coffee while he showered, shaved and dressed for what promised to be a very long day ahead. He was into his fourth cup of coffee when Dunne rang and apologized for the delay in calling him back.
Ryder said: ‘The impact was guaranteed. There’s only one question I can see: has the State, in the persons of our seismologists, been lying to us?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I have.’
‘That’s as maybe. Fact is, we have no closed line to Pasadena. But we have to our Los Angeles office. Sassoon is very unhappy, not least about you, and wants to see us. Nine o’clock. Bring your son. As soon as may be.’
‘Now? It’s only six-forty.’
‘I have things to tell you. Not over an open line.’
‘Tapping phones here, tapping phones there,’ Ryder complained. ‘Man’s got no privacy left in this State.’
Ryder and his son arrived at Dunne’s office a few minutes after seven. Dunne, his alert, precise and efficient self, showed no trace of his sleepless night. He was alone.
Ryder said: ‘This room isn’t bugged?’
‘When I leave two suspects alone in it, yes. Otherwise, no.’
‘Where’s the big white chief?’
‘Sassoon’s still in LA. He’s staying there. He is, as I said, unhappy. First, because this is happening in his own back yard. Second, the director of the FBI is winging his merry way from Washington. Third, the CIA have got wind of this and want into the act. As everybody must be very well aware, the FBI and the CIA are barely speaking to each other these days, and even when they do speak you can hear the ice crackling.’
‘How did they get into the act?’
‘I’ll come to that in a moment. We’re going on a short trip by helicopter soon. Pasadena. Nine a.m. the boss says, and we meet him exactly at that time.’
Ryder was mild. ‘The FBI has no jurisdiction over a retired cop.’
‘I wouldn’t even bother saying “please”. Wild horses wouldn’t stop you.’ Dunne shuffled some papers into a neat pile. ‘While you and Jeff have been resting lightly we, as usual, have been toiling all through the night. Want to make some notes?’
‘No need. Jeff’s my memory bank. He can identify over a thousand licence plates within thirty miles of here.’
‘I wish it were only licence plates we were dealing with. Well, now, our friend Carlton, the security deputy taken along with the nuclear fuel. A dossier of sorts. Captain, Army Intelligence, Nato, Germany. Nothing fancy. No cloak-and-dagger espionage or counter-espionage stuff. Seems he infiltrated a Communist cell among Germans working in the base camp. Unsubstantiated suspicion of having become too intimate with them. Offered transfer to regular tank battalion and refused. Resigned. He wasn’t cashiered, he wasn’t pressured to resign; let’s say the Army didn’t stand in his way. At least that’s what they say. Probably correct. No matter how unjustified the suspicions that hang over a man the Army understandably doesn’t take chances. End of that line. When the Pentagon decides to clam up, that’s it.’
‘Just a hint of a Communist tie-up?’
‘That would be enough for the CIA. You can’t move around the Pentagon without treading one of their agents underfoot. A whiff of a Red under the bed and they’re reaching for their cyanide guns or whatever before you know it.
‘His security references. Worked for an AEC plant in Illinois. Good record. Security chief checking on contacts. Then a reference from TVA’s twin Brown’s Ferry nuclear plants in Decator, Alabama. Man’s never been there. Certainly not under that name, certainly not in security. Some other capacity, some other name, but unlikely. Disastrous fire when he was there, incidentally, but not caused by him. Technician looking for an air leak with a lighted candle: he found it.’
‘How come the reference?’
‘Forged.’
Jeff said: ‘Wouldn’t Ferguson, the security chief, have checked out the reference?’
Briefly, Dunne sounded weary. ‘He admits he didn’t. Ferguson himself had been there and said that Carlton knew so many details about the place, including the details of the fire, that he thought a check-out pointless.’
‘How would he have known about the fire?’
‘Unclassified. It’s in the public domain.’
Ryder said: ‘How long was he supposed to have been there?’
‘Fifteen months.’
‘So he may just have dropped out of the scene for that time?’
‘Sergeant Ryder, a man with the know-how can go underground for fifteen years in this nation and never surface once.’
‘He may not have been in the country. He could have a passport at home.’
Dunne looked at him, nodded and made a note. ‘Washington checked out with the AEC at seventeen- seventeen H Street. They keep records there of those seeking information, those consulting card indices and dockets on nuclear facilities. No one had ever checked information on San Ruffino — there was none to check. I got Jablonsky out of bed over this one. He was reluctant to talk. Usual threatening noises from the FBI. Then he admitted they have advanced plans for building a fast breeder reactor there. This comes under AEC control. Top secret. No records.’
‘So Carlton’s our man?’
‘Yes. Not that that’s going to help much now that he’s holed up with Morro.’ Dunne consulted another paper. ‘You wanted a list of all the organized and — “successful”, I think you said — cranks, weirdos, eccentrics or whatever in the State. This is it. I think I said two hundred. Actually, it’s a hundred and thirty-five. Even so, I’m told it would take for ever to investigate them all. Besides, if this lot are as clever and organized as they seem to be, they’ll have an unbreakable cover.’
‘We can narrow it down. To start with, it’ll have to be a large group. Also, a comparatively new group, formed just for this purpose. Say within the past year.’
‘Numbers and dates.’ Resignedly, Dunne made another note. ‘Don’t mind how hard we have to work, do you? Next comes our friend Morro. Not surprisingly, nothing is known about him, as a man, a criminal with an eye-patch and damaged hands, to us or to the police authorities.’
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
‘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.’
