Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

On the night of September 23, a Grumman Gulf stream in the livery of a well-known commercial corporation lifted off from Andrews Air Force Base and, carrying long-distance tanks, headed east across the Atlantic for the Irish airport of Shan­non. It was phased into the Irish air-traffic-control network as a private charter flight. When it landed at Shannon it was shepherded in darkness to the side of the airfield away from the international terminal and surrounded by five black and curtained limousines.

Secretary of State David Lawrence and his party of six were greeted by the U.S. Ambassador and the deputy chief of mission, and all five limousines swept out of the airport pe­rimeter fence by a side gate. They headed northeast through the sleeping countryside toward County Meath.

That same night a Tupolev-134 twin-jet of Aeroflot refu­eled at East Berlin’s Schonefeld Airport and headed west over Germany and the Low Countries toward Britain and Ireland. It was slated as a special Aeroflot flight bringing a trade dele­gation to Dublin. As such, the British air-traffic controllers passed it over to their Irish colleagues as it left the coast of Wales. The Irish had their military air-traffic network take it over, and it landed two hours before dawn at the Irish Air Corps base at Baldonnel, outside Dublin.

Here the Tupolev was parked between two hangars out of sight of the main airfield buildings, and it was greeted by the Soviet Ambassador, the Irish Deputy Foreign Minister, and six limousines. Foreign Minister Rykov and his party entered the vehicles, were screened by the interior curtains, and left the air base.

High above the banks of the River Boyne, in an environ­ment of great natural beauty and not far from the market town of Slane in County Meath, stands Slane Castle, ances­tral home of the family Conyngham, earls of Mount Charles. The youthful earl had been quietly asked by the Irish govern­ment to accept a week’s holiday in a luxury hotel in the west with his pretty countess, and to lend the castle to the govern­ment for a few days. He had agreed. The restaurant at­tached to the castle was marked as closed for repairs, the staff were given a week’s leave, fresh government caterers moved in, and Irish police in plain clothes discreetly posted themselves at all points of the compass around the castle. When the two cavalcades of limousines had entered the grounds, the main gates were shut. If the local people noticed anything, they were courteous enough to make no mention of it.

In the Georgian private dining room before the marble fireplace by Adam, the two statesmen met for a sustaining breakfast.

“Dmitri, good to see you again,” said David Lawrence, ex­tending his hand.

Rykov shook it warmly. He glanced around him at the sil­ver gifts from George IV, and the Conyngham portraits on the walls.

“So this is how you decadent bourgeois capitalists live,” he said.

Lawrence roared with laughter. “I wish it were, Dmitri, I wish it were.”

At eleven o’clock, surrounded by their aides in Johnston’s magnificent Gothic circular library, the two men settled down to negotiate. The bantering was over.

“Mr. Foreign Minister,” said Lawrence, “it seems we both have problems. Ours concern the continuing arms race be­tween our two nations, which nothing seems able to halt or even slow down, and which worries us deeply. Yours seems to concern the forthcoming grain harvest in the Soviet Union. I hope we can find a means between us to lessen these, our mutual problems.”

“I hope so, too, Mr. Secretary of State,” said Rykov cau­tiously. “What have you in mind?”

There is only one direct flight a week between Athens and Istanbul, the Tuesday Sabena connection, leaving Athens’s Ellinikon Airport at 1400 hours and landing at Istanbul at 1645. On Tuesday, September 28, Miroslav Kaminsky was on it, instructed to secure for Andrew Drake a consignment of sheepskin and suede coats and jackets for trading in Odessa.

That same afternoon, Secretary of State Lawrence finished re­porting to the ad hoc committee of the National Security Council in the Oval Office.

“Mr. President, gentlemen, I think we have it. Providing Maxim Rudin can keep his hold on the Politburo and secure their agreement.

“The proposal is that we and the Soviets each send two teams of negotiators to a resumed arms-limitation conference. The suggested venue is Ireland again. The Irish government has agreed and will prepare a suitable conference hall and living accommodations, providing we and the Soviets signal our assent.

“One team from each side will face the other across the table to discuss a broad range of arms limitations. This is the big one: I secured a concession from Dmitri Rykov that the ambit of the discussion need not exclude thermonuclear weapons, strategic weapons, inner space, international inspec­tion, tactical nuclear weapons, conventional weapons and manpower levels, or disengagement of forces along the Iron Curtain line.”

There was a murmur of approval and surprise from the other seven men present. No previous American-Soviet arms conference had ever had such widely drawn terms of refer­ence. If all areas showed a move toward genuine and moni­tored detente, it would add up to a peace treaty.

“These talks will be what the conference is supposedly about, so far as the world is concerned, and the usual press bulletins will be necessary,” resumed Secretary of State Lawrence. “Now, in back of the main conference, the sec­ondary conference of technical experts will negotiate the sale by the U.S. to the Soviets at financial costs still to be worked out, but probably lower than world prices, of up to fifty-five million tons of grain, consumer-product technology, com­puters, and oil-extraction technology.

“At every stage there will be liaison between the up-front and the in-back teams of negotiators on each side. They make a concession on arms; we make a concession on low-cost goodies.”

“When is this slated for?” asked Poklewski.

“That’s the surprise element,” said Lawrence. “Normally the Russians like to work very slowly. Now it seems they are in a hurry. They want to start in two weeks.”

“Good God, we can’t be ready for ‘go’ in two weeks!” ex­claimed the Secretary of Defense, whose department was inti­mately involved.

“We have to be,” said President Matthews. “There will never be another chance like this again. Besides, we have our SALT team ready and briefed. They have been ready for months. We have to bring in Agriculture, Trade, and Tech­nology on this, and fast. We have to get together the team who can talk on the other—the trade and technology—side of the deal. Gentlemen, please see to it. At once.”

Maxim Rudin did not put it to his Politburo quite like that, two days later.

“They have taken the bait,” he said from his chair at the head of the table. “When they make a concession on wheat or technology in one of the conference rooms, we make the absolute minimum concession in the other conference room. We will get our grain, Comrades; we will feed our people, we will head off the famine, and at the minimum price. Ameri­cans, after all, have never been able to outnegotiate Russians.”

There was a general buzz of agreement.

“What concessions?” snapped Vishnayev. “How far back will these concessions set the Soviet Union and the triumph of world Marxism-Leninism?”

“As to your first question,” replied Rykov, “we cannot know until we are negotiating. As to your second, the answer must be substantially less than a famine would set us back.”

“There are two points we should be clear on before we de­cide whether to talk or not,” said Rudin. “One is that the Po­litburo will be kept fully informed at every stage, so if the moment comes when the price is too high, this council will have the right to abort the conference and I will defer to Comrade Vishnayev and his plan for a war in the spring. The second is that no concession we may make to secure the wheat need necessarily obtain for very long after the de­liveries have taken place.”