The Golden Gate

by Alistair MacLean

  The Chief of Staff became the Chief of Staff. ‘The point, Revson.’

  ‘Take your sedentary friends for a walk. Tell them about the coach being bugged. Tell them how to identify their own safe food trays.’

  ‘No problem. That all?’

  ‘One last thing, General Cartland. I’m a bit hesitant about this, but as you would say, to the point. It is known – at least I know – that you habitually carry a gun.’

  ‘Past tense. I have been relieved of it.’

  ‘You still have your holster?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘I’ll give you a replacement that will fit very snugly into your holster.’

  ‘You do your homework, Revson. It will be a pleasure.’

  ‘The bullets are cyanide-tipped, sir.’

  Cartland didn’t hesitate. ‘Still a pleasure.’

  EIGHT

  The evening meal wagon arrived at seven thirty. The occupants of the Presidential coach were close to the north painted barrier, huddled in what appeared to be deep conversation. April Wednesday, under the watchful eye of a guard, made her quiet way towards the ambulance. Revson sat, apparently half-dozing, in a chair. He started as a hand touched his shoulder.

  ‘Food, my China-bound friend.’ Branson, with his smile.

  Revson sat upright. ‘Wine, one trusts?’

  ‘The best vintages that money can buy’

  ‘Whose money?’

  ‘Irrelevances bore me.’ Branson was regarding him with an appraising eye.

  Revson stood and looked around him. ‘Your honoured guests along there –’

  ‘They are being informed.’

  ‘You might have at least given them time to have their pre-dinner cocktail. Well, not the President’s Arab friends –’

  ‘Time for that. The food is in hot cupboards.’ Branson did some more appraisal. ‘You know, Revson, you interest me. You might even say you intrigue me. There’s a certain – what shall I call it – intransigence about you. I still don’t see you as a man behind a camera.’

  ‘And I don’t see you as the man behind the most massive hold-up of all time. Too late for you to go back to Wall Street?’

  Branson clapped Revson on the shoulder. ‘On behalf of the President, let’s go and sample some of the superior vintages.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  ‘Who knows what our Medici friends in the Presidio might be up to?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. You trust nobody?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me? A guinea-pig?’

  ‘Yes. You and Cartland make me uneasy.’

  ‘A weakness. You should never confess to them. Lead on, Macduff.’

  Arrived at the meal wagon Branson said to the white and blue striped attendant: ‘Your name?’

  The attendant gave an odd sort of sketchy salute. ‘Tony, Mr Branson.’

  ‘What wines do you have?’

  ‘Three reds, three white, Mr Branson.’

  ‘Array them before us, Tony. Mr Revson hereis an internationally known sommelier. A judge of wine, in other words.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Six bottles and six glasses appeared on the counter. Revson said: ‘Just a quarter in each glass. I don’t want to fall off the bridge during the night. Have you bread and salt?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Revson.’ Tony clearly regarded himself as being in the presence of lunatics.

  Interspersed with the bread and salt Revson sampled all six vintages. At the end he said: ‘All uniformly excellent. I must tell the French vintners about this. The best Californian matches up with the best French.’

  Branson said: ‘It would appear that I owe you an apology, Revson.’

  ‘No way. Let’s do it again. Or will you join me in one of the – ah – approved wines?’

  ‘It would seem safe to do so.’ Tony clearly considered himself in the presence of a couple of head cases.

  ‘I suggest one of your own. A Gamay Beaujolais from your Almadén vineyards.’

  ‘Ah.’ Branson pondered. ‘Tony?’

  ‘Mr Revson has excellent taste, sir.’

  They consumed their wines in a leisurely fashion. Branson said: ‘I agree with both of your assessments. You are ready to serve dinner, Tony?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He smiled. ‘I have already served one. About twenty minutes ago, I’d say. Mr Hansen. He snatched a plate and said that as the energy czar he needed energy.’

  ‘It figures.’ Branson turned a lazy head. ‘In the coach, I presume?’

  ‘No, sir. He took his tray across to the east crash barrier. There.’ He followed his pointing finger then softly said: ‘Jesus!’

