Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

Just after dawn, the pilot boarded. The Sanadria weighed anchor, took a tug in attendance, and moved slowly between the breakwaters and into her berth. Often, Drake had learned, there was a berthing delay in this, the most congest­ed of the Soviet Union’s warm-water ports. They must want their Vac-U-Vators badly. He had no idea how badly. Once the shore cranes had started to unload the freighter, the watchkeepers among the crew were allowed to go ashore.

During the voyage Drake had become friendly with the Sanadria’s carpenter, a middle-aged Greek seaman who had visited Liverpool and was keen to practice his twenty words of English. He had repeated them continuously to his intense delight whenever he met Drake during the voyage, and each time Drake had nodded furious encouragement and approval. He had explained to Constantino in English and sign lan­guage that he had a girl friend in Odessa and was bringing her presents. Constantino approved. With a dozen others, they trooped down the gangway and headed for the dock gates. Drake was wearing one of his best suede sheepskin coats, although the day was reasonably warm. Constantino carried a duffel shoulder bag with a brace of bottles of export-proof Scotch whisky.

The whole port area of Odessa is cordoned off from the city and its citizens by a high chain fence, topped with barbed wire and arc lights. The main dock gates habitually stand open in the daytime, the entrance being blocked only by a balanced red-and-white striped pole. This marks the pas­sageway for lorries, with a customs official and two armed militiamen attending it.

Astride the entrance gate is a long, narrow shed, with one door inside the port area and one on the outside. The party from the Sanadria entered the first door, with Constantino in charge. There stood a long counter, attended by one customs man, and a passport desk, attended by an immigration officer and a militiaman. All three looked scruffy and exceptionally bored. Constantine approached the customs man and dumped his shoulder bag on the counter. The official opened it and ex­tracted a bottle of whisky. Constantine gestured that it was a present from one to the other. The customs man managed a friendly nod and placed the bottle beneath his table.

Constantine clasped a brawny arm around Drake and pointed to him.

“ Droog ,” he said, and beamed widely. The customs man nodded that he understood the newcomer was the Greek car­penter’s friend and should be recognized as such. Drake smiled broadly. He stood back, eyeing the customs man as an outfitter eyes a customer. Then he stepped forward, slipped off the sheepskin coat and held it out, indicating that he and the customs man were about the same size. The official did not bother to try it on; it was a fine coat, worth a month’s salary at least. He smiled his acknowledgment, placed the coat under the table, and waved the entire party through.

The immigration officer and militiaman showed no sur­prise. The second bottle of whisky was for the pair of them. The Sanadria crew members surrendered their seaman’s books, and in the case of Drake his passport to the immi­gration officer, and each received in return a shore pass from a leather satchel the officer wore over his shoulder. Within a few minutes the Sanadria party emerged into the sunshine be­yond the shed.

Drake’s rendezvous was in a small cafe in the dockland area of old, cobbled streets, not far from the Pushkin Monu­ment, where the ground rises from the docks to the main city. He found it after thirty minutes of wandering, having sep­arated himself from his fellow seamen on the grounds that he wanted to date his mythical girl friend. Constantino did not object; he had to contact his underworld friends to set up the delivery of his sackful of denim jeans.

It was Lev Mishkin who came, just after noon. He was wary, cautious, and sat alone, making no sign of recognition. When he had finished his coffee, he rose and left the cafe. Drake followed him. Only when the pair had reached the wide, sea-front highway of Primorsky Boulevard did he allow Drake to catch up. They spoke as they walked.

Drake agreed that he would make his first run, with the handguns stuck in his waistband and the image intensifier in a duffel bag with two clinking bottles of whisky, that eve­ning. There would be plenty of Western ships’ crews coming through for an evening in the dockland bars at the same time. He would be wearing another sheepskin coat to cover the handguns in his belt, and the chill of the evening air would justify his keeping the coat buttoned at the front Mishkin and his friend David Lazareff would meet Drake in the darkness by the Pushkin Monument and take over the hardware.

Just after eight that evening, Drake came through with his first consignment. Jovially, he saluted the customs man, who waved him on and called to his colleague at the passport desk. The immigration man handed out a shore pass in ex­change for his passport, jerked his chin toward the open door to the city of Odessa, and Drake was through. He was almost at the foot of the Pushkin Monument, seeing the writer’s head raised against the stars above, when two figures joined him out of the darkness between the plane trees that crowd Odessa’s open spaces.

“Any problems?” asked Lazareff.

“None,” said Drake.

“Let’s get it over with,” said Mishkin. Both men were car­rying the briefcases that everyone seems to carry in the Soviet Union. These cases, far from carrying documents, are the male version of the string bags the women carry, called “per­haps bags.” They get their name from the hope that the women carry with them that perhaps they may spot a worth­while consumer article on sale and snap it up before it is sold out or the queues form. Mishkin took the image intensifier and stuffed it into his larger briefcase; Lazareff took both the handguns, the spare ammunition slips, and the box of rifle shells and put them in his own.

“We’re sailing tomorrow evening,” said Drake. “I’ll have to bring the rifle in the morning.”

“Damn,” said Mishkin, “daylight is bad. David, you know the port area best. Where is it to be?”

Lazareff considered. “There is an alley,” he said, “between two crane-maintenance workshops.”

He described the mud-colored workshops, not far from the docks.

“The alley is short, narrow. One end looks toward the sea, the other to a third blank wall. Enter the seaward end of the alley on the dot of eleven A.M. I will enter the other end. If there is anyone else in the alley, walk on, go around the block, and try again. If the alley is empty, well take de­livery.”

“How will you be carrying it?” asked Mishkin.

“Wrapped around with sheepskin coats,” said Drake, “and stuffed in a kit bag about three feet long.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Lazareff. “Someone is com­ing.”

When Drake returned to the Sanadria , the customs men had changed shifts and he was frisked. He was clean. The next morning he asked Captain Thanos for an extra spell ashore on the grounds that he wanted to spend the maximum time with his fiancee. Thanos excused him from deck duties and let him go. There was a nasty moment in the customs shed when Drake was asked to turn out his pockets. Placing his kit bag on the ground, he obeyed and revealed a wad of four ten-dollar bills. The customs man, who seemed to be in a bad mood, wagged an admonishing finger at Drake and con­fiscated the dollars. He ignored the kit bag. Sheepskin coats, it seemed, were respectable contraband; dollars were not.

The alley was empty, save for Mishkin and Lazareff walk­ing down from one end and Drake walking up from the other. Mishkin gazed beyond Drake to the seaward end of the alley; when they were abreast he said, “Go,” and Drake hefted the kit bag onto the shoulder of Lazareff. “Good luck,” he said as he walked on, “see you in Israel.”