Goodbye California. Alistair MacLean

were hopping. They said there was – and I know it to be true – up to sixty miles of piping in the processing system of any given plants, and if you multiply that by thirty-four you have a couple of thousand miles of piping, and there could be a great deal of nuclear material stuck in those pipes. GAO completely agreed but rather spoiled things by pointing out that there was no way in which the contents of those two thousand miles could be checked.’

      Jablonsky peered gloomily at the base of his empty glass. Ryder rose obligingly and when he returned Jablonsky said accusingly but without heat: ‘Trying to loosen my tongue, is that it?’

      ‘What else? What did ERDA say?’

      ‘Practically nothing. They’d even less to say shortly afterwards when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission compounded that attack on them. They said in effect two things: that practically any plant in the country could be taken by a handful of armed and determined men and that the theft-detection systems were defective.’

      ‘You believe this?’

      ‘No silly questions, please – especially not after what happened today.’

      ‘So there could be tens of tons of the stuff cached around the country?’

      ‘I could be quoted on my answer?’

      ‘Now it’s your turn for silly questions.’

      Jablonsky sighed. ‘What the hell. It’s eminently possible and more than probable. Why are you asking those questions, Sergeant?’

      ‘One more and I’ll tell you. Could you make an atom bomb?’

      ‘Sure. Any competent scientist – he doesn’t have to be a nuclear physicist – could. Thousands of them. School of thought that says that no one could make an atomic bomb without retracing the Manhattan project – that extremely long, enormously complicated and billion-dollar programme that led to the invention of the atom bomb in World War Two. Rubbish. The information is freely available. Write to the Atomic Energy Commission, enclose three dollars and they’ll be glad to let you have a copy of the Los Alamos Primer, which details the mathematical fundaments of fission bombs. A bit more expensive is the book called Manhattan District History, Project Y, the Los Alamos Project. For this you have to approach the Office of Technical Services of the US Department of Commerce, who will be delighted to let you have a copy by return post. Tells you all about it. Most importantly, it tells you of all the problems that arose in the building of the first atomic bomb and how they were overcome. Stirring stuff. Any amount of works in public print – just consult your local library – that consist of what used to be the supersecret information. All else failing, the Encyclopedia Americana will probably tell any intelligent person as much as he needs to know.’

      ‘We have a very helpful government.’

      ‘Very. Once the Russians had started exploding atom bombs they reckoned the need for secrecy was past. What they didn’t reckon on was that some patriotic citizen or citizens would up and use this knowledge against them.’ He sighed. ‘It would be easy to call the government of the day a bunch of clowns but they lacked the gift of Nostradamus: “hindsight makes us all wise”.’

      ‘Hydrogen bombs?’

      ‘A nuclear physicist for that.’ He paused then went on with some bitterness: ‘Provided, that is, he’s fourteen years of age or over.’

      ‘Explain.’

      ‘Back in nineteen-seventy there was an attempted nuclear blackmail of a city in Florida. Police tried to hush it up but it came out all the same. Give me a million dollars and a safe conduct out of America or I’ll blast your city out of existence, the blackmailer said. Next day came the same threat, this time accompanied by a diagram of a hydrogen bomb – a cylinder filled with lithium hydride wrapped in cobalt, with an implosion system at one end.’

      ‘That how they make a hydrogen bomb?’

      ‘I wouldn’t know.’

      ‘Isn’t that sad? And you a nuclear physicist. They nailed the blackmailer?’

      ‘Yes. A fourteen-year-old boy.’

      ‘It’s an advance on fireworks.’ For almost a minute Ryder gazed into the far distance, which appeared to be located in the region of his toe-caps, through a drifting cloud of blue-grey smoke, then said:

      ‘It’s a come-on. A con-job. A gambit. A phoney. Don’t you agree?’

      Jablonsky was guarded. ‘I might. If, that is to say, I had the faintest idea what you were talking about.’

      ‘Will this theft of the uranium and plutonium be made public?’

      Jablonsky gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘No, sir. Not if we can help it. Mustn’t give the shivers to the great American public’

      ‘Not if you can help it. I’ll take long odds that the bandits won’t be so bashful and that the story will have banner head-lines in every paper in the State tomorrow. Not to mention the rest of the country. It smells, Doc. The people responsible are obviously experts and must have known that the easiest way to get weapons-grade materia: is to hi-jack a shipment. With all that stuff already missing it’s long odds that they’ve got more than enough than they need already. And you know as well as I do that three nuclear physicists in the State have just vanished in the past couple of months. Would you care to guess who their captors were?’

      ‘I don’t think so – I mean, I don’t think I have to.’

      ‘I didn’t think so. You could have saved me all this thinking – I prefer to avoid it where possible. Let’s assume they already had the fuel. Let’s assume they already had the physicists to make the nuclear devices, quite possibly even hydrogen explosives. Let’s even assume that they have already got one of those devices – and why stop at one? – manufactured and tucked away at some safe place.’

      Jablonsky looked unhappy. ‘It’s not an assumption I care to assume.’

      ‘I can understand that. But if something’s there wishing it wasn’t won’t make it go away. Some time back you described something as being eminently possible and more than probable. Would you describe this assumption in the same words?’

      Jablonsky thought for some moments then said: ‘Yes.’

      ‘So. A smoke-screen. They didn’t really need the fuel or the physicists or the hostages. Why did they take something they didn’t need? Because they needed them.’

      ‘That makes a lot of sense.’

      Ryder was patient. ‘They didn’t need them to make bombs. I would think they needed them for three other reasons. The first would be to obtain maximum publicity, to convince people that they had means to make bombs and meant business. The second is to lull us into the belief that we have time to deal with the threat. I mean, you can’t make a nuclear bomb in a day or a week, can you?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘So. We have breathing space. Only we haven’t.’

      ‘Getting the hang of your double-talk takes time. If our assumption is correct we haven’t.’

      ‘And the third thing is to create the proper climate of terror. People don’t behave rationally when they’re scared out of their wits, do they? Behaviour becomes no longer predictable. You don’t think, you just react.’

      ‘And where does all this lead us?’

      ‘That’s as far as my thinking goes. How the hell should I know?’

      Jablonsky peered into his Scotch and found no inspiration there. He sighed again and said: ‘The only thing that makes sense out of all of this is that it accounts for your behaviour.’

      ‘Something odd about my behaviour?’

      ‘That’s the point. There should be. Or there should have been. Worried stiff about Susan. But if you’re right in your thinking