“So am I,” said Sir Nigel. “Take a car with a scrambler phone and stay in touch with me personally.”
At a quarter to twelve, Drake sent one of his men to bring the Freya’s pumpman back to the cargo-control room on A deck. Leaving Thor Larsen under the guard of another terrorist, Drake descended to cargo control, took the fuses from his pocket, and replaced them. Power was restored to the cargo pumps.
“When you discharge cargo, what do you do?” he asked the crewman. “I’ve still got a submachine gun pointing at your captain, and I’ll order it to be used if you play any tricks.”
“The ship’s pipeline system terminates at a single point, a cluster of pipes that we call the manifold,” said the pumpman. “Hoses from the shore installation are coupled to the manifold. After that, the main gate valves are opened at the manifold, and the ship begins to pump.”
“What’s your rate of discharge?”
“Twenty thousand tons per hour,” said the man. “During discharge, the ship’s balance is maintained by venting several tanks at different points on the ship simultaneously.”
Drake had noted that there was a slight, one-knot tide flowing past the Freya, northeast toward the West Frisian Islands. He pointed to a tank amidships on the Freya’s starboard side.
“Open the master valve on that one,” he said. The man paused for a second, then obeyed.
“Right,” said Drake. “When I give the word, switch on the cargo pumps and vent the entire tank.”
“Into the sea?” asked the pumpman incredulously.
“Into the sea,” said Drake grimly. “Chancellor Busch is about to learn what international pressure really means.”
As the minutes ticked away to midday of Saturday, April 2, Europe held its breath. So far as anyone knew, the terrorists had already executed one seaman for a breach of the airspace above them, and had threatened to do it again, or vent crude oil, on the stroke of noon.
The Nimrod that had replaced Squadron Leader Latham’s aircraft the previous midnight had run short of fuel by eleven A.M., so Latham was back on duty, cameras whirring as the minutes to noon ticked away.
Many miles above him, a Condor spy satellite was on station, bouncing its continuous stream of picture images across the globe to where a haggard American President sat in the Oval Office watching a television screen. On the TV the Freya inched gently into the frame from the bottom rim, like a pointing finger.
In London, men of rank and influence in the Cabinet Office briefing room grouped around a screen on which was presented what the Nimrod was seeing. The Nimrod was on continuous camera roll from five minutes before twelve, her pictures passing to the Data Link on the Argyll beneath her, and from there to Whitehall.
Along the rails of the Montcalm, Breda, Brunner, Argyll, and Moran, sailors of five nations passed binoculars from hand to hand. Their officers stood as high aloft as they could get, with telescopes to eye.
On the BBC World Service, the bell of Big Ben struck noon. In the Cabinet Office two hundred yards from Big Ben and two floors beneath the street, someone shouted, “Christ, she’s venting!” Three thousand miles away, four shirt-sleeved Americans in the Oval Office watched the same spectacle.
From the side of the Freya, midships to starboard, a column of sticky, ocher-red crude oil erupted.
It was thick as a man’s torso. Impelled by the power of the Freya’s mighty pumps, the oil leaped the starboard rail, dropped twenty-five feet, and thundered into the sea. Within seconds, the blue-green water was discolored, putrefied. As the oil bubbled back to the surface, a stain began to spread, moving out and away from the ship’s hull on the tide.
For sixty minutes the venting went on, until the single tank was dry. The great stain formed the shape of an egg, broad nearest the Dutch coast and tapering near to the ship. Finally the mass of oil parted company with the Freya and began to drift. The sea being calm, the oil slick stayed in one piece, but it began to expand as the light crude ran across the surface of the water. At two P.M., an hour after the venting ended, the slick was ten miles long and seven miles wide at its broadest.
The Condor passed on, and the slick moved off the screen in Washington. Stanislaw Poklewski switched off the set.
“That’s just one fiftieth of what she carries,” he said. “Those Europeans will go mad.”
Robert Benson took a telephone call and turned to President Matthews.
