Goodbye California. Alistair MacLean

Bathroom with gold-plated taps – it’s got everything!’

      ‘I might even try out some of these luxuries,’ said Susan in a loud voice. She rose, putting a warning finger to her lips. ‘In fact I’m going to try a quick shower. Won’t be long.’

      She passed through the bedroom into the bathroom, waited some prudent seconds, turned the shower on, returned to the living-room and beckoned Julie who followed her back to the bathroom. Susan smiled at the young girl’s raised eyebrows and said in a soft voice: ‘I don’t know whether these rooms are bugged or not.’

      ‘Of course they are.’

      ‘What makes you so sure?’

      ‘I wouldn’t put anything past that creep.’

      ‘Mr Morro. I thought him quite charming, myself. But I agree. Running a shower gets a hidden mike all confused. Or so John told me once.’ Apart from herself and Parker, no one called Sergeant Ryder by his given name, probably because very few people knew it: Jeff invariably called her Susan but never got beyond ‘Dad’ where his father was concerned. ‘I wish to heaven he was here now – though mind you, I’ve already written a note to him.’

      Julie looked at her blankly.

      ‘Remember when I was overcome back in San Ruffino and had to retire to the powder room? I took John’s picture with me, removed the backing, scribbled a few odds and ends on the back of the picture, replaced the back and left the picture behind.’

      ‘Isn’t it a pretty remote chance that it would ever occur to him to open up the picture?’

      ‘Yes. So I scribbled a tiny note in shorthand, tore it up and dropped it in my waste-paper basket.’

      ‘Again, isn’t it unlikely that that would occur to him? To check your basket? And even if he did, to guess that a scrap of shorthand would mean anything?’

      ‘It’s a slender chance. Well, a little better than slender. You can’t know him as I do. Women have the traditional right of being unpredictable, and that’s one of the things about him that does annoy me: ninety-nine point something per cent of the time he can predict precisely what I will do.’

      ‘Even if he does find what you left – well, you couldn’t have been able to tell him much.’

      ‘Very little. A description – what little I could give of anybody with a stocking mask – his stupid remark about taking us to some place where we wouldn’t get our feet wet, and his name.’

      ‘Funny he shouldn’t have warned his thugs against calling him by name. Unless, of course, it wasn’t his name.’

      ‘Sure it’s not his name. Probably a twisted sense of humour. He broke into a power station, so it probably tickled him to call himself after another station, the one in Morro Bay. Though I don’t know if that will help us much.’

      Julie smiled doubtfully and left. When the door closed behind her Susan turned around to locate the draught that had suddenly made her shoulders feel cold, but there was no place from which a draught could have come.

      Showers were in demand that evening. A little way along the hallway Professor Burnett had his running for precisely the same reason as Susan had. In this case the person he wanted to talk to was, inevitably, Dr Schmidt. Bramwell, when listing the amenities of Adlerheim, had omitted to include what both Burnett and Schmidt regarded as by far the most important amenity of all: every suite was provided with its own wet bar. The two men silently toasted each other, Burnett with his malt, Schmidt with his gin and tonic: unlike Sergeant Parker, Schmidt had no esoteric preferences as to the source of his gin. A gin was a gin was a gin.

      Burnett said: ‘Do you make of all this what I make of all this?’

      ‘Yes.’ Like Burnett, Schmidt had no idea whatsoever what to make of it.

      ‘Is the man mad, a crackpot or just a cunning devil?’

      ‘A cunning devil, that’s quite obvious.’ Schmidt pondered. ‘Of course, there’s nothing to prevent him from being all three at the same time.’

      ‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here?’

      ‘Zero.’

      ‘What do you reckon our chances are of getting out of here alive?’

      ‘The same. He can’t afford to let us live. We could identify them afterwards.’

      ‘You honestly think he’d be prepared to kill all of us in cold blood?’

      ‘He’d have to.’ Schmidt hesitated. ‘Can’t be sure. Seems civilized enough in his own odd-ball way. Could be a veneer, of course – but just possibly he might be a man with a mission.’ Schmidt helped his meditation along by emptying his glass, left and returned with a refill. ‘Could even be prepared to bargain our lives against freedom from persecution. Speaking no ill of the others, of course’ – he clearly was – ‘but with four top-ranking nuclear physicists in his hands he holds pretty strong cards to deal with either State or government, as the case may be.’

      ‘Government. No question. Dr Durrer of ERDA would have called in the FBI hours ago. And while we may be important enough we mustn’t overlook the tremendous emotional factor of having two innocent women as hostages. The nation will clamour for the release of all of us, irrespective of whether it means stopping the wheels of justice.’

      ‘It’s a hope.’ Schmidt was glum. ‘We could be whistling in the dark. If only we knew what Morro was up to. All right, we suspect it’s some form of nuclear blackmail because we can’t see what else it could be: but what