  ‘Jesus what?’

  ‘Look.’

  They looked. Hansen, slowly toppling off the barrier, fell to the roadway and lay there, his body jerking. Branson and Revson crossed the six road lanes and reached him in as many seconds.

  Hansen was vomiting violently. They spoke to him, but he seemed incapable of answering. His body went into strange and frightening convulsions.

  Revson said: ‘Stay here. I’ll get O’Hare.’

  O’Hare and April were together in the ambulance when he arrived. Understandably enough, he was welcomed with lifted eyebrows.

  Revson said: ‘Quickly. I think that Mr Hansen – hungry, it seems – picked up the wrong dinner tray. He looks in pretty bad shape to me.’

  O’Hare was on his feet. Revson barred the way.

  ‘I think your Dr Isaacs has stirred up a more powerful brew than he imagined. If this is the effect it has – well, I want you to go across there and diagnose some form of food poisoning. Call in some chemical analyst or whatever you call them. Nobody, but nobody, must touch that food again. I don’t want wholesale murder on my hands.’

  ‘I understand.’ O’Hare picked up his emergency bag and left at speed.

  April said: ‘What’s gone wrong, Paul?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some foul-up. Maybe I’m to blame. Stay here.’

  When he arrived across the bridge Branson was standing upright and O’Hare slowly straightening. Revson looked at them both then addressed himself to O’Hare. ‘Well?’

  O’Hare let go the limp wrist he was holding. ‘I’m afraid that Mr Hansen is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ For once, Branson was clearly shocked. ‘How can he be dead?’

  ‘Please. For the moment, I’m in charge. This plastic centre plate is almost empty. I assume that Hansen ate it all.’

  O’Hare bent over the dead man and breathed deeply. His nose wrinkled. Very slowly, he straightened again.

  ‘Can’t be salmonella. That takes time. Not even botulinus. It’s quick, but not this quick.’ O’Hare looked at Branson. ‘I want to talk to the hospital.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Perhaps you’d like to talk to me first?’

  O’Hare sounded weary. ‘I suppose. The smell – it comes from the pancreas – is unmistakable. Some form of food poisoning. I don’t know. Doctors have their specialities and this is not one of mine. The hospital, please.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I listen in?’

  ‘Listen in all you want.’

  O’Hare was on the phone in the rear end of the Presidential coach. Branson held the President’s side-phone. Revson sat in the next deeply upholstered chair.

  O’Hare said: ‘How long will it take you to contact Hansen’s private physician?’

  ‘We’re in contact now.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  They all waited. They all looked at one another, while carefully not looking at one another. The phone became activated again.

  ‘O’Hare?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Hansen is – was – just recovering from his second – and almost fatal – heart attack.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. That explains everything.’

  ‘Not quite.’ Branson was his old balanced self again. ‘I want two analytical chemists out here to determine the source of this infection, if that’s what you would call it. The foo
d tray, I mean. Separate examinations. If they disagree, one of them is going to go over the side.’

  O’Hare sounded even more weary. ‘Such specialists we have in San Francisco. I know two of the top people. The only thing they have in common is their total disagreement with each other.’

  ‘In which case they will both be thrown over the side. You will accompany them. Make contact now.’

  O’Hare made contact. Revson said to Branson: ‘Only an American would have this gift for making friends and influencing people.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you later. O’Hare?’

  ‘They’ll come. Only if you promise immunity. Damn it all and to hell, Branson, why should their lives be put at risk?’

  Branson considered. ‘Their lives will not be put at risk. Leave that phone. I want it.’ He made a signal through the window. After a few seconds, Van Effen entered. He was carrying his Schmeisser in a rather unsympathetic manner. Branson moved to the rear.

  He said: ‘Let me talk to Hendrix.’

  Not more than two seconds elapsed before Hendrix was on the phone.

  ‘Hendrix?’ Branson was his usual unemotional self. ‘I have promised immunity to the doctors coming out here. I want you and the Vice-President to accompany them.’ There was a brief delay, then Hendrix came through again on the intercom.

