The Hammer of Eden

When he lies down to sleep, this landscape is always on his mind:

A pine forest covers the hills, as thick as the fur on a bear’s back. The sky is so blue, in the clear mountain air, that it hurts his eyes to look up. Miles from the road there is a secret valley with steep sides and a cold river in its cleft. Here, hidden from strangers’ eyes, a sunny south-facing slope has been cleared, and grapevines grow in neat rows.

When he remembers how beautiful it is, he feels his heart will break.

Men, women, and children move slowly through the vineyard, tending the plants. These are his friends, his lovers, his family. One of the women laughs. She is a big woman with long, dark hair, and he feels a special warmth for her. She throws back her head and opens her mouth wide, and her clear high voice floats across the valley like birdsong. Some of the men quietly speak a mantra as they work, praying to the gods of the valley and of the grapevines for a good crop. At their feet, a few massive tree stumps remain, to remind them of the backbreaking work that created this place twenty-five years ago. The soil is stony, but this is good, because the stones retain the heat of the sun and warm the roots of the vines, protecting them from the deadly frost.

Beyond the vineyard is a cluster of wooden buildings, plain but well built and weatherproof. Smoke rises from a cookhouse. In a clearing, a woman is teaching a boy how to make barrels.

This is a holy place.

Protected by secrecy and by prayers, it has remained pure, its people free, while the world beyond the valley has degenerated into corruption and hypocrisy, greed and filth.

But now the vision changes.

Something has happened to the quick cold stream that used to zigzag through the valley. Its chatter has been silenced, its hurry abruptly halted. Instead of a rush of white water there is a dark pool, silent and still. The edges of the pool seem static, but if he looks away for a few moments, the pool widens. Soon he is forced to retreat up the slope.

He cannot understand why the others do not notice the rising tide. As the black pool laps at the first row of vines, they carry on working with their feet in the water. The buildings are surrounded, then flooded. The cookhouse fire goes out, and empty barrels float away across the growing lake. Why don’t they run? he asks himself; and a choking panic rises in his throat.

Now the sky is dark with iron-colored clouds, and a cold wind whips at the clothing of the people, but still they move along the vines, stooping and rising, smiling at one another and talking in quiet, normal voices. He is the only one who can see the danger, and he realizes he must pick up one or two or even three of the children and save them from drowning. He tries to run toward his daughter, but he discovers that his feet are stuck in the mud and he cannot move; and he is filled with dread.

In the vineyard the water rises to the workers’ knees, then their waists, then their necks. He tries to yell at the people he loves, telling them they must do something now, quickly, in the next few seconds, or they will die, but though he opens his mouth and strains his throat, no sounds will come out. Sheer terror possesses him.

The water laps into his open mouth and begins to choke him.

This is when he wakes up.

1

A man called Priest pulled his cowboy hat down at the front and peered across the flat, dusty desert of South Texas.

The low dull green bushes of thorny mesquite and sagebrush stretched in every direction as far as he could see. In front of him, a ridged and rutted track ten feet wide had been driven through the vegetation. These tracks were called senderos by the Hispanic bulldozer drivers who cut them in brutally straight lines. On one side, at precise fifty-yard intervals, bright pink plastic marker flags fluttered on short wire poles. A truck moved slowly along the sendero.

Priest had to steal the truck.

He had stolen his first vehicle at the age of eleven, a brand-new snow white 1961 Lincoln Continental parked, with the keys in the dash, outside the Roxy Theatre on South Broadway in Los Angeles. Priest, who was called Ricky in those days, could hardly see over the steering wheel. He had been so scared he almost wet himself, but he drove it ten blocks and handed the keys proudly to Jimmy “Pigface” Riley, who gave him five bucks, then took his girl for a drive and crashed the car on the Pacific Coast Highway. That was how Ricky became a member of the Pigface Gang.

But this truck was not just a vehicle.

As he watched, the powerful machinery behind the driver’s cabin slowly lowered a massive steel plate, six feet square, to the ground. There was a pause, then he heard a low-pitched rumble. A cloud of dust rose around the truck as the plate began to pound the earth rhythmically. He felt the ground shake beneath his feet.

This was a seismic vibrator, a machine for sending shock waves through the earth’s crust. Priest had never had much education, except in stealing cars, but he was the smartest person he had ever met, and he understood how the vibrator worked. It was similar to radar and sonar. The shock waves were reflected off features in the earth — such as rock or liquid — and they bounced back to the surface, where they were picked up by listening devices called geophones, or jugs.

Priest worked on the jug team. They had planted more than a thousand geophones at precisely measured intervals in a grid a mile square. Every time the vibrator shook, the reflections were picked up by the jugs and recorded by a supervisor working in a trailer known as the doghouse. All this data would later be fed into a supercomputer in Houston to produce a three-dimensional map of what was under the earth’s surface. The map would be sold to an oil company.

The vibrations rose in pitch, making a noise like the mighty engines of an ocean liner gathering speed; then the sound stopped abruptly. Priest ran along the sendero to the truck, screwing up his eyes against the billowing dust. He opened the door and clambered up into the cabin. A stocky black-haired man of about thirty was at the wheel. “Hey, Mario,” Priest said as he slid into the seat alongside the driver.

“Hey, Ricky.”

Richard Granger was the name on Priest’s commercial driving license (class B). The license was forged, but the name was real.

He was carrying a carton of Marlboro cigarettes, the brand Mario smoked. He tossed the carton onto the dash. “Here, I brought you something.”

“Hey, man, you don’t need to buy me no cigarettes.”

“I’m always bummin’ your smokes.” He picked up the open pack on the dash, shook one out, and put it in his mouth.

Mario smiled. “Why don’t you just buy your own cigarettes?”

“Hell, no, I can’t afford to smoke.”

“You’re crazy, man.” Mario laughed.

Priest lit his cigarette. He had always had an easy ability to get on with people, make them like him. On the streets where he grew up, people beat you up if they didn’t like you, and he had been a runty kid. So he had developed an intuitive feel for what people wanted from him — deference, affection, humor, whatever — and the habit of giving it to them quickly. In the oilfield, what held the men together was humor: usually mocking, sometimes clever, often obscene.

Although he had been here only two weeks, Priest had won the trust of his co-workers. But he had not figured out how to steal the seismic vibrator. And he had to do it in the next few hours, for tomorrow the truck was scheduled to be driven to a new site, seven hundred miles away, near Clovis, New Mexico.

His vague plan was to hitch a ride with Mario. The trip would take two or three days — the truck, which weighed forty thousand pounds, had a highway speed of around forty miles per hour. At some point he would get Mario drunk or something, then make off with the truck. He had been hoping a better plan would come to him, but inspiration had failed so far.

“My car’s dying,” he said. “You want to give me a ride as far as San Antonio tomorrow?”

Mario was surprised. “You ain’t coming all the way to Clovis?”

“Nope.” He waved a hand at the bleak desert landscape. “Just look around,” he said. “Texas is so beautiful, man, I never want to leave.”

Mario shrugged. There was nothing unusual about a restless transient in this line of work. “Sure, I’ll give you a ride.” It was against company rules to take passengers, but the drivers did it all the time. “Meet me at the dump.”

Priest nodded. The garbage dump was a desolate hollow, full of rusting pickups and smashed TV sets and verminous mattresses, on the outskirts of Shiloh, the nearest town. No one would be there to see Mario pick him up, unless it was a couple of kids shooting snakes with a.22 rifle. “What time?”

“Let’s say six.”

“I’ll bring coffee.”

Priest needed this truck. He felt his life depended on it. His palms itched to grab Mario right now and throw him out and just drive away. But that was no good. For one thing, Mario was almost twenty years younger than Priest and might not let himself be thrown out so easily. For another, the theft had to go undiscovered for a few days. Priest needed to drive the truck to California and hide it before the nation’s cops were alerted to watch out for a stolen seismic vibrator.

There was a beep from the radio, indicating that the supervisor in the doghouse had checked the data from the last vibration and found no problems. Mario raised the plate, put the truck in gear, and moved forward fifty yards, pulling up exactly alongside the next pink marker flag. Then he lowered the plate again and sent a ready signal. Priest watched closely, as he had done several times before, making sure he remembered the order in which Mario moved the levers and threw the switches. If he forgot something later, there would be no one he could ask.

They waited for the radio signal from the doghouse that would start the next vibration. This could be done by the driver in the truck, but generally supervisors preferred to retain command themselves and start the process by remote control. Priest finished his cigarette and threw the butt out the window. Mario nodded toward Priest’s car, parked a quarter of a mile away on the two-lane blacktop. “That your woman?”

Priest looked. Star had got out of the dirty light blue Honda Civic and was leaning on the hood, fanning her face with her straw hat. “Yeah,” he said.

