Dirk Van Gelder managed to catch the Prime Minister at his residence, just about to leave for his office. The urgency of the Port Authority chairman finally persuaded the young aide from the Cabinet Office to pass the phone to the Premier.
“Jan Grayling,” he said into the speaker. As he listened to Van Gelder his face tightened.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” said Van Gelder. “Captain Larsen was reading from a prepared statement. He was not allowed to deviate from it, nor answer questions.”
“If he was under duress, perhaps he had no choice but to confirm the placing of the explosives. Perhaps that’s a bluff,” said Grayling.
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Van Gelder. “Would you like me to bring the tape to you?”
“Yes, at once, in your own car,” said the Premier. “Straight to the Cabinet Office.”
He put the phone down and walked to his limousine, his mind racing. If what was threatened was indeed true, the bright summer morning had brought the worst crisis of his term of office. As his car left the curb, followed by the inevitable police vehicle, he leaned back and tried to think out some of the first priorities. An immediate emergency cabinet meeting, of course. The press—they would not be long. Many ears must have listened to the ship-to-shore conversation; someone would tell the press before noon.
He would have to inform a variety of foreign governments through their embassies. And authorize the setting up of an immediate crisis management committee of experts. Fortunately he had access to a number of such experts since the hijacks by the South Moluccans several years earlier. As he drew up in front of the prime ministerial office building, he glanced at his watch. It was half past nine.
The phrase “crisis management committee” was already being thought, albeit as yet unspoken, in London. Sir Rupert Moss-bank, Permanent Under Secretary to the Department of the Environment, was on the phone to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Julian Flannery.
“It’s early days yet, of course,” said Sir Rupert. “We don’t know who they are, how many, if they’re serious, or whether there are really any bombs on board. But if that amount of crude oil did get spilt, it really would be rather messy.”
Sir Julian thought for a moment, gazing out through his first-floor windows onto Whitehall.
“Good of you to call so promptly, Rupert,” he said. “I think I’d better inform the P.M. at once. In the meantime, just as a precaution, could you ask a couple of your best minds to put together a memo on the prospective consequences if she does blow up? Question of spillage, area of ocean covered, tide flow, speed, area of our coastline likely to be affected. That sort of thing. I’m pretty sure she’ll ask for it.”
“I have it in hand all ready, old boy.”
“Good,” said Sir Julian. “Excellent. Fast as possible. I suspect she’ll want to know. She always does.”
He had worked under three prime ministers, and the latest was far and away the toughest and most decisive. For years it had been a standing joke that the government party was full of old women of both sexes, but fortunately was led by a real man. The name of the latter was Joan Carpenter. The Cabinet Secretary had his appointment within minutes and walked through the bright morning sunshine across the lawn to No. 10, with purpose but without hurry, as was his wont.
When he entered the Prime Minister’s private office she was at her desk, where she had been since eight o’clock. A coffee set of bone china lay on a side table, and three red dispatch boxes lay open on the floor. Sir Julian was admiring; the woman went through documentation like a paper shredder, and the papers were already finished by ten A.M., either agreed to, rejected, or bearing a crisp request for further information, or a series of pertinent questions.
“Good morning, Prime Minister.”
“Good morning, Sir Julian, a beautiful day.”
“Indeed, ma’am. Unfortunately it has brought a piece of unpleasantness with it.”
He took a seat at her gesture and accurately sketched in the details of the affair in the North Sea, as well as he knew them. She was alert, absorbed.
“If it is true, then this ship, the Freya, could cause an environmental disaster,” she said flatly.
“Indeed, though we do not know yet the exact feasibility of sinking such a gigantic vessel with what are presumably industrial explosives. There are men who would be able to give an assessment, of course.”
“In the event that it is true,” said the Prime Minister, “I believe we should form a crisis management committee to consider the implications. If it is not, then we have the opportunity for a realistic exercise.”
