Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

Since the sixties, and particularly through the seventies, the growing outbreaks of terrorism had caused the formation of a routine procedure on the part of the British government to facilitate the handling of them. The principal procedure is called the crisis management committee.

When the crisis is serious enough to involve numerous de­partments and sections, the committee, grouping liaison of­ficers from all these departments, meets at a central point close to the heart of government to pool information and cor­relate decisions and actions. This central point is a well-pro­tected chamber two floors below the parquet of the Cabinet Office on Whitehall and a few steps across the lawn from 10 Downing Street. In this room meets the United Cabinet Office Review Group (National Emergency), or UNICORNE.

Surrounding the main meeting room are smaller offices; a separate telephone switchboard, linking UNICORNE with ev­ery department of state through direct lines that cannot be in­terfered with; a teleprinter room fitted with the printers of the main news agencies; a telex room and radio room; and a room for secretaries with typewriters and copiers. There is even a small kitchen where a trusted attendant prepares coffee and light snacks.

The men who grouped under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary Sir Julian Flannery just after noon that Friday represented all the departments he adjudged might conceiv­ably be involved.

At this stage, no cabinet ministers were present, though each had sent a representative of at least assistant under secretary level. These included the Foreign Office, Home Of­fice, Defense Ministry, and the departments of the Environ­ment, Trade and Industry, Agriculture and Fisheries, and Energy.

Assisting them were a bevy of specialist experts, including three scientists in various disciplines, notably explosives, ships, and pollution; the Vice Chief of Defense Staff (a vice admiral), someone from Defense Intelligence, from MI5, from the SIS, a Royal Air Force group captain, and a senior Royal Marine colonel named Timothy Holmes.

“Well now, gentlemen,” Sir Julian Flannery began, “we have all had the time to read the transcript of the noon broadcast from Captain Larsen. First I think we ought to have a few indisputable facts. May we begin with this ship, the ... er ... Freya . What do we know about her?”

The shipping expert, coming under the Trade and Industry people, found all eyes on him.

“I’ve been to Lloyd’s this morning and secured the plan of the Freya ,” he said briefly. “I have it here. It’s detailed down to the last nut and bolt.”

He went on for ten minutes, the plan spread on the table, describing the size, cargo capacity, and construction of the Freya in clear, layman’s language.

When he had finished, the expert from the Department of Energy was called on. He had an aide bring to the table a five-foot-long model of a supertanker.

“I borrowed this, this morning,” he said, “from British Pe­troleum. It’s a model of their supertanker British Princess , quarter of a million tons. But the design differences are few; the Freya is just bigger, really.”

With the aid of the model of the Princess he went on to point out where the bridge was, where the captain’s cabin would be, where the cargo holds and ballast holds would probably be, adding that the exact locations of these holds would be known when the Nordia Line could pass them over to London.

The surrounding men watched the demonstration and lis­tened with attention. None more than Colonel Holmes; of all those present, he would be the one whose fellow Marines might have to storm the vessel and wipe out her captors. He knew those men would want to know every nook and cranny of the real Freya before they went on board.

“There is one last thing,” said the scientist from Energy. “She’s full of Mubarraq.”

“God!” said one of the other men at the table.

Sir Julian Flannery regarded the speaker benignly.

“Yes, Dr. Henderson?”

The man who had spoken was the scientist from Warren Springs Laboratory who had accompanied the representative of Agriculture and Fisheries.

“What I mean,” said Henderson in his unrecycled Scottish accent, “is that Mubarraq, which is a crude oil from Abu Dhabi, has some of the properties of diesel fuel.”

He went on to explain that when crude oil is spilled on the sea, it contains both “lighter fractions” which evaporate into the air, and “heavier fractions” which cannot evaporate and which are what viewers see washed onto the beaches as thick black sludge.

“What I mean is,” he concluded, “it’ll spread all over the bloody place. It’ll spread from coast to coast before the lighter fractions evaporate. It’ll poison the whole North Sea for weeks, denying the marine life the oxygen it needs to live.”

“I see,” said Sir Julian gravely. “Thank you, Doctor.”

There followed information from other experts. The ex­plosives man from the Royal Engineers explained that, placed in the right areas, industrial dynamite could destroy a ship this size.

“It’s also a question of the sheer latent strength contained in the weight represented by a million tons of oil—or any­thing. If the holes are made in the right places, the unbal­anced mass of her will pull her apart. There’s one last thing; the message read out by Captain Larsen mentioned the phrase ‘at the touch of a button.’ He then repeated that phrase. It seems to me there must be nearly a dozen charges placed. That phrase ‘the touch of a button,’ seems to indicate triggering by radio impulse.”

“Is that possible?” asked Sir Julian.

“Perfectly possible,” said the sapper, and explained how an oscillator worked.

“Surely they could have wires to each charge, linked to a plunger?” asked Sir Julian.

“It’s a question of the weight again,” said the engineer. “The wires would have to be waterproof, plastic-coated. The weight of that number of miles of electric cable would nearly sink the launch on which these terrorists arrived.”

There was more information about the destructive capacity of the oil by pollution, the few chances of rescuing the trapped crewmen, and the SIS admitted they had no informa­tion that might help identify the terrorists from among for­eign groups of such people.

The man from MI5, who was actually the deputy chief of C4 Department within that body, the section dealing exclu­sively with terrorism as it affected Britain, underlined the strange nature of the demands of the captors of the Freya.

“These men, Mishkin and Lazareff,” he pointed out, “are Jewish. Hijackers who tried to escape from the USSR and ended up shooting a flight captain. One has to assume that those seeking to free them are their friends or admirers. That tends to indicate fellow Jews. The only ones who fit into that category are those of the Jewish Defense League. But so far they’ve just demonstrated and thrown things. In our files we haven’t had Jews threatening to blow people to pieces to free their friends since the Irgun and the Stern Gang.”

“Oh dear, one hopes they don’t start that again,” observed Sir Julian. “If not them, then who else?”

The man from C4 shrugged.

“We don’t know,” he admitted. “We can notice no one in our files conspicuous by being missing, nor do we have a trace from what Captain Larsen has broadcast to indicate their origins. This morning I thought of Arabs, even Irish. But neither would lift a finger for imprisoned Jews. It’s a blank wall.”

Still photographs were brought in, taken by the Nimrod an hour earlier, some showing the masked men on lookout. They were keenly examined.