The Devil's Alternative

“I am a doctor,” he said in Russian. “Your friends, the Ukrainians who have demanded your release, have also insisted you be medically fit to travel.”

Mishkin stood up and shrugged. He was unprepared for the four rigid fingertips that jabbed him in the solar plexus, did not expect the small canister held under his nose as he gasped for air, and was unable to prevent himself from inhaling the aerosol vapor that sprayed from the nozzle of the can as he inhaled. When the knockout gas hit the lungs, his legs buckled without a sound, and Munro caught him beneath the armpits before he reached the floor. Carefully he was laid on the bed.

“It’ll act for five minutes, no more,” said the civilian from the Defense Ministry. “Then he’ll wake with a fuzzy head but no ill effects. You’d better move fast.”

Munro opened the attaché case and took out the box containing the hypodermic syringe, the cotton, and a small

bottle of alcohol. Soaking the cotton in the alcohol, he swabbed a portion of the prisoner’s right forearm to sterilize the skin, held the syringe to the light and squeezed until a fine jet of liquid rose into the air, expelling the last bubble.

The injection took less than three seconds, and ensured that Lev Mishkin would remain under its effects for almost two hours, longer than necessary but a period that could not be reduced.

The two men closed the cell door behind them and went down to where David Lazareff, who had heard nothing, was pacing up and down, full of nervous energy. The aerosol spray worked with the same instantaneous effect. Two minutes later he had also had his injection.

The civilian accompanying Munro reached into his breast pocket and took out a flat tin box. He held it out.

“I leave you now,” he said coldly. “This isn’t what I am paid for.”

Neither hijacker knew, nor would ever know, what had been injected into them. In fact it was a mixture of two narcotics called pethidine and hyoscine by the British, and meperidine and scopolamine by the Americans. In combination they have remarkable effects.

They cause the patient to remain awake, albeit slightly sleepy, willing and able to be obedient to instructions. They also have the effect of telescoping time, so that coming out from their effects after almost two hours, the patient has the impression of having suffered a dizzy spell for several seconds. Finally, they cause complete amnesia, so that when the effects wear off, the patient has not the slightest recall of anything that happened during the intervening period. Only a reference to a clock will reveal that time has passed at all.

Munro reentered Mishkin’s cell. He helped the young man into a sitting position on his bed, back to the wall.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” said Mishkin, and smiled. They were speaking in Russian, but Mishkin would never remember it.

Munro opened his flat tin box, extracted two halves of a long, torpedo-shaped capsule called a spansule, such as is often used as a cold remedy, and screwed the two ends together.

“I want you to take this pill,” he said, and held it out with a glass of water.

“Sure,” said Mishkin, and swallowed it without demur.

From his attaché case Munro took a battery-operated wall clock and adjusted a timer at the back. Then he hung it on the wall. The hands read eight o’clock but were not in motion. He left Mishkin sitting on his bed, and returned to the cell of the other man. Five minutes later the job was finished. He repacked his bag and left the cell corridor.

“They’re to remain in isolation until the aircraft is ready for them,” he told the MP sergeant at the orderly room desk as he passed through. “No one to see them at all. Base commander’s orders.”

For the first time Andrew Drake was speaking in his own voice to the Dutch Premier, Jan Grayling. Later, English linguistics experts, analyzing the tape recording made of the conversation, would place the accent as having originated within a twenty-mile radius of the city of Bradford, England, but by then it would be too late.

“These are the terms for the arrival of Mishkin and Lazareff in Israel,” said Drake. “I shall expect no later than one hour after the takeoff from Berlin an assurance from Premier Golen that they will be fulfilled. If they are not, I shall regard the agreement as null and void.

“One: the two are to be led from the aircraft on foot and at a slow pace past the observation terrace on top of the main terminal building at Ben-Gurion Airport.

“Two: access to that terrace is to be open to the public. No controls of identity or screening of the public is to take place by the Israeli security force.

“Three: if there has been any switch of the prisoners, if any look-alike actors are playing their part, I shall know within hours.

“Four: three hours before the airplane lands at Ben-Gurion, the Israeli radio is to publish the time of its arrival and inform everyone that any person who wishes to come and witness their arrival is welcome to do so. The broadcast is to be in Hebrew and English, French and German. That is all.”

“Mr. Svoboda,” Jan Grayling cut in urgently, “all these demands have been noted and will be passed immediately to the Israel! government. I am sure they will agree. Please do not cut contact. I have urgent information from the British in West Berlin.”

“Go ahead,” said Drake curtly.

“The RAF technicians working on the executive Jet in the hangar at Gatow airfield have reported a serious electrical fault developed this morning in one of the engines during testing. I implore you to believe this is no trick. They are working frantically to put the fault right. But there will be a delay of an hour or two.”

“If this is a trick, it’s going to cost your beaches a deposit of one hundred thousand tons of crude oil,” snapped Drake.

“It is not a trick,” said Grayling urgently. “All aircraft occasionally suffer a technical fault. It is disastrous that this should happen to the RAF plane right now. But it has, and it will be mended—is being mended, even as we speak.”