Goodbye California

CHAPTER NINE

On the following morning the absenteeism rate at work was the highest in the history of the State. The same almost certainly applied to the other States in the Union, and, to a somewhat lesser degree, through many of the civilized countries throughout the world, for the TV coverage of the projected — or threatened — atomic explosion in the Yucca Flat was being transmitted by satellite. Europe was hardly affected — though nonetheless concerned — for there the day’s work was all over and most Europeans were home for the evening.

But in California the absenteeism was almost total. Even the corporations running the public and utilities services, the transport system and police forces, had to operate with skeleton staffs. It could have been a great day for the criminals, particularly the robbers and burglars of California, were it not for the fact that they, too, had also stayed at home.

For reasons whether of prudence, sloth, the knowledge of the inaccessibility of the Yucca Flat or the at-hand convenience of their TV sets, not one Californian in ten thousand made his way to the explosion site that morning. Those who did make their way there — and there couldn’t have been over two thousand of them — were outnumbered by members of the military, the National Guard and police who found their task to keeping civilians at the mandatory five miles distance almost ridiculously easy.

Among the spectators present were most of the ranking scientists in the State, especially and understandably those who specialized in the nuclear and earthquake fields. Why, precisely, they were there was difficult to see, for the blast, shock and radiation effects of an eighteen-kiloton atomic device had been known with sufficient precision for over thirty years. Most of them, admittedly, had never seen an atomic explosion before, but the reason lay elsewhere. Blessed or cursed by that insatiable curiosity that had been the driving force or bane of scientists since recorded history, they just wanted to see where the bomb would go off. They too could, of course, have stayed at home: but your true scientist is in the field or he is nothing.

Among those who stayed at home were Major Dunne in his office and Sergeant Ryder at his house. Even by helicopter the round trip was over five hundred miles, and that, for Dunne, represented a waste of valuable investigative time: for Ryder it represented a waste of thinking time which he no longer regarded as being necessarily valuable but was better than not thinking at all. Jeff Ryder had originally wanted to go, but when coldly asked by his father how he hoped to help his family by spending what could be irreplaceable hours rubber-necking, he had readily agreed not to go, especially when Ryder had said that he wanted Jeff to help him. His father, Jeff thought, had a peculiar idea of what ‘helping’ meant for, as far as he could see, his parent was doing absolutely nothing. Jeff had been asked to type out every detail, however apparently insignificant, of the investigations that had been carried out till then, including, as far as possible, verbatim recollections of all conversations, and to this end he was employing his memory as best he could. From time to time he glanced resentfully at Ryder who appeared to be doing nothing other than leafing idly through the pile of earthquake literature he’d picked up from Professor Benson.

About ten minutes before ten Jeff switched on the TV. The screen showed a bluish-tinged stretch of extremely unprepossessing desert, so unattractive a spectacle that the commentator was trying — and making extremely heavy weather of it — to compensate by an intense and breathless account of what was taking place, a gallant and foredoomed effort as nothing whatsoever was taking place. He informed the watchers that the camera was stationed in Frenchman’s Flat at a distance of five miles south-west from the estimated point of explosion, as if anyone cared from what direction his camera was pointing. He said that as the device was almost certainly buried to a considerable depth there wasn’t expected to be much in the way of a fireball, which everyone had been reminded of for hours past. They were, he said, using a colour filter, which everyone who wasn’t colour-blind could readily see. Finally, he told them that the time was nine minutes to ten, as if he were the only person in California who owned a watch. He had, of course, to say something, but it was an extremely mundane run-up to something that might prove to be of lunatic significance. Jeff looked at his father in some exasperation: Ryder was certainly not looking and very probably not listening to anything that was going on. He was no longer leafing through the pages but was gazing, apparently unseeing, at one particular page. He laid down the literature and headed for the telephone.

Jeff said: ‘Dad, do you mind? There’s just thirty seconds to go.’

‘Ah!’ Ryder returned to his seat and gazed placidly at the screen.

The commentator was now speaking in that tense, breathless, near-hysterical voice which commonly afflicts race-track commentators when they endeavour to generate some spurious excitement towards the end of a race. In this particular instance the tone was quite misplaced: a calm relaxed voice would have been much more appropriate — the imminent event carried in itself all the excitement that could be generated. The commentator had now started a count-down, starting at thirty, the numbers decreasing as the dramatic impact of his voice decreased. The effect was rather spoilt because either his watch was wrong or Morro’s was. The device exploded fourteen seconds ahead of time.

To a people who had long become accustomed to seeing atomic explosions on the screen, whether at home or in the cinema, to a people who had become blasé about and bored with the spectacle of moon-rockets blasting off from Cape Canaveral, the visual effect of this latest demonstration of science’s resolute retrograde march was curiously — or perhaps not so curiously — anti-climactic. True, the fireball was considerably greater than predicted — the searing blue-white flash was of an intensity that caused many viewers to wince or even momentarily shut their eyes — but the column of smoke, fire and desert dust that streaked up into the blue Nevada sky, a blueness dramatically intensified by the camera filters, culminating in the mushrooming of the deadly radio-active cloud, faithfully followed the accustomed scenario. To the inhabitants of the central Amazon basin such a titanic convulsion would presumably have heralded the end of the world: to the more sophisticated peoples of the world it was passé, old hat, and had it occurred on some remote Pacific atoll the great majority of people wouldn’t even have bothered to watch it.

