Goodbye California Page 4

  ‘The government doesn’t believe in paying high salaries for what is basically an unskilled job. Why do you think there are so many corrupt and crooked cops? If you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘I don’t mind. This is the only way? Stealing the stuff in dribs and drabs. Hasn’t been done on a large scale?’

  ‘Sure it has. Again, nobody’s talking. As far back as nineteen-sixty-four, when the Chinese exploded their first nuclear bomb, it was taken for granted in this country that the Chinese just didn’t have the scientific know-how to separate-out U-235 from natural uranium. Ergo, they must have pinched it from somewhere. They wouldn’t have stolen it from Russia because Chinese, to say the least, are not welcome there. But they’re welcome here, especially in California. In San Francisco you have the biggest Chinese community outside China. Their students are received with open arms in Californian universities. It’s no secret that that’s how the Chinese came to have the secrets of making an atom bomb. Their students came across here, took a post-graduate course in physics, including nuclear physics, then high-tailed it back to the mother country with the necessary information.’

  ‘You’re digressing.’

  ‘That’s what bitterness does for you. Shortly after they exploded their bomb it came to light. perhaps accidentally, that sixty kilos of U-235 had disappeared from a nuclear fuel fabricating plant in Appolo, Pennsylvania. Coincidence? Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything. The stuff’s going missing right and left. A security chief in the east once told me that a hundred-and-ten kilos of U-235 somehow got lost from his plant.’ He broke off and shook his head dejectedly. ‘The whole thing is so damned stupid anyway.’

  ‘What’s stupid?’

  ‘Pilfering a few grams at a time from a plant or breaking into one to steal it on a grand scale. That’s being stupid. It’s stupid because it’s unnecessary. If you’d wanted a king-size haul of U-235 or plutonium today what would you have done?’

  ‘That’s obvious. I’d have let the regular crew of that truck load up and hi-jack it on the way back.’

  ‘Exactly. One or two plants send out their enriched nuclear fuel in such massive steel and concrete drums–transported in big fifteen-to-twenty-ton trucks–that the necessity for a crane effectively rules out hi-jacking. Most don’t. We don’t. A strong man on his own would have no difficulty in handling our drums. More than one nuclear scientist has publicly suggested that we approach the Kremlin and contract the Red Army for the job. That’s the way the Russians do it–a heavily armored truck with an escort armored vehicle in front and behind.’

  ‘Why don’t we do that?’

  ‘Not to be thought of. Same reason again–mustn’t scare the pants off the public. Bad for the nuclear image. Atoms for peace, not war. In the whole fuel cycle transportation is by so far the weakest link in security that it doesn’t deserve to be called a link at all. The major road shippers–like Pacific Intermountain Express or Tri-State or MacCormack–are painfully aware of this, and are worried sick about it. But there’s nothing their drivers can do. In the trucking business–many would prefer the word “racket”–theft and shortages are the name of the game. It’s the most corrupt and criminal-ridden business in the State but no one, especially the drivers, is going to say so out loud for all the world to hear. The Teamsters are the most powerful and widely feared union in the States. In Britain or Germany or France they would just be outlawed, and that would be that; in Russia they’d end up in Siberia. But not here. You don’t buck or bad-mouth the Teamsters–not if you place any value on your wife or kids or pension, or, most of all, your own personal health.

  ‘Every day an estimated two per cent of goods being transported by road in this country just go missing: the real figure is probably higher. The wise don’t complain: in the minority of cases where people do complain the insurers pay up quietly, since their premiums are loaded against what they regard as an occupational hazard. “Occupational” is the keyword. Eighty-five per cent of thefts are by people inside the trucking industry. Eighty-five per cent of hi-jackings involve collusion–which has to involve the truck-drivers, all, of course, paid-up members of the Teamsters.’

  ‘Has there ever been a case of a nuclear hi-jack on the open road?’

  ‘Hi-jacks don’t happen on the open road. Well, hardly ever. They occur at transfer points and driver’s stop-overs. Driver Jones visits the local locksmith and has a fresh set of keys for ignition and cab doors cut and hands it over to Smith. Next day he stops at a drivers’ pull-up, carefully locks the door and goes–either himself or with his mate–for his hamburger and french fries or whatever. When he comes out, he goes through the well-rehearsed routine of double-take, calling to heaven for vengeance and hot-footing it to the nearest phone box to call the cops, who know perfectly well what is going on but are completely incapable of proving anything. Those hi-jackings are rarely reported and pass virtually unnoticed because there are very rarely any crimes of violence involved.’

  Ryder was patient. ‘I’ve been a cop all my life. I know that. Nuclear hi-jacks, I said.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know or you aren’t telling?’

  ‘That’s up to you to decide, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ It was impossible for anyone to say whether Ryder had decided anything or not. He turned to Jablonsky.

  Okay. Doc, if we go and have a look at Susan’s office?’

  Jablonsky’s voice was dry. ‘Unusual of you, Sergeant, to ask anybody’s permission for anything.’

  ‘That’s downright unkind. Fact is, we haven’t been officially assigned to this investigation.’

  ‘I know that.’ He looked at Jeff. ‘This is hardly the stamping ground for a highway patrolman. Have you been expressly forbidden to come here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Makes no difference. Heavens, man, in your place I’d be worried to death. Search the whole damned building if you want.’ He paused briefly. ‘I suggest I come with you.’

  ‘“The whole damned building”, as you call it, can be left to Parker and Davidson, who are already here, and the lawmen in their droves who will be here in any moment. Why do you want to come with us to my wife’s office? I’ve never tampered with evidence in my life.’

  ‘Who says you did?’ He looked at Jeff. ‘You know your father has a long-standing and well-justified reputation for taking the law into his own hands?’

  ‘One does hear rumours, I have to admit. So you’d be a witness-stand guarantor for the good behaviour of one who is in need of care and protection?’ It was the first time that Jeff had smiled since he’d heard of his mother’s kidnapping.

  Jablonsky said: ‘First time I ever heard anyone mention care and protection and Sergeant Ryder in the same breath.’

  ‘Jeff could be right.’ Ryder was unruffled. ‘I am getting on.’

  Jablonsky smiled his total disbelief.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The office door, slightly ajar, had four splintered holes tightly grouped round the lock and handle. Ryder looked at them with no reaction, pushed open the door and walked inside. Sergeant Parker stopped from what he was doing, which was pushing scraps of paper around a desk-top with the rubber tip of a pencil, and turned round. He was a burly, pleasant-faced man in his late thirties who didn’t look a bit like a cop – which was one reason why his arrest record ranked second only to Ryder’s.

  ‘Been expecting you,’ he said. One hell of a business, just incredible.’ He smiled as if to alleviate the tension which Ryder didn’t seem to be feeling at all. ‘Come to take over, have you, to show the incompetents how a professional goes about it?’

  ‘Just looking. I’m not on this and I’m sure old Fatso will take great pleasure in keeping me off it.’ ‘Fatso’ referred to their far-from-revered police chief.

  ‘The sadistic blubber of lard would love to do just that.’ He ignored the slight frown of Dr Jablonsky who had never had the privilege of making the police chief’s acquai
ntance. ‘Why don’t you and I break his neck some day?’

  ‘Assuming he’s got a neck inside that twenty-inch collar.’ Ryder looked at the bullet-ridden door. ‘McCafferty – the gate guard – told me there was no shooting. Termites?’

  ‘Silencer.’

  ‘Why the gun at all?’

  ‘Susan is why.’ Parker was a family friend of long standing. ‘The villains had rounded up the staff and put them in the room across the hallway there. Susan just happened to look out of the door and saw them coming so she closed the door and locked it.’

  ‘So they blasted it open. Maybe they thought she was making a dive for the nearest telephone.’

  ‘You made the security report.’

  ‘That’s so. I remember. Only Dr Jablonsky here and Mr Ferguson were permitted direct lines to the outside. All other calls have to be cleared through the switchboard. They’d have taken care of the girl there first. Maybe they thought she was leaving through a window.’