Sir Julian raised an eyebrow. The idea of putting a thunderflash down the trousers of a dozen ministerial departments as an exercise had not occurred to him. He supposed it had a certain charm.
For thirty minutes the Prime Minister and her Cabinet Secretary listed the areas in which they would need professional expertise if they were to be accurately informed of the options in a major tanker hijacking in the North Sea.
In the matter of the supertanker herself, she was insured by Lloyd’s, which would be in possession of a complete plan of her layout. Concerning the structure of tankers, British Petroleum’s Marine Division would have an expert in tanker construction who could study those plans and give a precise judgment on feasibility.
In spillage control, they agreed to call on the senior research analyst at the Warren Springs Laboratory at Stevenage, close to London, run jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.
The Ministry of Defense would be called on for a serving officer in the Royal Engineers, an expert in explosives, to estimate that side of things, and the Department of the Environment itself had people who could calculate the scope of the catastrophe to the ecology of the North Sea. Trinity House, head authority of the pilotage services around Britain’s coasts, would be asked to inform on tide flows and speeds. Relations and liaison with foreign governments would fall to the Foreign Office, which would send an observer. By ten-thirty the list seemed complete. Sir Julian prepared to leave.
“Do you think the Dutch government will handle this affair?” asked the Prime Minister.
“It’s early days to say, ma’am. At the moment the terrorists wish to put their demands to Mr. Grayling personally at noon, in ninety minutes. I have no doubt The Hague will feel able to handle the matter. But if the demands cannot be met, or if the ship blows up anyway, then as a coastal nation we are involved in any case.
“Furthermore, our capacity to cope with oil spillage is the most advanced in Europe, so we may be called on to help by our allies across the North Sea.”
“Then all the sooner we are ready, the better,” said the Prime Minister. “One last thing, Sir Julian. It will probably never come to it, but if the demands cannot be met, the contingency may have to be considered of storming the vessel to liberate the crew and defuse the charges.”
For the first time Sir Julian was not comfortable. He had been a professional civil servant all his life, since leaving Oxford with a Double First. He believed the word, written and spoken, could solve most problems, given time. He abhorred violence.
“Ah, yes, Prime Minister. That would of course be a last resort. I understand it is called ‘the hard option.’ ”
“The Israelis stormed the airliner at Entebbe,” mused the Prime Minister. “The Germans stormed the one at Mogadisho. The Dutch stormed the train at Assen. When they were left with no alternative. Supposing it were to happen again.”
“Well, ma’am, perhaps they would.”
“Could the Dutch Marines carry out such a mission?”
Sir Julian chose his words carefully. He had a vision of burly Marines clumping all over Whitehall. Far better to keep those people playing their lethal games well out of the way on Exmoor.
“If it came to storming a vessel at sea,” he said, “I believe a helicopter landing would not be feasible. It would
be spotted by the deck watch, and of course the ship has a radar scanner. Similarly, an approach by surface vessel would also be observed. This is not an airliner on a concrete runway, nor a stationary train, ma’am. This is a ship over twenty-five miles from land.”
That, he hoped, would put a stop to it.
“What about an approach by armed divers or frogmen?” she asked.
Sir Julian closed his eyes. Armed frogmen indeed. He was convinced politicians read too many novels for their own good.
“Armed frogmen, Prime Minister?” The blue eyes across the desk did not leave him.
“I understand,” she said clearly, “that our capacity in this regard is among the most advanced in Europe.”
“I believe it may well be so, ma’am.”
“And who are these underwater experts?”
“The Special Boat Service, Prime Minister.”
“Who, in Whitehall, liaises with our special services?” she asked.
“There is a Royal Marine colonel in Defense,” he conceded, “called Holmes.”
It was going to be bad; he could see it coming. They had used the land-based counterpart of the SUS, the better-known Special Air Service, or SAS, to help the Germans at Mogadisho, and in the Balcombe Street siege. Harold Wilson had always wanted to hear all the details of the lethal games these roughnecks played with their opponents. Now they were going to start another James Bond-style fantasy.
