Colin Forbes - Year of the Golden Ape

^ Slowing down, he cruised towards the hull. He was hardly moving at all when he reached his objective and pressed his snout forward gently. The magnetic field inside the Geiger counter did the rest, hauling itself close against the steel hull. Plop! The suckei was attached to the hull. The dolphin paused, feeling the tug of the tide against his huge body. He paused for only a few seconds, then he bobbed his nose hard against the hull. The magnetic field was neutralised for thirty seconds.

^ Released from the hull, Mac turned in a great sweep, his tail swishing against the immovable steel. Then he was swimming hard again, leaving the tanker behind, moving like a projectile through the dark water, heading back for Grumann's launch moored close to the waterfront. Within a few minutes he was swallowing fish while Grumann checked the Geiger counter as the other dolphin reached him. Grumann's hand was unsteady as he picked up the field telephone which linked him to the shore.

^ It was close to sunrise when Gen. Lepke took the call in the outer office. He listened, said, 'Are you absolutely certain?' Replacing the receiver, Lepke walked unhurriedly into the Governor's office where early breakfast was being served to the action committee from a kitchen adjoining the main conference room. The mixed aroma of bacon and eggs and strong coffee did not make Lepke feel hungry. He spoke very quietly to MacGowan so no one else could hear him, and then the two men went into the office Lepke had just left and shut the door behind them. The Governor asked almost the same question Lepke himself had asked over the phone. 'You're sure?'

^ 'The Geiger counter was positive. They have a nuclear device aboard that tanker.'

^ Thursday January 23 was a nightmare for MacGowan as he fought to keep control of the situation in his own hands. There were plenty of other groping hands trying to influence him, to turn him in another direction. Two State Department officials had come in from Washington, one of them George Stark, a lean-faced, precise man who urged the Governor to 'negotiate flexibly…' There were international implications – if there was a catastrophe, a wave of anti-Arab feeling might sweep across America. And there were already rumours that the Golden Apes were considering a further cut in the oil flow to the West… The Atomic Energy Commission experts arrived secretly in the city at ten in the morning – to assess the extent of the threat to the city posed by the nuclear device aboard the tanker.

^ Dr Reisel of the Atomic Energy Commission flew in from Los Angeles where AEC experts had been attending a meeting on the future of nuclear power stations. He headed the team which would play the grim projection game, Operation Apocalypse. A room had been set aside on the floor below MacGowan's office in the Transamerica building and the team went into immediate session.

^ The team comprised experts from the US Air Force, from the US Weather Bureau, Coast Guard service, Planning Division of the Pentagon. US Navy and, above all, radiation specialists. Aboard the Boeing 707 from Los Angeles – they had started discussions while in mid-air – Dr Reisel had emphasised one point over and over again.

^ 'Gentlemen, the thing we must not do is to underestimate the size of the catastrophe. On the basis of the report we draw up the authorities will take certain precautions…' He paused.'… which may include mass-evacuation. If we underestimate the area which could be affected we might all have to leave this country for ever -people would never forgive us. The hell of it is we have to make certain assumptions – as to the likely size of the nuclear device aboard that British tanker. I have made an assumption myself -based on a device manufactured from the five kilograms of Plutonium hi-jacked from Morris, Illinois, ten months ago…'

^ It was Karpis of the FBI who had earlier pinpointed a possible source of the material used to make the device. At 7.30am he had phoned Washington; the reply had come back within thirty minutes. During the past year there had been only one reported case of a sizeable amount of plutonium going missing; the brutal hi-jacking of a GEC security truck in Illinois ten months ago when a canister containing five kilograms had been stolen. The Apocalypse team was rushed from the airport by special bus along Highway 101 with an escort of police outriders and a patrol car, its siren screaming non-stop. Peretti informed the Press that a team of anti-terrorist experts had arrived in the city. Arriving at the Transamerica building, they went up to the room set aside for them and started at once on their macabre exercise.

^ LeCat came back on the ship-to-shore at 10am while Apocalypse was in session, his voice full of confidence as he spoke to MacGowan who sat in his shirt-sleeves despite the morning chill.

^ Ask the bastard something, MacGowan reminded himself, make it sound like I believe him, for God's sake. He was beginning to feel the strain of being up all night and his face was lined with fatigue. He cleared his throat. 'We need to know what is going to happen to the hostages…'

^ LeCat sounded surprised, impatient. 'They come with us to the bus on Pier 31, of course…'

^ 'They will be released at the airport when we are safely aboard the plane. All except one man – he flies with us to Algiers.'

^ 'You will be told later.' LeCat sounded very impatient. 'Inform the airport at once…'

^ He went off the air before MacGowan could reply. The Governor looked round the room. In a desperate attempt to keep secret the fact that there was a nuclear device aboard the ship the action committee had been slimmed down to six men – MacGowan, Peretti, Karpis, Commissioner Bolan, Gen. Lepke and Stark, from the State Department. 'Don't let's underestimate our opponent,' the Governor warned. 'That LeCat is clever – if I didn't know about the nuclear device I might almost believe him, the way he keeps on checking details.'

^ 'He made no mention of the so-called ultimate demand,' Stark pointed out, 'And you didn't ask him about it…'

^ 'Deliberately. He's holding that back to keep us on a high wire.. Why should I jog his bloody elbow?'

^ The Apocalypse report was ready in two hours – a task which normally would have taken as many days – but as the men in the room below conferred more than one pair of eyes strayed to the window overlooking the Bay – because that was where it would come from when the nuclear device was detonated. The proximity concentrated their minds wonderfully. MacGowan went down to see them alone at noon.

^ 'Nothing as definite as I would like,' Reisel warned, 'but I assumed a crash analysis is better than a detailed report after…'

^ The thing has blown you to bits,'MacGowan completed for him. He knew it was bad the moment he entered the room; one look at the grave faces waiting for him told the Governor the worst. Or so he thought.

^ Reisel pointed to a map opened out on the table. 'That tells you better than I can – the circle…'

^ 'Oh, my God…' MacGowan recovered quickly. 'You mean it's going to take out nearly every city in the Bay area – Oakland, Richmond, Vallejo, Berkeley – even San Mateo?'

^ 'God, no!' Reisel sounded shocked. 'That's just the area of total annihilation from blast…'

^ MacGowan sat down in the chair vacated by Reisel and looked round at the fatalistic expressions of the men gathered at the table. He didn't like the atmosphere. 'And San Francisco?' he asked quietly.

^ 'Forget it – that's gone.' The man who replied was a gnome-like figure who sat opposite MacGowan, placidly puffing a pipe. MacGowan didn't like the look of him either: too detached and sure of himself.

^ MacGowan stared at Hooker who was watching him through rimless glasses as though he found politicians inexpressibly comic. The Governor had heard of Hooker, a scientist with a unique ^ ^ reputation, the only man who had warned Washington of the risk at the San Clemente nuclear power station just before the plant nearly ran wild.