'Could have been caused by lightning? Both cases? After all, I'd knows there was plenty of it around last night.'
'I would point out, Mr Branson, that neither the radio-wave scanner or the searchlight are earthed: both are mounted on rubber wheels.'
'The scanner-'
Chrysler said patiently: 'The coach's rubber wheels.'
Then what?'
'I think they're using a laser beam on us.'
Even at that early hour all seven of the decision-makers ashore were gathered round the table in the communications wagon when the phone rang. The duty policeman picked it up.
'Branson here. Get me General Carter.'
'He can't be far away. Hang on, please.' The policeman covered the mouth-piece. 'It's Branson for you. General.'
'Switch on the speaker so that we can all hear what he has to say. Tell him I've just come in.'
The General has just arrived.'
Carter took the phone. 'Branson?'
'Carter, use that laser beam on us just once again and we'll throw, say, Mr Muir over the side. For starters.'
The other six at the table looked at one another with quick apprehension and, possibly, the relieved thought in their minds that it was Carter who had to field this one.
'Explain yourself.'
'One of our searchlights and radio-wave scanner have been knocked out. All signs point to a laser beam.'
'You're a fool.'
There was a brief silence. Branson, clearly, had been taken momentarily aback. Then he said: 'Muir won't think so when he's on his way down to the Golden Gate.'
'I repeat you're a fool and if you can listen I'll tell you why. In the first place you're not an expert and wouldn't recognize the signs of laser damage if it was on your breakfast plate. In the second place, there are no such units in the Bay area-if there were I'd be the first person to know. In the third place, if we had laser beams we could have picked off every one of your villains as they walked about the bridge - or don't you know how accurate and deadly a laser beam is? With the proper telescopic sights you can puncture a football at ten thousand yards.'
'You seem to know a suspiciously great deal about lasers, General.' It was a negative remark and Branson could have been either thinking or stalling for time.
'I don't deny it. I've been trained in them, I even helped in the development of them. Every general has his own trade or speciality. General Cartland is an explosives expert. I'm an electronics engineer. Where was I? Yes. In the fourth place we could have immobilized your helicopters without your knowing anything about it you tried to take off. You're putting ideas into my head, Branson. Lastly, the probable cause was an electrical discharge - lightning.'
'Neither the searchlight nor scanner was earthed. They're mounted on rubber wheels.'
Carter let irritation creep into his voice. 'I'd stick to robbing banks if I were you. You don't have to be earthed to be struck by lightning. It happens to planes hundreds of times a year at altitudes up to twenty-five thousand feet. Would you call those earthed? Lightning has also quite an affinity for metal.' He paused. 'Of course, you have a generator for your searchlight, almost certainly a petrol generator and as you wouldn't want to be asphyxiated by carbon monoxide fumes you wouldn't have it inside a coach. Tell me, do you also use the generator to recharge your coach batteries - through a transformer, I mean?'
There was the barest pause then Branson said: 'Yes.'
Carter sighed. 'Must I do all the thinking for you, Branson? There you have a massive great lump of metal solidly earthed to the roadway and directly connected to both searchlight and scanner. What a target for any wandering lightning flash. Would there be anything more?'
'Yes. Pass the word that I want the TV cameras in position and ready at nine a.m.'
Carter hung up. Richards said approvingly: 'Quite a performance for the crack of dawn. Takes more than a few stars to make a general, I suppose. I have a feeling that our Branson must be feeling more than a little harried by this time. And when shall we be giving our own TV performance?'
Hagenbach said: 'Directly after Branson's, I should think. Nine-thirtyish. Moment of maximum psychological impact and all that sort of thing.'
'As our - ah - anchorman, you have your lines ready?'
Hagenbach didn't deign to reply.
Branson said: 'Well, you go along with that?"
'Carter's no fool, that's sure.' Chrysler was uncertain. 'But if it were lightning transmitted through the generator why didn't it just jump from one electrode to the next instead of making a hole in the searchlight glass? I mean, where was it going?'
'I'm afraid it's not my field.'
'I'm beginning to think it's not mine either. But I'm damned sure there's something fishy afoot.' He hesitated. 'Maybe I wasn't so bright with that one but I've another idea, Mr Branson.'
'Ideas are what I need. Myself, I'm fresh out of them.' Coming from Branson, Chrysler thought, that was quite a remarkable statement.
