The Devil's Alternative

computer-controlled.

Each could fire a complete magazine of twenty shells in rapid succession without reloading, and the sequence of vari­ous types of shell could be preset on the computer.

The old days when naval guns’ ammunition had to be manually hauled out of the deep magazine, hoisted up to the gun turret by steam power, and rammed into the breech by sweating gunners, were long gone. On the Moran the shells would be selected by type and performance from the stock in the magazine by the computer, the shells brought to the firing turret automatically, the five-inch guns loaded, fired, voided, reloaded, and fired again, without a human hand.

The aiming was by radar; the invisible eyes of the ship would seek out the target according to the programmed in­structions, adjust for wind, range, and the movement of ei­ther target or firing platform, and once locked on, hold that aim until given fresh orders. The computer would work to­gether with the eyes of radar, absorbing within fractions of a second any tiny shift of the Moran herself, the target, or the wind strength between them. Once locked on, the target could begin to move, the Moran could go anywhere she liked; the guns would simply move on silent bearings, keeping their deadly muzzles pointed to just where the shells should go. Wild seas could force the Moran to pitch and roll; the target could yaw and swing; it made no difference, the computer compensated. Even the pattern in which the homing shells should fall could be preset.

As a backup, the gunnery officer could scan the target visually with the aid of a camera mounted high aloft, and issue fresh instructions to both radar and computer when he wished to change target.

With grim concentration, Captain Mike Manning surveyed the Freya from where he stood by the rail. Whoever had ad­vised the President must have done his homework well. The environmental hazard in the death of the Freya lay in the es­cape in crude-oil form of her million-ton cargo. But if that cargo were ignited while still in the holds, or within a few seconds of the ship’s rupture, it would burn. In fact it would more than burn—it would explode.

Normally, crude oil is exceptionally difficult to burn, but if heated enough, it will inevitably reach its flashpoint and take fire. The Mubarraq crude the Freya carried was the lightest of them all, and to plunge lumps of blazing magnesium, burning at more than a thousand degrees Centigrade, into her hull would do the trick with margin to spare. Up to ninety percent of her cargo would never reach the ocean in crude-oil form; it would flame, making a fireball over ten thousand feet high.

What would be left of the cargo would be scum, drifting on the sea’s surface, and a black pall of smoke as big as the cloud that once hung over Hiroshima. Of the ship herself, there would be nothing left, but the environmental problem would have been reduced to manageable proportions. Mike Manning summoned his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Com­mander Chuck Olsen, to join him by the rail.

“I want you to load and lay the forward gun,” he said flatly. Olsen began to note the commands.

“Ordnance: three semi-armor-piercing, five magnesium starshell, two high explosive. Total: ten. Then repeat that se­quence. Total: Twenty.”

“Yes, sir. Three SAP, five star, two HE. Fall pattern?”

“First shell on target; next shell two hundred meters far­ther; third shell two hundred meters farther still. Backtrack in forty-meter drops with the five starshells. Then forward again with the high explosive, one hundred meters each.”

Lieutenant Commander Olsen noted the fall pattern his captain required. Manning stared over the rail. Five miles away, the bow of the Freya was pointing straight at the Moran. The fall pattern he had dictated would cause the shells to drop in a line from the forepeak of the Freya to the base of her superstructure, then back to the bow, then back again with the explosive toward the superstructure. The semi-armor-piercing shells would cut open her tanks through the deck metal as a scalpel opens skin; the starshells would drop in a line of five down the cuts; the high explosive would push the blazing crude oil outward into all the port and star­board holds.

“Got it, Captain. Fall point for first shell?”

“Ten meters over the bow of the Freya.”

Olsen’s pen halted above the paper of his clipboard. He started at what he had written, then raised his eyes to the Freya, five miles away.

“Captain,” he said slowly, “if you do that, she won’t just sink; she won’t just burn; she won’t just explode. She’ll va­porize.”

“Those are my orders, Mr. Olsen,” said Manning stonily. The young Swedish-American by his side was pale.

“For Christ’s sake, there are twenty-nine Scandinavian seamen on that ship.”

“Mr. Olsen, I am aware of the facts. You will either carry out my orders and lay that gun, or announce to me that you refuse.”

The gunnery officer stiffened to attention.

“I’ll load and lay your gun for you, Captain Manning,” he said, “but I will not fire it. If the fire button has to be pressed, you must press it yourself.”

He snapped a perfect salute and marched away to the fire-control station below decks.

You won’t have to, thought Manning, and I couldn’t charge you with mutiny. If the President himself orders me, I will fire it. Then I will resign my commission.

An hour later the Westland Wessex from the Argyll came overhead and winched a Royal Navy officer to the deck of the Moran. He asked to speak to Captain Manning in private and was shown to the American’s cabin.

“Compliments of Captain Preston, sir,” said the ensign, and handed Manning a letter from Preston. When he had fin­ished reading it, Manning sat back like a man reprieved from the gallows. It told him that the British were sending in a team of armed frogmen at ten that night, and all govern­ments had agreed to undertake no independent action in the meantime.

While Manning was thinking the unthinkable aboard the U.S.S. Moran, the airliner bearing Adam Munro back to the West was clearing the Soviet-Polish border.

From the toyshop on Dzerzhinsky Square, Munro had gone to a public call box and telephoned the head of Chancery at his embassy. He had told the amazed diplomat in coded language that he had discovered what his masters wanted to know, but would not be returning to the embassy. Instead, he was heading straight for the airport to catch the noon plane.

By the time the diplomat had informed the Foreign Office of this, and the FO had told the SIS, the message back to the effect that Munro should cable his news was too late. Munro was boarding.

“What the devil’s he doing?” asked Sir Nigel Irvine of Barry Ferndale in the SIS head office in London when he learned his stormy petrel was flying home.

“No idea,” replied the controller of Soviet Section. “Per­haps the Nightingale’s been blown and he needs to get back urgently before the diplomatic incident blows up. Shall I meet him?”

“When does he land?”

“One-forty-five London time,” said Ferndale. “I think I ought to meet him. It seems he has the answer to President Matthews’s question. Frankly, I’m curious to find out what the devil it can be.”

“So am I,” said Sir Nigel. “Take a car with a scrambler phone and stay in touch with me personally.”

At a quarter to twelve, Drake sent one of his men to bring the Freya’s pumpman back to the cargo-control room on A deck. Leaving Thor Larsen under the guard of another ter­rorist, Drake descended to cargo control, took the fuses from his pocket, and replaced them. Power was restored to the cargo pumps.

“When you discharge cargo, what do you do?” he asked the crewman. “I’ve still got a submachine gun pointing at your captain, and I’ll order it to be used if you play any tricks.”

“The ship’s pipeline system terminates at a single point, a cluster of pipes that we call the manifold,” said the pump­man. “Hoses from the shore installation are coupled to the manifold. After that, the main gate valves are opened at the manifold, and the ship begins to pump.”

“What’s your rate of discharge?”