“Lemme show you a picture.” Mario pulled an old leather billfold out of the pocket of his jeans. He extracted a photograph and handed it to Priest. “This is Isabella,” he said proudly.

Priest saw a pretty Mexican girl in her twenties wearing a yellow dress and a yellow Alice band in her hair. She held a baby on her hip, and a dark-haired boy was standing shyly by her side. “Your children?”

He nodded. “Ross and Betty.”

Priest resisted the impulse to smile at the Anglo names. “Good-looking kids.” He thought of his own children and almost told Mario about them; but he stopped himself just in time. “Where do they live?”

“El Paso.”

The germ of an idea sprouted in Priest’s mind. “You get to see them much?”

Mario shook his head. “I’m workin’ and workin’, man. Savin’ my money to buy them a place. A nice house, with a big kitchen and a pool in the yard. They deserve that.”

The idea blossomed. Priest suppressed his excitement and kept his voice casual, making idle conversation. “Yeah, a beautiful house for a beautiful family, right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

The radio beeped again, and the truck began to shake. The noise was like rolling thunder, but more regular. It began on a profound bass note and slowly rose in pitch. After exactly fourteen seconds it stopped.

In the quiet that followed, Priest snapped his fingers. “Say, I got an idea.… No, maybe not.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if it would work.”

“What, man, what?”

“I just thought, you know, your wife is so pretty and your kids are so cute, it’s wrong that you don’t see them more often.”

“That’s your idea?”

“No. My idea is, I could drive the truck to New Mexico while you go visit them, that’s all.” It was important not to seem too keen, Priest told himself. “But I guess it wouldn’t work out,” he added in a who-gives-a-damn voice.

“No, man, it ain’t possible.”

“Probably not. Let’s see, if we set out early tomorrow and drove to San Antonio together, I could drop you off at the airport there, you could be in El Paso by noon, probably. You’d play with the kids, have dinner with your wife, spend the night, get a plane the next day, I could pick you up at Lubbock airport.… How far is Lubbock from Clovis?”

“Ninety, maybe a hundred miles.”

“We could be in Clovis that night, or next morning at the latest, and no way for anyone to know you didn’t drive the whole way.”

“But you want to go to San Antonio.”

Shit. Priest had not thought this through; he was making it up as he went along. “Hey, I’ve never been to Lubbock,” he said airily. “That’s where Buddy Holly was born.”

“Who the hell is Buddy Holly?”

Priest sang: “ ‘I love you, Peggy Sue.…’ Buddy Holly died before you were born, Mario. I liked him better than Elvis. And don’t ask me who Elvis was.”

“You’d drive all that way just for me?”

Priest wondered anxiously whether Mario was suspicious or just grateful. “Sure I would,” Priest told him. “As long as you let me smoke your Marlboros.”

Mario shook his head in amazement. “You’re a hell of a guy, Ricky. But I don’t know.”

He was not suspicious, then. But he was apprehensive, and he probably could not be pushed into a decision. Priest masked his frustration with a show of nonchalance. “Well, think about it,” he said.

“If something goes wrong, I don’t want to lose my job.”

“You’re right.” Priest fought down his impatience. “I tell you what, let’s talk later. You going to the bar tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Why don’t you let me know then?”

“Okay, that’s a deal.”

The radio beeped the all-clear signal, and Mario threw the lever that raised the plate off the ground.

“I got to get back to the jug team,” Priest said. “We’ve got a few miles of cable to roll up before nightfall.” He handed back the family photo and opened the door. “I’m telling you, man, if I had a girl that pretty, I wouldn’t leave the goddamn house.” He grinned, then jumped to the ground and slammed the door.

The truck moved off toward the next marker flag as Priest walked away, his cowboy boots kicking up dust.

As he followed the sendero to where his car was parked, he saw Star begin to pace up and down, impatient and anxious.

She had been famous, once, briefly. At the peak of the hippie era she lived in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Priest had not known her then — he had spent the late sixties making his first million dollars — but he had heard the stories. She had been a striking beauty, tall and black haired with a generous hourglass figure. She had made a record, reciting poetry against a background of psychedelic music with a band called Raining Fresh Daisies. The album had been a minor hit, and Star was a celebrity for a few days.

But what turned her into a legend was her insatiable sexual promiscuity. She had had sex with anyone who briefly took her fancy: eager twelve-year-olds and surprised men in their sixties, boys who thought they were gay and girls who did not know they were lesbians, friends she had known for years and strangers off the street.

That was a long time ago. Now she was a few weeks from her fiftieth birthday, and there were streaks of gray in her hair. Her figure was still generous, though no longer like an hourglass: she weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. But she still exercised an extraordinary sexual magnetism. When she walked into a bar, men stared.

Even now, when she was worried and hot, there was a sexy flounce to the way she paced and turned beside the cheap old car, an invitation in the movement of her flesh beneath the thin cotton dress, and Priest felt the urge to grab her right there.

“What happened?” she said as soon as he was within earshot.

Priest was always upbeat. “Looking good,” he said.

“That sounds bad,” she said skeptically. She knew better than to take what he said at face value.

He told her the offer he had made to Mario. “The beauty of it is, Mario will be blamed,” he added.

“How so?”

“Think about it. He gets to Lubbock, he looks for me, I ain’t there, nor his truck, either. He figures he’s been suckered. What does he do? Is he going to make his way to Clovis and tell the company he lost their truck? I don’t think so. At best, he’d be fired. At worst, he could be accused of stealing the truck and thrown in jail. I’m betting he won’t even go to Clovis. He’ll get right back on the plane, fly to El Paso, put his wife and kids in the car, and disappear. Then the police will be sure he stole the truck. And Ricky Granger won’t even be a suspect.”

She frowned. “It’s a great plan, but will he take the bait?”

“I think he will.”

Her anxiety deepened. She slapped the dirty roof of the car with the flat of her hand. “Shit, we have to have that goddamn truck!”

He was as worried as she, but he covered it with a cocksure air. “We will,” he said. “If not this way, another way.”

She put the straw hat on her head and leaned back against the car, closing her eyes. “I wish I felt sure.”

He stroked her cheek. “You need a ride, lady?”

“Yes, please. Take me to my air-conditioned hotel room.”

“There’ll be a price to pay.”

She opened her eyes wide in pretended innocence. “Will I have to do something nasty, mister?”

He slid his hand into her cleavage. “Yeah.”

“Oh, darn,” she said, and she lifted the skirt of her dress up around her waist.

She had no underwear on.

Priest grinned and unbuttoned his Levis.

She said: “What will Mario think if he sees us?”

“He’ll be jealous,” Priest said as he entered her. They were almost the same height, and they fit together with the ease of long practice.

She kissed his mouth.

A few moments later he heard a vehicle approaching on the road. They both looked up without stopping what they were doing. It was a pickup truck with three roustabouts in the front seat. The men could see what was going on, and they whooped and hollered through the open window as they went by.

Star waved at them, calling: “Hi, guys!”

Priest laughed so hard, he came.

The crisis had entered its final, decisive phase exactly three weeks earlier.

They were sitting at the long table in the cookhouse, eating their midday meal, a spicy stew of lentils and vegetables with fresh bread warm from the oven, when Paul Beale walked in with an envelope in his hand.

Paul bottled the wine that Priest’s commune made — but he did more than that. He was their link with the outside, enabling them to deal with the world yet keep it at a distance. A bald, bearded man in a leather jacket, he had been Priest’s friend since the two of them were fourteen-year-old hoodlums, rolling drunks in L.A.’s skid row in the early sixties.

Priest guessed that Paul had received the letter that morning and had immediately got in his car and driven here from Napa. He also guessed what was in the letter, but he waited for Paul to explain.

“It’s from the Bureau of Land Management,” Paul said. “Addressed to Stella Higgins.” He handed it to Star, sitting at the foot of the table opposite Priest. Stella Higgins was her real name, the name under which she had first rented this piece of land from the Department of the Interior in the autumn of 1969.

Around the table, everyone went quiet. Even the kids shut up, sensing the atmosphere of fear and dismay.

Star ripped open the envelope and took out a single sheet. She read it with one glance. “June the seventh,” she said.

Priest said reflexively: “Five weeks and two days from now.” That kind of calculation came automatically to him.

Several people groaned in despair. A woman called Song began to cry quietly. One of Priest’s children, ten-year-old Ringo, said: “Why, Star, why?”

Priest caught the eye of Melanie, the newest arrival. She was a tall, thin woman, twenty-eight years old, with striking good looks: pale skin, long hair the color of paprika, and the body of a model. Her five-year-old son, Dusty, sat beside her. “What?” Melanie said in a shocked voice. “What is this?”

