that was slight enough. One or two were making the customary laborious effort to rise when Van Effen mounted the steps.
‘Please relax, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Just a slight delay’ Such is the authority of even a white coat — in a street accident a crowd will make way for a man in a butcher’s apron – that everybody subsided. Van Effen produced an unpleasant-looking weapon, a double-barrelled 12-bore shotgun with most of the barrel and stock removed to make for easier transport, if not accuracy. ‘I am afraid this is what you might call a hold-up or hijack or kidnap. I don’t suppose it matters very much what you call it. Just please remain where you are.’
‘Good God in heaven!’ The President stared at Van Effen’s moonface as if he were a creature from outer space. His eyes, as if drawn magnetically, went to the King and the Prince, then he returned his incredulous, outraged gaze to Van Effen. ‘Are you insane? Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know you’re pointing a gun at the President of the United States?’
‘I know. You can’t help being what you are any more than I can help being what I am. As for pointing guns at Presidents, it’s a long if not very honourable tradition in our country. Please do not give any trouble.’ Van Effen looked directly at General Cartland – he’d had him under indirect observation from the moment he had entered the coach. ‘General, it is known that you always carry a gun. Please let me have it. Please do not be clever. Your .22 can be nasty enough if it is accurate enough: this whippet will blast a hole the size of your hand through your chest. You are not the man, I know, to confuse courage with suicide.’
Cartland smiled faintly, nodded, produced a small, black, narrow automatic and handed it across.
Van Effen said: Thank you. I’m afraid you will have to remain seated for the moment at least. You have only my word for it, but if you offer no violence you will receive none.’
A profound silence descended. The King, eyes closed and hands folded across his chest, appeared to be communing either with himself or with the All-powerful. Suddenly he opened his eyes, looked at the President and said: ‘Just how safe are the vaults in Fort Knox?’
‘You’d better believe me, Hendrix,’ Branson said. He was talking into a hand-held microphone. ‘We have the President, the King and the Prince. If you will wait a minute or two I’ll have the President himself confirm that to you. Meantime, please don’t attempt anything so stupid or rash as to try to approach us. Let me give you a demonstration. I assume you have some patrol cars near the south entrance and you are in radio contact with them?’
Hendrix didn’t look like anyone’s conception of a Chief of Police. He looked like a professorial refugee from the campus of the nearby university. He was tall, slender, dark, slightly stooped and invariably immaculately groomed and conservatively dressed. A great number of people temporarily or permanently deprived of their freedom would have freely if blasphemously attested to the fact that he was very very intelligent indeed. There was no more brilliant or brilliantly effective policeman in the country. At that moment, however, that fine intelligence was in temporary abeyance. He felt stunned and had about him the look of a man who has just seen all his nightmares come true.
He said: ‘I am.’
‘Very well. Wait.’
Branson turned and made a signal to the two men at the rear of the coach. There was a sudden explosive whoosh from the recoilless missile weapon mounted at the rear. Three seconds later a cloud of dense grey smoke erupted between the pylons of the south tower. Branson spoke into the microphone. ‘Well?’
‘Some kind of explosion,’ Hendrix said. His voice was remarkably steady. ‘Lots of smoke, if it is smoke.’
‘A nerve gas. Not permanently damaging, but incapacitating. Takes about ten minutes’ time before it oxidizes. If we have to use it and a breeze comes up from the north-west, north or northeast – well, it will be your responsibility, you understand.’
‘I understand.’
‘Conventional gas-masks are useless against it. Do you understand that also?’
‘I understand.’
‘We have a similar weapon covering the northern end of the bridge. You will inform police squads and units of the armed forces of the inadvisability of attempting to move out on to the bridge. You understand that too?’ ‘Yes.’
‘You will have been informed of the presence of two naval helicopters hovering over the bridge?’
‘Yes.’ The rather hunted look had left Hendrix’s face and his mind was clearly back into top gear. ‘I find it rather puzzling, I must say.’
‘It needn’t be. They are in our hands. Have an immediate alarm put through to all local army and naval air commanders. Tell them if any attempt is made to dispatch fighters to shoot down those helicopters they will have very unpleasant effects on the President and his friends. Tell them that we shall know immediately whenever any such plane does lift off. The Mount Tamalpais radar stations are in our hands.’
‘Good God!’ Hendrix was back to square one.
‘He won’t help. They are manned by competent radar operators. No attempt will be made to retake those stations whether by land or airborne assault. If such an assault is made we are aware that we have no means of preventing it. However, I do not think that the President, King or Prince would look kindly upon any individual who was responsible for depriving them of, say, their right ears. Please do not think that I am not serious. We shall deliver them, by hand, in a sealed plastic bag.’
‘No such attempt will be made.’ Captain Campbell, a burly, sandy-haired, red-faced and normally jovial character whom Hendrix regarded as his right-hand man, regarded Hendrix with some surprise, not because of what he had just said but because it was the first time he had ever seen Hendrix with beads of sweat on his brow. In an unconscious gesture Campbell reached up and touched his own forehead, then looked with a feeling of grave disquiet at the dampened back of his hand.
Branson said: ‘I hope you mean what you say. I will contact you shortly.’
‘It will be in order if I come down to the bridge? It would appear that I have to set up some kind of communications headquarters and that seems the most logical place for it to be.’
‘That will be in order. But do not move out on to the bridge. And please prevent any private cars from entering the Presidio. Violence is the very last thing we want but if some arises I do not wish innocent people to suffer.’
‘You are very considerate.’ Hendrix sounded, perhaps justifiably, more than a little bitter.
Branson smiled and replaced the microphone.
The gas inside the lead coach had vanished but the effect it had had on the occupants had not. All were still profoundly unconscious. Some two or three had fallen into the aisle without, apparently, having sustained any injuries in the process. For the most part, however, they just remained slumped in their seats or had fallen forward against the backs of the seats in front of them.
Yonnie and Bartlett moved among them but not in the capacity of ministering angels. Bartlett, at twenty-six, was the youngest of Branson’s men, and looked every inch a fresh-faced college boy which he every inch was not. They were searching every person in the coach, and searching them very thoroughly indeed, those who were being subjected to this indignity being in no position to object. The lady journalists were spared this but their handbags were meticulously examined. It said
