by Paul Adam
A television crew came across towards him – a cameraman with a hand-held camera on his shoulder, a sound technician with a microphone on the end of a boom – and Max prepared himself for another interview. A reporter asked him questions and Max did his best to answer. Then Feinstein led him away to a big caravan that was parked at the side of the freeway.
‘This is your trailer,’ he said, opening the door of the caravan and showing Max the interior.
It was huge: it had a sitting room, a bathroom with a shower and a kitchen in which fruit and sandwiches and other food had been laid out. Max gazed around, impressed by the way Feinstein was looking after them.
‘I hope you like it. It’s the kind of trailer they give movie stars on location,’ the promoter explained. ‘You can chill out here before the show, take a shower and relax afterwards. You need anything, just let me know.’
‘Thanks,’ Max said.
‘I’ll be back later.’
Feinstein went out of the trailer. Max wandered across the sitting room and stared out of the window. He could see the spectators flooding onto the bridge, rushing to get a position by the railing where they would have the best view of the show. There seemed to be thousands of them. The knot in his stomach tightened. He’d never undertaken anything with such a high profile before. Tower Bridge had been daunting, but it seemed pathetically small scale compared to this. The Golden Gate was a massive bridge, the audience was going to be huge – not just on the spot but around the globe too. Feinstein had already told him that the syndication rights had been sold to more than sixty countries. Millions of people would be watching. If Max failed, he would do so in front of the whole world.
‘You want something to eat?’ Chris asked.
Max turned and moved away from the window. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Maybe you should,’ Consuela said. ‘You need to keep your energy up.’
‘I don’t feel like eating.’
Consuela regarded him with a mixture of affection and sympathy. ‘Don’t worry about nerves,’ she said. ‘It’s only to be expected in the circumstances.’
‘There’s a lot riding on this,’ Max said.
‘And you can cope with it,’ Consuela said firmly. ‘Now have something to eat. Settle your stomach.’
Max shook his head. ‘I’ll feel better if we check over the equipment now. I need something to do.’
‘OK.’
They went back out of the trailer. The bridge was swarming with police officers and security guards employed by Feinstein, but Chris was nevertheless staying close to Max.
They went to the orange metal container that had been brought up from the toll plaza car park and went inside it, leaving the door open to let in light. All the equipment for the show had been flown over from England: the planks for the crate, the nails, the rope, the handcuffs. Everything had to be just the right specification. The planks had to be strong, but springy, the nails rigid but soft enough to be severed with a pair of cutters.
Consuela counted out the planks, checking that they were all there and in good condition. Then she went through the bag of nails, making sure there were no duds. Max was going to be sealed inside a crate built from these materials. It was vital that they were strong enough to hold together and take his weight.
Max examined the rope, twisting it between his fingers and inspecting every centimetre of it for weaknesses, but found none.
‘You happier now?’ Consuela asked as they left the container.
Max nodded automatically, but he still had a tightness in his stomach that was more than just the nerves one would expect before a show as big as this. He was uneasy, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. Everything was as it should have been. The equipment was in order, he was fit and well and feeling confident about his ability to perform the stunt. So why did he have this unsettling sense of foreboding, this sense that something was going to go wrong?
It was the moment Max had been waiting for. He was in the trailer with Chris and Consuela. He’d changed into the black suit he wore for his performances. The key to the handcuffs that would shortly be locked around his wrists was securely hidden in the thick hair behind his right ear, and behind his left ear were taped the three nails he would need to close up the crate once he’d escaped from it. Consuela, too, had changed into her show clothes – a sparkly red and gold top and tight black trousers. She smiled at Max and checked her watch.
‘It’s time. You ready?’
Max took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s do it.’
Chris gave Consuela a light kiss, then slapped Max on the back. ‘Good luck. You’re going to be terrific.’
‘I hope so.’
Chris pulled open the trailer door and stood back to let them pass. A camera crew was waiting outside. They backed away as Max and Consuela came down the steps, then stayed with them, filming as they walked away towards the side of the bridge. A loud cheer went up from the spectators on the carriageway, then Max heard a fainter, more distant, cheer from the people lining the shore of the bay, who were seeing him on a giant television screen. He waved his arms and smiled, feeling the crowd lift his mood.
The weather had changed in the couple of hours Max had been on the bridge. It had got cooler, and a damp mist was drifting in from the sea, curling around the steel cables and girders, then floating away across the bay in translucent clouds. Visibility was deteriorating. Max could still see the crowds on the shore, the glow of torches and barbecue fires on the field behind the beach making it look like some kind of military encampment. But the mist was getting thicker, the wind picking up. Max didn’t like it. He still had that queasy feeling of unease in his stomach and he was anxious to get on with the stunt before the conditions got any worse.
The team of local carpenters had finished constructing the wooden crate. Standing beside the crate was the mayor of San Francisco. He gave a short speech, welcoming Max to the city and wishing him well. Then he checked Max’s pockets and gave him a pat-down search before putting the handcuffs on him. Max held up his hands for the television camera, then stepped onto the low wooden block next to the crate. Consuela grasped his hand to help him climb inside the crate and slipped him the tiny nail-cutters at the same time. Max palmed the cutters like a magician and sat down against one of the wooden sides, holding up his manacled hands again and smiling confidently for the camera.