But it hadn’t happened on any remote Pacific atoll, nor had it been Morro’s purpose to provide the Californians with a diversionary spectacle to relieve the ennui of their daily lives. It had been intended, instead, to provide them with a chilling warning, an ominous threat, all the more frightening because unspecified, of impending evil, of some unimagined disaster that would strike at the whim of whoever had planted and triggered the atomic device: on a more mundane level it was intended to show that here was a man who meant what he said, who was not just there to play around and who had both the desire and ability to carry out whatever he had threatened. Had that been Morro’s intention — and there obviously had been none other — then he had succeeded to a degree which perhaps even he had not realized was possible. He had struck fear into the heart of the great majority of rational Californians, and from that time on there was practically only one topic of conversation in the State: when and where this unpredictable madman would strike again and what in the name of all that was holy — it wasn’t expressed in quite that way — were his motivations. This topic, to be precise, was to last for only ninety minutes: then they were to be given something definite and concrete about which to worry or, more accurately, to reduce that part of California most directly concerned to a state of not unreasoning terror that was swiftly to shade off into panic.

Ryder rose. ‘Well, we never doubted that he was a man of his word. Aren’t you glad you didn’t waste your time going up to see that side-show? For that’s all it was. Ah, well, it should at least keep people’s minds off taxes and the latest shenanigans in Washington for a little.’

Jeff didn’t answer. It was doubtful if he’d even heard. He was still looking at the ever-expanding mushroom over the Nevada desert, still listening to the suitably awe-stricken voice of the commentator describing in great and wholly unnecessary detail what anyone with half an eye could see perfectly well for himself. Ryder shook his head and picked up the telephone. Dunne answered.

Ryder said: ‘Anything? You know this line is bugged.’

‘Something’s coming in.’

‘Interpol?’

‘Something’s coming in.’

‘How long?’

‘Half an hour.’

He hung up, called Parker, arranged to have them meet in Dunne’s office in half an hour, hung up, sat, briefly ruminated on the fact that both Dunne and Parker had taken the reality of Morro’s threat so much for granted that neither of them had thought fit to comment on it, then resumed his reading. Fully five minutes passed before Jeff switched off the TV, glanced with some irritation at his father, sat down at his table, typed a few words and said acidly: ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘Not at all. How many pages have you got down?’

‘Six.’

Ryder stretched out his hand and took them. ‘We’re leaving in fifteen minutes to see Dunne. Something’s come up — or is coming up.’

‘What?’

‘You have forgotten, perhaps, that one of Morro’s henchmen is wearing a headset tied in to our phone?’

A chagrined Jeff resumed his typing while Ryder began a placid reading of Jeff’s notes.

A much refreshed Dunne, who had obviously a good night’s rest behind him, was waiting with Delage and Leroy when Ryder, Jeff and Parker arrived. Delage and Leroy were looking a good deal less rested: the assumption was that they did not have a good night’s rest behind them. Dunne confirmed this, nodding at Delage and Leroy.

‘A couple of devoted agents who think their boss is past it. Quite right too.’ He tapped a sheaf of papers in front of him. ‘Up all night — the devoted agents, I mean — collecting snippets of this and that. Some possibly useful information, some dead ends. What did you think of friend Morro’s demonstration?’

‘Impressive. What do you have?’

Dunne sighed. ‘The niceties of salon conversation, Sergeant Ryder, are not for all. Report from Daimler, remember him?’

‘Security chief in the AEC reactor plant in Illinois?’

‘Yes. Nothing wrong with your memory.’

‘Even less with Jeff’s. I’ve just been reading some notes he typed out. Well?’

‘He says that Carlton did associate with some far-out group. As I said, we preferred to have one of our boys do the direct legwork. Interviewed Carlton’s landlady’s son. He wasn’t very forthcoming — he’d only attended two or three meetings then gave it up. Couldn’t stand the mumbo-jumbo, he said.’

‘What were they called?’

‘The Damascene Disciples. Nothing known of them. Never registered as a church or religious organization. Disbanded after six months.’

‘They had a religion? I mean, they preached, they had a message?’

‘They didn’t preach. They had a message, all right. They advocated the eternal damnation of all Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Shintoists — in fact, as far as I can make out, everybody who wasn’t a Damascene.’

‘Nothing original about that. Were the Muslims on their list, do you know?’

Dunne looked at a list. ‘Oddly enough, no. Why?’

‘Curiosity. Could this landlady’s son recognize any of them?’

‘That would have been difficult. The Damascenes wore cloaks, masks, and those pixie witches’ hats affected by the Ku-Klux Klan. Only this lot were dressed in black.’

‘Something in common, all the same — as I recall it the Ku-Klux Klan weren’t all that devoted to Jews, Catholics and negroes. Anyway, no possible means of identification?’

‘None. Except that this lad told our agent that one of them was the biggest man he had ever seen, a giant, maybe six-eight, and shoulders like a cart-horse.’

‘This person didn’t note anything peculiar about any of their voices?’

‘This person, according to our agent, just escaped being classified as a moron.’

‘But Carlton was no moron. Interesting, isn’t it? What word about Morro?’