'I do my best, but I'm no Van Effen. Besides, I feel just about all in. Even you can't keep going twenty-four hours a day. You need a new lieutenant - not to say a fresh one-and with respects to my colleagues, well -'
'Out with it'
'Now that our men are in possession of the Mount Tamal-pais radar stations, I think Parker is quite capable of looking after things himself. I suggest you send a chopper to bring in Giscard. You know him even better than I do. He's tough, he's a leader, he's resourceful, he doesn't panic and in some ways he's very astute: by that I mean, all respects to you, Mr Branson, he's never seen the inside of a court-room- It would take a helluva load off your back.'
'You're quite right, of course. If I didn't need a break I should have thought of that myself. Get hold of either Johnson or Bradley-no, Bradley: Johnson had guard duty. Tell him to move right away. I'll get on the phone and tell Giscard. I'll also warn our friends ashore what's going to happen to them if they try to interfere. Not that they should need telling by now.'
Branson made his calls, winced at the clattering roar as the Sikorsky lifted cleanly off the bridge and headed north. At least Carter had been telling the truth about one thing: the helicopter hadn't been subjected to the attentions of a laser beam.
Revson said to April: 'I don't want to sound indelicate but wouldn't you like to pay a visit to the ladies' - ah - powder room?'
She stared at him. 'What on earth for? Oh, well, you'll have a reason.'
'Yes. Just repeat this after me.' She repeated it four times then said: 'Is that all?'
'Yes.'
'Once would have been enough.'
"Well, you never know what the help's like these days.'
"Why can't you do it yourself?'
'It's urgent and I want it done now. There are four ladies aboard this bridge and at least fifty men. Your chances of privacy and seclusion are all that higher.'
'And what are you going to do? You look pretty scruffy to me.'
To re-phrase the old song, I've left my razor in San Francisco. Then breakfast. The wagon's due at seven-thirty.'
'I wish I had an appetite.' She rose and spoke briefly to Yonnie who bared his teeth in a fearful grimace that he probably regarded as being a charmingly graceful assent.
The transistor in front of Hagenbach buzzed. He pulled it towards him and raised the volume. The other six men bent forward in eager expectancy. This call could be from only one source. They were wrong.
'Mr Hagenbach?' A feminine voice.
'Speaking.'
'April Wednesday.'
Hagenbach took it with remarkable aplomb. 'Carry on, my dear.'
'Mr Revson wants to know as soon as possible if it's possible to reduce the last resort to a non-lethal level. He wants you to have as much time as possible to try. That's why I'm calling now.'
'I'll try. I can't guarantee.'
"He says to lay down a pattern of smoke bombs one minute before. He says hell radio you one minute before that.'
'And I want to talk to Revson just as urgently. Why isn't he doing this himself?'
'Because I'm in the ladies' toilets. Somebody's coming.' The voice trailed away in a whisper and the transceiver went dead.
Hagenbach called to the communication desk: The armoury. Emergency. General Carter. I'm going to need your help on this one.'
'The ladies' toilet,' Quarry said unbelievingly. 'Are there no depths to which this man of yours won't descend?'
'Be reasonable. You didn't expect him to be there himself. Knowing Revson, I rate that an "A" for gentlemanly conduct.'
Vice-President Richards spoke slowly and distinctly. 'Up in the hospital you told us that you didn't know what "the last resort" was.'
Hagenbach looked at him coldly. 'Vice-Presidents should know better. No one has ever become the head of the FBI without being a master of prevarication.'
Breakfast arrived on mid-bridge at seven-thirty. Branson passed it up which, in view of the shock awaiting his nervous system, was perhaps as well. At seven-forty-five Bradley made a perfect touch-down in his Sikorsky. Giscard, grim-faced and purposeful, stepped down on to the bridge not, oddly enough, looking at all incongruous in his police sergeant's uniform. He probably had more photographs taken of him in the next five minutes than he'd had in the whole of his previous existence-which would not have been difficult: Giscard, as a purely professional safeguard, made it his business never to have his photograph taken. But even the redoubtable Giscard had come too late. At eight o'clock an already troubled Branson-no hint of concern showed in his composed and confident face - received his first and far from faint intimations of mortality.
Branson was deep in conversation with a fresh and confident Giscard when Reston, duty guard on the Presidential coach, came hurrying up. 'Phone, Mr Branson.'
Giscard said: 'I'll take care of things, Mr Branson. You try to get some rest' He touched him lightly on the shoulder. There's nothing to worry about.' Giscard had no means of knowing it but it was the most way-out prophecy he'd ever made or would ever be likely to make again.