Everyone else had known this was coming, but it was too depressing to talk about, and they had not told Melanie.

Priest said: “We have to leave the valley. I’m sorry, Melanie.”

Star read from the letter. “ ‘The above-named parcel of land will become dangerous for human habitation after June seventh, therefore your tenancy is hereby terminated on that date in accordance with clause nine, part B, paragraph two, of your lease.’ ”

Melanie stood up. Her white skin flushed red, and her pretty face twisted in sudden rage. “No!” she yelled. “No! They can’t do this to me — I’ve only just found you! I don’t believe it, it’s a lie.” She turned her fury on Paul. “Liar!” she screamed. “Motherfucking liar!”

Her child began to cry.

“Hey, knock it off!” Paul said indignantly. “I’m just the goddamn mailman here!”

Everyone started shouting at the same time.

Priest was beside Melanie in a couple of strides. He put his arm around her and spoke quietly into her ear. “You’re frightening Dusty,” he said. “Sit down, now. You’re right to be mad, we’re all mad as hell.”

“Tell me it isn’t true,” she said.

Priest gently pushed her into her chair. “It’s true, Melanie,” he said. “It’s true.”

When they had quieted down, Priest said: “Come on, everyone, let’s wash the dishes and get back to work.”

“Why?” said Dale. He was the winemaker. Not one of the founders, he had come here in the eighties, disillusioned with the commercial world. After Priest and Star, he was the most important person in the group. “We won’t be here for the harvest,” he went on. “We have to leave in five weeks. Why work?”

Priest fixed him with the Look, the hypnotic stare that intimidated all but the most strong-willed people. He let the room fall silent, so that they would all hear. At last he said: “Because miracles happen.”

A local ordinance prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages in the town of Shiloh, Texas, but just the other side of the town line there was a bar called the Doodlebug, with cheap draft beer and a country-western band and waitresses in tight blue jeans and cowboy boots.

Priest went on his own. He did not want Star to show her face and risk being remembered later. He wished she had not had to come to Texas. But he needed someone to help him take the seismic vibrator home. They would drive day and night, taking turns at the wheel, using drugs to stay awake. They wanted to be home before the machine was missed.

He was regretting that afternoon’s indiscretion. Mario had seen Star from a full quarter of a mile away, and the three roustabouts in the pickup had glimpsed her only in passing, but she was distinctive looking, and they could probably give a rough description of her: a tall white woman, heavyset, with long dark hair.…

Priest had changed his appearance before arriving in Shiloh. He had grown a bushy beard and mustache and tied his long hair in a tight plait that he kept tucked up inside his hat.

However, if everything went according to his plan, no one would be asking for descriptions of him or Star.

When he arrived at the Doodlebug, Mario was already there, sitting at a table with five or six of the jug team and the party boss, Lenny Petersen, who controlled the entire seismic exploration crew.

Not to seem too eager, Priest got a Lone Star longneck and stood at the bar for a while, sipping his beer from the bottle and talking to the barmaid, before joining Mario’s table.

Lenny was a balding man with a red nose. He had given Priest the job two weekends ago. Priest had spent an evening at the bar, drinking moderately, being friendly to the crew, picking up a smattering of seismic exploration slang, and laughing loudly at Lenny’s jokes. Next morning he had found Lenny at the field office and asked him for a job. “I’ll take you on trial,” Lenny had said.

That was all Priest needed.

He was hardworking, quick to catch on, and easy to get along with, and in a few days he was accepted as a regular member of the crew.

Now, as he sat down, Lenny said in his slow Texas accent: “So, Ricky, you’re not coming with us to Clovis.”

“That’s right,” Priest said. “I like the weather here too much to leave.”

“Well, I’d just like to say, very sincerely, that it’s been a real privilege and pleasure knowing you, even for such a short time.”

The others grinned. This kind of joshing was commonplace. They looked to Priest for a riposte.

He put on a solemn face and said: “Lenny, you’re so sweet and kind to me that I’m going to ask you one more time. Will you marry me?”

They all laughed. Mario clapped Priest on the back.

Lenny looked troubled and said: “You know I can’t marry you, Ricky. I already told you the reason why.” He paused for dramatic effect, and they all leaned forward to catch the punch line. “I’m a lesbian.”

They roared with laughter. Priest gave a rueful smile, acknowledging defeat, and ordered a pitcher of beer for the table.

The conversation turned to baseball. Most of them liked the Houston Astros, but Lenny was from Arlington and he followed the Texas Rangers. Priest had no interest in sports, so he waited impatiently, joining in now and again with a neutral comment. They were in an expansive mood. The job had been finished on time, they had all been well paid, and it was Friday night. Priest sipped his beer slowly. He never drank much: he hated to lose control. He watched Mario sinking the suds. When Tammy, their waitress, brought another pitcher, Mario stared longingly at her breasts beneath the checkered shirt. Keep wishing, Mario — you could be in bed with your wife tomorrow night.

After an hour, Mario went to the men’s room.

Priest followed. The hell with this waiting, it’s decision time.

He stood beside Mario and said: “I believe Tammy’s wearing black underwear tonight.”

“How do you know?”

“I got a little peek when she leaned over the table. I love to see a lacy brassiere.”

Mario sighed.

Priest went on: “You like a woman in black underwear?”

“Red,” said Mario decisively.

“Yeah, red’s beautiful, too. They say that’s a sign a woman really wants you, when she puts on red underwear.”

“Is that a fact?” Mario’s beery breath came a little faster.

“Yeah, I heard it somewhere.” Priest buttoned up. “Listen, I got to go. My woman’s waiting back at the motel.”

Mario grinned and wiped sweat from his brow. “I saw you and her this afternoon, man.”

Priest shook his head in mock regret. “It’s my weakness. I just can’t say no to a pretty face.”

“You were doing it, right there in the goddamn road!”

“Yeah. Well, when you haven’t seen your woman for a while, she gets kind of frantic for it, know what I mean?” Come on, Mario, take the friggin’ hint!

“Yeah, I know. Listen, about tomorrow …”

Priest held his breath.

“Uh, if you’re still willing to do like you said …”

Yes! Yes!

“Let’s go for it.”

Priest resisted the temptation to hug him.

Mario said anxiously: “You still want to, right?”

“Sure I do.” Priest put an arm around Mario’s shoulders as they left the men’s room. “Hey, what are buddies for, know what I mean?”

“Thanks, man.” There were tears in Mario’s eyes. “You’re some guy, Ricky.”

They washed their pottery bowls and wooden spoons in a big tub of warm water and dried them on a towel made from an old workshirt. Melanie said to Priest: “Well, we’ll just start again somewhere else! Get a piece of land, build wood cabins, plant vines, make wine. Why not? That’s what you did all those years ago.”

“It is,” Priest said. He put his bowl on a shelf and tossed his spoon into the box. For a moment he was young again, strong as a pony and boundlessly energetic, certain that he could solve whatever problem life threw up next. He remembered the unique smells of those days: newly sawn timber; Star’s young body, perspiring as she dug the soil; the distinctive smoke of their own marijuana, grown in a clearing in the woods; the dizzy sweetness of grapes as they were crushed. Then he returned to the present, and he sat down at the table.

“All those years ago,” he repeated. “We rented this land from the government for next to nothing, then they forgot about us.”

Star put in: “Never a rent increase, in twenty-nine years.”

Priest went on: “We cleared the forest with the labor of thirty or forty young people who were willing to work for free, twelve and fourteen hours a day, for the sake of an ideal.”

Paul Beale grinned. “My back still hurts when I think of it.”

“We got our vines for nothing from a kindly Napa Valley grower who wanted to encourage young people to do something constructive instead of just sitting around taking drugs all day.”

“Old Raymond Dellavalle,” Paul said. “He’s dead now, God bless him.”

“And, most important, we were willing and able to live on the poverty line, half-starved, sleeping on the floor, holes in our shoes, for five long years until we got our first salable vintage.”

Star picked up a crawling baby from the floor, wiped its nose, and said: “And we didn’t have any kids to worry about.”

“Right,” Priest said. “If we could reproduce all those conditions, we could start again.”

Melanie was not satisfied. “There has to be a way!”

“Well, there is,” Priest said. “Paul figured it out.”

Paul nodded. “You could set up a corporation, borrow a quarter of a million dollars from a bank, hire a workforce, and become like any other bunch of greedy capitalists watching the profit margins.”

“And that,” Priest said, “would be the same as giving in.”

It was still dark when Priest and Star got up on Saturday morning in Shiloh. Priest got coffee from the diner next door to their motel. When he came back, Star was poring over a road atlas by the light of the reading lamp. “You should be dropping Mario off at San Antonio International Airport around nine-thirty, ten o’clock this morning,” she said. “Then you’ll want to leave town on Interstate 10.”