‘Well, his accent. We’ve now had reports from — what shall we call them? — linguistic experts throughout the State. Thirty-eight so far, and more coming in every minute. All of them willing to stake their reputations etc., etc. Point is, no less than twenty-eight plump for a south-east Asian origin.’

‘Do they, indeed? Any attempt to pin-point the exact source?’

‘That’s as far as they will go.’

‘Again, still interesting. Interpol?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You have a list of all the places they’ve contacted?’ Dunne looked at Leroy, who nodded. ‘The Philippines, for instance?’

Leroy consulted a list. ‘No.’

‘Try Manila. Ask them to try around the Cotabato area in Mindanao.’

‘The what in what?’

‘Mindanao is the large southern island in the Philippines. Cotabato is a seaside town. Manila may not be too interested in what goes on in Cotabato — it’s at least five hundred and fifty miles away as the crow flies, maybe a thousand by road and ferry. Try, anyway.’

‘I see.’ Dunne paused. ‘You know something that we don’t know?’

‘No. Chances are I’m making a complete fool of myself, just a wild guess based upon ludicrous improbability and I’d rather not make an utter clown of myself. LeWinter?’

‘Two things. The first one is extraordinarily odd. You will recall that in his telephone notebook he’d listed the numbers of all kinds of people with whom — outside his court cases, of course — LeWinter would not be expected to be on either social or professional terms. Engineers, drillers, oil-rig men. There were forty-four of those in all. Barrow, for reasons best known to himself — he’s almost as close-mouthed as you — assigned a federal agent to interview each and every one of them.’

‘Forty-four. That’s a lot of FBI agents.’

Dunne was patient. ‘There are approximately eight thousand FBI men in the States. If Barrow cares to allocate one half of one per cent of his men to a particular case, that’s his privilege. He could allocate four hundred and forty if he wanted. Point is, twenty-six of those agents came up with the same puzzling — I’d call it astonishing — discovery: twenty-six of the men being investigated are missing. Wives, children, relatives, friends — none of them has any idea where they might be, none was given the slightest indication of their intention to depart. What do you make of that?’

‘Well, that’s interesting too.’

‘Interesting, interesting, interesting. Is that all you can say?’

‘Well, as you say, it’s extremely odd.’

‘Look, Ryder, if you have any idea, if you’re holding anything back —’

‘Obstructing the course of justice, you mean?’

‘Just that.’

‘I thought I might be a complete fool, Dunne. Now I know you are.’ There was a silence, not long but extremely uncomfortable. ‘Sure, I’m obstructing the course of justice. How many of your family is Morro holding hostage?’ Another silence. ‘I’m going to talk to our friend LeWinter. Rather, he’s going to talk to me. It’s as obvious as the hand before your face that he’s supplied Morro with that list and that Morro has either had them suborned or taken by force. Your twenty-six agents might be profitably engaged on checking on the criminal backgrounds, if any, of those twenty-six men. LeWinter will talk. Sure as God he’ll talk.’

The quietly-spoken, cold ferocity in Ryder’s voice had a chilling effect on everyone in the room. Jeff licked his lips and looked at a man he’d never seen before. Parker regarded the ceiling. Delage and Leroy looked at Dunne. Dunne looked at the hand before his face and used the back of it to smooth his brow.

Dunne said: ‘Maybe I’m not myself. Maybe we’re not any of us ourselves. The apologies go without saying. Next you’ll be accusing us of being a bunch of lily-livered incompetents. But, hell, Sergeant, there’s a limit to how far you can step outside the law. Sure he has a list which included the twenty-six men who have disappeared. A dozen others may have similar lists and all for innocuous purposes. You’re proceeding on the basis of assumptions. There isn’t a shred of evidence, direct or otherwise, to link LeWinter and Morro.’

‘I don’t need evidence.’

Once again Dunne used the back of his hand. ‘You have just said, in the presence of three Government officers, that you’re prepared to use torture to obtain your information.’

‘Who said anything about torture? It’ll look like a heart attack. You said you had two things to tell me about LeWinter. Well, that’s one.’

‘Jesus!’ Dunne wasn’t smoothing his brow now; he was mopping it. ‘Delage, you have the information. Me, I need time to think.’

‘Yes. Well.’ Delage didn’t look any happier than his superior. ‘Miss Ivanhoe, if that’s her name, well, LeWinter’s secretary, has talked. There’s a Geneva connection all right. It all sounds very much like something out of science fiction, but if it’s even half-way true then it’s frightening enough. It must be if most of the nations of the world — major ones, that is, thirty to be precise — sit down at a disarmament conference in Geneva and talk about it.’

‘I have all morning,’ Ryder said.

‘Sorry. Well, the lady talked and it didn’t seem to make much sense so we contacted ERDA with the result that one of Dr Durrer’s senior assistants was called in, shown what Miss Ivanhoe said, and had no trouble at all in making sense of it. He’s an expert on the subject.’

‘I haven’t got the afternoon as well.’

‘Give me a break, will you? He wrote a condensed report. This is what he has to say.’

‘Classified?’

‘Declassified. It’s a bit formal, but here it is. He says: “It has long been accepted that any nuclear war, even on a limited scale, would cause megadeaths.” He puts in brackets, millions of deaths. “The US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency came to the conclusion a couple of years ago that megadeaths could arise from another agency which did not directly involve nuclear war. A large number of nuclear explosions, almost certainly in the megaton range, could damage the layer of ozone that shields the earth from the sun’s lethal ultra-violet radiation.

