The Devil's Alternative

world.

“So far, he has tried a third alternative, that of asking Prime Minister Golen to return the two men to jail in Ger­many after the release of the Freya. The idea was to seek to satisfy Maxim Rudin. It might have; it might not. In fact, Benyamin Golen refused. So that was that.

“Then we proposed a third alternative, that of storming the Freya and liberating her. Now that has become impossible. I fear there are no more alternatives, short of doing what we suspect the Americans have in mind.”

“And what is that?” asked Munro.

“Blowing her apart by shellfire,” said Sir Nigel Irvine. “We have no proof of it, but the guns of the Moran are trained right on the Freya.”

“Actually, there is a third alternative. It might satisfy Maxim Rudin, and it should work,” suggested Munro.

“Then please explain it,” commanded the Prime Minister.

Munro did so. It took barely five minutes. There was silence.

“I find it utterly repulsive,” said Mrs. Carpenter at last.

“Ma’am, with all respect, so did I when I was forced to expose my agent to the KGB,” Munro replied stonily. Ferndale shot him a warning look.

“Do we have such devilish equipment available?” Mrs. Carpenter asked Sir Nigel.

He studied his fingertips.

“I believe the specialist department may be able to lay its hands on that sort of thing,” he said quietly.

Joan Carpenter inhaled deeply.

“It is not, thank God, a decision I would need to make. It is a decision for President Matthews. I suppose it has to be put to him. But it should be explained person-to-person. Tell me, Mr. Munro, would you be prepared to carry out this plan?”

Munro thought of Valentina walking out into the street, to the waiting men in gray trench coats.

“Yes,” he said, “without a qualm.”

“Time is short,” she said briskly, “if you are to reach Washington tonight. Sir Nigel, have you any ideas?”

“There is the five o’clock Concorde, the new service to Boston,” he said. “It could be diverted to Washington if the President wanted it.”

Mrs. Carpenter glanced at her watch. It read four P.M.

“On your way, Mr. Munro,” she said. “I will inform President Matthews of the news you have brought from Mos­cow, and ask him to receive you. You may explain to him personally your somewhat ... macabre proposal. If he will see you at such short notice.”

Lisa Larsen was still holding her husband five minutes after he entered the cabin. He asked her about home and the chil­dren. She had spoken to them two hours earlier; there was no school on Saturday, so they were staying with the Dahl family. They were fine, she said. They had just come back from feeding the rabbits at Bogneset. The small talk died away.

“Thor, what is going to happen?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand why the Germans will not release those two men. I don’t understand why the Amer­icans will not allow it. I sit with prime ministers and ambas­sadors, and they can’t tell me, either.”

“If they don’t release the men, will that terrorist ... do it?” she asked.

“He may,” said Larsen thoughtfully. “I believe he will try. And if he does, I shall try to stop him. I have to.”

“Those fine captains out there, why won’t they help you?”

“They can’t, snow mouse. No one can help me. I have to do it myself, or no one else will.”

“I don’t trust that American captain,” she whispered. “I saw him when I came on board with Mr. Grayling. He would not look me in the face.”

“No, he cannot. Nor me. You see, he has orders to blow the Freya out of the water.”

She pulled away from him and looked up, eyes wide.

“He couldn’t,” she said. “No man would do that to other men.”

“He will if he has to. I don’t know for certain, but I sus­pect so. The guns of his ship are obviously trained on us. If the Americans thought they had to do it, they would do it Burning up the cargo would lessen the ecological damage, destroy the blackmail weapon.”

She shivered and clung to him. She began to cry.

“I hate him,” she said.

Thor Larsen stroked her hair, his great hand almost Gover­ning her small head.

“Don’t hate him,” he rumbled. “He has his orders. They all have their orders. They will all do what the men far away in the chancelleries of Europe and America tell them to do.”

“I don’t care. I hate them all.”

He laughed as he stroked her, gently reassuring.

“Do something for me, snow mouse.”

“Anything.”

“Go back home. Go back to alesund. Get out of this place. Look after Kurt and Kristina. Keep the house ready for me. When this is over, I am going to come home. You can be­lieve that.”

“Come back with me. Now.”

“You know I have to go. The time is up.”

“Don’t go back to the ship,” she begged him. “They’ll kill you there.”

She was sniffing furiously, trying not to cry, trying not to hurt him.

“It’s my ship,” he said gently. “It’s my crew. You know I have to go.”

He left her in Captain Preston’s armchair.

As he did so, the car bearing Adam Munro swung out of Downing Street, past the crowd of sightseers who hoped to catch a glimpse of the high and the mighty at this moment of crisis, and turned through Parliament Square for the Crom­well Road and the highway to Heathrow.

Five minutes later Thor Larsen was buckled by two Royal Navy seamen, their hair awash from the rotors of the Wessex above them, into the harness.

Captain Preston, with six of his officers and the four NATO captains, stood in a line a few yards away. The Wessex began to lift.

“Gentlemen,” said Captain Preston. Five hands rose to five braided caps in simultaneous salute.

Mike Manning watched the bearded sailor in the harness being borne away from him. From a hundred feet up, the Norwegian seemed to be looking down, straight at him.

He knows, thought Manning with horror. Oh, Jesus and Mary, he knows.

Thor Larsen walked into the day cabin of his own suite on the Freya with a submachine carbine at his back. The man he knew as Svoboda was in his usual chair. Larsen was di­rected into the one at the far end of the table.

“Did they believe you?” asked the Ukrainian.

“Yes,” said Larsen. “They believed me. And you were right. They were preparing an attack by frogmen after dark. It’s been called off.”

Drake snorted.

“Just as well,” he said. “If they had tried it, I’d have pressed this button without hesitation, suicide or no suicide. They’d have left me no alternative.”

At ten minutes before noon, President William Matthews laid down the telephone that had joined him for fifteen minutes to the British Premier in London, and looked at his three ad­visers. They had each heard the conversation on the Ampli-Vox.

“So that’s it,” he said. “The British are not going ahead with their night attack. Another of our options gone. That just about leaves us with the alternative of blowing the Freya to pieces ourselves. Is