Priest did not look at the atlas. Maps baffled him. He could follow signs for I-10. “Where shall we meet?”

Star calculated. “I should be about an hour ahead of you.” She put her finger on a point on the page. “There’s a place called Leon Springs on I-10 about fifteen miles from the airport. I’ll park where you’re sure to see the car.”

“Sounds good.”

They were tense and excited. Stealing Mario’s truck was only the first step in the plan, but it was crucial: everything else depended on it.

Star was worrying about practicalities. “What will we do with the Honda?”

Priest had bought the car three weeks ago for a thousand dollars cash. “It’s going to be hard to sell. If we see a used-car lot, we may get five hundred for it. Otherwise we’ll find a wooded spot off the interstate and dump it.”

“Can we afford to?”

“Money makes you poor.” Priest was quoting one of the Five Paradoxes of Baghram, the guru they lived by.

Priest knew how much money they had to the last cent, but he kept everyone else in ignorance. Most of the communards did not even know there was a bank account. And no one in the world knew about Priest’s emergency cash, ten thousand dollars in twenties, taped to the inside of a battered old acoustic guitar that hung from a nail on the wall of his cabin.

Star shrugged. “I haven’t worried about it for twenty-five years, so I guess I won’t start now.” She took off her reading glasses.

Priest smiled at her. “You’re cute in your glasses.”

She gave him a sideways glance and asked a surprise question. “Are you looking forward to seeing Melanie?”

Priest and Melanie were lovers.

He took Star’s hand. “Sure,” he said.

“I like to see you with her. She makes you happy.”

A sudden memory of Melanie flashed into Priest’s brain. She was lying facedown across his bed, asleep, with the morning sun slanting into the cabin. He sat sipping coffee, watching her, enjoying the texture of her white skin, the curve of her perfect rear end, the way her long red hair spread out in a tangled skein. In a moment she would smell the coffee, and roll over, and open her eyes, and then he would get back into bed and make love to her. But for now he was luxuriating in anticipation, planning how he would touch her and turn her on, savoring this delicious moment like a glass of fine wine.

The vision faded and he saw Star’s forty-nine-year-old face in a cheap Texas motel. “You’re not unhappy about Melanie, are you?” he asked.

“Marriage is the greatest infidelity,” she said, quoting another of the Paradoxes.

He nodded. They had never asked each other to be faithful. In the early days it had been Star who scorned the idea of committing herself to one lover. Then, after she hit thirty and started to calm down, Priest had tested her permissiveness by flaunting a string of girls in front of her. But for the last few years, though they still believed in the principle of free love, neither of them had actually taken advantage of it.

So Melanie had come as kind of a shock to Star. But that was okay. Their relationship was too settled anyway. Priest did not like anyone to feel they could predict what he was going to do. He loved Star, but the ill-concealed anxiety in her eyes gave him a pleasant feeling of control.

She toyed with her Styrofoam coffee container. “I just wonder how Flower feels about it all.” Flower was their thirteen-year-old daughter, the oldest child in the commune.

“She hasn’t grown up in a nuclear family,” he said. “We haven’t made her a slave to bourgeois convention. That’s the point of a commune.”

“Yeah,” Star agreed, but it was not enough. “I just don’t want her to lose you, that’s all.”

He stroked her hand. “It won’t happen.”

She squeezed his fingers. “Thanks.”

“We got to go,” he said, standing up.

Their few possessions were packed into three plastic grocery bags. Priest picked up the bags and took them outside to the Honda. Star followed.

They had paid their bill the previous night. The office was closed, and no one watched as Star took the wheel and they drove away in the gray early light.

Shiloh was a two-street town with one stoplight where the streets crossed. There were not many vehicles around at this hour on a Saturday morning. Star ran the stoplight and headed out of town. They reached the dump a few minutes before six o’clock.

There was no sign beside the road, no fence or gate, just a track where the sagebrush had been beaten down by the tires of pickup trucks. Star followed the track over a slight rise. The dump was in a dip, hidden from the road. She pulled up beside a pile of smoldering garbage. There was no sign of Mario or the seismic vibrator.

Priest could tell that Star was still troubled. He had to reassure her, he thought worriedly. She could not afford to be distracted today of all days. If something should go wrong, she would need to be alert, focused.

“Flower isn’t going to lose me,” he said.

“That’s good,” she replied cautiously.

“We’re going to stay together, the three of us. You know why?”

“Tell me.”

“Because we love each other.”

He saw relief drain the tension out of her face. She fought back tears. “Thank you,” she said.

He felt reassured. He had given her what she needed. She would be okay now.

He kissed her. “Mario will be here any second. You get movin’, now. Put some miles behind you.”

“You don’t want me to wait until he gets here?”

“He mustn’t get a close look at you. We can’t tell what the future holds, and I don’t want him to be able to identify you.”

“Okay.”

Priest got out of the car.

“Hey,” she said, “don’t forget Mario’s coffee.” She handed him the paper sack.

“Thanks.” He took the bag and slammed the car door.

She turned around in a wide circle and drove away fast, her tires throwing up a cloud of Texas desert dust.

Priest looked around. He found it amazing that such a small town could generate so much trash. He saw twisted bicycles and new-looking baby carriages, stained couches and old-fashioned refrigerators, and at least ten supermarket carts. The place was a wasteland of packaging: cardboard boxes for stereo systems, pieces of lightweight polystyrene packing like abstract sculptures, paper sacks and polythene bags and tinfoil wrappers, and a host of plastic containers that had contained substances Priest had never used: rinse aid, moisturizer, conditioner, fabric softener, fax toner. He saw a fairy-tale castle made of pink plastic, presumably a child’s toy, and he marveled at the wasteful extravagance of such an elaborate construction.

In Silver River Valley there was never much garbage. They did not use baby carriages or refrigerators, and they rarely bought anything that came in a package. The children would use imagination to make a fairy-tale castle from a tree or a barrel or a stack of timber.

A hazy red sun edged up over the ridge, casting a long shadow of Priest across a rusting bedstead. It made him think of sunrise over the snow peaks of the Sierra Nevada, and he suffered a sharp pang of longing for the cool, pure air of the mountains.

Soon, soon.

Something glinted at his feet. A shiny metal object was half-buried in the earth. Idly he scraped away the dry earth with the toe of his boot, then bent and picked up the object. It was a heavy Stillson wrench. It seemed new. Mario might find it useful, Priest thought: it was about the right size for the large-scale machinery of the seismic vibrator. But, of course, the truck would contain a full tool kit, with wrenches to fit every nut used in its construction. Mario had no need of a discarded wrench. This was the throwaway society.

Priest dropped the wrench.

He heard a vehicle, but it did not sound like a big truck. He glanced up. A moment later a tan pickup came over the ridge, bouncing along the rough track. It was a Dodge Ram with a cracked windshield: Mario’s car. Priest suffered a pang of unease. What did this mean? Mario was supposed to show up in the seismic vibrator. His own car would be driven north by one of his buddies, unless he had decided to sell it here and buy another in Clovis. Something had gone wrong. “Shit,” he said. “Shit.”

He suppressed his feelings of anger and frustration as Mario pulled up and got out of the pickup. “I brought you coffee,” he said, handing Mario the paper sack. “What’s up?”

Mario did not open the bag. He shook his head sadly. “I can’t do it, man.”

Shit.

Mario went on: “I really appreciate what you offered to do for me, but I gotta say no.”

What the hell is going on?

Priest gritted his teeth and made his voice sound casual. “What happened to change your mind, buddy?”

“After you left the bar last night, Lenny gave me this long speech, man, about how much the truck cost, and how I don’t gotta give no rides, nor pick up no hitchhikers, and how he’s trustin’ me, and stuff.”

I can just imagine Lenny, shit-faced drunk and maudlin — he probably had you nearly in tears, Mario, you dumb son of a bitch.

“You know how it is, Ricky. This is an okay job — hard work and long hours, but the pay is pretty good. I don’t want to lose this job.”

“Hey, no problem,” Priest said with forced lightness. “So long as you can still take me to San Antonio.” I’ll think of something between here and there.

Mario shook his head. “I better don’t, not after what Lenny said. I ain’t taking nobody nowhere in that truck. That’s why I brought my own car here, so I can give you a ride back into town.”

And what am I supposed to do now, for Christ’s sake?

“So, uh, what do you say, you wanna get going?”

And then what?

Priest had built a castle of smoke, and now he saw it shimmer and dissipate in the light breeze of Mario’s guilty conscience. He had spent two weeks in this hot, dusty desert, working at a stupid, worthless job, and had wasted hundreds of dollars on airfares and motel bills and disgusting fast food.

