Chapter Nineteen


0600 to 1600

MOABIT PRISON in West Berlin comprises two sections. The older part predates the Second World
War. But during the sixties and early seventies, when the Baader−Meinhof gang spread a wave of
terror over Germany, a new section was added. Into it were built ultramodern security systems, the
toughest steel and concrete, television scanners, electronically
controlled doors and grilles.
On the upper floor, David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin were awakened in their separate cells by the
governor of Moabit at sixA.M. on the morning of Sunday, April 3, 1983.
You are being released, he told them brusquely. You are being flown to Israel this morning.
Takeoff is scheduled for eight oclock. Get ready to depart; we leave for the airfield
at
seven−thirty.
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Ten minutes later the military commandant of the British Sector was on the telephone to the
Governing Mayor of West Berlin.
Im terribly sorry,Herr Burgomeister, he told the Berliner,
but a takeoff from the civil airport at
Tegel is out of the question. For one thing, the aircraft, by agreement between
our governments, will
be a Royal Air Force jet, and the refueling and maintenance facilities for our aircraft are far better at
our own airfield at Gatow. For a second reason, we are trying to avoid the chaos of an invasion by
the press, which we can easily prevent at Gatow. It would be hard for you to do this at Tegel
Airport.
Privately, the Governing Mayor was somewhat relieved. If the British took over the whole operation,
any possible disasters
would be their responsibility.
So what do you want us to do, General? he asked.
London has asked me to suggest to you that these blighters be put in a closed and armored van
inside Moabit, and be driven straight into Gatow. Your chaps can hand them over to us in privacy
inside the wire, and of course well sign for them.
The press was less than happy. Over four hundred reporters
and cameramen had camped outside
Moabit Prison since the announcement from Bonn the previous evening that their release would take
place at eight. They desperately wanted pictures of the pair leaving for the airport. Other teams of
newsmen were staking out the civil airport at Tegel, seeking vantage points for their telephoto lenses
high on the observation
terraces of the terminal building. They were all destined to be frustrated.
The advantage of the British base at Gatow is that it occupies
one of the most outlying and isolated
sites inside the fenced perimeter of West Berlin, situated on the western side of the broad Havel
River, close up against the border with Communist East Germany, which surrounds the beleaguered
city on all sides.
Inside the base there had been controlled activity for hours before dawn. Between three and four
oclock an RAF version of the HS−125 executive jet, known as the Dominie, had flown in from
Britain. It was fitted with long−range fuel tanks that would extend its range to give it ample reserves
to fly from Berlin to Tel Aviv overMunich, Venice,and Athens without ever entering Communist
airspace. Its 500−mile−per−hour cruising speed would enable the Dominie to complete the
2,200−mile journey in just over four hours.
Since landing, the Dominie had been towed to a quiet hangar, where it had been serviced and
refueled.
So keen were the press on watching Moabit and the airport at Tegel that no one noticed a sleek black
SR−71 sweep over the East Germany−West Berlin border in the extreme corner of the city and drop
onto the main runway at Gatow at just three minutes after seven oclock. This aircraft, too, was
quickly towed to an empty hangar, where a team of mechanics
from the U.S. Air Force atTempelhof
hurriedly closed the doors against prying eyes and began to work on it. The SR−71 had done its job.
A relieved Colonel OSullivan found himself at last surrounded by his fellow countrymen; next
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destination: his beloved U.S. of A.
His passenger left the hangar and was greeted by a youthful
RAF squadron leader waiting with a
Land Rover.
Mr. Munro?
Yes. Munro produced his identification, which the Air Force officer scanned closely.
There are two gentlemen waiting to see you in the mess, sir.
The two gentlemen could, if challenged, have proved that they were low−grade civil servants
attached to the Ministry of Defense. What neither would have cared to concede was that they were
concerned with experimental work in a very secluded
laboratory, whose findings, when such were
made, went immediately into a top−secret classification.
Both men were neatly dressed and carriedattaché cases. One wore rimless glasses and had medical
qualifications, or had had until he and the profession of Hippocrates had parted company. The other
was his subordinate, a former male nurse.
You have the equipment I asked for? asked Munro without
preamble.
For an answer, the senior man opened his attaché case and extracted a flat box no larger than a cigar
case. He opened it and showed Munro what nestled on a bed of cotton inside.
Ten hours, he said. No more.
Thats tight, said Munro. Very tight.
It was seven−thirty on a bright, sunny morning.
The Nimrod from Coastal Command still turned and turned fifteen thousand feet above theFreya.
Apart from observing the tanker, its duties also included that of watching the oil slick of the previous
noon. The gigantic stain was still moving sluggishly on the face of the water, still out of range of the
emulsifier−spraying tugs, which were not allowed to enter the area immediately around theFreya
herself.
After spillage the slick had drifted gently northeast of the tanker on the one−knot tide toward the
northern coast of Holland. But during the night it had halted, the tide had moved to the ebb, and the
light breeze had shifted several points. Before
dawn the slick had come back, until it had passed
theFreya and lay just south of her, two miles away from her side in the direction of Holland and
Belgium.
On the tugs and firefighting ships, each loaded with its maximum capacity of emulsifier concentrate,
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the scientists from Warren Springs prayed the sea would stay calm and the wind light until they
could move into operation. A sudden change in wind, a deterioration in the weather, and the giant
slick could break up, driven before the storm toward the beaches either of Europe or of Britain.
Meteorologists in Britain and Europe watched with apprehension
the approach of a cold front
coming down from the Denmark Strait, bringing cold air to dispel the unseasonable heat wave, and
possibly wind and rain. Twenty−four hours of squalls would shatter the calm sea and make the slick
uncontrollable.
The ecologists prayed the descending cold snap would bring no more than a sea fog.
On theFreya, as the minutes to eight oclock ticked away, nerves became even more strained and
taut. Andrew Drake, supported by two men with submachine guns to prevent another
attack from
the Norwegian skipper, had allowed Captain
Larsen to use his own first−aid box on his hand.
Gray−faced with pain, the captain had plucked from the pulped meat of his palm such pieces of glass
and plastic as he could, then bandaged the hand and placed it in a rough sling around his neck. Drake
watched him from across the cabin, a small adhesive plaster covering the cut on his forehead.
Youre a brave man,Thor Larsen, Ill say that for you, he said. But nothing has changed. I can
still vent every ton of oil on this ship with her own pumps, and before Im halfway
through, the
Navy out there will open fire on her and complete the job. If the Germans renege again on their
promise, thats just what Ill do at nine.
At precisely seven−thirty the journalists outside Moabit Prison were rewarded for their vigil. The
double gates on Klein Moabit Strasse opened for the first time, and the nose of a blank−sided
armored van appeared. From apartment windows across the road, the photographers got what
pictures they could, which were not very many, and the stream of press cars started up, to follow the
van wherever it would go.
Simultaneously, television remote−broadcast units rolled their cameras, and radio reporters chattered
excitedly into their microphones. Even as they spoke, their words went straight to the various capital
cities from which they hailed, including that of the BBC man. His voice echoed into the day cabin of
theFreya, where Andrew Drake, who had started it all, sat listening to his radio.
Theyre on their way, he said with satisfaction. Not long to wait now. Time to tell them the
final details of their reception in Tel Aviv.
He left for the bridge; two men remained to cover theFreyas captain, slumped in his chair at the
table, struggling with an exhausted brain against the waves of pain from his bleeding and broken
hand.
The armored van, preceded by motorcycle outriders with howling sirens, swept through the
twelve−foot−high steel−mesh gates of the British base at Gatow, and the pole barrier descended
fast
as the first car bulging with newsmen tried to follow it through. The car stopped with a squeal of
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tires. The double gates swung to. Within minutes a crowd of protesting reporters and photographers
were at the wire clamoring for admittance.
Gatow contains not only an air base; it has an Army unit as well, and the commandant was an Army
brigadier. The men on the gate were from the Military Police, four giants with red−topped caps,
peaked down to the bridge of the nose, immovable and immune.
You cannot do this. yelled an outraged photographer fromDerSpiegel. We demand to see the
prisoners take off.
Thats all right, Fritz, said Staff Sergeant Brian Farrow comfortably. Ive got my orders.
Reporters rushed to public telephones to complain to their editors. They complained to the
Governing Mayor, who sympathized
earnestly and promised to contact the base commander
at
Gatow immediately. When the phone was quiet, he leaned back and lit a cigar.
Inside the base, Adam Munro, accompanied by the wing commander in charge of aircraft
maintenance, walked into the hangar where the Dominie stood.
How is she? Munro asked of the warrant officer (technical)
in charge of the fitters and riggers.
Hundred percent, sir, said the veteran mechanic.
No, shes not, said Munro. I think if you look under one of the engine cowlings, youll find an
electrical malfunction
that needs quite a bit of attention.
The warrant officer looked at the stranger in amazement, then across to his superior officer.
Do as he says, Mr. Barker, said the wing commander. There has to be a technical delay. The
Dominie must not be ready for takeoff for a while. But the German authorities must believe the
malfunction is genuine. Open her up and get to work.
Warrant Officer James Barker had spent thirty years maintaining aircraft for the Royal Air Force.
Wing commanders
 orders were not to be disobeyed, even if they did originate with a scruffy
civilian who ought to be ashamed of the way he was dressed, not to mention that he badly needed a
shave.
The prison governor, Alois Bruckner, had arrived in his own car to witness the handover of his
prisoners to the British, and their takeoff for Israel. When he heard the aircraft
was not yet ready, he
was incensed and demanded to see it for himself.
He arrived in the hangar, escorted by the RAF base commander,
to find Warrant Officer Barker
head and shoulders into the starboard engine of the Dominie.
What is the matter? he asked in exasperation.
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Warrant Officer Barker pulled his head out.
Electrical short circuit, sir, he told the official. Spotted it during a test run of the engines just
now. Shouldnt be too long.
These men must take off at eight oclock, in ten minutes time, said the German. At nine
oclock the terrorists on theFreya are going to vent a hundred thousand tons of oil.
Doing my best, sir. Now, if I could just get on with my job? said the warrant officer.
The base commander steeredHerr Bruckner out of the hangar. He had no idea what the orders from
London meant, either, but orders they were, and he intended to obey them.
Why dont we step across to the officers mess for a nice cup of tea? he suggested.
I dont want a nice cup of tea, said the frustratedHerr Bruckner. I want a nice takeoff for Tel
Aviv. But first I must telephone the Governing Mayor.
Then the officers mess is just the place, said the wing commander. By the way, since the
prisoners cant really remain in that van much longer, Iveordered them to the Military
Police
station cells in Alexander Barracks. Theyll be nice and comfortable there.
It was five to eight when the BBC radio correspondent was given a personal briefing by the RAF
base commander about the technical malfunction in the Dominie, and his report cut clean into the
eightA.M. news as a special flash seven minutes later. It was heard on the Freya.
Theyd better hurry up, said Drake.
