The Devil's Alternative

Assisting them were a bevy of specialist experts, including three scientists in various disciplines, notably explosives, ships, and pollution; the Vice Chief of Defense Staff (a vice admiral), someone from Defense Intelligence, from MI5, from the SIS, a Royal Air Force group captain, and a senior Royal Marine colonel named Timothy Holmes.

“Well now, gentlemen,” Sir Julian Flannery began, “we have all had the time to read the transcript of the noon broadcast from Captain Larsen. First I think we ought to have a few indisputable facts. May we begin with this ship, the ... er ... Freya. What do we know about her?”

The shipping expert, coming under the Trade and Industry people, found all eyes on him.

“I’ve been to Lloyd’s this morning and secured the plan of the Freya,” he said briefly. “I have it here. It’s detailed down to the last nut and bolt.”

He went on for ten minutes, the plan spread on the table, describing the size, cargo capacity, and construction of the Freya in clear, layman’s language.

When he had finished, the expert from the Department of Energy was called on. He had an aide bring to the table a five-foot-long model of a supertanker.

“I borrowed this, this morning,” he said, “from British Pe­troleum. It’s a model of their supertanker British Princess, quarter of a million tons. But the design differences are few; the Freya is just bigger, really.”

With the aid of the model of the Princess he went on to point out where the bridge was, where the captain’s cabin would be, where the cargo holds and ballast holds would probably be, adding that the exact locations of these holds would be known when the Nordia Line could pass them over to London.

The surrounding men watched the demonstration and lis­tened with attention. None more than Colonel Holmes; of all those present, he would be the one whose fellow Marines might have to storm the vessel and wipe out her captors. He knew those men would want to know every nook and cranny of the real Freya before they went on board.

“There is one last thing,” said the scientist from Energy. “She’s full of Mubarraq.”

“God!” said one of the other men at the table.

Sir Julian Flannery regarded the speaker benignly.

“Yes, Dr. Henderson?”

The man who had spoken was the scientist from Warren Springs Laboratory who had accompanied the representative of Agriculture and Fisheries.

“What I mean,” said Henderson in his unrecycled Scottish accent, “is that Mubarraq, which is a crude oil from Abu Dhabi, has some of the properties of diesel fuel.”

He went on to explain that when crude oil is spilled on the sea, it contains both “lighter fractions” which evaporate into the air, and “heavier fractions” which cannot evaporate and which are what viewers see washed onto the beaches as thick black sludge.

“What I mean is,” he concluded, “it’ll spread all over the bloody place. It’ll spread from coast to coast before the lighter fractions evaporate. It’ll poison the whole North Sea for weeks, denying the marine life the oxygen it needs to live.”

“I see,” said Sir Julian gravely. “Thank you, Doctor.”

There followed information from other experts. The ex­plosives man from the Royal Engineers explained that, placed in the right areas, industrial dynamite could destroy a ship this size.

“It’s also a question of the sheer latent strength contained in the weight represented by a million tons of oil— or any­thing. If the holes are made in the right places, the unbal­anced mass of her will pull her apart. There’s one last thing; the message read out by Captain Larsen mentioned the phrase ‘at the touch of a button.’ He then repeated that phrase. It seems to me there must be nearly a dozen charges placed. That phrase ‘the touch of a button,’ seems to indicate triggering by radio impulse.”

“Is that possible?” asked Sir Julian.

“Perfectly possible,” said the sapper, and explained how an oscillator worked.

“Surely they could have wires to each charge, linked to a plunger?” asked Sir Julian.

“It’s a question of the weight again,” said the engineer. “The wires would have to be waterproof, plastic- coated. The weight of that number of miles of electric cable would nearly sink the launch on which these terrorists arrived.”

There was more information about the destructive capacity of the oil by pollution, the few chances of rescuing the trapped crewmen, and the SIS admitted they had no informa­tion that might help identify the terrorists from among for­eign groups of such people.

The man from MI5, who was actually the deputy chief of C4 Department within that body, the section dealing exclu­sively with terrorism as it affected Britain, underlined the strange nature of the demands of the captors of the Freya.

“These men, Mishkin and Lazareff,” he pointed out, “are Jewish. Hijackers who tried to escape from the USSR and ended up shooting a flight captain. One has to assume that those seeking to free them are their friends or admirers. That tends to indicate fellow Jews. The only ones who fit into that category are those of the Jewish Defense League. But so far they’ve just demonstrated and thrown things. In our files we haven’t had Jews threatening to blow people to pieces to free their friends since the Irgun and the Stern Gang.”

“Oh dear, one hopes they don’t start that again,” observed Sir Julian. “If not them, then who else?”

The man from C4 shrugged.

“We don’t know,” he admitted. “We can notice no one in our files conspicuous by being missing, nor do we have a trace from what Captain Larsen has broadcast to indicate their origins. This morning I thought of Arabs, even Irish. But neither would lift a finger for imprisoned Jews. It’s a blank wall.”

Still photographs were brought in, taken by the Nimrod an hour earlier, some showing the masked men on lookout. They were keenly examined.

“MAT-forty-nine,” said Colonel Hohnes briefly, studying the submachine gun one of the men cradled in his arms. “It’s French.”

“Ah,” said Sir Julian, “now perhaps we have something. These blighters could be French?”

“Not necessarily,” said Holmes. “You can buy these things in the underworld. The Paris underworld is famous for its taste for submachine guns.”

At three-thirty, Sir Julian Flannery brought the meeting into recess. It was agreed to keep the Nimrod circling above the Freya until further notice. The Vice Chief of Defense Staff put forward and had accepted his proposal to divert a naval warship to take up station Just over five miles west of the Freya to watch her also, in case of an attempt by the ter­rorists to leave under cover of darkness. The Nimrod would spot them and pass their position to the Navy. The warship would easily overhaul the fishing launch still tied by the Freyda’s side.

The Foreign Office agreed to ask to be informed of any de­cision by West Germany and Israel on the terrorists’ de­mands.

“There does not, after all, appear much that Her Majesty’s government can do at the present moment,” Sir Julian pointed out. The decision is up to the Israeli Prime Minister and the West German Chancellor. Personally I cannot see what else they can do except to let these wretched young men go to Israel, repugnant though the idea of yielding to black­mail must be.”

When the men left the room, only Colonel Holmes of the Royal Marines stayed behind. He sat down again and stared at the model of the quarter-million-ton British Petroleum tanker in front of him.

“Supposing they don’t?” He said to himself.

Carefully he began to measure the distance in feet from the sea to the stern taffrail.

The Swedish pilot of the Jetstream was at fifteen thousand feet off the West Frisian Islands, preparing to let down into Schiedam airfield outside Rotterdam. He turned around and called something to the petite woman who was his passenger. She unbuckled and came forward to where he sat.

“I asked if you wanted to see the Freya,” the pilot re­ peated. The woman nodded.

The Jetstream banked away to the sea, and five minutes later tilted gently onto one wing. From her seat, face pressed to the tiny porthole, Lisa Larsen looked down. Far below in a blue sea, like a gray sardine nailed to the