He left and walked towards the lead coach. At least a score of people were lined up outside the coach under the watchful eyes and guns of Yonnie and his two colleagues. They had, understandably, a general air of bafflement about them. Branson saw that included among them were four handcuffed men. He looked inside the coach, saw that it was empty, and turned to Peters.
‘Take those four gentlemen with the handcuffs and the six policemen down to Chrysler. He’ll know what to do with them.’
He turned to look at the oncoming fog. Close-up, it was coming in a deal faster than it had seemed at a distance. But it was a low bank: with luck it would pass under the bridge. Even if it didn’t, he imagined that they could cope by using suitable threats against the President and his friends, but he wouldn’t feel really happy about those intermittent fogs until the steel barriers were in position at either end of the bridge.
He turned and looked at the correspondents. There were four women among them but only one of them, the green-eyed blonde with Revson, could truthfully have claimed to have been a postwar baby – World War Two, that was.
‘You can all relax,’ Branson said. ‘No harm is going to come to any of you. In fact, when I have finished you’ll be given a free choice – to walk off the bridge in safety or stay aboard the bridge, equally in safety’ He smiled his generous empty smile. ‘I somehow fancy that most of you will elect to stay. When I have finished you will realize, I hope, that a story like this does not fall into your laps every week.’
When he had finished, not one of those frantically scribbling and furiously camera-clicking journalists and photographers was under any doubt whatsoever: a story like this fell into their laps once in a lifetime, if they had the luck to have a very long life, that was. Physical violence would have been required to remove any of them from the Golden Gate Bridge. They were slap bang in the middle of an unprecedented episode in criminal history and one that bade fair to become part of the more general history of their times.
The fog had reached the bridge now, but not enveloped it. Thin wisps of it drifted over the top but the main body of the fog rolled by twenty feet below the bridge: the effect was to produce an odd feeling of weightlessness, of suspension in space, as if the bridge was afloat on the insubstantial bedrock of water vapour.
Branson said: ‘You have elected to remain so you must accept some guide rules. In the rear coach there are three telephone lines to town. Those are for my own personal and emergency use but you will be allowed to use them once-to contact your photographic services, newspapers, wire services or whatever to arrange for a representative to be stationed at the southern end of the bridge to pick up your dispatches and photographs. This can be done three times a day at times yet to be arranged. Markers will be arranged in an oblong around the Presidential coach and no one will cross those without permission. No one will interview any person inside the Presidential coach without my permission or the consent of the party concerned: it would be more satisfactory all round and fairer to all concerned if, say, the President were to hold a press conference out here, but that I cannot and will not force anyone to do. The helicopters will be similarly cordoned off and that will also be forbidden territory. Twenty yards south of my coach and twenty yards north of yours white lines will be painted across the bridge. Those will be your demarcation limits. Five yards beyond those lines will be a guard with a machine-pistol and his orders will be not to warn but to shoot anyone who steps over those lines. Finally, you will be confined to your coach during the hours of darkness: this rule will only be relaxed if some particularly newsworthy happening occurs. I will be the judge of what is newsworthy. Anyone unwilling to abide by those ground rules may leave now.’
Nobody left.
‘Any questions?’ Branson watched the fog roll eastwards, obscuring Alcatraz Island, as the newsmen conferred among themselves.
Two men took a step forward. Both were middle-aged, dressed in well-cut, conservative suits, one almost completely bald, the other with grizzled hair and beard, both inordinately bushy. The bald man said: ‘We have.’
‘Your names?’
‘I’m Grafton – AP. This is Dougan – Reuters.’
Branson regarded them with an interest that was pointless to conceal. Those two could reach more newspapers worldwide than all the rest put together. ‘And the question?’
‘We would be right in saying, Mr Branson, that you didn’t exactly get up this morning and say “This would be a fine day for kidnapping the President of the United States"?’
‘You would.’
Dougan said: ‘This operation bears all the hallmarks of long and meticulous planning. Without condoning your actions one has to admit that you appear to have left nothing to chance and have foreseen every eventuality. How long did the planning take?’
‘Three months.’
‘That’s not possible. The details of this itinerary were released only four days ago.’
‘The details were known in Washington three months ago.’
Grafton said: ‘On the evidence before us we have to believe you. Why do you think this was kept under wraps so long?’
‘In order to obviate the possibility of people like me doing exactly what I have done.’
‘How did you get the advance information?’
‘I bought it.’
‘How? Where?’
‘In Washington, as in many other places, thirty thousand dollars buys a lot of information.’
Dougan said: ‘Would you care to name names?’
‘That’s a stupid question. Any others?’
A dark-suited lady of indeterminate years said: ‘Yes. Here we have all the signs of a highly experienced professionalism. We can assume that this is not your first foray outside the law?’
Branson smiled. ‘You may assume what you like. What’s past is prologue.’
She persisted. ‘Do you have a criminal record, Mr Branson?’
‘I have never been in court in my life. Anything else?’
‘Of course.’ It was Dougan. ‘The thing that we all want to know. Why?’
