The Devil's Alternative

“Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Munro. There is to be no more talk of the liberation of Mishkin and Lazareff.”

“Indeed not, sir. In fact, I had hoped we might talk of Yuri Ivanenko.”

Rudin stared back at him, face impassive. Slowly he lifted his glass of milk and took a sip.

“You see, sir, one of those two has let something slip al­ready,” said Munro. He was forced, to strengthen his argu­ment, to let Rudin know that he, too, was aware of what had happened to Ivanenko. But he could not indicate he had learned it from someone inside the Kremlin hierarchy, just in case Valentina was still free.

“Fortunately,” he went on, “it was to one of our people, and the matter has been taken care of.”

“Your people?” mused Rudin. “Ah, yes, I think I know who your people are. How many others know?”

“The Director General of my organization, the British Prime Minister, President Matthews, and three of his senior advisers. No one who knows has the slightest intention of re­vealing this for public consumption. Not the slightest.”

Rudin seemed to ruminate for a while.

“Can the same be said for Mishkin and Lazareff?” he asked.

“That is the problem,” said Munro. “That has always been the problem since the terrorists—who are Ukrainian emigres, by the way—stepped onto the Freya.”

“I told William Matthews, the only way out of this is to destroy the Freya. It would cost a handful of lives, but save a lot of trouble.”

“It would have saved a lot of trouble if the airliner in which those two young killers escaped had been shot down,” rejoined Munro.

Rudin looked at him keenly from under beetle eyebrows.

“That was a mistake,” he said flatly.

“Like the mistake tonight in which two MIG-twenty-fives almost shot down the plane in which I was flying?”

The old Russian’s head jerked up.

“I did not know,” he said. For the first time, Munro be­lieved him.

“I put it to you, sir, that destroying the Freya would not work. That is, it would not solve the problem. Three days ago Mishkin and Lazareff were two insignificant escapees and hi­jackers, serving fifteen years in jail. Now they are already ce­lebrities. But it is assumed their freedom is being sought for its own sake. We know different.

“If the Freya were destroyed,” Munro went on, “the entire world would wonder why it had been so vital to keep them in jail. So far, no one realizes that it is not their imprisonment that is vital, it is their silence. With the Freya, her cargo, and her crew destroyed in order to keep them in jail, they would have no further reason to stay silent. And because of the Freya, the world would believe them when they spoke about what they had done. So simply keeping them in jail is no use anymore.”

Rudin nodded slowly.

“You are right, young man,” he said. “The West Germans would give them their audience; they would have their press conference.”

“Precisely,” said Munro. “This, then, Is my suggestion.”

He outlined the same train of events that he had described to Mrs. Carpenter and President Matthews over the previous twelve hours. The Russian showed neither surprise nor hor­ror, just interest.

“Would it work?” he asked at last.

“It has to work,” said Munro. “It is the last alternative. They have to be allowed to go to Israel.”

Rudin looked at the clock on the wall. It was past six-forty-five A.M. Moscow time. In fourteen hours he would have to face Vishnayev and the rest of the Politburo. This time there would be no oblique approach; this time the Party theoretician would put down a formal motion of no confi­dence. His grizzled head nodded.

“Do it, Mr. Munro,” he said. “Do it and make it work. For if it doesn’t, there will be no more Treaty of Dublin, and no more Freya, either.”

He pressed the bell push, and the door opened immedi­ately. An immaculate major of the Kremlin praetorian guard stood there.

“I shall need to deliver two signals: one to the Americans, one to my own people,” said Munro. “A representative of each embassy is waiting outside the Kremlin walls.”

Rudin issued his orders to the guard major, who nodded and escorted Munro out. As they were passing through the doorway, Maxim Rudin called:

“Mr. Munro.”

Munro turned. The old man was as he had found him, hands cupped around his glass of milk.

“Should you ever need another job, Mr. Munro,” he said grimly, “come and see me. There is always a place here for men of talent.”

As the Zil limousine left the Kremlin by the Borovitsky Gate at seven A.M., the morning sun was just tipping the spire of St. Basil’s Cathedral. Two long black cars waited by the curb. Munro descended from the Zil and approached each in turn. He passed one message to the American diplomat and one to the British. Before he was airborne for Berlin, the in­structions would be in London and Washington.

On the dot of eight o’clock the bullet nose of the SR-71 lifted from the tarmac of Vnukovo II Airport and turned due west for Berlin, a thousand miles away. It was flown by a thoroughly disgusted Colonel O’Sullivan, who had spent three hours watching his precious bird being refueled by a team of Soviet Air Force mechanics.

“Where do you want to go now?” he called through the intercom. “I can’t bring this into Tempelhof, ya know. Not enough room.”

“Make a landing at the British base at Gatow,” said Munro.

“First Rooshians, now Limeys,” grumbled the Arizonan. “Dunno why we don’t put this bird on public display. Seems everyone is entitled to have a good look at her today.”

“If this mission is successful,” said Munro, “the world may not need the Blackbird anymore.”

Colonel O’Sullivan, far from being pleased, regarded the suggestion as a disaster.

“Know what I’m going to do if that happens?” he called. “I’m going to become a goddam cabdriver. I’m sure getting enough practice.”

Far below, the city of Vilnius in Lithuania went by. Flying at twice the speed of the rising sun, they would be in Berlin at seven A.M. local time.

It was half past five on the Freya, while Adam Munro was in a car between the Kremlin and the airport, that the intercom from the bridge rang in the day cabin.

Drake answered it, listened for a while, and replied in Ukrainian. From across the table Thor Larsen watched him through half-closed eyes.

Whatever the call was, it perplexed the terrorist leader, who sat with a frown, staring at the table, until one of his men came to relieve him in the guarding of the Norwegian skipper.

Drake left the captain under the barrel of the submachine gun in the hands of his masked subordinate and went up to the bridge. When he returned ten minutes later, he seemed angry.

“What’s the matter?” asked Larsen. “Something gone wrong again?”

“The West German Ambassador on the line from The Hague,” said Drake. “It seems the Russians have refused to allow any West German jet, official or private, to use the air corridors out of West Berlin.”

“That’s logical,” said Larsen. “They’re hardly likely to as­sist in the escape of the two men who murdered their airline captain.”

Drake dismissed his colleague, who closed the door behind him and returned to the bridge. The Ukrainian resumed his seat.

“The British have offered to assist Chancellor Busch by putting a communications jet from the Royal Air Force at their disposal to fly Mishkin and Lazareff from Berlin to Tel Aviv.”

“I’d accept,” said Larsen. “After all, the Russians aren’t above diverting a German jet, even snooting it down and claiming an accident. They’d never dare fire on an RAF mili­tary jet in one of the air corridors. You’re on the threshold of victory; don’t throw it away for a technicality. Accept the of­fer.”