Adam Munro and the two civilians entered the Military Police
cells just after eight oclock. It was a
small unit, used only for the occasional Army prisoner, and there were four cells in a row. Mishkin
was in the first,Lazareff in the fourth. The Junior civilian let Munro and his colleague enter the
corridor
leading to the cells, then closed the corridor door and stood with his back to it.
Last−minute interrogation, he told the outraged MP sergeant
in charge. Intelligence people.
He tapped the side of his nose. The MP sergeant shrugged and went back to the orderly
room.
Munro entered the first cell. Lev Mishkin, in civilian clothes, was sitting on the edge of the bunk
bed, smoking a cigarette. He had been told he was going to Israel at last, but he was still nervous and
uninformed about most of what had been going on these past three days.
Munro stared at him. He had almost dreaded meeting him. But for this man and his crazy schemes to
assassinate Yuri Ivaneriko in pursuit of some far−off dream, his belovedValentina
would even now
be packing her bags, preparing to leave for Rumania, the Party conference, the holiday at Mamaia
Beach, and the boat that would take her to freedom. He saw again the back of the woman he loved
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going through the plate−glass doors to the Moscow street, the man in the trench coat straightening up
and beginning to follow her.
I am a doctor, he said in Russian. Your friends, the Ukrainians who have demanded your
release, have also insisted
you be medically fit to travel.
Mishkin stood up and shrugged. He was unprepared for the four rigid fingertips that jabbed him in
the solar plexus, did not expect the small canister held under his nose as he gasped for air, and was
unable to prevent himself from inhaling
the aerosol vapor that sprayed from the nozzle of the can as
he inhaled. When the knockout gas hit the lungs, his legs buckled without a sound, and Munro
caught him beneath the armpits before he reached the floor. Carefully he was laid on the bed.
Itll act for five minutes, no more, said the civilian from the Defense Ministry. Thenhell wake
with a fuzzy head but no ill effects. Youd better move fast.
Munro opened theattaché case and took out the box containing
the hypodermic syringe, the cotton,
and a small bottle of alcohol. Soaking the cotton in the alcohol, he swabbed a portion of the
prisoners right forearm to sterilize the skin, held the syringe to the light and squeezed until a fine jet
of liquid rose into the air, expelling the last bubble.
The injection took less than three seconds, and ensured that Lev Mishkin would remain under its
effects for almost two hours, longer than necessary but a period that could not be reduced.
The two men closed the cell door behind them and went down to where David Lazareff, who had
heard nothing, was pacing up and down, full of nervous energy. The aerosol spray worked with the
same instantaneous effect. Two minutes later he had also had his injection.
The civilian accompanying Munro reached into his breast pocket and took out a flat tin box. He held
it out.
I leave you now, he said coldly. This isnt what I am paid for.
Neither hijacker knew, nor would ever know, what had been injected into them. In fact it was a
mixture of two narcotics
called pethidine and hyoscine by the British, and meperidine and
scopolamine by the Americans. In combination they have remarkable effects.
They cause the patient to remain awake, albeit slightly sleepy, willing and able to be obedient to
instructions. They also have the effect of telescoping time, so that coming out from their effects after
almost two hours, the patient has the impression of having suffered a dizzy spell for severalseconds .
Finally, they cause complete amnesia, so that when the effects wear off, the patient has not the
slightest recall of anything
that happened during the intervening period. Only a reference to a clock
will reveal that time has passed at all.
Munro reentered Mishkins cell. He helped the young man into a sitting position on his bed, back to
the wall.
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Hello, he said.
Hello, said Mishkin, and smiled. They were speaking in Russian, but Mishkin would never
remember it.
Munro opened his flat tin box, extracted two halves of a long, torpedo−shaped capsule called a
spansule, such as is often
used as a cold remedy, and screwed the two ends together.
I want you to take this pill, he said, and held it out with a glass of water.
Sure, said Mishkin, and swallowed it without demur.
From hisattaché case Munro took a battery−operated wall clock and adjusted a timer at the back.
Then he hung it on the wall. The hands read eight oclock but were not in motion.
He left Mishkin
sitting on his bed, and returned to the cell of the other man. Five minutes later the job was finished.
He repacked his bag and left the cell corridor.
Theyre to remain in isolation until the aircraft is ready for them, he told the MP sergeant at the
orderly room desk as he passed through. No one to see them at all. Base commander
s orders.
For the first time Andrew Drake was speaking in his own voice to the Dutch Premier, Jan Grayling.
Later, English linguistics experts, analyzing the tape recording made of the conversation, would
place the accent as having originated within a twenty−mile radius of the city of Bradford, England,
but by then it would be too late.
These are the terms for the arrival of Mishkin and Lazareff in Israel, said Drake. I shall expect
no later than one hour after the takeoff from Berlin an assurance from Premier Golen that they will
be fulfilled. If they are not, I shall regard
the agreement as null and void.
One: the two are to be led from the aircraft on foot and at a slow pace past the observation terrace
on top of the main terminal building at Ben−Gurion Airport.
Two: access to that terrace is to be open to the public. No controls of identity or screening of the
public is to take place by the Israeli security force.
Three: if there has been any switch of the prisoners, if any look−alike actors are playing their part, I
shall know within hours.
Four: three hours before the airplane lands at Ben−Gurion,
the Israeli radio is to publish the time
of its arrival and inform everyone that any person who wishes to come and witness their arrival is
welcome to do so. The broadcast is to be in Hebrew and English, French and German. That is all.
Mr. Svoboda, Jan Grayling cut in urgently, all these demands
have been noted and will be
passed immediately to the Israel! government. I am sure they will agree. Please do not cut contact. I
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have urgent information from the British in West Berlin.
Go ahead, said Drake curtly.
The RAF technicians working on the executive Jet in the hangar at Gatow airfield have reported a
serious electrical fault developed this morning in one of the engines during testing. I implore you to
believe this is no trick. They are working frantically to put the fault right. But there will be a delay of
an hour or two.
If this is a trick, its going to cost your beaches a deposit of one hundred thousand tons of crude
oil, snapped Drake.
It is not a trick, said Grayling urgently. All aircraft occasionally
suffer a technical fault. It is
disastrous that this should happen to the RAF plane right now. But it has, and it will be mendedis
being mended, even as we speak.
There was silence for a while as Drake thought.
I want takeoff witnessed by fourdifférent national radio reporters, each in live contact with his head
office. I want live reports by each of that takeoff. They must be from the Voice of America,
Deutsche Welle, the BBC, and Frances ORTF. All in English and all within five minutes of
takeoff.
Jan Grayling sounded relieved.
I will ensure the RAF personnel at Gatow permit these four reporters to witness the takeoff, he
said.
They had better, said Drake. I am extending the venting
of the oil by three hours. At noon we
start pumping one hundred thousand tons into the sea.
There was a click as the linewent dead.
Premier Benyamin Golen was at his desk in his office in Jerusalem that Sunday morning. The
Sabbath was over, and it was a normal working day; it was also past ten oclock, two hours later
than in Western Europe.
The Dutch Prime Minister was barely off the telephone before
the small unit of Mossad agents who
had established themselves in an apartment in Rotterdam were relaying the message from theFreya
back to Israel. They beat the diplomatic
channels by more than an hour.
It was the Premiers personal adviser on security matters who brought him the transcript of theFreya
broadcast and laid it silently on his desk. Golen read it quickly.
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What are they after? he inquired.
They are taking precautions against a switch of the prisoners, said the adviser. It would have
been an obvious ployto make up two young men to pass for Mishkin and Lazareff at first glance,
and effect a substitution.
Then who is going to recognize the real Mishkin and Lazareff
here in Israel?
The security adviser shrugged.
Someone on that observation terrace, he said. They have to have a colleague here in Israel who
can recognize the men on sightmore probably someone whom Mishkin and Lazareff themselves
can recognize.
And after recognition?
Some message or signal will presumably have to be passed to the media for broadcasting, to
confirm to the men on theFreya that their friends have reached Israel safely. Without that message,
they will think they have been tricked and go ahead with their deed.
Another of them? Here in Israel? Im not having that, said Benyamin Golen. We may have to
play host to Mishkin and Lazareff, but not to any more. I want that observation terrace put under
clandestine scrutiny. If any watcher on that terrace receives a signal from these two when they arrive,
I want him followed. He must be allowed to pass his message, then arrest him.
On theFreya the morning ticked by with agonizing slowness. Every fifteen minutes Andrew Drake,
scanning the wave bands of his portable radio, picked up English−language news broadcasts from
the Voice of America or the BBC World Service. Each bore the same message: there had been no
takeoff. The mechanics were still working on the faulty engine
of the Dominie.
Shortly after nine oclock the four radio reporters designated
as the witnesses to the takeoff were
admitted to the Gatow Air Base and escorted by Military Police to the officers mess, where they
were offered coffee and biscuits. Direct telephone
facilities were established to their Berlin offices,
whence radio circuits were held open to their native countries.
None of them met Adam Munro,
who had borrowed the base commanders private office and was speaking to London.
In the lee of the cruiserArgyll the three fast patrol boatsCutlass,Sabre, andScimitar waited at their
moorings. On theCutlass MajorFallon had assembled his group of twelve Special Boat Service
commandos.
We have to assume the powers−that−be are going to let the bastards go, he told them. Sometime
in the next couple of hours theyll take off from West Berlin for Israel. They should arrive about
four and a half hours later. So, during this evening or tonight, if they keep their word, those
terrorists
are going to quit theFreya.
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Which way theyll head, we dont know yet, but probably toward Holland. The sea is empty of
ships on that side. When they are three miles from theFreya, and out of possible range for a small,
low−power transmitter−detonator to operate the explosives, Royal Navy experts are going to board
theFreya and dismantle the charges. But thats not our job.
Were going to take those bastards, and I want that man Svoboda. Hes mine, got it?
There was a series of nods, and several grins. Action was what they had been trained for, and they
had been cheated of it. The hunting instinct was high.
The launch theyve got is much slower than ours,Fallon resumed. Theyll have an eight−mile
start, but I reckon we can take them three to four miles before they reach the coast. We have the
Nimrod overhead, patched in to theArgyll. TheArgyll will give us the directions we need. When we
get close to them, well have our searchlights. When we spot them, we take them out. London says
no one is interested in prisoners. Dont ask me why; maybe they want them silenced for reasons
we
know nothing about. Theyve given us the job, and were going to do it.
A few miles away, Captain Mike Manning was alsowatching the minutes tick away. He, too, waited
on news from Berlin that the mechanics had finished their work on the engine of the Dominie. The
news in the small hours of the morning, while he sat sleepless in his cabin awaiting the dreaded
order to fire his shells and destroy theFreya and her crew, had surprised him. Out of the blue, the
United States government had reversed its attitude of the previous sundown;
far from objecting to
the release of the men from Moabit, far from being prepared to wipe out theFreya to prevent that
release, Washington now had no objection. But his main emotion was relief, waves of pure relief that
his murderous orders had been rescinded, unless. ... Unless something could still go wrong. Not until
the two Ukrainian Jews had touched down at Ben−Gurion Airport would he be completely satisfied
that his orders to shell theFreya to a funeral
pyre had become part of history.