‘“Most people are under the impression that ozone is what they sniff at the seaside. Ozone is an allotropic condition of oxygen, having three atoms instead of the normal two, and can be smelled at the seaside by the electrolysis of water and also after the discharge of electricity through the air, as occurs in a thunderstorm. But ozone in its natural state occurs almost solely in the lower stratosphere at an altitude between ten and thirty miles.

‘“The intense heat given off by a nuclear explosion causes the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere to combine. Those form oxides of nitrogen which would be borne upwards in the atomic cloud. Those would react with the ozone layer and by a well-understood chemical reaction convert the three atoms of ozone into two, that is, normal oxygen which offers zero protection against ultra-violet radiation. This would effectively blow a hole in the ozone layer and would expose the earth underneath the hole to the direct effects of the sun.

‘“Two effects remain unclear. The first of those —”’

Delage broke off as a telephone rang. Leroy picked it up, listened in silence, thanked the caller and hung up. He said: ‘I don’t know why I thanked him for that call. From the local TV station. It seems that Morro wants to strike while the iron is hot. He has another statement to make. At eleven o’clock. That’s in eight minutes’ time. It will be carried on every TV and radio station in the State. For the rest of the States, too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Dunne said. ‘A morning to remember. I wonder why it wasn’t cleared with the FBI first — we would have heard, wouldn’t we?’

Ryder said: ‘You blame them? After what the FBI did to stop the atomic blast in Nevada this morning? This is a matter for national concern now, not just for the FBI. Since when have you had the power to impose martial law? Their attitude, and probably the attitude of every citizen in the country, is that the FBI can go take a jump.’ He looked at Delage. ‘The first “unclear effect”?’

‘You’re a cold-blooded bastard, Ryder.’ Dunne undoubtedly meant what he said.

Delage looked unhappily at Dunne, but Dunne had his head in his hands. Delage returned to his notes.

‘“We just don’t know what will happen. The consequences might be small, they might be catastrophic. We might just all end up becoming very heavily suntanned: or the ultraviolet could conceivably destroy all human, animal and plant life. Subterranean and aquatic life might survive any conditions. We have no means of knowing.”’ Delage looked up. ‘He is a cheery lad, isn’t he?’

‘Let’s fall about afterwards,’ Ryder said. ‘Let’s have the second unclear effect.’

‘Well. He says: “It is not known whether this hole in the stratosphere would remain localized and keep pace with the rotation of the earth; worse, it is not known whether or not this hole can spread through the rest of the ozone layer. Chemical reactions at that level in the stratosphere are unknown and wholly unpredictable: there might well exist a form of breeder reaction, in which case large areas of the earth could be devastated.

‘“The possibility must be taken into account that some nation may already have experimented in some remote and uninhabitated region —”’

Parker said: ‘Siberia?’

‘He doesn’t say. He goes on: “It may have been established that such a hole can be blown through the ozone layer and has been found to be stable as to both location and extent. This, however, is pure conjecture.

‘“This introduces the Geneva connection. As long ago as September third of nineteen-seventy-six the thirty-nation disarmament conference there sent a draft treaty banning modification of the environment for military purposes to the United Nations General Assembly. The matter, not unexpectedly, is still under UNO’s consideration.

‘“The treaty is designed, in the words of the communiqué, to prevent artificial induction by the military of such phenomena as earthquakes —”’

‘Earthquakes!’ Ryder seemed jolted.

‘Yes, earthquakes. He goes on: ‘Tidal waves —’

‘Tidal waves?’ It was almost as if Ryder was beginning to comprehend something.

‘That’s what it says here. There’s some more: “ecological imbalance, alteration of weather and climate and changes in ocean currents, in the state of the ozone layer and the ionosphere, that is, the Appleton and Kennelly-Heaviside layers.” Then he goes on to say that the United States delegate at Geneva, one Mr Joseph Martin, believed that it would be a treaty amounting to a very strong practical inhibition against the hostile use of environmental modification techniques. He further comments that Mr Martin appears to have forgotten or ignored the fact that the only effect of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks was to encourage the Russians, in the sacred name of détente, to embark on a new and massive programme of building a bigger and better generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles.’ Delage appeared to run his eye down the page. ‘He does run on a bit more, but I’m afraid his scientific detachment gives way to a certain irony and bitterness. I would say that’s about all: Miss Ivanhoe’s rather vague ramblings in a coherent form.’

‘Switch on that TV,’ Dunne said. ‘A minute or so. Your sixty-seconds’-worth of observations, Sergeant Ryder?’

‘Poppycock. Or if you want it in plain language —’

‘That’s plain enough. No Reds under the bed?’ Dunne had a very disbelieving right eyebrow.

‘I didn’t say that. Neither do I say I disbelieve this story — theory, if you like — about blowing a hole through the ozone layer. I’m no scientist. All I’m saying is that I don’t believe in its relevance in those circumstances. Russian secret codes.’ On the rare occasions that Ryder expressed contempt he came across very strongly. ‘You think the Russians anyone — would use a young innocent, a marsh-mallow guaranteed to crack under the pressure of a fingertip, to decode a message or supposed secret that’s been in the public domain for two years? The idea’s preposterous.’

‘Laying a false scent, you would think?’

