Branson flipped a switch as another buzzer rang.
'P5,' the speaker said. 'On schedule. Thirty minutes.'
'Thank you.'
Branson made another switch.
'P2?' The code for Johnson and Bradley.
'Yes?'
'You can go now.'
'We go now.' The voice was Johnson's. He and Bradley, immaculate in their naval air uniforms, were sauntering casually along in the direction of the US Naval Air Station Alameda. Both men were carrying smooth shiny flight bags into which they had transferred the contents of the valise. As they approached the entrance they increased their pace. By the time they reached the two guards at the entrance they were giving the impression of two men who were in a considerable hurry. They showed their cards to one of the guards.
'Lieutenant Ashbridge, Lieutenant Martinez. Of course. You're very late, sir.'
'I know. Well go straight to the choppers.'
'I'm afraid you can't do that, sir. Commander Eysenck wants you to report to his office at once.' The sailor lowered his voice confidentially.' The Commander doesn't sound very happy to me, sir.'
'Damn!' Johnson said, and meant it. 'Where's his office?'
'Second door on the left, sir.'
Johnson and Bradley hurried there, knocked and entered. A young petty officer seated behind his desk pursed his lips and nodded silently towards the door to his right. His demeanour indicated that he had no desire whatsoever to participate in the painful scene that was about to follow. Johnson knocked and entered, head down and apparently searching for something in his flight bag. The precaution was needless. In the well-known demoralization ploy of senior officers deepening their intimidation of apprehensive junior officers, Eysenck kept on making notes on a pad before him. Bradley closed the door. Johnson placed the flight bag on the edge of the desk. His right hand was concealed behind it. So was the aerosol gas can.
'So kind of you to turn up.' Eysenck spoke in a flat drawling accent: Annapolis had clearly failed to have any effect on his Boston upbringing. 'You had your strict orders.' He raised his head in what would normally have been a slow and effective gesture. 'Your explanations — ' He broke off, eyes widening, but still not suspecting anything untoward. 'You're not Ashbridge and Martinez.'
'No, we're not, are we?'
It was clear that Eysenck had become suddenly aware that there was something very very far untoward. His hand stretched out for a desk button but Johnson already had his thumb on his. Eysenck slumped forward against his desk. Johnson nodded to Bradley who opened the door to the outer office and as he closed it behind him it could be seen that his hand was fumbling in the depths of his bag. Johnson moved behind the desk, studied the buttons below the phone, pressed one as he lifted the phone.
Tower?'
'Sir?'
'Immediate clearance Lieutenants Ashbridge and Martinez.' It was a very creditable imitation of Eysenck's Boston accent. Branson again called P3, the two watchers by the garage.
'And now?'
'Filling up.'
The three buses inside the garage were indeed filling up. Two of them, indeed, had their complements of passengers and were ready to go. The coach that had been booby-trapped was given over mainly to newspapermen, wire service men and cameramen, among them four women, three of indeterminate age, the other young. On a platform at the rear of the bus were three mounted ciné cameras, for this was the coach that led the motorcade and the cameras would at all times have an excellent view of the Presidential coach which was to follow immediately behind. Among the passengers in this coach were three men who wouldn't have recognized a typewriter or a camera if it had dropped on their toes but who would have had no difficulty whatsoever in differentiating between a Walther, Colt, Biretti, Smith & Wesson and other such paraphernalia generally regarded as superfluous to the needs of the communications media. This was known as the lead coach.
But there was one passenger in this coach who would have recognized a camera if he had seen it — he was, in fact, carrying a highly complicated apparatus — but who would also have had no difficulty at all in differentiating between a Walther, Colt, Biretti and Smith & Wesson, any of which he was legally entitled to carry and not infrequently did. On this occasion, however, he was unarmed-he considered it unnecessary; between them his colleagues constituted a veritable traveling arsenal-but he did carry a most unusual item of equipment, a beautifully miniaturized and transistorized transceiver radio concealed in the false bottom of his camera. His name was Revson and as he had repeatedly proved in the past, in the service of his country although his country knew nothing of this-a man of quite remarkable accomplishments.
The rear coach was also well occupied, again by newspaper men and men with no interest in newspapers, although in this case the ratio was inversed. The greatly outnumbered journalists, although they realized that the Presidential coach would soon, in terms of the realizable assets of its passengers, be nothing less than a rolling Fort Knox, wondered if it were necessary to have quite so many FBI agents around.
There were only three people aboard the Presidential coach, all crew members. The white-coated driver, his 'receive' switch depressed, was waiting for instructions to come through the fascia speaker. Behind the bar, an extraordinarily pretty brunette, who looked like an amalgam of all those 'Fly me' airline advertisements, was trying to look demure and inconspicuous and failing miserably. At the rear, the radio operator was already seated in front of his communications console.
A buzzer rang in Branson's coach.
'P5,' the speaker said. 'On schedule. Twenty minutes.'
A second buzzer rang.
'P4,' the speaker said. 'All okay.'
'Excellent.' For once Branson permitted himself a slight feeling of relief. The take-over of the Tamalpais radar stations had been essential to his plans. 'Scanners manned?'
'Affirmative.'
A third buzzer rang.
'PI?' Johnson's voice was hurried. 'P2. Can we go now?'
'No. Trouble?'
'Some.' Johnson, seated at the helicopter controls, engines still not started, watched a man emerge from Eysenck's office and break into a run, rounding the corner of the building. That could only mean, Johnson realized, that he was going to look through Eysenck's office window and that could only mean that he had failed to open the door which he and Bradley had locked behind them: the key was at that moment in Johnson's pocket. Not that looking through Eysenck's window was going to help him much because he and Bradley had dragged the unconscious Eysenck and petty officer into the windowless washroom leading off the Commander's office. The key of the washroom door was also in his pocket.
The man came into sight round the corner of the building. He wasn't running now. In fact, he stopped and looked around. It wasn't too hard to read what was going on in his mind. Eysenck and the petty officer might well be going about their lawful occasions and he was going to look pretty sick if he started to cry wolf. On the other hand if something had happened and he didn't report his suspicions he was going to make himself highly unpopular with his superiors. He turned and headed in the direction of the Station Commander's office, obviously with the intent of asking a few discreet questions. Half-way towards the office it became clear that his questions weren't going to be all that discreet: he had broken into a run.
Johnson spoke into the walkie-talkie.
'Bad trouble.'
'Hold on as long as possible. Leave in emergency. Rendezvous remains,'
In coach PI Van Effen looked at Branson. 'Something wrong?'
'Yes. Johnson and Bradley are in trouble, want to take off. Imagine what's going to happen if they do, if they have to cruise around ten minutes waiting for us? A couple of hijacked helicopters with the President and half the oil in the Middle East in the city? Everybody's going to be as jittery as hell. They'll take no chances. Panic-stricken. They'll stop at nothing. The choppers will be shot out of the sky. They have Phantoms in a state of instant readiness on that base.'