Big fish, p.15
Big Fish, page 15
"So they'd get rich enough to bribe some government?"
"No," said Cord. "Governments only deal with other governments on those terms. Regardless of how they feel about each other, governments all depend absolutely on stability. As a rule they don't have a lot of imagination, but they can think of enough reasons not to overequip anybody whose primary interest isn't collecting next year's taxes."
"Who, then?" said Rachel. "You said terrorists wouldn't make their own."
Cord looked around at the others until he was satisfied that he had their attention. "You're not really thinking this through. In the first place, governments don't make nuclear weapons these days, at least not in the West. They order them from private companies, just the way they order combat boots or ballpoint pens, and that should suggest something to you."
"To go to another planet," said Rachel.
Cord ignored her. "When it's done, it will be a small- to
medium-sized company in a high-technology field, probably a multinational operating in Western Europe or the United States. It will probably be a company formed no more than ten years ago, and won't have a direct connection with the arms industry."
"How do you know all that?" said Rachel.
"We don't, but it's a profile we've developed. That version is pretty crude, and most of it is obvious. It won't be a giant corporation that would be risking its existence to raise its annual take by four-tenths of a percent. It won't be somebody who already has lots of government contracts, both because that's a form of long-term security and because they're too closely watched. It'll be a company that decides to move into a high-profit area at some risk."
Rachel's eyes flickered to Altmeyer's, then back. "So a company will figure out how to make a bomb, then sell it to terrorists, and make a big profit. Then what? The terrorists blow up their own country and take over the rubble?"
Cord shook his head. "One of the things you have to do is look at history. Nobody has ever made one nuclear weapon. The smallest number was two, and that's the exception because it was the first try, and they were in a hurry. You need one as a demonstration that you're not just pretending. The second is the one you use for extortion once you've established your sincerity. So the customer will buy at least two or three, and set off only one."
"What about the company? Once they have the secret, are they going to just keep rolling those big H-bombs off the assembly line?"
"It won't be hydrogen bombs, and they won't be big. Making a nuclear weapon isn't really a question of discovering a secret. The fundamental principles have been known for over a hundred years. It's a matter of solving dozens of engineering problems as you meet them, and most can be solved in a number of ways. But hydrogen bombs involve some very difficult and expensive problems, and the profile company wouldn't even consider facing them."
I
"You're sure of that?" said Bucky, but Rachel waved the hand behind her back at him without appearing to move.
"I'm not going to discuss this in detail. If it were possible for the company, it wouldn't be cost effective. Very few companies—or governments, for that matter—are in a position to build what you see on the news sticking out of a missile silo. And the ones that can are already doing it." Cord lifted his glass so that Rachel could pour another martini into it. "If you're set on doing this at all, think smaller—something like the first-generation atom bombs, only modernized and miniaturized. If you start thinking clearly about that, the list of companies grows and grows."
Rachel appeared to be shocked. "You mean lots of companies fit the profile?" She wondered if she'd gone too far. If she seemed too stupid, he'd stop talking.
Cord nodded. "A company that can make a computer, or a good digital watch, or a first-rate line of dental equipment, is doing something that's harder than making a no-frills atomic bomb. It doesn't take a whole lot to fire one piece of uranium down a shaft into another one to reach a critical mass. It's a damned good thing the materials are hard to come by."
"But if they did—if they could—what would it look like on film?"
Cord stared into the distance. "We have some you can fire like artillery shells in an eight-inch gun. Figure that as a convenient minimum size. You can do things smaller if you're really trying, but I'd say in a movie anything smaller than a suitcase is asking too much of the audience."
"That opens up a lot of plot possibilities," said Bucky. "It's something the actors can carry around. A lot can be done with that." He stared at Altmeyer, who avoided his eyes and poured himself another drink. "Great, isn't it?"
"I was wondering whether Mr. Cord could give us some help on the part where they transport the bomb," said Altmeyer.
"You might be able to make something out of that. They'd move it in pieces and assemble it just before they wanted to
use it. I suppose it might make an interesting scene if it weren't too long."
"But what should it look like?" said Altmeyer. "We have to make it look ominous."
Cord walked toward the enclosure where the palm trees stood in windless stillness. "Do what you feel like doing. If you think you need a rat's nest of wires and a ticking clock, fine. The real thing wouldn't have to be bigger than a football, and the electronics—well, when they made the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, the circuits in your pocket calculator would have filled this house."
Bucky followed Cord to the little terrace at the edge of the stand of trees. "I say we go for realism, or we've compromised this motion picture at the start. Either we do it with some honesty or we don't do it." He turned toward the bar as though he were waiting for applause.
"Agreed," said Rachel. "The way I see it, one problem is how these people get the components from one place to another. We know they need some uranium or some plutonium or something, right?"
"We know how they'll get it, roughly," said Cord. "In the Western countries right now there are over two hundred nuclear reactors, about seventy-five in the United States alone. Each of them needs a supply of weapons-grade uranium. Over the years quite a few of them have been unable to account for some of it. Nobody knows if it was diverted, lost, or what."