‘That you will find out in the course of a press conference I shall be holding within two hours. At the conference will be a TV camera and crew representing the three main companies. Also present will be the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury. Vice-President Richards we expect later but not in time for the conference.’
Experienced newsmen and newswomen though they were they appeared to be at a temporary loss for words. Finally Dougan said carefully: ‘Would it be true to say of you that you subscribe to the belief that if a thing is worth doing it’s worth doing well?’
‘A pragmatic philosophy but it works. You may now use the telephones in my coach. Three at a time.’
Branson turned away and took a step towards the Presidential coach when Yonnie’s voice stopped him.
‘Jesus!’ Yonnie, mouth inelegantly agape, was staring out to the west. ‘You see what I see, Mr Branson?’
Branson saw what he saw. Not much more than half a mile away the fog-bank came to an abrupt end as if it had been sliced off by a cleaver. Less than a mile beyond that again could be seen the superstructure of a very large vessel indeed. Although the hull of the vessel was still hidden by the fog-bank there was, from what could be seen of it, very little doubt as to its identity. Branson stood still for a second or two, ran for the Presidential coach, entered, hurried down the aisle oblivious to curious stares of the seated men and said quickly to Boyann: ‘Hendrix. Hurry!’ He indicated a phone in a recess beside the console. That one.’
Hendrix was on the line immediately. When Branson spoke his voice was cold, almost savage, a marked departure from the norm: even Branson had defences that could be breached.
‘Hendrix. Want I should send the President’s ears now?’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘What do you mean? Or is that little paddle-boat just out there by happenstance? Call it off.’
‘God�
��s sake, call what off?’
Branson spoke his words clearly and spaced them distinctly. ‘There is a very large battleship approaching the Golden Gate Bridge. I don’t want it to approach. I don’t know what you have in mind but I don’t think I would like it. Call it off!’
‘I just don’t know what you’re talking about. Hold on.’ While the line was silent Branson beckoned to Van Effen, who approached down the aisle.
Branson said quickly: ‘There’s a battleship approaching the bridge. Trouble? I don’t know. What I do know is I want everybody under cover at once, the press in their own coach, our men in ours. Doors to be closed. Then come back at once.’
Van Effen nodded to where a red-haired young man was standing by the driver’s seat, his hand resting on a pistol that was stuck in his belt. ‘Think Bradford can manage?’
Branson pulled out his own pistol and laid it on the telephone recess. ‘I’m here too. Hurry.’ He was vaguely disappointed in Van Effen. Bradford could have carried out his warder duties just as effectively by going outside and standing near the door but for the creation of the properly threatening climate of menace and intimidation it was better that he remain in the full view of the captives. Then Hendrix was on the phone again.
‘That is the battleship USS New Jersey. San Francisco is her home base for several months of the year. This is one of her regular fuel and food reprovisioning returns to base. She’s coming at this particular time because she can only get under the bridge at low tide.’
That much, Branson knew, was true. The tide, he had observed, was out and it seemed highly unlikely that the authorities could whistle up a battleship at such short notice – less than two hours. And it was difficult to see what use could be made of it – certainly they were unlikely to blow up the bridge with the President on it. But Branson had a profound distrust of his fellow man, which was one of the reasons he had survived so long. He said: ‘Stop it. It’s not to come under the bridge. Want I should throw one of your oil boys on to its bridge as it passes beneath?’
‘For God’s sake, are you a nut, a complete madman?’ Branson smiled to himself, the sharp edge of anxiety in Hendrix’s voice was unmistakable. ‘We’re trying to raise him.’
Correspondents and guards alike were crowding the western side of the bridge fascinated by the approach of the giant battleship. Although reason said that there was no danger in the battleship’s passing under the bridge there was a growing degree of tension among the spectators. The superstructure towered so high that it seemed certain that some sections of it must inevitably strike the bridge and this feeling existed in spite of the elementary reasoning which would have reassured them that the ship must have made the same passage many times in the past and the Navy was not in the habit of putting at risk some hundred-million-dollar battleship in a let’s-try-it-and-see effort.
One person showed no apparent interest in the approach of the New Jersey. Revson, alone in the front coach, was intent on securing a considerable length of green cord, so slender as to be hardly more than the thickness of a stout thread, to a black cylinder about eight inches in length and one in diameter. He thrust both cylinder and cord into the capacious pocket of his bush jacket, left the bus, took a bearing on the approaching superstructure of the battleship and wandered casually round to the right-hand side of the coach. As he did so he could see Van Effen hurrying across to the far side of the bridge where the spectators were grouped. What Van Effen’s purpose was he couldn’t be sure but there was an urgency behind his half-trot that told Revson that the time at his own disposal might be very short.
