Goodbye California - Alistair [143]
‘Do be quiet. You know, I rather like the way you look. Maybe you should stay that way.’
Ryder sipped some more Glenfiddich in silence.
She said: ‘I’m sorry in a way. Okay, he was a fiend. But he was a kindly fiend.’
Ryder knew how to keep the one person in the world. He kept silent.
‘End of a nightmare,’ Susan said. ‘Happy ever after.’
‘Yes. The first chopper should be here in ten minutes. And bed for you, young lady. Happy ever after? That’s as maybe. Perhaps we’ll be as lucky as Myron Bonn there, and have a stay of execution. Perhaps not. I don’t know. Somewhere out there in the darkness the monster is still crouched on the doorstep, waiting.’
‘What on earth do you mean, John? You never talk like that.’
‘True. Something a professor in CalTech said. I think maybe we should go and live in New Orleans.’
‘What on earth for?’
‘They’ve never had an earthquake there.’
About the Author
Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots minister, was born in 1922 and brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 at the age of eighteen he joined the Royal Navy; two-and-a-half years spent aboard a cruiser was later to give him the background for HMS Ulysses, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea. After the war, he gained an English Honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a school master. In 1983 he was awarded a D.Litt from the same university.
By the early 1970s he was one of the top 10 bestselling authors in the world, and the biggest-selling Briton. He wrote twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers that have sold more than 30 million copies, and many of which have been filmed, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key and Ice Station Zebra. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century. Alistair MacLean died in 1987 at his home in Switzerland.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
By Alistair MacLean
HMS Ulysses
The Guns of Navarone
South by Java Head
The Last Frontier
Night Without End
Fear is the Key
The Dark Crusader
The Satan Bug
The Golden Rendezvous
Ice Station Zebra
When Eight Bells Toll
Where Eagles Dare
Force 10 from Navarone
Puppet on a Chain
Caravan to Vaccarès
Bear Island
The Way to Dusty Death
Breakheart Pass
Circus
The Golden Gate
Seawitch
Goodbye California
Athabasca
River of Death
Partisans
Floodgate
San Andreas
The Lonely Sea (stories)
Santorini
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
1
First published in Great Britain by
William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1977
then in paperback by Fontana 1980
Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1977
Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © 1977 ISBN: 9780007289301
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia