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Jeff pursed his lips. ‘You don’t think that old goat would have the nerve to come around here with a search warrant?’
‘Sure I do. Trump up any old reason – he’s done it often enough before.’
Jeff said, wooden-faced: ‘He might even invent some charge about tampering with evidence at the reactor plant?’
‘Man’s capable of anything.’
‘There’s some people you just can’t faze.’ Jeff left to fetch his car.
Jablonsky said: ‘What was that meant to mean?’
‘Today’s generation? Who can tell? You mentioned the GAO. What about the GAO?’
‘Ah, yes. They produced a report on the loss of nuclear material for a government department with the memorable name of the “House Small Business Subcommittee on Energy and Environment”. The report was and is classified. The Subcommittee made a summary of the report and declassified it. The GAO would appear to have a low opinion of ERDA. Says it doesn’t know its job. Claims that there are literally tons of nuclear material – number of tons unspecified – missing from the thirty-four uranium and plutonium processing plants in the country. GAO say they seriously question ERDA’s accountability procedures, and that they haven’t really a clue as to whether stuff is missing or not.’
‘Dr Durrer wouldn’t have liked that.’
‘ERDA were hopping. They said there was – and I know it to be true – up to sixty miles of piping in the processing system of any given plants, and if you multiply that by thirty-four you have a couple of thousand miles of piping, and there could be a great deal of nuclear material stuck in those pipes. GAO completely agreed but rather spoiled things by pointing out that there was no way in which the contents of those two thousand miles could be checked.’
Jablonsky peered gloomily at the base of his empty glass. Ryder rose obligingly and when he returned Jablonsky said accusingly but without heat: ‘Trying to loosen my tongue, is that it?’
‘What else? What did ERDA say?’
‘Practically nothing. They’d even less to say shortly afterwards when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission compounded that attack on them. They said in effect two things: that practically any plant in the country could be taken by a handful of armed and determined men and that the theft-detection systems were defective.’
‘You believe this?’
‘No silly questions, please – especially not after what happened today.’
‘So there could be tens of tons of the stuff cached around the country?’
‘I could be quoted on my answer?’
‘Now it’s your turn for silly questions.’
Jablonsky sighed. ‘What the hell. It’s eminently possible and more than probable. Why are you asking those questions, Sergeant?’
‘One more and I’ll tell you. Could you make an atom bomb?’
‘Sure. Any competent scientist – he doesn’t have to be a nuclear physicist – could. Thousands of them. School of thought that says that no one could make an atomic bomb without retracing the Manhattan project – that extremely long, enormously complicated and billion-dollar programme that led to the invention of the atom bomb in World War Two. Rubbish. The information is freely available. Write to the Atomic Energy Commission, enclose three dollars and they’ll be glad to let you have a copy of the Los Alamos Primer, which details the mathematical fundaments of fission bombs. A bit more expensive is the book called Manhattan District History, Project Y, the Los Alamos Project. For this you have to approach the Office of Technical Services of the US Department of Commerce, who will be delighted to let you have a copy by return post. Tells you all about it. Most importantly, it tells you of all the problems that arose in the building of the first atomic bomb and how they were overcome. Stirring stuff. Any amount of works in public print – just consult your local library – that consist of what used to be the supersecret information. All else failing, the Encyclopedia Americana will probably tell any intelligent person as much as he needs to know.’
‘We have a very helpful government.’
‘Very. Once the Russians had started exploding atom bombs they reckoned the need for secrecy was past. What they didn’t reckon on was that some patriotic citizen or citizens would up and use this knowledge against them.’ He sighed. ‘It would be easy to call the government of the day a bunch of clowns but they lacked the gift of Nostradamus: “hindsight makes us all wise”.’
‘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 materia: 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.’
‘Figures. She’d be in a hurry.’ Ryder crossed to the phone, dialled then hung up in about thirty seconds. ‘Damn! She’s not there.’
‘Who?’
‘My shorthand translator, Marjory. She and Ted have gone to eat, drink, dance, to a show or whatever. I’ve no idea what they do in the evenings or where the young hang out these days. Jeff will know. We’ll just have to wait till he returns.’
‘Where is your fellow ex-cop?’