He did not have time to do it again.

The deadline was now only two weeks and one day away.

Mario frowned. “Come on, man, let’s go.”

“I’m not going to give this place up,” Star had said to Priest on the day the letter arrived. She sat next to him on a carpet of pine needles at the edge of the vineyard, during the midafternoon rest period, drinking cold water and eating raisins made from last year’s grapes. “This is not just a wine farm, not just a valley, not just a commune — this is my whole life. We came here, all those years ago, because we believed that our parents had made a society that was twisted and corrupt and poisoned. And we were right, for Christ’s sake!” Her face flushed as she let her passion show, and Priest thought how beautiful she was, still. “Just look at what’s happened to the world outside,” she said, raising her voice. “Violence and ugliness and pollution, presidents who tell lies and break the law, riots and crime and poverty. Meanwhile, we’ve lived here in peace and harmony, year after year, with no money, no sexual jealousy, no conformist rules. We said that all you need is love, and they called us naive, but we were right and they were wrong. We know we’ve found the way to live — we’ve proved it.” Her voice had become very precise, betraying her old-money origins. Her father had come from a wealthy family but had spent his life as a doctor in a slum neighborhood. Star had inherited his idealism. “I’ll do anything to save our home and our way of life,” she went on. “I’ll die for it, if our children can continue to live here.” Her voice went quiet, but her words were clear, and she spoke with remorseless determination. “I’ll kill for it, too,” she said. “Do you understand me, Priest? I will do anything.”

“Are you listening to me?” Mario said. “You want a ride into town or not?”

“Sure,” Priest said. Sure, you lily-livered bastard, you yellow dog coward, you goddamn scum of the earth, I want a ride.

Mario turned around.

Priest’s eye fell on the Stillson wrench he had dropped a few minutes earlier.

A new plan unfolded, fully formed, in his brain.

As Mario walked the three paces to his car, Priest stooped and picked up the wrench.

It was about eighteen inches long and weighed four or five pounds. Most of the weight was at the business end, with its adjustable jaws for gripping massive hexagonal nuts. It was made of steel.

He glanced past Mario, along the track that led to the road. There was no one in sight.

No witnesses.

Priest took a step forward just as Mario reached to open the door of his pickup.

He had a sudden disconcerting flash: a photograph of a pretty young Mexican woman in a yellow dress, with a child in her arms and another by her side, and for a split second his resolve wavered as he felt the crushing weight of the grief he would bring into their lives.

Then he saw a worse vision: a pool of black water slowly rising to engulf a vineyard and drown the men, women, and children who were tending the vines.

He ran at Mario, raising the wrench high over his head.

Mario was opening the car door. He must have seen something out of the corner of his eye, for when Priest was almost on him he suddenly let out a roar of fear and flung the door wide, partly shielding himself.

Priest crashed into the door, which flew back at Mario. It was a wide, heavy door, and it knocked Mario sideways. Both men stumbled. Mario lost his footing and went down on his knees, facing the side of the pickup. His Houston Astros baseball cap landed on the ground. Priest fell backward and sat heavily on the stony earth, dropping the wrench. It landed on a plastic half-gallon Coke bottle and bounced a yard away.

Mario gasped: “You crazy—” He got to one knee and reached for a handhold to pull his heavy body upright. His left hand closed around the door frame. As he heaved, Priest — still on his butt — drew back his leg and kicked the door as hard as he could with his heel. It slammed on Mario’s fingers and bounced open. Mario cried out with pain and fell to one knee, slumping against the side of the pickup.

Priest leaped to his feet.

The wrench gleamed silvery in the morning sun. He snatched it up. He looked at Mario, and his heart filled with rage and hate toward the man who had wrecked his careful plan and put his way of life in jeopardy. He stepped close to Mario and raised the tool.

Mario half turned toward him. The expression on his young face showed infinite puzzlement, as if he had no understanding of what was happening. He opened his mouth and, as Priest brought the wrench down, he said in a questioning voice: “Ricky …?”

The heavy end of the wrench made a sickening thud as it smashed into Mario’s head. His dark hair was thick and glossy, but it made no perceptible difference. His scalp tore, his skull cracked, and the wrench sank into the soft brain underneath.

But he did not die.

Priest began to be afraid.

Mario’s eyes stayed open and focused on Priest. The mystified, betrayed expression barely altered. He seemed to be trying to finish what he had started to say. He lifted one hand, as if to catch someone’s attention.

Priest took a frightened step back. “No!” he said.

Mario said: “Man …”

Priest felt possessed by panic. He lifted the wrench again. “Die, you motherfucker!” he screamed, and he hit Mario again.

This time the wrench sank in farther. Withdrawing it was like pulling something out of soft mud. Priest felt a surge of nausea when he saw the living gray matter smeared on the adjustable jaws of the tool. His stomach churned and he swallowed hard, feeling dizzy.

Mario fell slowly backward and lay slumped against the rear tire, motionless. His arms became limp and his jaw slack, but he stayed alive. His eyes locked with Priest’s. Blood gushed from his head and ran down his face and into the open neck of his checked shirt. His stare terrified Priest. “Die,” Priest pleaded. “For the love of God, Mario, please die.”

Nothing happened.

Priest backed off. Mario’s eyes seemed to be begging him to finish the job, but he could not hit him again. There was no logic to it; he just could not lift the wrench.

Then Mario moved. His mouth opened, his body became rigid, and a strangled scream of agony burst from his throat.

It pushed Priest over the edge. He, too, screamed; then he ran at Mario and hit him again and again, in the same place, hardly seeing his victim through the haze of terror that blurred his eyesight.

The screaming stopped and the fit passed.

Priest stepped back, dropping the wrench on the ground.

The corpse of Mario fell slowly sideways until the mess that had been his head hit the ground. His gray brains seeped into the dry soil.

Priest fell to his knees and closed his eyes. “Dear God almighty, forgive me,” he said.

He knelt there, shaking. He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he might see Mario’s soul going up.

To quiet his brain he recited his mantra: “Ley, tor, pur-doy-kor …” It had no meaning: that was why concentrating hard on it produced a soothing effect. It had the rhythm of a nursery rhyme he recalled from childhood:

When he was chanting to himself, he often slipped from the mantra into the rhyme. It worked just as well.

As the familiar syllables soothed him, he thought about the way his breath entered his nostrils, went through his nasal passages into the back of his mouth, passed along his throat, and descended into his chest, finally penetrating the farthest branches of his lungs, before retracing the entire journey in reverse: lungs, throat, mouth, nose, nostrils, and back out into the open air. When he concentrated fully on the journey of the breath, nothing else came into his head — no visions, no nightmares, no memories.

A few minutes later he stood up, his heart cold, his face set in a determined expression. He had purged himself of emotion: he felt no regret or pity. The murder was in the past, and Mario was just a piece of garbage that he had to dispose of.

He picked up his cowboy hat, brushed off the dirt, and put it on his head.

He found the pickup’s tool kit behind the driving seat. He took a screwdriver and used it to detach the license plates, front and rear. He walked across the dump and buried them in a smoldering mass of garbage. Then he put the screwdriver back in the tool kit.

He bent over the body. With his right hand he grasped the belt of Mario’s jeans. With his left he took a fistful of the checked shirt. He lifted the body off the ground. He grunted as his back took the strain: Mario was heavy.

The door of the pickup stood open. Priest swung Mario back and forth a couple of times, building up a rhythm, then with one big heave he threw the body into the cabin. It lay over the bench seat, with the heels of the boots sticking out of the open door and the head hanging into the footwell on the passenger side. Blood dripped from the head.

He threw the wrench in after the body.

He wanted to siphon gas out of the pickup’s tank. For that he needed a long piece of narrow tubing.

He opened the hood, located the windshield washer fluid, and ripped out the flexible plastic pipe that led from the reservoir to the windshield nozzle. He picked up the half-gallon Coke bottle he had noticed earlier, then walked around to the side of the pickup and unscrewed the gas cap. He fed the tube into the fuel tank, sucked on it until he tasted gasoline, then inserted the end into the Coke bottle. Slowly it filled with gas.

Gas continued to spill on the ground while he walked to the door of the pickup and emptied the Coke bottle over the corpse of Mario.

He heard the sound of a car.

Priest looked at the dead body soaked in gasoline in the cab of the pickup. If someone came along right now, there was nothing he could say or do to conceal his guilt.

His rigid calm left him. He started to shake, the plastic bottle slipped from his fingers, and he crouched on the ground like a scared child. Trembling, he stared at the track that led to the road. Had an early riser come to get rid of an obsolete dishwasher, or the plastic playhouse the kids had grown out of, or the old-fashioned suits of a dead grandfather? The noise of the engine swelled as it came nearer, and Priest closed his eyes.

