The Golden Gate (22 page)

At seven minutes past ten a red glow appeared to the south-west. Revson was almost certainly the first person on the bridge to notice it but he thought it impolitic to draw attention to the fact. Within half a minute the dark oily flames were at least fifty feet high.
It was Bartlett who first called attention to this phenomenon and he did so in a very emphatic fashion. He stood in the open doorway behind the driver's seat and shouted: 'Jesus, would you look at that!'
Almost everyone immediately started awake and looked. They couldn't see much. Rain still lashed the outside of the windows and the insides were pretty well steamed up. Like a bunch of lemmings hell-bent on a watery suicide they poured out through the door. The view was certainly very much better from there and well worth the seeing. The flames, already a hundred feet high and topped by billowing clouds of oily smoke, were increasing by the second. still of the same lemming-like mind and totally oblivious of the rain, they began to run across the bridge to obtain a better view. The occupants of the Presidential and rear coaches were doing exactly the same. Nothing attracts people more than the prospects of a good-going disaster.
Revson, though among the first out of the lead coach, made no attempt to join them. He walked unhurriedly round the front of the coach, walked back a few feet, stooped and recovered the oil-skin package. No one paid any attention to him, even had he been visible beyond the bulk of the coach, because they were all running in and looking towards the opposite direction. He removed the torch from the package, angled it forty-five degrees to his right and made his SOS signal, just once: he then pocketed the torch and made his more leisurely way across to the other side of the bridge, glancing occasionally over his left shoulder. Half-way across he saw a rocket, a not very spectacular one, curving up to the south-east.
He reached the far crash barrier and joined O'Hare who was standing some little way apart from the others. O'Hare said: 'You'd make quite an arsonist.'
That's just by the way of introduction. Wait until you see the next one. Not to mention the fireworks. Sheer pyromania, that's what it is. Let's look at the front end of the rear coach.'
They looked. A full minute passed and nothing happened. O'Hare said:'Hm. Worrisome?'
'No. Just running a little bit behind schedule, I should think. Don't even blink.'
O'Hare didn't and so he saw it-a tiny intense spark of bluish-white that could have lasted only milli-seconds. O'Hare said: 'You saw it too?'
'Yes. Far less than I thought it would be.'
'End of radio-wave scanner?'
'No question.'
'Would anyone inside the coach have heard it?'
That's academic. There's no one inside the rear coach.
They're all across here. But there is some sign of activity at the rear of the Presidential coach. A dollar gets a cent that Branson's asking some questions.'
Branson was indeed asking some questions. Chrysler by his side, he was talking forcefully into a telephone.
Then find out and find out now.'
'I'm trying to.' It was Hendrix and he sounded weary. 'I can be held responsible for a lot of things but I can't be held responsible for the forces of nature. Don't you realize this is the worst lightning storm the city has had in years? There are dozens of outbreaks of small fires and the Firemaster tells me his force is fully extended.'
'I'm waiting, Hendrix.'
'So am I. And God only knows how you imagine this fire in Lincoln Park can affect you. Sure, it's giving off clouds of oil smoke, but the wind's from the west and the smoke won't come anywhere near you. You're jumping at shadows, Branson. Wait. A report.' There was a brief silence then Hendrix went on: Three parked road oil tankers. One had its loading hose partly on the ground so it was earthed. Witnesses saw this tanker being struck by lightning. Two fire engines are there and the fire is under control. Satisfied?'
Branson hung up without replying.
The fire was indeed under control. Firemen, taking their convincing time, were now smothering the barrels of blazing oil with foam extinguishers. Fifteen minutes after the fire had first begun-or been noticed-it was extinguished. Reluctantly, almost-they were now so wet that they couldn't possibly get any wetter-the watchers by the west barrier turned and made their way back to the coaches. But their evening's entertainment had only just begun.
Another fire bloomed to the north. It spread and grew with even greater rapidity than the previous one, becoming so bright and intense that even the lights in the concrete towers of down-town San Francisco seemed pale by comparison. Branson, who had made his way back to his own coach, now ran hack to the Presidential coach. A bell was ringing in the communications section in the rear. Branson snatched the phone. 'It was Hendrix.
