‘I’d like to come, Lieutenant.’
‘You stay here. That’s an order, Sergeant Parker.’
‘Nothing personal, Lieutenant.’ Parker put his badge on the desk. ‘I’m not taking orders any more.’
All five of them arrived together — the two ambulance men, Kramer, Major Dunne and Dr Hinkley. As befitted the occasion Dr Hinkley was in the lead. A small wiry man with darting eyes, he was, if not exactly soured by life, at least possessed of a profoundly cynical resignation. He looked at the recumbent figure on the floor.
‘Good lord! Lennie the Linnet. A black day for America.’ He peered more closely at the white tie with the red- rimmed hole through it. ‘Heart damage of some kind. Gets them younger every day. And Chief of Police Donahure!’ He crossed to where a moaning Donahure was sitting on his couch, his left hand tenderly cradling the blood-soaked towel round his right hand. None too gently, Hinkley unwrapped the towel. ‘Dear me. Where’s the rest of those two fingers?’
Ryder said: ‘He tried to shoot me. Through the back, of course.’
‘Ryder.’ Lieutenant Mahler had a pair of handcuffs ready. ‘I’m placing you under arrest.’
‘Put those things away and don’t make more a fool of yourself than you can help if you don’t want to be charged with obstructing the course of justice. I am making, I have made, a perfectly legal citizen’s arrest. The charges are larceny, corruption, bribery, the acceptance of bribes, attempted murder and murder in the first degree. Donahure will admit to all of them and I can prove all of them. Also, he’s an accessory to the wounding of my daughter.’
‘Your daughter shot?’ Oddly, this seemed to affect Mahler more than the murder accusation. He had put his handcuffs away. A disciplinary martinet, he was nonetheless a fair man.
Ryder looked at Kramer. ‘He has a statement to make, but as he’s suffering from a minor speech impairment right now I’ll make it for him and he’ll sign it. Give the usual warnings, of course, about legal rights, that his statement can be used in evidence, you know the form.’ It took Ryder only four minutes to make the statement on Donahure’s behalf, and by the time he had finished the damning indictment there wasn’t a man in that room, Mahler included, who wouldn’t have testified that the statement had been voluntary.
Major Dunne took Ryder aside. ‘So fine, so you’ve cooked Donahure’s goose. It won’t have escaped your attention that you’ve also cooked your own goose. You can’t imprison a man without preferring charges and the law of the land says those charges must be made public’
‘There are times when I admire the Russian legal system.’
‘Quite. So Morro will know in a couple of hours. And he’s got Susan and Peggy.’
‘I don’t seem to have many options open. Somebody has to do something. I haven’t noticed that the police or the FBI or the CIA have been particularly active.’
‘Miracles take a little time.’ Dunne was impatient. ‘Meantime, they still have your family.’
‘Yes. I’m beginning to wonder about that. If they are in danger, I mean.’
‘Jesus! Danger? Course they are. God’s sake man, look at what happened to Peggy.’
‘An accident. They could have killed her if they came that close. A dead hostage is no good to anyone.’
‘I suppose I could call you a cold-blooded bastard but I don’t believe you are. You know something I don’t?’
‘No. You have all the facts that I have. Only I have this feeling that we’re being conned, that we’re following a line that they want us to follow. I told Jablonsky last night that I didn’t think the scientists had been taken in order to force them to make a bomb of some kind. They’ve been taken for some other purpose. And if I don’t think that then I no longer think that the women were taken to force them to build a bomb. And not for a lever on me either — why should they worry about me in advance?’
‘What’s bugging you, Ryder?’
I’d like to know why Donahure has — had — those Kalashnikovs in his possession. He doesn’t seem to know either.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Unfortunately, I don’t follow myself.’
Dunne remained in silent thought for some time. Then he looked at Donahure, winced at the sight of the battered face and said: ‘Who’s next in line for your kindly ministrations? LeWinter?’
‘Not yet. We’ve got enough to pull him in for questioning but not enough to hold him on the uncorroborated word of an unconvicted man. And unlike Donahure he’s a wily bird who’ll give away nothing. I think I’ll call on his secretary after an hour or two’s sleep.’
The phone rang. Jeff answered and held it out to Dunne, who listened briefly, hung up and said to Ryder: ‘I think you’ll have to postpone your sleep for a little. Another message from our friends.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Delage was with a man the Ryders hadn’t seen before, a young man, fair-haired, broad, wearing a grey flannel suit cut loose to conceal whatever weaponry he was carrying and a pair of dark glasses of the type much favoured by Secret Service men who guard Presidents and heads of State.
‘Leroy,’ Dunne said. ‘San Diego. He’s liaising with Washington on LeWinter’s codes. He’s also in touch with the AEC plant in Illinois, checking on Carlton’s past contacts and has a team working on the lists of the weirdoes. Anything yet, Leroy?’
Leroy shook his head. ‘Late afternoon, hopefully.’
Dunne turned to Delage. ‘So what didn’t you want to tell me over the phone? What’s so hush-hush?’
‘Won’t be hush-hush much longer. The wire services have it but Barrow told them to sit on it. When the director tells people to sit on something, it’s sat on.’ He nodded to a taperecorder. ‘We recorded this over the direct line from Los Angeles. Seems that Durrer of ERDA was sent a separate recording.’
He pressed a switch and a smooth educated voice began to speak, in English but not American English. ‘My name is Morro and I am, as many of you will know by this time, the person responsible for the San Ruffino reactor break-in. I have messages to you from some eminent scientists and I suggest you all listen very carefully. For your own sakes, please listen carefully.’ The tape stopped as Dunne raised a hand.
He said: ‘Anyone recognize that voice?’ Clearly no one did. ‘Anyone identify that accent? Would it give you any idea where Morro comes from?’
Delage said: ‘Europe? Asia? Could be any place. Could be an American with a phoney accent.’
‘Why don’t you ask the experts?’ Ryder said. ‘University of California. On one campus or another, anywhere between San Diego and Stanford, you’ll find some professor or lecturer who’ll recognize it. Don’t they claim to teach every major and most of the important minor languages in the world somewhere in this State?’
‘A point. Barrow and Sassoon may already have thought of it. We’ll mention it.’ He nodded to Delage who flipped the switch again.
A rasping and indignant voice said: ‘This is Professor Andrew Burnett of San Diego. It’s not someone trying to imitate me — my voice-prints are in security in the University. This blackhearted bastard Morro —’ And so Burnett continued until he had finished his wrathful tirade. Dr Schmidt, who followed him on the tape, sounded just as furious as Burnett. Healey and Bramwell were considerably more moderate, but all four men had one thing in common — they were utterly convincing.
Dunne said to no one in particular: ‘We believe them?’
Ryder said to Dunne: ‘Well, that’s part of the answer to what we were talking about back in Donahure’s house. To confirm the existence of those plans and scare the living daylights out of us. Us and everybody in California. They’re going to succeed, wouldn’t you say?’
