Goodbye California

CHAPTER THREE

America, like England, has much more than its fair share of those people in the world who choose not to conform to the status quo. They are the individualists who pursue their own paths, their own beliefs, their own foibles and what are commonly regarded as their own irrational peculiarities with a splendid disregard, leavened only with a modicum of kindly pity and sorrow and benign resignation, for those unfortunates who are not as they, the hordes of faceless conformists amongst whom they are forced to move and have their being. Some few of those individualists, confined principally to those who pursue the more esoteric forms of religions of their own inventions, try sporadically to lead the more gullible of the unenlightened along the road that leads to ultimate revelation: but basically, however, they regard the unfortunate conformists as being sadly beyond redemption and are resigned to leaving them to wallow in the troughs of their ignorance while they follow the meandering highways and byways of their own chosen life-style, oblivious of the paralleling motorways that carry the vast majority of blinkered mankind. They are commonly known as eccentrics.

America, as said, has its fair share of such eccentrics — and more. But California, as both the inhabitants of that State and the rest of the Union would agree, has vastly more than its fair share of American eccentrics: they are extremely thick upon the ground. They differ from your true English eccentric, who is almost invariably a loner. Californian eccentrics tend to polarize, and could equally well be categorized as cultists, whose beliefs range from the beatific to the cataclysmic, from the unassailable — because incapable of disproof — pontifications of the self-appointed gurus to the courageous resignation of those who have the day, hour and minute of the world’s end or those who crouch on the summit of a high peak in the Sierras awaiting the next flood which will surely lap their ankles — but no higher — before sunset. In a less free, less open, less inhibited and less tolerant society than California’s they would be tidied away in those institutions reserved for imbalanced mavericks of the human race: the Golden State does not exactly cherish them but does regard them with an affectionate if occasionally exasperated amusement.

But they cannot be regarded as the true eccentrics. In England, or on the eastern seaboard of the States, one can be poor and avoid all contact with like-minded deviants and still be recognized as an outstanding example of what the rest of mankind is glad it isn’t. In the group-minded togetherness of California such solitary peaks of eccentric achievement are almost impossible to reach, although there have been one or two notable examples, outstandingly the self-proclaimed Emperor of San Francisco and Defender of Mexico. Emperor Norton the First became so famous and cherished a figure that even the burial ceremony of his dog attracted such a vast concourse of tough and hard-headed nineteenth-century Franciscans that the entire business life of the city, saloons and bordellos apart, ground to a complete halt. But it was rare indeed for a penniless eccentric to scale the topmost heights.

To hope to be a successful eccentric in California one has to be a millionaire: being a billionaire brings with it a cast-iron guarantee. Von Streicher had been one of the latter, one of the favoured few. Unlike the bloodless and desiccated calculating machines of the oil, manufacturing and marketing billionaires of today, Von Streicher had been one of the giants of the era of steamships, railways and steel. Both his vast fortune and his reputation as an eccentric had been made and consolidated by the early twentieth century, and his status in both fields was unassailable. But every status requires its symbol: a symbol for your billionaire cannot be intangible: it has to be seen, and the bigger the better: and all self-respecting eccentrics with the proper monetary qualifications invariably settled on the same symbol: a home that would properly reflect the uniqueness of the owner. Kubla Khan had built his own Xanadu and, as he had been incomparably wealthier than any run-of-the-mill billionaire, what was good enough for him was good enough for them.

Von Streicher’s choice of location had been governed by two powerful phobias: one of tidal waves, the other of heights. The fear of tidal waves stemmed from his youth, when he had read of the volcanic eruption and destruction of the island of Thera, north of Crete, when a tidal wave, estimated at some 165 feet in height, destroyed much of the early Minoan, Grecian and Turkish civilizations. Since then he had lived with the conviction that he would be similarly engulfed some day. There was no known basis for his fear of heights but an eccentric of good standing does not require any reason for his whimsical beliefs. He had taken this fearful dilemma with him on his one and only return to his German birthplace, where he had spent two months examining the architectural monuments, almost exclusively castles, left behind by the mad Ludwig of Bavaria, and on his return had settled for what he regarded as the lesser of two evils — height.