‘Up on Cypress Bluff throwing some of Chief Donahure’s most treasured possessions into the Pacific’
‘Not Chief Donahure himself? Pity. I’m listening.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u9f24251b-cc42-52fb-a9e4-91f1eb8cf630)
America, like England, has much more than its fair share of those people in the world who choose not to conform to the status quo. They are the individualists who pursue their own paths, their own beliefs, their own foibles and what are commonly regarded as their own irrational peculiarities with a splendid disregard, leavened only with a modicum of kindly pity and sorrow and benign resignation, for those unfortunates who are not as they, the hordes of faceless conformists amongst whom they are forced to move and have their being. Some few of those individualists, confined principally to those who pursue the more esoteric forms of religions of their own inventions, try sporadically to lead the more gullible of the unenlightened along the road that leads to ultimate revelation: but basically, however, they regard the unfortunate conformists as being sadly beyond redemption and are resigned to leaving them to wallow in the troughs of their ignorance while they follow the meandering highways and byways of their own chosen life-style, oblivious of the paralleling motorways that carry the vast majority of blinkered mankind. They are commonly known as eccentrics.
America, as said, has its fair share of such eccentrics – and more. But California, as both the inhabitants of that State and the rest of the Union would agree, has vastly more than its fair share of American eccentrics: they are extremely thick upon the ground. They differ from your true English eccentric, who is almost invariably a loner. Californian eccentrics tend to polarize, and could equally well be categorized as cultists, whose beliefs range from the beatific to the cataclysmic, from the unassailable – because incapable of disproof – pontifications of the self-appointed gurus to the courageous resignation of those who have the day, hour and minute of the world’s end or those who crouch on the summit of a high peak in the Sierras awaiting the next flood which will surely lap their ankles – but no higher – before sunset. In a less free, less open, less inhibited and less tolerant society than California’s they would be tidied away in those institutions reserved for imbalanced mavericks of the human race: the Golden State does not exactly cherish them but does regard them with an affectionate if occasionally exasperated amusement.
But they cannot be regarded as the true eccentrics. In England, or on the eastern seaboard of the States, one can be poor and avoid all contact with like-minded deviants and still be recognized as an outstanding example of what the rest of mankind is glad it isn’t. In the group-minded togetherness of California such solitary peaks of eccentric achievement are almost impossible to reach, although there have been one or two notable examples, outstandingly the self-proclaimed Emperor of San Francisco and Defender of Mexico. Emperor Norton the First became so famous and cherished a figure that even the burial ceremony of his dog attracted such a vast concourse of tough and hard-headed nineteenth-century Franciscans that the entire business life of the city, saloons and bordellos apart, ground to a complete halt. But it was rare indeed for a penniless eccentric to scale the topmost heights.
To hope to be a successful eccentric in California one has to be a millionaire: being a billionaire brings with it a cast-iron guarantee. Von Streicher had been one of the latter, one of the favoured few. Unlike the bloodless and desiccated calculating machines of the oil, manufacturing and marketing billionaires of today, Von Streicher had been one of the giants of the era of steamships, railways and steel. Both his vast fortune and his reputation as an eccentric had been made and consolidated by the early twentieth century, and his status in both fields was unassailable. But every status requires its symbol: a symbol for your billionaire cannot be intangible: it has to be seen, and the bigger the better: and all self-respecting eccentrics with the proper monetary qualifications invariably settled on the same symbol: a home that would properly reflect the uniqueness of the owner. Kubla Khan had built his own Xanadu and, as he had been incomparably wealthier than any run-of-the-mill billionaire, what was good enough for him was good enough for them.
Von Streicher’s choice of location had been governed by two powerful phobias: one of tidal waves, the other of heights. The fear of tidal waves stemmed from his youth, when he had read of the volcanic eruption and destruction of the island of Thera, north of Crete, when a tidal wave, estimated at some 165 feet in height, destroyed much of the early Minoan, Grecian and Turkish civilizations. Since then he had lived with the conviction that he would be similarly engulfed some day. There was no known basis for his fear of heights but an eccentric of good standing does not require any reason for his whimsical beliefs. He had taken this fearful dilemma with him on his one and only return to his German birthplace, where he had spent two months examining the architectural monuments, almost exclusively castles, left behind by the mad Ludwig of Bavaria, and on his return had settled for what he regarded as the lesser of two evils – height.
He didn’t, however, go too high. He selected a plateau some fifteen hundred feet high on a mountain range some fifty miles from the ocean, and there proceeded to build his own Xanadu which he later christened ‘Adlerheim’ – the home of the eagle. The poet speaks of Kubla Khan’s pied-à-terre as being a stately pleasure dome. Adlerheim wasn’t like that at all. It was a castellated neo-Gothic horror, a baroque monstrosity that came close to being awe-inspiring in its total, unredeemed vulgarity. Massive, built of north Italian marble, it was an incredible hodge-podge of turrets, onion towers, crenellated battlements – and slit windows for the use of archers. All it lacked was a moat and drawbridge, but Von Streicher had been more than satisfied with it as it was. For others, living in more modern and hopefully more enlightened times, the sole redeeming feature was to be seen from the battlements, looking west: the view across the broad valley to the distant coastal range, Streicher’s first break-water against the inevitable tidal wave, was quite splendid.