“London just checked in with Langley,” he said. “Their man from Moscow has cabled that he has the answer to our question. He claims he knows why Maxim Rudin is threatening to tear up the Treaty of Dublin if Mishkin and Lazareff go free. He’s flying personally with the news from Moscow to London, and he should land in one hour.”
Matthews shrugged.
“With this man Major Fallon going in with his divers in nine hours, maybe it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, “but I’d sure be interested to know.”
“He’ll report to Sir Nigel Irvine, who will tell Mrs. Carpenter. Maybe you could ask her to use the hot line the moment she knows,” suggested Benson.
“I’ll do that thing,” said the President.
It was just after eight A.M. in Washington but past one P.M. in Europe when Andrew Drake, who had been pensive and withdrawn while the oil was being vented, decided to make contact again.
By twenty past one, Captain Thor Larsen was speaking again to Maas Control, from whom he asked at once to be patched through to the Dutch Premier, Jan Grayling. The patch-through to The Hague took no time; the possibility had been foreseen that sooner or later the Premier might get a chance to talk to the leader of the terrorists personally and appeal for negotiations on behalf of Holland and Germany.
“I am listening to you, Captain Larsen,” said the Dutchman to the Norwegian in English. “This is Jan Grayling speaking.”
“Prime Minister, you have seen the venting of twenty thousand tons of crude oil from my ship?” asked Larsen, the gun barrel an inch from his ear.
“With great regret, yes,” said Grayling.
“The leader of the partisans proposes a conference.”
The captain’s voice boomed through the Premier’s office in The Hague. Grayling looked up sharply at the two senior civil servants who had joined him. The tape recorder rolled impassively.
“I see,” said Grayling, who did not see at all but was stalling for time. “What kind of conference?”
“ ‘A face-to-face conference with the representatives of the coastal nations and other interested parties,’ ” said Larsen, reading from the paper in front of him.
Jan Grayling clapped his hand over the mouthpiece.
“The bastard wants to talk,” he said excitedly. And then, into the telephone, he said, “On behalf of the Dutch government, I agree to be host to such a conference. Please inform the partisan leader of this.”
On the bridge of the Freya, Drake shook his head and placed his hand over the mouthpiece. He had a hurried discussion with Larsen.
“Not on land,” said Larsen into the phone. “Here at sea. What is the name of that British cruiser?”
“She’s called the Argyll,” said Grayling.
“She has a helicopter,” said Larsen at Drake’s instruction. “The conference will be aboard the Argyll. At three P.M. Those present should include yourself, the West German Ambassador, and the captains of the five NATO warships. No one else.”
“That is understood,” said Grayling. “Will the leader of the partisans attend in person? I would need to consult the British about a guarantee of safe-conduct.”
There was silence as another conference took place on the bridge of the Freya. Captain Larsen’s voice came back.
“No, the leader will not attend. He will send a representative. At five minutes before three, the helicopter from the Argyll will be permitted to hover over the helipad of the Freya. There must be no soldiers or Marines on board. Only the pilot and the winchman, both unarmed. The scene will be observed from the bridge. There will be no came
ras. The helicopter will not descend lower than twenty feet The winchman will lower a harness, and the emissary will be lifted off the main deck and across to the Argyll. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly,” said Grayling. “May I ask who the representative will be?”
“One moment,” said Larsen, and the line went dead. On the Freya, Larsen turned to Drake and asked:
“Well, Mr. Svoboda, if not yourself, whom are you sending?”
Drake smiled briefly.
“You,” he said. “You will represent me. You are the best person I can think of to convince them I am not joking—not about the ship, or the crew, or the cargo. And that my patience is running short.”
The phone in Premier Grayling’s hand crackled to life.
“I am informed it will be me,” said Larsen, and the line was cut.
Jan Grayling glanced at his watch.
“One-forty-five,” he said. “Seventy-five minutes to go. Get Konrad Voss over here. Prepare a helicopter to take off from the nearest point to this office. And I want a direct line to Mrs. Carpenter in London.”