He didn’t, however, go too high. He selected a plateau some fifteen hundred feet high on a mountain range some fifty miles from the ocean, and there proceeded to build his own Xanadu which he later christened ‘Adlerheim’ — the home of the eagle. The poet speaks of Kubla Khan’s pied-à-terre as being a stately pleasure dome. Adlerheim wasn’t like that at all. It was a castellated neo-Gothic horror, a baroque monstrosity that came close to being awe-inspiring in its total, unredeemed vulgarity. Massive, built of north Italian marble, it was an incredible hodge-podge of turrets, onion towers, crenellated battlements — and slit windows for the use of archers. All it lacked was a moat and drawbridge, but Von Streicher had been more than satisfied with it as it was. For others, living in more modern and hopefully more enlightened times, the sole redeeming feature was to be seen from the battlements, looking west: the view across the broad valley to the distant coastal range, Streicher’s first break-water against the inevitable tidal wave, was quite splendid.

Fortunately for the seven captives in the rear of the second of two vans grinding round the hairpins up to the castle, they were doubly unable to see what lay in store for them. Doubly, because in addition to the van body being wholly enclosed, they wore blindfolds as well as handcuffs. But they were to know the inside of Adlerheim more intimately than even the most besotted and aesthetically retarded admirer of all that was worst in nineteenth-century design would have cared to.

The prisoners’ van jolted to a stop. Rear doors were opened, bandages removed and the seven still-handcuffed passengers were helped to jump down on to the authentically cobbled surface of what proved to be a wholly enclosed courtyard. Two guards were closing two massive, iron-bound oaken doors to seal off the archway through which they had just entered. There were two peculiarities about the guards. They were carrying Ingram submachine guns fitted with silencers, a favourite weapon of Britain’s elite Special Air Service — despite its name, an Army regiment — which had two rare privileges: the first was that they had access to their own private armoury, almost certainly the most comprehensively stocked in the world, the second being that any member of the unit had complete freedom to pick the weapon of his own particular choice. The popularity of the Ingram was testimony to its effectiveness.

The second idiosyncrasy about the two guards was that, from top of burnous to sandal-brushing skirts of robe, they were dressed as Arabs — not the gleamingly white garb that one would normally look to find in the State of California but, nonetheless, eminently suitable for both the very warm weather and the instantaneous concealment of Ingrams in voluminous folds. Four other men, two bent over colourful flower borders that paralleled all four walls of the courtyard, two carrying slung rifles, were similarly dressed. All six had the sun-tanned swarthiness of an Eastern desert dweller: but some of their facial bone structures were wrong.

The man who was obviously the leader of the abductors, and had been in the leading van, approached the captives and let them see his face for the first time — he had removed his stocking mask on leaving San Ruffino. He was a tall man, but broad-shouldered and, unlike the pudgy Von Streicher, who had habitually worn lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat with pheasant’s feather when in residence, he looked as if he belonged in an eagle’s home. His face was also lean and suntanned, but with a hooked nose and a piercing light blue eye. One eye. His right eye was covered by a black patch.

He said: ‘My name is Morro. I am the leader of this community here.’ He waved at the white-robed figures. ‘Those are my followers, acolytes, you might almost call them, all faithful servants of Allah.’

‘That’s what you would call them. I’d call them refugees from a chain gang.’ The tall thin man in the black alpaca suit had a pronounced stoop and bi-focal glasses and looked the prototype of the absent-minded academic, which was half-true. Professor Burnett of San Diego was anything but absent-minded: in his professional circle he was justly famous for his extraordinarily acute intelligence and justly notorious for his extraordinarily short temper.

Morro smiled. ‘Chains can be literal or figurative, Professor. One way or another we are all slaves to something.’ He gestured to the two men with rifles. ‘Remove their handcuffs. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to apologize for a rather upsetting interruption of the even tenor of your ways. I trust none of you suffered discomfort on our journey here.’ His speech had the fluency and precision of an educated man for whom English is not his native language. ‘I do not wish to sound alarming or threatening’ — there is no way of sounding more alarming and threatening than to say you don’t intend to — ‘but, before I take you inside, I would like you to have a look at the walls of this courtyard.’

They had a look. The walls were about twenty feet high and topped with a three-stranded barbed wire fence. The wires were supported by but not attached to the L-shaped steel posts embedded in the marble, but passed instead through insulated apertures.

Morro said: ‘Those walls and the gates are the only way to leave here. I do not advise that you try to use either. Especially the wall. The fence above is electrified.’

‘Has been for sixty years.’ Burnett sounded sour.

‘You know this place, then?’ Morro didn’t seem surprised. ‘You’ve been here?’

‘Thousands have. Von Streicher’s Folly. Open to the public for about twenty years when the State ran it.’

