The Devil's Alternative

“About us?” she asked.

“About us. I have asked my own people if they would help you to come out, and they have agreed. There is a plan. Do you know the port of Constanza on the Rumanian coast?”

She shook her head.

“I have heard of it, but never been there. I always holiday on the Soviet coast of the Black Sea.”

“Could you arrange to holiday there with Sasha?”

“I suppose so,” she said. “I can take my holidays virtually where I like. Rumania is within the Socialist bloc. It should not raise eyebrows.”

“When does Sasha leave school for the spring holidays?”

“The last few days of March, I think. Is that important?”

“It has to be in mid-April,” he told her. “My people think you could be brought off the beach to a freighter offshore. By speedboat. Can you make sure to arrange a spring holiday with Sasha at Constanza or the nearby Mamaia Beach in April?”

“I’ll try,” she said. “I’ll try. April. Oh, Adam, it seems so close.”

“It is close, my love. Less than ninety days. Be patient a little longer, as I have been, and we will make it. We’ll start a whole new life.”

Five minutes later she had given him the transcription of the early January Politburo meeting and driven off into the night. He stuffed the sheaf of papers inside his waistband beneath his shirt and jacket, and returned to the warmth of the Arkhangelskoye Restaurant.

This time, he vowed, as he made polite conversation with the secretary, there would be no mistakes, no drawing back, no letting her go, as there had been in 1961. This time it would be forever.

Edwin Campbell leaned back from the Georgian table in the Long Gallery at Castletown House and looked across at Pro­fessor Sokolov. The last point on the agenda had been cov­ered, the last concession wrung. From the dining room below, a courier had reported that the secondary conference had matched the concessions of the upper floor with trade bar­gains from the United States to the Soviet Union.

“I think that’s it, Ivan, my friend,” said Campbell. “I don’t think we can do any more at this stage.”

The Russian raised his eyes from the pages of Cyrillic handwriting in front of him, his own notes. For over a hundred days he had fought tooth and claw to secure for his country the grain tonnages that could save her from disaster and yet retain the maximum in weapons levels from inner space to Eastern Europe. He knew he had had to make concessions that would have been unheard of four years ear­lier at Geneva, but he had done the best he could in the time scale allowed.

“I think you are right, Edwin,” he replied. “Let us have the arms-reduction treaty prepared in draft form for our respec­tive governments.”

“And the trade protocol,” said Campbell. “I imagine they will want that also.”

Sokolov permitted himself a wry smile.

“I am sure they will want it very much,” he said.

For the next week the twin teams of interpreters and stenog­raphers prepared both the treaty and the trade protocol. Oc­casionally the two principal negotiators were needed to clarify a point at issue, but for the most part, the transcrip­tion and translation work was left to the aides. When the two bulky documents, each in duplicate, were finally ready, the two chief negotiators departed to their separate capitals to present them to their masters.

Andrew Drake threw down his magazine and leaned back.

“I wonder,” he said.

“What?” asked Krim as he entered the small sitting room with three mugs of coffee. Drake tossed the magazine to the Tatar.

“Read the first article,” he said. Krim read in silence while Drake sipped his coffee. Kaminsky eyed them both.

“You’re crazy,” said Krim with finality.

“No,” said Drake. “Without some audacity we’ll be sitting here for the next ten years. It could work. Look, Mishkin and Lazareff come up for trial in a fortnight The outcome is a foregone conclusion. We might as well start planning now. We know we’re going to have to do it, anyway, if they are ever to come out of that jail. So let’s start planning. Azamat, you were in the paratroops in Canada?”

“Sure,” said Krim. “Five years.”

“Did you ever do an explosives course?”

“Yep. Demolition and sabotage. I was assigned for training to the Engineers for three months.”

“And years ago I used to have a passion for electronics and radio,” said Drake. “Probably because my dad had a ra­dio repair shop before he died. We could do it. We’d need help, but we could do it.”

“How many more men?” asked Krim.

“We’d need one on the outside, just to recognize Mishkin and Lazareff on their release. That would have to be Miroslav, here. For the job, us two, plus five to stand guard.”

“Such a thing has never been done before,” observed the Tatar doubtfully.

“All the more reason why it will be unexpected, therefore unprepared for.”

“We’d get caught at the end of it,” said Krim.

“Not necessarily. I’d cover the pullout if I had to. And anyway, the trial would be the sensation of the decade. With Mishkin and Lazareff free in Israel, half the Western world would applaud. The whole issue of a free Ukraine would be blazoned across every newspaper and magazine outside the Soviet bloc.”

“Do you know five more who would come in on it?”

'For years I’ve been collecting names,” said Drake. “Men who are sick and tired of talking. If they knew what we’d done already, yes, I could get five before the end of the month.”

“ All right,” said Krim, “if we’re into this thing, let’s do it. Where do you want me to go?”

“Belgium,” said Drake. “I want a large apartment in Brussels. We’ll bring the men there and make the apartment the group’s base.”

On the other side of the world while Drake was talking, the sun rose over Chita and the Ishikawajima-Harima shipyard. The Freya lay alongside her commissioning quay, her engines throbbing.

The previous evening had seen a lengthy conference in the office of the IHI chairman, attended by both the yard’s and the company’s chief superintendents, the accountants, Harry Wennerstrom, and Thor Larsen. The two technical experts had agreed that every one of the giant tanker’s systems was in perfect working order. Wennerstrom had signed the final release document, conceding that the Freya was all he had paid for.

In fact, he had paid five percent of her on the signature of the original contract to build her, five percent at the keel-lay­ing ceremony, five percent when she rode water, and five per­cent at official handover. The remaining eighty percent plus interest was payable over the succeeding eight years. But to all intents and purposes, she was his. The yard’s company flag had been ceremoniously hauled down, and the silver-on-blue winged Viking helmet emblem of the Nordia Line now flut­tered in the dawn breeze.

High on the bridge, towering over the vast spread of her deck, Harry Wennerstrom drew Thor Larsen by the arm into the radio room and closed the door behind him. The room was completely soundproof with the door closed.

“She’s all yours, Thor,” he said. “By the way, there’s been a slight change of plan regarding your arrival in Europe. I’m not lightening her offshore. Not for her maiden voyage. Just this once, you’re going to bring her into the Europoort at Rotterdam fully laden.”

Larsen stared at his employer in disbelief. He knew as well as Wennerstrom that fully loaded ULCCs never entered ports; they stood well offshore and lightened themselves by disgorging most of their cargo into other, smaller tankers in order to reduce their draft for the shallow seas. Or they berthed at “sea islands”—networks of pipes on stilts, well out to sea—from which their oil could be pumped ashore. The idea of a girl in every port was a hollow joke for the crews of the supertankers; they often did not berth anywhere near a city from year’s end to year’s end, but were flown off their ships for periodic leave periods. That was why the crew quar­ters had to be a