Goodbye California (15 page)

Jeff looked at his father. ‘Susan’s note. Remember she wrote “American?” American, question mark?’

‘And so she did. Well, Major, another little note if you please. Contact Interpol in Paris.’

‘So Interpol it is. Now the notes you took from Donahure. Easy – just meant waking up half the
bank managers and tellers in the county. Local Bank of America. Drawn four days ago by a young woman with pebble-tinted glasses and long blonde hair.’

‘You mean twenty-twenty vision and a long blonde wig.’

‘Like enough. A Mrs Jean Hart, eight hundred Cromwell Ridge. There is a Mrs Jean Hart at that address. In her seventies, no account with that bank. Bank teller didn’t count notes – just handed over ten banded thousands.’

‘Which Donahure split up eight ways for eight banks. We’ll have to get his prints.’

‘We got them. One of my boys with the help of a friend of yours, a Sergeant Parker – who, like you, doesn’t seem to care overmuch for Donahure – got them from his office about three this morning.’

‘You
have
been busy.’

‘Not me. I just sit here running up phone bills. But I’ve had fourteen stout men and true working for me during the night – had to scrape the southern Californian barrel to get them. Anyway, we’ve got some lovely clear specimens of Donahure’s prints on those notes. More interestingly, we have some lovely clear specimens of LeWinter’s too.’

‘The paymaster. And how about the paymaster’s automatic?’

‘Nothing there. Not registered. Nothing suspicious in that – judges get threats all the time. Not used recently – film of dust in the barrel. Silencer
probably a pointer to the type of man he is, but you can’t hang a man for that.’

‘The FBI file on him. Still reluctant to tell me about it?’

‘Not now I’m not. Nothing positive. Nothing very good either. Not known to associate with criminals. His open list of telephone numbers would appear to confirm that. From that list he would appear to know every politician and city hall boss in the State.’

‘And you said that he was not known to associate with criminals? What else?’

‘Both we and the police are dissatisfied with some – more than some – of the sentences he has been handing out over the past years.’ Dunne consulted a sheet before him. ‘Enemies of known cronies getting unduly stiff sentences: criminal associates of cronies – repeat, he himself has no direct criminal associates – getting light, sometimes ludicrously light, sentences.’

‘Pay-off?’

‘No proof, but what would you think? Anyway, he’s not as naïve as his minion Donahure. No local accounts under false names – none that we know of, anyway. But we monitor – without opening – his correspondence from time to time.’

‘You’re as bad as the KGB.’

Dunne ignored this. ‘He gets occasional letters from Zurich. Never sends any, though. Keeps his tracks pretty well covered, does our judicial friend.’

‘Intermediaries feeding pay-offs into a numbered account?’

‘What else? No hope there. Swiss banks will only open up in the case of a convicted criminal.’

‘This copy of
Ivanhoe
that LeWinter had in his safe? And the coded notebook?’

‘Seems to be a mish-mash of telephone numbers, mainly in this State and Texas and what are beginning to look like meteorological reports. Making progress. At least Washington is. There are no specialized Russian cryptographers in California.’

‘Russian?’

‘Apparently. A simple variation – well, simple to them, I suppose – of a well-known Russian code. Reds lurking in the undergrowth again? Could mean anything, could mean nothing. Another reason, I suppose, for the keen interest being shown by the CIA. I should imagine, without actually knowing, that the bulk of Washington cryptographers are on the CIA’s payroll, one way or another.’

‘And LeWinter’s secretary is Russian. Russian descent, anyway. A cypher clerk?’

‘If this were any of a dozen countries in the world I’d have the fair Bettina in here and have the truth out of her in ten minutes. Unfortunately, this is not one of those dozen different countries.’ He paused. ‘And Donahure has – had – Russian rifles.’

‘Ah! The Kalashnikovs. Import permit –’

‘None. So officially there are none of those rifles in the country. The Pentagon do have some, but they’re not saying where they got them from. The British, I imagine – some captured IRA arms cache in Northern Ireland.’

‘And Donahure is, of course, a second generation Irishman.’

‘God, as if I haven’t got enough headaches!’ To illustrate just how many he had Dunne laid his forehead briefly on the palms of his hands then looked up. ‘Incidentally, what was Donahure looking for in your house?’