Hendrix said: 'Nice to forestall you for once. No, we are not responsible for this one either. Why in the hell should we set off a fire where all the smoke is being carried away from you east over the bay? The meteorological officer says that there's a lightning strike once every three or four seconds. And it's not cloud to cloud stuff, it's mainly cloud to earth. On the law of averages, he says, something combustible has to go in one in twenty. I'll keep you posted.'
For the first time, Hendrix hung the phone up on him. Branson slowly replaced his own. For the first time, lines of strain were beginning to etch themselves round the corners of his mouth.
The blue-veined flames were towering now to a height of six or seven hundred feet, as high as the highest building in the city. The smoke given off was dense and bitingly acrid, which is generally the case when several hundred used tyres are added to an oil-based fire. But half a dozen giant fire engines and as many again mobile foam wagons were in very close attendance indeed. On the bridge the more nervous of the newspapermen and cameramen were speculating as to whether the fire would spread to the city itself, a rather profitless speculation as the wind was entirely in the wrong direction. Mayor Morrison stood by the eastern crash barrier, fists clenched, tears streaming down his face, cursing with a nonstop fluid monotony.
O'Hare said to Revson: 'I wonder if the King and the Prince see the irony in all this. After all, it's probably their own oil that they're seeing going up.' Revson made no reply and O'Hare touched his arm. 'Sure you haven't overdone things a bit this time, old boy?' In moments of stress, his English education background tended to show through.
'I wasn't the one with the matches.' Revson smiled. 'No worry, they know what they're about. What I am looking forward to seeing now is the firework display.'
In the Presidential communications centre the phone rang again. Branson had it in a second.
'Hendrix. It's an oil storage tank in Fort Mason.' There was no oil storage tank in Fort Mason, but Branson was not a Californian far less a San Franciscan and it was highly unlikely that he was aware of that. 'I've just been on the radio to the Fire Commissioner. He says its bark k worse than its bite and that there's no danger.'
'And what the hell is that, then?' Branson's voice was a shout, his normal monolithic cairn in at least temporary abeyance.
'What's what?'
Hendrix's calm served only to deepen Branson's apprehension. 'Fireworks! Dozens of them! Fireworks! Can't you see them'''
'Not from where I sit I can't Wait' Hendrix went to the rear door of the communications wagon. Branson hadn't been exaggerating. The sky was indeed full of fireworks, of every conceivable colour and design, at least half of them exploding in glittering falling stars. If Branson had been his usual calm and observant self, Hendrix reflected, he might have noticed that the fireworks, nearly all of a medium trajectory, were firing to the north-east which was the shortest distance between where they were coming from and the nearest stretch of water. All of them, without exception, would fizzle out in the waters of San Francisco Bay. Hendrix returned to the phone.
They appear to be coming from the Chinatown area and sure as hell they aren't celebrating the Chinese New Year. I'll call back.'
Revson said to O'Hare: Take your white coat off. It's too
conspicuous or will be when it gets dark.' He gave O'Hare
his white felt pen. 'You know how to use this?' 'Depress the clip and press the button on top.' 'Yes. If anyone comes too near -well, aim for the face.
You'll have to extract the needle.' 'Me and my medical ethics.'
Branson picked up the phone. 'Yes?9
'It was Chinatown. A firework factory there was struck. That damned thunder and lightning doesn't just seem to want to go away. God knows how many more outbreaks of fire we'll have tonight'
Branson left the coach and joined Van Effen by the east barrier. Van Effen turned.
'Not often you see a sight like this, Mr Branson.'
'I'm afraid I'm not in the mood to enjoy it'
'I've a feeling that this is being staged for our benefit'
'How could this possibly affect us? Nothing's changed as far as we're concerned. Don't let's forget our presidential and royal hostages.'
"Even so-'
'Even so your antennae are tingling?'
Tingling! They're jumping. I don't know what's going to happen next but I've the feeling that I'm not going to enjoy it'
It was at that moment that the bridge and the whole of northern San Francisco blacked out.
