and whether he’s motivated by political cynicism or humanity no President is going to let himself go down in history as the man directly responsible for the deaths of millions of his fellow citizens.’
‘That apart,’ Ryder said, ‘I’m afraid we’re all missing the point, which is that those bombs will be triggered by radiowave and Morro will be sitting up there all the time with his thumb on the button. If he had the bombs sited — which he could well have by now — he has only to press that button. They could be in transit — and he has still only to press that button. Even if he’s sitting on top of the damn things he’d still do the same. It would be a splendid way to pay the Americans back for the billion or more dollars and military aid they’ve given Marcos’s government to use to crush the Muslims. American lives are nothing to them and, in a holy war, neither are theirs. They can’t lose: the gates of Paradise are standing wide.’
There was a long pause then Sassoon said: ‘It’s a bit chilly in here. Anyone join me in a Scotch or bourbon or something?’
Everyone, it seemed, was conscious of a drop in the temperature. There was another and equally long pause, then Mitchell said, almost plaintively: ‘How do we get at those damned bombs?’
‘You can’t.’ Ryder said. ‘I’ve had more time than you to think this out. Those bombs will be under constant surveillance all the time. Go anywhere near any of them and it’ll blow up in your face. I wouldn’t fancy having a three-and-a-half megaton bomb blow up in my face.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘Well, I don’t know. No worry, really. In my vaporized state I wouldn’t be likely to know much about it. Forget the bombs. We want to get to that button before Morro presses it.’
Barrow said: ‘Infiltration?’
‘How else?’
‘How?’
‘Using his over-confidence and colossal arrogance against him.’
‘How?’
‘How?’ Ryder showed his first irritation. ‘You forget that I’m just an unofficial interferer.’
‘As far as I’m concerned — and, in those United States of ours, I’m the only one who
‘Well, thanks very much.’
‘How?’
‘I wish to God I knew.’
The silence was profound. By and by Barrow turned to Mitchell. ‘Well, what are we going to do?’
‘That’s the FBI all over.’ Mitchell was scowling heavily, but not at anyone in particular. ‘Always trying to beat us to it. I was about to ask you the same question.’
‘I know what I’m going to do.’ Ryder pushed back his chair. ‘Major Dunne, you will recall that you promised me a lift out to Pasadena.’
A knock came at the door and a girl entered, an envelope in her hand. She said: ‘Major Dunne?’ Dunne stretched out an arm, took the envelope, withdrew a sheet of paper and read it. He looked across at Ryder.
‘Cotabato,’ he said.
Ryder pulled his chair back in. Dunne rose, walked to the head of the table and handed the letter to Barrow, who read it, handed it across to Mitchell, waited until he had finished, took it back and began to read aloud.
‘Manila. Chief of Police, also countersigned by a General Huelva, whom I know. It says: “Description referring to person called Morro tallies exactly with that of a wanted criminal well known to us. Confirm he has two badly damaged hands and the sight of only one eye. Injuries sustained when one of group of three participating in aborted attempt to blow up Presidential holiday retreat. One accomplice — a man of enormous stature and known as Dubois — unscathed. The third, small man, lost left hand. Shot way out”.’ He paused and looked at Ryder.
‘A small world. Our large friend again. The other is probably the lad with the prosthetic appliance who put the arm on my daughter in San Diego.’
‘Very likely. “Morro’s real name is Amarak. Enquiry confirms our belief that he is in your country. Enforced exile. There is one million US dollars on his head. Native of Cotabato, focal point for Muslim insurgents in Mindanao.
‘“Amarak is the head of the MNLF — Moro National Liberation Front”.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘One sometimes despairs of mankind,’ Professor Alec Benson said sadly. ‘Here we are, twenty miles from the ocean, and still they go marching steadily east — if cars moving at an average of a mile per hour can be said to be marching. They’re as safe from a tidal wave here as they would be if they lived in Colorado, but I don’t suppose any of them intend stopping until they pitch camp atop the San Gabriel Mountains.’ He turned away from the window, picked up a cane and pressed a switch to illuminate a nine-by-eight wall chart of the State of California.
‘Well, gentlemen, to our Earthquake Slip Prevention Programme — hereon, ESPP. Where we have selected certain locations for drilling and why. The “where” and the “why” are really one and the same. As I explained last time, the theory, in essence, is that by injecting lubricating fluid along certain fault lines we will ease the frictional resistance between the tectonic plates and so — hopefully — cause them to slide past each other with a minimum of fuss and bother — a series of tiny earthquakes at frequent intervals instead of major earthquakes at long intervals. If the frictional co-efficient is allowed to build up until the lateral stress becomes intolerable then something has to go and one plate jerks forward, perhaps anything up to twenty feet, in relation to the other. That’s when we have a big one. Our sole purpose — perhaps I should say our hope — is to release this frictional coefficient gradually.’ He tapped the chart with the cane. ‘I’ll start from the bottom — the south.
‘This is actually the first bore-hole we started digging, the first of what we call our trigger spots. It’s in the Imperial Valley, between Imperial and El Centra. We had an earthquake here in nineteen-fifteen, six-point-three on the Richter scale, another in nineteen-forty, a fairly big one of seven-point-six and a small one in nineteen-sixty-six. This is the only known section of the San Andreas Fault near the US-Mexican border.’ He moved his cane.
‘We’ve drilled this one here near Hemet. There was a heavy earthquake here in eighteen-ninety-nine — no seismological recordings of it — in the area of the Cajon Pass, another of six-point-eight in nineteen-eighteen in the same fracture area — this is the San Jacinto Fault.
‘This third drill-hole is the nearest to where we are now — in the San Bernadino area. Latest earthquake there was seventy years ago, and that was only six on the scale. We have a strong feeling here that this may be a sleeper with a slip overdue: but that may be because we are living so close to the damn thing.’
Barrow said: ‘What effects would such earthquakes have if they did occur? Big ones, I mean.’
‘Any one of the three would certainly make the citizens of San Diego unhappy, and the second and third would offer a direct threat to Los Angeles.’ He moved the pointer again. ‘The next bore-hole lies in a fault which was a sleeper — until nineteen-seventy-one. Six-point-six in the San Fernando Valley. We hope that easing the pressure here might take some of the strain of the Newport-Inglewood Fault which, as you know, lies directly under the city of Los Angeles and had its own earthquake, of six-point-three in nineteen-thirty-three. I say “hope”. We don’t know. We don’t know how the two faults are connected. We don’t even know
‘Tejon Pass. This one has us worried. Long overdue activity here and the last one — a hundred-and-twenty years ago — was a beauty, the strongest in Southern Californian history. Well, it wasn’t as great as the massive earthquake that hit Owens Valley in eighteen-seventy-three — that was the biggest in recorded Californian history — but we’re a parochial lot hereabouts and don’t regard Owens Valley as being in Southern California. A big slip here would very definitely give the Los Angelinos something to think about: if I knew about it in advance I, personally, would get out of town. Tejon Pass is on the San Andreas Fault, and it’s close by here, at Frazier Park by Fort Tejon, that the San Andreas and Garlock Faults intersect. There’s been no major earthquake in the Garlock that is known of — whether that recent small shake was caused by our friend Morro or not we have no means of telling — and none is expected: but, then, no one expected the nineteen-seventy-one business in San Fernando.’
