The Golden Gate

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘He was acting a bit oddly when he left.’

  ‘He drew a blank, obviously.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Didn’t even investigate your one sealed container – the cardiac unit?’

  ‘That’s when he started behaving oddly. I’m pretty sure that he was about to break the seal when I pointed out that that would de-sterilize the equipment and render it useless. I also pointed out that I considered the President a prime candidate for a heart attack and that I regarded him as being the prime cause for this. That was when he backed off.’

  ‘Understandable, I would have thought. He doesn’t want to lose his principal hostage.’

  ‘That wasn’t the impression he gave me. He also said another funny thing when he left, that he’d never been responsible for anyone’s death in his life.’

  ‘To the best of my knowledge that’s true. Maybe he just didn’t want to spoil his good record.’

  ‘Could have been, could have been.’ But the puzzled expression was still on O’Hare’s face.

  Van Effen regarded Branson with a curiosity that his face didn’t register. Branson, he thought, was a shade less than his old ebullient self. Van Effen said: ‘Well, how did you find the ambulance and the good doctor? Clean?’

  ‘The ambulance is. God damn it all, I quite forgot to go over O’Hare.’

  Van Effen smiled. ‘One tends to. Pillars of moral rectitude. I’ll go look at him.’

  ‘How did it go with you?’

  ‘There were ten of us and we were pretty thorough – and pretty thoroughly unpopular. If there was a silver dollar on the Golden Gate Bridge we’d have found it. We didn’t find any silver dollars.’

  But then Branson and his men had been searching the wrong places and the wrong people. They should have searched Chief of Police Hendrix before he’d been allowed to leave the bridge.

  Hagenbach, Milton, Quarry, Newson and Carter were seated round the long oblong table in the communications wagon. There were bottles of liquor on a wall-mounted sideboard and, judging from the levels of the liquids in the bottles and the glasses in front of the five men, they weren’t there for purely decorative purposes. The five appeared to be concentrating on two things only: not speaking to one another and not looking at one another. The bottoms of their glasses appeared to hold a singular fascination for them: comparatively, the average funeral parlour could have qualified as an amusement arcade.

  A bell rang softly at the inner end of the wagon. A shirt-sleeved policeman, seated before a battery of telephones, lifted one and spoke softly into it. He turned and said: ‘Mr Quarry, sir. Washington.’

  Quarry rose to his feet with the alacrity of a French aristocrat going to the guillotine and made his way to the communications desk. His end of the conversation appeared to consist of a series of dispirited grunts. Finally he said, ‘Yes, as planned,’ returned to the table and slumped into his chair. ‘The money has been arranged just in case it’s needed.’

  Milton said heavily: ‘Can you see it not being needed?’

  ‘The Treasury also agrees that we should stall them for up to twenty-four hours from noon tomorrow.’

  Milton’s lugubriousness didn’t alter. ‘By Branson’s escalation demands that means close on another fifty million dollars.’

  ‘Peanuts to what he’s asking.’ Milton made a stillborn attempt to smile. ‘Might give one of our brilliant minds time to come up with a brilliant idea.’ He relapsed into a silence which no one seemed inclined to break. Hagenbach reached for a bottle of scotch, helped himself and passed the bottle around. They resumed their mournful inspection of the depths of their glasses.

  The bottle was not long left undisturbed. Richards and Hendrix entered and, without speaking, sat down heavily in two vacant chairs. The Vice-President’s hand reached the bottle just fractionally before that of Hendrix.

  Richards said: ‘How did we look on TV tonight?’

  ‘Goddamned awful. But no more awful than the seven of us sitting around here without a single idea in our heads.’ Milton sighed. ‘Seven of the allegedly best governmental and law enforcement minds in the business. The best we can do is drink scotch. Not a single idea among us.’

  Hendrix said: ‘I think perhaps Revson has.’ He fished a piece of paper from the inside of a sock and handed it to Hagenbach. ‘For you.’

  Hagenbach unfolded the note, cursed and shouted to the operator.

  ‘My decoder. Quick.’ Hagenbach was back in business and, predictably, he turned to Hendrix: he wouldn’t have asked Richards for the time of day. ‘How are things out there? Anything we don’t know? How come Hansen died?’