“Ley, tor, pur-doy-kor …”

The noise began to fade. The vehicle had passed the entrance and gone on down the road. It was just traffic.

He felt stupid. He stood up, regaining control. “Ley, tor, pur-doy-kor …”

But the scare made him hurry.

He filled the Coke bottle again and quickly doused the plastic bench seat and the entire interior of the cabin with gasoline. He used the remainder of the gas to lay a trail across the ground to the rear of the truck, then splashed the last of it onto the side near the fuel cap. He threw the bottle into the cabin and stepped back.

He noticed Mario’s Houston Astros cap on the ground. He picked it up and threw it into the cab with the body.

He took a book of matches from his jeans, struck one, and used it to light all the others; then he threw the blazing matchbook into the cab of the pickup and swiftly backed away.

There was a whoosh of flame and a cloud of black smoke, and in a second the inside of the cabin was a furnace. A moment later the flames snaked across the ground to where the tube was still spilling gas from the tank. There was another explosion as the gas tank blew up, rocking the pickup on its wheels. The rear tires caught fire, and flames flickered around the oily chassis.

A disgusting smell filled the air, almost like roasting meat. Priest swallowed hard and stood farther back.

After a few seconds the blaze became less intense. The tires, the seats, and the body of Mario continued to burn slowly.

Priest waited a couple of minutes, watching the flames; then he ventured closer, trying to breathe shallowly to keep the stench out of his nose. He looked inside the cabin of the pickup. The corpse and the seating had congealed together into one vile black mass of ash and melted plastic. When it cooled down, the vehicle would be just another piece of junk that some kids had set fire to.

He knew he had not got rid of all traces of Mario. A casual glance would reveal nothing, but if the cops ever examined the pickup, they would probably find Mario’s belt buckle, the fillings from his teeth, and maybe his charred bones. Someday, Priest realized, Mario might come back to haunt him. But he had done all he could to conceal the evidence of his crime.

Now he had to steal the seismic vibrator.

He turned away from the burning body and started walking.

At the commune in Silver River Valley, there was an inner group called the Rice Eaters. There were seven of them, the remnants of those who had survived the desperate winter of 1972–73, when they had been isolated by a blizzard and had eaten nothing but brown rice boiled in melted snow for three straight weeks. On the day the letter came, the Rice Eaters stayed up late in the evening, sitting in the cookhouse, drinking wine and smoking marijuana.

Song, who had been a fifteen-year-old runaway in 1972, was playing an acoustic guitar, picking out a blues riff. Some of the group made guitars in the winter. They kept the ones they liked best, and Paul Beale took the rest to a shop in San Francisco, where they were sold for high prices. Star was singing along in a smoky, intimate contralto, making up words, “Ain’t gonna ride that no-good train …” She had the sexiest voice in the world, always did.

Melanie sat with them, although she was not a Rice Eater, because Priest did not care to throw her out, and the others did not challenge Priest’s decisions. She was crying silently, big tears streaming down her face. She kept saying: “I only just found you.”

“We haven’t given up,” Priest told her. “There has to be a way to make the governor of California change his damn mind.”

Oaktree, the carpenter, a muscular black man the same age as Priest, said in a musing tone: “You know, it ain’t that hard to make a nuclear bomb.” He had been in the marines, but had deserted after killing an officer during a training exercise, and he had been here ever since. “I could do it in a day, if I had some plutonium. We could blackmail the governor — if they don’t do what we want, we threaten to blow Sacramento all to hell.”

“No!” said Aneth. She was nursing a child. The boy was three years old: Priest thought it was time he was weaned, but Aneth felt he should be allowed to suckle as long as he wanted to. “You can’t save the world with bombs.”

Star stopped singing. “We’re not trying to save the world. I gave that up in 1969, after the world’s press turned the hippie movement into a joke. All I want now is to save this, what we have here, our life, so our children can grow up in peace and love.”

Priest, who had already considered and rejected the idea of making a nuclear bomb, said: “It’s getting the plutonium that’s the hard part.”

Aneth detached the child from her breast and patted his back. “Forget it,” she said. “I won’t have anything to do with that stuff. It’s deadly!”

Star began to sing again. “Train, train, no-good train …”

Oaktree persisted. “I could get a job in a nuclear power plant, figure out a way to beat their security system.”

Priest said: “They would ask you for your résumé. And what would you say you had been doing for the last twenty-five years? Nuclear research at Berkeley?”

“I’d say I been living with a bunch of freaks and now they need to blow up Sacramento, so I came here to get me some radio-friggin’-activity, man.”

The others laughed. Oaktree sat back in his chair and began to harmonize with Star: “No, no, ain’t gonna ride that no-good train …”

Priest frowned at the flippant air. He could not smile. His heart was full of rage. But he knew that inspired ideas sometimes came out of lighthearted discussions, so he let it run.

Aneth kissed the top of her child’s head and said: “We could kidnap someone.”

Priest said: “Who? The governor probably has six bodyguards.”

“What about his right-hand man, that guy Albert Honeymoon?” There was a murmur of support: they all hated Honeymoon. “Or the president of Coastal Electric?”

Priest nodded. This could work.

He knew about stuff like that. It was a long time since he had been on the streets, but he remembered the rules of a rumble: Plan carefully, look cool, shock the mark so badly he can hardly think, act fast, and get the hell out. But something bothered him. “It’s too … like, low-profile,” he said. “Say some big shot gets kidnapped. So what? If you’re going to scare people, you can’t pussyfoot around, you have to scare them shitless.”

He restrained himself from saying more. When you’ve got a guy on his knees, crying and pissing his pants and pleading with you, begging you not to hurt him anymore, that’s when you say what you want; and he’s so grateful, he loves you for telling him what he has to do to make the pain stop. But that was the wrong kind of talk for someone like Aneth.

At this point, Melanie spoke again.

She was sitting on the floor with her back against Priest’s chair. Aneth offered her the big joint that was going around. Melanie wiped her tears, took a long pull on the joint, and passed it up to Priest, then blew out a cloud of smoke and said: “You know, there are ten or fifteen places in California where the faults in the earth’s crust are under such tremendous, like, pressure that it would only take a teeny little nudge, or something, to make the tectonic plates slip, and then, boom! It’s like a giant slipping on a pebble. It’s only a little pebble, but the giant is so big that his fall shakes the earth.”

Oaktree stopped singing long enough to say: “Melanie, baby, what the fuck you talking about?”

“I’m talking about an earthquake,” she said.

Oaktree laughed. “Ride, ride that no-good train …”

Priest did not laugh. Something told him this was important. He spoke with quiet intensity. “What are you saying, Melanie?”

“Forget kidnapping, forget nuclear bombs,” she said. “Why don’t we threaten the governor with an earthquake?”

“No one can cause an earthquake,” Priest said. “It would take such an enormous amount of energy to make the earth move.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It might take only a small amount of energy, if the force was applied in just the right place.”

Oaktree said: “How do you know all this stuff?”

“I studied it. I have a master’s in seismology. I should be teaching in a university now. But I married my professor, and that was the end of my career. I was turned down for a doctorate.”

Her tone was bitter. Priest had talked to her about this, and he knew she bore a deep grudge. Her husband had been on the university committee that turned her down. He had been obliged to withdraw from the meeting while her case was discussed, which seemed natural to Priest, but Melanie felt her husband should somehow have made sure of her success. Priest guessed that she had not been good enough to study at doctoral level — but she would believe anything rather than that. So he told her that the men on the committee were so terrified of her combination of beauty and brains that they conspired to bring her down. She loved him for letting her believe that.

Melanie went on: “My husband — soon to be my ex-husband — the stress-trigger theory of earthquakes. At certain points along the fault line, shear pressure builds up, over the decades, to a very high level. Then it takes only a relatively weak vibration in the earth’s crust to dislodge the plates, release all that accumulated energy, and cause an earthquake.”

Priest was captivated. He caught Star’s eye. She nodded somberly. She believed in the unorthodox. It was an article of faith with her that the bizarre theory would turn out to be the truth, the unconventional way of life would be the happiest, and the madcap plan would succeed where sensible proposals foundered.

Priest studied Melanie’s face. She had an otherworldly air. Her pale skin, startling green eyes, and red hair made her look like a beautiful alien. The first words he had spoken to her had been: “Are you from Mars?”

Did she know what she was talking about? She was stoned, but sometimes people had their most creative ideas while doping. He said: “If it’s so easy, how come it hasn’t already been done?”

“Oh, I didn’t say it would be easy. You’d have to be a seismologist to know exactly where the fault was under critical pressure.”