‘Still open to the public, believe it or not. Tuesdays and Fridays. Who am I to deprive Californians of part of their cultural heritage? Von Streicher put fifty volts through it as a deterrent. It would only kill a person with a bad heart — and a person with a bad heart wouldn’t try to scale that wall in the first place. I have increased the current to two thousand volts. Follow me, please.’

He led the way through an archway directly opposite the entrance. Beyond lay a huge hall, some sixty feet by sixty. Three open fireplaces, of stone, not granite, were let into each of three walls, each fireplace large enough for a man to stand upright: the three crackling log fires were not for decorative purposes because even in the month of June the thick granite walls effectively insulated the interior from the heat outside. There were no windows, illumination being provided by four massive chandeliers which had come all the way from Prague. The gleaming floor was of inlaid redwood. Of the floor space only half of the area was occupied, this by a row of refectory tables and benches: the other was empty except for a hand-carved oaken rostrum and, close by, a pile of undistinguished mats.

‘Von Streicher’s banqueting hall,’ Morro said. He looked at the’ battered tables and benches. ‘I doubt whether he would have approved of the change.’

Burnett said: ‘The Louis Fourteenth chairs, the Empire-period tables. All gone? They would have made excellent firewood.’

‘You must not equate non-Christian with being barbaric, Professor. The original furniture is intact. The Adlerheim has massive cellars. The castle, I’m afraid, its splendid isolation apart, is not as we would have wished for our religious purposes. The refectory half of this hall is profane. The other half — he indicated the bare expanse — ‘is consecrated. We have to make do with what we have. Some day we hope to build a mosque adjoining here: for the present this has to serve. The rostrum is for the readings of the Koran: the mats, of course, are for prayers. For calling the faithful to prayer we have again been forced to make a most reluctant compromise. For Mohammedans those onion towers, the grotesque architectural symbol of the Greek Orthodox Church, are anathema, but we have again consecrated one of them and it now serves as our minaret from which the muezzin summons the acolytes to prayer.’

Dr Schmidt, like Burnett an outstanding nuclear physicist and, like Burnett, renowned for his inability to stand fools gladly, looked at Morro from under bushy white eyebrows that splendidly complemented his impossible mane of white hair. His ruddy face held an expression of almost comical disbelief.

‘This is what you tell your Tuesday and Friday visitors?’

‘But of course.’

‘My God!’

‘Allah, if you please.’

‘And I suppose you conduct those personal tours yourself? I mean, you must derive enormous pleasure from feeding this pack of lies to my gullible fellow citizens.’

‘Allah send that you some day see the light.’ Morro was not patronizing, just kindly. ‘And this is a chore — what am I saying? — a sacred duty that is performed for me by my deputy Abraham.’

‘Abraham?’ Burnett permitted himself a professional sneer. ‘A fitting name for a follower of Allah.’

‘You have not been in Palestine lately, have you, Professor?’

‘Israel.’

‘Palestine. There are many Arabs there who profess the Jewish faith. Why take exception to a Jew practising the Muslim faith? Come. I shall introduce you to him. I dare say you will find the surroundings more congenial there.’

The very large study into which he led them was not only more congenial: it was unashamedly sybaritic. Von Streicher had left the internal design and furnishings of the Adlerheim to his architects and interior designers and, for once, they had got something right. The study was clearly modelled on an English ducal library: book-lined walls on three sides of the room, each book expensively covered in the finest leather, deep-piled russet carpet, silken damask drapes, also russet, comfortable and enveloping leather armchairs, oaken side-tables and leather-topped desk with a padded leather swivel chair behind it. A slightly incongruous note was struck by the three men already present in the room. All were dressed in Arab clothes. Two were diminutive, with unremarkable features not worth a second glance; but the third was worth all the attention that the other two were spared. He looked as if he had started out to grow into a basketball player then changed his mind to become an American football player. He was immensely tall and had shoulders like a draught horse: he could have weighed anything up to three hundred pounds.

Morro said: ‘Abraham, our guests from San Ruffino. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Abraham Dubois, my deputy.’

The giant bowed. ‘My pleasure, I assure you. Welcome to the Adlertheim. We hope your stay here will be a pleasant one.’ Both the voice and the tone of the voice came as a surprise. Like Morro, he spoke with the easy fluency of an educated man and, looking at that bleak impassive face, one would have expected any words to have either sinister or threatening overtones. But he sounded courteous and genuinely friendly. His speech did not betray his nationality but his features did. Here was no Arab, no Jew, no Levantine and, despite his surname, no Frenchman. He was unmistakably American — not your clean-cut all-American campus hero, but a native American aristocrat whose unbroken lineage was shrouded in the mists of time: Dubois was a full-blooded Red Indian.