  ‘To put it brutally, hunger, greed. Seemingly he snitched one of the food trays before he could be warned which were the dangerous ones and how they could be identified.’

  Milton sighed. ‘He always was a voracious eater. Compulsive, you might say. Something wrong with his metabolic system, I suppose. Speak no ill of the dead but I often told him that he was digging his grave with his own teeth. Looks like that’s what happened.’

  ‘No fault of Revson’s?’

  ‘None in the world. But there’s worse. Your man Revson is under heavy suspicion. Branson, as we all have cause to know, is a very very clever man and he’s convinced there’s an infiltrator in their midst. He’s also almost equally convinced that it’s Revson. I think the man is working on sheer instinct. He can’t pin a thing on Revson.’

  ‘Who’s also a very very clever man.’ Hagenbach paused then looked sharply at Hendrix. ‘If Branson is so suspicious of Revson would he let him get within a mile of you, knowing that you were going ashore?’

  ‘Revson didn’t come anywhere near me. General Cartland gave me the message. Revson gave the message to Cartland.’

  ‘So Cartland is in on this?’

  ‘He knows as much about it as we do. Revson is going to give him the cyanide pistol. Never thought our Chief of Staff was so positively bloodthirsty. He seems actually to be looking forward to using it.’

  Carter said: ‘You know Cartland’s reputation as a tank commander in the Second World War. After all the comparatively decent Italians and Germans he disposed of then, do you think he’s going to worry about doing away with a few really bad hats?’

  ‘You should know. Anyway, I went into one of their awful rest-rooms and shoved the note down my sock. I suspected that the Vice-President here and I might be searched before we left the bridge. We weren’t. Your Revson is right. Branson is both over-confident and under-conscious of security precautions.’

  Revson and O’Hare watched Van Effen walk away. Revson himself walked away a few steps, indicating that O’Hare should follow him. Revson said: ‘Well, that was a pretty thorough going-over our friend gave you. I don’t think he much appreciated your remark about your hoping that he would be a patient of yours some day’

  O’Hare looked up at the darkly threatening sky, now almost directly overhead. The wind was freshening and, two hundred feet below, the white horses were showing in the Golden Gate.

  O’Hare said: ‘Looks like a rough night coming up. We’d be more comfortable inside the ambulance, I think, and I’ve some excellent whisky and brandy in there. Used, you understand, solely for the resuscitation of the sick and ailing.’

  ‘You’re going to go far in your profession. Sick and ailing describes my symptoms precisely. But I’d rather be succoured out here.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  Revson gave him a pitying look. ‘If it weren’t for your good fortune in having me here, you’d very probably be the main object of Branson’s suspicions. Has it not occurred to you that, during his intensive search of your ambulance, he might have planted a tiny electronic bug which you wouldn’t discover in a week of searching?’

  ‘It occurs to me now. There’s a dearth of devious minds in the medical profession.’

  ‘Do you have any gin?’

  ‘It’s odd you should ask that. I do.’

  ‘That’s for me. I told
Branson that I didn’t drink and that’s why I have a nose like a bloodhound. I shouldn’t care for him to see me with a glass of something amber in my hand.’

  ‘Devious, devious minds.’ O’Hare disappeared inside the ambulance and reappeared shortly with two glasses, the clear one for Revson. ‘Health.’

  ‘Indeed. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s going to be in short supply inside the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Cryptic, aren’t we?’

  ‘Psychic’ Revson looked speculatively at the nearest helicopter. ‘I wonder if the pilot – Johnson, I think – intends to sleep in his machine tonight.’

  O’Hare gave a mock shiver. ‘You ever been in a helicopter?’

  ‘Oddly, perhaps, no.’

  ‘I have several times. Strictly, I assure you, in the line of medical duty. These army jobs are fitted with steel-framed canvas chairs, if that’s the word for them. For me, it would be a toss-up between that and a bed of nails.’

  ‘So much I suspected. So he’ll probably bed down with his fellow-villains in the rear coach.’