At a quarter to ten, in the cells below Alexander Barracks at Gatow airfield, Mishkin and Lazareff
came out from the effects
of the narcotic they had ingested at eight oclock. Almost
simultaneously the clocks Adam Munro had hung on the wall of each cell came to life. The sweep
hands began to move around the dials.
Mishkin shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He felt sleepy, slightly muzzy in the head. He put it
down to the broken
night, the sleepless hours, the excitement. He glanced at the clock on the wall; it
read two minutes past eight. He knew that when he and David Lazareff had been led through the
orderly room toward the cells, the clock there had said eight exactly. He stretched, swung himself off
the bunk, and began to pace the cell. Five minutes later, at the other end of the corridor, Lazareff did
much the same.
Adam Munro strolled into the hangar where Warrant Officer
Barker was still fiddling with the
starboard engine of the Dominie.
How is it going, Mr. Barker? asked Munro.
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The long−service technician withdrew himself from the guts of the engine and looked down at the
civilian with exasperation.
May I ask, sir, how long I am supposed to keep up this playacting? The engines perfect.
Munro glanced at his watch.
Ten−thirty, he said. In one hour exactly, Id likeyou to telephone the aircrew room and the
officers mess and report that shes fit and ready to fly.
Eleven−thirty it is, sir, said Warrant Officer Barker.
In the cells, David Lazareff glanced again at the wall clock. He thought he had been pacing for thirty
minutes, but the clock said nine. An hour had gone by, but it had seemed a very short one. Still, in
isolation in a cell, time plays strange tricks on the senses. Clocks, after all, are accurate. It never
occurred to him or Mishkin that their clocks were moving at double speed to catch up on the missing
hundred minutes in their lives, or that they were destined to synchronize with the clocks outside the
cells at eleven−thirty precisely.
At eleven, Premier Jan Grayling in The Hague was on the telephone to the Governing Mayor of
West Berlin.
What the devil is going on,Herr Burgomeister? 
I dont know, shouted the exasperated Berlin official. The British say they are nearly finished
with their damn engine.
Why the hell they cant use a British Airways airliner from the civil airport
I dont understand. We would pay for the extra cost of taking one out of service to fly to Israel with
two passengers only.
Well, Im telling you that in one hour those madmen on theFreya are going to vent a hundred
thousand tons of oil, said Jan Grayling, and my government will hold the British responsible.
I entirely agree with you, said the voice from Berlin. The whole affair is madness.
At eleven−thirty Warrant Officer Barker closed the cowling of the engine and climbed down. He
went to a wall phone and called the officers mess. The base commander came on the line.
Shes ready, sir, said the technician.
The RAF officer turned to the men grouped around him, including the governor of Moabit Prison
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and four radio reporters
holding telephones linked to their offices.
The fault has been put right, he said. Shell be taking off in fifteen minutes.
From the windows of the mess they watched the sleek little executive jet being towed out into the
sunshine. The pilot and copilot climbed aboard and started both engines.
The prison governor entered the cells of the prisoners and informed them they were about to take off.
His watch said eleven−thirty−five. So did the wall clocks.
Still in silence, the two prisoners were marched to the MP Land Rover and driven with the German
prison official across the tarmac to the waiting jet. Followed by the air quartermaster sergeant who
would be the only other occupant of the Dominie on its flight to Ben−Gurion, they went up the steps
without a backward glance and settled into their seats.
At eleven−forty−five, Wing Commander Peter Jarvis opened both the throttles and the Dominie
climbed away from the runway of Gatow airfield. On instructions from the air−traffic controller, it
swung cleanly into the southbound air corridor from West Berlin to Munich and disappeared into the
blue sky.
Within two minutes, all four radio reporters were speaking to their audiences live from the officers
mess at Gatow. Their voices went out across the world to inform their listeners that forty−eight hours
after the demands were originally made from theFreya, Mishkin and Lazareff were airborne and on
their way to Israel and freedom.
In the homes of thirty officers and seamen from theFreya the broadcasts were heard;in thirty houses
across Scandinavia,
mothers and wives broke down and children asked why Mummy was crying.
In the small armada of tugs and emulsifier−spraying vessels lying in a screen west of theArgyll the
news came through, and there were sighs of relief. Neither the scientists nor the seamen had ever
believed they could cope with a hundred thousand tons of crude oil spilling into the sea.
In Texas, oil tycoon Clint Blake caught the news from NBC over his Sunday morning breakfast in
the sun and shouted About goddam time, too!
Harry Wennerstrom heard the BBC broadcast in his penthouse
suite high over Rotterdam and
grinned with satisfaction.
In every newspaper office from Ireland to the Iron Curtain the Monday morning editions of the
dailies were in preparation.
Teams of writers were putting together the whole story from the first
invasion of theFreya in the small hours of Friday
until the present moment. Space was left for the
arrival of Mishkin and Lazareff in Israel, and the freeing of theFreya herself. There would be time
before the first editions went to press at tenP.M. to include most of the end of the story.
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At twenty minutes past twelve, European time, the State of Israel agreed to abide by the demands
made from theFreya for the public reception and identification of Mishkin and Lazareff
at
Ben−Gurion Airport in four hours time.
In his sixth−floor room at theAvia Hotel, three miles from Ben−Gurion Airport, Miroslav Kaminsky
heard the news on the piped−in radio. He leaned back with a sigh of relief. Having
arrived in Israel
late Friday afternoon, he had expected to see his fellow partisans arrive on Saturday. Instead, he had
listened by radio to the change of heart by the German government
in the small hours, the delay
through the morning, and the venting of the oil at noon. He had bitten his fingernails
down, helpless
to assist, unable to rest, until the final decision
to release them after all. Now for him, too, the hours
were ticking away until touchdown of the Dominie at four−fifteen European time, six−fifteen in Tel
Aviv.
On theFreya, Andrew Drake heard the news of the takeoff with a satisfaction that cut through his
weariness. The agreement
of the State of Israel to his demands thirty−five minutes later was by way
of a formality.
Theyre on their way, he told Larsen. Four hours to Tel Aviv and safety. Another four hours
after thateven less if the fog closes downand well be gone. The Navy will come on board and
release you. Youll have proper medical help for that hand, and youll have your crew and your
ship back. ... You should be happy.
The Norwegian skipper was leaning back in his chair, deep black smudges under his eyes, refusing
to give the younger man the satisfaction of seeing him fall asleep. For him it was still not overnot
until the poisonous explosive charges had been removed from his holds, not until the last terrorist
had left his ship. He knew he was close to collapse. The searing pain from his hand had settled down
to a dull, booming throb that thumped up the arm to the shoulder, and the waves of exhaustion swept
over him until he was dizzy. But still he would not close his eyes.
He raised his eyes to the Ukrainian with contempt.
And Tom Keller? he asked.
Who?
My third officer, the man you shot out on the deck on Friday morning.
Drake laughed.
Tom Keller is down below with the others, he said. The shooting was a charade. One of my own
men in Kellers clothes. The bullets were blanks.
The Norwegian grunted. Drake looked across at him with interest.
I can afford to be generous, he said, because I have won. I brought against the whole of Western
Europe a threat they could not face, and an exchange they could not wriggle out of. In short, I left
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them no alternative. But you nearly beat me; you came within an inch of it.
From six oclock this morning when you destroyed the detonator, those commandos could have
stormed this ship any time they pleased. Fortunately, they dont know that. But they might have
done if youd signaled to them. Youre a brave man,Thor Larsen. Is there anything you want?
Just get off my ship, said Larsen.
Soon now, very soon, Captain.
High over Venice, Wing Commander Jarvis moved the controls
slightly and the speeding silver dart
turned a few points east of south for the long run down the Adriatic.
How are the clients? he asked the quartermaster sergeant.
Sitting quietly, watching the scenery, said the QMS over his shoulder.
Keep em like that, said the pilot. The last time they took a plane trip, they ended up shooting
the captain.
The QMS laughed.
Ill watch em, he promised.
The copilot tapped the flight plan on his knee.
Three hours to touchdown, he said.
The broadcasts from Gatow had also been heard elsewhere in the world. In Moscow the news was
translated into Russian and brought to a table in a private apartment at the privileged
end of
KutuzovskyProspekt where two men sat at lunch shortly after twoP.M. local time.
Marshal Nikolai Kerensky read the typed message and slammed a meaty fist onto the table.
Theyve let them go! he shouted. Theyve given in. The Germans and the British have caved
in. The two Jews are on their way to Tel Aviv.
Silently, Yefrem Vishnayev took the message from his companions hand and read it. He permitted
himself a wintry smile.
Then tonight, when we produce Colonel Kukushkin and his evidence before the Politburo, Maxim
Rudin will be finished,
 he said. The censure motion will pass; there is no doubt of it. By
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midnight, Nikolai, the Soviet Union will be ours. And in a year, all Europe.
The marshal of the Red Army poured two generous slugs of Stolichnaya vodka. Pushing one toward
the Party theoretician,
he raised his own.
To the triumph of the Red Army!
Vishnayev raised his vodka, a spirit he seldom touched. But there were exceptions.
To a truly Communist world!

Chapter Twenty


1600 to 2000

OFF THE COAST south of Haifa, the little Dominie turned its nose for the last time and began
dropping on a straight−in course for the main runway at Ben−Gurion Airport, inland from Tel Aviv.
It touched down after exactly four hours and thirty minutes of flight, at four−fifteen European time.
It was six−fifteen
in Israel.
At Ben−Gurion the upper terrace of the passenger building was crowded with curious sightseers,
surprised in a security−obsessed country to be allowed free access to such a spectacle.
Despite the earlier demands of the terrorists on theFreya that there be no police presence, officers of
the Israeli Special Branch were there. Some were in the uniform of El Al staff, others selling soft
drinks, or sweeping the forecourt, or at the wheels of taxis. Detective Inspector AvramHirsch was in
a newspaper delivery van, doing nothing in particular with bundles of evening papers that might or
might not be destined
for the kiosk in the main concourse.
After touchdown, the Royal Air Force plane was led by a ground−control jeep to the apron of tarmac
in front of the passenger terminal. Here a small knot of officials waited to take charge of the two
passengers from Berlin.
Not far away an El Al jet was also parked, and from its curtained portholes two men with binoculars
peered through the cracks in the fabric at the row of faces atop the passenger building. Each had a
walkie−talkie set to hand.
Somewhere in the crowd of several hundred on the observation
terrace Miroslav Kaminsky stood,
indistinguishable from the innocent sightseers.
One of the Israeli officials mounted the few steps to the Dominie and went inside. After two minutes
he emerged, followed
by David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin. Two young hotheads from the Jewish
Defense League on the terrace unfurled
a placard they had secreted in their coats and held it up. It
read simplywelcome and was written in Hebrew. They also began to clap, until several of their
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neighbors told them to shut up.
