Alistair MacLean · 1976 · thriller
Alistair MacLean's 1976 thriller. The criminal mastermind Peter Branson stops the President's motorcade in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, seizes the President and two visiting Arab kings, and mines the towers. With the greatest hostage in the world suspended above the tide and the ransom clock running, San Francisco can only watch and bargain.
- 1San Francisco Airport
The President of the United States lands at San Francisco with two visiting Arab oil kings in his train, and the motorcade forms up for the drive north - the whole route sealed, guarded and, as it will prove, thoroughly betrayed.
- 2San Francisco
Through the streets of San Francisco the cavalcade rolls between crowds and police outriders, watched all the way by Peter Branson's men, whose plan has been rehearsed to the second and needs only the bridge.
- 3The Golden Gate Bridge
On the Golden Gate Bridge the trap shuts: coaches block both ends, the motorcade is seized, and Branson mines the towers and the roadway - holding the President, the kings and the bridge itself to ransom above the tide.
- 4Sausalito
From the Marin shore at Sausalito the authorities mass helplessly at the northern end while a lone rescue is improvised beneath the deck - the only way onto a bridge that has become the most heavily wired fortress in America.