Goodbye California (27 page)

‘Doesn’t signify,’ Jeff said. ‘We’re supposed to be
the
automobile race. You’d never know it. They’ve just been showing us street scenes in Santa Monica and Venice. Just a landbased version of what we’re seeing here. Biggest traffic jams ever. Cars being used like tanks to batter a way through. Drivers jumping from their cars and knocking one another silly. Incredible.’

‘It would be the same the world over,’ Ryder said. I’ll bet Morro’s glued to his screen in ecstasy. And everybody heading east, of course. City fathers issued any instructions yet?’

‘Not that we’ve heard of.’

‘They will. Give them time. They’re like all politicians. They’ll wait to see what the majority of the people are doing then go ahead and tell them to do what they’re already doing. Any food in this house?’

‘What?’ Jeff, understandably, was momentarily off-balance. ‘Yes. Sandwiches in the kitchen.’

‘Thanks.’ Ryder turned to go then stopped abruptly as something on the screen caught his eye. ‘What an extraordinary coincidence. We can
only hope that if it is a good omen then it’s for us and not for Morro.’

Jeff said: ‘We can wait for ever.’

‘See that quay at the lower right of your screen? South-east, it is. The broad one. Unless I’m totally wrong, that’s the source of all our troubles.’

‘That
quay?’ Jeff stared incredulously.

‘The name of it. Mindanao.’

A minute later Ryder was taking his ease in an armchair, sandwich in one hand, beer in the other, half an eye on the screen. He focused both eyes and said: ‘That’s interesting.’

The picture was not without its interest. Three private planes, all twin-engined, had clearly been engaged in a multiple collision. The broken wing-tip of one rested on the ground. The undercarriage of a second had crumpled while a lazy plume of smoke arose from the third.

‘Land, sea and air.’ Ryder shook his head. ‘Know that place. Clover Field in Santa Monica. One can only assume the air traffic controller has high-tailed it for the Sierras.’

‘Honest to God, Dad!’ Jeff was trying to contain himself. ‘You’re the most infuriating, exasperating character that’s ever walked. Have you got nothing to say about Morro’s ultimatum?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Jesus!’

‘Be reasonable. I’ve seen, heard and read nothing about it.’

‘Jesus!’ Jeff repeated and fell into silence. Ryder looked enquiringly at Parker who clearly steeled himself for the task.

‘Morro was on time. As always. This time he really was economical with his words. I’ll make it even more economical. His ultimatum was simply this. Give me the locations and all the operating wavebands of all your radar stations on both the east and west coasts, your cruising radar bombers both here and in Nato and in all your spy satellites or I’ll pull the plug.’

‘He said that, did he?’

‘Well, quite a bit more, but that was the gist of it.’

‘Rubbish. I told you he wouldn’t be worth listening to. I’d thought better of Morro than that. Babies along the Potomac and the Pentagon spinning around like a high-speed centrifuge.’

‘You don’t believe it?’

‘If that’s what you gather from my reactions, you’re right.’

‘But look, Dad –’

‘Look nothing. Balderdash. Maybe I’d better revise that snap judgement on Morro. Maybe he was well aware that he was making an impossible demand. Maybe he was well aware that it wouldn’t be met. Maybe he didn’t want it to be met. But just try convincing the American public – especially that section of it represented by this State – of that. It will take a long, long time and a long, long time is the one thing we don’t have.’

‘Impossible demand?’ Jeff said carefully.

‘Let me think.’ Ryder chewed some more and drank some more while he thought. ‘Three things occur and none of them makes sense and wouldn’t to the Pentagon who can’t possibly be as retarded as the New York and Washington columnists say they are. First off, what’s to prevent the Pentagon feeding him a long and highly convincing rigmarole of completely misleading information? What would lead him to suspect that it was misleading? And even if he did, how on earth could he possibly set about checking on the accuracy of the information? It’s impossible. Second, the Pentagon would probably and quite cheerfully see California being wiped out rather than give away our first defence against nuclear attack. Third, if he’s in a position to wipe out Los Angeles and San Francisco – and we must assume that he is – what’s to prevent him repeating the dose to New York, Chicago, Washington itself and so on until he achieved by direct means what he would achieve by indirect means by blinding our radar? It makes no kind of sense at all. But it all fits in.’

Jeff digested this in silence. Parker said slowly: ‘It’s all very well for you to sit there in – what kind of judgement do you call it?’

‘Olympian?’ Ryder said helpfully.

‘That’s it. It’s all very well for you to sit there in Olympian judgement, but you’d made up that crafty mind in advance that you weren’t going to
believe a word Morro said and you were also certain that he wouldn’t say what you were convinced he couldn’t say.’

‘Very shrewd, Sergeant Parker. Confusing, mind you, but shrewd.’

‘And you’ve just said it all fits in.’

‘I did say that.’

‘You know something we don’t know?’