“Ask Colonel Holmes to attend the crisis management committee—in a consultative capacity only, of course.”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“And prepare UNICORNE. I shall expect you to take the chair at noon, when the terrorists’ demands are known.”
Three hundred miles across the North Sea, the activity in Holland was already, by midmorning, becoming frenetic.
From his office in the seaside capital of The Hague, the Premier, Jan Grayling, and his staff were putting together the same sort of crisis management committee that Mrs. Carpenter in London had in mind. The first requirement was to know the exact perspectives of any conceivable human or environmental tragedy stemming from the damage at sea to a ship like the Freya, and the various options the Dutch government faced.
To secure this information the same kinds of experts were being called upon for their specialized knowledge: in shipping, oil slicks, tides, speeds, directions, future weather prospects, and even the military option.
Dirk Van Gelder, having delivered the tape recording of the nine o’clock message from the Freya, drove back to Maas Control on the instructions of Jan Grayling to sit by the VHF radiotelephone set in case the Freya called up again before twelve noon.
It was he who at ten-thirty took the call from Harry Wennerstrom. Having finished breakfast in his penthouse suite at the Rotterdam Hilton, the old shipping magnate was still in ignorance of the disaster to his ship. Quite simply, no one had thought to call him.
Wennerstrom was calling to inquire about the progress of the Freya, which by this time, he thought, would be well into the Outer Channel, moving slowly and carefully toward the Inner Channel, several kilometers past Euro Buoy 1 and moving along a precise course of 080.5 degrees. He expected to leave Rotterdam with his convoy of notables to witness the Freya’s coming into sight about lunchtime, as the ride rose to its peak.
Van Gelder apologized for not having called him at the Hilton, and carefully explained what had happened at 0645 and 0900 hours. There was silence from the Hilton end of the line. Wennerstrom’s first reaction could have been to mention that there was $170 million worth of ship being held prisoner out beyond the western horizon, carrying $140 million worth of crude oil. It was a reflection on the man that he said, at length:
“There are thirty of my seamen out there, Mr. Van Gelder. And starting right now, let me tell you that if anything happens to any one of them because the terrorists’ demands are not met, I shall hold the Dutch authorities personally responsible.”
“Mr. Wennerstrom,” said Van Gelder, who had also commanded a ship in his career, “we are doing everything we can. The requirements of the terrorists regarding the distance of clear water around the Freya are being met, to the letter. Their primary demands have not yet been stated. The Prime Minister is in his office now in The Hague doing what he can, and he will be here at noon for the next message from the Freya.”
Harry Wennerstrom replaced the receiver and stared through the picture windows of the sitting room in the sky toward the west, where his dream ship was lying at anchor on the open sea with armed terrorists aboard her.
“Cancel the convoy to Maas Control,” he said suddenly to one of his secretaries. “Cancel the champagne lunch. Cancel the reception this evening. Cancel the press conference. I’m going.”
“Where, Mr. Wennerstrom?” asked the amazed young woman.
“To Maas Control. Alone. Have my car waiting by the time I reach the garage.”
With that, the old man stumped from the suite and headed for the elevator.
Around the Freya the sea was emptying. Working closely with their British colleagues at Flamborough Head and Felixstowe, the Dutch marine-traffic-control officers diverted shipping into fresh sea-lanes west of the Freya, the nearest being over five miles west of her.
Eastward of the stricken ship, coastal traffic was ordered to stop or turn back, and movements into and out of the Europoort and Rotterdam were halted. Angry sea captains, whose voices poured into Maas Control demanding explanations were told simply that an emergency had arisen and they were to avoid at all costs the sea area whose coordinates were read out to them.
