Алистер Маклин - The Golden Gate

‘Of course.’

‘Only the blind have their eyes closed to reality. I am not blind. The President will pay.’ The President had no comment to make on this generous offer: he was staring down at the roadway like a fortune teller peering into his crystal ball and not wanting to tell his client what he sees there.

‘Thank you, your Highness.’

‘You will of course be hunted down and killed afterwards no matter where you may seek to hide in the world. Even if you were to kill me now your death is already as certain as tomorrow’s sun.’

Branson was unconcerned. ‘As long as I have you, your Highness, I have no worries on that score. I should imagine that any of your subjects who as much as endangered your life far less being responsible for your losing it would find himself rather precipitately in paradise – if regicides go to paradise, which I don’t think should be allowed. And I hardly think you’re the type of man to run to the side of the bridge now and jump over in order to incite the faithful to come after me with their long knives.’

‘Indeed.’ The hooded eyes were unblinking. ‘And what if I were not the sort of person you think I am?’

‘If you were to jump – or try to?’ Again the chilling indifference. ‘Why do you think I have a doctor and ambulance here? Van Effen, if anyone is as misguided as to make a break for it – what are your instructions?’

Van Effen matched the indifference. ‘Chop his foot off with my machine-pistol. The doctor will fix him up.’

‘We might even – eventually – provide you with an artificial foot. You’re worth nothing to me dead, your Highness.’ The hooded eyes had closed. ‘Well, the ransom figure? Agreed? No objectors? Splendid. Well, that’s for starters.’

‘Starters?’ It was General Cartland speaking and one could almost see the firing squad mirrored in his eyes.

‘To begin with, that means. There’s more. Two hundred million dollars more. That’s what I want for the Golden Gate Bridge.’

This time the state of traumatic shock did not last quite so long – there is a limit to how much the human mind can take. The President raised his eyes from the depths of the bottomless pit he was scanning and said dully: ‘Two hundred million dollars for the Golden Gate Bridge?’

‘It’s a bargain. At the price, practically a giveaway. True, it cost only forty million to build and the asking price of two hundred million just exactly represents the five-fold inflation over the past forty years. But, money apart, think of the fearful cost of replacing it. Think of the noise, the dust, the pollution, the disruption to all the city traffic as all those thousands of tons of steel have to be brought in, of the tourists who will cripple the city’s economy by staying away in their tens of thousands. Beautiful though San Francisco is, without the Golden Gate it would be like Mona Lisa without her smile. Think – and this is for a period of at least one year, perhaps two – of all those Marin County motorists who couldn’t get to the city – it’s a long long way round by the San Rafael bridge – or, come to that, the city motorists who couldn’t get to Marin County. The hardship would be intolerable for everyone – except for the owners of the ferry-boat companies who would become millionaires. And who am I to grudge the entrepreneur the making of an honest dollar? Two hundred million dollars? Philanthropy, that’s what it is.’

Quarry, the man accustomed to thinking in rows of noughts, said: ‘If we do not accede to this monstrous request, what do you intend to do with the bridge? Take it away and pawn it somewhere?’

‘I’m going to blow it up. A two-hundred-foot drop – it should be the most almighty splash the West Coast has ever seen.’

‘Blow it up! Blow up the Golden Gate Bridge!’ Mayor Morrison, whose normal boiling point was just above freezing, was on his feet, his face suffused with ungovernable anger and had launched himself at Branson before anyone realized what was happening, certainly before Branson had realized. In tens of millions of American homes they saw Branson being knocked backwards off his seat, his head striking heavily against the roadway as Morrison, all two hundred and twenty pounds of him, followed him down and struck at his face with berserker fury. Van Effen stepped forward and brought the butt of his machine-pistol down on Morrison’s neck. He immediately swung round to cover the seated men with his gun but the precaution was superfluous, no one was showing any inclination to follow Morrison’s example.

It was a full twenty seconds before Branson could sit up, and then only groggily. He accepted a pad of medical gauze and dabbed at a smashed lip and a very bloody nose. He looked at Morrison, then at the doctor.

‘How is he?’

The doctor carried out a brief examination. ‘He’ll be all right, he’s not even concussed.’ The doctor glanced at Van Effen without enthusiasm. ‘Your friend seems to be able to judge those things to a nicety.’

‘Practice,’ Branson explained thickly. He accepted another gauze pad in place of the already blood-saturated one and rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘Mayor Morrison doesn’t know his own strength.’

Van Effen said: ‘What shall I do with him?’

‘Leave him be. It’s his city, it’s his bridge. My fault – I just trod on a man’s dreams.’ He looked at Morrison consideringly. ‘On second thoughts you’d better handcuff him – behind the back. Next time he might knock my head off my shoulders.’

General Cartland came to his feet and walked towards Branson. Van Effen levelled his gun menacingly but Cartland ignored him. He said to Branson: ‘You fit to talk?’

‘I’m fit to listen, anyway. He didn’t get round to my ears.’

‘I may be Chief of Staff but to trade I’m an army engineer. That means I know explosives. You can’t blow up the bridge and you should know it. You’d require a wagon-load of explosives to bring down those towers. I don’t see any wagon-load of explosives.’

‘We don’t need them.’ He pointed to the thick canvas strap with the conical mounds embedded in it. ‘You’re the expert.’

Cartland looked at the strap, then at Branson, then at the seated watchers, then back at the strap again. Branson said: ‘Suppose you tell them. My mouth hurts, I can’t imagine why.’

Cartland took a long look at the massive towers and the cables suspended from them. He said to Branson: ‘You have experimented?’ Branson nodded. ‘Successfully – or you wouldn’t be here?’ Branson nodded again.

Reluctantly, almost, Cartland turned to the seated hostages and journalists. ‘I was wrong. I’m afraid Branson can indeed bring the bridge down. Those cones you see embedded in the canvas strap contain some conventional explosives – TNT amatol, anyway something of the requisite power. Those cones are called “beehives”, and because of their concave bases are designed to direct at least eighty per cent of their explosive value inwards. The idea, I should imagine, is to wrap one of those canvas straps with its hundredweight or whatever of high explosive round one of the suspension cables, probably high up near the top of a tower.’ He looked at Branson again. ‘I should imagine you have four of those.’ Branson nodded. ‘And designed to fire simultaneously.’ He turned back to the others. ‘I’m afraid that would be it. Down it all comes.’

There was a brief silence, which must have been very nail-biting for TV watchers, a silence caused by the fact that Branson understandably didn’t feel very much like speaking and the others couldn’t think of very much to say. Cartland said eventually: ‘How can you be sure they all go off together?’

‘Simple. Radio wave that activates an electric cell that burns the wire in a mercury fulminate detonator. Up goes the primer and up goes the beehive. One’s enough. The others go up by sympathetic detonation.’