The Devil's Alternative (59 page)

He could hear them again, coming at him through the bushes shouting their endless cry: “
Stoi
. ...
Stoi
. ...
Stoi
. ...” There was nothing to do but run, run like a fox with the hounds behind him, out through the back door of the farmhouse and into the undergrowth.

He was running backward, through the open glass door to the tiny balcony, when the balcony rail caught him in the small of the back and flipped him over. When he hit the parking lot fifty feet below, his back, pelvis, and skull were shattered. From over the balcony rail, Avram Hirsch looked down at the broken body and muttered to Detective Constable Bentsur:

“What the hell did he do that for?”

The service aircraft that had brought the two specialists to Gatow from Britain the previous evening returned westward soon after the takeoff of the Dominie from Berlin for Tel Aviv. Adam Munro hitched a lift on it, but used his clearance from the Cabinet Office to require that it drop him off at Amsterdam before going on to England.

He had also ensured that the Wessex helicopter from the
Argyll
would be at Schiphol to meet him. It was half past four when the Wessex settled back onto the afterdeck of the missile cruiser. The officer who welcomed him aboard glanced with evident disapproval at his appearance, but took him to meet Captain Preston.

All the Navy officer knew was that his visitor was from the Foreign Office and had been in Berlin supervising the departure of the hijackers to Israel.

“Care for a wash and brush-up?” he asked.

“Love one,” said Munro. “Any news of the Dominie?”

“Landed fifteen minutes ago at Ben-Gurion,” said Captain Preston. “I could have my steward press your suit, and I’m sure we could find you a shirt that fits.”

“I’d prefer a nice thick sweater,” said Munro. “It’s turned damn cold out there.”

“Yes, that may prove a bit of a problem,” said Captain Preston. “There’s a belt of cold air moving down from Norway. We could get a spot of sea mist this evening.”

The sea mist, when it descended just after five o’clock, was a rolling bank of fog that drifted out of the north as the cold air followed the heat wave and came in contact with the warm land and sea.

When Adam Munro, washed, shaved, and dressed in borrowed thick white Navy sweater and black serge trousers, joined Captain Preston on the bridge just after five, the fog was thickening.

“Damn and blast!” said Preston. “These terrorists seem to be having everything their own way.”

By half past five the fog had blotted out the
Freya
from vision, and swirled around the stationary warships, none of which could see each other except on radar. The circling Nimrod above could see them all, and the
Freya
, on its radar, and was still flying in clear air at fifteen thousand feet. But the sea itself had vanished in a blanket of gray cotton. Just after five the tide turned again and began to move back to the northeast, bearing the drifting oil slick with it, somewhere between the
Freya
and the Dutch shore.

The BBC correspondent in Jerusalem was a staffer of long experience in the Israeli capital and had many and good contacts. As soon as he learned of the telephone call his secretary had taken, he called a friend in one of the security services.

“That’s the message,” he said, “and I’m going to send it to London right now. But I haven’t a clue who telephoned it.”

There was a grunt at the other end.

“Send the message,” said the security man. “As to the man on the telephone, we know. And thanks.”

It was just after four-thirty when the news flash was broadcast on the
Freya
that Mishkin and Lazareff had landed at Ben-Gurion.

Andrew Drake threw himself back in his chair with a shout. “We’ve done it!” he yelled at Thor Larsen. “They’re in Israel!”

Larsen nodded slowly. He was trying to close his mind to the steady agony from his wounded hand.

“Congratulations,” he said sardonically. “Now perhaps you can leave my ship and go to hell.”

The telephone from the bridge rang. There was a rapid exchange in Ukrainian, and Larsen heard a whoop of joy from the other end.

“Sooner than you think,” said Drake. “The lookout on the funnel reports a thick bank of fog moving toward the whole area from the north. With luck we won’t even have to wait until dark. The fog will be even better for our purpose. But when we do leave, I’m afraid I’ll have to handcuff you to the table leg. The Navy will rescue you in a couple of hours.”

