Goodbye California. Alistair MacLean
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somehow got lost from his plant.’ He broke off and shook his head dejectedly. ‘The whole thing is so damned stupid anyway.’
‘What’s stupid?’
‘Pilfering a few grams at a time from a plant or breaking into one to steal it on a grand scale. That’s being stupid. It’s stupid because it’s unnecessary. If you’d wanted a king-size haul of U-235 or plutonium today what would you have done?’
‘That’s obvious. I’d have let the regular crew of that truck load up and hi-jack it on the way back.’
‘Exactly. One or two plants send out their enriched nuclear fuel in such massive steel and concrete drums–transported in big fifteen-to-twenty-ton trucks–that the necessity for a crane effectively rules out hi-jacking. Most don’t. We don’t. A strong man on his own would have no difficulty in handling our drums. More than one nuclear scientist has publicly suggested that we approach the Kremlin and contract the Red Army for the job. That’s the way the Russians do it–a heavily armored truck with an escort armored vehicle in front and behind.’
‘Why don’t we do that?’
‘Not to be thought of. Same reason again–mustn’t scare the pants off the public. Bad for the nuclear image. Atoms for peace, not war. In the whole fuel cycle transportation is by so far the weakest link in security that it doesn’t deserve to be called a link at all. The major road shippers–like Pacific Intermountain Express or Tri-State or MacCormack–are painfully aware of this, and are worried sick about it. But there’s nothing their drivers can do. In the trucking business–many would prefer the word “racket”–theft and shortages are the name of the game. It’s the most corrupt and criminal-ridden business in the State but no one, especially the drivers, is going to say so out loud for all the world to hear. The Teamsters are the most powerful and widely feared union in the States. In Britain or Germany or France they would just be outlawed, and that would be that; in Russia they’d end up in Siberia. But not here. You don’t buck or bad-mouth the Teamsters–not if you place any value on your wife or kids or pension, or, most of all, your own personal health.
‘Every day an estimated two per cent of goods being transported by road in this country just go missing: the real figure is probably higher. The wise don’t complain: in the minority of cases where people do complain the insurers pay up quietly, since their premiums are loaded against what they regard as an occupational hazard. “Occupational” is the keyword. Eighty-five per cent of thefts are by people inside the trucking industry. Eighty-five per cent of hi-jackings involve collusion–which has to involve the truck-drivers, all, of course, paid-up members of the Teamsters.’
‘Has there ever been a case of a nuclear hi-jack on the open road?’
‘Hi-jacks don’t happen on the open road. Well, hardly ever. They occur at transfer points and driver’s stop-overs. Driver Jones visits the local locksmith and has a fresh set of keys for ignition and cab doors cut and hands it over to Smith. Next day he stops at a drivers’ pull-up, carefully locks the door and goes–either himself or with his mate–for his hamburger and french fries or whatever. When he comes out, he goes through the well-rehearsed routine of double-take, calling to heaven for vengeance and hot-footing it to the nearest phone box to call the cops, who know perfectly well what is going on but are completely incapable of proving anything. Those hi-jackings are rarely reported and pass virtually unnoticed because there are very rarely any crimes of violence involved.’
Ryder was patient. ‘I’ve been a cop all my life. I know that. Nuclear hi-jacks, I said.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know or you aren’t telling?’
‘That’s up to you to decide, Sergeant.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ It was impossible for anyone to say whether Ryder had decided anything or not. He turned to Jablonsky.
Okay. Doc, if we go and have a look at Susan’s office?’
Jablonsky’s voice was dry. ‘Unusual of you, Sergeant, to ask anybody’s permission for anything.’
‘That’s downright unkind. Fact is, we haven’t been officially assigned to this investigation.’
‘I know that.’ He looked at Jeff. ‘This is hardly the stamping ground for a highway patrolman. Have you been expressly forbidden to come here?’
‘No.’
‘Makes no difference. Heavens, man, in your place I’d be worried to death. Search the whole damned building if you want.’ He paused briefly. ‘I suggest I come with you.’
‘“The whole damned building”, as you call it, can be left to Parker and Davidson, who are already here, and the lawmen in their droves who will be here in any moment. Why do you want to come with us to my wife’s office? I’ve never tampered with evidence in my life.’
‘Who says you did?’ He looked at Jeff. ‘You know your father has a long-standing and well-justified reputation for taking the law into his own hands?’
‘One does hear rumours, I have to admit. So you’d be a witness-stand guarantor for the good behaviour of one who is in need of care and protection?’ It was the first time that Jeff had smiled since he’d heard of his mother’s kidnapping.
Jablonsky said: ‘First time I ever heard anyone mention care and protection and Sergeant Ryder in the same breath.’
‘Jeff could be right.’ Ryder was unruffled. ‘I am getting on.’
Jablonsky smiled his total disbelief.
The office door, slightly ajar, had four splintered holes tightly grouped round the lock and handle. Ryder looked at them with no reaction, pushed open the door and walked inside. Sergeant Parker stopped from what he was doing, which was pushing scraps of paper around a desk-top with the rubber tip of a pencil, and turned round. He was a burly, pleasant-faced man in his late thirties who didn’t look a bit like a cop – which was one reason why his arrest record ranked second only to Ryder’s.
‘Been expecting you,’ he said. One hell of a business, just incredible.’ He smiled as if to alleviate the tension which Ryder didn’t seem to be feeling at all. ‘Come to take over, have you, to show the incompetents how a professional goes about it?’
‘Just looking. I’m not on this and I’m sure old Fatso will take great pleasure in keeping me off it.’ ‘Fatso’ referred to their far-from-revered police chief.
‘The sadistic blubber of lard would love to do just that.’ He ignored the slight frown of Dr Jablonsky who had never had the privilege of making the police chief’s acquaintance. ‘Why don’t you and I break his neck some day?’
‘Assuming he’s got a neck inside that twenty-inch collar.’ Ryder looked at the bullet-ridden door. ‘McCafferty – the gate guard – told me there was no shooting. Termites?’
‘Silencer.’
‘Why the gun at all?’
‘Susan is why.’ Parker was a family friend of long standing. ‘The villains had rounded up the staff and put them in the room across the hallway there. Susan just happened to look out of the door and saw them coming so she closed the door and locked it.’
‘So they blasted it open. Maybe they thought she was making a dive for the nearest telephone.’
‘You made the security report.’
‘That’s so. I remember. Only Dr Jablonsky here and Mr Ferguson were permitted direct lines to the outside. All other calls have to be cleared through the switchboard. They’d have taken care of the girl there first. Maybe they thought she was leaving through a window.’
‘Not a chance. From all I’ve heard – I haven’t had