Goodbye California. Alistair MacLean

contents of a simmering casserole, turned off the oven and wrote ‘Gone down-town’ at the foot of a note instructing him when and to what temperature he should turn a certain switch: which was as near to cooking Ryder had ever come in his twenty-seven years of marriage.

      His car was parked in the driveway. It was a car that no self-respecting police officer would care to have been found shot in. That Ryder was just such a policeman was beyond doubt, but he was attached to Intelligence and had little use for gleaming sedans equipped with illuminated ‘police’ signs, flashing lights and sirens. The car – for want of a better word – was an elderly and battered Peugeot of the type much favoured by Parisians of a sadistic bent of mind whose great pleasure it was to observe the drivers of shining limousines slow down and pull into the kerb whenever they caught sight of those vintage chariots in their rear-view mirrors.

      Four blocks from his own home Ryder parked his car, walked up a flagged pathway and rang the front-door bell. A young man opened the door.

      Ryder said: ‘Dress uniform, Jeff. We’re wanted downtown.’

      ‘Both of us? Why?’

      ‘Your guess. Mahler wouldn’t say.’

      ‘It’s all those TV cop series he keeps watching. You’ve got to be mysterious or you’re nothing.’ Jeff Ryder left and returned in twenty seconds, tie in position and buttoning up his uniform. Together they walked down the flagged path.

      They made an odd contrast, father and son. Sergeant Ryder was built along the general lines of a Mack truck that had seen better days. His crumpled coat and creaseless trousers looked as if they had been slept in for a week: Ryder could buy a new suit in the morning and by evenfall a second-hand clothes dealer would have crossed the street to avoid meeting him. He had thick dark hair, a dark moustache and a worn, lined, lived-in face that held a pair of eyes, dark as the rest of him, that had looked at too many things in the course of a lifetime and had liked little of what they had seen. It was also a face that didn’t go in for much in the way of expressions.

      Jeff Ryder was two inches taller and thirty-five pounds lighter than his father. His immaculately pressed California Highway Patrolman’s uniform looked like a custom-built job by Saks. He had fair hair, blue eyes – both inherited from his mother – and a lively, mobile, intelligent face. Only a clairvoyant could have deduced that he was Sergeant Ryder’s son.

      On the way, they spoke only once. Jeff said: ‘Mother’s late on the road tonight – something to do with our summons to the presence?’

      ‘Your guess again.’

      Central Office was a forbidding brownstone edifice overdue for demolition. It looked as if it had been specifically designed to depress further the spirits of the many miscreants who passed or were hauled through its doorway. The desk officer, Sergeant Dickson, looked at them gravely, but that was of no significance: the very nature of his calling inhibits any desk sergeant’s latent tendency towards levity. He waved a discouraged arm and said: ‘His eminence awaits.’

      Lieutenant Mahler looked no less forbidding than the building he inhabited. He was a tall thin man with grizzled hair at the temples, thin unsmiling lips, a thin beaky nose and unsentimental eyes. No one liked him, for his reputation as a martinet had not been easily come by: on the other hand, no one actively disliked him, for he was a fair cop and a fairly competent one. ‘Fairly’ was the operative and accurate word. Although no fool he was not over-burdened with intelligence and had reached his present position partly because he was the very model of the strict upholder of justice, partly because his transparent honesty offered no threat to his superiors.

      For once, and rarely for him, he looked ill at ease. Ryder produced a crumpled packet of his favoured Gauloises, lit a forbidden cigarette – Mahler’s aversion to wine, women, song and tobacco was almost pathological – and helped him out.

      ‘Something wrong at San Ruffino, then?’

      Mahler looked at him in sharp suspicion. ‘How do you know? Who told you?’

      ‘So it’s true. Nobody told me. We haven’t committed any violations of the law recently. At least, my son hasn’t. Me, I don’t remember.’

      Mahler allowed acidity to overcome his unease. ‘You surprise me.’

      ‘First time the two of us have ever been called in here together. We have a couple of things in common. First, we’re father and son, which is no concern of the police department. Second, my wife – Jeff’s mother – is employed at the nuclear reactor plant in San Ruffino. There hasn’t been an accident there or the whole town would have known in minutes. An armed breakin, perhaps?’

      ‘Yes.’ Mahler’s tone was almost grudging. He hadn’t relished the role of being the bearer of bad news, but a man doesn’t like having his lines taken from him.

      ‘Who’s surprised?’ Ryder was very matter of fact. For any sign of reaction he showed Mahler could well have remarked that it looked as if it might rain soon. ‘Security up there is lousy. I filed a report on it. Remember?’

      ‘Which was duly turned over to the proper authorities. Power plant security is not police business. That’s IAEA’s responsibility.’ He was referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency, one of the responsibilities of which was to supervise the safeguard system for the protection of power plants, specifically against the theft of nuclear fuels.

      ‘God’s sake!’ Not only had Jeff failed to inherit his father’s physical characteristics, he was also noticeably lacking in his parent’s massive calm. ‘Let’s get our priorities right. Lieutenant Mahler. My mother. Is she all right?’

      ‘I think so. Let’s say I have no reason to think otherwise.’

      ‘What the hell is that meant to mean?’

      Mahler’s features tightened into the preliminary for a reprimand but Sergeant Ryder got in first. ‘Abduction?’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’

      ‘Kidnap?’ Jeff stared his disbelief. ‘Kidnap? Mother is the director’s secretary. She doesn’t know a damn thing about what goes on there. She’s not even security classified.’

      ‘True. But remember she was picked for the job; she didn’t apply. Cops’ wives are supposed to be like Caesar’s wife – beyond suspicion.’

      ‘But why pick on her?’

      ‘They didn’t just pick on her. They took about six others, or so I gather: the deputy director, deputy security chief, a secretary and a control room operator. More importantly – although not, of course, from your point of view – they took two visiting university professors. Both are highly qualified specialists in nuclear physics.’

      Ryder said: ‘That makes five nuclear scientists to have disappeared in the past two months.’

      ‘Five it is.’ Mahler looked acutely unhappy.

      Ryder said: ‘Where did those two scientists come from?’

      ‘San Diego and UCLA, I believe. Does it matter?’

      ‘I don’t know. It may be too late already.’

      ‘What’s that meant to mean, Sergeant?’

      ‘It means that if those two men have families they should be under immediate police guard.’ Mahler, Ryder could see, wasn’t quite with him so he went on: ‘If those two men have been kidnapped then it’s with a special purpose in mind. Their co-operation will be required. Wouldn’t you co-operate a damn sight faster if you saw someone with a pair of pliers removing your wife’s fingernails one by one?’

      Possibly because he didn’t have a wife the thought had clearly not occurred to Lieutenant Mahler, but, then, thinking was not his forte. To his credit, once the thought had been implanted he wasted no time. He spent the next two minutes on the telephone.

      Jeff was grim-faced, edgy, his voice soft but urgent. ‘Let’s get out there fast.’

      ‘Easy.