‘Yes. No.’

‘You’ve forgotten “perhaps”.’

‘“Perhaps” is what I mean. Morro’s intention may lie elsewhere. On the other hand, it may not. Maybe he thinks the idea’s so ridiculous that we’ll dismiss it out of hand and go ahead and use that idea. Or not. Maybe the Russians are involved. Again, or not. It’s the old story. Three ranchers are chasing a rustler who’s disappeared up a canyon. Half-way up this canyon there’s a branch canyon. Rancher A figures the rustler has gone hell for leather for the end of the canyon. Rancher B thinks he’s smarter than A and that the rustler, figuring that’s the way his pursuers will think, has taken the branch. C reckons that he’s smarter than both A and B, that the rustler will figure what B has figured and go to the end. No end to how long we could keep on outsmarting ourselves.’

He paused. ‘There could, of course, be a second branch canyon that we know nothing about. Just as we know nothing about the first.’

‘It’s a rare privilege,’ Dunne said, ‘to see a detective’s mind at work.’

Ryder might not have heard him. ‘Another interesting thing. This expert from ERDA. A nuclear physicist, I assume. About blasting a hole through the ozone layer. If the Russians — or whoever — had carried out any such experiments with God knows how many hydrogen bombs we or one of our allies would have been bound to know of it. It would have made headlines — big, big headlines — throughout the world. But there haven’t been any. Have there?’

No one said whether there had or hadn’t.

‘Well, so no experiments. Maybe the Russians — or again, whoever — are as scared of the outcome as we are. Maybe there never will be a nuclear war fought on land. Some people say it will be in space. Our friend in ERDA suggests — what did he say? — subterranean or aquatic use of nuclear devices. How do we fancy getting our feet wet?’

‘A rush on the stores for fishermen’s waders?’ Dunne turned towards the TV. I’m sure our friend Morro is about to enlighten us on that one.’

The newscaster, this time, was a much older man, which boded ill in itself. What boded worse was that he was dressed for a funeral in a suit of sombre hue, a colour in which the normal Califomian newscaster would not normally have been found dead. What boded worse still was the Doomsday expression customarily reserved for those occasions when the local gridiron heroes had been crushingly defeated by some out-of-State upstarts. The tone of voice accorded well with both clothes and expression.

‘We have received another communication from this criminal Morro.’ The newscaster clearly held in contempt the fundamental tenet of Anglo-Saxon law that a man is presumed innocent until found guilty.

‘It contains a dire warning, an unprecedently grave threat to the citizens of California and one that cannot be taken lightly in view of what occurred this morning in Yucca Flat. I have with me in the studio a panel of experts who will later explain the implications of this threat. But first, Morro.’

‘Good evening. This is a pre-recorded message.’ As before, the voice was calm and relaxed: he could have been discussing some minor change in the Dow Jones index. ‘It is pre-recorded because I am completely confident of the outcome of my little experiment in Yucca Flat. By the time you hear those words you will know that my confidence has not been misplaced.

‘This little demonstration of my nuclear resources inconvenienced nobody and hurt nobody. The next demonstration will be on a vastly larger scale, may well inconvenience millions and may well prove disastrous for an untold number of people if they are so stupid as to fail to appreciate the gravity of this warning. However, I am sure you would first like scientific confirmation, on the highest level, that I do have the means to hand. Professor Burnett?’

‘He’s got the means, all right, the blackhearted bastard.’ For a man of unquestionably brilliant intellect Burnett was singularly lacking in resource when it came to the selection of suitable epithets. ‘I hate to use the word “beg” in the presence of a monstrous lunatic but I do beg you to believe me that he has the resources he claims. Of that my fellow physicists and I are in no doubt. He has no fewer than eleven hydrogen nuclear devices here, any one of which could, say, turn Southern California into a desert as lifeless as Death Valley. They are in the three-and-a-half megaton range — that is, each has the explosive potential of three-and-a-half million tons of TNT. You will appreciate the significance of what I mean when I say this bomb is about two hundred times as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima. And he has eleven of those monsters.

‘Correction. He has only ten here. The other is already in position. Where this crazy bastard intends to put it —’

Morro interrupted. ‘Revealing the location of the weapon is a privilege I reserve for myself. Dr Schmidt, Dr Healey, Dr Bramwell, perhaps you would be so kind as to confirm your colleague’s statement.’ With varying degrees of forcefulness, gravity and outrage all three left listeners in no doubt as to the chilling genuineness of the threat. When Bramwell had finished Morro said: ‘And now, the most telling confirmation of all, that of Professor Aachen, probably the country’s leading nuclear weaponry physicist, who personally supervised every step in the building of the bombs. Professor Aachen, you may recall, vanished some seven weeks ago. He has been working with me ever since.’

‘Working with you? Working with you?’ Aachen’s voice held the high quavering note of senility. ‘You monster! You — you — I would never work with you —’ He broke into a weak sobbing and there was a brief silence.

‘He’s been tortured!’ Burnett’s voice was a shout. ‘Tortured, I tell you. He and six kidnapped technicians have been subjected to the most unspeakable —’ His voice broke off in a peculiar gasp which sounded as if he was being strangled, which he probably was.

‘How you do run on, Professor Burnett.’ Morro’s tone was resigned. ‘Well, Professor Aachen. About the viability of those bombs?’