For some few seconds the silence on the bridge was total. The darkness wasn't total but it came fairly close to being that way. The only illumination came from the faint lighting from the coaches-to conserve the batteries most of the individual reading lights were out, the others dimmed-and the orange-red glow from the distant oil fire. Van Effen said softly: 'Your antennae, Mr Branson. You know you could make a fortune hiring them out.'
'Start up the generator. We'll have the searchlights on the north and south towers. See that the self-propelled guns are ready, loaded, crews standing by. Three men with submachine-guns to be by each gun. I'll go south, you north and alert them. After that, you're in charge of both. I'll try to find out from that bastard Hendrix what this is all about'
'You don't seriously expect a frontal assault, Mr Branson."
'I frankly don't know what the hell to expect. What I do know is that we take no chances. Hurry!'
Branson ran south. As he passed the rear coach he shouted: 'Chrysler! The generator. Quick, for God's sake.'
The generator was running before either Branson or Van Effen reached the respective defensive positions. The powerful searchlights came on illuminating both towers: the reverse effect was to plunge the central portion of the bridge into even deeper gloom than before. The guns were readied, machine-gunners in close attendance. Van Effen stayed where he was. Branson ran back towards the central coach. But both Branson and Van Effen were concentrating their efforts on the wrong things and in the wrong directions. They should have been where Revson was.
Revson was crouched in the nose section of the leading helicopter, the variably shuttered flashlight in his hand reduced to scarcely more than a pin-hole of light. He had had no trouble in locating the triggering device: it was between the pilot's seat and the one opposite to it.
With the screwdriver blade of his knife Revson had already removed the four screws that secured the top-plate and the top-plate itself. It was a simple enough device. On the outside of the device was a vertical lever padlocked in position in its top position. When this was depressed it brought a copper arm down between two spring-loaded interior copper arms, so completing the circuit. Twin pieces of flex led from those last two to two crocodile spring-loaded clamps, each secured to the terminals of two nickel-cadmium Nife cells connected up in series. That would produce a total of only three volts, little enough, one would have thought, to activate the radio trigger: but that Branson would have it all expertly calculated out in advance Revson did not for a moment doubt.
He didn't bother to sever or disconnect anything. He merely removed the crocodile clips from the terminals, lifted the Nife cells free, broke the connection between them and stuffed one in each jacket pocket Had he disconnected or severed anything Branson could have carried out some sort of jury rig: but Revson would have wagered heavily that Branson carried no spare Nife cells. There was no earthly reason why he should have done. He began to replace the cover-plate.
Hendrix sounded angry, a man near the breaking point of exasperation. 'What do you think I am, Branson? A bloody magician? I just sit here and snap my fingers, and presto! all the lights in the north half of the city go out? I've told you and I tell you again that two of the main transformers have gone out. How I don't know yet, but you don't have to be a genius to know that our old friend from the skies above has been at work again. What did you expect us to do - throw in a tank regiment against you? We knew you had those heavy guns and searchlights - and your priceless hostages. Think we're morons? I'm beginning to think that you're the moron. I'm beginning to think that you're losing your grip. I'll call back.' Hendrix hung up. Branson did the same, almost smashing the rest in the process. It was the second occasion in a very brief space of time that it had been suggested to him that he was losing his grip. His lips were compressed. It was a suggestion he didn't much care for, far less care to contemplate. He remained seated where he was.
Revson closed the helicopter door softly and dropped lightly to the ground. A few paces away he could see O'Hare silhouetted against the still towering but slowly diminishing flames. He called his name softly and O'Hare approached.
'Let's walk to the west side,' Revson said. 'No shooting practice?'
'Nobody as much as looked at the place, far less came near it. Even if they had looked, I doubt whether they would have seen anything. After staring so long at that fire and the fireworks, looking back to the centre of the bridge would have been like looking into total darkness. You know, no night sight.' He handed Revson the white pen. 'Have your little toy back. I remain ethically unbent'
'And you can have your flashlight back.' Revson handed it over. '! suggest you return it to your ambulance. At the same time T suggest we might retrieve that pistol and give it to General Cartland. I also suggest you give it to him. I don't want to be seen being too chummy with the General. Tell him not to use it 'I'll he gets the word. Ever seen one of those before?' He took a Nife cell from his pocket and handed it to O'Hare who peered at it in the near darkness.