Алистер Маклин - Goodbye California

‘I think you exaggerate, Professor. I think that, where height is concerned, people will leave a very considerable margin of safety between the water levels I suggested and the worst they can fear. As for the Newport-Inglewood Fault, only a madman would remain in the area at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I do not visualize throngs of people heading for the Hollywood Park Race Track – if they head there, at that time of the morning, which I don’t know. I think your fears are mainly groundless.’

‘Mainly! Mainly! You mean only a few thousand may drown?’

‘I have no cause to love American people.’ Morro still maintained his monolithic calm. ‘They have not exactly been kind to mine.’

There was a brief silence then Healey said in a low voice: ‘This is even worse than I feared. Race, religion, politics, I don’t know. The man’s a zealot, a fanatic.’

‘He’s nuts.’ Burnett reached for the bottle.

‘Judge LeWinter wishes to make a voluntary statement,’ Ryder said.

‘Does he now?’ Dunne peered at the trembling, fearful figure, a pale and almost unimaginable shadow of the imposing figure who had so long dominated the Centre Court. ‘Is that the case, Judge?’

Ryder was impatient. ‘Sure it is.’

‘Look, Sergeant, I was asking the judge.’

‘We were there,’ Parker said. ‘Jeff and I. There was no coercion, no force, the only time Sergeant Ryder touched him was to put on handcuffs. We wouldn’t perjure ourselves, Major Dunne.’

‘You wouldn’t.’ He turned to Delage. ‘Next door. I’ll take his statement in a minute.’

‘One moment before he goes,’ Ryder said. ‘Any word about Hartman?’

Dunne permitted himself his first smile. ‘For once, some luck. Just come in. Hartman, it seems, has been living out there for some years. With his widowed sister, which accounts for the fact that his name was not in the phone book. Didn’t spend much time there until a year or so ago. Travelled a lot. You’d never guess what his business is – well, was, till last year.’

‘Oil rigs.’

Dunne said without heat: ‘Damn you, Ryder, you spoil a man’s simplest pleasures. Yes. Boss roustabout. First-class record. How did you know?’

‘I didn’t. Who were his sponsors – you know, character referees?’

‘Two prominent local business men and – well?’

‘Donahure and LeWinter.’

‘Indeed.’

Ryder looked at LeWinter. ‘You and Hartman made up that list of drillers and engineers together, you from your court cases and extensive briefs from the oil companies, Hartman from his field experience?’

LeWinter said nothing.

‘Well, at least he doesn’t deny it. Tell me, LeWinter, was it his job to recruit those men?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘To kidnap them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, then, to contact them, one way or another?’

‘Yes.’

‘And deliver them?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Yes or no.’

LeWinter gathered together the shreds of his dignity and turned to Dunne. ‘I am being subjected to harassment.’

‘If that’s what you choose to call it,’ Dunne said unsympathetically. ‘Proceed, Sergeant.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Yes, damn you, yes.’

‘So, to be obvious, he must have known where to deliver those men after recruitment, voluntary or not. So, assuming it was Morro who was responsible for their disappearance, Hartman had a direct line to Morro or knew how to contact him. You must agree with that.’

LeWinter sat down in a chair. He looked more like a cadaver than ever. ‘If you say so.’

‘And, of course, you and Donahure had the same line.’

‘No!’ The denial was immediate and almost vehement.

‘Well.’ Ryder was approving. ‘That’s more like it.’

Dunne said: ‘You believe him? That he’s no line on Morro?’

‘Sure. If he had, he’d be dead by now. A sweet lad, this Morro. Even playing the cards close to the chest he never lets his left hand know what the right is doing. Only Hartman knew. Morro thought that Hartman was totally in the clear. How was he to know, how was anyone to guess that I’d trace him because of the alarm linking LeWinter’s safe and Hartman’s office? Morro certainly knew nothing about that. If he did, he’d never have exposed LeWinter and Donahure by planting misleading evidence on them. But Morro had taken no chances He’d given strict orders to both LeWinter and Donahure that if anyone got a line on Hartman, the only man who had a line to him, then Hartman was to be eliminated. It’s really all so simple, isn’t it?’ He looked consideringly at LeWinter, then back at Dunne. ‘Remove that pillar of justice, will you? He makes me sick.’

When he’d gone, Dunne said: ‘A fair morning’s work. I under-estimated you, Sergeant Ryder. Not breaking his neck, I mean. I’m beginning to wonder if I could have done the same.’

‘You’re either born with a heart of gold or you aren’t. Any word from the boss-man – Barrow, isn’t it? – about what kind of bombs this Professor Aachen was designing when Morro snatched him?’

‘I phoned him. He said he’d contact the AEC and call back. He’s not a man to waste time. No reply from him yet. He was curious why we wanted to find out.’

‘Don’t rightly know myself. I said I thought Morro was trying to mislead us, that’s all. What you call an outside chance of nothing. And speaking of Morro – there wouldn’t be any word from Manila?’

Dunne looked at his watch, then in a quietly exasperated patience at Ryder. ‘You’ve been gone exactly one hour and five minutes. Manila, I would remind you, is not just a couple of blocks down the road. Would there be anything else?’

‘Well, as you’re offering.’ Dunne momentarily closed his eyes. ‘Carlton’s friend back in Illinois mentioned a very big man in the group of weirdos Carlton was flirting with. LeWinter has just mentioned, in a very scared voice, a similar person who’s threatened to break his back. Could be one and the same man. There can’t be many eighty-inchers around.’

‘Eighty-inchers?’

‘Six foot eight. That’s what Carlton’s pal said. Shouldn’t be difficult to check whether anyone of that size has been charged or convicted at some time in this State. Nor should it be very difficult to find if such a character is a member of any of the oddball organisations in California. You can’t hide a man that size, and apparently this person doesn’t go to much trouble to keep hidden. And then there’s the question of helicopters.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not just any helicopter. A special helicopter. It would be nice if you could trace it.’

‘A trifle.’ Dunne was being heavily sarcastic. ‘First, there are more helicopters in this State than there are in any comparable region on earth. Second, the FBI is stretched to its limits–’

‘Stretched to its limits! Look, Major, I’m in no mood for light humour this morning. Eight thousand agents stretched to their limits and what have they achieved? Zero. I could even ask what they are doing and the answer could be the same. When I said a special helicopter I meant a very, very special helicopter. The one that delivered this atom bomb to Yucca Flat. Or have your eight thousand agents already got that little matter in hand?’

‘Explain.’

Ryder turned to his son. ‘Jeff, you’ve said you know that area. Yucca and Frenchman Flats.’

‘I’ve been there.’

‘Would a vehicle leave tracks up there?’

‘Sure. Not everywhere. There’s a lot of rock. But there’s also shingle and rubble and sand. Chances are good, yes.’

‘Now then, Major. Would any of the eight thousand have been checking on tracks – trucks, cars, dune buggies – in the area of the crater: those, that is, that they didn’t obliterate in their mad dash to the scene of the crime?’