Mishkin and Lazareff looked up at the crowd on the terrace
above them as they were led along the
front of the terminal
building, preceded by a knot of officials and with two uniformed policemen
behind them. Several of the sightseers waved; most watched in silence.
From inside the parked airliner the Special Branch men peered out, straining to catch any sign of
recognition from the refugees toward one of those at the railing.
Lev Mishkin saw Kaminsky first and muttered something quickly in Ukrainian out of the side of his
mouth. It was picked up at once by a directional microphone aimed at the pair of them from a
catering van a hundred yards away. The man squinting at the riflelike microphone did not hear the
phrase; the man next to him in the cramped van, with the earphones
over his head, did. He had been
picked for his knowledge of Ukrainian. He muttered into a walkie−talkie, Mishkin just made a
remark toLazareff. He said, quote, There he is, near the end, wearing the blue tie, unquote.
Inside the parked airliner the two watchers swung their binoculars toward the end of the terrace.
Between them and the terminal building the knot of officials continued their solemn parade past the
sightseers.
Mishkin, having spotted his fellow Ukrainian, looked away. Lazareff ran his eyes along the line of
faces above him, spotted Miroslav Kaminsky, and winked. That was all Kaminsky
needed; there
had been no switch of prisoners.
One of the men behind the curtains in the airliner said, Got him, and began to speak into his
walkie−talkie.
Medium height, early thirties, brown hair, brown eyes, dressed in gray trousers, tweed sports
jacket, and blue tie. Standing seven or eight feet from the far end of the observation
terrace, toward
the control tower.
Mishkin and Lazareff disappeared into the building. The crowd on the roof, the spectacle over, began
to disperse. They poured down the stairwell to the interior of the main concourse. At the bottom of
the stairs a gray−haired man was sweeping cigarette butts into a trash can. As the column swept past
him, he spotted a man in a tweed jacket and blue tie. He was still sweeping as the man strode across
the concourse
floor.
The sweeper reached into his trash cart, took out a small black box, and muttered, Suspect moving
on foot toward exit gate five.
Outside the building AvramHirsch hefted a bundle of evening
newspapers from the back of the van
and swung them onto a dolly held by one of his colleagues. The man in the blue tie walked withina
few feet of him, looking neither to right nor left, made for a parked rented car, and climbed in.
Detective InspectorHirsch slammed the rear doors of his van, walked to the passenger door, and
swung himself into the seat.
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The Volkswagen Golf over there in the car park, he said to the van driver, Detective Constable
Moishe Bentsur. When the rented car left the parking area en route for the main exit from the airport
complex, the newspaper van was two hundred yards behind it.
Ten minutes later AvramHirsch alerted the other police cars coming up behind him. Suspect
enteringAvia Hotel car park.
Miroslav Kaminsky had his room key in his pocket. He passed quickly through the foyer and took
the elevator to his sixth−floor room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he lifted the telephone and asked
for an outside line. When he got it, he began to dial.
Hes just asked for an outside line, the switchboard operator
told InspectorHirsch, who was by
her side.
Can you trace the number hes dialing?
No, its automatic for local calls.
Blast! saidHirsch. Come on. He and Bentsur ran for the elevator.
The telephone in the Jerusalem office of the BBC was answered
at the third ring.
Do you speak English? asked Kaminsky.
Yes, of course, said the Israeli secretary at the other end.
Then listen, said Kaminsky, I will say this only once. If the supertankerFreya is to be released
unharmed, the first item in the six oclock news on the BBC World Service, European
time, must
include the phrase no alternative. If that phrase is not included in the first news item of the
broadcast, the ship will be destroyed. Have you got that?
There were several seconds of silence as the young secretary
to the Jerusalem correspondent
scribbled rapidly on a pad.
Yes, I think so. Who is this? she asked.
Outside the bedroom door in theAvia, AvramHirsch was joined by two other men. One had a
short−barreled shotgun. Both were dressed in airport staff uniform.Hirsch was still in the uniform of
the newspaper delivery company: green trousers, green blouse, and green peaked cap. He listened at
the door until he heard the tinkle of the telephone being replaced.
Then he stood back, drew his
service revolver, and nodded to the man with the shotgun.
The gunner aimed once, carefully, at the door lock and blew the whole assembly out of the
woodwork. AvramHirsch went past him at a run, moved three paces into the room, dropped to a
crouch, gun held forward in both hands, pointed straight at the target, and called on the rooms
occupant
to freeze.
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CHAPTER TWENTY 316
Hirsch wasa Sabra,born in Israel thirty−four years earlier, the son of two immigrants who had
survived the death camps of the Third Reich. Around the house in his childhood the language spoken
was always Yiddish or Russian, for both his parents were Russian Jews.
He supposed the man in front of him was Russian; he had no reason to think otherwise. So he called
to him in Russian.Stoi. ... His voice echoed through the small bedroom.
Miroslav Kaminsky was standing by the bed, the telephone directory in his hand. When the door
crashed open, he dropped the book, which closed, preventing any searcher from seeing which page it
had been open at, or what number he might have called.
When the cry came, he did not see a hotel bedroom outside
Tel Aviv; he saw a small farmhouse in
the foothills of the Carpathians, heard again the shouts of the men with the green insignia closing in
on the hideaway of his group. He looked at AvramHirsch, took in the flash of green from his peaked
cap and uniform, and began to move toward the open window.
He could hear them again, coming at him through the bushes shouting their endless cry:Stoi. ...Stoi.
...Stoi. ... There was nothing to do but run, run like a fox with the hounds behind him, out through
the back door of the farmhouse and into the undergrowth.
He was running backward, through the open glass door to the tiny balcony, when the balcony rail
caught him in the small of the back and flipped him over. When he hit the parking lot fifty feet
below, his back, pelvis, and skull were shattered. From over the balcony rail, AvramHirsch looked
down at the broken body and muttered to Detective Constable
Bentsur:
What the hell did he do that for?
The service aircraft that had brought the two specialists to Gatow from Britain the previous evening
returned westward soon after the takeoff of the Dominie from Berlin for Tel Aviv. Adam Munro
hitched a lift on it, but used his clearance
from the Cabinet Office to require that it drop him off at
Amsterdam before going on to England.
He had also ensured that the Wessex helicopter from theArgyll would be at Schiphol to meet him. It
was half past four when the Wessex settled back onto theafterdeck of the missile cruiser. The officer
who welcomed him aboard glanced with evident disapproval at his appearance, but took him to meet
Captain Preston.
All the Navy officer knew was that his visitor was from the Foreign Office and had been in Berlin
supervising the departure
of the hijackers to Israel.
Care for a wash and brush−up? he asked.
Love one, said Munro. Any news of the Dominie?
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CHAPTER TWENTY 317
Landed fifteen minutes ago at Ben−Gurion, said Captain Preston. I could have my steward press
your suit, and Im sure we could find you a shirt that fits.
Id prefer a nice thick sweater, said Munro. Its turned damn cold out there.
Yes, that may prove a bit of a problem, said Captain Preston. Theres a belt of cold air moving
down from Norway. We could get a spot of sea mist this evening.
The sea mist, when it descended just after five oclock, was a rolling bank of fog that drifted out of
the north as the cold air followed the heat wave and came in contact with the warm land and sea.
When Adam Munro, washed, shaved, and dressed in borrowed
thick white Navy sweater and black
serge trousers, joined Captain Preston on the bridge just after five, the fog was thickening.
Damn and blast! said Preston. These terrorists seem to be having everything their own way.
By half past five the fog had blotted out theFreya from vision, and swirled around the stationary
warships, none of which could see each other except on radar. The circling Nimrod above could see
them all, and theFreya, on its radar,
and was still flying in clear air at fifteen thousand feet. But the
sea itself had vanished in a blanket of gray cotton. Just after five the tide turned again and began to
move back to the northeast, bearing the drifting oil slick with it, somewhere
between theFreya and
the Dutch shore.
The BBC correspondent in Jerusalem was a staffer of long experience in the Israeli capital and had
many and good contacts.
As soon as he learned of the telephone call his secretary
had taken, he
called a friend in one of the security services.
Thats the message, he said, and Im going to send it to London right now. But I havent a clue
who telephoned it.
There was a grunt at the other end.
Send the message, said the security man. As to the man on the telephone, we know. And
thanks.
It was just after four−thirty when the news flash was broadcast
on theFreya that Mishkin and
Lazareff had landed at Ben−Gurion.
Andrew Drake threw himself back in his chair with a shout.
Weve done it! he yelled atThor Larsen. Theyre in Israel!

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Larsen nodded slowly. He was trying to close his mind to the steady agony from his wounded hand.
Congratulations, he said sardonically. Now perhaps you can leave my ship and go to hell.
The telephone from the bridge rang. There was a rapid exchange in Ukrainian, and Larsen heard a
whoop of joy from the other end.
Sooner than you think, said Drake. The lookout on the funnel reports a thick bank of fog moving
toward the whole area from the north. With luck we wont even have to wait until dark. The fog will
be even better for our purpose. But when we do leave, Im afraid Ill have to handcuff you to the
table leg. The Navy will rescue you in a couple of hours.
At five oclock the main newscast brought a dispatch from Tel Aviv to the effect that the demands
of the hijackers of theFreya in the matter of the reception at Ben−Gurion Airport
of Mishkin and
Lazareff had been abided by. Meanwhile,
the Israeli government would keep the two from Berlin in
custody until theFreya was released, safe and unharmed. In the event that she was not, the Israeli
government would regard its pledges to the terrorists as null and void, and return
Mishkin and
Lazareff to jail.
In the day cabin on theFreya, Drake laughed.
They wont need to, he told Larsen. I dont care what happens to me now. In twenty−four
hours those two men are going to hold an international press conference. And when they do, Captain
Larsen, when they do, they are going to blow the biggest hole ever made in the walls of the
Kremlin.
Larsen looked out of the windows at the thickening mist.
The commandos might use this fog to storm theFreya, he said. Your lights would be of no use.
In a few minutes you wont be able to see any bubbles from frogmen underwater.

It doesnt matter anymore, said Drake. Nothing matters anymore. Only that Mishkin and
Lazareff get their chance to speak. That was what it was all about. That is what makes it all
worthwhile.
The two Jewish−Ukrainians had been taken from Ben−Gurion Airport in a police van to the central
police station in Tel Aviv and locked in separate cells. Prime Minister Golen was prepared to abide
by his part of the bargainthe exchange of the two men for the safety of theFreya, her crew, and her
cargo. But he was not prepared to have Svoboda trick him.
For Mishkin and Lazareff it was the third cell in a day, but both knew it would be the last. As they
parted in the corridor,
Mishkin winked at his friend and called in Ukrainian, Not next year in
Jerusalembut tomorrow.
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CHAPTER TWENTY 319
From an office upstairs, the chief superintendent in charge of the station made a routine call to the
police doctor to give the pair a medical examination, and the doctor promised to come at once. It was
half past seven Tel Aviv time.
The last thirty minutes before six oclock dragged by like years on theFreya. In the day cabin, Drake
had tuned his radio
to the BBC World Service and listened impatiently for the six oclock newscast.
