Алистер Маклин - Goodbye California

Ryder considered Mitchell for a few moments, then looked across at Dunne, who sat opposite him. He said, in a tone of exaggerated disbelief: ‘You brought me all the way up here just to listen to this pompous and arrogant rubbish?’

Dunne looked at his fingernails. Jeff looked at the roof. Barrow looked at the roof. Mitchell looked mad. His tone would have frozen mercury.

‘I don’t think I can be hearing properly, Sergeant.’

‘Then why don’t you vacate your position to someone who can? I spoke clearly enough. I didn’t want to come here. I know your reputation. I don’t give a damn about it. If you throw Mr Parker and my son out then, by the same token, you have to throw me out. You say they have no official capacity: neither have you. You just muscled your way in. They have as much right to order you out as you have to order them out: you have no official jurisdiction inside the United States. If you can’t understand that and stop antagonizing people who are doing an honest job of work then it’s time you yielded your chair to someone who can.’

Ryder looked leisurely round the table. No one appeared disposed to make any comment. Mitchell’s face was frozen. Barrow’s was set in an expression of calmly judicial impartiality, a remarkable tribute to the man’s self-control: had he been eavesdropping and alone he would unquestionably have been falling about and holding his sides.

‘So, having established the fact that there are no fewer than seven of us here in an unofficial capacity, let’s look at the investigation. Mr Parker and my son have already achieved a very considerable amount, as Major Dunne will confirm. They have helped solve the murder of a county sheriff, put a corrupt police chief behind bars on a charge of murder and also put behind bars, on a charge of accessory to murder, a judge widely regarded as Chairman-elect of the State Supreme Court. All three, including the murdered man, were deeply involved in the business on hand: this has provided us with extremely valuable information.’

Mitchell had the grace to part his lips about half an inch. Barrow remained without expression. Clearly he’d been briefed by Dunne: equally clear was the fact that he hadn’t bothered to pass on his information.

‘And what has the CIA achieved? I’ll tell you. It has succeeded in making a laughing-stock of itself in general and its director in particular, not to mention uselessly wasting the taxpayers’ money by sending its agents to pussyfoot around Geneva in search of so-called secret information that has been in the public domain for two years. Apart from that, what? An educated guess would say zero.’

Barrow coughed. ‘You wouldn’t say you are being needlessly intransigent?’ He could have put more reproof into his voice if he’d tried, even a little.

‘Needless intransigence is the only language some people seem to understand.’

Mitchell’s voice surfaced through layers of cracked ice. ‘Your point is taken, Sergeant. You have come to teach us how to do our jobs.’

Ryder wasn’t quite through with being intransigent or letting Mitchell off the hook. ‘I am not a Sergeant. I’m a private citizen and as such beholden to no one. I can’t teach the CIA anything – I wouldn’t know how to go about subverting foreign governments or assassinating their presidents. I can’t teach the FBI anything. All I want is a fair hearing, but it’s really a matter of indifference whether I get it or not.’ His eyes were looking at Mitchell’s. ‘You can shut up and let me say what I’ve been brought here to say, against my better judgement, or not. I’d as soon leave. I find the atmosphere here uncomfortable, not to say hostile, and Major Dunne has all the essentials.’

Mitchell said in a toneless voice: ‘We will hear you out.’

‘I don’t like that expression either.’ Barrow winced. Despite his antipathy towards Mitchell it was not hard to guess that, even although momentarily, he was putting himself in the other’s position. ‘It’s the term used by the chairman of the board when he’s giving a carpeted executive the chance to justify himself before being fired.’

‘Please.’ Barrow turned the palms of his hands upwards. ‘We take the point that you’re a plain speaker. Please take our point that you haven’t been brought here for nothing. We will listen carefully.’

‘Thank you.’ Ryder wasted no time on preamble. ‘You’ve all seen the streets round this block. As we came into your pad on the roof we saw a hundred streets like it. Blocked. Choked. Nothing like it since the retreat from Mons. The people are running scared. I don’t blame them. If I lived here I’d be running scared too. They believe that Morro is going to trigger off this bomb at ten tomorrow morning. So do I. I also believe that he will set off or is quite prepared to set off the other ten nuclear devices he claims to have. What I don’t for a moment believe in is his demand. It’s utter foolishness, he must know it is and we should recognize it for what it is: an empty threat, a meaningless demand that can’t be met.’

‘Perhaps you should know,’ Barrow said. ‘Just before you arrived word came through that protests have been lodged by the Kremlin and Peking, and by their embassies in Washington, crying to high heaven that they are as innocent as the driven snow of this monstrous accusation against them – no one has accused them of anything but one takes their point – and that it’s all part of a warmongering capitalist plot. First time in living memory that they’ve totally agreed with each other on anything.’

‘Not just the usual standard denial?’

‘No. They’re hopping mad.’

‘Don’t blame them. The suggestion is ludicrous.’

‘You’re sure the fact that you already seem to have discounted evidence pointing to some Communist connection has not influenced your thinking in this?’

‘I’m sure. So are you.’

Mitchell said: ‘I’m not so sure.’

‘You wouldn’t be. Last thing you do every night is look under your bed.’

Mitchell just stopped short of grinding his teeth. ‘If not that, what?’ The words were innocuous enough but their tone left no doubt that he was prepared to fight to the death for his disbelief of every word Ryder was about to say.

‘Bear with me. It all seems to start with the Philippines. I’m sure you all know how it is out there, and I’m sure the last thing I am is a specialist in foreign affairs, but I’ve been reading all about it in the library just a couple of hours ago. I’ll briefly recap what I read, as much for my own sake as anybody else’s.

‘The Philippines are in a financial mess. Hugely ambitious development plans, mounting internal and external debts, heavy military expenditures – they’re strapped. But like a good many other countries they know what to do when the kitty’s empty – put the arm on Uncle Sam. And they’re in an excellent position to apply pressure.

‘The Philippines are the keystone of America’s Pacific military strategy and the huge Seventh Fleet anchorage at Subic Bay and the strategically crucial Air Force Base are regarded by the Pentagon as being indispensable and well worth the rent – many people regard it as a cross between ransom and extortion money – that is demanded.

‘The south of the Philippines – the island of Mindanao – is inhabited by Muslims. You all know that. Unlike Christianity, the Muslim religion has no moral laws against the killing of mankind in general – just against the killing of Muslims, period. The concept of a holy war is an integral part of their lives and this is what they’re doing right now – carrying out a holy crusade against President Marcos and his predominantly Catholic government. They regard it as a religious war being waged by an oppressed people. Whether it’s a justifiable war or not is – well, it’s none of my business. In any event, it is an intensely bitter war. I think all this is well known.