Goodbye California - Alistair [92]
‘This is a nightmare.’
‘This is no nightmare. From a nightmare you wake up. Not from this, for this is the dreadful reality. A waking nightmare, if you will.’
Burnett was as hoarse as Healey had been. ‘The Aunt Sally!’
Morro corrected him. ‘The Aunt Sallies. Ten of them. You, Professor, are an excellent designer of hydrogen weapons. Your brainchild in its final physical form. One could wish that you could have viewed it under happier circumstances.’
There was something very close to hate in Burnett’s eyes.
‘You, Morro, are an evil and vindictive bastard.’
‘You can save your breath. Professor, and for two reasons. Your statement is untrue for I derive no gloating pleasure from this; and, as you should know by now, I am impervious to insults.’
With a Herculean effort Burnett brought his temper and outrage under control, and regarded Morro with an expression of suspicious thought-fulness. He said slowly: ‘I have to admit they look like Aunt Sallies.’
‘You are suggesting something. Professor Burnett?’
‘Yes. I’m suggesting this is a hoax, a gigantic bluff. I’m suggesting that all this fancy machinery you have down here, the steel and aluminium sheets, the nuclear fuel, the electrical shop, this so-called assembly shop, is just window-dressing on an unprecedented scale. I suggest you are trying to trick my colleagues and myself into convincing the world at large that you really are in possession of those nuclear weapons, whereas in fact, they are only dummies. You could have those cylinders made in a hundred places in this State alone without arousing any suspicion But you couldn’t have the components, the very intricate and sophisticated components made without providing very complex and highly sophisticated plans, and that would have aroused suspicion. I’m afraid, Morro, that you are no engineer. To make those components here you would have required highly-skilled pattern-cutters, template-makers, turners and machinists. Such men are very hard to come by and are highly-paid professionals who most certainly would not jeopardize their careers by working for a criminal.’
Morro said: ‘Well spoken. Interesting but, if I may say so, merely amusing observations. You have quite finished?’
When Burnett made no reply Morro crossed to a large steel plate let into one wall and pressed a button by its side. The steel plate slid sideways with a muted whine to reveal a square wire-meshed door. Behind the mesh were seated six men, two watching TV, two reading and two playing cards. All six men looked towards the mesh door. Their faces were pale and gaunt and held expressions of what could be called neither hatred nor fear but were compounded of both.
‘Those may be the men you are looking for, Professor?’ Again there was neither satisfaction nor triumph in Morro’s voice. ‘One template-maker, one pattern-cutter, two lathe specialists, one machinist and one electrician, or perhaps I should say, a specialist in electronics.’ He looked at the six men and said: ‘Perhaps you would confirm that you are indeed the skilled practitioners of the arts that I have claimed you to be?’
The six men looked at him and said nothing, but their tightened lips and the loathing in their faces said it for them.
Morro shrugged. ‘Well, well. They do get like this occasionally – an irritating, if momentary, lack of co-operation. Or, to put it another way, they simply never learn.’ He crossed the chamber, entered a booth-like office and lifted a phone. His voice was inaudible to the watchers. He remained