Morro said: ‘A pleasant stay and, we hope, a short one.’ He nodded to Dubois, who in turn nodded to his two diminutive companions, who left. Morro moved behind the desk. ‘If you would be seated, please. This will not take long. Then you’ll be shown to your quarters — after I have introduced you to some other guests.’ He pulled up his swivel chair, sat, and took some papers from a desk drawer. He uncapped a pen and looked up as the two small white-robed men, each bearing a silver tray filled with glasses, entered. ‘As you see, we are civilized. Refreshments?’

Professor Burnett was the first to be offered a tray. He glowered at it, looked at Morro and made no move. Morro smiled, rose from his seat and came towards him.

‘If we had intended to dispose of you — and can you think of any earthly reason why we should? — would I have brought you all the way here to do so? Hemlock we leave to Socrates, cyanide to professional assassins. We prefer our refreshments undiluted. Which one, my dear Professor, would you care to have me select at random?’

Burnett, whose thirst was legendary, hesitated only briefly before pointing. Morro lifted the glass, lowered the amber level by almost a quarter and smiled appreciatively. ‘Glenfiddich. An excellent Scottish malt. I recommend it.’

The Professor did not hesitate. Malt was malt no matter what the moral standards of one’s host. He drank, smacked his lips and sneered ungratefully. ‘Muslims don’t drink.’

‘Breakaway Muslims do.’ Morro registered no offence. ‘We are a breakaway group. As for those who call themselves true Muslims, it’s a rule honoured in the breach. Ask the manager of any five-star hotel in London which, as the pilgrimage centre of the upper echelons of Arabian society, is now taking over from Mecca. There was a time when the oil sheikhs used to send out their servants daily to bring back large crates of suitably disguised refreshments until the management discreetly pointed out that this was wholly unnecessary and all that was required that they charge such expenses up to laundry, phones or stamps. I understand that various governments in the Gulf remained unmoved at stamp bills for a thousand pounds sterling.’

‘Breakaway Muslims,’ Burnett wasn’t through with sneering yet. ‘Why the front?’

‘Front?’ Morro smilingly refused to take umbrage. ‘This is no front, Professor. You would be surprised how many Muslims there are in your State. You’d be surprised how highly placed a large number of them are. You’d be surprised how many of them come here to worship and to meditate — Adlerheim, and not slowly, is becoming a place of pilgrimage in the West. Above all, you’d be surprised how many influential citizens, citizens who cannot afford to have their good name impugned, would vouch for our unassailable good name, dedication and honesty of purpose.’

Dr Schmidt said: ‘If they knew what your real purpose was I wouldn’t be surprised: I’d be utterly incredulous.’

Morro turned his hands palm upwards and looked at his deputy. Dubois shrugged then said: ‘We are respected, trusted and — I have to say this — even admired by the local authorities. And why not? Because Californians not only tolerate and even cherish their eccentrics, regarding them as a protected species? Certainly not. We are registered as a charitable organization and, unlike the vast majority of charities, we do not solicit money, we give it away. In the eight months we have been established we have given over two million dollars to the poor, the crippled, the retarded and to deserving pension funds, regardless of race or creed.’

‘Including police pension funds?’ Burnett wasn’t through with being nasty for the evening.

‘Including just that. There is no question of bribery or corruption.’ Dubois was so open and convincing that disbelief came hard. ‘A quid pro quo you may say for the security and protection that they offer us. Mr Curragh, county Chief of Police, a man widely respected for his integrity, has the whole-hearted support of the Governor of the State in ensuring that we can carry out our good works, peaceful projects and selfless aims without let or hindrance. We even have a permanent police guard at the entrance to our private road down in the valley to ensure that we are not molested.’ Dubois shook his massive head and his face was grave. ‘You would not believe, gentlemen, the number of evilly-intentioned people in this world who derive pleasure from harassing those who would do good.’

‘Sweet Jesus!’ Burnett was clearly trying to fight against speechlessness. ‘Of all the hypocrisy I’ve encountered in my life…You know, Morro, I believe you. I can quite believe that you have — not suborned, not subverted — you have conned or persuaded honest citizens, an honest Chief of Police and an honest police force into believing that you are what you claim to be. I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t believe you — after all, they have two million good reasons, all green, to substantiate your claims. People don’t throw around a fortune like that for amusement, do they?’