AzamatKrim, assisted by three of his colleagues, shinnied down a rope from the taffrail of the tanker
to the sturdy fishing
launch that had bobbed beside the hull for the past two and half days. When the
four of them were standing in the launchs open waist, they began preparations for the departure
of
the group from theFreya.
At six oclock the chimes of Big Ben rang out from London,
and the evening news broadcast
began.
This is the BBC World Service. The time is six oclock in London, and here is the news, read to
you by Peter Chalmers.

A new voice came on. It was heard in the wardroom of theArgyll, where Captain Preston and most of
his officers were grouped around the set. Captain Mike Manning tuned in on theMoran; the same
newscast was heard at 10 Downing Street, in The Hague, Washington, Paris, Brussels, Bonn, and
Jerusalem. On theFreya. Andrew Drake sat motionless, watching the radio unblinkingly.
In Jerusalem today. Prime Minister Benyamin Golen said that following the arrival earlier from
West Berlin of the two prisoners David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin, he would have no alternative but
to abide by his pledge to free the two men, provided the supertankerFreya was freed with her crew
unharmed.
...
No alternative! shouted Drake. Thats the phrase! Miroslav has done it!
Done what? asked Larsen.
Recognized them. Its them, all right. No switching has taken place.
He slumped back in his chair and exhaled a deep sigh.
Its over, Captain Larsen. Were leaving, youll be glad to hear.
The captains personal locker contained one set of handcuffs,
with keys, in case of the necessity
physically to restrain someone on board. Cases of madness have been known on ships. Drake slipped
one of the cuffs around Larsens right wrist and snapped it shut. The other went around the table leg.
The table was bolted to the floor. Drake paused in the doorway and laid the keys to the handcuffs on
top of a shelf.
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Good−bye, Captain Larsen. You may not believe this, but Im sorry about the oil slick. It would
never have happened if the fools out there had not tried to trick me. Im sorry about your hand, but
that, too, need not have happened. Well not see each other again, so good−bye.
He closed and locked the cabin door behind him and ran down the three flights of stairs to A deck
and outside to where his men were grouped on theafterdeck. He took his transistor radio with him.
All ready? he asked AzamatKrim.
As ready as well ever be, said the Crimean Tatar.
Everything okay? he asked the Ukrainian−American who was an expert on small boats.
The man nodded.
All systems go, he replied.
Drake looked at his watch. It was twenty past six.
Right. Six−forty−five, Azamat hits the ships siren, and the launch and the first group leave
simultaneously. Azamat and I leave ten minutes later. Youve all got papers and clothes. After you
hit the Dutch coast, everyone scatters. Its every man for himself.
He looked over the side. By the fishing launch, two inflatable
Zodiac speedboats bobbed in the
fog−shrouded water. Each had been dragged out from the fishing launch and inflated
in the previous
hour. One was the fourteen−foot model, big enough for five men. The smaller, ten−foot model
would take two comfortably. With the forty−horsepower out−boards behind them, they would make
thirty knots over a calm sea.
They wont be long now, said Major SimonFallon, standing
at the forward rail of theCutlass.
The three fast patrol boats, long since invisible from theFreya, had been pulled clear of the western
side of theArgyll and now lay tethered beneath her stern, noses pointed to where theFreya lay, five
miles away through the fog.
The Marines of the SBS were scattered, four to each boat, all armed with submachine carbines,
grenades, and knives.
One boat, theSabre, also carried on board four Royal Navy explosives experts, and this boat would
make straight for theFreya to board and liberate her as soon as the circling Nimrod had spotted the
terrorist launch leaving the side of the supertanker
and achieving a distance of three miles from her.
TheCutlass andScimitar would pursue the terrorists and hunt them down before they could lose
themselves in the maze of creeks and islands that make up the Dutch coast south of theMaas.
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MajorFallon would head the pursuit group in theCutlass. Standing beside him, to his considerable
disgust, was the man from the Foreign Office, Mr. Munro.
Just stay well out of the way when we close with them,Fallon said. We know they have
submachine carbines and handguns, maybe more. Personally, I dont see why you insist on coming
at all.
Lets just say I have a personal interest in these bastards, said Munro, especially Mr. Svoboda.
So have I, growledFallon. And Svobodas mine.
Aboard theMoran, Mike Manning had heard the news of the safe arrival of Mishkin and Lazareff in
Israel with as much relief as Drake on theFreya. For him, as forThor Larsen, it was the end of a
nightmare. There would be no shelling of theFreya now. His only regret was that the fast patrol boats
of the Royal Navy would have the pleasure of hunting down the terrorists when they made their
break. For Manning the agony he had been through for a day and a half parlayed itself
into anger.
If I could get my hands on Svoboda, he told his gunnery officer, Lieutenant Commander Olsen,
Id happily wring the bastards neck.
As on theArgyll, theBrunner, theBreda, and theMontcalm, theMorans radar scanners swept the
ocean for signs of the launch moving away from theFreyas side. Six−fifteen came and went, and
there was no sign.
In its turret the forward gun of theMoran, still loaded, moved away from theFreya and pointed at the
empty sea three miles to the northeast.
At ten past eight Tel Aviv time, Lev Mishkin was standing in his cell beneath the streets of Tel Aviv,
when he felt a pain in his chest. Something like a rock seemed to be growing fastîn− side him. He
opened his mouth to scream, but the air was cut off. He pitched forward, face down, and died on the
floor of the cell.
There was an Israeli policeman on permanent guard outside
the door of the cell, and he had orders
to peer inside at least every two or three minutes. Less than sixty seconds after Mishkin died, his eye
was pressed to thejudas hole. What he saw caused him to let out a yell of alarm, and he frantically
rattled the key in the lock to open the door. Farther up the corridor, a colleague in front of Lazareffs
door heard the yell and ran to his assistance. Together they burst into Mishkins cell and bent over
the prostrate figure.
Hes dead, breathed one of the men. The other rushed into the corridor and hit the alarm button.
Then they ran to Lazareffs cell and hurried inside.
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The second prisoner was doubled up on the bed, arms wrapped around himself as the paroxysms
struck him.
Whats the matter? shouted one of the guards, but he spoke in Hebrew, which Lazareff did not
understand. The dying
man forced out four words in Russian. Both guards heard him clearly and
later repeated the phrase to senior officers, who were able to translate it.
Head ... of ... KGB ... dead.
That was all he said. His mouth stopped moving; he lay on his side on the cot, sightless eyes staring
at the blue uniforms in front of him.
The ringing bell brought the chief superintendent, a dozen other officers of the station staff, and the
doctor, who had been drinking coffee in the police chiefs office.
The doctor examined each rapidly, searching mouths, throats, and eyes, feeling pulses and listening
to chests. When he had done, he stalked from the second cell. The superintendent
followed him into
the corridor; he was a badly worried
man.
What the hells happened? he asked the doctor.
I can do a full autopsy later, said the doctor, or maybe it will be taken out of my hands. But as to
what has happened,
theyve been poisoned, thats what happened.
But they havent eaten anything, protested the policeman.
They havent drunk anything. They
were just going to have supper. Perhaps at the airport ... or on the plane ...?
No, said the doctor, a slow−acting poison would not work with such speed, and simultaneously.
Body systems vary too much. Each either administered to himself, or was administered,
a massive
dose of instantaneously fatal poison, which I suspect to be potassium cyanide, within the five to ten
seconds
before they died.
Thats not possible, shouted the police chief. My men were outside the cells all the time. Both
prisoners were thoroughly
examined before they entered the cells. Mouths, anusesthe lot. There
were no hidden poison capsules. Besides, why would they commit suicide? Theyd soon have had
their freedom.
I dont know, said the doctor, but they both died within seconds of that poisons hitting them.
Im phoning the Prime Ministers office at once, said the chief superintendent grimly, and strode
off to his office.
The Prime Ministers personal security adviser, like almost everyone else in Israel, was an
ex−soldier. But the man whom those within a five−mile radius of the Knesset called simply Barak
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CHAPTER TWENTY 323
had never been an ordinary soldier. He had started as a paratrooper under the paracommander Rafael
Eytan, the legendary Raful. Later he had transferred, to serve as a major
in General Arik Sharons
elite 101 Unit until he stopped a bullet in the kneecap during a dawn raid on a Palestinian apartment
block in Beirut.
Since then he had specializedin the more technical side of security operations, using his knowledge
of what he would have done to kill the Israeli Premier, and then reversing it to protect his master. It
was he who took the call from Tel Aviv and entered the office where Benyamin Golen was working
late, to break the news to him.
Inside the cell itself? echoed the stunned Premier. Then they must have taken the poison
themselves.
I dont think so, said Barak. They had every reason to want to live.
Then they were killed by others?
It looks like it, Prime Minister.
But who would want them dead?
The KGB, of course. One of them muttered something about the KGB, in Russian. It seems he was
saying the head of the KGB wanted them dead.
But they havent been in the hands of the KGB. Twelve hours ago they were in Moabit Prison.
Then for eight hours in the hands of the British. Then two hours with us. In our hands they ingested
nothingno food, no drink, nothing. So how did they take in an instant−acting poison?
Barak scratched his chin, a dawning gleam in his eye.
There is a way, Prime Minister. A delayed−action capsule.

He took a sheet of paper and drew a diagram.
It is possible to design and make a capsule like this. It has two halves; one is threaded so that it
screws into the other half just before it is swallowed.
The Prime Minister looked at the diagram with growing anger.
Go on, he commanded.
One half of the capsule is of a ceramic substance, immune
both to the acidic effects of the gastric
juices of the human
stomach and to the effects of the much stronger acid inside it. And strong
enough not to be broken by the muscles of the throat when it is swallowed.
The other half is of a plastic compound, tough enough to withstand the digestive juices, but not
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enough to resist the acid. In the second portion lies the cyanide. Between the two is a copper
membrane. The two halves are screwed together; the acid begins to burn away at the copper wafer.
The capsule
is swallowed. Several hours later, depending on the thickness of the copper, the acid
burns through. It is the same principle as certain types of acid−operated detonators.
When the acid penetrates the copper membrane, it quickly cuts through the plastic of the second
chamber, and the cyanide floods out into the body system. I believe it can be extended up to ten
hours, by which time the indigestible capsule has reached the lower bowel. Once the poison is out,
the blood absorbs it quickly and carries it to the heart.
Barak had seen his Premier annoyed before, even angry. But he had never seen him white and
trembling with rage.
They send me two men with poison pellets deep inside them, he whispered, two walking time
bombs, triggered to die when they are in our hands? Israel will not be blamed for this outrage.
Publish the news of the deaths immediately. Do you understand? At once. And say a pathology
examination is under way at this very moment. That is an order.
If the terrorists have not yet left theFreya, suggested Barak, that news could reverse their plans
to leave.
The men responsible for poisoning Mishkin and Lazareff should have thought of that, snapped
Premier Golen. But any delay in the announcement and Israel will be blamed for murdering them.
