The Golden Gate Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were sufficiently unimportant not to merit the massive security precaution.

The President led the way, looking almost wistfully from side to side as if disappointed that there was no one there for him to wave at. He was a tall, rather portly figure, immaculately attired in a tan gabardine suit, with a patrician face vaguely reminiscent of one of the better-fed Roman emperors and a splendid head of the purest silver hair which was widely supposed to be his especial pride and joy. One had but to look at him to appreciate that he bad been doomed from the cradle to end up in the Oval office: that anyone else should aspire to be-or be-the Chief Executive was quite unthinkable. Better brains there might be on Capitol Hill, but that magnificent presence was unique. As far as politicians went he was a man of the utmost probity-the fact that he was a multi-millionaire may have helped him in this-intelligent, humorous and was loved, liked, admired or held in genuine affection to an extent that had been achieved by no other President in the previous half century, a remarkable but far from impossible achievement As always, he carried a stout cane, a relic from that occasion when he had required it for almost two days after tripping over the leash of his Labrador. That he had no need of the cane was quite indisputable. Perhaps he thought it rounded off his image, or lent him a slightly Rooseveltian aura. Whatever the reason, he was never seen in public or private without it. He reached the coach, half-turned, smiled and bowed slightly as he ushered the first of his guests aboard.

Precedence and pride of place went inevitably to the King: his vast kingdom held as much oil as the rest of the world put together. He was a tall, imposing figure, a king from the floor-sweeping skirts of his dazzling white robes to the top of the equally dazzling burnous. He had an aquiline dark face, with a splendidly trimmed white beard and the hooded eyes of a brooding eagle. Supposedly the wealthiest man in all history, he could easily have been a tyrant and despot but was neither: against that 'his autocratic rule was absolute and the only laws he obeyed were those he made himself.

The Prince came next - his small sheikhdom had never rated and never had had a king. While his territorial holdings came to less than five per cent of the King's, his influence was almost as great: his sheikhdom, an arid and barren expanse of some of the world's most inhospitable sands, was literally afloat on a sea of oil. An extrovert and flamboyant personality, who owned a Cadillac for every four miles of his principality's hundred miles of road - it was said with some authority that if one of his cars had the slightest mechanical trouble it was regarded as obsolete and never used again, a fact which must have given some small satisfaction to General Motors - he was an excellent pilot, a remarkably gifted race-car driver and an assiduous patron of many of the most exclusive nightclubs in the world. He went to considerable lengths to cultivate his reputation as an international playboy, an exercise which deceived nobody: behind the facade lay the computerized mind of an outstanding businessman. He was of medium height, well built and wouldn't have been seen dead in the traditional Arab clothes. He was Savile Row's best customer. 'Dapper' was the only word to describe 'him, from the pointed crocodile shoes to the almost invisible hairline moustache.

They were followed by Sheikh Iman and Sheikh Kharan, the oil ministers respectively of the King and the Prince. They looked remarkably alike and were rumoured to have the same grandfather, which was not at all impossible. Both wore Western clothes, both were plump, smiling almost to the point of beaming and extremely shrewd indeed. The only way to tell them apart was while Iman sported a tiny black goatee beard Kharan was clean-shaven.

The next to board was General Cartland. Although wearing civilian clothes-an inconspicuous