Morro smiled. ‘I’m glad you’re coming round to our point of view.’

‘They don’t throw it around like that unless they are playing for extremely high stakes. Speculate to accumulate — isn’t that it, Morro?’ He shook his head in slow disbelief, remembered the glass in his hand and took further steps to fortify himself against unreality. ‘Out of context, one would be hard put not to believe you. In context, it is impossible.’

‘In context?’

‘The theft of weapons-grade materials and mass kidnapping. Rather difficult to equate that with your alleged humanitarian purposes. Although I have no doubt you can equate anything. All you need is a sick enough mind.’

Morro returned to his seat and propped his chin on his fists. For some reason he had not seen fit to remove the black leather gloves which he had worn throughout. ‘We are not sick. We are not zealots. We are not fanatics. We have but one purpose in mind — the betterment of the human lot.’

‘Which human lot? Yours?’

Morro sighed. ‘I waste my time. Perhaps you think you are here for ransom? You are not. Perhaps you think it is our purpose to compel you and Dr Schmidt to make some kind of crude atomic weapon for us? Ludicrous — no one can compel men of your stature and integrity to do what they do not wish to do. You might think — the world might think — that we might compel you to work by the threat of torturing the other hostages, particularly the ladies? Preposterous. I would remind you again that we are no barbarians. Professor Burnett, if I pointed a six-gun between your eyes and told you not to move, would you move?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Would you or wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So, you see, the gun doesn’t have to be loaded. You take my point?’

Burnett remained silent.

‘I will not give you my word that no harm will come to any of you for clearly my word will carry no weight with any of you. We shall just have to wait and see, will we not?’ He smoothed the sheet in front of him. ‘Professor Burnett and Dr Schmidt I know. Mrs Ryder I recognize.’ He looked at a bespectacled young girl with auburn hair and a rather scared expression. ‘You must, of course, be Miss Julie Johnson, stenographer.’

He looked at the three remaining men. ‘Which of you is Mr Haverford, Deputy Director?’

‘I am.’ Haverford was a portly young man with sandy hair and a choleric expression who added as an afterthought: ‘Damn your eyes.’

‘Dear me. And Mr Carlton? Security deputy?’

‘Me.’ Carlton was in his mid-thirties, with black hair, permanently compressed lips and, at that moment, a disgusted expression.

‘You mustn’t reproach yourself.’ Morro was almost kindly. ‘There never has been a security system that couldn’t be breached.’ He looked at the seventh hostage, a pallid young man with thin pale hair whose bobbing Adam’s apple and twitching left eye were competing in sending distress signals. ‘And you are Mr Rollins, from the control room?’ Rollins didn’t say whether he was or not.

Morro folded the sheet. ‘I should like to suggest that when you get to your rooms you should each write a letter. Writing materials you will find in your quarters. To your nearest and dearest, just to let them know that you are alive and well, that — apart from the temporary curtailment of your liberty — you have no complaints of ill treatment and have not been and will not be threatened in any way. You will not, of course, mention anything about Adlerheim or Muslims or anything that could give an indication as to your whereabouts. Leave your envelopes unsealed: we shall do that.’

‘Censorship, eh?’ Burnett’s second Scotch had had no mellowing effect.

‘Don’t be naïve.’

‘And if we — or I — refuse to write?’

‘If you’d rather not reassure your families that’s your decision entirely.’ He looked at Dubois. ‘I think we could have Drs Healey and Bramwell in now.’

Dr Schmidt said: ‘Two of the missing nuclear physicists.’

‘I promised to introduce you to some guests.’

‘Where is Professor Aachen?’

‘Professor Aachen?’ Morro looked at Dubois, who pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘We know no one of that name.’

‘Professor Aachen was the most prestigious of the three nuclear physicists who disappeared some weeks ago.’ Schmidt could be very precise, even pedantic, in his speech.

‘Well, he didn’t disappear in our direction. I have never heard of him. I’m afraid that we cannot accept responsibility for every scientist who chooses to vanish. Or defect.’

‘Defect? Never. Impossible.’

‘I’m afraid that’s been exactly the reaction of American and British colleagues of scientists who have found the attractions of State-subsidized flats in Moscow irresistible. Ah! Your non-defecting colleagues, gentlemen.’