  ‘Not a chance. From all I’ve heard – I haven’t had time to take statements yet – those villains would have been perfectly at home here with blindfolds on. They’d have known there was no fire-escape outside. They’d have known that every room is air-conditioned and that you can’t very well jump through plate-glass windows sealed like those are.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Maybe in a hurry. Maybe just the impatient type. At least he gave warning. His words were: “Stand well to one side, Mrs Ryder, I’m going to blast open that door”.’

  ‘Well, that seems to prove two things. The first is that they’re not wanton killers. But I said “seem”. A dead hostage isn’t much good as a bargaining counter or as a lever to make reluctant physicists bend to their task. Second, they knew enough to be able to identify individual members of the staff.’

  ‘That they did.’

  ‘They seem to have been very well informed.’ Jeff tried to speak calmly, to emulate the monolithic calm of his father, but a rapidly beating pulse in his neck gave him away.

  Ryder indicated the table-top strewn with scraps of torn paper. ‘Man of your age should be beyond jigsaws.’

  ‘You know me: thorough, painstaking, the conscientious detective who leaves no stone unturned.’

  ‘You’ve got all the pieces the right way up, I’ll say that for you. Make anything of it?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘No. Contents of Susan’s waste-paper basket, I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Parker looked at the tiny scraps in irritation. ‘I know secretaries and typists automatically tear up bits of papers destined for the waste-paper basket. But did she have to be so damned thorough about it?’

  ‘You know Susan. Never does things by halves. Or quarters. Or eighths.’ He pushed some of the scraps around – remnants of letters, carbons, some pieces of shorthand. ‘Sixteenths, yes. Not halves.’ He turned away. ‘Any other clues you haven’t come up with?’

  ‘Nothing on her desk, nothing in her desk. She took her handbag and umbrella with her.’

  ‘How do you know she had an umbrella?’

  ‘I asked,’ Parker said patiently. ‘Nothing but this left.’ He picked up a framed and unflattering picture of Ryder, replaced it on the desk and said à propos of nothing: ‘Some people can function efficiently under any circumstances. And that’s it, I’m afraid.’

  Dr Jablonsky escorted them to the battered Peugeot. ‘If there’s anything I can do, Sergeant –’

  ‘Two things, as a matter of fact. Without letting Ferguson know, can you get hold of the dossier on Carlton? You know, the details of his past career, references, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Jesus, man, he’s number two in security.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Any reason to suspect him?’

  ‘None. I’m just curious why they took him as hostage. A senior security man is supposed to be tough and resourceful. Not the kind of man I’d have around. His record may show some reason why. Second thing, I’m still a pilgrim lost in this nuclear desert. If I need any more information can I contact you?’

  ‘You know where my office is.’

  ‘I may have to ask you to come to my place. Head office can put a stop order against my coming here.’

  ‘A cop?’

  ‘A cop, no. An ex-cop, yes.’

  Jablonsky looked at him consideringly. ‘Expecting to be fired? God knows, it’s been threatened often enough.’

  ‘It’s an unjust world.’

  On the way back to the station Jeff said: ‘Three questions. Why Carlton?’

  ‘Bad choice of hostage, like I said. Secondly, if the villains could identify your mother they could probably identify anyone in the plant. No reason why they should be especially interested in our family. The best sources of names and working locations of the staff is in the security files. Only Ferguson and Carlton – and, of course, Dr Jablonsky – have access to them.’

  ‘Why kidnap him?’

  ‘To make it look good? I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t kidnapped. You heard what Ferguson said about the government not paying highly for unskilled jobs. Maybe greener fields were beckoning.’

  ‘Sergeant Ryder, you have an unpleasantly suspicious imagination. What’s more, you’re no better than a common thief.’ Ryder drew placidly on his cigarette and remained unmoved. ‘You told Jablonsky you never tampered with evidence. I saw you palm pieces of paper from the table where Sergeant Parker was trying to sort them out.’

  ‘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 kno
wn 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.’