Алистер Маклин - Goodbye California

‘By God, I believe I have it! We’re not thinking. What we require is a nuclear physicist here, an expert on hydrogen bombs and missiles. We’re laymen. What do we know about the triggering mechanisms of those devices? For all we know they may be immune to – what’s it called? – sympathetic detonation. If that were the case, a fighter-bomber or two with tactical nuclear missiles – and poof! – all life would be immediately extinct. Instant annihilation for everyone in the Adlerheim.’ Archimedes in his bath or Newton with his apple couldn’t have shown more revelationary enthusiasm.

Ryder said: ‘Well, thank you very much.’

‘What do you mean?’

Dunne answered him. ‘Mr Ryder’s lack of enthusiasm is understandable, sir. Or have you forgotten that his wife and daughter are being held hostage there, not to mention eight others, including five of the country’s outstanding nuclear physicists?’

‘Ah! Oh!’ Much of the missionary zeal vanished. ‘I’m sorry, no, I’m afraid I’d forgotten that. Nevertheless–’

‘Nevertheless, you were going to say, the greatest good of the greatest number. Your proposal would almost certainly achieve the opposite – the greatest destruction of the greatest number.’

‘Justify that, Mr Ryder.’ Mitchell cherished his brain-children and no one was going to take his baby away if he could help it.

‘Easily. You are going to use atomic missiles. The southern end of the San Joaquin Valley is quite heavily populated. It is your intention to wipe those people out?’

‘Of course not. We evacuate them.’

‘Heaven send me strength,’ Ryder said wearily. ‘Has it not occurred to you that from the Adlerheim Morro has an excellent view of the valley, and you may be sure that he has more than a scattering of spies and informants actually down there? What do you think he is going to think when he sees the citizens of the plain disappearing en masse over the northern and southern horizons? He’s going to say to himself: “Ha! I’ve been rumbled” – and apart from anything else that’s the last thing we want him to know – “I must teach those people a lesson for they’re clearly preparing to make an atomic attack on me.” So he sends one of his helicopters down south to the Los Angeles area and another up north to the Bay area. Six million dead. I should think that’s a conservative estimate. Is that your idea of military tactics, of reducing casualties to a minimum?’

From the crestfallen expression on his face it didn’t seem to be. Clearly, it wasn’t anybody else’s either.

Ryder went on: ‘A personal opinion, gentlemen, and offered for what it’s worth, but this is what I think. I don’t think there are going to be any nuclear casualties – not unless we’re stupid enough to provoke them ourselves.’ He looked at Barrow. ‘Back in your office some little time ago I said that I believed Morro is going to trigger off this bomb in the bay tomorrow. I still do. I also said I believed he would set off or would be prepared to set off the other ten devices on Saturday night. I’ve modified that thinking a bit. I still think that if he’s given sufficient provocation he’d be prepared to trigger his devices: but I now don’t believe that he’ll do it on Saturday night. In fact, I would take odds that he won’t.’

‘It’s odd.’ Barrow was thoughtful. ‘I could almost believe that myself. Because of his kidnapping of nuclear physicists, his theft of weapons-grade material, our knowledge that he does have those damned nuclear devices, his constant nuclear threats, his display in Yucca Flat and our conviction that he is going to explode this device in the bay tomorrow morning, we have been hypnotized, mesmerized, conditioned into the inevitability of further nuclear blasts. God knows, we have every reason to believe what this monster says. And yet–’

‘It’s a brain-wash job. A top-flight propagandist can make you believe anything. Our friend should have met Goebbels in his hey-day: they would have been blood-brothers.’

‘Any idea what he doesn’t want us to believe?’

‘I think so. I told Mr Mitchell an hour ago that I had a glimmering, but that I knew what he would do with a glimmering. It’s a pretty bright beacon now. Here’s what I think Morro will be doing – or what I would do if I were in Morro’s shoes.

‘First, I’d bring my submarine through the–’

‘Submarine!’ Mitchell had obviously – and instantly – reverted to his earlier opinion of Ryder.

‘Please. I’d bring it through the Golden Gate and park it alongside one of the piers in San Francisco.’

‘San Francisco?’ Mitchell again.

‘It has better and more piers, better loading facilities and calmer waters than, say, Los Angeles.’

‘Why a submarine?’

‘To take me back home.’ Ryder was being extremely patient. ‘Me and my faithful followers and my cargo.’

‘Cargo?’

‘God’s sake, shut up and listen. We’ll be able to move with complete safety and impunity in the deserted streets of San Francisco. No single soul will be there because no hour was specified as to when the hydrogen bombs will be detonated during the night, and there’ll be nobody within fifty miles. A gallant pilot six miles up will be able to see nothing because it’s night and even if it’s a completely suicidal low-flying pilot he’ll still be able to see nothing because we know where every breaker for every transformer and power station in the city is.

‘Then our pantechnicons will roll. I shall have three and shall lead them down California Street and stop outside the Bank of America which, as you know, is the largest single bank in the world containing loot as great as that of the Federal vaults. Other pantechnicons will go to the Trans-America Pyramid, Wells Fargo, and Federal Reserve Bank, Crockers and other interesting places. There will be ten hours of darkness that night. We estimate we will require six at the outset. Some big robberies, such as the famous break-in to a Nice bank a year or two ago, took a whole leisurely weekend, but gangs like those are severely handicapped because they have to operate in silence. We shall use as much high explosive as need be and for difficult cases will use a self-propelled one-twenty-millimetre-tank guns firing armour-piercing shells. We may even blow some buildings up, but this won’t worry us. We can make all the noise in the world and not care: there’ll be nobody there to hear us. Then we load up the pantechnicons, drive down to the piers, load the submarine and take off.’ Ryder paused. ‘As I said earlier, they’ve come for cash to buy their arms and there’s more cash lying in the vaults of San Francisco than all the kings of Saudi Arabia and maharajas of India have ever seen. As I said before, it takes a simple and unimaginative mind to see the obvious and in this case, for me at least, it’s so obvious that I can’t see any flaws in it. What do you think of my scenario?’

‘I think it’s bloody awful,’ Barrow said. ‘That’s to say, it’s awful because it’s so inevitable. That has to be it, first, because it’s so right and second, because it just can’t be anything else.’ He looked around at the company. ‘You agree?’

Everyone, with one exception, nodded. The exception, inevitably, was Mitchell. ‘And what if you’re wrong?’

‘Must you be so damnably pig-headed and cantankerous?’ Barrow was irritated to the point of exasperation.

Ryder didn’t react, just lifted his shoulders and said: ‘So I’m wrong.’

‘You must be mad! You would take the burden of the deaths of countless fellow Californians on your hands?’

‘You’re beginning to bore me, Mitchell. In fact, not to put it too politely, you do bore me and have done so for some time. I do think you should call your own sanity in question. Do you think I would breathe a word of our conclusions – with you being excepted from our conclusions – outside this room? Do you think I would try to persuade anybody to remain in their homes on Saturday night? When Morro knew that people had ignored the threat and had heard, as he inevitably would, the reason why – namely, that his scheme was known – the chances are very high that in his rage and frustration he’d just go ahead and press the button anyway.’