Apart from a six-inch difference in height Healey and Bramwell were curiously alike. Dark, with thin, intelligent faces and identical horn-rimmed glasses and wearing neat, conservatively-cut clothes, they would not have looked out of place in a Wall Street boardroom. Morro didn’t have to make any introductions: top-ranking nuclear physicists form a very close community. Characteristically, it occurred to neither Burnett nor Schmidt to introduce their companions in distress.

After the customary hand-shaking, gripping of upper arms and not-so-customary regrets that their acquaintance should be renewed in such deplorable circumstances, Healey said: ‘We were expecting you. Well, colleagues?’ Healey favoured Morro with a look that lacked cordiality.

Burnett said: ‘Which was more than we did of you.’ By ‘we’ he clearly referred only to Schmidt and himself. ‘But if you’re here we expected Willi Aachen to be with you.’

‘I’d expected the same myself. But no Willi. Morro here is under the crackpot delusion that he may have defected. Man had never even heard of him, far less met him.’

‘“Crackpot” is right,’ Schmidt said, then added grudgingly: ‘You two look pretty fit, I must say.’

‘No reason why not.’ It was Bramwell. ‘An enforced and unwanted holiday, but the seven most peaceful weeks I’ve had in years. Ever, I suppose. Walking, eating, sleeping, drinking and, best, no telephone. Splendid library, as you can see, and in every suite colour TV for the weak-minded.’

‘Suite?’

‘You’ll see. Those old-time billionaires didn’t begrudge themselves anything. Any idea why you are here?’

‘None,’ Schmidt said. ‘We were looking to you to tell us.’

‘Seven weeks and we haven’t a clue.’

‘He hasn’t tried to make you work for him?’

‘Like building a nuclear device? Frankly, that’s what we thought would be demanded of us. But nothing.’ Healey permitted himself a humourless smile. ‘Almost disappointing, isn’t it?’

Burnett looked at Morro. ‘The gun with the empty magazine; is that it?’ Morro smiled politely.

‘How’s that?’ Bramwell said.

‘Psychological warfare. Against whomsoever the inevitable threat will ultimately be directed. Why kidnap a nuclear physicist if not to have him manufacture atom bombs under duress? That’s what the world will think.’

‘That’s what the world will think. The world does not know that you don’t require a nuclear physicist for that. But the people who really matter are those who know that for a hydrogen bomb you do require a nuclear physicist. We figured that out our first evening here.’

Morro was courteous as ever. ‘If I could interrupt your conversation, gentlemen. Plenty of time to discuss the past — and the present and future — later. A late supper will be available here in an hour. Meantime, I’m sure our new guests would like to see their quarters and attend to some — ah — optional correspondence.’

Susan Ryder was forty-five and looked ten years younger. She had dark-blonde hair, cornflower-blue eyes and a smile that could be bewitching or coolly disconcerting according to the company. Intelligent and blessed with a sense of humour, she was not, however, feeling particularly humorous at that moment. She had no reason to. She was sitting on her bed in the quarters that had been allocated to her. Julie Johnson, the stenographer, was standing in the middle of the room.

‘They certainly know how to put up their guests,’ said Julie. ‘Or old Von Streicher did. Living-room and bedroom from the Beverly Wilshire. Bathroom with gold-plated taps — it’s got everything!’

‘I might even try out some of these luxuries,’ said Susan in a loud voice. She rose, putting a warning finger to her lips. ‘In fact I’m going to try a quick shower. Won’t be long.’

She passed through the bedroom into the bathroom, waited some prudent seconds, turned the shower on, returned to the living-room and beckoned Julie who followed her back to the bathroom. Susan smiled at the young girl’s raised eyebrows and said in a soft voice: ‘I don’t know whether these rooms are bugged or not.’

‘Of course they are.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘I wouldn’t put anything past that creep.’

‘Mr Morro. I thought him quite charming, myself. But I agree. Running a shower gets a hidden mike all confused. Or so John told me once.’ Apart from herself and Parker, no one called Sergeant Ryder by his given name, probably because very few people knew it: Jeff invariably called her Susan but never got beyond ‘Dad’ where his father was concerned. ‘I wish to heaven he was here now — though mind you, I’ve already written a note to him.’

Julie looked at her blankly.

‘Remember when I was overcome back in San Ruffino and had to retire to the powder room? I took John’s picture with me, removed the backing, scribbled a few odds and ends on the back of the picture, replaced the back and left the picture behind.’

‘Isn’t it a pretty remote chance that it would ever occur to him to open up the picture?’

‘Yes. So I scribbled a tiny note in shorthand, tore it up and dropped it in my waste-paper basket.’

