Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

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 whose 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 alesund. Yes, alesund, 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.