Frederick Forsyth - The Devil's Alternative

She was joined by the German missile frigate Brunner , and the frigates lay five cable lengths away from each other, both watching the dim shape on the southern horizon. From the Scottish port of Leith, where she had been on a courtesy visit, H.M.S. Argyll put to sea, and as the first evening star ap­peared in the cloudless sky, she took up her station due west of the Freya.

She was a guided-missile light cruiser, known as a DLG, of just under six thousand tons, armed with batteries of Exocet missiles. Her modern gas-turbine and steam engines had en­abled her to put to sea at a moment’s notice, and deep in her hull the Data Link computer she carried was tapped into the Data Link of the Nimrod circling fifteen thousand feet above in the darkening sky. Toward her stern, one step up from the afterdeck, she carried her own Westland Wessex helicopter.

Beneath the water, the sonar ears of the warships surround­ed the Freya on three sides; above the water, the radar scan­ners swept the ocean constantly. With the Nimrod above, Freya was cocooned in an invisible shroud of electronic sur­veillance. She lay silent and inert as the sun prepared to fall over the English coast.

It was five o’clock in Western Europe but seven in Israel when the West German Ambassador asked for a personal audience with Premier Benyamin Golen. It was pointed out to him at once that the Sabbath had started one hour before and that as a devout Jew the Premier was at rest in his own home. Nevertheless, the message was relayed because neither the Prime Minister’s private office nor he himself was unaware of what was happening in the North Sea. Indeed, since the 0900 broadcast from Thor Larsen, the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, had been keeping Jerusalem informed, and following the demands made at noon concerning Israel, the most copi­ous position papers had been prepared. Before the official start of the Sabbath at six o’clock, Premier Golen had read them all.

“I am not prepared to break Shabbat and drive to the office,” he told his aide, who telephoned him with the news, “even though I am now answering this telephone. And it is rather a long way to walk. Ask the Ambassador to call on me personally.”

Ten minutes later the German Embassy car drew up out­side the Premier’s ascetically modest house in the suburbs of Jerusalem. When the envoy was shown in, he was apologetic.

After the traditional greetings of “Shabbat Shalom,” the Ambassador said:

“Prime Minister, I would not have disturbed you for all the world during the hours of the Sabbath, but I understand it is permitted to break the Sabbath if human life is at stake.”

Premier Golen inclined his head.

“It is permitted if human life is at stake or in danger,” he conceded.

“In this case, that is very much so,” said the Ambassador. “You will be aware, sir, of what has been happening on board the supertanker Freya in the North Sea these past twelve hours.”

The Premier was more than aware; he was deeply con­cerned, for since the noon demands, it had become plain that the terrorists, whoever they were, could not be Palestinian Arabs, and might even be Jewish fanatics. But his own agen­cies, the external Mossad and the internal Sherut Bitachon, called from its initials Shin Bet, had not been able to find any trace of such fanatics being missing from their usual haunts.

“I am aware, Ambassador, and I join in sorrow for the murdered seaman. What is it that the Federal Republic wants of Israel?”

“Prime Minister, my country’s cabinet has considered all the issues for several hours. Though it regards the prospect of acceding to terrorist blackmail with utter repugnance, and though if the affair were a completely internal German mat­ter it might be prepared to resist, in the present case it feels it must yield.

“My government’s request is therefore that the State of Is­rael agree to accept Lev Mishkin and David Lazareff, with the guarantees of nonprosecution and nonextradition that the terrorists demand.”

Premier Golen had in fact been considering the reply he would make to such a request for several hours. It came as no surprise to him. He had prepared his position. His govern­ment was a finely balanced coalition, and privately he was aware that many if not most of his own people were so incensed by the continuing persecution of Jews and the Jewish religion inside the USSR that for them Mishkin and Lazareff were hardly to be considered terrorists in the same class as the Baader-Meinhof gang or the PLO. Indeed, some sympa­thized with them for seeking to escape by hijacking a Soviet airliner, and accepted that the gun in the cockpit had gone off by accident.

“You have to understand two things, Ambassador. One is that although Mishkin and Lazareff may be Jews, the State of Israel had nothing to do with their original offenses, nor with the demand for their freedom now made.”

If the terrorists themselves turn out to be Jewish, how many people are going to believe that? he thought.

“The second thing is that the State of Israel is not directly affected by the plight of the Freya’s crew, nor by the effects of her possible destruction. It is not the State of Israel that is under pressure here, or being blackmailed.”

“That is understood, Prime Minister,” said the German.

“If, therefore, Israel agrees to receive these two men, it must be clearly and publicly understood that she does so at the express and earnest request of the government of the Fed­eral Republic of Germany.”

“That request is being made, sir, by me, now, on behalf of my government.”

Fifteen minutes later the format was arranged. West Ger­many would publicly announce that it had made the request to Israel on its own behalf. Immediately afterward, Israel would announce that she had reluctantly agreed to the re­quest. Following that, West Germany could announce the re­lease of the prisoners at 0800 hours the following morning, European time. The announcements would come from Bonn and Jerusalem, and would be synchronized at ten-minute in­tervals, starting one hour hence. It was seven-thirty in Israel, five-thirty in Europe.

Across the continent the last editions of the afternoon news­papers whirled onto the streets, to be snapped up by a public of three hundred million who had followed the drama since midmorning. The latest headlines gave details of the murder of the unidentified seaman and the arrest of a free-lance French photographer and a pilot at Le Touquet.

Radio bulletins carried the news that the West German Ambassador to Israel had visited Premier Golen in his private house during the Sabbath, and had left thirty-five minutes later. There was no news from the meeting, and speculation was rife. Television had pictures of anyone who would pose for them, and quite a few who preferred not to. The latter were the ones who knew what was going on. No pictures taken by the Nimrod of the seaman’s body were released by the authorities.

The daily papers, preparing for issue starting at midnight, were holding front pages for the chance of a statement from Jerusalem or Bonn, or another transmission from the Freya . The learned articles on the inside pages about the Freya her­self, her cargo, the effects of its spillage, speculation on the identity of the terrorists, and editorials urging the release of the two hijackers, covered many columns of copy.

A mild and balmy dusk was ending a glorious spring day when Sir Julian Flannery completed his report to the Prime Minister in her office at 10 Downing Street. It was com­prehensive and yet succinct, a masterpiece of draftsmanship.

“We have to assume, then, Sir Julian,” she said at length, “that they certainly exist, that they have undoubtedly taken complete possession of the Freya , that they could well be in a position to blow her apart and sink her, that they would not stop at doing so, and that the financial, environmental, and human consequences would constitute a catastrophe of appalling dimensions.”