‘Again, isn’t it unlikely that that would occur to him? To check your basket? And even if he did, to guess that a scrap of shorthand would mean anything?’

‘It’s a slender chance. Well, a little better than slender. You can’t know him as I do. Women have the traditional right of being unpredictable, and that’s one of the things about him that does annoy me: ninety-nine point something per cent of the time he can predict precisely what I will do.’

‘Even if he does find what you left — well, you couldn’t have been able to tell him much.’

‘Very little. A description — what little I could give of anybody with a stocking mask — his stupid remark about taking us to some place where we wouldn’t get our feet wet, and his name.’

‘Funny he shouldn’t have warned his thugs against calling him by name. Unless, of course, it wasn’t his name.’

‘Sure it’s not his name. Probably a twisted sense of humour. He broke into a power station, so it probably tickled him to call himself after another station, the one in Morro Bay. Though I don’t know if that will help us much.’

Julie smiled doubtfully and left. When the door closed behind her Susan turned around to locate the draught that had suddenly made her shoulders feel cold, but there was no place from which a draught could have come.

Showers were in demand that evening. A little way along the hallway Professor Burnett had his running for precisely the same reason as Susan had. In this case the person he wanted to talk to was, inevitably, Dr Schmidt. Bramwell, when listing the amenities of Adlerheim, had omitted to include what both Burnett and Schmidt regarded as by far the most important amenity of all: every suite was provided with its own wet bar. The two men silently toasted each other, Burnett with his malt, Schmidt with his gin and tonic: unlike Sergeant Parker, Schmidt had no esoteric preferences as to the source of his gin. A gin was a gin was a gin.

Burnett said: ‘Do you make of all this what I make of all this?’

‘Yes.’ Like Burnett, Schmidt had no idea whatsoever what to make of it.

‘Is the man mad, a crackpot or just a cunning devil?’

‘A cunning devil, that’s quite obvious.’ Schmidt pondered. ‘Of course, there’s nothing to prevent him from being all three at the same time.’

‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here?’

‘Zero.’

‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here alive?’

‘The same. He can’t afford to let us live. We could identify them afterwards.’

‘You honestly think he’d be prepared to kill all of us in cold blood?’

‘He’d have to.’ Schmidt hesitated. ‘Can’t be sure. Seems civilized enough in his own odd-ball way. Could be a veneer, of course — but just possibly he might be a man with a mission.’ Schmidt helped his meditation along by emptying his glass, left and returned with a refill. ‘Could even be prepared to bargain our lives against freedom from persecution. Speaking no ill of the others, of course’ — he clearly was — ‘but with four top-ranking nuclear physicists in his hands he holds pretty strong cards to deal with either State or government, as the case may be.’

‘Government. No question. Dr Durrer of ERDA would have called in the FBI hours ago. And while we may be important enough we mustn’t overlook the tremendous emotional factor of having two innocent women as hostages. The nation will clamour for the release of all of us, irrespective of whether it means stopping the wheels of justice.’

‘It’s a hope.’ Schmidt was glum. ‘We could be whistling in the dark. If only we knew what Morro was up to. All right, we suspect it’s some form of nuclear blackmail because we can’t see what else it could be: but what form we can’t even begin to guess.’

‘Healey and Bramwell could tell us. After all, we haven’t had a chance to talk to them. They’re mad, sure, but they seemed fairly relaxed and not running scared. Before we start jumping to conclusions perhaps we should talk to them. Odds are that they know something we don’t.’

‘Too relaxed.’ Schmidt pondered some time. ‘I hesitate to suggest this — I’m no expert in the field — but could they have been brain-washed, subverted in some way?’

‘No.’ Burnett was positive. ‘The thought occurred to me while we were talking to them. Very long odds against. Know them too well.’

Burnett and Schmidt found the other two physicists in Healey’s room. Soft music was playing. Burnett put a finger to his lips. Healey smiled and turned up the volume.

‘That’s just to put your minds at rest. We haven’t been here for seven weeks without knowing the rooms aren’t bugged. But something’s bugging you?’

‘Yes. Bluntly, you’re too casual by half. How do you know Morro isn’t going to feed us to the lions when he gets whatever he wants?’

‘We don’t. Maybe we’re stir-happy. He’s repeatedly told us that we will come to no harm and that he’s no doubt about the outcome of his negotiations with the authorities when he’s carried out whatever mad scheme he has in mind.’