‘I’ve figured that out.’ Ryder didn’t seem to derive much satisfaction from the thought. ‘Just give me a lifetime and by the end of it I’ll add up two and two and come pretty close to the right answer. He didn’t come because Jeff and I hadn’t been too nice to his stake-out and deprived him of a lot of his personal property, including his spy-van; he’d never have dared connect himself with that. He didn’t come for the evidence I’d taken from San Ruffino because he didn’t know I’d taken any and, in the first place, he hadn’t even had time to go to San Ruffino. By the same token he didn’t have time to go to LeWinter’s for a search warrant either. He wouldn’t have dared to, anyway, for if he’d told LeWinter the real reason why he wanted the search warrant LeWinter might have considered him such a menace that he’d not only refuse such a warrant but might have had him eliminated altogether.’

Dunne wasn’t looking quite so brisk and alert as when they had arrived. He said in complaint: ‘I told you I’ve got a headache.’

‘My guess is that a proper search of Donahure’s home or office would turn up a stack of warrants already signed and officially stamped by LeWinter. All Donahure had to do was to fill them in himself. I’d told him about the dossier I had on him. He’d come for that. So obvious that I missed it at the time. And I’d told him he was so bone-headed that he just had to be acting on his own. So he was, because it was something that concerned only him personally.’

‘Of course it has to be that. The two of them might run for cover.’

‘Don’t think so. They don’t know the evidence is in
our
hands. Donahure, being a crook at heart, will automatically assume that only crooks would have stolen the money and the guns, and they wouldn’t be likely to advertise the fact. And I don’t think that LeWinter will run either. He’ll have been worried sick at first, especially at the thought of the stolen code-book and the fact that his fingerprints have been taken. But when he’s found out – if he hasn’t already found out – that the dreaded picture of himself and his accommodating secretary has
not
appeared in the
Globe
, he’ll have discreet enquiries made and find out that the two men who had come to photograph him were
not
employed on the Globe and he will come to the inevitable conclusion that they were
blackmailers, perhaps out to block his appointment as Chief Justice to the State Supreme Court. You’ve said yourself he has powerful friends: by the same token such a man must also have powerful enemies. Whatever their reason, he won’t be scared of blackmailers. Blackmailers wouldn’t know a Russian code. True, fingerprints have been taken, but cops don’t wear hoods and take your prints in bed: they arrest you first. And he can take care of blackmailers. Californian law is ruthless towards that breed – and LeWinter is the law.’

Jeff said in injured reproach: ‘You might have told me all this.’

‘I thought you understood.’

‘You’d all this figured in advance? Before you moved in on them?’ Dunne said. Ryder nodded. ‘Smarter than the average cop. Might even make the FBI. Any suggestions?’

‘A tap on LeWinter’s phone.’

‘Illegal. Congress is very uptight about tapping these days – chiefly, one supposes, because they’re terrified of having their own phones tapped. It’ll take an hour or two.’

‘You appreciate, of course, that this will be the second tap on his line.’

‘Second?’

‘Why do you think Sheriff Hartman’s dead?’

‘Because he’d talk? A new recruit, still not deeply involved, wanting to get out from under before it was too late?’

‘That, too. But how come he’s dead? Because Morro had LeWinter’s line tapped. I called the night telephone manager from LeWinter’s house to get Hartman’s address – he was unlisted, but that’s probably because he was fairly new to the area. Someone intercepted the call and got to Hartman before Jeff and I did. By the way, there’s no point in recovering the bullet that killed him. It was a dum-dum and would have been distorted out of recognition and further mangled on embedding itself in the brick wall. Ballistic experts are not wizards: you couldn’t hope to match up what’s left of that bullet with any gun barrel.’

‘“Someone”, you said?’

‘Perhaps Donahure – he was showing signs of coming to when we left him – or, just possibly, one of Donahure’s underworld connections. Raminoff wasn’t the only one.’

‘You gave your name over the phone?’

‘Had to – to get the information I wanted.’

‘So now Donahure knows you were in LeWinter’s house. So now LeWinter knows.’

