The Golden Gate

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘When I have consulted with the senior members of my cabinet -’

  ‘You’re through with consulting anyone, except on my say-so. A full and free pardon. If not, your stay on this tropical island may be indefinitely extended. Most of the island, as I say, is pretty close to paradise: but there’s a small stockaded section in one corner of the island that’s been modelled rather closely on the Devil’s Island that used to be. The Generalissimo has to have some place for his political dissidents, and as he doesn’t care for them overly much the majority of them never emerge again. It’s a combination of hard labour, fever and starvation. I somehow don’t see the King here with a pickaxe in his hand. Nor yourself for that matter.

  ‘And instead of waffling on about the nation’s moral rectitude, you might give thought to another possible predicament of your guests here. It is no secret that both the King and Prince have trusted Government ministers and relatives who are just yearning to try their thrones for size. If your friends’ stay in the Caribbean were to be unduly prolonged, one rather suspects that they would have neither kingdom nor sheikhdom to return to. You appreciate, of course, that American opinion would never let you deal with their usurpers – especially as you would be the one held to blame for it. Bang goes November. Bang goes San Rafael. Here comes either redoubled oil prices or a total embargo and, in either case, a disastrous recession. You won’t even rate a footnote in history. At best, if they ever get round to compiling a list of history’s most stupid and disastrous national leaders, then you have a fair chance of making the Guinness Book of Records. But history itself? No.’

  ‘You have quite finished?’ The President’s anger had seemingly evaporated and he had attained a curious sort of resigned dignity.

  ‘For the moment.’ Branson motioned to the TV cameramen that the performance was over.

  ‘May I have a word with the King, Prince, my governmental colleagues and the Chief of Police?’

  ‘Why not? Especially if it helps you to arrive at your decision more quickly.’

  ‘In privacy?’

  ‘Certainly. Your coach.’

  ‘In the strictest privacy?’

  ‘The guard will remain outside. As you know, the coach is soundproof. The strictest privacy, I promise you.’

  They moved away, leaving Branson alone. He beckoned Chrysler, his telecommunications expert.

  ‘Is the bug in the Presidential coach activated?’

  ‘Permanently.’

  ‘Our friends are having a top-level secret discussion in there. Wouldn’t you care to have a rest in our coach? You must be tired.’

  ‘Very tired, Mr Branson.’

  Chrysler made his way to the rear coach and sat by the driver’s seat in front of the console. He made a switch and lifted a single earphone. Apparently satisfied with what he heard he replaced the earphone and made another switch. A tape recorder started humming.

  April Wednesday said to Revson: ‘Well, what did you make of that?’

  ‘I’d love to see the Nielsen ratings when they rerun that later in the day’ They were walking to and fro along the western or deserted side of the bridge. ‘What a cast. Rehearsals would have ruined it.’

  ‘You know I don’t mean that.’

  ‘I know. He’s quite a boy, our Peter Branson. Highly intelligent – but we know that already-all the angles figured, every eventuality taken care of far in advance, he’d have made an excellent general. You could – at least I could – almost like and admire the guy, except for the fact that, the odd half billion apart, he plainly does this for kicks, he’s a moral vacuum and the ordinary standards of right and wrong just do not hold good for him, they simply don’t exist. There’s something strangely empty about him.’

  ‘His bank-book isn’t going to be. But I didn’t mean that either.’

  ‘I know that too. In answer to your unspoken question, yes he has us helpless.’

  ‘Do you intend to do anything about it?’ ‘Intentions are one thing, achievements another.’

  ‘Well, you just can’t walk up and down there doing nothing. After what you told me this morning -’

  ‘I know what I told you this morning. A little respectful silence, if you please. Can’t you see I’m thinking?’

  After some little time he said: ‘I’ve thought.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Have you ever been sick?’

  She lifted her brows which had the effect of making the huge green eyes larger than ever. With those eyes, Revson reflected, she could wreck a cardinals’ council in nothing flat. To keep his mind on the work in hand, he looked away. She said: ‘Of course I’ve been sick. Everybody’s been sick some time.’

  ‘I mean really sick. Hospital. Like that.’

