The Devil's Alternative (58 page)

In the homes of thirty officers and seamen from the
Freya
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 the
Argyll
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 the
Freya
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 the
Freya
herself. There would be time

before the first editions went to press at ten P.M. to include most of the end of the story.

At twenty minutes past twelve, European time, the State of Israel agreed to abide by the demands made from the
Freya
for the public reception and identification of Mishkin and Lazareff at Ben-Gurion Airport in four hours’ time.

In his sixth-floor room at the Avia 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 the
Freya
, 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.

“They’re on their way,” he told Larsen. “Four hours to Tel Aviv and safety. Another four hours after that—even less if the fog closes down—and we’ll be gone. The Navy will come on board and release you. You’ll have proper medical help for that hand, and you’ll 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 over—not 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 Keller’s 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 them no alternative. But you nearly beat me; you came within an inch of it.

“From six o’clock this morning when you destroyed the detonator, those commandos could have stormed this ship any time they pleased. Fortunately, they don’t know that. But they might have done if you’d signaled to them. You’re 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.

“I’ll 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 Kutuzovsky Prospekt where two men sat at lunch shortly after two P.M. local time.

Marshal Nikolai Kerensky read the typed message and slammed a meaty fist onto the table. “They’ve let them go!” he shouted. “They’ve 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 companion’s 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 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 the
Freya
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 Avram Hirsch 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 simply
WELCOME
and was written in Hebrew. They also began to clap, until several of their 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 to Lazareff. 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 Avram Hirsch 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 within a few feet of him, looking neither to right nor left, made for a parked rented car, and climbed in.

Detective Inspector Hirsch slammed the rear doors of his van, walked to the passenger door, and swung himself into the seat.

“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 Avram Hirsch alerted the other police cars coming up behind him. “Suspect entering Avia 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.

“He’s just asked for an outside line,” the switchboard operator told Inspector Hirsch, who was by her side.

“Can you trace the number he’s dialing?” “No, it’s automatic for local calls.”

“Blast!” said Hirsch. “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 supertanker
Freya
is to be released unharmed, the first item in the six o’clock 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 the Avia, Avram Hirsch 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. Avram Hirsch 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 room’s occupant to freeze.

Hirsch was a 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 Avram Hirsch, took in the flash of green from his peaked cap and uniform, and began to move toward the open window.