‘That’s roughly what we had in mind. It doesn’t seem like much of a guarantee to us.’

‘It’s all we have. Besides, we’ve had time to figure it out. He doesn’t want us for any practical purpose. Therefore we’re here for psychological purposes, like the theft of uranium and plutonium: as you said, the pointed gun without bullets. If we were wanted for only psychological purposes then the very fact of our disappearance would have achieved all he wanted and he could have disposed of us on the spot. Why keep us around for seven weeks before disposing of us? For the pleasure of our company?’

‘Well, there’s no harm in looking on the bright side. Maybe Dr Schmidt and I will come around to your way of thinking. I only hope it doesn’t take another seven weeks.’ Healey pointed towards the bar and lifted an interrogative eyebrow, but Burnett shook his head, clear indication of how perturbed he was. ‘Something else still bugs me. Willi Aachen. Where has he disappeared to? Reason tells me that if four physicists have fallen into Morro’s hands so should have the fifth. Why should he be favoured? Or, depending on your point of view, so blessed?’

‘Lord only knows. One thing for sure, he’s no defector.’

Schmidt said: ‘He could be an involuntary defector?’

Burnett said: ‘It’s been known to happen. But it’s one thing to take a horse to water.’

‘I’ve never met him,’ Schmidt said. ‘He’s the best, isn’t he? From all I hear and all I read, that is.’

Burnett smiled at Healey and Bramwell then said to Schmidt: ‘We physicists are a jealous and self-opinionated lot who yield second place to no one. But well, yes, he’s the best.’

‘I assume that it’s because I’ve been naturalized only six months and that he works in a super-sensitive area that I’ve been kept away from him. What’s he like? I don’t mean his work. His fame is international.’

‘Last seen at that symposium in Washington ten weeks ago. The three of us were there. Cheerful, happy-go-lucky type. Frizzled head of hair like the blackest gollywog you ever saw. Tall as I am, and heavily built — about two-hundred-and-ten pounds, I’d say. And stubborn as they come — the idea of the Russians or anybody making him work for them just isn’t conceivable.’

Unknown to Professor Burnett, unknown to any other person who had ever known Willi Aachen in his prime, Burnett was wrong on every count. Professor Aachen’s face was drawn, haggard and etched with a hundred lines, none of which had existed three months previously. The mane of frizzled hair he still had but it had turned the colour of snow. He was no longer tall because he had developed a severe stoop akin to that of an advanced sufferer from kypho-scoliosis. His clothes hung on a shrunken frame of 150 pounds. And Aachen would work for anybody, especially Lopez. If Lopez had asked him to step off the Golden Gate Bridge Aachen would have done it unhesitatingly.

Lopez was the man who had worked this change on the seemingly indestructible, seemingly impregnable Aachen. Lopez — nobody knew his surname and his given name was probably fictitious anyway — had been a lieutenant in the Argentinian army, where he had worked as an interrogator in the security forces. Iranians and Chileans are widely championed as being the most efficient torturers in the world, but the army of the Argentine, who are reluctant to talk about such matters, make all others specializing in the field of extracting information appear to be fumbling adolescents. It said a great deal for Lopez’s unholy expertise that he had sickened his ruthless commanders to the extent that they had felt compelled to get rid of him.

Lopez was vastly amused at stories of World War heroes gallantly defying torture for weeks, even months, on end. It was Lopez’s claim — no boast, for his claim had been substantiated a hundred times over — that he could have the toughest and most fanatical of terrorists screaming in unspeakable agony within five minutes and, within twenty minutes, have the name of every member of his cell.

It had taken him forty minutes to break Aachen and he had to repeat the process several times in the following three weeks. For the past month Aachen had given no trouble. It was a tribute and testimony to Lopez’s evil skill that, although Aachen was a physically shattered man with the last vestiges of pride, will and independence gone for ever, his mind and memory remained unimpaired.

Aachen gripped the bars of his cell and gazed through them, with lack-lustre eyes veined with blood, at the immaculate laboratory-cum-workshop that had been his home and his hell for the previous seven weeks. He stared unblinkingly, interminably, as if in a hypnotic trance, at the rack against the opposite wall. It held twelve cylinders. Each had a lifting ring welded to the top. Eleven of those were about twelve feet high, and in diameter no more than the barrel of a 4.5-inch naval gun, to which they bore a strong resemblance. The twelfth was of the same diameter but less than half the height.

The workshop, hewn out of solid rock, lay forty feet beneath the banqueting hall of the Adlerheim.