‘I don’t know any facts that you don’t know, except for those I get from reading about earthquakes and contemporary history, a practice for which Jeff here thinks I need the services of a head-shrinker.’

‘I never said –’

‘You don’t have to speak to say something.’

‘I have it,’ Parker said. ‘All good detectives come up with a theory. You have a theory?’

‘Well, in all due modesty –’

‘Modesty? So now the sun sets in the east. I don’t even have to take time out for a reflective pause. Mindanao?’

‘Mindanao.’

When Ryder had finished, Parker said to Jeff: ‘Well, what do you make of that?’

‘I’m still trying to assimilate it all.’ Jeff spoke in a kind of dazed protest. ‘I mean, I’ve just come to it. You’ve got to give me time to think.’

‘Come, come, boy. First impressions.’

‘Well, I don’t see any holes in it. And the more I think – and if you would give me more time
I could think more – the fewer holes I can see. I think it
could
be right.’

‘Look at your old man,’ Parker said. ‘Can you see any sign of “could” in his face?’

‘That’s just smirking. Well, I can’t see any way in which it must be wrong.’ Jeff thought some more then took the plunge. ‘It makes sense to me.’

‘There you are now, John.’ Parker sounded positively jovial. ‘As near a compliment as you’ll ever be likely to extract from your son. It makes a lot of sense to me. Come, gentlemen, let’s try it out for size on Major Dunne.’

Dunne didn’t even bother saying it made sense. He turned to Leroy and said: ‘Get me Mr Barrow. And have the helicopter stand by.’ He rubbed his hands briskly. ‘Well, well. Looks as if you’re going to ruffle a few feathers in Los Angeles, Sergeant.’

‘You go and ruffle them. Top brass rub me the wrong way. Your boss seems almost human, but that’s more than I can say for Mitchell. You know as much about it now as I do, and I’m only guessing anyway. The person
I
would like to see is Professor Benson. If you could fix that I’d be grateful.’

‘Delighted. If you fly north.’

‘Blackmail.’ Ryder didn’t sound too heated.

‘Of course.’ Dunne regarded him over steepled fingers. ‘Seriously. Several things. First off, we could kill two birds with one stone – Pasadena is
only ten minutes’ helicopter hop from our offices up there. Again, if you don’t turn up both Barrow and Mitchell will automatically assume that you lack the courage of your own convictions.
You
can talk to them in a way that would get me fired on the spot. They can probe more deeply than I’ve done and ask questions that I couldn’t answer – I know you’ve told me all what you regard as the essentials, but there must be details that you consider irrelevant at the moment. What’s the point in staying here? There’s nothing more you can accomplish here, and you know it: to convince the mandarins of your belief would be a major accomplishment.’ Dunne smiled. ‘Would you be so heartless as to deprive me of the pleasure of this – ah – encounter?’

‘He’s just scared of the big bad wolves,’ Jeff said.

Like all such rooms designed to give its occupants a proper sense of their own importance, the conference room was suitably impressive. It had the only mahogany-panelled walls in the building, behung with pictures of individuals who looked like the Ten Most Wanted Men but were, in fact, past and present directors and senior administrators of the FBI. It held the only mahogany oval table in the building, one that gleamed with that refulgent splendour rarely found among tables that had seen an honest day’s work. Round it were grouped the only twelve leather- and brass-studded chairs in the building. Before each chair
was a leather-cornered blotter, indispensable for doodling but otherwise wholly superfluous, a brass tray for pens and pencils, a water-jug and glass: the comprehensively stocked bar lay behind a sliding wooden panel. The overall effect was slightly dimmed by the two stenographers’ chairs that faced a battery of red, white and black telephones: the chairs were covered in plastic leather. There were no stenographers there that afternoon; this was a top-secret meeting of the gravest national importance, and the faces of most of the twelve seated men accurately reflected their awareness of this.

Nobody occupied the rounded head of the table: Barrow and Mitchell each sat an equidistant foot from the centre line so that there could be no claimant for the chairman’s position. The heavens might be falling in but that would have to wait until protocol had been served. Each had three senior aides at the table – none of the six had been introduced – and all of them had briefcases and important-looking papers on the blotters before them. The fact that it had been deemed necessary to call the meeting clearly indicated that the contents of those papers were worthless: but, at the conference table, one has to have papers to shuffle or one is nothing. Mitchell opened the meeting: a toss of a coin had decided that.

He said: ‘To begin with, I must request, in the politest possible way, that Sergeant Parker and Patrolman Ryder withdraw.’

Ryder said: ‘Why?’

Nobody queried Mitchell’s orders. He bent a cold eye on Ryder. ‘Given the opportunity, Sergeant, I was about to explain. This meeting is on the highest level of national security, and those are not sworn men. Moreover, they are junior police officers both of whom have resigned their positions and therefore have no official capacity: they have not even been assigned to this investigation. That, I think, is a reasonable attitude.’

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.’