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.
‘There was one classical exception – again, oddly enough, in November of nineteen-seventy-six. Seismology stations in both Sweden and Finland detected an earthquake – not major, on the four-something Richter scale – off the coast of Estonia. Other scientists disputed this, figuring that the Soviets have been responsible, accidentally or otherwise, for a nuclear detonation on the floor of the Baltic. They have been disputing the matter ever since. The Soviets, naturally, have not seen fit to give any enlightenment on the matter.’
Barrow said: ‘But earthquakes do not occur in that region of the world.’
‘I would not seek, Mr Barrow, to advise you in the matter of law enforcement. It’s a minor area, but it’s there.’
Barrow’s smile was at its most genial. ‘The FBI stands corrected.’
‘So whether this man Morro detonated a small nuclear device there or not I can’t tell you.’ He looked at Hardwick. ‘You think any reputable seismologist in the State would venture a definite opinion one way or another on this, Arthur?’
‘No.’
‘Well, that’s the answer to one question, unsatisfactory though it may be. But that, of course, is not the question you really want to ask. You wanted to know whether we – I, if you like – was entirely accurate in locating the epicentre of the shock in the White Wolf Fault instead of, as Morro claims, in the Garlock Fault. Gentlemen, I was lying in my teeth.’
There was a predictable silence.
‘Why?’ Crichton was not a man noted for his loquacity.
‘Because in the circumstances it seemed the best thing to do. In retrospect, it still seems the best thing.’ Benson shook his head in regret. ‘Pity this fellow Morro had to come along and spoil things.’
‘Why?’ Crichton was also noted for his persistency.
‘I’ll try to explain so that Mr Sassoon, Major Dunne and the two policemen here – sorry, ex-policemen – will understand. For you and Mr Barrow it may not be so easy.’
‘Why?’
It seemed to Alec Benson that Crichton was a man of remarkably limited vocabulary, but he refrained from comment. ‘Because those four are Californians. You two are not.’
Barrow smiled. ‘A State apart. I always knew it. Secession next, is that it?’
‘It is a State apart, but not in that sense. It’s apart because it’s the only State in the Union where, in the back – and maybe not so far back – of the mind of any reasonably intelligent person lies the thought of tomorrow. Not when tomorrow comes, gentlemen. If tomorrow comes.
‘Californians live in a state of fear or fearful resignation or just pure resignation. There has always been the vague thought, the entertainment of the vague possibility, that one day the big one is going to hit us.’
Barrow said: ‘The big one. Earthquake?’
‘Of devastating proportions. This fear never really crystallized until as late as nineteen-seventy-six – third time I’ve mentioned that year this morning, isn’t it? Nineteen-seventy-six was the bad year, the year that made the minds of people in this State turn to thoughts they’d rather not think about.’ Benson lifted a sheet of paper. ‘February four, Guatemala. Seven-point-five on the Richter scale. Tens of thousands died. May six, North Italy. Six-point-five. Hundreds dead, widespread devastation, and later on in the same year another ‘quake came back to wipe out the few buildings that were still left standing after the first earthquake. May sixteen, Soviet Central Asia. Seven-point-two. Death-rate and damage unknown – the Soviets are reluctant to discuss those things. July twenty-seven, Tangshan. Eight-point-two, in which
two-thirds of a million died and three-quarters of a million were injured: as this occurred in a densely-populated area, large cities like Peking and Tientsin were involved. Then in the following month the far south of the Philippines. Eight-point-zero. Widespread devastation, exact deaths unknown but running into tens of thousands – this partly due to the earthquake, partly due to the giant tsunamai – tidal wave – that followed because the earthquake had occurred under the sea. They had a lesser earthquake in the Philippines some way further north on November nine. Six-point-eight. No precise figures released. In fact, November of that year was quite a month, with yet another earthquake in the Philippines, one in Iran, one in Northern Greece, five in China and two in Japan. Worst of all Turkey. Five thousand dead.