‘They will work.’ The voice was low and still shaking.

‘How do you know?’

‘I built them.’ Aachen sounded desperately weary. ‘There are half a dozen nuclear physicists — if I were to give the design characteristics —’

‘That will not be necessary.’ There was a brief silence then Morro went on: ‘Well, that’s it. All the confirmation that any but the most mentally retarded should ever require. One small correction. Although the ten bombs remaining here are all of the three-and-a-half megaton range the one already placed in position is only of the one-and-a-half megaton range because, frankly, I am uncertain of the effect of a three-and-a-half megaton bomb which may unleash forces I do not wish unleashed — not, that is, as yet.’ Here he paused.

Dunne said with conviction: ‘He’s quite crazy.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Ryder said. ‘One thing, he’d have made one hell of an actor. Pause for effect. Timing.’

Morro said: ‘This bomb, a mere twenty inches by forty inches — it would fit into a car trunk — lies on the floor of the Pacific, off Los Angeles, roughly on the outskirts of Santa Monica Bay. When it is detonated, the resultant tsunamai — tidal wave — will, it is calculated, be between fifteen and twenty feet high, although it may well reach twice this height when being funnelled through the east-west streets of Los Angeles. The effects will be felt at least as far north as Point Arguello and as far south as San Diego. Residents in the Channel Islands — particularly, I should mention, Santa Catalina — should seek high ground. One unknown, I am afraid, is that it might trigger off the Newport-Inglewood Fault, but then I would expect that area of the city to be evacuated anyway.

‘I need hardly warn against any foolish attempts to locate this device. The device can be detonated at any time and will be if any attempt is made to interfere with it and if this should occur before any attempt is made to evacuate the area the results could not fail to be catastrophic. What I am saying is that any person or persons responsible for sending any aircraft or ships to investigate the area roughly between Santa Cruz Island and Santa Catalina will be directly responsible for the deaths of countless thousands.

‘I have certain demands to make which will be announced at one p.m. If they are not met by midnight I will trigger the hydrogen bomb at ten a.m. tomorrow morning. If, after that, the demands are still not met, the next bombs — not bomb but all the remaining bombs — will go off at some time between dusk and dawn on Saturday night.’

On this cheerful note Morro ended his message. The newscaster made to introduce his panel of experts but Dunne switched off the set with the observation that if Morro was uncertain as to the effects of the explosion then it was unlikely that the so-called experts had a clue. ‘Well, Ryder, consider yourself a prophet with honour. Inspired. We get our feet wet. Believe him?’

‘Sure. Don’t you?’

‘Yes. What to do?’

‘That’s a matter for the authorities whoever they might be. Me, I take to the hills.’

Delage said: ‘I simply don’t believe it.’

‘Bully for you,’ Dunne said. ‘The spirit that won the West. Tell you what. Leave me the details of your next of kin and stroll along the sea-front at Long Beach tomorrow. Better still, take a deck-chair on the Santa Catalina ferry.’ He bent a cold glance on the unfortunate Delage, then turned to Ryder. ‘You would say the Los Angelinos are going to be rather pre-occupied for the rest of the day?’

‘Look on the bright side. The greatest break ever for the most neurotic city ever. The perfect excuse for giving full and public rein to all those hidden phobias and neuroses. The pharmaceutical shops should be doing a roaring trade for the rest of the day.’

Parker said: ‘He clearly doesn’t expect this second warning to be sufficient, or he wouldn’t have all those back-up bombs. Jesus, his demands must be sky-high.’

‘And we don’t know what those demands are yet.’ Dunne sighed. ‘Two hours yet. Evil bastard. He certainly knows how to turn down the screw on psychological tension.’ He thought briefly. ‘I wonder why he didn’t erase those references to torture. Rather spoils his image, no?’

‘Did you believe it?’ Ryder said. Dunne nodded. ‘That’s it then. That was no act; that was for real. Conviction. Authenticity. What interests me more is that Morro may be growing careless, or that he may be so sure of himself that he’s talking too much. Why did he forbid Aachen to give any specifications about the bombs and then gratuitously inform us that it was about twenty by forty inches or something of the kind? It was not in character. He’s an economical speaker, and that was unnecessary. If Aachen had given us details they would have been accurate. Granted, Morro didn’t give us any specifications but I have a faint suspicion that the measurements given were inaccurate. If they were, why should he want to mislead us?’

‘I don’t follow,’ Dunne said. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘I wish I knew. It would be instructive to find out what kind of bombs Aachen was in the habit of designing. I mean, if he didn’t know about the design how could he supervise the construction? I wonder if you could find out.’

I’ll phone the director and try. I wouldn’t have much hope. That would be top secret and there are some people with whom the FBI have very limited power of investigation. The Atomic Energy Commission is one of those.’

‘Even in a national emergency?’

‘I said I’ll try.’

‘And can you find out anything about Sheriff Hartman’s background? Not police records. We can be sure that either LeWinter or Donahure or both had a hand in his installation in which case his records are bound to be faked. His true background.’

‘We’re ahead of you, Sergeant. It’s in hand.’

‘Well, thanks. In view of what we’ve just heard what do you feel now about my intentions of going to trample all over LeWinter’s civic rights?’

‘LeWinter? Who’s LeWinter?’

‘Just so,’ Ryder said and left followed by Parker and Jeff.