It was Hagenbach on the phone. He said: 'I've bad news for you, Branson. Kyronis doesn't want to see you. Not now. Not ever.'
'Who?' Branson saw the marbled knuckles on the hand holding the phone and made a conscious effort to relax.
'K-Y-R-O-N-I-S. -The president of that Caribbean island paradise of yours. I'm afraid you're not welcome.'
'I don't know what your talking about."
'I'm afraid you do. And I'm afraid your world-wide publicity campaign has scared the poor man out of his wits. We didn't find him, he called us. He's on the international line right now. Shall I patch him in?"
Branson didn't say whether he should patch him in or not. A high-pitched voice with a pronounced Caribbean accent came to his ear.
'You fool, Branson. You madman. You wide-mouthed boaster. You had to tell the world that you were going to the Caribbean. You had to tell the world that it had a prison stockade in one corner. You had to tell the world that it had no extradition treaty with the United States. You damn fool, how long do you think it would take American Intelligence to piece that together? I called them before they came calling on me. Their fleet has already moved out from their Guantanamo base in Cuba. Their C54s are lined up on the runways in Fort Lauderdale with God knows how many paratroopers and marines standing by. They could take our little principality over in ten minutes and your Vice-President has assured me that they would consider it a pleasure.' Kyronis stopped to take what appeared to be his first breath since he started his tirade.
Branson said nothing.
'Megalomania, Branson. Megalomania. I always warned you it was the one thing that could bring you down. Sheer, bloody megalomania.'
Branson hung up the phone.
TWELVE
Giscard took the news with remarkable aplomb. 'So Kyronis has ratted on us. It's not the end of the world and I don't see that it changes a single thing. I think this is just part of a war of nerves, attrition, you know, psychological warfare. Okay; so you've been here - what is it? - twenty-three hours and I don't know what the strains have been like. But I'm sure of this - with no other way of getting at you they're trying to pressurize you into making a mistake. It's kind of like a poker game but with no cards in their.hands all they can do is bluff.' Giscard nodded to the Presidential coach. 'What's bluff when you hold all the cards in your hands?"
'There speaks the voice of reason, is that it?' Branson smiled. 'You forget that I know Kyronis's voice.'
'Sure you do. I don't doubt it was Kyronis. I also don't doubt that the Government, through some fast checking by the CIA or the FBI, got to him first'
'What makes you think that?'
'Because Kyronis has your VHF number. He could have radioed you direct instead of causing all this hullabaloo. But that wouldn't have suited our friends' department of psychological warfare.'
'And I've had an idea, Mr Branson.' Chrysler had shed much of his weariness since Giscard's arrival. 'Who needs Kyronis? The Presidential Boeing can reach half a dozen countries anywhere in the world that have no extradition treaty with the USA. A dozen, for all I know. But there's no need to go further than the Caribbean. You've been thinking big all along, Mr Branson. Now's the time to keep on thinking big.'
Branson rubbed his forehead. Think big aloud. Someone has to this morning."
'Havana. There's no extradition treaty with them. Sure, there's an agreement to repatriate hijackers, but no one's going to return the hijacker of the Presidential Boeing -especially if the President has a pistol to his head. Okay, so the US is prepared to take over Kyronis's tiny islet. Cuba is a vastly different proposition. Castro has a first-class army, airforce and navy. Any attempt to get the President out would lead to nothing short of full-scale war. And don't forget that Castro is Moscow's blue-eyed boy. An armed invasion of Cuba would bring a violent reaction and I don't think the US would be prepared to risk an eyeball-to-eyeball nuclear confrontation over a miserable half billion dollars.'
Branson nodded slowly. 'Curiously enough, that was where Van Effen wanted to go. And for much the same reasons.'
'And can't you see how Castro would just love it? He'd go on TV and weep and wail and wring his hands and say how much he'd love to be of help but his hands are hopelessly tied. Then when the cameras are switched off he falls about the place laughing/
Branson said: 'Gentlemen, you have restored my faith in human nature. At least my own nature. Havana it is. Now. Our next show is at nine. All the tackle and explosives as before. Peters can drive the electric truck as before. Bartlett and Boyard fixed the last lot - let's give Reston and Harrison a go." Branson smiled. They think they're better than Bartlett and Boyard and should have had the privilege of the first attempt. See they carry walkie-talkies. Which reminds me. Chrysler, I want to be in a position where I can lay hands on a telephone wherever I happen to be. I don't want to have to keep running to the President's coach. I just want a direct line to Hagenbach and company. You can fix one up in our coach?'