  ‘No. Not ever.’

  ‘You’re going to be very soon. In hospital. Sick. If you’re still prepared to help, that is.’

  ‘I’ve told you that already.’

  ‘Asperity ill becomes a lovely lady. There’s quite an element of risk. If you’re caught, Branson would make you talk. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money to have at stake. You’d talk very quickly.’

  ‘Even more quickly than that. I’m not one of your wartime resistance heroines and I don’t like pain. Caught at what?’

  ‘Delivering a letter for me. Leave me alone for a few minutes, will you.’

  Revson unshipped his camera and took some still shots, of the coaches, helicopters, anti-aircraft guns and guards, trying as much as possible to keep the southern tower and the San Franciscan skyline in the background, clearly a dedicated craftsman at work. He then turned his attention and lens towards the ambulance and the white-jacketed doctor leaning against it.

  The doctor said: ‘Instant fame for me, is it?’

  ‘What else? Everyone wants to be immortalized.’

  ‘Not this doctor. And an ambulance you can film anywhere.’

  ‘You need psychiatric help.’ Revson lowered his camera. ‘Don’t you know that it’s positively anti-social in this country not to want to hog the camera lens? My name’s Revson.’

  ‘O’Hare.’ O’Hare was youthful, cheerful, red-haired and his Irish ancestry lay no more than a generation behind him.

  ‘And what do you think of this lovely little setup?’

  ‘For quotation?’

  ‘I’m a cameraman.’

  ‘Aw, hell, quote me if you want. I’d just love to belt smarty-pants’s ears off.’

  ‘It figures.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The red hair.’

  ‘I’d feel the same if I were black, blond or bald as a coot. Arrogant smoothies do something to me. And I don’t like the way he needles the President and publicly humiliates him.’

  ‘You’re a President man, then?’

  ‘Hell, he’s a Californian, I’m a Californian, I voted for him last time and I’ll do so next time. Okay, so he’s stuffy and overdoes the kindly uncle bit but he’s the best we have. Not that that says a great deal – but, well, he’s really a decent old stick.’

  ‘Decent old stick?’

  ‘Don’t blame me, I was educated in England.’

  ‘Would you like to help him?’

  O’Hare looked at Revson thoughtfully. ‘Funny question. Sure I would.’

  ‘Would you help me to help him?’

  ‘How can you help him?’

  ‘I’ll try and I’ll tell you how – if you say “yes", that is.’

  ‘And what makes you think you can help more than anyone else?’

  ‘Special qualifications. I’m a Government employee.’

  ‘So what’s with the camera, then?’

  ‘And I always thought it took a fair amount of intelligence to qualify as a doctor. What do you expect me to be carrying – a foot-wide plaque on my chest saying “I am an FBI agent"?’

  O’Hare smiled, but only faintly. ‘Well, no. But the story is that all the FBI men were left asleep in a downtown garage. Except for a few on the press coach who
were rousted out and marched off the bridge.’

  ‘We don’t put all our eggs in one basket.’

  ‘And agents don’t usually disclose their identity either.’

  ‘Not this agent. I’d disclose my identity to anyone if I were in trouble. And I’m in trouble now.’

  ‘As long as it’s not unethical -’

  ‘I wouldn’t bring a blush to the Hippocratic cheek. That guaranteed, would you consider it unethical to help put Branson behind bars?’

  ‘Is that guaranteed too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Count on me. What do you want done?’

  ‘We have a lady photographer with us who is young, rather beautiful, by the unlikely name of April Wednesday’

  ‘Ha!’ O’Hare brightened considerably. ‘The green-eyed blonde.’

  ‘Indeed. I want her to take a message ashore, if that’s the word, for me and bring me back an answer within a couple of hours. I propose to code this message, film it and give you the spool. It’s about half the size of a cigarette and I’m sure you can easily conceal it in one of the many tubes and cartons you must carry about with you. Anyway, no one questions a doctor’s integrity’

  ‘Don’t they, now?’ O’Hare spoke with some feeling.

