“And years ago I used to have a passion for electronics and radio,” said Drake. “Probably because my dad had a radio repair shop before he died. We could do it. We’d need help, but we could do it.”
“How many more men?” asked Krim.
“We’d need one on the outside, just to recognize Mishkin and Lazareff on their release. That would have to be Miroslav, here. For the job, us two, plus five to stand guard.”
“Such a thing has never been done before,” observed the Tatar doubtfully.
“All the more reason why it will be unexpected, therefore unprepared for.”
“We’d get caught at the end of it,” said Krim.
“Not necessarily. I’d cover the pullout if I had to. And anyway, the trial would be the sensation of the decade. With Mishkin and Lazareff free in Israel, half the Western world would applaud. The whole issue of a free Ukraine would be blazoned across every newspaper and magazine outside the Soviet bloc.”
“Do you know five more who would come in on it?”
"For years I’ve been collecting names,” said Drake. “Men who are sick and tired of talking. If they knew what we’d done already, yes, I could get five before the end of the month.”
“ All right,” said Krim, “if we’re into this thing, let’s do it. Where do you want me to go?”
“Belgium,” said Drake. “I want a large apartment in Brussels. We’ll bring the men there and make the apartment the group’s base.”
On the other side of the world while Drake was talking, the sun rose over Chita and the Ishikawajima-Harima shipyard. The Freya lay alongside her commissioning quay, her engines throbbing.
The previous evening had seen a lengthy conference in the office of the IHI chairman, attended by both the yard’s and the company’s chief superintendents, the accountants, Harry Wennerstrom, and Thor Larsen. The two technical experts had agreed that every one of the giant tanker’s systems was in perfect working order. Wennerstrom had signed the final release document, conceding that the Freya was all he had paid for.
In fact, he had paid five percent of her on the signature of the original contract to build her, five percent at the keel-laying ceremony, five percent when she rode water, and five percent at official handover. The remaining eighty percent plus interest was payable over the succeeding eight years. But to all intents and purposes, she was his. The yard’s company flag had been ceremoniously hauled down, and the silver-on-blue winged Viking helmet emblem of the Nordia Line now fluttered in the dawn breeze.
High on the bridge, towering over the vast spread of her deck, Harry Wennerstrom drew Thor Larsen by the arm into the radio room and closed the door behind him. The room was completely soundproof with the door closed.
“She’s all yours, Thor,” he said. “By the way, there’s been a slight change of plan regarding your arrival in Europe. I’m not lightening her offshore. Not for her maiden voyage. Just this once, you’re going to bring her into the Europoort at Rotterdam fully laden.”
Larsen stared at his employer in disbelief. He knew as well as Wennerstrom that fully loaded ULCCs never entered ports; they stood well offshore and lightened themselves by disgorging most of their cargo into other, smaller tankers in order to reduce their draft for the shallow seas. Or they berthed at “sea islands”—networks of pipes on stilts, well out to sea—from which their oil could be pumped ashore. The idea of a girl in every port was a hollow joke for the crews of the supertankers; they often did not berth anywhere near a city from year’s end to year’s end, but were flown off their ships for periodic leave periods. That was why the crew quarters had to be a real home away from home.
“The English Channel will never take her,” said Larsen.
“You’re not going up the Channel,” said Wennerstrom. “You’re going west of Ireland, west of the Hebrides, north of the Pentland Firth, between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, then south down the North Sea, following the twenty-fathom line, to moor at the deep-water anchorage. From there the pilots will bring you down the main channel toward the Mass Estuary. The tugs will bring you in from the Hook of Holland to the Europoort.”
“The Inner Channel from K.I. Buoy to the Mass won’t take her, fully laden,” protested Larsen.
“Yes, it will,” said Wennerstrom calmly. “They have dredged this channel to one hundred fifteen feet over the past four years. You’ll be drawing ninety-eight feet. Thor, if I were asked to name any mariner in the world who could bring a million-tonner into the Europoort, it would be you. It’ll be tight as all hell, but let me have this one last triumph. I want the world to see her, Thor. My Freya. I’ll have them all there waiting for her. The Dutch government, the world’s press. They’ll be my guests, and they’ll be dumbfounded. Otherwise, no one will ever see her; she’ll spend her whole life out of sight of land.”
“All right,” said Larsen slowly. “Just this once. I’ll be ten years older when it’s over.”
Wennerstrom grinned like a small boy.
“Just wait till they see her,” he said. “The first of April. See you in Rotterdam, Thor Larsen.”
Ten minutes later he was gone. At noon, with the Japanese workers lining the quayside to cheer her on her way, the mighty Freya eased away from the shore and headed for the mouth of the bay. At two P.M. on February 2, she came out again into the Pacific and swung her bow south toward the Philippines, Borneo, and Sumatra at the start of her maiden voyage.
On February 10, the Politburo in Moscow met to consider, approve, or reject the draft treaty and accompanying trade protocol negotiated at Castletown. Rudin and those who supported him knew that if they could carry the terms of the treaty at this meeting, then, barring accidents thereafter, it could be ratified and signed. Yefrem Vishnayev and his faction of hawks were no less aware. The meeting was lengthy and exceptionally hard fought.
It is often assumed that world statesmen, even in private conclave, use moderate language and courteous address to their colleagues and advisers. This has not been true of several recent U.S. presidents and is completely untrue of the Politburo in closed session. The Russian equivalent of four-letter words flew thick and fast. Only the fastidious Vishnayev kept his language restrained, though his tone was acid as he and his allies fought every concession, line by line.
It was the Foreign Minister, Dmitri Rykov, who carried the others in the moderate faction.
“What we have gained,” he said, “is the assured sale to us, at last July’s reasonable prices, of fifty-five million tons of grains. Without them we face disaster on a national scale. Besides, we have nearly three billion dollars’ worth of the most modern technology, in consumer industries, computers, and oil production. With these we can master the problems that have beset us for two decades, and conquer them within five years.
“Against this we have to offset certain minimal concessions in arms levels and states of preparedness, which, I stress, will in no way at all hinder or retard our capacity to dominate the Third World and its raw-material resources inside the same five years. From the disaster that faced us last May, we have emerged triumphant, thanks to the inspired leadership of Comrade Maxim Rudin. To reject this treaty now would bring us back to last May, but worse: the last of our 1982 harvest grains will run out in sixty days.”