‘No chance. To tell LeWinter that he’d have to tell him that he either had LeWinter’s phone tapped or knew that it was tapped. By the same token if my call to Aaron of the
Examiner
was tapped Donahure or whoever would still be unable to tell LeWinter. But unlikely that that second call was tapped – our eavesdropping friend would have taken off like a bat after he’d heard mention of Hartman’s name and address.’

Dunne looked at him curiously – it might almost have been with respect. ‘To coin a phrase, you got all the angles figured.’

‘I wish I had. But I haven’t.’

One of the desk-phones rang. Dunne listened in silence and his lips compressed as all trace of expression left his face. He nodded several times, said, ‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ and replaced the receiver. He looked at Ryder in silence.

Without any particular inflection in tone, Ryder said: ‘I told you. I didn’t have all the angles figured. They’ve got Peggy?’

‘Yes.’

Jeff’s chair crashed over backwards. He was on his feet, face almost instantly drained of colour. ‘Peggy! What’s happened to Peggy?’

‘They’ve taken her. As hostage.’

‘Hostage! But you promised us last night – so much for your damned FBI!’

Dunne’s voice was quiet. ‘Two of the damned FBI, as you call them, were gunned down and are in hospital. One is on the critical list. Peggy, at least, is unharmed.’

‘Sit down, Jeff.’ Still no inflection in the voice. He looked at Dunne. ‘I’ve been told to lay off.’

‘Yes. Would you recognize the amethyst she wears on the little finger of her left hand?’ Dunne’s eyes were bitter. ‘Especially, they say, if it’s still attached to her little finger?’

Jeff had just straightened his chair. He was still standing, both hands holding the back bar as if he
intended to crush it. His voice was husky. ‘Good God, Dad! Don’t just sit there. It’s not – it’s not human. It’s Peggy! Peggy! We can’t stay here. Let’s leave now. We can be there in no time.’

‘Easy, Jeff, easy.
Where
in no time?’

‘San Diego.’

Ryder allowed an edge of coolness to creep into his voice. Deliberately, he allowed it. ‘You’ll never make a cop until you learn to think like one. Peggy, San Diego – they’re just tangled up on the outside strand of the spider’s web. We’ve got to find the spider at the heart of the web. Find it and kill it. And it’s not in San Diego.’

‘I’ll go myself, then! You can’t stop me. If you want to sit around –’

‘Shut up!’ Dunne’s voice was as deliberately harsh as Ryder’s had been cool, but at once he spoke more gently. ‘Look, Jeff, we know she’s your sister. Your only sister, your kid sister. But San Diego’s no village lying out in the sticks – it’s the second biggest city in the State. Hundreds of cops, scores of trained detectives, FBI – all experts in this sort of man-hunt. You’re not an expert, you don’t even know the town. There’s probably upwards of a hundred men trying to find her right now. What could you hope to do that they can’t?’ Dunne’s tone became even more reasonable, more persuasive. ‘Your father’s right. Wouldn’t you rather go kill the spider at the heart of the web?’

‘I suppose so.’ Jeff sat in his chair but the slight shaking of the hand showed that blind rage and
fear for his sister still had him in their grip. ‘I suppose so. But why you, Dad? Why get at you through Peggy?’

Dunne answered. ‘Because they’re afraid of him. Because they know his reputation, his resolution, the fact that he never gives up. Most of all they’re afraid of the fact that he’s operating outside the law. LeWinter, Donahure, Hartman – three cogs in their machine, four if you count Raminoff – and he gets to them all in a matter of hours. A man operating inside the law would never have got to any of them.’

‘Yes, but how did they –’

‘Simple with hindsight,’ Ryder said. ‘I said that Donahure would never dare tell I – we – were in LeWinter’s place. But he told whoever ordered him to fix the tap. Now that it’s too late I can see that Donahure is far too dumb to think of fixing a tap himself.’

‘Who’s the whoever?’

‘Just a voice on the phone, most likely. A link man. A link man to Morro. And I call Donahure dumb. What does that make me?’ He lit a Gauloise and gazed at the drifting smoke. ‘Good old Sergeant Ryder. All the angles figured.’

