The Devil's Alternative

“That’s logical,” said Larsen. “They’re hardly likely to assist in the escape of the two men who murdered their airline captain.”

Drake dismissed his colleague, who closed the door behind him and returned to the bridge. The Ukrainian resumed his seat.

“The British have offered to assist Chancellor Busch by putting a communications jet from the Royal Air Force at their disposal to fly Mishkin and Lazareff from Berlin to Tel Aviv.”

“I’d accept,” said Larsen. “After all, the Russians aren’t above diverting a German jet, even snooting it down and claiming an accident. They’d never dare fire on an RAF military jet in one of the air corridors. You’re on the threshold of victory; don’t throw it away for a technicality. Accept the offer.”

Bleary-eyed from weariness, slow from lack of sleep, Drake regarded the Norwegian.

“You’re right,” he conceded. “They might shoot down a German plane. In fact, I have accepted.”

“Then it’s all over but the shouting,” said Larsen, forcing a smile. “Let’s celebrate.”

He had two cups of coffee in front of him, poured while he was waiting for Drake to return. He pushed one halfway down the long table; the Ukrainian reached for it. In a well-planned operation it was the first mistake he had made. ...

Thor Larsen came at him down the length of the table with all the pent-up rage of the past fifty hours unleashed in the violence of a maddened bear.

The partisan recoiled, reached for his gun, had it in his hand and was about to fire. A fist like a log of cut spruce caught him on the left temple, flung him out of his chair and backward across the cabin floor.

Had he been less fit, he would have been out cold. He was very fit, and younger than the seaman. As he fell, the gun slipped from his hand and skittered across the floor. He came up empty-handed, fighting, to meet the charge of the Norwegian, and the pair of them went down again in a tangle of arms and legs, fragments of a shattered chair, and two broken coffee cups.

Larsen was t

rying to use his weight and strength, the Ukrainian his youth and speed. The latter won. Evading the grip of the big man’s hands, Drake wriggled free and went for the door. He almost made it; his hand was reaching for the knob when Larsen launched himself across the carpet and brought both his ankles out from under him.

The two men came up again together, a yard apart, the Norwegian between Drake and the door. The Ukrainian lunged with a foot, caught the bigger man in the groin with a kick that doubled him over. Larsen recovered, rose again, and threw himself at the man who had threatened to destroy his ship.

Drake must have recalled that the cabin was virtually soundproof. He fought in silence, wrestling, biting, gouging, kicking, and the pair rolled over the carpet amid the broken furniture and crockery. Somewhere beneath them was the gun that could have ended it all; in Drake’s belt was the oscillator, which, if the red button on it was pressed, would certainly end it all.

In fact it ended after two minutes; Thor Larsen pulled one hand free, grasped the head of the struggling Ukrainian, and slammed it into the leg of the table. Drake went rigid for half a second, then slumped limply. From just below his hairline a thin trickle of blood seeped down his forehead.

Panting with weariness, Thor Larsen raised himself from the floor and looked at the unconscious man. Carefully he eased the oscillator from the Ukrainian’s belt, held it in his left hand, and crossed to the one window in the starboard side of his cabin that was secured closed with butterfly-headed bolts. One-handed, he began to unwind them. The first one flicked open; he started on the second. A few more seconds, a single long throw, and the oscillator would sail out of the porthole, across the intervening ten feet of steel deck, and into the North Sea.

On the floor behind him, the young terrorist’s hand inched over the carpet to where his discarded gun lay. Larsen had the second bolt undone and was swinging the brass-framed window inward when Drake lined himself painfully onto one shoulder, reached around the table, and fired.

The crash of the gun in the enclosed cabin was earsplitting. Thor Larsen reeled back against the wall by the open window and looked first at his left hand, then at Drake. From the floor the Ukrainian stared back in disbelief.

The single shot had hit the Norwegian captain in the palm of his left hand—the hand that held the oscillator—driving shards of plastic and glass into the flesh. For ten seconds both men stared at each other, waiting for the series of rumbling explosions that would mark the end of the Freya.

They never came. The soft-nosed slug had fragmented the detonator device into small pieces, and, in shattering, it had not had time to reach the tonal pitch needed to trigger the detonators in the bombs below decks.

Slowly the Ukrainian climbed to his feet, holding onto the table for support. Thor Larsen looked at the steady stream of blood running from his broken hand down to the carpet. Then he looked across at the panting terrorist.

“I have won, Mr. Svoboda. I have won. You cannot destroy my ship and my crew.”

“You may know that, Captain Larsen,” said the man with the gun, “and I may know that. But they”—he gestured to the open porthole and the lights of the NATO warships in the predawn gloom across the water—“they don’t know that. The game goes on. Mishkin and Lazareff will reach Israel.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

0600 to 1600

MOABIT PRISON in West Berlin comprises two sections. The older part predates the Second World War. But during the sixties and early seventies, when the Baader-Meinhof gang spread a wave of terror over Germany, a new section was added. Into it were built ultramodern security systems, the toughest steel and concrete, television scanners, electronically controlled doors and grilles.

On the upper floor, David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin were awakened in their separate cells by the governor of Moabit at six A.M. on the morning of Sunday, April 3, 1983.

“You are being released,” he told them brusquely. “You are being flown to Israel this morning. Takeoff is scheduled for eight o’clock. Get ready to depart; we leave for the airfield at seven-thirty.”

Ten minutes later the military commandant of the British Sector was on the telephone to the Governing Mayor of West Berlin.