Алистер Маклин - The Golden Gate

‘Yes.’

‘Normally it occurs naturally – spoiled food, things like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘But a culture of it can be manufactured synthetically or artificially in a laboratory’

‘That’s putting it very loosely’

‘We’re talking primarily to laymen.’

‘Yes.’

‘And it could be injected synthetically into already prepared but otherwise harmless food?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, Dr Kylenski. That will be all.’

Revson, still without his camera, was standing by the ambulance with O’Hare. ‘For a person who’s never been inside a courtroom, Branson seems to have mastered the prosecuting counsel bit pretty well.’

‘It’s all this TV.’

Branson said: ‘I put it to all of you who are watching that the authorities – military, police, FBI, Government or whoever – have made a deliberate attempt to murder or at least incapacitate those of us who have taken over the Presidential entourage and this bridge. There must be someone on this bridge who knew how to identify poisoned trays and see that they fell into the right hands – that is, the hands of my colleagues and myself. The attempt, fortunately, failed, but there has been one casualty whom I shall mention later.

‘Meantime, I would draw your attention to the fact that a second food wagon has arrived.’ A camera obligingly drew the viewers’ attention to this fact. ‘It seems incredible that the authorities would be so obtuse as to try the same gambit again but, on the other hand, they have already shown that they are incredibly obtuse. So we are going to select three trays at random and offer them to the President, King and Prince. If they survive, we may reasonably assume that the food is uncontaminated. If, on the other hand, they become seriously ill – or worse – the world will know that the guilt cannot be laid at our door. We are in permanent radio-telephone contact with the police and military authorities ashore. They have one minute to tell us whether this food is contaminated or not.’

Mayor Morrison was on his feet. Van Effen lifted his Schmeisser fractionally but Morrison ignored him. He said to Branson: ‘Apart from the personal indignity and affront you are heaping on the President and his royal guests couldn’t you pick someone a bit lower down the scale for your experiment?’

‘Such as yourself?’

‘Such as myself.’

‘My dear Mayor, your personal courage is beyond dispute. That is well known. Your intelligence, however, isn’t. If anyone is to be put to the test it will be the three men who are probably the most important in the United States today. Their untimely disappearance from the scene would have the maximum inhibiting effect on would-be poisoners. In the olden days, the serfs tasted the food of their rulers: I find it rather amusing that the roles should be reversed. Please sit.’

‘Megalomaniac bastard,’ Revson said.

O’Hare nodded. ‘He’s all of that but a lot more. He knows damn well there isn’t a chance in the world of the food being spiked but he’s going through the charade all the same. He’s not only enjoying his own showmanship, he’s getting a positively sadistic kick out of it all, particularly in humiliating the President.’

‘You think he’s sick? In the head? Certifiably, I mean?’

‘I’m no psychiatrist. He could get all he wants without those histrionics and TV spectaculars. What’s for sure, he’s got a grudge against society in general and the President in particular. Certainly, he’s in it for the money, but he’s in it for something else: as if he wanted to become a nationally – or internationally – recognized figure.’

‘In that case, he’s made a fair start. In fact, he’s gone as far as he can go. Now it seems as if he’s overcompensating for something. Lord knows what.’

They watched three trays of food being brought towards the rows of chairs. O’Hare said: ‘Reckon they’ll sample that stuff?’

‘They’ll eat it. In the first place, they couldn’t bear the indignity of being force-fed in front of hundreds of millions of viewers. The President’s courage is known well enough – you will remember his record during World War Two in the Pacific. Again, as President, he has to give a lead to the nation – if he refused to eat while his oil friends did, he’d be a dead duck at the next election. Conversely, his oil friends would lose face if the President ate and they didn’t.’

They ate. After Chrysler had given a negative signal from the Presidential coach, Branson nodded towards the trays. The President – inevitably, he was not a man to be upstaged by anyone – was the first to get busy with knife and fork. It could hardly be said that he ate with unrestrained gusto but he plodded along stolidly enough and had finished more than half his meal before he laid down his eating tools.

Branson said: ‘Well?’

‘I wouldn’t offer it to my guests in the White House but it’s palatable enough.’ In spite of the deep humiliation he must have been experiencing, the President was maintaining a remarkable degree of sang-froid. ‘A little wine would have helped, though.’

‘You shall have as much as you want in a few moments. I imagine a great number of people are also going to feel like a restorative pretty soon, too. Incidentally, if you people are still interested, we shall be fixing our second strap of explosives at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Our time, of course. And now, could we have the cameras on that stretcher there.’

Two men stood at the head of the canvas-shrouded stretcher. At a word from Branson they pulled back the top section of the canvas. The cameras zoomed in on the pallid, haggard face of the dead man, held it for all of ten interminable and hushed seconds, then returned to Branson.

He said: ‘John Hansen, your energy czar. Death certified as due to botulinus poisoning. For what may be the first time in history a wanted criminal accuses the legal authorities of murder. Second degree murder it may be, but I nevertheless indict them on a charge of murder.’

Hagenbach was in full vitriolic flow. Some phrases like ‘evil, twisted, macabre, vicious bastard’ were just identifiable, but the rest was wholly unprintable. Newson, Carter, Milton and Quarry were momentarily silent but their faces showed clearly enough that they totally identified themselves with Hagenbach’s expressed convictions. Hagenbach, being only human, finally ran out of breath.

‘He’s made us look very very bad indeed.’ In the circumstances, Milton’s restraint was remarkable.

‘Bad?’ Quarry looked around for another word then gave up. ‘If he pulls another one like this – if we pull another one like this – Branson will have half the nation on his side. What’s to do next?’

Hagenbach said: ‘Wait till we hear from Revson.’

‘Revson?’ Admiral Newson seemed unenthusiastic. ‘He’s hardly distinguished himself so far.’

‘A hundred to one it wasn’t Revson’s fault,’ Hagenbach said. ‘And don’t forget the final decision was ours. We bear a collective responsibility, gentlemen.’

They sat around the table bearing this intolerable responsibility, each one an Atlas bearing his own private world on his shoulders.

On the Golden Gate Bridge that evening events happened in fairly quick but ordered fashion. A special ambulance appeared and took away the stretcher bearing the remains of Hansen. An autopsy was to be performed, which seemed to be a singular waste of time but was apparently mandatory under State law when a person had died under unusual circumstances. Dr Kylenski and his colleague, with a marked absence of reluctance, accompanied the ambulance. Newsmen, captives and captors had their evening meal, the first two with a notable but understandable lack of appetite but with a thirst, equally notable and understandable, so marked that further liquid supplies had to be commandeered. The two TV trucks left and, shortly afterwards, the two food wagons. Last to go were Vice-President Richards and Hendrix. The Vice-President had spent a long time in a long and earnest private discussion with the President, just as had General Cartland with Hendrix. Both Branson had watched with a certain amused tolerance but had paid little attention. From their grim and depressed expressions it was clear that their discussions had been totally fruitless. No other result could have been expected. It may well have been that Branson was suffering from a certain degree of euphoria after the dramatic effect of his last broadcast: from his expression it was impossible to tell.