Golden mornings are far from rare in the Golden State and this was one of them, still and clear and beautiful, the sun already hot in a deep-blue sky bereft of cloud. The view from the Sierras across the mist-streaked San Joaquin Valley to the sunlit peaks and valleys of the Coastal Range was quite breath-takingly lovely, a vista to warm the hearts of all but the very sick, the very near-sighted, the irredeemably misanthropical and, in this particular instance, those who were held prisoner behind the grim walls of the Adlerheim. In the last case, additionally, it had to be admitted that the view from the western battlement, high above the courtyard, was marred, psychologically if not actually, by the triple-stranded barbed wire fence with its further unseen deterrent of 2000 volts.

Susan Ryder felt no uplift of the heart whatsoever. Nothing could ever make her anything less than beautiful, but she was pale and tired and the dusky blueness under her lower lids had not come
from any bottle of eye-shadow. She had not slept except for a brief fifteen-minute period during the night from which she had woken with the profound conviction that something was far wrong, something more terrible than even their incarceration in that dreadful place. Susan, whose mother had been a Scot, had often, and only half-jokingly, claimed that she had the first sight, as distinct from the legendary second sight, inasmuch as she knew that something, somewhere, was terribly wrong at the moment it was happening and not that it was about to happen at some future time. She had awoken, in fact, at the moment when her daughter’s two FBI guards had been gunned down in San Diego. A heaviness of heart is as much a physical as a mental sensation, and she was at a loss to account for it. So much, she thought morosely, for her reputation as the cheerful, smiling extrovert, the sun who lit up any company in which she happened to find herself. She would have given the world to have a hand touch her arm and find herself looking into the infinitely reassuring face of her husband, to feel his rocklike presence by her side.

A hand did touch her arm then took it. It was Julie Johnson. Her eyes were dulled and tinged with red as if she had spent a goodly part of the night ensconced behind the wet bar so thoughtfully provided by Morro. Susan put an arm round the girl’s slender shoulders and held her. Neither said anything. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

They were the only two on the battlements. Six of the other hostages were wandering, apparently aimlessly, around the courtyard, none speaking to any of the others. It could have been that each wished to be alone with his or her personal thoughts or that they were only now beginning to appreciate the predicament in which they found themselves: on the other hand the inhibitory and intimidatory effects of those bleak walls were sufficient to stifle the normal morning courtesies of even the most gregarious.

The ringing of the bell from the door of the great hall came almost as a relief. Susan and Julie made their way down the stone steps with care – there was no guard-rail – and joined the others at one of the long tables where breakfast was being served. It was a first-class meal that would have done justice to any hotel of good standing, but apart from Dr Healey and Dr Bramwell, who ate with a gusto becoming guests of long standing, the others did no more than sip some coffee and push pieces of toast around. In atmosphere, it was the early morning equivalent of the Last Supper.

They had just finished what most of them hadn’t even started when Morro and Dubois entered, smiling, affable, courteous, freely bestowing good-mornings and hopes that they had all spent the night in peaceful and relaxing slumber. This over, Morro lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I observe that two of our new guests, Professor Burnett and Dr Schmidt, are absent.
Achmed’ – this to one of the white-robed acolytes – ‘ask them if they would be good enough to join us.’

Which, after five minutes, the two nuclear scientists did. Their clothes were crumpled as if they had slept in them, which, in fact, was what they had done. They had unshaven faces and what was known to the trade as ‘tartan eyes’ – for which Morro had only himself to blame in having left refreshments so freely available in their suites. In fairness, he was probably not to know that the awesome scientific reputations of the two physicists from San Diego and UCLA were matched only by their awesome reputations in the field of bacchanalian conviviality.

Morro allowed a decent interval to elapse then said: ‘Just one small matter. I would like you all to sign your names. If you would be so good, Abraham?’

Dubois nodded amiably, picked up a sheaf of papers and went round the table, laying a typed letter, typed envelope and pen before each of the ten hostages.

‘What the devil is the meaning of this, you witless bastard?’ The speaker was, inevitably, Professor Burnett, his legendary ill-temper understandably exacerbated by a monumental hangover. ‘This is a copy of the letter I wrote my wife last night.’

‘Word for word, I assure you. Just sign it.’

‘I’ll be damned if I will.’

‘It’s a matter of utter indifference to me,’ Morrow said. ‘Asking you to write those letters was purely a courtesy gesture to enable you to assure your loved ones that you are safe and well. Starting from the top of the table you will all sign your letters in rotation, handing your pens to Abraham. Thank you. You look distraught, Mrs Ryder.’