"Wouldn't they have to ship it across at least one border?" said Rachel. "This company would want to be pretty sure they didn't have any local customers."
"The safest thing would be to ship it in tiny pieces," said Cord. "Each one could be sealed inside lead, or even gold. The way you make money in manufacturing is to make everything predictable and repeatable. This business won't be any different. Probably the only part that would make an interesting movie is the first part. You can't buy fissionable metals on the open market. One way or another, you'd have to steal them."
"I wonder if that's an angle we can use," Bucky said. "We should be writing this down."
"We'll remember," said Altmeyer.
Arthur Paston picked up the cocktail shaker and began pouring another bottle of gin into it. "We've got a lot to think about."
Cord set his glass on the bar. "I'm going to take that as a cue. I've got an appointment in Pasadena in less than an hour, so I'm afraid that's going to have to be it for me."
"Do you think you'll be willing to work with us?" said Rachel.
Arthur Paston interrupted. "Let's not press Mr. Cord tonight. We'll all have more to say when we've explored the idea a little." He followed Cord up the staircase. At the top of the stairs, Cord and Paston disappeared. There were sounds of quiet conversation, then the closing of a door. Paston reappeared at the railing of the balcony, looking down into the living room. He stood silent for a few seconds, both hands clutching the railing. Finally his deep voice rolled through the house. "Bucky," he said, "pour everyone another drink. Start with me. I have a feehng I'm going to want it while you talk."
"Good idea," said Bucky, walking toward the bar. "We were so busy filling Cord's glass I didn't have time to have one myself. Where do you want to start? Money or talent?"
"Start by telling me what's going on here. It's pretty obvious you're not talking about a film."
Bucky's face assumed a shrewd look. "Television? Maybe, but only if the price is right, and I mean up front."
"No, you jackass," Paston said in a soft, tired voice. "You've done your best to get me involved in something, and now you're going to tell me what it is. Stop this nonsense about motion pictures. You don't need to act out this elaborate farce to get help from me. I assumed you knew that."
Bucky said, "Okay, Arthur. So it's a lousy idea. There's no need to get—"
"Save it, Bucky," said Altmeyer. He was looking up at
Paston, and his face was expressionless. "Thank you for your time." He stood up and held his hand out to Rachel.
Paston called, 'There's no need to leave. Very likely you'll get what you came for. Bucky is like a member of my family: they're all just as foolish and disappointing as he is, and I would never abandon any of them if they needed me." He turned to Bucky. "What is it? Are you in debt to these people?"
Bucky held his breath for a second. As he let it out, he said, "Yes."
"How much?"
Bucky hesitated, and Paston announced, "You're trying to think of a lie." He said to Altmeyer, "It's not just money, is it?"
Altmeyer's cold, dispassionate eyes settled on Paston. "You're too smart to be of any use to us. Anything we tell you will do you harm."
"Very well done," Paston laughed. "I know you now, Altmeyer. You're the Tempter. Well, you've got me on the hook. Does criminal conspiracy require a written application?"
Altmeyer sat down on the couch beside Rachel and lit a cigarette. "Tell him, Bucky."
Bucky's eyes snapped to Altmeyer, but he said nothing. Altmeyer watched the smoke from his cigarette rise in a straight line above his motionless hand for five feet, then curl and fold and spread. He said, "This is a serious man. He sees what his choice means, and he's made it."
"Altmeyer," Rachel said, "he just cares about Bucky, and wants to get him out of trouble."
Altmeyer looked at Paston. "What will you do if we walk now?"
"I'll find out what you're doing in any way I can, and I won't be under any obligation to keep it to myself. One way or another, I'm going to know everything."
"Tell him," Altmeyer said.
Paston sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. "A rational man my age would wish you hadn't told him. I can remember going to the hardware store with my father in a horse-drawn buggy. When I came to this town we used to stop what we were doing and look up if an airplane flew over."
"I know," said Bucky. "And when you did, a dinosaur ran over and bit you on the ass. A rational man wouldn't have looked up."
"Bucky," said Rachel.
Paston opened his eyes. "No, he's right. At a certain point your memory starts to get too sharp and it nags at you. Sometimes I remember things—sounds, smells, everything— but it's just some day fifty or sixty years ago. Nothing special at all." He shook his head, and his eyes brightened. "So you waste another day remembering it."
Rachel stood up and walked to the glass wall. "I'm sure we'll remember this one." She leaned close to the pane and stared out at the ocean. "If we're around."
Paston snapped, "What's that? Of course we'll be around. We've just got to do something about these people. If you think I'm just going to sit here like an idiot while they—"
"We can't go to the authorities with this," said Altmeyer. He glanced toward Rachel beside the glass wall. "Then again, in a year a private room in a place with no windows and nice stone walls five feet thick might be all the rage."
"Of course we can't call the police," said Paston. "After they'd arrested all of you for murder, I'd have to do everything by myself."
"I told you he was a compassionate man," Bucky said to Altmeyer. He walked to Paston's chair and tilted the cocktail shaker to refill the old man's glass. "Three years ago he gave Leonard a day off, and now this."
