Алистер Маклин - The Golden Gate

O’Hare smiled, but only faintly. ‘Well, no. But the story is that all the FBI men were left asleep in a downtown garage. Except for a few on the press coach who were rousted out and marched off the bridge.’

‘We don’t put all our eggs in one basket.’

‘And agents don’t usually disclose their identity either.’

‘Not this agent. I’d disclose my identity to anyone if I were in trouble. And I’m in trouble now.’

‘As long as it’s not unethical–’

‘I wouldn’t bring a blush to the Hippocratic cheek. That guaranteed, would you consider it unethical to help put Branson behind bars?’

‘Is that guaranteed too?’

‘No.’

‘Count on me. What do you want done?’

‘We have a lady photographer with us who is young, rather beautiful, by the unlikely name of April Wednesday’

‘Ha!’ O’Hare brightened considerably. ‘The green-eyed blonde.’

‘Indeed. I want her to take a message ashore, if that’s the word, for me and bring me back an answer within a couple of hours. I propose to code this message, film it and give you the spool. It’s about half the size of a cigarette and I’m sure you can easily conceal it in one of the many tubes and cartons you must carry about with you. Anyway, no one questions a doctor’s integrity’

‘Don’t they, now?’ O’Hare spoke with some feeling.

‘There’s no hurry. I’ll have to wait till Messrs Milton, Quarry and Hendrix have been escorted off the bridge. By which time, too, I expect that the trusty Mr Hagenbach will have arrived from wherever he has been lurking.’

‘Hagenbach? You mean this old twister–’

‘You are referring to my respected employer. Now, this is just an ambulance. Apart from your usual medical kit, heart unit, oxygen kit to stitch together the misguided who step out of line, I don’t suppose you carry anything much more sophisticated.’ O’Hare shook his head.

‘So you don’t have any radiological gear or clinical investigative equipment and most certainly not operational facilities, even if you did have an anaesthetist, which you haven’t. I suggest then that, when Miss Wednesday takes most painfully ill in about an hour or so, you diagnose something that may demand, or may not demand ‘ doctors can’t take chances – immediate hospital diagnosis and possible surgery. Something like a grumbling appendix or suspected peritonitis or such-like. Don’t ask me.’

‘I wouldn’t.’ O’Hare looked at Revson with some disfavour. ‘You seem to be unaware that even the rawest intern, no matter how damp behind the ears, can diagnose appendicitis with his hands, figuratively, in his pockets.’

‘I am aware. But I’m damned if I could do it. And I’m pretty certain that no one else on this bridge could do it either.’

‘You have a point. Right. But you’ll have to give me fifteen to twenty minutes’ notice – before I call in Branson or whoever. The odd job or two to induce the proper symptoms. No danger.’

‘Miss Wednesday has just informed me that she is allergic to pain.’

‘She won’t feel a thing,’ O’Hare said in his best dentist’s voice. ‘Besides, it’s for the homeland.’ He looked at Revson consideringly. ‘I believe you gentlemen of the press are handing your stuff over at the south barrier in two hours’ time. Couldn’t it wait till then?’

‘And get my answer back by carrier pigeon next week. I want it this afternoon.’

‘You are in a hurry’

‘During the war – World War Two, that is – Winston Churchill used to annotate all instructions to his military and governmental staff with just three scribbled words: “Action this day”. I am a great admirer of Sir Winston.’

He left the slightly bemused O’Hare and returned to April Wednesday. He told her that O’Hare had okayed his request and her first question was: ‘Want I should bring back a miniaturized transceiver radio?’

He gave her a kind look. ‘Thoughtful, but no. Electronic surveillance of all kinds can hardly be your province. Such a transceiver I have, screwed into the base of my camera. But that little revolving disc above the villains’ coach means only one thing – they have an automatic radio-wave scanner. They’d pick me up in five seconds. Now listen carefully and I’ll tell you exactly what I want you to do and how I want you to behave.’

When he had finished she said: ‘Understand. But I don’t much care for the thought of the kindly healer there running amok with his hypodermic’

‘You won’t feel a thing,’ Revson said soothingly. ‘Besides, it’s for the fatherland.’

He left her and walked casually across to the press coach. The imperial conference in the Presidential coach was still in full plenary session, and though the speech inside was wholly inaudible from where Revson stood it was clear from the gestures and expressions of those inside that all they had succeeded in reaching so far was a marked degree of difference in opinion. Their problem, Revson reflected, was hardly one susceptible to the ready formation of a consensus of opinion. Branson and Chrysler were up front in the rear coach, apparently dozing, which they probably weren’t – though it wouldn’t have mattered very much if they were, for alert guards were very much in evidence patrolling between the freshly painted boundary lines on the bridge. Members of the various news media stood around in groups, wearing an air of almost hushed anticipation as if expecting the next momentous occasion to happen along any second now, which seemed as likely as not.

Revson entered the press coach. It was deserted. He made his way to his own seat, unshipped his camera, produced a pad and felt pen and began, quickly and without hesitation, to write what was apparently pure gibberish. There were those who were lost without their code-books but Revson was not one of them.

Hagenbach, the chief of the FBI, was a burly and formidable character in his middle sixties, with short-cropped grey hair, short-cropped grey moustache, slightly hooded light blue eyes which never appeared to blink and a face possessed of a total non-expression which it had taken him years of hard work to acquire. It was said that among the upper echelons of his FBI there was a sweepstake as to the day and date when Hagenbach would first be seen to smile. The sweepstake had been running for five years.

Hagenbach was a very able man and looked it. He had no friends and he looked that too. Men with a consuming passion seldom do and Hagenbach was a man with a consuming passion. As was said of one of his illustrious predecessors, he was alleged to have a file on every senator and congressman in Washington, not to mention the entire staff of the White House. He could have made a fortune in blackmail but Hagenbach was not interested in money. Nor was he interested in power, as such. Hagenbach’s total dedication lay in the extirpation of corruption, whenever and wherever he might encounter it.

He looked at Admiral Newson and General Carter, the former plump and rubicund, the latter tall and lean and looking disconcertingly like his superior, General Cartland. Both men he had known, and well, for almost twenty years and had not once called either by his first name. That anyone should address Hagenbach by his Christian name was unthinkable. It would also have been extremely difficult as no one seemed to know it. He was the type of man who didn’t need a first name.

Hagenbach said: ‘So those are the only tentative proposals for action you have come up with so far?’

‘The situation is unprecedented,’ Newson said. ‘Carter and I are fundamentally men of direct action. To date, direct action seems out of the question. Let’s hear your ideas.’