Priest’s mind was racing now. When you were in real trouble, sometimes the way out was to do something so weird, so totally unexpected, that your enemy was paralyzed by surprise. He said to Melanie: “How would you cause a vibration in the earth’s crust?”

“That would be the hard part,” she said.

Ride, ride, ride …

I’m gonna ride that no-good train…

Walking back to the town of Shiloh, Priest found himself thinking obsessively about the killing: the way the wrench had sunk into Mario’s soft brains, the look on the man’s face, the blood dripping into the footwell.

This was no good. He had to stay calm and alert. He still did not have the seismic vibrator that was going to save the commune. Killing Mario had been the easy part, he told himself. Next he had to pull the wool over Lenny’s eyes. But how?

He was jerked back to the immediate present by the sound of a car.

It was coming from behind him, heading into town.

In these parts, no one walked. Most people would assume his car had broken down. Some would stop and offer him a ride.

Priest tried to think of a reason why he would be walking into town at six-thirty on Saturday morning.

Nothing came.

He tried to call on whatever god had inspired him with the idea of murdering Mario, but the gods were silent.

There was nowhere he could be coming from within fifty miles — except for the one place he could not speak of, the dump where Mario’s ashes lay on the seat of his burned-out pickup.

The car slowed as it came nearer.

Priest resisted the temptation to pull his hat down over his eyes.

What have I been doing?

— I went out into the desert to observe nature.

Yeah, sagebrush and rattlesnakes.

— My car broke down.

Where? I didn’t see it.

— I went to take a leak.

This far?

Although the morning air was cool, he began to perspire.

The car passed him slowly. It was a late-model Dodge Neon with a metallic green paint job and Texas plates. There was one person inside, a man. He could see the driver examining him in the mirror, checking him out. Could be an off-duty cop—

Panic filled him, and he had to fight the impulse to turn and run.

The car stopped and reversed. The driver lowered the nearside window. He was a young Asian man in a business suit. He said: “Hey, buddy, want a ride?”

What am I going to say? “No, thanks, I just love to walk.”

“I’m a little dusty,” Priest said, looking down at his jeans. I fell on my ass trying to kill a man.

“Who isn’t, in these parts?”

Priest got in the car. His hands were shaking. He fastened his seat belt, just to have something to do to disguise his anxiety.

As the car pulled away, the driver said: “What the heck you doing walking out here?”

I just murdered my friend Mario with a Stillson wrench.

At the last second, Priest thought of a story. “I had a fight with my wife,” he said. “I stopped the car and got out and walked away. I didn’t expect her to just drive on.” He thanked whatever gods had given him inspiration again. His hands stopped shaking.

“Would that be a good-looking dark-haired woman in a blue Honda that I passed fifteen or twenty miles back?”

Jesus Christ, who are you, the Memory Man?

The guy smiled and said: “When you’re crossing this desert, every car is interesting.”

“No, that ain’t her,” Priest said. “My wife’s driving my goddamn pickup truck.”

“I didn’t see a pickup.”

“Good. Maybe she didn’t go too far.”

“She’s probably parked down a farm track crying her eyes out, wishing she had you back.”

Priest grinned with relief. The guy had bought his story.

The car reached the edge of town. “What about you?” Priest said. “How come you’re up early on Saturday morning?”

“I didn’t fight with my wife, I’m going home to her. I live in Laredo. I travel in novelty ceramics — decorative plates, figurines, signs saying ‘Baby’s Room,’ very attractive stuff.”

“Is that a fact?” What a way to waste your life.

“We sell them in drugstores, mostly.”

“The drugstore in Shiloh won’t be open yet.”

“I’m not working today anyway. But I might stop for breakfast. Got a recommendation?”

Priest would have preferred the salesman to drive through town without stopping, so that he would have no chance to mention the bearded guy he had picked up near the dump. But he was sure to see Lazy Susan’s as he drove along Main Street, so there was no point in lying. “There’s a diner.”

“How’s the food?”

“Grits are good. It’s right after the stoplight. You can let me out there.”

A minute later the car pulled into a slantwise slot outside Susan’s. Priest thanked the novelty salesman and got out. “Enjoy your breakfast,” he called as he walked away. And don’t get into conversation with anyone local, for Christ’s sake.

A block from the diner was the local office of Ritkin Seismex, the small seismic exploration firm he had been working for. The office was a large trailer in a vacant lot. Mario’s seismic vibrator was parked in the lot alongside Lenny’s cranberry red Pontiac Grand Am.

Priest stopped and stared at the truck for a moment. It was a ten-wheeler, with big off-road tires like dinosaur armor. Underneath a layer of Texas dirt it was bright blue. He itched to jump in and drive it away. He looked at the mighty machinery on the back, the powerful engine and the massive steel plate, the tanks and hoses and valves and gauges. I could have the thing started in a minute, no keys necessary. But if he stole it now, every Highway Patrolman in Texas would be looking for him within a few minutes. He had to be patient. I’m going to make the earth shake, and no one is going to stop me.

He went into the trailer.

The office was busy. Two jug team supervisors stood over a computer as a color map of the area slowly emerged from the printer. Today they would collect their equipment from the field and begin to move it to Clovis. A surveyor was arguing on the phone in Spanish, and Lenny’s secretary, Diana, was checking a list.

Priest stepped through an open door into the inner office. Lenny was drinking coffee with a phone to his ear. His eyes were bloodshot and his face blotchy after last night’s drinking. He acknowledged Priest with a barely perceptible nod.

Priest stood by the door, waiting for Lenny to finish. His heart was in his mouth. He knew roughly what he was going to say. But would Lenny take the bait? Everything depended on it.

After a minute, Lenny hung up the phone and said: “Hey, Ricky — you seen Mario this mornin’?” His tone was annoyed. “He should’ve left here a half hour ago.”

“Yeah, I seen him,” Priest said. “I hate to bring you bad news this friggin’ early, but he’s let you down.”

“What are you talking about?”

Priest told the story that had come into his mind, in a flash of inspiration, just before he picked up the wrench and went after Mario. “He was missing his wife and kids so bad, he got into his old pickup and left town.”

“Aw, shit, that’s great. How did you find out?”

“He passed me on the street, early this morning, headed for El Paso.”

“Why the hell didn’t he call me?”

“Too embarrassed about letting you down.”

“Well, I just hope he keeps going across the border and doesn’t stop until he drives into the goddamn ocean.” Lenny rubbed his eyes with his knuckles.

Priest began to improvise. “Listen, Lenny, he’s got a young family, don’t be too hard on him.”

“Hard? Are you serious? He’s history.”

“He really needs this job.”

“And I need someone to drive his rig all the damn way to New Mexico.”

“He’s saving up to buy a house with a pool.”

Lenny became sarcastic. “Knock it off, Ricky, you’re making me cry.”

“Try this.” Priest swallowed and tried to sound casual. “I’ll drive the damn truck to Clovis if you promise to give Mario his job back.” He held his breath.

Lenny stared at Priest without saying anything.

“Mario ain’t a bad guy, you know that,” Priest went on. Don’t gabble, you sound nervous, try to seem relaxed!

Lenny said: “You have a commercial driver’s license, class B?”

“Since I was twenty-one years old.” Priest took out his billfold, extracted the license, and tossed it on the desk. It was a forgery. Star had one just like it. Hers was a forgery, too. Paul Beale knew where to get such things.

Lenny checked it, then looked up and said suspiciously: “So, what are you after? I thought you didn’t want to go to New Mexico.”

Don’t screw around, Lenny, tell me yes or no! “Suddenly I could use another five hundred bucks.”

“I don’t know.…”

You son of a bitch, I killed a man for this, come on!

“Would you do it for two hundred?”

Yes! Thank you! Thank you! He pretended to hesitate. “Two hundred is low for three days’ work.”

“It’s two days, maybe two and a half. I’ll give you two fifty.”

Anything! Just give me the keys! “Listen, I’m going to do it anyway, whatever you pay me, because Mario’s a nice kid and I want to help him. So just pay me whatever you genuinely think the job’s worth.”

“All right, you sly mother, three hundred.”

“You got a deal.” And I’ve got a seismic vibrator.

Lenny said: “Hey, thanks for helping me out. I sure appreciate it.”

Priest tried not to beam triumphantly. “You bet.”

Lenny opened a drawer, took out a sheet of paper, and tossed it over the desk. “Just fill out this form for insurance.”

Priest froze.

He could not read or write.

He stared at the form in fear.

Lenny said impatiently: “Come on, take it, for Christ’s sake, it ain’t a rattlesnake.”

I can’t understand it, I’m sorry, those squiggles and lines on the paper just jump and dance, and I can’t make them keep still!

