markings clear along her tail. Five minutes later, under the eyes of cameras that beamed their images across the world, watched by men and women in subterranean offices hundreds and even thousands of miles away, Captain Thor Larsen, master of the biggest ship ever built, stepped out of her superstructure into the open air. He had insisted on donning his black trousers, and over his white sweater had buttoned his merchant navy jacket with the four gold rings of a sea captain. On his head was the braided cap with the Viking helmet emblem of the Nordia Line. He was in the uniform he would have worn the previous evening to meet the world’s press for the first time. Squaring his broad shoulders, he began the long, lonely walk down the vast expanse of his ship to where the harness

and cable dangled from the helicopter a third of a mile in front of him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

1500 to 2100

SIR NIGEL IRVINE’S personal limousine, bearing Barry Ferndale and Adam Munro, arrived at 10 Downing Street a few seconds before three o’clock. When the pair were shown into the anteroom leading to the Prime Minister’s study, Sir Nigel himself was already there. He greeted Munro coolly.

“I do hope this insistence on delivering your report to the P.M. personally will have been worth all the effort, Munro,” he said.

“I think it will, Sir Nigel,” replied Munro.

The Director General of the SIS regarded his staffer quizzically. The man was evidently exhausted, and had had a rough deal over the Nightingale affair. Still, that was no excuse for breaking discipline. The door to the private study opened and Sir Julian Flannery appeared.

“Do come in, gentlemen,” he said.

Adam Munro had never met the Prime Minister personally. Despite not having slept for two days, she appeared fresh and poised. She greeted Sir Nigel first, then shook hands with the two men she had not met before, Barry Ferndale and Adam Munro.

“Mr. Munro,” she said, “let me state at the outset my deep regret that I had to cause you both personal hazard and possible exposure to your agent in Moscow. I had no wish to do so, but the answer to President Matthews’s question was of truly international importance, and I do not use that phrase lightly.”

“Thank you for saying so, ma’am,” replied Munro.

She went on to explain that, even as they talked, the captain of the
Freya
, Thor Larsen, was landing on the afterdeck of the cruiser
Argyll
for a conference; and that, scheduled for ten that evening, a team of SBS frogmen was going to attack the
Freya
in an attempt to wipe out the terrorists and their detonator.

Munro’s face was set like granite when he heard.

“If, ma’am,” he said clearly, “these commandos are successful, then the hijacking will be over, the two prisoners in Berlin will stay where they are, and the probable exposure of my agent will have been in vain.”

She had the grace to look thoroughly uncomfortable.

“I can only repeat my apology, Mr. Munro. The plan to storm the
Freya
was only devised in the small hours of this morning, ten hours after Maxim Rudin delivered his ultimatum to President Matthews. By then you were already consulting the Nightingale. It was impossible to call that agent back.”

Sir Julian entered the room and told the Premier, “They’re coming on patch-through now, ma’am.”

The Prime Minister asked her three guests to be seated. A box speaker had been placed in the corner of her office, and wires led from it to a neighboring anteroom.

“Gentlemen, the conference on the
Argyll
is beginning. Let us listen to it, and then we will learn from Mr. Munro the reason for Maxim Rudin’s extraordinary ultimatum.”

As Thor Larsen stepped from the harness onto the afterdeck of the British cruiser at the end of his dizzying five-mile ride through the sky beneath the Wessex, the roar of the engines above his head was penetrated by the shrill welcome of the bosun’s pipes.

The
Argyll’s
captain stepped forward, saluted, and held out his hand.

“Richard Preston,” said the Royal Navy captain. Larsen returned the salute and shook hands. “Welcome aboard, Captain,” said Preston.

“Thank you,” said Larsen.

“Would you care to step down to the wardroom?”

The two captains descended from the fresh air into the largest cabin in the cruiser, the officers’ wardroom. There Captain Preston made the formal introductions.

“The Right Honorable Jan Grayling, Prime Minister of the Netherlands. You have spoken on the telephone already, I believe. ... His Excellency Konrad Voss, Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany. Captain Desmoulins of the French Navy, de Jong of the Dutch Navy, Hasselmann of the German Navy, and Manning of the United States Navy.”

Mike Manning put out his hand and stared into the eyes of the bearded Norwegian.

“Good to meet you, Captain.” The words stuck in his throat. Thor Larsen looked into his eyes a fraction longer than he had into those of the other naval commanders, and passed on.

“Finally,” said Captain Preston, “may I present Major Simon Fallon of the Royal Marine commandos.”

Larsen looked down at the short, burly Marine and felt the man’s hard fist in his own. So, he thought, Svoboda was right after all.

At Captain Preston’s invitation they all seated themselves at the expansive dining table. “Captain Larsen, I should make plain that our conversation has to be recorded, and will be

transmitted in uninterceptible form directly from this cabin to Whitehall, where the British Prime Minister will be listening.”

Larsen nodded. His gaze kept wandering to the American; everyone else was looking at him with interest; the U.S. Navy man was studying the mahogany table.

“Before we begin, may I offer you anything?” asked Preston. “A drink, perhaps? Food? Tea or coffee?”

“Just a coffee, thank you. Black, no sugar.”

Captain Preston nodded to a steward by the door, who disappeared.

“It has been agreed that, to begin with, I shall ask the questions that interest and concern all our governments,” continued Captain Preston. “Mr. Grayling and Mr. Voss have graciously conceded to this. Of course, anyone may pose a question that I may have overlooked. Firstly, may we ask you, Captain Larsen, what happened in the small hours of yesterday morning.”

Was it only yesterday? Larsen thought. Yes, three A.M. in the small hours of Friday morning; and it was now five past three on Saturday afternoon. Just thirty-six hours. It seemed like a week.

Briefly and clearly he described the takeover of the
Freya
during the night watch, how the attackers came so effortlessly aboard and herded the crew down to the paint locker.

“So there are seven of them?” asked the Marine major. “You are quite certain there are no more?”

“Quite certain,” said Larsen. “Just seven.”

“And do you know who they are?” asked Preston. “Jews? Arabs? Red Brigades?”

Larsen stared at the ring of faces in surprise. He had forgotten that outside the
Freya
no one knew who the hijackers were.

“No,” he said. They’re Ukrainians. Ukrainian nationalists. The leader calls himself simply Svoboda. He said it means ‘freedom’ in Ukrainian. They always talk to each other in what must be