Алистер Маклин - Goodbye California

‘Hydrogen bombs?’

‘A nuclear physicist for that.’ He paused then went on with some bitterness: ‘Provided, that is, he’s fourteen years of age or over.’

‘Explain.’

‘Back in nineteen-seventy there was an attempted nuclear blackmail of a city in Florida. Police tried to hush it up but it came out all the same. Give me a million dollars and a safe conduct out of America or I’ll blast your city out of existence, the blackmailer said. Next day came the same threat, this time accompanied by a diagram of a hydrogen bomb – a cylinder filled with lithium hydride wrapped in cobalt, with an implosion system at one end.’

‘That how they make a hydrogen bomb?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Isn’t that sad? And you a nuclear physicist. They nailed the blackmailer?’

‘Yes. A fourteen-year-old boy.’

‘It’s an advance on fireworks.’ For almost a minute Ryder gazed into the far distance, which appeared to be located in the region of his toe-caps, through a drifting cloud of blue-grey smoke, then said:

‘It’s a come-on. A con-job. A gambit. A phoney. Don’t you agree?’

Jablonsky was guarded. ‘I might. If, that is to say, I had the faintest idea what you were talking about.’

‘Will this theft of the uranium and plutonium be made public?’

Jablonsky gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘No, sir. Not if we can help it. Mustn’t give the shivers to the great American public.’

‘Not if you can help it. I’ll take long odds that the bandits won’t be so bashful and that the story will have banner head-lines in every paper in the State tomorrow. Not to mention the rest of the country. It smells, Doc. The people responsible are obviously experts and must have known that the easiest way to get weapons-grade material is to hi-jack a shipment. With all that stuff already missing it’s long odds that they’ve got more than enough than they need already. And you know as well as I do that three nuclear physicists in the State have just vanished in the past couple of months. Would you care to guess who their captors were?’

‘I don’t think so – I mean, I don’t think I have to.’

‘I didn’t think so. You could have saved me all this thinking – I prefer to avoid it where possible. Let’s assume they already had the fuel. Let’s assume they already had the physicists to make the nuclear devices, quite possibly even hydrogen explosives. Let’s even assume that they have already got one of those devices – and why stop at one? – manufactured and tucked away at some safe place.’

Jablonsky looked unhappy. ‘It’s not an assumption I care to assume.’

‘I can understand that. But if something’s there wishing it wasn’t won’t make it go away. Some time back you described something as being eminently possible and more than probable. Would you describe this assumption in the same words?’

Jablonsky thought for some moments then said: ‘Yes.’

‘So. A smoke-screen. They didn’t really need the fuel or the physicists or the hostages. Why did they take something they didn’t need? Because they needed them.’

‘That makes a lot of sense.’

Ryder was patient. ‘They didn’t need them to make bombs. I would think they needed them for three other reasons. The first would be to obtain maximum publicity, to convince people that they had means to make bombs and meant business. The second is to lull us into the belief that we have time to deal with the threat. I mean, you can’t make a nuclear bomb in a day or a week, can you?’

‘No.’

‘So. We have breathing space. Only we haven’t.’

‘Getting the hang of your double-talk takes time. If our assumption is correct we haven’t.’

‘And the third thing is to create the proper climate of terror. People don’t behave rationally when they’re scared out of their wits, do they? Behaviour becomes no longer predictable. You don’t think, you just react.’

‘And where does all this lead us?’

‘That’s as far as my thinking goes. How the hell should I know?’

Jablonsky peered into his Scotch and found no inspiration there. He sighed again and said: ‘The only thing that makes sense out of all of this is that it accounts for your behaviour.’

‘Something odd about my behaviour?’

‘That’s the point. There should be. Or there should have been. Worried stiff about Susan. But if you’re right in your thinking – well, I understand.’

‘I’m afraid you don’t. If I’m right in what you so kindly call “my thinking” she’s in greater danger than she would have been if we’d accepted the facts at their face value. If the bandits are the kind of people that I think they are then they’re not to be judged on ordinary standards. They’re mavericks. They’re power-mad, megalomaniacs if you like, people who will stop at nothing, people who will go all the way in ruthlessness, especially when thwarted or shoved into a corner.’

Jablonsky digested this for some time then said: ‘Then you ought to look worried.’

‘That would help a lot.’ The door bell rang. Ryder rose and went to the lobby. Sergeant Parker, a bachelor who looked on Ryder’s house as a second home, had already let himself in. He, like Jablonsky, was carrying a briefcase: unlike Jablonsky, he looked cheerful.

‘Evening. Shouldn’t be associating with a fired cop, but in the sacred name of friendship–’

‘I resigned.’

‘Comes to the same thing. Leaves the way clear for me to assume the mantle of the most detested and feared cop in town. Look on the bright side. After thirty years of terrifying the local populace you deserve a break.’ He followed Ryder into the living-room. ‘Ah! Dr Jablonsky. I didn’t expect to find you here.’

‘I didn’t expect to be here.’

‘Lift up your spirits, Doc. Consorting with disgraced cops is not a statutory crime.’ He looked accusingly at Ryder. ‘Speaking of lifting – or lifting up spirits – this man’s glass is almost empty. London gin for me.’ A year on an exchange visit to Scotland Yard had left Parker with the profound conviction that American gin hadn’t advanced since prohibition days and was still made in bath-tubs.

‘Thanks to remind me.’ Ryder looked at Jablonsky. ‘He’s only consumed about a couple of hundred crates of the stuff here in the past fourteen years. Give or take a crate.’

Parker smiled, delved into his briefcase and came up with Ryder’s photograph. ‘Sorry to be so late with this. Had to go back and report to our fat friend. Seemed to be recovering from some sort of heart attack. Less interested in my report than in discussing you freely and at some length. Poor man was very upset so I congratulated him on his character analysis. This picture has some importance?’

‘I hope so. What makes you think so?’

‘You asked for it. And it seems Susan was going to take it with her then changed her mind. Seems she took it with her into the room where they were all locked up. Told the guard she felt sick. Guard checked the wash-room – for windows and telephone, I should imagine – then let her in. She came out in a few minutes looking, so I’m told, deathly pale.’

‘Morning Dawn,’ Ryder said.

‘What’s that?’

‘Face-powder she uses.’

‘Ah! Then – peace to the libbers – she exercised a woman’s privilege of changing her mind and changed her mind about taking the picture with her.’

‘Have you opened it up?’

‘I’m a virtuous honest cop and I wouldn’t dream–’

‘Stop dreaming.’

Parker eased off the six spring-loaded clips at the back, removed the rectangle of white cardboard and peered with interest at the back of Ryder’s photograph. ‘A clue, by heavens, a clue! I see the word “Morro”. The rest, I’m afraid, is in shorthand.’