The wooden lid was manoeuvred into place and the carpenters nailed it down, saving the final nail for the mayor to hammer in.
‘I’m no expert at this – you should see the shelves I’ve put up at home,’ the mayor joked, ‘but here goes.’
He raised the hammer and banged it down hard onto the nail three times until the head was buried in the wood. The rope was then fastened around the crate like a sling and attached to the hook of the mobile crane that was parked at the side of the carriageway. Consuela was already standing beside the crane’s control panel, close to the edge of the bridge so she could see the crate as it was lowered down into the bay. She pressed one of the buttons and the steel cable on the winch began to reel in, lifting the crate up off the ground. When the crate was three metres up, Consuela stopped the motor and pressed another button. The boom of the crane swung round ninety degrees until the crate was over the side of the bridge, suspended seventy metres above the water. She touched the motor button and the cable started to unwind. Slowly, the crate descended towards the sea, a spotlight illuminating it, making the surrounding darkness even blacker.
Inside the crate, Max had already unlocked the manacles and freed his hands. He knelt up, holding the nail-cutters tight, counting the seconds and readying himself for the next stage of his escape.
A mile away, standing on the south shore of the bay with several thousand other spectators, a man in a black windcheater and jeans was watching the crate’s progress carefully. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a mobile phone. No one around him paid any attention; their ga
zes were all fixed intently on the bridge. The man held the device to his ear, as if he were making a call, and pressed the transmit button. Deep inside the fibres of the rope tied around the crate, the tiny explosive charge detonated, severing the rope cleanly, with a flash and a bang so small that no one, either on the shore or on the bridge, noticed.
Max felt it, though. He felt the rope snap and the crate suddenly lurch violently to one side. But it didn’t fall immediately. Only one section of the rope had broken – the other strands of the sling were still intact. But it wouldn’t be long before the crate did fall. It was sliding slowly out of the sling, tilting over at a dangerous angle.
Crouching blind in the darkness, Max didn’t know what had happened. He’d been thrown into a corner of the crate and could tell it was about to plummet down into the sea. He scrambled desperately to balance the box by moving his body weight to the other side, but he couldn’t do it. The floor was sloping up at too great an angle. All he did was make the crate rock, loosening it further from the sling.
On the bridge, and along the bay, the spectators had seen it now. The TV cameras zoomed in close, showing the snapped rope, the crate dangling over and about to fall. Terrified screams and gasps of horror reverberated through the crowd. If the crate fell from that height, Max Cassidy was dead.
Consuela reacted instantly. Someone slower-witted might have tried to raise the crate, get it back up onto the bridge before it could fall, but Consuela did the opposite. In that split second as she saw the rope snap, she had already judged that there was no time to bring the crate back up. What she had to do was get it as near to the water as possible before it slipped out of the sling.
She thrust the control lever of the crane around from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’. The steel cable unwound with lightning speed, sending the crate hurtling down towards the sea.
Max was thrown back into the corner, his legs above him, his body doubled up. He struggled to right himself. He knew he had to get ready, but he was winded, gasping for breath. He wriggled around frantically, getting his legs beneath him again, kneeling up and sucking in air.
Consuela eased the lever back, slowing the cable. She was leaning out over the railing at the side of the bridge, watching the crate with her heart in her mouth, knowing that her actions would decide Max’s fate. Her head was throbbing, the nausea rising in her throat, but she didn’t panic. She’d been Max’s assistant for two years, his father’s assistant for twelve years before that. She knew all about staying calm in life-threatening situations.
The crate was more than halfway down now, maybe twenty metres above the sea. It was still dangling precariously from the sling, tilting over at an ever-increasing angle. Consuela slowed the cable further, doing it gradually, trying to avoid any sudden jerks. But it was no use. The crate was going, slipping out from the sling, and nothing was going to stop it. Consuela let out a cry of distress – she couldn’t help it – and watched in agony as the crate plunged down towards the water.
Max felt the box tilt over and start to fall. He straightened up, getting to his feet, his knees bent, his arms stretched out to steady himself. He could feel the wind rushing up through the gaps in the planks, feel his stomach churning. How far above the water was he? He didn’t know, and there was no point in guessing – he just had to brace himself for the impact. He took a long gulp of air, then held his breath, closed his eyes and tensed every muscle of his body.
The crate hit the water with such velocity that it disintegrated, the planks splitting apart and shattering into pieces. Max was thrown clear and sank like a stone, blacking out for an instant, then coming round and realizing he was underwater. He kicked out instinctively, not knowing which way was up and which down, and felt himself being swept along by some massive force that could only have been the tidal current beneath the bridge. He didn’t try to fight it – he didn’t have the strength. His whole body felt as if it had been hit with a piledriver. He was bruised, aching all over, but he was alive.
His eyes were open now, but he could see nothing but blackness all around. He could tell from the pressure on his ears that he was deep down, being pushed irresistibly forward by the tide. He needed air badly, could feel himself getting faint through lack of oxygen. Sweeping back his arms and kicking hard, he surged upwards and broke the surface. He trod water, filling his lungs, then looked around, wondering what had happened to the rope, and how he’d managed to survive the fall.
