The Devil's Alternative

Rupert Moss-bank, Permanent Under Secretary to the Department of the Environment, was on the phone to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Julian Flannery.

“It’s early days yet, of course,” said Sir Rupert. “We don’t know who they are, how many, if they’re serious, or whether there are really any bombs on board. But if that amount of crude oil did get spilt, it really would be rather messy.”

Sir Julian thought for a moment, gazing out through his first-floor windows onto Whitehall.

“Good of you to call so promptly, Rupert,” he said. “I think I’d better inform the P.M. at once. In the meantime, just as a precaution, could you ask a couple of your best minds to put together a memo on the prospective conse­ quences if she does blow up? Question of spillage, area of ocean covered, tide flow, speed, area of our coastline likely to be affected. That sort of thing. I’m pretty sure she’ll ask for it.”

“I have it in hand all ready, old boy.”

“Good,” said Sir Julian. “Excellent. Fast as possible. I sus­pect she’ll want to know. She always does.”

He had worked under three prime ministers, and the latest was far and away the toughest and most decisive. For years it had been a standing joke that the government party was full of old women of both sexes, but fortunately was led by a real man. The name of the latter was Joan Carpenter. The Cabi­net Secretary had his appointment within minutes and walked through the bright morning sunshine across the lawn to No. 10, with purpose but without hurry, as was his wont.

When he entered the Prime Minister’s private office she was at her desk, where she had been since eight o’clock. A coffee set of bone china lay on a side table, and three red dispatch boxes lay open on the floor. Sir Julian was admiring; the woman went through documentation like a paper shredder, and the papers were already finished by ten A.M., either agreed to, rejected, or bearing a crisp request for fur­ther information, or a series of pertinent questions.

“Good morning, Prime Minister.”

“Good morning, Sir Julian, a beautiful day.”

“Indeed, ma’am. Unfortunately it has brought a piece of unpleasantness with it.”

He took a seat at her gesture and accurately sketched in the details of the affair in the North Sea, as well as he knew them. She was alert, absorbed.

“If it is true, then this ship, the Freya, could cause an envi­ronmental disaster,” she said flatly.

“Indeed, though we do not know yet the exact feasibility of sinking such a gigantic vessel with what are presumably in­dustrial explosives. There are men who would be able to give an assessment, of course.”

“In the event that it is true,” said the Prime Minister, “I believe we should form a crisis management committee to consider the implications. If it is not, then we have the oppor­tunity for a realistic exercise.”

Sir Julian raised an eyebrow. The idea of putting a thunderflash down the trousers of a dozen ministerial departments as an exercise had not occurred to him. He supposed it had a certain charm.

For thirty minutes the Prime Minister and her Cabinet Secretary listed the areas in which they would need profes­sional expertise if they were to be accurately informed of the options in a major tanker hijacking in the North Sea.

In the matter of the supertanker herself, she was insured by Lloyd’s, which would be in possession of a complete plan of her layout. Concerning the structure of tankers, British Pe­troleum’s Marine Division would have an expert in tanker construction who could study those plans and give a precise judgment on feasibility.

In spillage control, they agreed to call on the senior research analyst at the Warren Springs Laboratory at Stevenage, close to London, run jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.

The Ministry of Defense would be called on for a serving officer in the Royal Engineers, an expert in explosives, to esti­mate that side of things, and the Department of the Environ­ment itself had people who could calculate the scope of the catastrophe to the ecology of the North Sea. Trinity House, head authority of the pilotage services around Britain’s coasts, would be asked to inform on tide flows and speeds. Relations and liaison with foreign governments would fall to the For­eign Office, which would send an observer. By ten-thirty the list seemed complete. Sir Julian prepared to leave.

“Do you think the Dutch government will handle this af­fair?” asked the Prime Minister.

“It’s early days to say, ma’am. At the moment the terror­ists wish to put their demands to Mr. Grayling personally at noon, in ninety minutes. I have no doubt The Hague will feel able to handle the matter. But if the demands cannot be met, or if the ship blows up anyway, then as a coastal nation we are involved in any case.

“Furthermore, our capacity to cope with oil spillage is the most advanced in Europe, so we may be called on to help by our allies across the North Sea.”

“Then all the sooner we are ready, the better,” said the Prime Minister. “One last thing, Sir Julian. It will probably never come to it, but if the demands cannot be met, the con­tingency may have to be considered of storming the vessel to liberate the crew and defuse the charges.”

For the first time Sir Julian was not comfortable. He had been a professional civil servant all his life, since leaving Ox­ford with a Double First. He believed the word, written and spoken, could solve most problems, given time. He abhorred violence.

“Ah, yes, Prime Minister. That would of course be a last resort. I understand it is called ‘the hard option.’ ”

“The Israelis stormed the airliner at Entebbe,” mused the Prime Minister. “The Germans stormed the one at Mogadisho. The Dutch stormed the train at Assen. When they were left with no alternative. Supposing it were to happen again.”

“Well, ma’am, perhaps they would.”

“Could the Dutch Marines carry out such a mission?”

Sir Julian chose his words carefully. He had a vision of burly Marines clumping all over Whitehall. Far better to keep those people playing their lethal games well out of the way on Exmoor.

“If it came to storming a vessel at sea,” he said, “I believe a helicopter landing would not be feasible. It would be spotted by the deck watch, and of course the ship has a radar scanner. Similarly, an approach by surface vessel would also be observed. This is not an airliner on a concrete runway, nor a stationary train, ma’am. This is a ship over twenty-five miles from land.”

That, he hoped, would put a stop to it.

“What about an approach by armed divers or frogmen?” she asked.

Sir Julian closed his eyes. Armed frogmen indeed. He was convinced politicians read too many novels for their own good.

“Armed frogmen, Prime Minister?” The blue eyes across the desk did not leave him.

“I understand,” she said clearly, “that our capacity in this regard is among the most advanced in Europe.”

“I believe it may well be so, ma’am.”

“And who are these underwater experts?”

“The Special Boat Service, Prime Minister.”

“Who, in Whitehall, liaises with our special services?” she asked.

“There is a Royal Marine colonel in Defense,” he conceded, “called Holmes.”

It was going to be bad; he could see it coming. They had used the land-based counterpart of the SUS, the better-known Special Air Service, or SAS, to help the Germans at Mogadisho, and in the Balcombe Street siege. Harold Wilson had always wanted to hear all the details of the lethal games these roughnecks played with their opponents. Now they were go­ing to start another James Bond-style fantasy.

“Ask Colonel Holmes to attend the crisis management committee—in a consultative capacity only, of course.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“And prepare UNICORNE. I shall expect you to take the chair at noon, when the terrorists’ demands are known.”

Three hundred miles across the North Sea, the activity in Holland was already, by midmorning, becoming frenetic.

From his office in the seaside capital of The Hague, the Premier, Jan Grayling, and his staff were putting