  There’s no hurry. I’ll have to wait till Messrs Milton, Quarry and Hendrix have been escorted off the bridge. By which time, too, I expect that the trusty Mr Hagenbach will have arrived from wherever he has been lurking.’

  ‘Hagenbach? You mean this old twister -’

  ‘You are referring to my respected employer. Now, this is just an ambulance. Apart from your usual medical kit, heart unit, oxygen kit to stitch together the misguided who step out of line, I don’t suppose you carry anything much more sophisticated.’ O’Hare shook his head.

  ‘So you don’t have any radiological gear or clinical investigative equipment and most certainly not operational facilities, even if you did have an anaesthetist, which you haven’t. I suggest then that, when Miss Wednesday takes most painfully ill in about an hour or so, you diagnose something that may demand, or may not demand-doctors can’t take chances – immediate hospital diagnosis and possible surgery. Something like a grumbling appendix or suspected peritonitis or such-like. Don’t ask me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’ O’Hare looked at Revson with some disfavour. ‘You seem to be unaware that even the rawest intern, no matter how damp behind the ears, can diagnose appendicitis with his hands, figuratively, in his pockets.’

  ‘I am aware. But I’m damned if I could do it. And I’m pretty certain that no one else on this bridge could do it either.’

  ‘You have a point. Right. But you’ll have to give me fifteen to twenty minutes’ notice – before I call in Branson or whoever. The odd job or two to induce the proper symptoms. No danger.’

  ‘Miss Wednesday has just informed me that she is allergic to pain.’

  ‘She won’t feel a thing,’ O’Hare said in his best dentist’s voice. ‘Besides, it’s for the homeland.’ He looked at Revson consideringly. ‘I believe you gentlemen of the press are handing your stuff over at the south barrier in two hours’ time. Couldn’t it wait till then?’

  ‘And get my answer back by carrier pigeon next week. I want it this afternoon.’

  ‘You are in a hurry’

  ‘During the war – World War Two, that is-Winston Churchill used to annotate all instructions to his military and governmental staff with just three scribbled words: “Action this day". I am a great admirer of Sir Winston.’

  He left the slightly bemused O’Hare and returned to April Wednesday. He told her that O’Hare had okayed his request and her first question was: ‘Want I should bring back a miniaturized transceiver radio?’

  He gave her a kind look. ‘Thoughtful, but no. Electronic surveillance of all kinds can hardly be your province. Such a transceiver I have, screwed into the base of my camera. But that little revolving disc above the villains’ coach means only one thing – they have an automatic radio-wave scanner. They’d pick me up in five seconds. Now listen carefully and I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to do and how I want you to behave.’

  When he had finished she said: ‘Understand. But I don’t much care for the thought of the kindly healer there running amok with his hypodermic’

  ‘You won’t feel a thing,’ Revson said soothingly. ‘Besides, it’s for the fatherland.’

  He left her and walked casually across to the press coach. The imperial conference in the Presidential coach was still in full plenary session, and though the speech inside was wholly inaudible from where Revson stood it was clear from the gestures and expressions of those inside that all they had succeeded in reaching so far was a marked degree of difference in opinion. Their problem, Revson reflected, was hardly one susceptible to the ready formation of a consensus of opinion. Branson and Chrysler were up front in the rear coach, apparently dozing, which they probably weren’t – though it wouldn’t have mattered very much if they were, for alert guards were very much in evidence patrolling between the freshly painted boundary lines on the bridge. Members of the various news media stood around in groups, wearing an air of almost hushed anticipation as if expecting the next momentous occasion to happen along any second now, which seemed as likely as not.

  Revson entered the press coach. It was deserted. He made his way to his own seat, unshipped his camera, produced a pad and felt pen and began, quickly and without hesitation, to write what was apparently pure gibberish. There were those who were lost without their code-books but Revson was not one of them.

  SIX

  Hagenbach, the chief of the FBI, was a burly and formidable character in his middle sixties, with short-cropped grey hair, short-cropped grey moustache, slightly hooded light blue eyes which never appeared to blink and a face possessed of a total non-expression which it had taken him years of hard work to acquire. It was said that among the upper echelons of his FBI there was a sweepstake as to the day and date when Hagenbach would first be seen to smile. The sweepstake had been running for five years.

