‘Look nothing. Balderdash. Maybe I’d better revise that snap judgement on Morro. Maybe he was well aware that he was making an impossible demand. Maybe he was well aware that it wouldn’t be met. Maybe he didn’t want it to be met. But just try convincing the American public — especially that section of it represented by this State — of that. It will take a long, long time and a long, long time is the one thing we don’t have.’
‘Impossible demand?’ Jeff said carefully.
‘Let me think.’ Ryder chewed some more and drank some more while he thought. ‘Three things occur and none of them makes sense and wouldn’t to the Pentagon who can’t possibly be as retarded as the New York and Washington columnists say they are. First off, what’s to prevent the Pentagon feeding him a long and highly convincing rigmarole of completely misleading information? What would lead him to suspect that it was misleading? And even if he did, how on earth could he possibly set about checking on the accuracy of the information? It’s impossible. Second, the Pentagon would probably and quite cheerfully see California being wiped out rather than give away our first defence against nuclear attack. Third, if he’s in a position to wipe out Los Angeles and San Francisco — and we must assume that he is — what’s to prevent him repeating the dose to New York, Chicago, Washington itself and so on until he achieved by direct means what he would achieve by indirect means by blinding our radar? It makes no kind of sense at all. But it all fits in.’
Jeff digested this in silence. Parker said slowly: ‘It’s all very well for you to sit there in — what kind of judgement do you call it?’
‘Olympian?’ Ryder said helpfully.
‘That’s it. It’s all very well for you to sit there in Olympian judgement, but you’d made up that crafty mind in advance that you weren’t going to believe a word Morro said and you were also certain that he wouldn’t say what you were convinced he couldn’t say.’
‘Very shrewd, Sergeant Parker. Confusing, mind you, but shrewd.’
‘And you’ve just said it all fits in.’
‘I did say that.’
‘You know something we don’t know?’
‘I don’t know any facts that you don’t know, except for those I get from reading about earthquakes and contemporary history, a practice for which Jeff here thinks I need the services of a head-shrinker.’
‘I never said —’
‘You don’t have to speak to say something.’
‘I have it,’ Parker said. ‘All good detectives come up with a theory. You have a theory?’
‘Well, in all due modesty —’
‘Modesty? So now the sun sets in the east. I don’t even have to take time out for a reflective pause. Mindanao?’
‘Mindanao.’
When Ryder had finished, Parker said to Jeff: ‘Well, what do you make of that?’
‘I’m still trying to assimilate it all.’ Jeff spoke in a kind of dazed protest. ‘I mean, I’ve just come to it. You’ve got to give me time to think.’
‘Come, come, boy. First impressions.’
‘Well, I don’t see any holes in it. And the more I think — and if you would give me more time I could think more — the fewer holes I can see. I think it
‘Look at your old man,’ Parker said. ‘Can you see any sign of “could” in his face?’
‘That’s just smirking. Well, I can’t see any way in which it must be wrong.’ Jeff thought some more then took the plunge. ‘It makes sense to me.’
‘There you are now, John.’ Parker sounded positively jovial. ‘As near a compliment as you’ll ever be likely to extract from your son. It makes a lot of sense to me. Come, gentlemen, let’s try it out for size on Major Dunne.’
Dunne didn’t even bother saying it made sense. He turned to Leroy and said: ‘Get me Mr Barrow. And have the helicopter stand by.’ He rubbed his hands briskly. ‘Well, well. Looks as if you’re going to ruffle a few feathers in Los Angeles, Sergeant.’
‘You go and ruffle them. Top brass rub me the wrong way. Your boss seems almost human, but that’s more than I can say for Mitchell. You know as much about it now as I do, and I’m only guessing anyway. The person
‘Delighted. If you fly north.’
‘Blackmail.’ Ryder didn’t sound too heated.
‘Of course.’ Dunne regarded him over steepled fingers. ‘Seriously. Several things. First off, we could kill two birds with one stone — Pasadena is only ten minutes’ helicopter hop from our offices up there. Again, if you don’t turn up both Barrow and Mitchell will automatically assume that you lack the courage of your own convictions.
‘He’s just scared of the big bad wolves,’ Jeff said.
Like all such rooms designed to give its occupants a proper sense of their own importance, the conference room was suitably impressive. It had the only mahogany-panelled walls in the building, behung with pictures of individuals who looked like the Ten Most Wanted Men but were, in fact, past and present directors and senior administrators of the FBI. It held the only mahogany oval table in the building, one that gleamed with that refulgent splendour rarely found among tables that had seen an honest day’s work. Round it were grouped the only twelve leather- and brass-studded chairs in the building. Before each chair was a leather-cornered blotter, indispensable for doodling but otherwise wholly superfluous, a brass tray for pens and pencils, a water-jug and glass: the comprehensively stocked bar lay behind a sliding wooden panel. The overall effect was slightly dimmed by the two stenographers’ chairs that faced a battery of red, white and black telephones: the chairs were covered in plastic leather. There were no stenographers there that afternoon; this was a top-secret meeting of the gravest national importance, and the faces of most of the twelve seated men accurately reflected their awareness of this.
Nobody occupied the rounded head of the table: Barrow and Mitchell each sat an equidistant foot from the centre line so that there could be no claimant for the chairman’s position. The heavens might be falling in but that would have to wait until protocol had been served. Each had three senior aides at the table — none of the six had been introduced — and all of them had briefcases and important-looking papers on the blotters before them. The fact that it had been deemed necessary to call the meeting clearly indicated that the contents of those papers were worthless: but, at the conference table, one has to have papers to shuffle or one is nothing. Mitchell opened the meeting: a toss of a coin had decided that.
He said: ‘To begin with, I must request, in the politest possible way, that Sergeant Parker and Patrolman Ryder withdraw.’
Ryder said: ‘Why?’
Nobody queried Mitchell’s orders. He bent a cold eye on Ryder. ‘Given the opportunity, Sergeant, I was about to explain. This meeting is on the highest level of national security, and those are not sworn men. Moreover, they are junior police officers both of whom have resigned their positions and therefore have no official capacity: they have not even been assigned to this investigation. That, I think, is a reasonable attitude.’
Ryder considered Mitchell for a few moments, then looked across at Dunne, who sat opposite him. He said, in a tone of exaggerated disbelief: ‘You brought me all the way up here just to listen to this pompous and arrogant rubbish?’
Dunne looked at his fingernails. Jeff looked at the roof. Barrow looked at the roof. Mitchell looked mad. His tone would have frozen mercury.
‘I don’t think I can be hearing properly, Sergeant.’
‘Then why don’t you vacate your position to someone who can? I spoke clearly enough. I didn’t want to come
