Goodbye California - Alistair [110]
When he’d gone, Dunne said: ‘A fair morning’s work. I under-estimated you, Sergeant Ryder. Not breaking his neck, I mean. I’m beginning to wonder if I could have done the same.’
‘You’re either born with a heart of gold or you aren’t. Any word from the boss-man – Barrow, isn’t it? – about what kind of bombs this Professor Aachen was designing when Morro snatched him?’
‘I phoned him. He said he’d contact the AEC and call back. He’s not a man to waste time. No reply from him yet. He was curious why we wanted to find out.’
‘Don’t rightly know myself. I said I thought Morro was trying to mislead us, that’s all. What you call an outside chance of nothing. And speaking of Morro – there wouldn’t be any word from Manila?’
Dunne looked at his watch, then in a quietly exasperated patience at Ryder. ‘You’ve been gone exactly one hour and five minutes. Manila, I would remind you, is not just a couple of blocks down the road. Would there be anything else?’
‘Well, as you’re offering.’ Dunne momentarily closed his eyes. ‘Carlton’s friend back in Illinois mentioned a very big man in the group of weirdos Carlton was flirting with. LeWinter has just mentioned, in a very scared voice, a similar person who’s threatened to break his back. Could be one and the same man. There can’t be many eighty-inchers around.’
‘Eighty-inchers?’
‘Six foot eight. That’s what Carlton’s pal said. Shouldn’t be difficult to check whether anyone of that size has been charged or convicted at some time in this State. Nor should it be very difficult to find if such a character is a member of any of the oddball organisations in California. You can’t hide a man that size, and apparently this person doesn’t go to much trouble to keep hidden. And then there’s the question of helicopters.’
‘Ah.’
‘Not just any helicopter. A special helicopter. It would be nice if you could trace it.’
‘A trifle.’ Dunne was being heavily sarcastic. ‘First, there are more helicopters in this State than there are in any comparable region on earth. Second, the FBI is stretched to its limits –’
‘Stretched to its limits! Look, Major, I’m in no mood for light humour this morning. Eight thousand agents stretched to their limits and what have they achieved? Zero. I could even ask what they are doing and the answer could be the same. When I said a special helicopter I meant a very, very special helicopter. The one that delivered this atom bomb to Yucca Flat. Or have your eight thousand agents already got that little matter in hand?’
‘Explain.’
Ryder turned to his son. ‘Jeff, you’ve said you know that area. Yucca and Frenchman Flats.’
‘I’ve been there.’
‘Would a vehicle leave tracks up there?’
‘Sure. Not everywhere. There’s a lot of rock. But there’s also shingle and rubble and sand. Chances are good, yes.’
‘Now then, Major. Would any of the eight thousand have been checking on tracks – trucks, cars, dune buggies – in the area of the crater: those, that is, that they didn’t obliterate in their mad dash to the scene of the crime?’
‘I wasn’t there myself. Delage?’ Delage picked up a phone. ‘Helicopters? An interesting speculation?’
‘I think so. And I also think that that, if I were Morro, is the way I’d have dumped that hydrogen bomb in the Pacific. Cuts out all this tricky – and maybe attention-catching – business of trucking the bomb to the coast and then transferring it to a boat.’
Dunne was doubtful. ‘There’s still an awful lot of helicopters in the State.’
‘Let’s limit it to the communes, the oddballs, the disenchanted.’
‘With a road transport system