The Devil's Alternative

“If he was under duress, perhaps he had no choice but to confirm the placing of the explosives. Perhaps that’s a bluff,” said Grayling.

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Van Gelder. “Would you like me to bring the tape to you?”

“Yes, at once, in your own car,” said the Premier. “Straight to the Cabinet Office.”

He put the phone down and walked to his limousine, his mind racing. If what was threatened was indeed true, the bright summer morning had brought the worst crisis of his term of office. As his car left the curb, followed by the inevitable police vehicle, he leaned back and tried to think out some of the first priorities. An immediate emergency cabinet meeting, of course. The press—they would not be long. Many ears must have listened to the ship-to-shore conversation; someone would tell the press before noon.

He would have to inform a variety of foreign governments through their embassies. And authorize the setting up of an immediate crisis management committee of experts. Fortunately he had access to a number of such experts since the hijacks by the South Moluccans several years earlier. As he drew up in front of the prime ministerial office building, he glanced at his watch. It was half past nine.

The phrase “crisis management committee” was already being thought, albeit as yet unspoken, in London. Sir Rupert Moss-bank, Permanent Under Secretary to the Department of the Environment, was on the phone to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Julian Flannery.

“It’s early days yet, of course,” said Sir Rupert. “We don’t know who they are, how many, if they’re serious, or whether there are really any bombs on board. But if that amount of crude oil did get spilt, it really would be rather messy.”

Sir Julian thought for a moment, gazing out through his first-floor windows onto Whitehall.

“Good of you to call so promptly, Rupert,” he said. “I think I’d better inform the P.M. at once. In the meantime, just as a precaution, could you ask a couple of your best minds to put together a memo on the prospective consequences if she does blow up? Question of spillage, area of ocean covered, tide flow, speed, area of our coastline likely to be affected. That sort of thing. I’m pretty sure she’ll ask for it.”

“I have it in hand all ready, old boy.”

“Good,” said Sir Julian. “Excellent. Fast as possible. I suspect she’ll want to know. She always does.”

He had worked under three prime ministers, and the latest was far and away the toughest and most decisive. For years it had been a standing joke that the government party was full of old women of both sexes, but fortunately was led by a real man. The name of the latter was Joan Carpenter. The Cabinet Secretary had his appointment within minutes and walked through the bright morning sunshine across the lawn to No. 10, with purpose but without hurry, as was his wont.

When he entered the Prime Minister’s private office she was at her desk, where she had been since eight o’clock. A coffee set of bone china lay on a side table, and three red dispatch boxes lay open on the floor. Sir Julian was admiring; the woman went through documentation like a paper shredder, and the papers were already finished by ten A.M., either agreed to, rejected, or bearing a crisp request for further information, or a series of pertinent questions.

“Good morning, Prime Minister.”

“Good morning, Sir Julian, a beautiful day.”

“Indeed, ma’am. Unfortunately it has brought a piece of unpleasantness with it.”

He took a seat at her gesture and accurately sketched in the details of the affair in the North Sea, as well as he knew them. She was alert, absorbed.

“If it is true, then this ship, the Freya, could cause an environmental disaster,” she said flatly.

“Indeed, though we do not know yet the exact feasibility of sinking such a gigantic vessel with what are presumably industrial explosives. There are men who would be able to give an assessment, of course.”

“In the event that it is true,” said the Prime Minister, “I believe we should form a crisis management committee to consider the implications. If it is not, then we have the opportunity for a realistic exercise.”

Sir Julian raised an eyebrow. The idea of putting a thunderflash down the trousers of a dozen ministerial departments as an exercise had not occurred to him. He supposed it had a certain charm.

For thirty minutes the Prime Minister and her Cabinet Secretary listed the areas in which they would need professional expertise if they were to be accurately informed of the options in a major tanker hijacking in the North Sea.

In the matter of the supertanker herself, she was insured by Lloyd’s, which would be in possession of a complete plan of her layout. Concerning the structure of tankers, British Petroleum’s Marine Division would have an expert in tanker construction who could study those plans and give a precise judgment on feasibility.

In spillage control, they agreed to call on the senior research analyst at the Warren Springs Laboratory at Stevenage, close to London, run jointly by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food.

The Ministry of Defense would be called on for a serving officer in the Royal Engineers, an expert in explosives, to estimate that side of things, and the Department of the Environment itself had people who could calculate the scope of the catastrophe to the ecology of the North Sea. Trinity House, head authority of the pilotage services around Britain’s coasts, would be asked to inform on tide flows and speeds. Relations and liaison with foreign governments would fall to the Foreign Office, which would send an observer. By ten-thirty the list seemed complete. Sir Julian prepared to leave.

“Do you think the Dutch government will handle this affair?” asked the Prime Minister.

“It’s early days to say, ma’am. At the moment the terrorists wish to put their demands to Mr. Grayling personally at noon, in ninety minutes. I have no doubt The Hague will feel able to handle the matter. But if the demands cannot be met, or if the ship blows up anyway, then as a coastal nation we are involved in any case.

“Furthermore, our capacity to cope with oil spillage is the most advanced in Europe, so we may be called on to help by our allies across the North Sea.”

“Then all the sooner we are ready, the better,” said the Prime Minister. “One last thing, Sir Julian. It will probably never come to it, but if the demands cannot be met, the contingency may have to be considered of storming the vessel to liberate the crew and defuse the charges.”

For the first time Sir Julian was not comfortable. He had been a professional civil servant all his life, since leaving Oxford with a Double First. He believed the word, written and spoken, could solve most problems, given time. He abhorred violence.