The Golden Gate
Page 26
‘Get off this bridge. This moment.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Stay if you like. I’m going to blow up this damned bridge.’
Branson left, not running now, just walking quickly. He saw a dazed Chrysler emerging from the rear coach. He said: ‘Go stay by the President’s coach.’
Giscard and Johnson were standing by the rear helicopter. Bradley was leaning through an opened window. Branson said: ‘Go now. Meet you at the airport.’
Bradley lifted his helicopter cleanly off the bridge even before Branson had reached the President’s coach.
Revson lifted himself from his cramped position on the floor of the rear seat of the lead helicopter and glanced briefly through a window. The seven hostages, escorted by Branson, Giscard and Chrysler, were approaching the helicopter. Revson sank back into hiding and pulled the transceiver from his pocket. He said: ‘Mr Hagenbach?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Can you see the rotor on this helicopter?’
‘I can. We all can. We all have glasses on you.’
‘First turn the rotor takes, the laser beam.’
The seven hostages were ushered in first. The President and the King sat in the two front seats on the left, the Prince and Cartland on the right. Behind them, the Mayor, Muir and the oil sheikh took up position. Giscard and Chrysler took up separate positions in the third row. Each had a gun in his hand.
The ambulance was approaching the south tower when O’Hare tapped on the driver’s window. The window slid back.
O’Hare said: “Turn back to the middle of the bridge.’
‘Turn back! Jesus, Doc, he’s about to blow up the damn bridge.’
‘There’s going to be some sort of an accident but not the kind you think. Turn back.’
Johnson was the last to enter the helicopter. When he was seated Branson said: ‘Right. Lift off.’
There came the usual ear-numbing clattering roar, a roar which rapidly developed into a screaming sound, the sound of an engine running far above its rated revolutions, but even so not loud enough to drown a fearsomely clattering sound outside. Johnson leaned forward and all the noise suddenly ceased.
Branson said: ‘What’s wrong? What happened?’
Johnson stared ahead, then said quietly: ‘I’m afraid you were right about the laser beam, Mr Branson. The rotor’s just fallen into the Golden Gate.’
Branson reacted very quickly. He lifted a phone and pressed a button. ‘Bradley?’
‘Mr Branson?’
‘We’ve had some trouble. Come back to the bridge and pick us up.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’ve had some trouble myself – a couple of Phantom jets riding herd on me. I’m to land at the International Airport. I’m told there will be a welcoming committee.’
Revson was silently on his feet, white pen in hand. He pressed the button twice and, almost in unison, both men slumped forward then, quite unexpectedly and to Revson’s shocked dismay, toppled far from silently into the aisle, their guns clattering on the metallic floor.
Branson twisted round and there was a pistol in his hand: Revson was too far away for his tipped needles to carry. Branson took careful aim, squeezed slowly and steadily, then cried out in pain as the President’s cane slashed across his cheek. Revson threw himself to the floor of the aisle, his right hand clamping on the butt of Giscard’s gun. By the time Branson had wrenched away the President’s cane and swung round again, Revson was ready. All he could see of Branson was his head: but he was ready.
They stood in a group, isolated but not twenty yards from the ambulance, the President, the Vice-President, the seven decision-makers and Revson. Revson had a firm grip on April Wednesday’s arm. They stood and watched in silence as the shrouded stretcher was lowered from the helicopter and carried through the dozens of armed police and soldiers to the waiting ambulance. Nobody had anything to say: there was nothing to say.
The President said: ‘Our royal friends?’
Richards said: ‘Can’t wait to get to San Rafael tomorrow. They’re more than philosophic about the entire episode. They’re downright pleased. Not only has it all given America a great big black eye but it will make them national heroes at home.’
The President said: ‘We’d better go talk to them.’
He and Richards made to turn away when Revson said: ‘Thank you, sir.’
The President looked at him in incredulity. ‘Me? You thank me? I’ve already thanked you a hundred times.’
‘Yes, sir. As a rule I don’t like owing favours but I rather care for having my life saved.’
The President smiled and, along with Richards, turned and walked away.
Hagenbach said to Revson: ‘Well, let’s go to the office and have your full report.’
‘Ah, that. What’s the penalty for disobeying an order by the head of the FBI?’
‘You get fired.’
‘Pity. I quite liked my job. My proposal is that I shower, shave, change, take Miss Wednesday for lunch and then file my report in the afternoon. I guess you owe me at least that.’
Hagenbach pondered, then nodded.
‘I guess I do.’
Two thousand miles away, among the higher echelons in the FBI headquarters, someone just came into a minor sweepstake fortune.
Hagenbach smiled.
About the author
ALISTAIR MACLEAN
Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow University and became a schoolmaster. The two and a half years he spent aboard a wartime cruiser were to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century, the author of twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. In 1983, he was awarded a D.Litt. from Glasgow University. Alistair MacLean died in 1987.
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By Alistair MacLean
HMS Ulysses
The Guns of Navarone
South by Java Head
The Last Frontier
Night Without End
Fear is the Key
The Dark Crusader
The Golden Rendezvous
The Satan Bug
Ice Station Zebra
When Eight Bells Toll
Where Eagles Dare
Force 10 From Navarone
Puppet on a Chain
Caravan to Vaccares
Bear Island
The Way to Dusty Death
Breakheart Pass
Circus
The Golden Gate
Seawitch
Goodbye California
Athabasca
River of Death
Partisans
Floodgate
San Andreas
The Lonely Sea (stories)
Santorini
HMS Ulysses
Alistair MacLean
‘A brilliant, overwhelming piece of descriptive writing’
Observer
This is one of the great war novels of our century and one of the finest achievements of Alistair MacLean’s bestselling career. It is the story of Convoy FR77 to Murmansk – a voyage that pushes men to the limits of human endurance, crippled by enemy atack and the bitter cold of the Arctic.
‘A story of exceptional courage which grips the imagination’
Daily Telegraph
‘It deserves an honourable place among twentieth-century war books’
Daily Mail
‘HMS Ulysses is in the same class as The Cruel Sea’
Evening Standard
ISBN 0 00 613512 9
Where Eagles Dare
Alistair MacLean
‘A real humdinger. The
best MacLean yet. Daily Mirror
‘There is a splendid audacity about Where Eagles Dare in which a handful of British agents invade an “impenetrable” Gestapo command post… MacLean offers a real dazzler of a thriller, with vivid action, fine set pieces of suspense, and a virtuoso display of startling plot twists.’
New York Times
‘Alistair MacLean has done it again: produced another king-sized thriller of tremendous pace and excitement. The tension is almost unbearable at times, but you can’t stop turning the pages in a feverish desire to know what happens next.’
Liverpool Echo
ISBN 0 00 615804 8
Copyright
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www. harpercollins.co.uk
This paperback edition 2005 2
Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1963
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1963
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1963
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
ISBN 978-0-00-614494-6
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-28929-5
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