He had hardly finished speaking before his private secretary told him Harry Wennerstrom was on the line. The old millionaire in the penthouse above the Hilton in Rotterdam had acquired his own radio receiver during the night and had mounted a permanent watch on Channel 20.
“You’ll be going out to the Argyll by helicopter,” he told the Dutch Premier without preamble. “I’d be grateful if you would take Mrs. Lisa Larsen with you.”
“Well, I don’t know—” began Grayling.
“For pity’s sake, man,” boomed the Swede, “the terrorists will never know. And if this business isn’t handled right, it may be the last time she ever sees him.”
“Get her here in forty minutes,” said Grayling. “We take off at half past two.”
The conversation on Channel 20 had been heard by every intelligence network and most of the media. Lines were already buzzing between Rotterdam and nine European capitals. The National Security Agency in Washington had a transcript clattering off the White House teleprinter for President Matthews. An aide was darting across the lawn from the Cabinet Office to Mrs. Carpenter’s study at 10 Downing Street. The Israeli Ambassador in Bonn was urgently asking Chancellor Busch to ascertain for Prime Minister Golen from Captain Larsen whether the terrorists were Jews or not, and the West German government chief promised to do this.
The afternoon newspapers and radio and TV shows across Europe had their headlines for the five P.M. edition, and frantic calls were made to four Navy ministries for a report on the conference if and when it took place.
As Jan Grayling put down the telephone after speaking to Thor Larsen, the jet airliner carrying Adam Munro from Moscow touched the tarmac of Runway 1 at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Barry Ferndale’s Foreign Office pass had brought him to the foot of the aircraft steps, and he ushered his bleak-faced colleague from Moscow into the back seat. The car was better than most that the Firm used; it had a screen between driver and passengers, and a telephone linked to the head office.
As they swept down the tunnel from the airport to the M4 motorway, Ferndale broke the silence.
“Rough trip, old boy?” He was not referring to the airplane journey.
“Disastrous,” snapped Munro. “I think the Nightingale is blown. Certainly followed by the Opposition. May have been picked up by now.”
Ferndale clucked sympathy.
“Bloody bad luck,” he said. “Always terrible to lose an agent. Damned upsetting. Lost a couple myself, you know. One died damned unpleasantly. But that’s the trade we’re in, Adam. That’s part of what Kipling used to call the Great Game.”
“Except this is no game,” said Munro, “and what the KGB will do to the Nightingale is no joke.”
“Absolutely not. Sorry. Shouldn’t have said that.” Ferndale paused expectantly as their car joined the M4 traffic stream. “But you did get the answer to our question: Why is Rudin so pathologically opposed to the release of Mishkin and Lazareff?”
“The answer to Mrs. Carpenter’s question,” said Munro grimly. “Yes, I got it.”
“And it is?”
“She asked it,” said Munro. “She’ll get the answer. I hope she’ll like it. It cost a life to get it.”
“That might not be wise, Adam old son,” said Ferndale. “You can’t just walk in on the P.M., you know. Even the Master has to make an appointment.”
“Then ask him to make one,” said Munro, gesturing to the telephone.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to,” said Ferndale quietly. It was a pity to see a talented man blow his career to bits, but Munro had evidently reached the end of his tether. Ferndale was not going to stand in his way; the Master had told him to stay in touch. He did exactly that.
Ten minutes later, Mrs. Joan Carpenter listened carefully to the voice of Sir Nigel Irvine on the scrambler telephone.
“To give the answer to me personally, Sir Nigel?” she asked. “Isn’t that rather unusual?”
“Extremely so, ma’am. In fact, it’s unheard of. I fear it has to mean Mr. Munro and the service’s parting company. But short of asking the specialists to require the information out of him, I can hardly force him to tell me. You see, he’s lost an agent who seems to have become a personal friend over the past nine months, and he’s just about at the end of his tether.”
Joan Carpenter thought for several moments.