  Hagenbach was a very able man and looked it. He had no friends and he looked that too. Men with a consuming passion seldom do and Hagenbach was a man with a consuming passion. As was said of one of his illustrious predecessors, he was alleged to have a file on every senator and congressman in Washington, not to mention the entire staff of the White House. He could have made a fortune in blackmail but Hagenbach was not interested in money. Nor was he interested in power, as such. Hagenbach’s total dedication lay in the extirpation of corruption, whenever and wherever he might encounter it.

  He looked at Admiral Newson and General Carter, the former plump and rubicund, the latter tall and lean and looking disconcertingly like his superior, General Cartland. Both men he had known, and well, for almost twenty years and had not once called either by his first name. That anyone should address Hagenbach by his Christian name was unthinkable. It would also have been extremely difficult as no one seemed to know it. He was the type of man who didn’t need a first name.

  Hagenbach said: ‘So those are the only tentative proposals for action you have come up with so far?’

  ‘The situation is unprecedented,’ Newson said. ‘Carter and I are fundamentally men of direct action. To date, direct action seems out of the question. Let’s hear your ideas.’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived. Have you any immediate proposals for the moment?’

  ‘Yes. Await the arrival of the Vice-President.’

  ‘The Vice-President is a nincompoop. You know that. I know that. We all know that.’

  ‘Be that as it may, he’s the only man in the United States who can approve and authorize any course of action we may eventually decide to make. Also, I think we had first better wait and consult Mr Milton, Mr Quarry and Chief Hendrix when they’re released.’

  ‘If they’re released.’

  ‘Hendrix is certain they will be and Hendrix knows far more about Branson than we do. Besides, he has to n
egotiate with somebody.’ He picked up the message that had arrived from Revson via the New Jersey. ‘How much reliance do you place on this?’

  Hagenbach took the note and read it aloud.

  ‘"Please wait. No precipitate action. No violence – especially no violence. Let me evaluate the situation. Cannot use transceiver – the bandits have an automatic radio-wave scanner in constant use. Will communicate with you this afternoon.'”

  Hagenbach laid down the paper. ‘Quite a bit, actually.’

  Carter said: ‘What’s he like, this Revson of yours?’

  ‘Ruthless, arrogant, independent, dislikes authority, a loner who consults superior officers only under duress and even then goes his own way.’

  Newson said: ‘That doesn’t sound very encouraging. What’s a hothead like that doing along on a trip like this?’

  ‘He’s no hothead. His mind is as near ice-cold as any man’s can be. I also forgot to say that he’s highly intelligent, very ingenious and extremely resourceful.’

  ‘Then he’s a hand-picked man?’ Newson said. Hagenbach nodded. ‘You hand-picked him?’ Again the nod. ‘So he’s the best in the business?’

  ‘I can’t say. You know the size of our organization. I can’t possibly know all the field agents. He’s just the best I happen to know.’

  ‘Is he good enough to cope with Branson?’

  ‘I don’t know because I don’t know Branson. What’s for sure, for once Revson is going to depend heavily on outside help.’ There was a degree of satisfaction in Hagenbach’s voice.

  Carter said: ‘And how in hell is he going to communicate with us this afternoon?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Hagenbach nodded to Revson’s note. ‘He got that through, didn’t he?’ There was a brief pause as the Admiral and General respectfully contemplated the note. ‘Would either of you gentlemen have thought of that?’ They shook their heads. ‘Me neither. Resourceful is what I said.’

  Branson walked up and down the bridge between the rear and Presidential coaches. No nervous pacing, no signs of strain or tension, he could have been taking a pleasant saunter in the afternoon sun, and, indeed, the afternoon was extremely pleasant. The skies were cloudless, the view all around came straight from the pages of a fairy-tale book and the waters of the Golden Gate and the Bay sparkled in the warm sun. Having had his fill of the view, Branson consulted his watch, strolled unhurriedly towards the Presidential coach, knocked on the door, opened it and stepped inside. He surveyed the occupants and the sound of voices stilled.