He was also giving the press ample time to learn of the disaster, but not the terms; letting them evaluate the scale of the catastrophe if the Freya blew up, so that their head of steam, their capacity to pressure the authorities, would be well prepared ahead of the demands. When the demands came, they would appear mild compared to the alternative, thus subjecting the authorities to press pressure before they had considered the demands.
Larsen, who knew what the demands would be, could not see how the authorities would refuse. The alternative was too terrible for all of them. If Svoboda had simply kidnapped an industrialist or a politician, as the Baader-Meinhof people had kidnapped Hanns-Martin Schleyer, or the Red Brigades Aldo Moro, he might have been refused his friends’ release. But he had elected to destroy five national coastlines, one sea, thirty lives, and hundreds of millions of dollars in property.
“Why are these two men so important to you?” asked Larsen suddenly.
The younger man stared back.
“They’re friends,” he said.
“No,” said Larsen. “I recall from last January reading that they were two Jews from Lvov who had been refused permission to emigrate, so they hijacked a Russian airliner and forced it to land in West Berlin. How does that produce your popular uprising?”
“Never mind,” said his captor. “It is five to twelve. We return to the bridge.”
Nothing had changed on the bridge, except that there was an extra terrorist there, curled up asleep in the corner, his gun still clutched in his hand. He was masked, like the one who patrolled the radar and sonar screens. Svoboda asked the man something in the language Larsen now knew to be Ukrainian. The man shook his head and replied in the same language. At a word from Svoboda the masked man turned his gun on Larsen.
Svoboda walked over to the scanners and read them. There was a peripheral ring of clear water around the Freya at least to five miles on the western, southern, and northern sides. To the east, the sea was clear to the Dutch coast. He strode out through the door leading to the bridgewing, turned, and called upward. From high above, Larsen heard the man atop the funnel assembly shout back. Svoboda returned to the bridge.
“Come,” he said to the captain, “your audience is waiting. One attempt at a trick, and I shoot one of your seamen, as promised.”
Larsen took the handset and pressed for transmit.
“Maas Control, Maas Control, this is the Freya.”
Though he could not know it, over fifty different offices received that call. Five major intelligence services were listening, plucking Channel 20 out of the ether with their sophisticated listeners. The words were heard simultaneously by the National Security Agency in Washington, by the British SIS, the French SDECE, the West German BND, the Soviet KGB, and the various services of Holland, Belgium, and Sweden. There were ships’ radio officers listening, radio hams and journalists as well.
A voice came back from the Hook of Holland.
“Freya, this is Maas Control. Go ahead, please.”
Thor Larsen read from his sheet of paper.
“This is Captain Thor Larsen. I wish to speak personally to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.”
A new voice, speaking in English, came on the radio from the Hook.
“Captain Larsen, this is Jan Grayling. I am the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Are you all right?”
On the Freya, Svoboda clapped his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone.
“No questions,” he said to Larsen. “Just ask if the West German Ambassador is present, and get his name.”
“Please ask no questions, Prime Minister. I am not permitted to answer them. Is the West German Ambassador with you?”
At Maas Control, the microphone was passed to Konrad Voss.
On the bridge of the Freya, Svoboda nodded at Larsen.
“That’s right,” he said, “go ahead and read it out.”
The six men grouped around the console in Maas Control listened in silence. One premier, one ambassador, one psychiatrist, a radio engineer in case of a transmission breakdown, Van Gelder of the Port Authority, and the duty officer. All other shipping traffic had now been diverted to a spare channel. The two tape recorders whirled silently. Volume was switched high; Thor Larsen’s voice echoed in the room.
“ ‘I repeat what I told you at nine this morning. The Freya is in the hands of partisans. Explosive devices have been placed that would, if detonated, blow her apart. These devices can be detonated at the touch of a button. I repeat, at the touch of a button. No attempt whatever must be made to approach her, board her, or attack her in any way. In such an event the detonator button will be pressed instantly. The men concerned have convinced me they are prepared to die rather than give in.’
“I continue. ‘If any approach at all is made, by surface craft or light aircraft, one of my seamen will be executed, or twenty thousand tons of crude oil vented, or both. Here are the demands of the partisans:
“ ‘The two prisoners of conscience, David Lazareff and Lev Mishkin, presently in jail at Tegel in West Berlin, are to be liberated. They are to be flown by a West German civilian jet from West Berlin to Israel. Prior to this, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel is to give a public guarantee that they will be neither repatriated to the Soviet Union, nor extradited back to West Germany, nor reimprisoned in Israel.
“ ‘Their liberation must take place at dawn tomorrow. The Israeli guarantee of safe conduct and freedom must be given by midnight tonight. Failure to comply will place the entire responsibility for the outcome on the shoulders of West Germany and Israel. That is all. There will be no more contact until the demands have been met.’ ”
The radiotelephone went dead with a click. The silence persisted inside the control building. Jan Grayling looked at Konrad Voss. The West German envoy shrugged.
“I must contact Bonn urgently,” Voss said.
“I can tell you that Captain Larsen is under some strain,” said the psychiatrist.
“Thank you very much,” said Grayling. “So am I. Gentlemen, what has just been said cannot fail to be made public within the hour. I suggest we return to our offices. I shall prepare a statement for the one o’clock news. Mr. Ambassador, I fear the pressure will now begin to swing toward Bonn.”
“Indeed it will,” said Voss. “I must be back inside the embassy as soon as possible.”
“Then accompany me to The Hague,” said Grayling. “I have police outriders, and we can talk in the car.”
Aides brought the two tapes, and the group left for The Hague, fifteen minutes up the coast. When they were gone, Dirk Van Gelder walked up to the flat roof where Harry Wennerstrom would have held his lunch with Van Gelder’s permission, the other guests looking eagerly to seaward, as they supped on champagne and salmon sandwiches, to catch the first glimpse of the leviathan.
Now perhaps she would never come, thought Van Gelder, staring out at the blue water. He, too, had his master’s ticket, having served as a Dutch merchant navy captain until he was offered the shore job with the promise of a regular life with his wife and children. As a seaman he thought of the Freya’s crew, locked far beneath the waves, waiting helplessly for rescue or death. But as a seaman he would not be in charge of negotiations. It was out of his hands now. Smoother men, calculating in political rather than human terms, would take over. He thought of the towering Norwegian skipper, whose picture he had seen but whom he had never met, now facing madmen armed with guns and dynamite, and wondered how he would have reacted had it ever happened to him. He had warned that this could happen one day, that the supertankers were too unprotected and highly dangerous. But money had spoken louder; the more powerful argument had been the extra cost of installing the necessary devices to make tankers like banks and explosive stores, both of which in a way they were. No one had listened, and no one ever would. People were concerned about airliners because they could crash on houses, but not about tankers, which traveled out of sight of land. So the politicians had not insisted, and the merchants had not volunteered. Now, because supertankers could be taken as easily as piggy banks, a captain and his crew of twenty-nine might die like rats in a swirl of oil and water.