At five o’clock the main newscast brought a dispatch from Tel Aviv to the effect that the demands of the hijackers of the
Freya
in the matter of the reception at Ben-Gurion Airport of Mishkin and Lazareff had been abided by. Meanwhile, the Israeli government would keep the two from Berlin in custody until the
Freya
was released, safe and unharmed. In the event that she was not, the Israeli government would regard its pledges to the terrorists as null and void, and return Mishkin and Lazareff to jail.

In the day cabin on the
Freya
, Drake laughed.

“They won’t need to,” he told Larsen. “I don’t care what happens to me now. In twenty-four hours those two men are going to hold an international press conference. And when they do, Captain Larsen, when they do, they are going to blow the biggest hole ever made in the walls of the Kremlin.”

Larsen looked out of the windows at the thickening mist.

“The commandos might use this fog to storm the
Freya
,” he said. “Your lights would be of no use. In a few minutes you won’t be able to see any bubbles from frogmen underwater.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Drake. “Nothing matters anymore. Only that Mishkin and

Lazareff get their chance to speak. That was what it was all about. That is what makes it all worthwhile.”

The two Jewish-Ukrainians had been taken from Ben-Gurion Airport in a police van to the central police station in Tel Aviv and locked in separate cells. Prime Minister Golen was prepared to abide by his part of the bargain—the exchange of the two men for the safety of the
Freya
, her crew, and her cargo. But he was not prepared to have Svoboda trick him.

For Mishkin and Lazareff it was the third cell in a day, but both knew it would be the last. As they parted in the corridor, Mishkin winked at his friend and called in Ukrainian, “Not next year in Jerusalem—but tomorrow.”

From an office upstairs, the chief superintendent in charge of the station made a routine call to the police doctor to give the pair a medical examination, and the doctor promised to come at once. It was half past seven Tel Aviv time.

The last thirty minutes before six o’clock dragged by like years on the
Freya
. In the day cabin, Drake had tuned his radio to the BBC World Service and listened impatiently for the six o’clock newscast.

Azamat Krim, assisted by three of his colleagues, shinnied down a rope from the taffrail of the tanker to the sturdy fishing launch that had bobbed beside the hull for the past two and half days. When the four of them were standing in the launch’s open waist, they began preparations for the departure of the group from the
Freya.

At six o’clock the chimes of Big Ben rang out from London, and the evening news broadcast began.

“This is the BBC World Service. The time is six o’clock in London, and here is the news, read to you by Peter Chalmers.”

A new voice came on. It was heard in the wardroom of the
Argyll
, where Captain Preston and most of his officers were grouped around the set. Captain Mike Manning tuned in on the
Moran
; the same newscast was heard at 10 Downing Street, in The Hague, Washington, Paris, Brussels, Bonn, and Jerusalem. On the
Freya
. Andrew Drake sat motionless, watching the radio unblinkingly.

“In Jerusalem today. Prime Minister Benyamin Golen said that following the arrival earlier from West Berlin of the two prisoners David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin, he would have no alternative but to abide by his pledge to free the two men, provided the supertanker
Freya
was freed with her crew unharmed. ...”

“No alternative!” shouted Drake. “That’s the phrase! Miroslav has done it!” “Done what?” asked Larsen.

“Recognized them. It’s them, all right. No switching has taken place.” He slumped back in his chair and exhaled a deep sigh.

“It’s over, Captain Larsen. We’re leaving, you’ll be glad to hear.”

The captain’s personal locker contained one set of handcuffs, with keys, in case of the necessity physically to restrain someone on board. Cases of madness have been known on ships. Drake slipped one of the cuffs around Larsen’s right wrist and snapped it shut. The other went around the table leg. The table was bolted to the floor. Drake paused in the doorway and laid the keys to the handcuffs on top of a shelf.

“Good-bye, Captain Larsen. You may not believe this, but I’m sorry about the oil slick. It would never have happened if the fools out there had not tried to trick me. I’m sorry about your hand, but that, too, need not have happened. We’ll not see each other again, so good-bye.”

He closed and locked the cabin door behind him and ran down the three flights of stairs to A deck and outside to where his men were grouped on the afterdeck. He took his transistor radio with him.

“All ready?” he asked Azamat Krim.

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” said the Crimean Tatar.

“Everything okay?” he asked the Ukrainian-American who was an expert on small boats. The man nodded.