And that I will not tolerate.
The fog rolled on. It thickened; it deepened. It covered the sea from the coast of East Anglia across
to Walcheren. It embalmed
the flotilla of tugs bearing the emulsifier that were sheltering west of the
warships, and the Navy vessels themselves.
It whirled around theCutlass,Sabre, andScimitar as they
lay under the stern of theArgyll, engines throbbing softly, straining to be up and away to track down
their prey. It shrouded the biggest tanker in the world at her mooring between the warships and the
Dutch shore.
At six−forty−five all the terrorists but two climbed down into the larger of the inflatable speedboats.
One of them, the Ukrainian−American, jumped into the old fishing launch that had brought them to
the middle of the North Sea, and glanced upward.
From the rail above him, Andrew Drake nodded. The man pushed the starter button, and the sturdy
engine coughed into life. The prow of the launch was pointed due west, her wheel lashed with cord
to hold her steady on course. The terrorist gradually increased the power of the engine, holding her in
neutral gear.
Across the water, keen ears, human and electronic, had caught the sound of the motor; urgent
commands and questions
flashed among the warships, and from theArgyll to the circling Nimrod
overhead. The spotter plane looked to its radar
but detected no movement on the sea below.
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Drake spoke quickly into his walkie−talkie, and far up on the bridge, AzamatKrim hit theFreyas
siren button.
The air filled with a booming roar of sound as the siren blew away the silence of the surrounding fog
and the lapping water.
On his bridge on theArgyll, Captain Preston snorted with impatience.
Theyre trying to drown the sound of the launch engine, he observed. No matter; well have it
on radar as soon as it leaves theFreyas side.
Seconds later the terrorist in the launch slammed the gear into forward, and the fishing boat, its
engine revving high, pulled violently away from theFreyas stern. The terrorist leaped for the
swinging rope above him, lifted his feet, and let the empty boat churn out from under him. In two
seconds it was lost in the fog, plowing its way strongly toward the warships to the west.
The terrorist swung on the end of his rope, then lowered himself into the speedboat where his four
companions waited. One of them jerked at the engines lanyard: the outboard coughed and roared.
The five men in it gripped the handholds,
and the helmsman pushed on the power. The inflatable
dug its motor into the water, cleared the stern of theFreya, lifted its blunt nose high, and tore away
across the calm water toward Holland.
The radar operator in the Nimrod high above spotted the steel hull of the fishing launch instantly; the
rubber−compound
speedboat gave no reflector signal.
The launch is moving, he told theArgyll below him. Hell, theyre coming straight at you.
Captain Preston glanced at the radar display on his own bridge.
Got em, he said, and watched the blip separating itself from the great white blob that represented
theFreya herself.
Hes right, shes boring straight at us. What the hell are they trying to do?
On full power and empty, the fishing launch was making fifteen knots. In twenty minutes it would be
among the Navy ships, then through them and into the flotilla of tugs behind them.
They must think they can get through the screen of warships
unharmed, and then lose themselves
among the tugs in the fog, suggested the first officer, beside Captain Preston. Shall we send
theCutlass to intercept?
Im not risking good men, however much MajorFallon may want his personal fight, said Preston.
Those bastards have already shot one seaman on theFreya, and orders from the Admiralty are quite
specific. Use the guns.
The procedure that was put into effect on theArgyll was smooth and practiced. The four other NATO
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warships were politely asked not to open fire, but to leave the job to theArgyll.
Her fore and aft
five−inch guns swung smoothly onto target and opened fire.
Even at two miles, the target was small. Somehow it survived
the first salvo, though the sea around
it erupted in spouts of rising water when the shells dropped. There was no spectacle for the watchers
on theArgyll, nor for those crouched on the three patrol boats beside her. Whatever was happening
out there in the fog was invisible; only the radar could see every drop of every shell, and the target
boat rearing
and plunging in the maddened water. But the radar could not tell its masters that no
figure stood at the helm, no men crouched terrified in her stern.
Andrew Drake and AzamatKrim sat quietly in their two−man speedboat close by theFreya and
waited. Drake held onto the rope that hung from her rail high above. Through the fog they both heard
the first muffled boom of theArgylls guns. Drake nodded atKrim, who started the outboard engine.
Drake released the rope, and the inflatable sped away, light as a feather, skimming the sea as the
speed built up, its engine noise drowned by the roar of theFreyas siren.
Krimlooked at his left wrist, where a waterproof compass was strapped, and altered course a few
points to south. He had calculated forty−five minutes at top speed from theFreya to the maze of
islands that make up North and South Beveland.
At five minutes to seven, the fishing launch stopped theArgyll
s sixth shell, a direct hit. The
explosive tore the launch apart, lifting it half out of the water and rolling both stern and aft sections
over. The fuel tank blew up, and the steel−hulled boat sank like a stone.
Direct hit, reported the gunnery officer from deep inside theArgyll where he and his gunners had
watched the uneven duel on radar. Shes gone.
The blip faded from the screen; the illuminated sweep arm went around and around but showed only
theFreya at five miles. On the bridge, four officers watched the same display, and there were a few
moments of silence. It was the first time for any of them that their ship had actually killed anybody.
Let theSabre go, said Captain Preston quietly. They can board and liberate theFreya now.
The radar operator in the darkened hull of the Nimrod peered closely at his screen. He could see all
the warships, all the tugs, and theFreyato the east of them. But somewhere beyond theFreya,
shielded by the tankers bulk from the Navy vessels, a tiny speck seemed to be moving away to the
southeast; it was so small it could almost have been missed; it was no bigger than the blip that would
have been made by a medium−size tin can; in fact it was the metallic cover to the outboard engine of
a speeding inflatable. Tin cans do not move across the face of the ocean at thirty knots.
Nimrod toArgyll, Nimrod toArgyll...
The officers on the bridge of the guided−missile cruiser listenedto the news from the circling aircraft
with shock. One of them ran to the wing of the bridge and shouted the information
down to the
sailors from Portland who waited on their patrol launches.
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Two seconds later theCutlass andScimitar were away, the booming roar of their twindiesel marine
engines filling the fog around them. Long white plumes of spray rose from their bows; the noses rose
higher and higher, the sterns deeper in the wake, as the bronze screws whipped through the foaming
water.
Damn and blast them, shouted MajorFallon to the Navy commander who stood with him in the
tiny wheelhouse of theCutlass, how fast can we go?
On water like this, over forty knots, the commander shouted back.
Not enough, thought Adam Munro, both hands locked to a stanchion as the vessel shuddered and
bucked like a runaway horse through the fog. TheFreya was still five miles away, the terrorists
speedboat another five beyond that. Even if they overhauled at ten knots, it would take an hour to
come level with the inflatable carrying Svoboda to safety in the creeks of Holland, where he could
lose himself. But he would be there in forty minutes, maybe less.
CutlassandScimitar were driving blind, tearing the fog to shreds, only to watch it form behind them.
In any crowded sea, it would be lunacy to use such speed in conditions of zero visibility. But the sea
was empty. In the wheelhouse of each launch, the commander listened to a constant stream of
information from the Nimrod via theArgyll: his own position
and that of the other fast patrol launch:
the position in the fog ahead of them of theFreya herself; the position of theSabre, well away to their
left, heading toward theFreya at a slower speed; and the course and speed of the moving dot that
represented Svobodas escape.
Well east of theFreya, the inflatable in which Andrew Drake and AzamatKrim were making for
safety seemed to be in luck. Beneath the fog the sea had become even calmer, and the sheetlike water
enabled them to increase speed even more. Most of their craft was out of the water, only the shaft of
the howling engine being deep beneath the surface. A few feet away in the fog, passing by in a blur,
Drake saw the last remaining traces of the wake made by their companions ten minutes ahead of
them. It was odd, he thought, for the traces to remain on the seas surface for so long.
On the bridge of theMoran, which was lying south of theFreya, Captain Mike Manning also studied
his radar scanner. He could see theArgyll away to the northwest of him, and theFreya a mite east of
north.
Between them, theCutlass and theScimitar were visible, closing the gap fast. Away to the east he
could spot the tiny blip of the racing speedboat, so small it was almost lost in the milky complexion
of the screen. But it was there. Manning looked at the gap between the refugee and the hunters
charging
after it.
Theyll never make it, he said, and gave an order to his executive officer. The five−inch forward
gun of theMoran began
to traverse slowly to the right, seeking a target somewhere
through the fog.
A seaman appeared at the elbow of Captain Preston, still absorbed in the pursuit through the fog as
shown by his own scanner. His guns, he knew, were useless; theFreya lay almost
between him and
the target, so any shooting would be too risky. Besides, the bulk of theFreya masked the target from
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his own radar scanner, which could not, therefore, pass the correct aiming information to the guns.
Excuse me, sir, said the seaman.
What is it?
Just come over the news, sir. Those two men who were flown to Israel today, sir. Theyre dead.
Died in their cells.
Dead? queried Captain Preston incredulously. Then the whole bloody thing was for nothing.
Wonder who the hell could have done that. Better tell that Foreign Office chappie when he gets back.
Hell be interested.
The sea was still flat calm for Andrew Drake. There was a slick, oily flatness to it that was unnatural
in the North Sea. He andKrim were almost halfway to the Dutch coast when their engine coughed for
the first time. It coughed again several seconds later, then repeatedly. The speed slowed, the power
reduced.
AzamatKrim gunned the engine urgently. It fired, coughed again, and resumed running, but with a
throaty sound.
Its overheating, he shouted to Drake.
It cant be, yelled Drake. It should run at full power for at least an hour.
Krimleaned out of the speedboat and dipped his hand in the water. He examined the palm and
showed it to Drake. Streaks of sticky brown crude oil ran down to his wrist.
Its blocking the cooling ducts, saidKrim.
They seem to be slowing down, the operator in the Nimrod informed theArgyll, which passed the
information to theCutlass.
Come on, shouted MajorFallon, we can still get the bastards!
The distance began to close rapidly. The inflatable was down to ten knots. WhatFallon did not know,
nor the young commander who stood at the wheel of the racingCutlass, was that they were speeding
toward the edge of a great lake of oil lying on the surface of the ocean. Or that their prey was
chugging right through the center of it.
Ten seconds later Azamat Krims engine cut out. The silence was eerie. Far away they could hear
the boom of the engines ofCutlass andScimitar coming toward them through the fog.
Krimscooped a double handful from the surface of the sea and held it out to Drake.
Its our oil, Andriy. Its the oil we vented. Were right in the middle of it.
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Theyve stopped, said the commander on theCutlass toFallon beside him. TheArgyll says
theyve stopped. God knows why.
Well get em! shoutedFallon gleefully, and unslung his Ingram submachine gun.
On theMoran, gunnery officer Chuck Olsen reported to Manning, We have range and direction.
Open fire, said Manning calmly.