‘Distraught, Mr Morro?’ She gave him a smile but it wasn’t one of her best. ‘Why should I?’

‘Because of this.’ He laid an envelope on the table before her, address upwards. ‘You wrote this?’

‘Of course. That’s my writing.’

‘Thank you.’ He turned the envelope face down and she saw, with a sudden dryness in her mouth, that both edges had been slit. Morro opened the edges, smoothed the envelope flat and indicated a small greyish squidge in the middle of the back of the envelope. ‘Paper was completely blank, of course, but there are chemical substances that bring out even the most invisible writing. Now, even the most dedicated policeman’s wife wouldn’t carry invisible ink around with her. This little squiggle here has an acetic acid basis, most commonly used in the making of aspirin but also, in some cases, nail varnish. You, I observe, use colourless nail varnish. Your husband is a highly experienced, perhaps even brilliant detective and he would expect similar signs of intelligence from his wife. Within a few minutes of receiving this letter he would have had it in a police laboratory.
Shorthand, of course. What does it say, Mrs Ryder?’

Her voice was dull. ‘“Adlerheim”.’

‘Very, very naughty, Mrs Ryder. Enterprising, of course, clever, spirited, call it what you like, but naughty.’

She stared down at the table. ‘What are you going to do with me?’

‘Do with you? Fourteen days bread and water? I think not. We do not wage war on women. Your chagrin will be punishment enough.’ He looked round. ‘Professor Burnett, Dr Schmidt, Dr Healey, Dr Bramwell, I would be glad if you would accompany me.’

Morro led the way to a large room next to his own study. It was notable for the fact that it lacked any window and was covered on three sides by metal filing cabinets. The remaining wall – a side wall – was, incongruously enough, given over to repulsively baroque paintings framed in heavy gilt – one presumed they had formed the prized nucleus of Von Streicher’s art collection – and a similarly gilt-edged mirror. There was a large table in the centre, with half a dozen chairs round it and, on it, a pile of large sheets of paper, about four feet by two, the top one of which was clearly some sort of diagram. At one end of the table there was a splendidly-equipped drinks trolley.

Morro said: ‘Well, now, gentlemen, I’ll be glad if you do me a favour. Nothing, I assure you, that will involve you in any effort. Be so kind as
to have a look at them and tell me what you think of them.’

‘I’ll be damned if we do,’ Burnett said. He spoke in his normal tone, that of defiant truculence. ‘I speak for myself, of course.’

Morro smiled. ‘Oh, yes, you will.’

‘Yes? Force? Torture?’

‘Now we are being childish. You will examine them and for two reasons. You will be overcome by your natural scientific curiosity – and, surely, gentlemen, you want to know why you are here?’

He left and closed the door behind them. There was no sound of a key being turned in a lock, which was reassuring in itself. But then a pushbutton, hydraulically-operated bolt is completely silent in any event.

He moved into his study, now lit by only two red lamps. Dubois was seated before a large glass screen which, in fact, was completely transparent. Half an inch from that was the back of the one-way mirror of the room where the four scientists were. From this gap the maximum of air had been extracted, not with any insulation purposes in mind but to eliminate the possibility of the scientists hearing anything that was said in the study. Those in the study, however, had no difficulty whatsoever in hearing what the scientists had to say, owing to the positioning of four suitably spaced and cunningly concealed microphones in the scientists’ room. Those were wired into a speaker above Dubois’s head and a tape-recorder by his side.

‘Not all of it,’ Morro said. ‘Most of it will probably be unprintable – unrepeatable, rather – anyway. Just the meat on the bones.’

‘I understand. Just to be sure, I’ll err on the cautious side. We can edit it afterwards.’

They watched the four men in the room look around uncertainly. Then Burnett and Schmidt looked at each other and this time there was no uncertainty in their expressions. They strode purposefully towards the drinks trolley, Burnett selecting the inevitable Glenfiddich, Schmidt homing in on the Gordon’s gin. A brief silence ensued while the two men helped themselves in generous fashion and set about restoring a measure of tranquillity to the disturbances plaguing their nervous systems.