  ‘The chopper appears to interest you strangely’

  Revson glanced casually around. There was no one within possible earshot.

  ‘The detonating mechanism for the explosives is inside there. I intend – note that I say intend – to deactivate it tonight.’

  O’Hare was silent for a long moment, then said kindly: ‘I think I should give you a medical. For that space between the ears. There’ll be at least one armed guard on all night patrol. You know the bridge is a blaze of light all night long. So you just dematerialize yourself –’

  ‘The sentry I can take care of. The lights will be switched off when I want them.’

  ‘Abracadabra!’

  ‘I’ve already sent a message ashore.’

  ‘I didn’t know that secret agents doubled as magicians. You produce a carrier pigeon from your hat –’

  ‘Hendrix took it ashore for me.’

  O’Hare stared at him then said: ‘Another drink?’

  ‘No befuddled wits tonight, thank you.’

  ‘Then I’ll have one.’ He took both glasses and reappeared with his own. ‘Look, that guy Kowalski has the general appearance and the eyes of a hawk. I’m not exactly short-sighted myself. He never took his eyes off you all the time the Vice-President and Hendrix were out here. Branson’s orders, I’m certain.’

  ‘Me, too. Who else? I never went near Hendrix. I gave the message to Cartland who passed it on to Hendrix. Kowalski was too busy watching me to bother about Cartland and Hendrix.’

  ‘What time will the lights go off?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Til send a signal.’

  ‘This means Cartland is in on this?’

  ‘What else? By the way, I promised the General the cyanide gun. Can you get it to him?’

  ‘One way or another.’

  ‘No way, I suppose, of replacing that seal on the cardiac unit once it has been broken?’

  ‘You mean in case our suspicious Mr Branson visits the ambulance again. No.’ He smiled. ‘It just so happens that I am carrying two spare seals inside the box.’

  Revson smiled in turn. ‘Just goes to show. A man can’t think of everything. Still on the side of law and order? Still like to see Branson wearing a nice shiny pair of bracelets?’

  ‘It’s becoming a distinct yearning.’

  ‘It might involve bending your code of ethics a little.’

  ‘The hell with the medical ethics.’

  Hagenbach positively snatched the sheet of typewritten paper from his decoder. He glanced rapidly through it, his brow corrugating by the second. He said to Hendrix: ‘Revson appeared to be perfectly normal when you left him?’

  ‘Who can tell what Revson appears to be?’

  ‘True. I don’t seem to be able to make head or tail of this.’

  Richards said acidly: ‘You might share your little secrets with us, Hagenbach.’

  ‘He says: “It looks as if it’s going to be a lousy night, which should help. I want two fake oil fires set now. Or a mixture of oil and rubber tyres. One to my south-west, say Lincoln Park, the other to the east, say Fort Mason – a much bigger fire there. Ignite the Lincoln Park one at twenty-two hundred hours. At two-two-oh-three, infra-red sights if necessary, use a laser beam to destroy the radio scanner on top of the rear coach. Wait my flashlight signal – SOS – then ignite the other. After fifteen minutes blacken out bridge and northern part of San Francisco. It would help if you could at same time arrange a massive fireworks display in Chinatown – as if a firework factory had gone up.

  ‘"Submarine at midnight. Please provide transistorized transceiver small enough to fit base camera. Preset your frequency and mine and have submarine patch in on same frequency.”’

  There was a lengthy silence during which Hagenbach, perhaps very understandably, again reached for the scotch. The bottle was rapidly emptied. Richards finally passed his judgement.

  ‘The man’s mad, of course. Quite, quite mad.’

  Nobody, for some time, appeared inclined to disagree with him. Richards, pro tem, the Chief Executive of the nation, was the man to make the decision, but, apart from his observations on mental instability, he was clearly in no mood to make any kind of decision. Hagenbach took the decision out of his hands.

  ‘Revson is probably a good deal saner than any of us here. He’s brilliant, we’ve had proof of that. Almost certainly, he lacked the time to go into detail. Finally, anyone here got any better idea-let me amend that, anybody here got any idea?’

  If anyone had, he was keeping it to himself.