Seven miles to the south of theCutlass, the forward gun of theMoran began to crash out its shells in
steady, rhythmic sequence. The commander of theCutlass could not hear the shells, but theArgyll
could, and told him to slow down. He was heading straight into the area where the tiny speck on the
radar screens had come to rest, and theMoran had opened fire on the same area. The commander
eased back on his twin throttles; the bucking launch slowed, then settled, chugging gently forward.
What the hell are you doing? shouted MajorFallon. They cant be more than a mile or so
ahead.
The answer came from the sky. Somewhere above them, a mile forward from the bow, there was a
sound like a rushing train as the first shells from theMoran homed in on their target.
The three semi−armor−piercing shells went straight into the water, raising spouts of foam but
missing the bobbing inflatable
by a hundred yards.
The starshells had proximity fuses. They exploded in blinding
sheets of white light a few feet above
the ocean surface, showering gentle, soft gobbets of burning magnesium over a wide area.
The men on theCutlass were silent, seeing the fog ahead of them illuminated. Four cables to
starboard, theScimitar was also hove to, on the very edge of the oil slick.
The magnesium dropped onto the crude oil, raising its temperature
to and beyond its flashpoint. The
light fragments of blazing metal, not heavy enough to penetrate the scum, sat and burned in the oil.
Before the eyes of the watching sailors and Marines the sea caught fire; a gigantic plain, miles long
and miles wide, began to glow, a ruddy red at first, then brighter and hotter.
It lasted for no more than fifteen seconds. In that time the sea blazed. Over half of a spillage of
twenty thousand tons of oil caught fire and burned. For several seconds it reached five thousand
degrees centigrade. The sheer heat of it burned off the fog for miles around in a tenth of a minute, the
white flames reaching four to five feet high off the surface of the water.
In utter silence the sailors and Marines gazed at the blistering
inferno starting only a hundred yards
ahead of them; some had to shield their faces or be scorched by the heat.
From the midst of the fire a single candle spurted, as if a petrol tank had exploded. The burning oil
made no sound as it shimmered and glowed for its brief life.
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From the heart of the flames, carrying across the water, a single human scream reached the ears of
the sailors:
Shchene vmerlaUkraina. ...
Then it was gone. The flames died down, fluttered, and waned. The fog closed in.
What the hell did that mean? whispered the commander of theCutlass. MajorFallon shrugged.
Dont ask me. Some foreign lingo.
From beside them, Adam Munro gazed at the last flickering
glow of the dying flames.
Roughly translated, he said, it means The Ukraine will live again.

Epilogue


IT WAS eightP.M. in Western Europe but ten in Moscow, and the Politburo meeting had been in
session for an hour.
Yefrem Vishnayev and his supporters were becoming impatient.
The Party theoretician knew he
was strong enough; there was no point in further delay. He rose portentously to his feet.
Comrades, general discussion is all very well, but it brings us nowhere. I have asked for this special
meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet for a purpose, and that is to see whether the
Presidium continues to have confidence in the leadership of our esteemed Secretary−General,
Comrade Maxim Rudin.
We have all heard the arguments for and against the so−called Treaty of Dublin, concerning the
grain shipments the United States had promised to make to us, and the pricein my view, the
inordinately high pricewe have been required to pay for them.
And finally we have heard of the escape to Israel of the murderers Mishkin and Lazareff, men who
it has been proved to you beyond a doubt were responsible for assassinating our dear comrade, Yuri
Ivanenko. My motion is as follows: that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet can no longer have
confidence
in the continued direction of the affairs of our great nation by Comrade Rudin. Comrade
Secretary−General, I demand
a vote on the motion.
He sat down. There was silence. Even for those participating,
far more for the smaller fry present,
the fall of a giant from Kremlin power is a terrifying moment.
Those in favor of the motion? asked Maxim Rudin.
Yefrem Vishnayev raised his hand. Marshal Nikolai Kerensky followed suit. Vitautas the Lithuanian
did likewise. There was a pause of several seconds. Mukhamed the Tajik raised his hand. The
telephone rang. Rudin answered it, listened, and replaced the receiver.
TheDevil'sAlternative
EPILOGUEspanspan 331
I should not, of course, he said impassively, interrupt a vote, but the news just received is of
some passing interest.
Two hours ago Mishkin and Lazareff both died, instantaneously,
in cells beneath the central police
station of Tel Aviv. A colleague fell to his death from a hotel balcony window
outside that city. One
hour ago the terrorists who had hijacked
theFreya in the North Seato liberate these mendied in a
sea of blazing petrol. None of them ever opened their mouths. And now none of them ever will.
We were, I believe, in the midst of voting on Comrade Vishnayevs resolution. ...
Eyes were studiously averted; gazes were upon the table.
Those against the motion? murmured Rudin.
Vassili Petrov and Dmitri Rykov raised their hands. They were followed by Chavadze the Georgian,
Shushkin, and Stepanov.
Petryanov, who had once voted for the Vishnayev faction, glanced at the raised hands, caught the
drift of the wind, and raised his own.
May I, said Komarov of Agriculture, express my personal
pleasure at being able to vote with
the most complete confidence in favor of our Secretary−General.
He raised his hand. Rudin smiled at him.
Slug, thought Rudin. I am personally going to stamp youinto the garden path.
Then with my own vote the issue is denied by eight votes to four, said Rudin. I dont think there
is any other business?
There was none.
Twelve hours later, CaptainThor Larsen stood once again on the bridge of theFreya and scanned the
sea around him.
It had been an eventful night. The British Marines had found and freed him twelve hours before, on
the verge of collapse. Royal Navy demolitions experts had carefully lowered
themselves into the
holds of the supertanker and plucked the detonators from the dynamite, bringing the charges gently
up from the bowels of the ship to the deck, whence they were removed.
Strong hands had turned the steel cleats to the door behind which his crew had been imprisoned for
sixty−four hours, and the liberated seamen had whooped and danced for joy. All night they had been
putting through personal calls to their parents and wives.
TheDevil'sAlternative
EPILOGUEspanspan 332
The gentle hands of a Royal Navy doctor had laidThor Larsen on his own bunk and tended the
wounds as well as conditions would allow.
Youll need surgery, of course, the doctor told the Norwegian.
And itll be set up for the
moment you arrive by helicopter in Rotterdam.
Wrong, said Larsen on the brink of unconsciousness. I will go to Rotterdam, but I will go on
theFreya.
The doctor had cleaned and swabbed the broken hand, sterilizing against infection and injecting
morphine to dull the pain. Before he was finished,Thor Larsen slept.
Skilled hands had piloted the stream of helicopters that landed on theFreyas helipad amidships
through the night, bringing Harry Wennerstrom to inspect his ship, and the berthing
crew to help her
dock. The pumpman had found his spare fuses and repaired his cargo−control pumps. Crude oil had
been pumped from one of the full holds to the vented one to restore the balance; the valves had all
been closed.
While the captain slept, the first and second officers had examined every inch of theFreya from stem
to stern. The chief engineer had gone over his beloved engines foot by foot, testing every system to
make sure nothing had been damaged.
During the dark hours, the tugs and firefighting ships had started to spray their emulsifier concentrate
onto the area of sea where the scum of the vented oil still clung to the water. Most had burned off in
the single brief holocaust caused by the magnesium shells of Captain Manning.
Just before dawn,Thor Larsen had awakened. The chief steward had helped him gently into his
clothes, the full uniform
of a senior captain of the Nordia Line that he insisted on wearing. He had
slipped his bandaged hand carefully down the sleeve with the four gold rings, then hung the hand
back in the sling around his neck.
At eightA.M. he stood beside his first and second officers on the bridge. The two pilots fromMaas
Control were also there, the senior pilot with his independent brown box navigational
aid system.
ToThor Larsens surprise, the sea to the north, south, and west of him was crowded. There were
trawlers from the Humber and theScheide, fishermen up from Lorient andSaint−Malo,Ostende and
the coast of Kent. Merchant vessels flying a dozen flags mingled with the warships of five NATO
navies, all of them hove to within a radius of three miles and outward from that.
At two minutes past eight, the gigantic propellers of theFreya began to turn, the massive anchor
cable rumbled up from the ocean floor. From beneath her stern a maelstrom of white water appeared.
In the sky above, four aircraft circled, bearing television cameras that showed a watching world the
sea goddess coming
under way.
As the wake broadened behind her, and the Viking helmet emblem of her company fluttered out
TheDevil'sAlternative
EPILOGUEspanspan 333
from her yardarm, the North Sea exploded in a burst of sound.
Little sirens like tin whistles, booming roars and shrill whoops echoed across the water as over a
hundred sea captains
commanding vessels from the tiny to the grand, from the harmless to the
deadly, gave theFreya the traditional sailors greeting.
Thor Larsenlooked at the crowded sea about him and the empty lane leading to Euro Buoy 1. He
turned to the waiting Dutch pilot.
Mr. Pilot, pray set course for Rotterdam.
On Sunday, April 10, 1983, in St. Patricks Hall, Dublin Castle, two men approached the great oak
refectory table that had been brought in for the purpose, and took their seats.
In the Minstrel Gallery the television cameras peered through the arcs of white light that bathed the
table and beamed their images across the world.
Dmitri Rykov painstakingly scrawled his name for the Soviet
Union on both copies of the Treaty of
Dublin and passed the copies, bound in red Morocco leather, to David Lawrence, who signed for the
United States.
Within hours the first grain ships, waiting off Murmansk and Leningrad,Sebastopol and Odessa,
moved forward to their berths.
A week later the first Warsaw Pact units along the Iron Curtain began to load their gear to pull back
east from the barbed−wire line.
On Thursday the fourteenth, the routine meeting of the Politburo
in the Arsenal Building of the
Kremlin was far from routine.
The last man to enter the room, having been delayed outside
by a major of the Kremlin guard, was
Yefrem Vishnayev.
When he came through the doorway, he observed that the faces of the other eleven members were all
turned toward him. Maxim Rudin brooded at the center place at the top of the T−shaped table. Down
each side of the stem were five chairs, and each was occupied. There was only one chair left vacant.
It was the one at the far end of the stem of the table, facing up the length of it.
Impassively, Yefrem Vishnayev walked slowly forward to take that seat, known simply as the Penal
Chair. It was to be his last Politburo meeting.
TheDevil'sAlternative
EPILOGUEspanspan 334
On April 18 a small freighter was rolling in the Black Sea swell, ten miles off the shore of Rumania.
Just before twoA.M. a fast speedboat left the freighter and raced toward the shore. At three miles it
halted, and a Marine on board took a powerful flashlight, pointed it toward the invisible sands, and
blinked a signal: three long dashes and three short ones. There was no answering light from the
beach. The man repeated
his signal four times. Still there was no answer.
The speedboat turned back and returned to the freighter. An hour later it was stowed below decks
and a message was transmitted to London.
From London another message went in code to the British Embassy in Moscow: Regret
Nightingale has not made the rendezvous. Suggest you return to London.
On April 25 there was a plenary meeting of the full Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union in the Palace of Congresses inside the Kremlin. The delegates had come from all
over the Soviet Union, some of them many thousands of miles.