Healey watched them sourly then made a few far from oblique references to Morro, which was one of the passages that Morro and Dubois would have to edit out of the final transcript. Having said that, Healey went on: ‘He’s right, damn him. I’ve just had a quick glance at that top blueprint and I must say it interests me strangely – and not in a way that I like at all: and I do want to know what the hell we are doing here.’

Burnett silently scrutinized the top diagram for all of thirty seconds and even the aching head of a top physicist can absorb a great deal of information in that time. He looked round the other three, noted in vague surprise that his glass was empty, returned to the drinks trolley and rejoined the others armed with a further glass of the malt
whisky, which he raised to the level of his speculative eyes. ‘This, gentlemen, is not for my hangover, which is still unfortunately with me: it’s to brace myself for whatever we find out or, more precisely, for what I fear we may find out. Shall we have a look at it then, gentlemen?’

In the study next door Morro clapped Dubois on the shoulder and left.

Barrow, with his plump, genial, rubicund face, ingenuous expression and baby-blue eyes, looked like a pastor – to be fair, a bishop – in mufti: he was the head of the FBI, a man feared by his own agents almost as much as he was by the criminals who were the object of his life-long passion to put behind bars for as long a period as the law allowed and, if possible, longer. Sassoon, head of the Californian FBI, was a tall, ascetic, absent-minded-looking man who looked as if he would have been far more at home on a university campus, a convincing impression that a large number of convicted Californian felons deeply regretted having taken at its face value. Crichton was the only man who looked his part: big, bulky, tight-lipped, with an aquiline nose and cold grey eyes, he was the deputy head of the CIA. Neither he nor Barrow liked each other very much, which pretty well symbolized the relationship between the two organizations they represented.

Alec Benson, Professor Hardwick by his side, bent his untroubled and, indeed, his unimpressed
gaze on the three men, then let it rest on Dunne and the two Ryders in turn. He said to Hardwick: ‘Well, well, Arthur, we are honoured today – three senior gentlemen from the FBI and one senior gentleman from the CIA. A red-letter day for the Faculty. Well, their presence here I can understand – not too well, but I understand.’ He looked at Ryder and Jeff. ‘No offence, but you would appear to be out of place in this distinguished company. You are, if the expression be pardoned, just ordinary policemen. If, of course, there are any such.’

‘No offence, Professor,’ Ryder said. ‘There are ordinary policemen, a great many of them far too ordinary. And we aren’t even ordinary policemen – we’re ex-ordinary policemen.’

Benson lifted his brows. Dunne looked at Barrow, who nodded. ‘Sergeant Ryder and his son Patrolman Ryder resigned from the force yesterday. They had urgent and private reasons for doing so. They know more about the peculiar circumstances surrounding this affair than any of us. They have achieved considerably more than any of us who have, in fact, achieved nothing so far, hardly surprising in view of the fact that the affair began only last evening. For good measure. Sergeant Ryder’s wife and his daughter have both been kidnapped and are being held hostage by this man Morro.’

‘Jesus!’ Benson no longer looked untroubled. ‘My apologies, certainly – and my sympathies, certainly. It may be us who have not the right to be here.’ He singled out Barrow, the most senior
of the investigative officers present. ‘You are here to ascertain whether or not CalTech, as spokesmen for the various other State institutes, and especially whether I, as spokesman for the spokesmen, so to speak, have been guilty of misleading the public. Or, more bluntly, have I been caught lying in my teeth?’

Even Barrow hesitated. Formidable man though he was, he recognized another formidable man when he met one and he was aware of Benson’s reputation. He said: ‘Could this tremor have been triggered off by an atomic device?’

‘It’s possible, of course, but it’s equally impossible to tell. A seismograph is incapable of deciding the nature of the source of shock waves. Generally, almost invariably, we are in no doubt as to the source. We ourselves, the British and the French announce our nuclear tests: the other two members of the so-called nuclear club are not so forthcoming. But there are still ways of telling. When the Chinese detonated a nuclear device in the megaton range – a megaton, as you are probably aware, is the equivalent of a million tons of TNT – clouds of radiation gas drifted eventually across the US. The cloud was thin, high and caused no damage, but was easily detected – this was in November nineteen-seventy-six. Again, earthquakes, almost invariably, give off after-shocks.