  ‘Mr Richards agrees. But you are not to hold the Vice-President as a hostage.’

  ‘I agree in turn.’

  ‘Your word?’

  ‘For what it’s worth. You have to believe me, don’t you? You’re in no position to bargain.’

  ‘No position. I have a dream, Branson.’

  ‘I know. But I think handcuffs are so inelegant. I will see you in a very few minutes. Send out the TV truck. Alert the networks.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘I think it very important that the nation should be made aware of the establishment’s modus operandi.’ Branson rested the phone.

  In the communications wagon just off the Presidio, Hendrix, in turn rested his phone and looked at the six men clustered around him. He addressed himself to Hagenbach.

  ‘Well, you have it. Hansen dead. Nobody’s fault, really. How was anybody to know that he had a critical heart condition? And how – and why – did nobody know about it?’

  Hagenbach said heavily: ‘I knew. Like nearly all senior Government officials Hansen was intensely secretive about his physical health. He was in Bethesda twice in the last nine months and the second time was touch and go. It was reported that he was receiving treatment for overwork, exhaustion. So I think if anyone is to blame it’s me.’

  Quarry said: ‘You’re talking nonsense and you know it. Who could possibly have foreseen this? It’s not your fault and it’s certainly not Dr Isaacs’s fault. He told us the drug was perfectly safe for any normal healthy adult. You cannot question the judgement of a man of his reputation. He wasn’t to know that Hansen wasn’t a normal healthy adult far less anticipating that Hansen would misguidedly pick up the wrong plate. And what’s going to happen now?’

  Hendrix said: ‘It’s obvious what’s going to happen now. We seven are going to be publicly indicted as murderers.’

  The TV crew had arrived on the centre of the bridge but were, momentarily, inactive. The two specialist doctors were analysing the food and, despite O’Hare’s predictions, for once seemed to be agreeing with each other. The President was talking quietly to the Vice-President. From the expressions on their faces it seemed they didn’t have very much to talk about.

  Branson was alone with Hendrix in the Presidential coach. Branson said: ‘Do you honestly expect me to believe that you and Hagenbach know nothing about this?’

  Hendrix said wearily: ‘Nothing. There’s been a botulinus outbreak downtown in the past few days.’ He pointed towards the TV set in the middle of the roadway. ‘If you watch that at all, you must have heard of it.’ He pointed again towards the evening meal wagon where the two doctors were busily at work. ‘They were convinced before arrival what the trouble was.’ He refrained from adding that he’d told the doctors to find not more than a dozen cases of poisoning. ‘You have lives on your hands, Branson.’

  ‘Don’t we all. Get on that phone there. Some more hot meals. The first three, taken by random sample, will be by the President, the King and the Prince. You do understand, don’t you?’

  Revson was in the ambulance with O’Hare and April Wednesday. She was lying blanket-covered on the hinged-down bed.

  She said, drowsily: ‘Did you have to do this to me?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t like thumb-screws.’

  ‘No. Maybe you’re not the monster I thought you were. But Dr O’Hare –’

  ‘Dr O’Hare, as he would say in his own native tongue, is a different kettle of fish. What did Branson say?’

  She said sleepily: ‘Same cable. Bay side.’

  Her eyelids closed. O’Hare took Revson by the arm. His voice was quiet. ‘Enough.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two hours. Not less.’

  ‘The pens.’

  O’Hare withdrew the pens from his clipboard. ‘You do know what you’re doing?’

  ‘I hope.’ He thought briefly, then said: ‘You’re going to be questioned.’

  ‘I know. You want your torch?’

  ‘Later.’

  Kylenski was the senior of the two doctors examining the food trays. He said to Branson: ‘My colleague and I have found twelve infected food trays.’

  Branson looked at Van Effen then back at Kylenski. That all? Twelve? Not seventeen?’

  Kylenski had a grey beard, grey moustache and aquiline aristocratic stare. ‘Twelve. Spoiled meat. Some form of botulinus. You don’t even have to taste it. You can smell it. Well, I can. Apparently Hansen didn’t.’