They stopped off at the Examiner building. Ryder went inside, spoke briefly to Aaron, the editor, and emerged within two minutes, a buff envelope in his hand. Inside the car he extracted a photograph and showed it to Parker and Jeff. Parker studied it with interest.

‘Beauty and the Beast? April and December? How much do you think the Globe would give us for this masterpiece?’

LeWinter was at home and had the look of a man who didn’t intend to leave it. If he was informed by the spirit of joie de vivre and goodwill towards his fellow man he was concealing it well. In fact he made no attempt to conceal his displeasure as the three policemen bustled him into his own luxurious lounge. Parker did the talking.

‘We’re from Central. We’d like to ask you a few questions.’

‘I’m a judge.’ The cold dignity came off in neither tone nor expression. ‘Where’s your warrant?’

‘You were a judge. “Were” or “are”, you’re stupid. For questions, no warrant. Which leads me rather neatly into the first question. Why did you provide Donahure with signed blank search warrants? Don’t you know that’s illegal? You, a judge? Or do you deny it?’

‘Most certainly I deny it.’

‘That was a foolish thing for a supposedly learned judge to say. Do you think we would make such an accusation unless we could substantiate it? We have them. You can see them down at the station. Well, that’s for starters. We’ve established you’re a liar. Henceforth, every statement you make will automatically be disbelieved unless we have independent corroboration. Still deny it?’

LeWinter said nothing. Parker had an excellent line in intimidation and demoralization.

Parker went on: ‘We found them in his safe. We searched his house.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘You’re no longer a judge. He’s under arrest.’

LeWinter forgot he was no longer a judge. ‘On what grounds?’

‘Bribery and corruption. You know, blackmail, taking dirty money and dishing it out to dishonest cops. Kept most of it for himself, though.’ He looked reproachfully at LeWinter. ‘You should have taught him the basic tricks of the trade.’

‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘How to stash away illegal money. Did you know he had half a million in eight accounts? He should have been sophisticated, shouldn’t he? The clown stashed it away in local accounts. Switzerland’s the place. Your numbered account in Zurich. We have it. Bank’s been co-operative.’

LeWinter’s attempted look of outrage fell just short of the pathetic. ‘If you’re insinuating that I, a senior judge of the State of California, have been involved in any illegal financial transactions —’

‘Shut up and save it for a real judge. We’re not insinuating. We know. And perhaps you would care to explain how come that ten thousand dollars found in Donahure’s possession had your prints all over them?’

LeWinter didn’t care to explain. His eyes were moving restlessly from side to side but it couldn’t have been because of any thought of escape in his mind: he could not bear himself to meet the three pairs of coldly accusing eyes.

Parker had LeWinter on the hook and had no intention of letting him get off it. ‘Not that that’s the only thing that Donahure’s been charged with. Oh, no. Unfortunately for you. He also faces a rap and certain conviction for attempted murder and murder, witnesses and confession respectively. On the murder rap you will be charged as an accessory.’

‘Murder? Murder!’ In the course of his legal practice LeWinter must have heard the word a thousand times, but it was long odds that it had ever affected him as it did now.

‘You’re a friend of Sheriff Hartman, aren’t you?’

‘Hartman?’ LeWinter was caring less and less for the line the conversation was taking.

‘So he says. After all, you do have an alarm connected from your safe to his office.’

‘Ah! Hartman.’

‘Ah, as you say, Hartman. Seen him recently?’

LeWinter had actually started wetting his lips, that indication of corrosive anxiety to which he had succeeded in reducing hundreds of suspects over the years. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘But you can remember what he looked like, I hope. You’d never recognize him now. Honestly. Back of his head blown off. Downright uncivil of you to have your friend’s head blown off.’

‘You’re mad. You’re crazy.’ Even the most newly qualified intern would have disapproved of LeWinter’s peculiar complexion which had acquired all the healthy vitality of a corpse. ‘You’ve no proof.’

‘Don’t be so original. No proof. That’s what they all say when they’re guilty. Where’s your secretary?’

‘What secretary?’ The latest switch in attack seemed to have a momentarily paralysing effect on his thought processes.

‘God help us.’ Parker lifted his eyes upwards in temporary supplication. ‘Rather, God help you. Bettina Ivanhoe. Where is she?’

‘Excuse me.’ LeWinter went to a cupboard, poured himself some bourbon and drank it in one gulp. It didn’t seem to do him any good.

Parker said: ‘You may have needed that but that wasn’t why you took it. Time to think, isn’t that it? Where is she?’

‘Gave her the day off.’

‘Whisky didn’t help. Wrong answer. When did you speak to her?’

‘This morning.’

‘Another lie. She’s been in custody since last night, assisting police with their enquiries. So you didn’t give her a day off,’ Parker was quite without pity. ‘But it seems you gave yourself a day off. Why aren’t you down in the courts dispensing justice in your usual even-handed fashion?’

‘I’m not well.’ His appearance bore him out. Jeff looked at his father to see if he would stop the ruthless interrogation but Ryder was regarding LeWinter with what appeared to be an expression of profound indifference.

‘Not well? Compared to the way you’re going to feel very soon — when you’re in your court being tried for murder — you’re in blooming health. You’re at home because one of your criminal accomplices, masters more like, called you from Bakersfield and told you to lie low. Tell me, how well do you know Miss Ivanhoe? You know, of course, that her proper name is Ivanov?’

