Chrysler made his way to the rear coach and sat by the driver's seat in front of the console. He made a switch and lifted a single ear-phone. Apparently satisfied with what he heard he replaced the ear-phone and made another switch. A tape recorder started humming.
April Wednesday said to Revson: 'Well, what did you make of that?'
'I'd love to see the Nielsen ratings when they re-run that later in the day.' They were walking to and fro along the western or deserted side of the bridge. 'What a cast. Rehearsals would have ruined it.'
'You know I don't mean that'
'I know. He's quite a boy, our Peter Branson. Highly intelligent — but we know that already — all the angles figured, every eventuality taken care of far in advance, he'd have made an excellent general. You could — at least I could — almost like and admire the guy, except for the fact that, the odd half billion apart, he plainly does this for kicks, he's a moral vacuum and the ordinary standards of right and wrong just do not hold good for him, they simply don't exist. There's something strangely empty about him.'
'His bank-book isn't going to be. But I didn't mean that either.'
'I know that too. In answer to your unspoken question, yes he has us helpless.'
'Do you intend to do anything about it?'
'Intentions are one thing, achievements another.'
'Well, you just can't walk up and down there doing nothing. After what you told me this morning — '
'I know what I told you this morning. A little respectful silence, if you please. Can't you see I'm thinking?'
After some little time he said: 'I've thought'
'I can't wait.'
'Have you ever been sick?'
She lifted her brows which had the effect of making the huge green eyes larger than ever. With those eyes, Revson reflected, she could wreck a cardinals' council in nothing flat. To keep his mind on the work on hand, he looked away. She said: 'Of course I've been sick. Everybody's been sick some time.'
'I mean really sick. Hospital. Like that.'
'No. Not ever.'
'You're going to be very soon. In hospital. Sick. If you're still prepared to help, that is.'
'I've told you that already.'
'Asperity ill becomes a lovely lady. There's quite an element of risk. If you're caught, Branson would make you talk. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money to have at stake. You'd talk very quickly.'
'Even more quickly than that. I'm not one of your wartime resistance heroines and I don't like pain. Caught at what?'
'Delivering a letter for me. Leave me alone for a few minutes, will you.'
Revson unshipped his camera and took some still shots, of the coaches, helicopters, anti-aircraft guns and guards, trying as much as possible to keep the southern tower and the San Franciscan skyline in the background, clearly a dedicated craftsman at work. He then turned his attention and lens towards the ambulance and the white- jacketed doctor leaning against it.
The doctor said: 'Instant fame for me, is it?'
'What else? Everyone wants to be immortalized.'
'Not this doctor. And an ambulance you can film anywhere.'
'You need psychiatric help.' Revson lowered his camera. 'Don't you know that it's positively anti-social in this country not to want to hog the camera lens? My name's Revson.'
'O'Hare.' O'Hare was youthful, cheerful, red-haired and his Irish ancestry lay no more than a generation behind him.
'And what do you think of this lovely little set-up?'
'For quotation?'
'I'm a cameraman.'
'Aw, hell, quote me if you want. I'd just love to belt smarty-pants's ears off.'
'It figures.'
'What?'
'The red hair.'
'I'd feel the same if I were black, blond or bald as a coot. Arrogant smoothies do something to me. And I don't like the way he needles the President and publicly humiliates him.'
'You're a President man, then?'
'Hell, he's a Californian, I'm a Californian, I voted for him last time and I'll do so next time. Okay, so he's stuffy and over-does the kindly uncle bit but he's the best we have. Not that that says a great deal-but, well, he's really a decent old stick.'
'Decent old stick?'
'Don't blame me, I was educated in England.'
'Would you like to help him?'
O'Hare looked at Revson thoughtfully. 'Funny question. Sure I would.'
'Would you help me to help him?'
'How can you help him?'
'I'll try and I'll tell you how — if you say 'yes', that is.'
'And what makes you think you can help more than anyone else?'
'Special qualifications. I'm a Government employee.'
'So what's with the camera, then?'
'And I always thought it took a fair amount of intelligence to qualify as a doctor. What do you expect me to be carrying — a foot-wide plaque on my chest saying 'I am an FBI agent'?'
O'Hare smiled, but only faintly. 'Well, no. But the story is that all the FBI men were left asleep in a down- town garage. Except for a few on the press coach who were rousted out and marched off the bridge.'
'We don't put all our eggs in one basket.'
'And agents don't usually disclose their identity either.'
'Not this agent. I'd disclose my identity to anyone if I were in trouble. And I'm in trouble now.'
'As long as it's not unethical — '
'I wouldn't bring a blush to the Hippocratic cheek. That guaranteed, would you consider it unethical to help put Branson behind bars?'
'Is that guaranteed too?
'No.'
'Count on me. What do you want done?'
'We have a lady photographer with us who is young, rather beautiful, by the unlikely name of April Wednesday.'
'Ha!' O'Hare brightened considerably. 'The green-eyed blonde.'
'Indeed. I want her to take a message ashore, if that's the word, for me and bring me back an answer within a couple of hours. I propose to code this message, film it and give you the spool. It's about half the size of a cigarette and I'm sure you can easily conceal it in one of the many tubes and cartons you must carry about with you. Anyway, no one questions a doctor's integrity.'
'Don't they, now?' O'Hare spoke with some feeling.
'There's no hurry. I'll have to wait till Messrs Milton, Quarry and Hendrix have been escorted off the bridge. By which time, too, I expect that the trusty Mr Hagenbach will have arrived from wherever he has been lurking.'
'Hagenbach? You mean this old twister — '
'You are referring to my respected employer. Now, this is just an ambulance. Apart from your usual medical kit, heart unit, oxygen kit to stitch together the misguided who step out of line, I don't suppose you carry anything much more sophisticated.' O'Hare shook his head.
'So you don't have any radiological gear or clinical investigative equipment and most certainly not operational facilities, even if you did have an anaesthetist, which you haven't. I suggest then that, when Miss Wednesday takes
