moment, rising to such a pitch that the volume controller had to turn down the sound. When it was fifty yards away, just as it was breaking, the waters by the foreshore drained away completely, leaving the ocean bed showing. And then, with the explosive sound of a giant thunder-clap directly overhead, the monster struck.
Momentarily that was all there was to it as all visual definition was lost in a sheet of water that rose a hundred vertical feet and spray that rose five times that height as the wave smashed with irresistible power into the buildings that lined the waterfront. The sheet of water was just beginning to fall, although the spray was still high enough to obliterate the view of the dispersing fan of the hydrogen explosion, when the tidal wave burst through the concealing curtain and laid its ravenous claws on the waiting city.
Great torrents of water, perhaps thirty to forty feet high, seething, bubbling, white like giant maelstroms, bearing along on their tortured surfaces an infinity of indescribable, unidentifiable debris, rushed along the east- west canyons of Los Angeles, sweeping along in their paths the hundreds of abandoned cars that lay in their paths. It seemed as if the city was to be inundated, drowned and remain no more than a memory, but, surprisingly, this was not to be so, largely, perhaps, because of the rigid building controls that had been imposed after the Long Beach earthquake of 1933. Every building lining the front had been destroyed: the city itself remained intact.
Gradually, with the rising lift of the land and the spending of its strength, the torrent slowed, its levels fell away, and finally, exhausted, began, with an almost obscene sucking sound, its appetite slaked, to return to the ocean whence it had come. As always with a tidal wave there was to be a secondary one, but although this too reached into the city it was on such a comparatively minor scale that it was hardly worth the remarking.
Morro, for once, bordered almost on the complacent. ‘Well, I think that possibly might give them something to think about.’
Burnett began to swear, with a fervour and singular lack of repetition that showed clearly that a considerable part of his education must have been spent in fields other than the purely academic, remembered belatedly that he was in the presence of ladies, reached for the Glenfiddich and fell silent.
Ryder stood in stoical silence as a doctor removed splinters of glass from his head: like many others he had been looking out through the windows when the blast had struck. Barrow, who had just suffered the attentions of the same doctors, was mopping blood from his face. He accepted a glass of some stimulant from an aide and said to Ryder: ‘Well, what did you think of that little lot?’
‘Something will have to be done about it, and that’s a fact. There’s only one thing to do with a mad dog and that is to put it down.’
‘The chances?’
‘Better than even.’
Barrow looked at him curiously. ‘It’s hard to tell. Do you look forward to gunning him down?’
‘Certainly not. You know what they call us — peace officers. However, if he even looks like batting an eyelid —’
I’m still unhappy about this.’ Brigadier-General Culver’s expression bore out his words. ‘I think this is most inadvisable. Most. Not that I doubt your capabilities, Sergeant. God knows, you’re a proven man. But you have to be emotionally involved. That is not a good thing. And your fiftieth birthday lies behind you. I’m being honest, you see. I have young, fit, highly trained — well, killers if you want. I think —’
‘General.’ Culver turned as Major Dunne touched his arm. Dunne said gently: I’ll give you my personal affidavit that Sergeant Ryder is probably the most emotionally stable character in the State of California. As for those super-fit young assassins in your employ — why don’t you bring one of them in here and watch Ryder take him apart?’
‘Well. No. I still —’
‘General.’ It was Ryder, and still showing no emotion. ‘Speaking with my accustomed modesty / tracked Morro down. Jeff, here, devised the plan for tonight. My wife is up there, as is my daughter. Jeff and I have the motivation. None of your boys has. But, much more importantly, we have the right. Would you deny a man his rights?’
Culver looked at him for a long moment, then smiled and nodded acceptance. ‘It is perhaps a pity. I think, that you’re about a quarter century beyond the age for enlistment.’
As they were leaving the viewing room Susan Ryder said to Morro: ‘I understand that you are having visitors tonight?’
Morro smiled. As far as it was possible for him to form an attachment for anyone he had formed one for Susan. ‘We are being honoured.’
‘Would it — would it be possible to just see the President?’
Morro raised an eyebrow. ‘I would not have thought, Mrs Ryder —’
‘Me? If I were a man instead of the lady I pretend to be I would tell you what to do with the President. Any President. It’s for my daughter — she’ll talk about it for ever.’
‘Sorry. It’s out of the question.’
‘What
‘None. One does not mix business with pleasure.’ He looked curiously at her. ‘After you’ve seen what I’ve just done — you still talk to me?’
She said calmly: ‘I don’t believe you intend to kill anyone.’
He looked at her in near-astonishment. ‘Then I’m a failure. The rest of the world does.’
‘The rest of the world hasn’t met you. Anyway, the President might ask to see us.’
‘Why should he?’ He smiled again. ‘I cannot believe that you and the President are in league.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be either. Remember what he said about you last night — an utterly ruthless criminal wholly devoid of even the slightest trace of humanitarian scruples. I don’t for a moment believe that you intend any harm to any of us, but the President might well ask to view the bodies as a preliminary to negotiations.’
‘You are a clever woman, Mrs Ryder.’ He touched her once on the shoulder, very gently. ‘We shall see.’
At 11 a.m. a Lear jet touched down at Las Vegas. Two men emerged and were escorted to one of five waiting police cars. Within fifteen minutes four other planes arrived and eight men were transferred to the four other police cars. The police convoy moved off. The route to their destination was sealed off to all traffic.
At 4 p.m. in the afternoon three gentlemen arrived at Sassoon’s office from Culver City. They were warned upon arrival that they would not be allowed to leave until midnight. They accepted the news with equanimity.
At 4.15 p.m. Air Force One, the Presidential jet, touched down at Las Vegas.
At 5.30 p.m. Culver, Barrow, Mitchell and Sassoon entered the small ante-room off Sassoon’s office. The three gentlemen from Culver City were smoking, drinking and had about them an air of justifiable pride. Culver said: ‘I’ve just learned about this. Nobody ever tells me anything.’
Ryder said: ‘If my young daughter saw me do you think there’s any power on earth that would stop her from crying out “Daddy”?’
Ryder now had brown hair, brown moustache, brown eyebrows and even brown eyelashes. The well-filled cheeks now had pouches in them, and there were slight traces of a long-healed double scar on the right cheek. His nose was not the one he’d had that morning. Susan Ryder would have brushed by him in the street without a second glance. Nor would her son or Parker have merited a second glance either.
At 5.50 p.m. Air Force One touched down at Los Angeles International airport. Even a tidal wave has no effect on the massively reinforced concrete of a runway.
At 6 p.m. Morro and Dubois were seated before a voice-box. Morro said: ‘There can be no mistake?’ It was a question, but there was no question in his voice.
‘Presidential seal, sir. They were met by two unmarked police cars and an ambulance. Seven men disembarked. Five of them were the men we saw on TV last night. My life on that. Mr Muldoon seems to be in very poor shape. He was helped down the steps by two men who took him to the ambulance. One was carrying what I
