“I’m terribly sorry, Herr Burgomeister,” he told the Berliner, “but a takeoff from the civil airport at Tegel is out of the question. For one thing, the aircraft, by agreement between our governments, will be a Royal Air Force jet, and the refueling and maintenance facilities for our aircraft are far better at our own airfield at Gatow. For a second reason, we are trying to avoid the chaos of an invasion by the press, which we can easily prevent at Gatow. It would be hard for you to do this at Tegel Airport.”
Privately, the Governing Mayor was somewhat relieved. If the British took over the whole operation, any possible disasters would be their responsibility.
“So what do you want us to do, General?” he asked.
“London has asked me to suggest to you that these blighters be put in a closed and armored van inside Moabit, and be driven straight into Gatow. Your chaps can hand them over to us in privacy inside the wire, and of course we’ll sign for them.”
The press was less than happy. Over four hundred reporters and cameramen had camped outside Moabit Prison since the announcement from Bonn the previous evening that their release would take place at eight. They desperately wanted pictures of the pair leaving for the airport. Other teams of newsmen were staking out the civil airport at Tegel, seeking vantage points for their telephoto lenses high on the observation terraces of the terminal building. They were all destined to be frustrated.
The advantage of the British base at Gatow is that it occupies one of the most outlying and isolated sites inside the fenced perimeter of West Berlin, situated on the western side of the broad Havel River, close up against the border with Communist East Germany, which surrounds the beleaguered city on all sides.
Inside the base there had been controlled activity for hours before dawn. Between three and four o’clock an RAF version of the HS-125 executive jet, known as the Dominie, had flown in from Britain. It was fitted with long-range fuel tanks that would extend its range to give it ample reserves to fly from Berlin to Tel Aviv over Munich, “Venice, and Athens without ever entering Communist airspace. Its 500-mile-per-hour cruising speed would enable the Dominie to complete the 2,200-mile journey in just over four hours.
Since landing, the Dominie had been towed to a quiet hangar, where it had been serviced and refueled.
So keen were the press on watching Moabit and the airport at Tegel that no one noticed a sleek black SR-71 sweep over the East Germany-West Berlin border in the extreme corner of the city and drop onto the main runway at Gatow at just three minutes after seven o’clock. This aircraft, too, was quickly towed to an empty hangar, where a team of mechanics from the U.S. Air Force at Tempelhof hurriedly closed the doors against prying eyes and began to work on it. The SR-71 had done its job. A relieved Colonel O’Sullivan found himself at last surrounded by his fellow countrymen; next destination: his beloved U.S. of A.
His passenger left the hangar and was greeted by a youthful RAF squadron leader waiting with a Land Rover.
“Mr. Munro?”
“Yes.” Munro produced his identification, which the Air Force officer scanned closely.
“There are two gentlemen waiting to see you in the mess, sir.”
The two gentlemen could, if challenged, have proved that they were low-grade civil servants attached to the Ministry of Defense. What neither would have cared to concede was that they were concerned with experimental work in a very secluded laboratory, whose findings, when such were made, went immediately into a top-secret classification.
Both men were neatly dressed and carried attaché cases. One wore rimless glasses and had medical qualifications, or had had until he and the profession of Hippocrates had parted company. The other was his subordinate, a former male nurse.
“You have the equipment I asked for?” asked Munro without preamble.
For an answer, the senior man opened his attaché case and extracted a flat box no larger than a cigar case. He opened it and showed Munro what nestled on a bed of cotton inside.
“Ten hours,” he said. “No more.”
“That’s tight,” said Munro. “Very tight.”
It was seven-thirty on a bright, sunny morning.
The Nimrod from Coastal Command still turned and turned fifteen thousand feet above the Freya. Apart from observing the tanker, its duties also included that of watching the oil slick of the previous noon. The gigantic stain was still moving sluggishly on the face of the water, still out of range of the emulsifier-spraying tugs, which were not allowed to enter the area immediately around the Freya herself.
After spillage the slick had drifted gently northeast of the tanker on the one-knot tide toward the northern coast of Holland. But during the night it had halted, the tide had moved to the ebb, and the light breeze had shifted several points. Before dawn the slick had come back, until it had passed the Freya and lay just south of her, two miles away from her side in the direction of Holland and Belgium.
On the tugs and firefighting ships, each loaded with its maximum capacity of emulsifier concentrate, the scientists from Warren Springs prayed the sea would stay calm and the wind light until they could move into operation. A sudden change in wind, a deterioration in the weather, and the giant slick could break up, driven before the storm toward the beaches either of Europe or of Britain.
Meteorologists in Britain and Europe watched with apprehension the approach of a cold front coming down from the Denmark Strait, bringing cold air to dispel the unseasonable heat wave, and possibly wind and rain. Twenty-four hours of squalls would shatter the calm sea and make the slick uncontrollable. The ecologists prayed the descending cold snap would bring no more than a sea fog.
On the Freya, as the minutes to eight o’clock ticked away, nerves became even more strained and taut. Andrew Drake, supported by two men with submachine guns to prevent another attack from the Norwegian skipper, had allowed Captain Larsen to use his own first-aid box on his hand. Gray-faced with pain, the captain had plucked from the pulped meat of his palm such pieces of glass
and plastic as he could, then bandaged the hand and placed it in a rough sling around his neck. Drake watched him from across the cabin, a small adhesive plaster covering the cut on his forehead.
“You’re a brave man, Thor Larsen, I’ll say that for you,” he said. “But nothing has changed. I can still vent every ton of oil on this ship with her own pumps, and before I’m halfway through, the Navy out there will open fire on her and complete the job. If the Germans renege again on their promise, that’s just what I’ll do at nine.”
At precisely seven-thirty the journalists outside Moabit Prison were rewarded for their vigil. The double gates on Klein Moabit Strasse opened for the first time, and the nose of a blank-sided armored van appeared. From apartment windows across the road, the photographers got what pictures they could, which were not very many, and the stream of press cars started up, to follow the van wherever it would go.
Simultaneously, television remote-broadcast units rolled their cameras, and radio reporters chattered excitedly into their microphones. Even as they spoke, their words went straight to the various capital cities from which they hailed, including that of the BBC man. His voice echoed into the day cabin of the Freya, where Andrew Drake, who had started it all, sat listening to his radio.
“They’re on their way,” he said with satisfaction. “Not long to wait now. Time to tell them the final details of their reception in Tel Aviv.”