"Funny you should mention Leonard," said Paston. "That's the company he's researching, isn't it? Ashita."
Bucky nodded. "Of course. At the moment I wouldn't advise anybody to invest in anything. I just figured Leonard would find out whatever there was to know."
"He will." Paston turned to Altmeyer. "You know, it's very possible that Bucky will be our salvation. Think about it. He perceives the loyalty, the decency, the competence of a man like Leonard, and remembers it. When he needs it, he never hesitates."
Paston led them through the outer office to a room with a thick oak door, and knocked. A few seconds later the door swung open and a large middle-aged man in a white shirt stepped to the side and held it. "Hello, folks," he said. "Welcome."
"Leonard, these are the people I told you about. Mr. and Mrs. Altmeyer, Leonard Stahl."
Rachel scanned the room rapidly. There was a small computer terminal on a battered steel typewriter table beside the desk. The walls were covered with unframed photographs, posters, baseball pennants, newspaper clippings, and bits of paper all tacked up in no discernible order except that some must have been more recent because they obscured others. She sat on an old green couch near the desk and felt the right leg of her pantyhose catch on something behind the knee. When she surreptitiously ran a finger to the spot to free it, she recognized that it was the metal spiral binding of a notebook that had found its way under the cushion.
Leonard walked from place to place in the office picking computer printouts off chairs and dropping them on the floor. "Please make yourselves comfortable. Coffee, anybody?"
Rachel glanced at the coffee machine in the comer of the room, where four cracked white china cups sat before a Pyrex vessel filled with coal-black liquid. "No, thank you." The others seemed to share her thought: "Makes me nervous." "Not right now, thanks."
Paston said, "Have you found anything yet?"
Leonard sat behind his desk and started hunting through piles of papers and files and ledger sheets. "I don't know everything yet, but I know something. It's sort of a profile."
Altmeyer and Rachel glanced at each other.
Leonard continued. "Things have gotten tougher in the last few years. Any company smaller than General Motors feels like a pussycat in the jungle. They see a chance to grow a little, and whatever they do to get the capital might attract attention for an unfriendly takeover. If they go public they're liable to come to work next morning and find out somebody bought the place out from under them. So they hide in the tall grass as long as they can."
"Is that what Ashita is doing?" asked Altmeyer.
Leonard selected a file and opened it. "It sure looks that way. They're being secretive as hell. They used to deal through local distributors, but in the last couple of years they put their own in place in just about every market. I haven't got any figures, but the one here can't possibly handle the volume they got from the wholesalers two years ago."
"What does that mean to you?" said Paston.
Leonard didn't look up from the file. "What it might mean is that Bucky's right. They might have something going, and they're not planning to reveal what it is until they've got their own retail outlets set up and ready to sell it."
"So they've got a mystery product," said Rachel. "But how does anyone get in on it?"
Leonard shrugged. "It's hard to be sure of anything. A new product can mean new factories, retooling, lots of expenses. If it's really new, they'd have to face advertising costs. They haven't gone to any of the major banks in Japan or here. They haven't filed to go public on any of the exchanges."
"How do you know about the banks?" said Paston.
"Ashita is private, and the banks won't answer a straight question, but you can find out about big loans by doing a credit check. Anyway, if they're not selling stock and not borrowing money, it's possible they might be willing to talk about making a limited partnership available. There's no way of telling who they might be talking to about it already."
"It sounds as though we've got to move fast," said Paston. "What else have you got there?"
Leonard handed him a glossy booklet covered with model numbers and prices. "It's their catalog. If they have a mystery product, I don't imagine it's in there."
Bucky stood next to Paston. "Can we take it with us?"
"Sure. I don't know what it'll tell you."
"We're going to order a sampling of this stuff," Bucky said. "What's the sense in trying to invest if you find out later that everything they make is a piece of crap?"
"Look, Bucky. I don't know what these people are doing. I don't know if they'll let you in on it if you find out. But I'd say that you haven't got six weeks to wait for dehvery from God knows where. If people are talking about it already, you've got to make up your minds."
Paston held the catalog at arm's length to examine it. "All right. I'll get back to you very soon." He moved toward the door. "In the meantime, please keep at it. Concentrate on finding out who actually owns it, who runs it, and how to get in touch with them. If we decide to make a move, I want to be able to talk to the man who's going to sign the papers."
"But Arthur," said Bucky. "We've got to—"
Altmeyer touched his sleeve. "Relax." He turned to Leonard. "Thanks very much for everything."
Rachel moved up between Bucky and Leonard, smiling. "Yes, thank you so much. Arthur said you were the best, and now we know what that means." She sensed the door opening behind her and knew Altmeyer would be guiding Bucky out, so she backed up to cover their retreat. "It was so nice to meet you."
As they walked to Bucky's car, Rachel moved up beside Paston. "Arthur, what did you notice? Was it something in the catalog?"
"One thing is that Leonard was more right than he knew, and we don't have six weeks to wait for delivery. The other is that we don't have to. They list a wholesale outlet in West-wood." He handed Rachel the catalog as he eased himself into the backseat of the Mercedes.