It was impossible to keep the press in the dark. A group of several-score journalists from technical and marine publications, as well as the shipping correspondents of the major daily papers from the neighboring countries, were already in Rotterdam for the reception arranged for the Freya's triumphal entry that afternoon. By eleven A.M. their curiosity was aroused, partly by the cancellation of the journey to the Hook to witness the Freya come over the horizon into the Inner Channel, and partly by tips reaching their head offices from those numerous radio hams who like to listen to maritime radio talk.
Shortly after eleven, calls began to flood into the penthouse suite of their host, Harry Wennerstrom, but he was not there and his secretaries knew nothing. Other calls came to Maas Control, and were referred to The Hague. In the Dutch capital the switchboard operators put the calls through to the Prime Minister’s private press secretary, on Grayling’s orders, and the harassed young man fended them off as best he could.
The lack of information simply intrigued the press corps more than ever, so they reported to their editors that something serious was afoot with the Freya. The editors dispatched other reporters, who forgathered through the morning outside the Maas Control Building at the Hook where they were firmly kept outside the chain-link fence that surrounds the building. Others grouped in The Hague to pester the various ministries, but most of all the Prime Minister’s office.
The editor of De Telegraaf received a tip from a radio ham that there were terrorists on board the Freya and that they would issue their demands at noon. He at once ordered a radio monitor to be placed on Channel 20 with a tape recorder to catch the whole message.
Jan Grayling personally telephoned the West German Ambassador, Konrad Voss, and told him in confidence what had happened. Voss called Bonn at once, and within thirty minutes replied to the Dutch Premier that he would of course accompany him to the Hook for the twelve o’clock contact as the terrorists had demanded. The government of the Federal Republic of Germany, he assured the Dutchman, would do everything it could to help.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry as a matter of courtesy informed the ambassadors of all the nations concerned : Sweden, whose flag the Freya flew and whose seamen were on board; Norway, Finland, and Denmark, which also had seamen on board; the United States, because four of those seamen were Scandinavian-Americans with U.S. passports and dual nationality; Britain, as a coastal nation and wh
ose institution, Lloyd’s, was insuring both ship and cargo; and Belgium and France as coastal nations.
In nine European capitals the telephones rang between ministry and department, from call box to editorial room, in insurance offices, shipping agencies, and private homes. For those in government, banking, shipping, insurance, the armed forces, and the press, the prospect of a quiet weekend that Friday morning receded into the flat blue ocean, where under a warm spring sun a million-ton bomb called the Freya lay silent and still.
Harry Wennerstrom was halfway from Rotterdam to the Hook when an idea occurred to him. The limousine was passing out of Schiedam on the motorway toward Vlaardingen when he recalled that his private jet was at Schiedam municipal airport. He reached for the telephone and called his principal secretary, still trying to fend off calls from the press in his suite at the Hilton. When he got through to her at the third attempt, he gave her a string of orders for his pilot.
“One last thing,” he said. “I want the name and office phone number of the police chief of Ålesund. Yes, Ålesund, in Norway. As soon as you have it, call him up and tell him to stay where he is and await my call back to him.”
Lloyd’s Intelligence Unit had been informed shortly after ten o’clock. A British dry-cargo vessel had been preparing to enter the Maas Estuary for Rotterdam when the 0900 call was made from the Freya to Maas Control. The radio officer had heard the whole conversation, noted it verbatim in shorthand, and shown it to his captain. Minutes later, he was dictating it to the ship’s agent in Rotterdam, who passed it to the head office in London. The office had called Colchester, Essex, and repeated the news to Lloyd’s. One of the chairmen of twenty-five separate firms of underwriters had been contacted and informed. The consortium that had put together the $170-million hull insurance on the Freya had to be big; so also was the group of firms covering the million-ton cargo for Clint Blake in his office in Texas. But despite the size of the Freya and her cargo, the biggest single policy was the protection and indemnity insurance, for the persons of the crew and pollution compensation. The P and I policy would be the one to cost the biggest bundle of money if the Freya were blown apart.