Fortunately for the seven captives in the rear of the second of two vans grinding round the hairpins up to the castle, they were doubly unable to see what lay in store for them. Doubly, because in addition to the van body being wholly enclosed, they wore blindfolds as well as handcuffs. But they were to know the inside of Adlerheim more intimately than even the most besotted and aesthetically retarded admirer of all that was worst in nineteenth-century design would have cared to.
The prisoners’ van jolted to a stop. Rear doors were opened, bandages removed and the seven still-handcuffed passengers were helped to jump down on to the authentically cobbled surface of what proved to be a wholly enclosed courtyard. Two guards were closing two massive, iron-bound oaken doors to seal off the archway through which they had just entered. There were two peculiarities about the guards. They were carrying Ingram submachine guns fitted with silencers, a favourite weapon of Britain’s elite Special Air Service – despite its name, an Army regiment – which had two rare privileges: the first was that they had access to their own private armoury, almost certainly the most comprehensively stocked in the world, the second being that any member of the unit had complete freedom to pick the weapon of his own particular choice. The popularity of the Ingram was testimony to its effectiveness.
The second idiosyncrasy about the two guards was that, from top of burnous to sandal-brushing skirts of robe, they were dressed as Arabs – not the gleamingly white garb that one would normally look to find in the State of California but, nonetheless, eminently suitable for both the very warm weather and the instantaneous concealment of Ingrams in voluminous folds. Four other men, two bent over colourful flower borders that paralleled all four walls of the courtyard, two carrying slung rifles, were similarly dressed. All six had the sun-tanned swarthiness of an Eastern desert dweller: but some of their facial bone structures were wrong.
The man who was obviously the leader of the abductors, and had been in the leading van, approached the captives and let them see his face for the first time – he had removed his stocking mask on leaving San Ruffino. He was a tall man, but broad-shouldered and, unlike the pudgy Von Streicher, who had habitually worn lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat with pheasant’s feather when in residence, he looked as if he belonged in an eagle’s home. His face was also lean and suntanned, but with a hooked nose and a piercing light blue eye. One eye. His right eye was covered by a black patch.
He said: ‘My name is Morro. I am the leader of this community here.’ He waved at the white-robed figures. ‘Those are my followers, acolytes, you might almost call them, all faithful servants of Allah.’
‘That’s what you would call them. I’d call them refugees from a chain gang.’ The tall thin man in the black alpaca suit had a pronounced stoop and bi-focal glasses and looked the prototype of the absent-minded academic, which was half-true. Professor Burnett of San Diego was anything but absent-minded: in his professional circle he was justly famous for his extraordinarily acute intelligence and justly notorious for his extraordinarily short temper.
Morro smiled. ‘Chains can be literal or figurative, Professor. One way or another we are all slaves to something.’ He gestured to the two men with rifles. ‘Remove their handcuffs. Ladies and gentlemen, I have to apologize for a rather upsetting interruption of the even tenor of your ways. I trust none of you suffered discomfort on our journey here.’ His speech had the fluency and precision of an educated man for whom English is not his native language. ‘I do not wish to sound alarming or threatening’ – there is no way of sounding more alarming and threatening than to say you don’t intend to – ‘but, before I take you inside, I would like you to have a look at the walls of this courtyard.’
They had a look. The walls were about twenty feet high and topped with a three-stranded barbed wire fence. The wires were supported by but not attached to the L-shaped steel posts embedded in the marble, but passed instead through insulated apertures.
Morro said: ‘Those walls and the gates are the only way to leave here. I do not advise that you try to use either. Especially the wall. The fence above is electrified.’
‘Has been for sixty years.’ Burnett sounded sour.
‘You know this place, then?’ Morro didn’t seem surprised. ‘You’ve been here?’
‘Thousands have. Von Streicher’s Folly. Open to the public for about twenty years when the State ran it.’
‘Still open to the public, believe it or not. Tuesdays and Fridays. Who am I to deprive Californians of part of their cultural heritage? Von Streicher put fifty volts through it as a deterrent. It would only kill a person with a bad heart – and a person with a bad heart wouldn’t try to scale that wall in the first place. I have increased the current to two thousand volts. Follow me, please.’
