Goodbye California - Alistair [98]
But it hadn’t happened on any remote Pacific atoll, nor had it been Morro’s purpose to provide the Californians with a diversionary spectacle to relieve the ennui of their daily lives. It had been intended, instead, to provide them with a chilling warning, an ominous threat, all the more frightening because unspecified, of impending evil, of some unimagined disaster that would strike at the whim of whoever had planted and triggered the atomic device: on a more mundane level it was intended to show that here was a man who meant what he said, who was not just there to play around and who had both the desire and ability to carry out whatever he had threatened. Had that been Morro’s intention – and there obviously had been none other – then he had succeeded to a degree which perhaps even he had not realized was possible. He had struck fear into the heart of the great majority of rational Californians, and from that time on there was practically only one topic of conversation in the State: when and where this unpredictable madman would strike again and what in the name of all that was holy – it wasn’t expressed in quite that way – were his motivations. This topic, to be precise, was to last for only ninety minutes: then they were to be given something definite and concrete about which to worry or, more accurately, to reduce that part of California most directly concerned to a state of not unreasoning terror that was swiftly to shade off into panic.
Ryder rose. ‘Well, we never doubted that he was a man of his word. Aren’t you glad you didn’t waste your time going up to see that side-show? For that’s all it was. Ah, well, it should at least keep people’s minds off taxes and the latest shenanigans in Washington for a little.’
Jeff didn’t answer. It was doubtful if he’d even heard. He was still looking at the ever-expanding mushroom over the Nevada desert, still listening to the suitably awe-stricken voice of the commentator describing in great and wholly unnecessary detail what anyone with half an eye could see perfectly well for himself. Ryder shook his head and picked up the telephone. Dunne answered.
Ryder said: ‘Anything? You know this line is bugged.’
‘Something’s coming in.’
‘Interpol?’
‘Something’s coming in.’
‘How long?’
‘Half an hour.’
He hung up, called Parker, arranged to have them meet in Dunne’s office in half an hour, hung up, sat, briefly ruminated on the fact that both Dunne and Parker had taken the reality of Morro’s threat so much for granted that neither of them had thought fit to comment on it, then resumed his reading. Fully five minutes passed before Jeff switched off the TV, glanced with some irritation at his father, sat down at his table, typed a few words and said acidly: ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
‘Not at all. How many pages have you got down?’
‘Six.’
Ryder stretched out his hand and took them. ‘We’re leaving in fifteen minutes to see Dunne. Something’s come up – or is coming up.’
‘What?’
‘You have forgotten, perhaps, that one of Morro’s henchmen is wearing a headset tied in to our phone?’
A chagrined Jeff resumed his typing while Ryder began a placid reading of Jeff’s notes.
A much refreshed Dunne, who had obviously a good night’s rest behind him, was waiting with Delage and