Goodbye California - Alistair [120]
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