“You are alone with Svoboda for much of the time, Captain Larsen. Would you kill him?”
“Willingly,” said Larsen, “but if you are thinking of giving me a weapon, don’t bother. On my return I am to be skin-searched, well out of Svoboda’s reach. Any weapon found, and another of my seamen is executed. I’m not taking anything back on board. Not weapons, not poison.”
“I’m afraid it’s over, Major Fallon,” said Captain Preston gently. “The hard option won’t work.”
He rose from the table.
“Well, gentlemen, barring further questions to Captain Larsen, I believe there is little more we can do. It now has to be passed back to the concerned governments. Captain Larsen, thank you for your time and your patience. In my personal cabin there is someone who would like to speak with you.”
Thor Larsen was shown from the silent wardroom by a steward. An anguished Mike Manning watched him leave. The destruction of the plan of attack by Major Fallon’s party now brought back to terrible possibility the order he had been given that morning from Washington.
The steward showed the Norwegian captain through the door of Preston’s personal living quarters. Lisa Larsen rose from the edge of the bed where she had been sitting, staring out of the porthole at the dim outline of the Freya.
“Thor,” she said. Larsen kicked back and slammed the door shut. He opened his arms and caught the running woman in a hug.
“Hello, little snow mouse.”
In the Prime Minister’s private office on Downing Street, the transmission from the Argyll was switched off.
“Blast!” said Sir Nigel, expressing the views of them all.
The Prime Minister turned to Munro.
“Now, Mr. Munro, it seems that your news is not so academic after all. If the explanation can in any way assist us to solve this impasse, your risks will not have been run in vain. So, in a sentence, why is Maxim Rudin behaving in this way?”
“Because, ma’am, as we all know, his supremacy in the Politburo hangs by a thread and has done so for months. ...”
“But on the question of arms concessions to the Americans, surely,” said Mrs. Carpenter. “That is the issue on which Vishnayev wishes to bring him down.”
“Ma’am, Yefrem Vishnayev has made his play for supreme power in the Soviet Union and cannot go back now. He will bring Rudin down any way he can, for if he does not, then following the signature of the Treaty of Dublin in eight days’ time, Rudin will destroy him. These two men in Berlin can deliver to Vishnayev the instrument he needs to swing one or two more members of the Politburo to change their votes and join his faction of hawks.”
“How?” asked Sir Nigel.
“By speaking. By opening their mouths. By reaching Israel alive and holding an international press conference. By inflicting on the Soviet Union a massive public and international humiliation.”
“Not for killing an airline captain no one had ever heard of?” asked the Prime Minister.
“No. Not for that. The killing of Captain Rudenko in that cockpit was almost certainly an accident. The escape to the West was indispensable if they were to give their real achievement the worldwide publicity it needed. You see, ma’am, on the thirty-first of October last, during the night, in a street in Kiev, Mishkin and Lazareff assassinated Yuri Ivanenko, the head of the KGB.”
Sir Nigel Irvine and Barry Ferndale sat bolt-upright, as if stung.
“So that’s what happened to him,” breathed Ferndale, the Soviet expert. “I thought he must be in disgrace.”
“Not disgrace, a grave,” said Munro. “The Politburo knows it, of course, and at least one, maybe two, of Rudin’s faction have threatened they will change sides if the assassins escape scot-free and humiliate the Soviet Union.”
“Does that make sense in Russian psychology, Mr. Fern-dale?” the Prime Minister asked.
Ferndale’s handkerchief whirled in circles across the lenses of his glasses as he polished them furiously.
“Perfect sense, ma’am,” he said excitedly. “Internally and externally. In times of crisis, such as food shortages, it is imperative that the KGB inspire awe in the people, especially the non-Russian nationalities, to hold them in check. If that awe were to vanish, if the terrible KGB were to become a laughingstock, the repercussions could be appalling—seen from the Kremlin, of course.
“Externally, and especially in the Third World, the impression that the power of the Kremlin is an impenetrable fortress is of paramount importance to Moscow in maintaining its hold and its steady advance.
“Yes, those two men are a time bomb for Maxim Rudin. The fuse is lit by the Freya affair, and the time is running out.”
“Then why cannot Chancellor Busch be told of Rudin’s ultimatum?” asked Munro. “He’d realize that the Treaty of Dublin, which affects his country traumatically, is more important than the Freya.”
“Because,” cut in Sir Nigel, “even the news that Rudin has made the ultimatum is secret. If even that got out, the world would realize the affair must concern more than just a dead airline captain.”