“I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of so much distress,” she said. “I would like to apologize to your Mr. Munro for what I had to ask him to do. Please ask his driver to bring him to Number Ten. And join me yourself, immediately.”
The line went dead. Sir Nigel Irvine stared at the receiver for a while. That woman never ceases to surprise me, he thought. All right Adam, you want your moment of glory, son, you’ll have it. But it’ll be your last. After that, it’s pastures new for you. Can’t have prima donnas in the Firm.
As he descended to his car, Sir Nigel reflected that however interesting the explanation might be, it was academic, or soon would be. In seven hours Major Simon Fallon would steal aboard the Freya with three companions and wipe out the terrorists. After that, Mishkin and Lazareff would stay where they were for fifteen years.
At two o’clock, back in the day cabin, Drake leaned forward toward Thor Larsen and told him:
“You’re probably wondering why I set up this conference on the Argyll. I know that while you are there you will tell them who we are and how many we are. What we are armed with and where the charges are placed. Now listen carefully because this is what you must also tell them if you want to save your crew and ship from instant destruction.”
He talked for over thirty minutes. Thor Larsen listened impassively, drinking in the words and their implications.
When he had finished, the Norwegian captain said, “I’ll tell them. Not because I aim to save your skin, Mr. Svoboda, but because you are not going to kill my crew and my ship.”
There was a trill from the intercom in the soundproof cabin. Drake answered it and looked out through the windows to the distant fo’c’sle. Approaching from the seaward side, very slowly and carefully, was the Wessex helicopter from the Argyll, the Royal Navy markings clear along her tail.
Five minutes later, under the eyes of cameras that beamed their images across the world, watched by men and women in subterranean offices hundreds and even thousands of miles away, Captain Thor Larsen, master of the biggest ship ever built, stepped out of her superstructure into the open air. He had insisted on donning his black trousers, and over his white sweater had buttoned his merchant navy jacket with the four gold rings of a sea captain. On his head was the braided cap with the Viking helmet emblem of the Nordia Line. He was in the uniform he would have worn the previous evening to meet the world’s press for the first time. Squaring his broad shoulders, he began the long, lonely walk down the vast expanse of his ship to where the harness and cable dangled from the he
licopter a third of a mile in front of him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1500 to 2100
SIR NIGEL IRVINE’S personal limousine, bearing Barry Ferndale and Adam Munro, arrived at 10 Downing Street a few seconds before three o’clock. When the pair were shown into the anteroom leading to the Prime Minister’s study, Sir Nigel himself was already there. He greeted Munro coolly.
“I do hope this insistence on delivering your report to the P.M. personally will have been worth all the effort, Munro,” he said.
“I think it will, Sir Nigel,” replied Munro.
The Director General of the SIS regarded his staffer quizzically. The man was evidently exhausted, and had had a rough deal over the Nightingale affair. Still, that was no excuse for breaking discipline. The door to the private study opened and Sir Julian Flannery appeared.
“Do come in, gentlemen,” he said.
Adam Munro had never met the Prime Minister personally. Despite not having slept for two days, she appeared fresh and poised. She greeted Sir Nigel first, then shook hands with the two men she had not met before, Barry Ferndale and Adam Munro.
“Mr. Munro,” she said, “let me state at the outset my deep regret that I had to cause you both personal hazard and possible exposure to your agent in Moscow. I had no wish to do so, but the answer to President Matthews’s question was of truly international importance, and I do not use that phrase lightly.”
“Thank you for saying so, ma’am,” replied Munro.
She went on to explain that, even as they talked, the captain of the Freya, Thor Larsen, was landing on the afterdeck of the cruiser Argyll for a conference; and that, scheduled for ten that evening, a team of SBS frogmen was going to attack the Freya in an attempt to wipe out the terrorists and their detonator.
Munro’s face was set like granite when he heard.
“If, ma’am,” he said clearly, “these commandos are successful, then the hijacking will be over, the two prisoners in Berlin will stay where they are, and the probable exposure of my agent will have been in vain.”