He was stunned to see how far the tide had taken him. He was out in the middle of the bay, a quarter of a mile from the shore and two hundred metres from the bridge. Through the thickening layer of mist, he could see spotlights shining on the place where the crate had smashed into the sea, the two safety boats circling the area. A couple of divers were dropping over the side, going down to search for him. This far outside the circle of light Max was as good as invisible.
It was at that moment that he made his decision. He could have waved his arms and shouted for help, but he didn’t. He suddenly saw this as his chance to disappear, as his father had done in Borneo – to do what he had to do without his enemies on his tail. Fate had dealt him this hand and he was going to play it to his advantage. Ducking back down beneath the surface, he started swimming east, letting the current sweep him further and further away from the Golden Gate Bridge.
SIXTEEN
THE TIDE WAS still coming in. That was one of the main reasons why Herb Feinstein had chosen ten o’clock at night for Max to do his stunt. If anything went wrong, he wanted him to be swept into the shelter of San Francisco Bay, not dragged out into the Pacific Ocean. High water was eleven p.m. Max wasn’t wearing a watch, but he guessed it must be about ten-thirty by now. That gave him half an hour to get to the shore, half an hour before the tide started to turn and the currents began to pull him back towards the bridge and the open sea beyond it.
He couldn’t swim to the nearest bit of the shore – that was the area occupied by the thousands of spectators. He had to head further into the bay, towards the city itself. He was on the surface now, swimming in an easy freestyle. Occasionally he stopped to rest, treading water, and looked back. The mist had thickened, lying low over the bay in a dense blanket, so he couldn’t see clearly what was happening, but once or twice the wind tore a hole in the mist and he could make out lights, vague movements under the bridge which he guessed were the safety boats still trying to locate him.
He felt a pang of guilt at his deception, at the distress it would cause to a lot of people – to the crowds on the spot, to the audience watching at home, but most particularly to Consuela and Chris, and to his mum too. They would believe him to be dead, would grieve for him. Max didn’t want to inflict that kind of pain on them, but he was sure he was doing the right thing. He had to think about the bigger picture, about rescuing his father from Julius Clark’s clutches – and he couldn’t do that with Clark’s gunmen breathing down his neck.
It was cold in the water and Max was getting tired. But it was the mist that worried him most, as it was becoming worse by the minute. He could no longer see the Golden Gate Bridge, but more disturbing, he couldn’t see the lights of the city either. Everything had disappeared into the fog.
He was swimming blind, trusting to his sense of direction. He was confident he was going the right way, but aware also that there were hidden currents tugging at his body, pulling him off course. He tried to compensate, to adjust his stroke to take account of them, but couldn’t tell whether he was succeeding. The wind, too, was a problem. It was breaking up the surface of the water, creating waves that splashed in his face and slowed him down. And it seemed to be blowing from the southwest, pushing him further out into the bay.
His right hand grazed a rock and he lifted his head and stopped swimming. Lowering his legs to tread water, he was astounded to find solid ground only a metre below him. He stood up, feeling elated. He’d reached the shore. He waded out through the shallows onto a small, rocky beach, a few metres deep and bounded on the fa
r side by a sheer cliff. He looked around. The mist was so thick he could see only a couple of metres in any direction. The top of the cliff was completely obscured – it could have been five metres high, or fifty, for all he could tell. The shore was coated in slippery seaweed, large boulders interspersed with rough shingle. He was puzzled. It wasn’t what he expected. San Francisco was a well-developed port city; its waterfront consisted of concrete piers and wharves for loading ships, not beaches like this.
Max got a sinking feeling in his stomach, realizing suddenly that this wasn’t the edge of the city he’d reached. He was somewhere else, on some other piece of land that had a rocky shore and a cliff. Round here that could only be one place. He was on Alcatraz.
The shock took his breath away. How could he have swum so far off course? The currents and wind must have been much stronger than he’d thought. Alcatraz! The Rock! He was on the notorious island in the middle of the bay, the island that had once been a prison from which very few people had escaped and of those who had, most had drowned attempting to reach the mainland.
He slumped down onto a boulder, dispirited and exhausted, all his remaining energy draining away with the water that was running off his body. He couldn’t face another gruelling swim. He was too tired, too cold. He needed to warm up, to refuel with food, but that wasn’t possible on Alcatraz. The island was uninhabited. Trippers and tourists came out to visit it during the day, but there was no one there at night.
Max didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go back into the water. If he attempted to swim to the mainland in his present condition, he would surely drown. But if he stayed put, the tide would turn, making it even more hazardous for him to get off the island. And he had to get off. He had to reach the Reunion Star before it sailed.
Whatever he did, Max knew he had to get his bearings. If he was on Alcatraz – and there was still a tiny element of doubt in his mind – then he needed to know where on Alcatraz, which side of the island. To start swimming again without that basic information would be suicidal. He could end up heading out to sea, or across to the wrong side of the bay. Down here by the water, he could see almost nothing. He had to get above the mist and try to work out where he was.