LeWinter had further recourse to his liquor cupboard. He said wearily, almost despairingly: ‘How long is this — this inquisition to go on?’

‘Not long. If you tell the truth, that is. I asked a question.’

‘How well — she’s my secretary. That’s enough.’

‘No more than that?’

‘Of course not.’

Ryder stepped forward and showed LeWinter the photograph he’d collected from the Examiner office. LeWinter stared at it as if hypnotized, then got back to his lip-licking.

‘A nice kid.’ Ryder was being conversational. ‘Blackmail, of course. She’s told us. Not with this end in view — this is just a spin-off. Principally, as we know, she came in handy for the translation of phony Russian documents.’

‘Phony?’

‘Ah! So the documents do exist. I wonder why Morro wanted you to provide him with the names of engineers, drillers, oil-rig men. Even more, I wonder why twenty-six of them are missing.’

‘God knows what you’re talking about.’

‘And you. Watch TV this morning?’ LeWinter shook his head in a dazed and uncomprehending manner. ‘So perhaps you don’t know he’s detonating a hydrogen bomb in Santa Monica Bay or thereabouts at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.’ LeWinter made no reply and registered no expression, no doubt because he’d no expressions left to register. ‘For an eminent judge you do keep odd company, LeWinter.’

It was a measure of LeWinter’s mental distress that comprehension came so slowly. He said in a dull voice: ‘You were the man who was here last night?’

‘Yes.’ Ryder nodded to Jeff. ‘And this is Perkins. Remember Perkins? Patrolman Ryder. My son. Unless you’re blind and deaf you must know that your friend Morro holds two of our family captive. One of them, my daughter — my son’s sister — has been wounded. We feel kindly disposed to you. Well, LeWinter, apart from being as corrupt as all hell, a lecherous old goat, a traitor and accessory to murder, you’re also a patsy, a sucker, a fall-guy, a scape-goat — call it what you will. You were conned, LeWinter, just as you thought you were conning Donahure and Miss Ivanov and Hartman. Used as a red herring to set up a non-existent Russian connection.

‘Only two things I want to know: who gave you something and to whom did you give something? Who gave you the money, the code-book, the instructions to hire Miss Ivanov and to obtain the names and addresses of the now-missing twenty-six men — and to whom did you give the names and addresses?’

LeWinter eventually registered an expression: he clamped his lips shut. Jeff winced as his father stepped forward, his expression, or lack of it, not changing, a gun swinging in his hand. LeWinter shut his eyes, flung up a protective forearm, stepped quickly back, caught his heel in a throw rug and fell heavily, striking the back of his head against a chair. He lay on the floor for ten seconds, perhaps longer, then slowly sat up. He looked dazed, as if having difficulty in relating himself to the circumstances in which he found himself — and he was clearly not acting.

He said in a croaking voice: I’ve got a bad heart.’ Looking at and listening to him it was impossible to doubt it.

I’ll cry tomorrow. Meantime, you think your heart will last out long enough to let you get to your feet?’ Slowly, shaking, using both a chair and a table, LeWinter got to his unsteady feet. He still had to hang on to the table for support. Ryder remained unmoved. He said: ‘The man who gave you all those things. The man to whom you gave the names. Was it the same man?’

‘Call my doctor.’ LeWinter was clutching his chest. ‘God’s sake, I’ve already had two heart attacks.’ His face was registering an expression now. It was contorted in fear and pain. He clearly felt — and was probably right — that his life was in mortal danger, and was begging to have it saved. Ryder regarded him with the dispassionate eye of a medieval headsman.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Jeff looked at him in something close to horror but Ryder had eyes only for LeWinter. ‘Then I’ll have nothing on my conscience if you die and there won’t be a mark on you when the mortuary wagon comes to collect you. Was it the same man?’

‘Yes.’ A barely audible whisper.

‘The same man as called from Bakersfield?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ryder half-lifted his gun. LeWinter looked at him in defeat and despair and repeated: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

Jeff spoke for the first time and his voice was urgent. ‘He doesn’t know.’

‘I believe him.’ Ryder hadn’t looked away from LeWinter. ‘Describe this man.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Or won’t?’

‘He wore a hood. Before God, he wore a hood.’

‘If Donahure got ten thousand dollars, then you got a lot more. Probably a great deal more. Give him a receipt?’

‘No.’ LeWinter shuddered. ‘Just said if I would break my word he would break my back. He could have done it too. Biggest man I ever saw.’

‘Ah!’ Ryder paused, seemed to relax, smiled briefly and went on, far from encouragingly: ‘He could still come and do it. Look at all the trouble it would save the law and the prison hospital.’ He produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them round LeWinter’s wrists.

The judge’s voice was weak and lacked conviction. ‘You have no arrest warrant.’

‘Don’t be simple-minded and don’t make me laugh. I don’t want any vertebrae snapping. I don’t want you getting on the wrong phone. I don’t want any escape attempt. And I don’t want any suicide.’ He looked at the photograph he still held. I’ll be a long time forgetting. I want to see you rot in San Quentin.’ He led him towards the door, stopped and looked at Parker and Jeff. ‘Observe, if you will. I never laid a finger on him.’

Jeff said: ‘Major Dunne will never believe it. Neither do I.’