He forced himself not to hurry but sauntered towards the east side of the bridge. No one took any notice of him because there was no one there to do so. He leant casually against the side and as casually withdrew cylinder and cord from his pocket. He glanced, seemingly aimlessly, around him, but if he were arousing cause for suspicion no one was giving any indication of this. Swiftly, without moving either hands or elbows, he let some hundred feet slide through his fingers then secured the cord to a strut. He trusted his estimate of length was reasonably accurate then dismissed the thought: what was done was done. He returned leisurely to the coach, took his seat and transferred what was left of the green cord to the bottom of April Wednesday’s carry-all. If his dangling cord were discovered and a search of their personal belongings carried out he would rather that the cord be discovered elsewhere than in his possession. Even if it were found in her bag he doubted whether she would come to any harm. She’d been on the other side of the bridge since the New Jersey had first appeared behind the bank of cloud and there would be sufficient witnesses to attest to that: April Wednesday was the sort of person whose absence would not go lightly unremarked. Even if she were to find herself in trouble that he could bear with fortitude: he didn’t care who came under suspicion as long as it was not himself.
‘You have to believe me, Branson.’ Hendrix’s voice could hardly have been said to carry a note of pleading, an alien exercise to a man of his nature, but there was no questioning the earnestness, the total sincerity in the tone. ‘The New Jersey’s captain has heard no news of what happened and he thinks it all an elaborate joke at his expense. You can’t blame him. He sees the damned bridge standing safe and sound as it’s stood for forty years. Why should anything be wrong?’
‘Keep trying.’
Van Effen entered and closed the door of the Presidential coach securely behind him. He approached Branson.
‘All safely corralled. Why?’
‘I wish I knew. Almost certainly Hendrix is right and this is just sheer coincidence. But on the one chance in a hundred that it isn’t? What would they use? Not shells, no kind of high explosive. Gas shells.’
‘No such things.’
‘Wrong. There are. They wouldn’t mind temporarily knocking out the President and a few oil sheikhs if they could saturate the centre of the bridge with some knock-out gas and lay us all low. Then the troops and police, like enough with gas-masks, could come and take us at their leisure. But the insulation is tight in those air-conditioned coaches.’
‘It’s pretty far-fetched.’
‘And what we are doing is not? Wait.’ Hendrix was on the phone again.
‘We’ve tried, Branson, and at last he agrees with us. But he refuses to do anything. Says he has too much way on and to try to take turning or reversing action at this stage would endanger both the battleship and the bridge. And he says his money would be on the New Jersey if it hit a tower. A forty-five-thousand-ton battering ram takes a lot of stopping.’
‘You’d better pray, Hendrix.’ Branson hung up and moved towards the centre of the coach, Van Effen behind him, and peered through the right-hand windows, waiting for the battleship’s superstructure to reappear from under the bridge.
The President’s voice was nothing if not testy. ‘Just what is happening, Branson?’
‘You know. The USS New Jersey is passing beneath us.’
‘So? Doubtless going about its lawful occasions.’
‘You’d better hope so. You’d better hope the captain doesn’t start throwing things at us.’
‘At us?’ The President paused and pondered the possibility of an awful lese-majesty. ‘At me?’
‘We all know you’re the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. At the moment, however, you’re a bit isolated from the lower echelons. What happens if the captain consider it his duty to act upon his own initiative? Anyway, we’ll soon find out. Here he comes now.’
The superstructure of the New Jersey had moved into view. All nine of the seated captives struggled to their feet and crowded close to the right-hand windows. One of them crowded very closely indeed on Branson who suddenly became aware of something, obviously metallic, jabbing painfully into his left kidney.
‘Initiative, you said, Mr Branson.’ It was Sheikh Iman, the one with the beard, and he was still beaming. ‘Your own gun. Tell your men to drop theirs.’
‘Good man!’ There was
triumph in the President’s voice and an element of vindictiveness that the voters wouldn’t have liked at all.
Branson said patiently: ‘Put that gun away. Don’t you know when you’re dealing with professionals?’
He turned around slowly and Iman proved Branson’s implied point that he was not a professional by letting Branson hold his gaze for all of a second. A gun boomed, Iman shrieked in pain, dropped his gun and clutched a shattered shoulder. Sheikh Kharan stooped swiftly to retrieve the gun from the floor and cried out in agony as Branson’s heel crushed his hand against the metal: a peculiar crackling splintering sound left no doubt that several of Kharan’s fingers had been broken. Branson picked up his gun.
Van Effen was apologetic but not unduly so. ‘Had to, I’m afraid, Mr Branson. If I’d warned him – well, I didn’t want any gunfight in the OK corral with all those nasty ricochets from the bullet-proof glass. He might have done himself an injury.’
‘Quite right.’ Branson looked through the window again. The New Jersey was now almost a half mile away and its captain was obviously not in a belligerent mood. Branson turned away and spoke to Bradford.
‘Go to our coach and fetch the first-aid box. Bring Peters.’
‘Peters, Mr Branson?’
‘Used to be field corpsman. Take your seats, gentlemen.’ Unhappily, they took their seats: the President, in particular, looked especially deflated. Branson wondered briefly just how hollow a man he might be then dismissed the line of thought as unprofitable. ‘I don’t think I have to warn you not to try anything so silly again.’ He went to the communications console and picked up the phone. ‘Hendrix?’
‘Here. Satisfied now?’
‘Yes. Warn the harbour-master or whoever the responsible official is that there is to be no more traffic under the bridge. Either way’
‘No more traffic? You’ll bring the entire port to a standstill. And the fishing fleet -’
The Golden Gate Page 7