  ‘Lethal?’

  ‘In this concentration, normally, no. This infected food didn’t kill Hansen. Well, not directly. But it was almost certainly responsible for reactivating this long-standing and severe heart ailment which did kill him.’

  ‘What would the effect of this be on the average healthy adult?’

  ‘Incapacitating. Violent vomiting, possibility of stomach haemorrhaging, unconsciousness or something pretty close to it.’

  ‘So a man would be pretty helpless?’

  ‘He’d be incapable of action. Most likely of thought, too.’

  ‘What a perfectly splendid prospect. For some.’ Branson looked again at Van Effen. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I want to know what you want to know.’ Van Effen turned to Kylenski. ‘This poison or whatever it is – could it have been deliberately introduced?’

  ‘Who on earth would want to do a thing like that?’

  Branson said: ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘Any doctor specializing in this field, any research fellow, even a reasonably competent laboratory assistant could produce the necessary toxin culture.’

  ‘But he would have to be a doctor or in some way associated with the medical profession? I mean, this would call for trained knowledge and laboratory facilities?’

  ‘Normally, yes.’

  Branson said to the meal wagon attendant: ‘Come out from behind that counter, Tony.’

  Tony came. His apprehension was unmistakable.

  Branson said: ‘It’s not all that hot, Tony. It’s turning quite cool, in fact. Why are you sweating?’

  ‘I don’t like all this violence and guns.’

  ‘No one has offered you any violence or even pointed a gun at you, although I’m not saying that both of them aren’t going to happen to you in the very near future. I suggest, Tony, that you are suffering from a guilty conscience.’

  ‘Me? Conscience?’ Tony actually mopped his brow: if his conscience wasn’t troubling him something else clearly was. ‘God’s sake, Mr Branson –’

  ‘Fairy stories are fairy stories but they don’t run to a dozen coincidences at a time. Only a fool would accept that. But there had to be some way of identifying
the poisoned plates. What way, Tony?’

  ‘Why don’t you leave him alone, Branson?’ Vice-President Richards’s voice was at once harsh and contemptuous. ‘He’s only a van driver.’

  Branson ignored him. ‘How were the plates to be identified?’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t! I don’t even know what you are talking about!’

  Branson turned to Kowalski and Peters. ‘Throw him into the Golden Gate.’ His voice was as level and conversational as ever.

  Tony made an animal-like noise but offered no resistance as Kowalski and Peters took an arm apiece and began to march him away. His face was ashen and rivulets of sweat were now pouring down his face. When he did speak his voice was a harsh unbelieving croak.

  ‘Throw me off the bridge! That’s murder! Murder! In the name of God I don’t know –’

  Branson said: ‘You’ll be telling me next that you have a wife and three kids.’

  ‘I’ve got nobody.’ His eyes turned up in his head and his legs sagged under him until he had to be dragged across the roadway. Both the Vice-President and Hendrix moved in to intercept the trio. They stopped as Van Effen lifted his Schmeisser.

  Van Effen said to Branson: ‘If there was a way of identifying those plates, that would be important and dangerous information. Would you entrust Tony with anything like that?’

  ‘Not for a second. Enough?’

  ‘He’ll tell anything he knows. I suspect it won’t be much.’ He raised his voice. ‘Bring him back.’

  Tony was brought back and released. He sagged wearily to the roadway, struggled with difficulty to his feet and clung tremblingly to the luncheon wagonette. His voice shook as much as his frame.

  ‘I know nothing about the plates. I swear it!’

  ‘Tell us what you do know.’

  ‘I thought something was far wrong when they loaded the food into my van.’

  ‘At the hospital?’

  ‘The hospital? I don’t work at the hospital. I work for Selznick’s.’

  ‘I know them. The caterers for open-air functions. Well?’

  ‘I was told the food was ready when I got there. I’m usually loaded and away in five minutes. This time it took three-quarters of an hour.’

  ‘Did you see anybody from the hospital when you were waiting at Selznick’s?’