“All systems go,” he replied.

Drake looked at his watch. It was twenty past six.

“Right. Six-forty-five, Azamat hits the ship’s siren, and the launch and the first group leave simultaneously. Azamat and I leave ten minutes later. You’ve all got papers and clothes. After you hit the Dutch coast, everyone scatters. It’s every man for himself.”

He looked over the side. By the fishing launch, two inflatable Zodiac speedboats bobbed in the fog-shrouded water. Each had been dragged out from the fishing launch and inflated in the previous hour. One was the fourteen-foot model, big enough for five men. The smaller, ten-foot model would take two comfortably. With the forty-horsepower out-boards behind them, they would make thirty knots over a calm sea.

“They won’t be long now,” said Major Simon Fallon, standing at the forward rail of the
Cutlass.

The three fast patrol boats, long since invisible from the
Freya
, had been pulled clear of the western side of the
Argyll
and now lay tethered beneath her stern, noses pointed to where the
Freya
lay, five miles away through the fog.

The Marines of the SBS were scattered, four to each boat, all armed with submachine carbines, grenades, and knives.

One boat, the
Sabre
, also carried on board four Royal Navy explosives experts, and this boat would make straight for the
Freya
to board and liberate her as soon as the circling Nimrod had spotted the terrorist launch leaving the side of the supertanker and achieving a distance of three miles from her. The
Cutlass
and
Scimitar
would pursue the terrorists and hunt them down before they could lose themselves in the maze of creeks and islands that make up the Dutch coast south of the Maas.

Major Fallon would head the pursuit group in the
Cutlass
. Standing beside him, to his considerable disgust, was the man from the Foreign Office, Mr. Munro.

“Just stay well out of the way when we close with them,” Fallon said. “We know they have submachine carbines and handguns, maybe more. Personally, I don’t see why you insist on coming at all.”

“Let’s just say I have a personal interest in these bastards,” said Munro, “especially Mr.

Svoboda.”

“So have I,” growled Fallon. “And Svoboda’s mine.”

Aboard the
Moran
, Mike Manning had heard the news of the safe arrival of Mishkin and Lazareff in Israel with as much relief as Drake on the
Freya
. For him, as for Thor Larsen, it was the end of a nightmare. There would be no shelling of the
Freya
now. His only regret was that the fast patrol boats of the Royal Navy would have the pleasure of hunting down the terrorists when they made their break. For Manning the agony he had been through for a day and a half parlayed itself into anger.

“If I could get my hands on Svoboda,” he told his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Olsen, “I’d happily wring the bastard’s neck.”

As on the
Argyll
, the
Brunner
, the
Breda
, and the
Montcalm
, the
Moran’s
radar scanners swept the ocean for signs of the launch moving away from the
Freya’s
side. Six-fifteen came and went, and there was no sign.

In its turret the forward gun of the
Moran
, still loaded, moved away from the
Freya
and pointed at the empty sea three miles to the northeast.

At ten past eight Tel Aviv time, Lev Mishkin was standing in his cell beneath the streets of Tel Aviv, when he felt a pain in his chest. Something like a rock seemed to be growing fast în-side him. He opened his mouth to scream, but the air was cut off. He pitched forward, face down, and died on the floor of the cell.

There was an Israeli policeman on permanent guard outside the door of the cell, and he had orders to peer inside at least every two or three minutes. Less than sixty seconds after Mishkin died, his eye was pressed to the judas hole. What he saw caused him to let out a yell of alarm, and he frantically rattled the key in the lock to open the door. Farther up the corridor, a colleague in front of Lazareff’s door heard the yell and ran to his assistance. Together they burst into Mishkin’s cell and bent over the prostrate figure.

“He’s dead,” breathed one of the men. The other rushed into the corridor and hit the alarm button. Then they ran to Lazareff’s cell and hurried inside.

The second prisoner was doubled up on the bed, arms wrapped around himself as the paroxysms struck him.

“What’s the matter?” shouted one of the guards, but he spoke in Hebrew, which Lazareff did not understand. The dying man forced out four words in Russian. Both guards heard him clearly and later repeated the phrase to senior officers, who were able to translate it.