The Devil's Alternative

“These talks will be what the conference is supposedly about, so far as the world is concerned, and the usual press bulletins will be necessary,” resumed Secretary of State Lawrence. “Now, in back of the main conference, the secondary conference of technical experts will negotiate the sale by the U.S. to the Soviets at financial costs still to be worked out, but probably lower than world prices, of up to fifty-five million tons of grain, consumer-product technology, computers, and oil-extraction technology.

“At every stage there will be liaison between the up-front and the in-back teams of negotiators on each side. They make a concession on arms; we make a concession on low-cost goodies.”

“When is this slated for?” asked Poklewski.

“That’s the surprise element,” said Lawrence. “Normally the Russians like to work very slowly. Now it seems they are in a hurry. They want to start in two weeks.”

“Good God, we can’t be ready for ‘go’ in two weeks!” exclaimed the Secretary of Defense, whose department was intimately involved.

“We have to be,” said President Matthews. “There will never be another chance like this again. Besides, we have our SALT team ready and briefed. They have been ready for months. We have to bring in Agriculture, Trade, and Technology on this, and fast. We have to get together the team who can talk on the other—the trade and technology—side of the deal. Gentlemen, please see to it. At once.”

Maxim Rudin did not put it to his Politburo quite like that, two days later.

“They have taken the bait,” he said from his chair at the head of the table. “When they make a concession on wheat or technology in one of the conference rooms, we make the absolute minimum concession in the other conference room. We will get our grain, Comrades; we will feed our people, we will head off the famine, and at the minimum price. Americans, after all, have never been able to outnegotiate Russians.”

There was a general buzz of agreement.

“What concessions?” snapped Vishnayev. “How far back will these concessions set the Soviet Union and the triumph of world Marxism-Leninism?”

“As to your first question,” replied Rykov, “we cannot know until we are negotiating. As to your second, the answer must be substantially less than a famine would set us back.”

“There are two points we should be clear on before we decide whether to talk or not,” said Rudin. “One is that the Politburo will be kept fully informed at every stage, so if the moment comes when the price is too high, this council will have the right to abort the conference and I will defer to Comrade Vishnayev and his plan for a war in the spring. The second is that no concession we may make to secure the wheat need necessarily obtain for very long after the deliveries have taken place.”

There were several grins around the table. This was the sort of realpolitik the Politburo was much more accustomed to, as they had shown in transforming the old Helsinki Agreement on détente into a farce.

“Very well,” said Vishnayev, “but I think we should lay down the exact parameters of our negotiating teams’ authority to concede points.”

“I have no objection to that,” said Rudin.

The meeting continued on this theme for an hour and a half. Rudin got his vote to proceed, by the same margin as before, seven against six.

On the last day of the month, Andrew Drake stood in the shade of a crane and watched the Sanadria battening down her hatches. Conspicuous on deck she had Vac-U-Vators for Odessa, powerful suction machines, like vacuum cleaners, for sucking wheat out of the hold of a ship and straight into a grain elevator. The Soviet Union must be trying to improve her grain-unloading capacity, he mused, though he did not know why. Below the weather deck were forklift trucks for Istanbul and agricultural machinery for Varna in Bulgaria, part of a transshipment cargo that had come in from America as far as Piraeus.

He watched the agent’s water clerk leave the ship, giving Captain Thanos a last shake of the hand. Thanos scanned the pier and made out the figure of Drake loping toward him, his kit bag over one shoulder and his suitcase in the other hand.

In the captain’s day cabin, Drake handed over his passport and vaccination certificates. He signed the ship’s articles and became a member of the deck crew. While he was down below stowing his gear, Captain Thanos entered his name in the ship’s crew list just before the Greek immigration officer came on board. The two men had

the usual drink together.

“There’s an extra crewman,” said Thanos, as if in passing. The immigration officer scanned the list and the pile of seaman’s books and passports in front of him. Most were Greek, but there were six others, non-Greek. Drake’s British passport stood out The immigration officer selected it and riffled through the pages. A fifty-dollar bill fell out.

“An out-of-work,” said Thanos, “trying to get to Turkey and head for the East. Thought you’d be glad to be rid of him.”

Five minutes later the crew’s identity documents had been returned to their wooden tray and the vessel’s papers stamped for outward clearance. Daylight was fading as her ropes were cast off, and Sanadria slipped away from her berth and headed south before turning northeast for the Dardanelles.

Below decks, the crew were grouping around the greasy messroom table. One of them was hoping no one would look under his mattress, where the Sako Hornet rifle was stored. In Moscow his target was sitting down to an excellent supper.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHILE HIGH-RANKING and secret men launched themselves into a flurry of activity in Washington and Moscow, the old Sanadria thumped her way impassively northeast toward the Dardanelles and Istanbul.

On the second day, Drake watched the bare brown hills of Gallipoli slide by, and the sea dividing European and Asian Turkey widen into the Sea of Marmara. Captain Thanos, who knew these waters like his own backyard on Chios, was doing his own pilotage.

Two Soviet cruisers steamed past them, heading from Sebastopol out to the Mediterranean to shadow the U.S. Sixth Fleet maneuvers. Just after sundown the twinkling lights of Istanbul and the Galata Bridge spanning the Bosporus came into view. The Sanadria anchored for the night and entered port at Istanbul the following morning.

While the forklift trucks were being unloaded, Andrew Drake secured his passport from Captain Thanos and slipped ashore. He met Miroslav Kaminsky at an agreed rendezvous in central Istanbul and took delivery of a large bundle of sheepskin and suede coats and jackets. When he returned to the ship, Captain Thanos raised an eyebrow.

“You aiming to keep your girl friend warm?” he asked.