Goodbye California

‘Suspicious minds would seem to run in this family,’ Ryder said mildly. ‘I didn’t tamper with evidence. I took it. If it is evidence, that is.’

‘Why did you take it if you don’t know?’

‘You saw what I took?’

‘Didn’t look much to me. Squiggles, doodles.’

‘Shorthand, you clown. Notice anything about the cut of Jablonsky’s coat?’

‘First thing any cop would notice. He should have his coat cut looser to conceal the bulge of his gun.’

‘It’s not a gun. It’s a cassette recorder. Jablonsky dictates all his letters and memos into that, wherever he is in the plant, as usually as not when he’s walking around.’

‘So?’ Jeff thought for a bit then looked properly chagrined. ‘Guess I’ll just stick to my trusty two-wheeler and handing out tickets to traffic violators. That way my lack of a towering intelligence doesn’t show up so much. No shorthand required, is that it?’

‘I would have thought so.’

‘But why tear it up into little bits –’

‘Just goes to show that you can’t believe half the experts who say that intelligence is hereditary.’ Ryder puffed on his cigarette with just a hint of complacency. ‘Think I would have married someone who panicked and lacked resource?’

‘Like she runs from a room when she sees a spider? A message?’

‘I would think. Know anyone who knows shorthand?’

‘Sure. Marge?’

‘Who’s Marge?’

‘God damnit, Dad, your god-daughter. Ted’s wife.’

‘Ah. Your fellow easy rider on the lonely trails of the freeways? Marjory, you mean? Ask them around for a drink when we get home.’

‘What did you mean back there by saying to Jablonsky that you expected to be fired?’

‘He said it, not me. Let’s say I sense premature retirement coming up. I have a feeling that Chief Donahure and I aren’t going to be seeing very much eye to eye in a few minutes’ time.’ Even the newest rookie in the police force knew of the Chief of Police’s enmity towards Ryder, a feeling exceeded only by the massive contempt in which Ryder held his superior.

Jeff said: ‘He doesn’t much like me either.’

‘That’s a fact.’ Ryder smiled reminiscently. Some time before her divorce from the Chief of Police, Jeff had handed out a speeding ticket to Mrs Donahure, although he had known perfectly well who she was. Donahure had first of all asked Jeff, then demanded of him that he tear up the booking. Jeff had refused, as Donahure must have known he would in advance. The Californian Highway Patrol had the reputation, of which it was justifiably proud, of being perhaps the only police force in the Union that was wholly above corruption. Not too long ago a patrolman had handed out a speeding ticket to the Governor. The Governor had written a letter of commendation to police headquarters – but he still had to pay up.

Sergeant Dickson was still behind his desk. He said:

‘Where have you two been?’

‘Detecting,’ Ryder said. ‘Why?’

‘The brass have been trying to reach you at San Ruffino.’ He lifted a phone. ‘Sergeant Ryder and Patrolman Ryder, Lieutenant. They’ve just come in.’ He listened briefly and hung up. ‘The pleasure of your company, gentlemen.’

‘Who’s with him?’

‘Major Dunne.’ Dunne was the area head of the FBI. ‘Plus a Dr Durrer from Erda or something.’

‘Capitals,’ Ryder said. ‘E-R-D-A. Energy Research and Development Administration. I know him.’

‘And, of course, your soul-mate.’

Four men were seated in Mahler’s office. Mahler, behind the desk, was wearing his official face to conceal his unhappiness. Two men sat in chairs – Dr Durrer, an owlish-looking individual with bottle-glass pince-nez that gave his eyes the appearance of those of a startled fawn, and Major Dunne, lean, greying, intelligent, with the smiling eyes of one who didn’t find too much in life to smile about. The standing figure was Donahure, Chief of Police. Although he wasn’t very tall his massive pear-shaped body took up a disproportionate amount of space. The layers of fat above and below his eyes left little space for the eyes themselves: he had in addition a fleshy nose, fleshy lips and a formidable array of chins. He was eyeing Ryder with distaste.

‘Case all sewn up, I suppose, Sergeant?’

Ryder ignored him. He said to Mahler: ‘You sent for us?’

Donahure’s face had turned an instant purple. ‘I was speaking to you, Ryder. I sent for you. Where the hell have you been?’

‘You just used the word “case”. And you’ve been phoning San Ruffino. If we must have questions do they have to be stupid ones?’

‘My God, Ryder, there’s no man talks to me –’

‘Please.’ Dunne’s voice was calm, quiet but incisive. ‘I’d be glad if you gentlemen would leave your bickering for another time. Sergeant Ryder, Patrolman, I’ve heard about Mrs Ryder and I’m damned sorry. Find anything interesting up there?’

‘No,’ Ryder said. Jeff kept his eyes carefully averted. ‘And I don’t think anyone will. Too clean a job, too professional. No violence offered. The only established fact is that the bandits made off with enough weapons-grade material to blow up half the State.’

‘How much?’ Dr Durrer said.

‘Twenty drums of U-Two-Three-Five and plutonium; I don’t know how much. A truck-load, I should think. A second truck arrived after they had taken over the building.’

‘Dear, dear.’ Durrer looked and sounded depressed.

‘Inevitably, the threats come next?’

Ryder said: ‘You get many threats?’

‘I wouldn’t bother answering that,’ Donahure said. ‘Ryder has no official standing in this case.’

‘Dear, dear,’ Durrer said again. He removed his pince-nez and regarded Donahure with eyes that weren’t owlish at all. ‘Are you curtailing my freedom of speech?’ Donahure was clearly taken aback and looked at Dunne but found no support in the coldly smiling eyes. Durrer returned his attention to Ryder. ‘We get threats. It is the policy of the State of California not to disclose how many, which is really a rather stupid policy as it is known – the figures have been published and are in the public domain – that some two hundred and twenty threats have been made against Federal and commercial facilities since nineteen-sixty-nine.’ He paused, as if expectantly, and Ryder accommodated him.

‘That’s a lot of threats.’ He appeared oblivious of the fact that the most immediate threat was an apopletic one: Donahure was clenching and unclenching his fists and his complexion was shading into an odd tinge of puce.

‘It is indeed. All of them, so far, have proved to be hoaxes. But some day the threat may prove to be real – that is, either the Government or private industry may have to pay up or suffer the effects of a nuclear detonation or nuclear radiation. We list six types of threat – two as highly improbable, four reasonably credible. The highly improbable are the detonation of a home-made bomb made from stolen weapons-grade materials or the detonation of a ready-made nuclear bomb stolen from a military ordnance depot: the credible are the dispersion of radio-active material other than plutonium, the release of hi-jacked radio-active materials from a spent fuel shipment, the detonation of a conventional high explosive salted with strontium-ninety, krypton-eighty-five, cesium-one-three-seven or even plutonium itself, or simply by the release of plutonium for contamination purposes.’

‘From the business-like way those criminals behaved in San Ruffino it might be that they mean business.’

‘The time has to come – we know that. This may be the time we receive a threat that really is a threat. We have made preparations, formulated in nineteen-seventy-five. “Nuclear Blackmail Emergency Response Plan for the State of California”, it’s called. The FBI have the overall control of the investigation. They can call on as many Federal, State and local agencies as they wish – including, of course, the police. They can call on nuclear experts from such places as Donner in Berkeley and Lawrence at Livermore. Search and decontamination teams and medical teams, headed by doctors who specialize in radiology, are immediately available as is the Air Force to carry those teams anywhere in the State. We at ERDA have the responsibility of assessing the validity of the threat.’

‘How’s that done?’

‘Primarily on checking with the government’s computerized system that determines very quickly if unexpected amounts of fissionable material is missing.’