Goodbye California by Alistair MacLean Page B

took a folder from his briefcase. ‘This is the file you wanted. Wasn’t easy. Ferguson’s like a cat on a hot tin roof. Jumpy.’
    ‘Ferguson’s straight.’
    ‘I know he is. This is a photostat. I didn’t want Ferguson or the FBI to find out that the original dossier is missing.’
    ‘Why’s Ferguson so jumpy?’
    ‘Hard to say. But he’s being evasive, uncommunicative. Maybe he feels his job is in danger since his security defences were so easily breached, Running scared, a little. I think we all are in the past few hours. Even goes for me.’ He looked gloomily. ‘I’m even worried that my presence here’ – he smiled to rob his words of offence – ‘consorting with an ex-cop might be noted.’
    ‘You’re too late. It has been noted.’
    Jablonsky stopped smiling. ‘What?’
    ‘There’s a closed van about fifty yards down the road on the other side. No driver in the cab – he’s inside the van looking through a one-way window.’
    Jeff rose quickly and moved to a window. He said: ‘How long has he been there?’
    ‘A few minutes. He arrived just as Dr Jablonsky did. Too late for me to do anything about it then.’ Ryder thought briefly then said: ‘I don’t much care to have those snoopers round my house. Go to my gun cupboard and take what you want. You’ll find a few old police badges there, too.’
    ‘He’ll know I’m no longer a cop.’
    ‘Sure he will. Think he’d dare to say so and put the finger on Donahure?’
    ‘Hardly. What do you want me to do? Shoot him?’
    ‘It’s a tempting thought, but no. Smash his window open with the butt of your gun and tell him to open up. His name is Raminoff and he looks a bit like a weasel, which he is. He carries a gun. Donahure reckons he’s his top undercover man. I’ve had tabs on him for years. He’s not a cop – he’s a criminal with several sentences behind him. You’ll find a policeband radio transmitter. Ask him for his licence. He won’t have one. Ask him for his police identification. He won’t have that either. Make the usual threatening noises and tell him to push off.’
    Jeff smiled widely. ‘Retirement has its compensations.’
    Jablonsky looked after him doubtfully. ‘You sure got a lot of faith in that boy, Sergeant.’
    ‘Jeff can look after himself,’ Ryder said comfortably. ‘Now, Doctor, I hope you’re not going to be evasive about telling me why Ferguson was being evasive.’
    ‘Why should I?’ He looked glum. ‘Seeing that I’m a marked man anyway.’
    ‘He was evasive with me?’
    ‘Yes. I feel more upset about your wife than you realize. I think you have the right to know anything that can help you.’
    ‘And I think that deserves another drink.’ It was a measure of Jablonsky’s preoccupation that he’d emptied his glass without being aware of it.Ryder went to the bar and returned. ‘What didn’t he tell me?’
    ‘You asked him if any nuclear material had been hi-jacked. He said he didn’t know. Fact is, he knows far too much about it to be willing to talk about it. Take the recent Hematite Hangover business, so-called, I imagine, because it’s given a headache to everybody in nuclear security. Hematite is in Missouri and is run by Gulf United Nuclear. They may have anything up to a thousand kilograms of U-235 on the premises at any given time. This comes to them, bottled, in the form of UF-Six, from Portsmouth, Ohio. This is converted into U-235 oxide. Much of this stuff, fully enriched and top weapons-grade material, goes from Hematite to Kansas City by truck, thence to Los Angeles as air cargo then is again trucked a hundred and twenty miles down the freeways to General Atomic in San Diego. Three wide-open transits. Do you want the horrifying details?’
    ‘I can imagine them. Why Ferguson’s secretiveness?’
    ‘No reason really. All security men are professional clams. There’s literally tons of the damned stuff missing. That’s no secret. The knowledge is in public