Алистер Маклин - The Golden Gate

Hagenbach unfolded the note, cursed and shouted to the operator.

‘My decoder. Quick.’ Hagenbach was back in business and, predictably, he turned to Hendrix: he wouldn’t have asked Richards for the time of day. ‘How are things out there? Anything we don’t know? How come Hansen died?’

‘To put it brutally, hunger, greed. Seemingly he snitched one of the food trays before he could be warned which were the dangerous ones and how they could be identified.’

Milton sighed. ‘He always was a voracious eater. Compulsive, you might say. Something wrong with his metabolic system, I suppose. Speak no ill of the dead but I often told him that he was digging his grave with his own teeth. Looks like that’s what happened.’

‘No fault of Revson’s?’

‘None in the world. But there’s worse. Your man Revson is under heavy suspicion. Branson, as we all have cause to know, is a very very clever man and he’s convinced there’s an infiltrator in their midst. He’s also almost equally convinced that it’s Revson. I think the man is working on sheer instinct. He can’t pin a thing on Revson.’

‘Who’s also a very very clever man.’ Hagenbach paused then looked sharply at Hendrix. ‘If Branson is so suspicious of Revson would he let him get within a mile of you, knowing that you were going ashore?’

‘Revson didn’t come anywhere near me. General Cartland gave me the message. Revson gave the message to Cartland.’

‘So Cartland is in on this?’

‘He knows as much about it as we do. Revson is going to give him the cyanide pistol. Never thought our Chief of Staff was so positively bloodthirsty. He seems actually to be looking forward to using it.’

Carter said: ‘You know Cartland’s reputation as a tank commander in the Second World War. After all the comparatively decent Italians and Germans he disposed of then, do you think he’s going to worry about doing away with a few really bad hats?’

‘You should know. Anyway, I went into one of their awful rest-rooms and shoved the note down my sock. I suspected that the Vice-President here and I might be searched before we left the bridge. We weren’t. Your Revson is right. Branson is both over-confident and under-conscious of security precautions.’

Revson and O’Hare watched Van Effen walk away. Revson himself walked away a few steps, indicating that O’Hare should follow him. Revson said: ‘Well, that was a pretty thorough going-over our friend gave you. I don’t think he much appreciated your remark about your hoping that he would be a patient of yours some day’

O’Hare looked up at the darkly threatening sky, now almost directly overhead. The wind was freshening and, two hundred feet below, the white horses were showing in the Golden Gate.

O’Hare said: ‘Looks like a rough night coming up. We’d be more comfortable inside the ambulance, I think, and I’ve some excellent whisky and brandy in there. Used, you understand, solely for the resuscitation of the sick and ailing.’

‘You’re going to go far in your profession. Sick and ailing describes my symptoms precisely. But I’d rather be succoured out here.’

‘Whatever for?’

Revson gave him a pitying look. ‘If it weren’t for your good fortune in having me here, you’d very probably be the main object of Branson’s suspicions. Has it not occurred to you that, during his intensive search of your ambulance, he might have planted a tiny electronic bug which you wouldn’t discover in a week of searching?’

‘It occurs to me now. There’s a dearth of devious minds in the medical profession.’

‘Do you have any gin?’

‘It’s odd you should ask that. I do.’

‘That’s for me. I told Branson that I didn’t drink and that’s why I have a nose like a bloodhound. I shouldn’t care for him to see me with a glass of something amber in my hand.’

‘Devious, devious minds.’ O’Hare disappeared inside the ambulance and reappeared shortly with two glasses, the clear one for Revson. ‘Health.’

‘Indeed. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s going to be in short supply inside the next twenty-four hours.’

‘Cryptic, aren’t we?’

‘Psychic’ Revson looked speculatively at the nearest helicopter. ‘I wonder if the pilot – Johnson, I think – intends to sleep in his machine tonight.’

O’Hare gave a mock shiver. ‘You ever been in a helicopter?’

‘Oddly, perhaps, no.’

‘I have several times. Strictly, I assure you, in the line of medical duty. These army jobs are fitted with steel-framed canvas chairs, if that’s the word for them. For me, it would be a toss-up between that and a bed of nails.’

‘So much I suspected. So he’ll probably bed down with his fellow-villains in the rear coach.’

‘The chopper appears to interest you strangely’

Revson glanced casually around. There was no one within possible earshot.

‘The detonating mechanism for the explosives is inside there. I intend – note that I say intend – to deactivate it tonight.’

O’Hare was silent for a long moment, then said kindly: ‘I think I should give you a medical. For that space between the ears. There’ll be at least one armed guard on all night patrol. You know the bridge is a blaze of light all night long. So you just dematerialize yourself–’

‘The sentry I can take care of. The lights will be switched off when I want them.’

‘Abracadabra!’

‘I’ve already sent a message ashore.’

‘I didn’t know that secret agents doubled as magicians. You produce a carrier pigeon from your hat–’

‘Hendrix took it ashore for me.’

O’Hare stared at him then said: ‘Another drink?’

‘No befuddled wits tonight, thank you.’

‘Then I’ll have one.’ He took both glasses and reappeared with his own. ‘Look, that guy Kowalski has the general appearance and the eyes of a hawk. I’m not exactly short-sighted myself. He never took his eyes off you all the time the Vice-President and Hendrix were out here. Branson’s orders, I’m certain.’

‘Me, too. Who else? I never went near Hendrix. I gave the message to Cartland who passed it on to Hendrix. Kowalski was too busy watching me to bother about Cartland and Hendrix.’

‘What time will the lights go off?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll send a signal.’

‘This means Cartland is in on this?’

‘What else? By the way, I promised the General the cyanide gun. Can you get it to him?’

‘One way or another.’

‘No way, I suppose, of replacing that seal on the cardiac unit once it has been broken?’

‘You mean in case our suspicious Mr Branson visits the ambulance again. No.’ He smiled. ‘It just so happens that I am carrying two spare seals inside the box.’

Revson smiled in turn. ‘Just goes to show. A man can’t think of everything. Still on the side of law and order? Still like to see Branson wearing a nice shiny pair of bracelets?’

‘It’s becoming a distinct yearning.’

‘It might involve bending your code of ethics a little.’

‘The hell with the medical ethics.’

Hagenbach positively snatched the sheet of typewritten paper from his decoder. He glanced rapidly through it, his brow corrugating by the second. He said to Hendrix: ‘Revson appeared to be perfectly normal when you left him?’

‘Who can tell what Revson appears to be?’

‘True. I don’t seem to be able to make head or tail of this.’

Richards said acidly: ‘You might share your little secrets with us, Hagenbach.’

‘He says: “It looks as if it’s going to be a lousy night, which should help. I want two fake oil fires set now. Or a mixture of oil and rubber tyres. One to my south-west, say Lincoln Park, the other to the east, say Fort Mason – a much bigger fire there. Ignite the Lincoln Park one at twenty-two hundred hours. At two-two-oh-three, infra-red sights if necessary, use a laser beam to destroy the radio scanner on top of the rear coach. Wait my flashlight signal – SOS – then ignite the other. After fifteen minutes blacken out bridge and northern part of San Francisco. It would help if you could at the same time arrange a massive fireworks display in Chinatown – as if a firework factory had gone up.