Standing on the podium beneath the outsized head of Lenin, Maxim Rudin made them his farewell
speech.
He began by outlining to them the crisis that had faced their country twelve months earlier; he
painted a picture of famine and hunger to make their hair stand on end. He went on to describe the
brilliant feat of diplomacy by which the Politburo had instructed Dmitri Rykov to meet the
Americans
in Dublin and gain from them grain shipments of unprecedented
size, along with
imports of technology and computers, all at minimal cost. No mention was made of concessions on
arms levels. He received a standing ovation for ten minutes.
Turning his attention to the matter of world peace, he reminded
one and all of the constant danger to
peace that was posed by the territorial and imperialistic ambitions of the capitalist West, occasionally
aided by enemies of peace right there within the Soviet Union.
This was too much; consternation was unconfined. But, he went on with an admonishing finger, the
secret conspirators with the imperialists had been uncovered and rooted out, thanks to the eternal
vigilance of the tireless Yuri Ivanenko, who had died a week earlier in a sanatorium after a long and
gallant struggle against a serious heart ailment.
When the news of his death broke, there were cries of horror
and compassion for the departed
comrade who had saved them all. Rudin raised a regretful hand for silence.
But, he told them, Ivanenko had been ably assisted before his heart attack the previous October, and
replaced since his infirmity began, by his ever loyal comrade−in−arms Vassili Petrov, who had
completed the task of safeguarding the Soviet Union as the worlds first champion of peace.
There was an ovation for Vassili Petrov.
TheDevil'sAlternative
EPILOGUEspanspan 335
Because the conspiracies of the antipeace faction, both inside
and outside the Soviet Union, had
been exposed and destroyed, Rudin went on, it had been possible for the USSR, in its unending
search fordétente and peace, to curb its arms−building programs for the first time in years. More of
the national effort could thenceforward be directed toward the production of consumer goods and
social improvement, thanks solely to the vigilance of the Politburo in spotting the antipeace faction
for what they were.
This time the applause extended for another ten minutes.
Maxim Rudin waited until the clapping was almost over before he raised his hands; then he dropped
his speaking tone.
As for himself, Rudin said, he had done what he could, but the time had come for him to depart.
The stunned silence was tangible.
He had toiled longtoo long, perhapsbearing on his shoulders the most onerous burdens, which had
sapped his strength and his health.
On the podium, his shoulders slumped with the weariness of it all. There were cries of No! No!
He was an old man, Rudin said. What did he want? Nothing
more than any other old man wanted.
To sit by the fire on a winters night and play with his grandchildren. ...
In the diplomatic gallery the British head of Chancery whispered to the Ambassador:
I say, thats going a bit strong. Hes had more people shot than Ive had hot dinners.
The Ambassador raised a single eyebrow and muttered back:
Think yourself lucky. If this were America, hed produce his bloody grandchildren on the stage.
And so, concluded Rudin, the time had come for him to admit openly to his friends and comrades
that the doctors had informed him he had only a few more months to live. With his audiences
permission he would lay down the burden of office and spend what little time remained to him in the
countryside he loved so much, with the family who were the sun and the moon to him.
Several of the women delegates were crying openly by now.
One last question remained, said Rudin. He wished to retire
in five days, on the last day of the
month. The following morning was May Day, and a new man would stand atop Lenins Mausoleum
to take the salute of the great parade. Who would that man be?
It should be a man of youth and vigor, of wisdom and unbounded
patriotism; a man who had proved
himself in the highest councils of the land but was not yet bowed with age. Such a man, Rudin
proclaimed, the peoples of the fifteen Soviet
Socialist Republics were lucky to have, in the person
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of Vassili Petrov. ...
The election of Petrov to succeed Rudin was carried by acclamation.
Supporters of alternative
candidates would have been shouted down had they tried to speak. They did not even bother.
Following the climax of the hijacking in the North Sea, Sir Nigel Irvine had wished Adam Munro to
remain in London, or at least not to return to Moscow. Munro had appealed personally to the Prime
Minister to be allowed one last chance to ascertain whether his agent, the Nightingale, was safe. In
view of his role in ending the crisis, his wish had been granted.
Since his meeting in the small hours of April 3 with Maxim Rudin, it was evident that his cover was
completely blown and that he could not function as an agent in Moscow.
The Ambassador and the head of Chancery regarded his return with considerable misgivings, and it
was no surprise when his name was carefully excluded from any diplomatic invitations, or that he
could not be received by any representative
of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade. He hung about
like a forlorn and unwanted party guest, hoping against hope thatValentina would contact him to
indicate she was safe.
Once he tried her private telephone number. There was no answer. She could have been out, but he
dared not risk it again. Following the fall of the Vishnayev faction, he was told he had until the end
of the month. Then he would be recalled
to London, and his resignation from the Firm would be
gratefully accepted.
Maxim Rudins farewell speech caused a furor in the diplomatic
missions, as each informed its
home government of the news of Rudins departure and prepared position papers on his successor,
Vassili Petrov. Munro was excluded from this whirl of activity.
It was therefore all the more surprising when, following the announcement of a reception in St.
Georges Hall in the Great Kremlin Palace on the evening of April 30, invitations arrived at the
British Embassy for the Ambassador, the head of Chancery, and Adam Munro. It was even hinted
during a phone call from the Soviet Foreign Ministry to the embassy that Munro was confidently
expected to attend.
The state reception to bid farewell to Maxim Rudin was a glittering affair. Over a hundred of the
elite of the Soviet Union mingled with four times that number of foreign diplomats
from the
Socialist world, the West, and the Third World. Fraternal delegations from Communist parties
outside the Soviet bloc were also there, ill at ease amid the full evening
dress, military uniforms,
stars, orders, and medals. It could have been a tsar who was abdicating, rather than the leader of a
classless workers paradise.
The foreigners mingled with their Russian hosts beneath the three thousand lights of the six
spreading chandeliers, exchanging
gossip and congratulations in the niches where the great tsarist
war heroes were commemorated with the other Knights of St. George. Maxim Rudin moved among
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them like an old lion, accepting the plaudits of well−wishers from one hundred fifty countries as no
more than his due.
Munro spotted him from afar, but he was not included in the list of those presented personally, nor
was it wise for him to approach the outgoing Secretary−General. Before midnight, pleading a natural
tiredness, Rudin excused himself and left the guests to the care of Petrov and the others from the
Politburo.
Twenty minutes later Adam Munro felt a touch at his arm. Standing behind him was an immaculate
major in the uniform
of the Kremlins own praetorian guard. Impassive as ever, the major spoke to
him in Russian.
Mr. Munro, please come with me.
His tone permitted of no expostulation. Munro was not surprised. Evidently, his inclusion in the
guest list had been a mistake; it had been spotted, and he was being asked to leave.
But the major headed away from the main doors, passed through into the high, octagonal Hall of St.
Vladimir, up a wooden staircase guarded by a bronze grille, and out into the warm starlight of Upper
Savior Square.
The man walked with completely confident tread, at ease among passages and doorways well known
to him, although unseen by most.
Still following, Munro went across the square and into the Terem Palace. Silent guards were at every
door; each opened as the major approached, and closed as they passed through. They walked straight
across the Front Hall Chamber and to the end of the Cross Chamber. Here, at a door at the far end,
the major paused and knocked. There was a gruff command from inside. The major opened the door,
stood aside, and indicated
that Munro should enter.
The third chamber in the Terem Palace, the so−called Palace of Chambers, is the Throne Room, the
holy of holies of the old tsars, the most inaccessible of all the rooms. In red, gilt, and mosaic tiles,
with parquet floor and deep burgundy carpet, it is lush but smaller and warmer than most of the other
rooms. It was the place where the tsars worked or received
emissaries in complete privacy. Standing
staring out through the Petition Window was Maxim Rudin. He turned as Munro entered.
So, Mr. Munro, you will be leaving us, I hear.
It had been twenty−seven days since Munro had seen him before, in dressing gown, nursing a glass
of milk, in his personal
apartments in the Arsenal. Now he was in a beautifully cut charcoal−gray
suit, almost certainly from Savile Row, London, bearing the two orders of Lenin and Hero of the
Soviet
Union on the left lapel. The Throne Room suited him better this way.
Yes, Mr. President, said Munro.
Maxim Rudin glanced at his watch.
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In ten minutes, Mr. ex−President, he remarked. Midnight,
I officially retire. You also, I
presume, will be retiring?

The old fox knows perfectly well that my cover was blown the night I met him, thought Munro, and
that I also have to retire.
Yes, Mr. President. I shall be returning to London tomorrow,
to retire.
Rudin did not approach him or hold out his hand. He stood across the room, just where the tsars had
once stood, in the room representing the pinnacle of the Russian Empire, and nodded.
Then I shall wish you farewell, Mr. Munro.
He pressed a small onyx bell on a table, and behind Munro the door opened.
Good−bye, sir, said Munro. He had half turned to go, when Rudin spoke again.
Tell me, Mr. Munro, what do you think of our Red Square?
Munro stopped, puzzled. It was a strange question for a man saying farewell. Munro thought, and
answered carefully.
It is very impressive.
Impressive, yes, said Rudin, as if weighing the word. Not, perhaps, so elegant as your Berkeley
Square, but sometimes,
even here, you can hear a Nightingale sing.
Munro stood motionless as the painted saints on the ceiling above him. His stomach turned over in a
wave of nausea. They had got her, and, unable to resist, she had told them all, even the code name
and the reference to the old song about the Nightingale in Berkeley Square.
Will you shoot her? he asked dully.
Rudin seemed genuinely surprised.
Shoot her? Why should we shoot her?
So it would be the labor camps, the living death, for the woman he loved and had been so near to
marrying in his native
Scotland.
Then what will you do to her?
The old Russian raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
Do? Nothing. She is a loyal woman, a patriot. She is also very fond of you, young man. Not in
love, you understand, but genuinely fond
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I dont understand, said Munro. How do you know?
She asked me to tell you, said Rudin. She will not be a housewife in Edinburgh. She will not be
Mrs. Munro. She cannot see you againever. But she does not want you to worry for her, to fear for
her. She is well, privileged, honored,
among her own people. She asked me to tell you not to
worry.
The dawning comprehension was almost as dizzying as the fear. Munro stared at Rudin as the
disbelief receded.
She was yours, he said quietly. She was yours all along. From the first contact in the woods, just
after Vishnayev made his bid for war in Europe. She was working for you. ...
The grizzled old Kremlin fox shrugged.
Mr. Munro, growled the old Russian, how else could I get my messages to President Matthews
with the absolute certainty
that they would be believed?
The impassive major with the cold eyes drew at his elbow; he was outside the Throne Room, and the
door closed behind him. Five minutes later he was shown out, on foot, through a small door in the
Savior Gate onto Red Square. The parade marshals were rehearsing their roles for May Day. The
clock above his head struck midnight.
He turned left toward the National Hotel to find a taxi. A hundred yards later, as he passed Lenins
Mausoleum, to the surprise and outrage of a militiaman, he began to laugh.