  ‘Hendrix, get hold of the deputy Mayor and the Fire Chief. Have those fires set. How about the fireworks?’

  Hendrix smiled. ‘Fireworks are illegal in San Francisco. Nineteen hundred and six and all that. It so happens we know an illegal underground factory in Chinatown. The owner will be anxious to co-operate.’

  Richards shook his head. ‘Mad,’ he said. ‘Quite, quite mad.’

  TEN

  From far out at sea came the first faint flickers of lightning and the distant rumble of approaching thunder. A now-recovered if somewhat wan April Wednesday, standing with Revson by the centre of the bridge, looked up at the indigo sky and said: ‘It looks like being quite a night.’

  ‘I’ve a feeling that way myself.’ He took her arm. ‘Are you afraid of thunderstorms as you appear to be of everything else?’

  ‘I don’t much fancy being stuck out on this bridge in the middle of one.’

  ‘It’s been here for almost thirty years. It’s not likely to fall down tonight.’ He looked upwards as the first drops of rain began to fall. ‘But getting wet I object to. Come on.’

  They took their seats inside the lead coach, she by the window, he by the aisle. Within minutes the coach was full and within half an hour most of the occupants were dozing if not asleep. Each seat had its own individual reading light, but without exception those were either dimmed or completely out. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. It had been a long, tiring, exciting and in many ways a nerve-racking day. Sleep was not only the sensible but inevitable recourse. And the sound of drumming rain, whether on canvas or on a metal roof, has a peculiarly soporific effect.

  And that the rain was now drumming was beyond dispute. It had been increasing steadily ever since the passengers had entered the coach and could now fairly be described as torrential. The approaching thunderstorm, though still some miles distant, was steadily increasing in violence. But neither rain, thunder nor lightning were any deterrent to the prowling Kowalski: he had promised Branson that he would keep his eye on Revson all night long if he had to, and that he clearly intended to do. Regularly, every fifteen minutes, he entered the coach, peered pointedly at Revson, spoke a few brief words to Bartlett, who sat sideways on guard, in the seat next to the driver’s, then left. Bartlett, Revson apart, was the only alert person in the coach and this, Revson suspected, was due more to Kowalski’s recurrent visits
than to anything else. On one occasion Revson had overheard Bartlett ask when he was to be relieved and been curtly told that he would have to remain where he was until one o’clock, which suited Revson well enough.

  At nine o’clock, when the rain was at its heaviest, Kowalski made another of his routine checks. Revson took out and armed his white pen. Kowalski turned to go. His heel was just descending the riser of the first step when he appeared to stumble. Then he fell, heavily, face-first out of the coach on to the roadway.

  Bartlett was the first to reach him, Revson the second. Revson said: ‘What the hell happened to him?’

  ‘Lost his footing, far as I could see. Coach door has been open all evening and the steps are slippery as all hell.’ Both men stooped to examine the unconscious Kowalski. He was bleeding quite heavily from the forehead which had obviously taken the main brunt of his fall. Revson felt his head gently with his fingers. The needle protruded almost a quarter of an inch behind Kowalski’s left ear. Revson removed and palmed it.

  Revson said: ‘Shall I fetch the doctor?’

  ‘Yes. Sure looks as if he needs one.’

  Revson ran to the ambulance. As he approached, the light came on inside the ambulance. Revson took the aerosol can from O’Hare and thrust it into his pocket. The two men, O’Hare carrying his medical bag, ran back to the lead coach. By this time quite a number of curious journalists from the coach – activated, almost certainly, by the inbuilt curiosity that motivates all good journalists, were crowded round the unconscious Kowalski.

  ‘Stand back,’ O’Hare ordered. The journalists made way respectfully but didn’t stand all that far back. O’Hare opened his bag and began to wipe Kowalski’s forehead with a piece of gauze. His opened bag was quite some distance from him, and in the dim light, the driving rain and aided by the total concentration of all on the injured man, it was no great feat for Revson to extract an oil-skinned packet from the bag and send it spinning under the coach. He, but only he, heard the gentle thump as it struck the kerb on the far side. He then pressed in among the curious onlookers.