Lenny looked at the wall and spoke to an invisible audience. “A minute ago I would of swore the man was wide awake.”

Ley, tor, pur-doy-kor …

Priest reached out slowly and took the form.

Lenny said: “Now, what was so hard about that?”

Priest said: “Uh, I was just thinking about Mario. Do you suppose he’s okay?”

“Forget him. Fill out the form and get going. I want to see that truck in Clovis.”

“Yeah.” Priest stood up. “I’ll do it outside.”

“Right, let me get to my other fifty-seven friggin’ problems.”

Priest walked out of Lenny’s room into the main office.

You’ve had this scene a hundred times before, just calm down, you know how to deal with it.

He stopped outside Lenny’s door. Nobody noticed him; they were all busy.

He looked at the form. The big letters stick up, like trees among the bushes. If they’re sticking down, you got the form upside-down.

He had the form upside-down. He turned it around.

Sometimes there was a big X, printed very heavy, or written in pencil or red ink, to show you where to put your name; but this form did not have that easy-to-spot mark. Priest could write his name, sort of. It took him a while, and he knew it was kind of a scrawl, but he could do it.

However, he could not write anything else.

As a kid he was so smart he did not need to read and write. He could add up in his head faster than anyone, even though he could not read figures on paper. His memory was infallible. He could always get people to do what he wanted without writing anything down. In school he managed to find ways to avoid reading aloud. When there was a writing assignment he might get another kid to do it for him, but if that failed, he had a thousand excuses, and the teachers eventually shrugged and said that if a child really did not want to work, they could not force him. He got a reputation for laziness, and when he saw a crisis approaching he would play hooky.

Later on, he had managed to run a thriving liquor wholesaling business. He never wrote a letter but did everything on the phone and in person. He kept dozens of phone numbers in his head until he could afford a secretary to place calls for him. He knew exactly how much money was in the till and how much in the bank. If a salesman presented him with an order form, he would say: “I’ll tell you what I need and you fill out the form.” He had an accountant and a lawyer to deal with the government. He had made a million dollars at the age of twenty-one. He had lost it all by the time he met Star and joined the commune — not because he was illiterate, but because he defrauded his customers and failed to pay his taxes and borrowed money from the Mob.

Getting an insurance form filled out had to be easy.

He sat down in front of Lenny’s secretary’s desk and smiled at Diana. “You look tired this morning, honey,” he said.

She sighed. She was a plump blonde in her thirties, married to a roustabout, with three teenage kids. She was quick to rebuff crude advances from the men who came into the trailer, but Priest knew she was susceptible to polite charm. “Ricky, I got so much to do this morning, I wish I had two brains.”

He put on a crestfallen look. “That’s bad news — I was going to ask you to help me with something.”

She hesitated, then smiled ruefully. “What is it?”

“My handwriting’s so poor, I wanted you to fill out this form for me. I sure hate to trouble you when you’re so busy.”

“Well, I’ll make a deal with you.” She pointed to a neat stack of carefully labeled cardboard boxes up against the wall. “I’ll help you with the form if you’ll put all those files in the green Chevy Astro Van outside.”

“You got it,” Priest said gratefully. He gave her the form.

She looked at it. “You going to drive the seismic vibrator?”

“Yeah, Mario got homesick and went to El Paso.”

She frowned. “That’s not like him.”

“It sure ain’t. I hope he’s okay.”

She shrugged and picked up her pen. “Now, first we need your full name and date and place of birth.”

Priest gave her the information, and she filled out the blanks on the form. It was easy. Why had he panicked? It was just that he had not expected the form. Lenny had surprised him, and for a moment he had given way to fear.

He was experienced at concealing his disability. He even used libraries. That was how he had found out about seismic vibrators. He had gone to the central library on I Street in downtown Sacramento — a big, busy place where his face probably would not be remembered. At the reception desk he had learned that science was up on the second floor. There, he had suffered a stab of anxiety when he looked at the long aisles of bookshelves and the rows of people sitting at computer screens. Then he had caught the eye of a friendly-looking woman librarian about his own age. “I’m looking for information on seismic exploration,” he had said with a warm smile. “Could you help me?”

She had taken him to the right shelf, picked out a book, and with a little encouragement found the relevant chapter. “I’m interested in how they generate the shock waves,” he had explained. “I wonder if this book has that information.”

She had leafed through the pages with him. “There seem to be three ways,” she had said. “An underground explosion, a weight drop, or a seismic vibrator.”

“Seismic vibrator?” he had said with just the hint of a twinkle in his eye. “What’s that?”

She had pointed to a photograph. Priest had stared, fascinated. The librarian had said: “It looks pretty much like a truck.”

To Priest it had looked like a miracle.

“Can I photocopy some of these pages?” he had asked.

“Sure.”

If you were smart enough, there was always a way to get someone else to do the reading and writing.

Diana finished the form, drew a big X next to a dotted line, handed the paper to him, and said: “You sign here.”

He took her pen and wrote laboriously. The “R” for Richard was like a showgirl with a big bust kicking out one leg. Then the “G” for Granger was like a billhook with a big round blade and a short handle. After “RG” he just did a wavy line like a snake. It was not pretty, but people accepted it. A lot of folk signed their names with a scrawl, he had learned: signatures did not have to be written clearly, thank God.

This was why his forged license had to be in his own name: it was the only one he could write.

He looked up. Diana was watching him curiously, surprised at how slowly he wrote. When she caught his eye, she reddened and looked away.

He gave her back the form. “Thanks for your help, Diana, I sure appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll get you the keys to the truck as soon as Lenny gets off the phone.” The keys were kept in the boss’s office.

Priest remembered that he had promised to move the boxes for her. He picked one up and took it outside. The green van stood in the yard with its rear door open. He loaded the box and went back for another.

Each time he came back in, he checked her desk. The form was still there, and no keys were visible.

After he had loaded all the boxes, he sat in front of her again. She was on the phone, talking to someone about motel reservations in Clovis.

Priest ground his teeth. He was almost there, he nearly had the keys in his hand, and he was listening to crap about motel rooms! He forced himself to sit still.

At last she hung up. “I’ll ask Lenny for those keys,” she said. She took the form into the inner office.

A fat bulldozer driver called Chew came in. The trailer shook with the impact of his work boots on the floor. “Hey, Ricky,” he said, “I didn’t know you were married.” He laughed. The other men in the office looked up, interested.

Shit, what’s this? Priest said: “Now, where did you hear a thing like that?”

“Saw you get out of a car outside Susan’s a while back. Then I had breakfast with the salesman that gave you a ride.”

Damn, what did he tell you?

Diana emerged from Lenny’s office with a key ring in her hand. Priest wanted to snatch it from her, but he pretended to be more interested in talking to Chew.

Chew went on: “You know, Susan’s western omelet is really something.” He lifted his leg and farted, then looked up and saw the secretary standing in the doorway, listening. “ ’Scuse me, Diana. Anyhow, this youngster was saying how he picked you up out near the dump.”

Hell!

“You were walking in the desert alone at six-thirty, on account of how you quarreled with your wife and stopped the car and got out.” Chew looked around at the other men, making sure he had their attention. “Then she up and drove off and left you there!” He grinned broadly, and the others laughed.

Priest stood up. He did not want people remembering that he was out near the dump on the day Mario disappeared. He needed to kill this talk dead. He put on a hurt look. “Well, Chew, I’m going to tell you something. If I ever happen to learn anything about your private affairs, specially something a little embarrassing, I promise I won’t shout about it all over the office. Now, what do you think of that?”

Chew said: “Ain’t no call to get sensitive.”

The other men looked shamefaced. No one wanted to talk about this anymore.

There was an awkward silence. Priest did not want to exit in a bad atmosphere, so he said: “Hell, Chew, no hard feelings.”

Chew shrugged. “No offense intended, Ricky.”

The tension eased.

Diana handed Priest the keys to the seismic vibrator.

He closed his fist over the bunch. “Thank you,” he said, trying to keep the elation out of his voice. He could hardly wait to get out of there and sit behind the wheel. “Bye, everyone. See you in New Mexico.”

“You drive safely, now, you hear?” Diana said as he reached the door.

“Oh, I’ll do that,” Priest replied. “You can count on it.”

He stepped outside. The sun was up, and the day was getting warmer. He resisted the temptation to do a victory dance around the truck. He climbed in and turned over the engine. He checked the gauges. Mario must have filled the tank last night. The truck was ready for the road.

He could not keep the grin off his face as he pulled out of the yard.

He drove out of town, moving up through the gears, and headed north, following the route Star had taken in the Honda.

As he approached the turnoff for the dump, he began to feel strange. He imagined Mario at the side of the road, with gray brains seeping out of the hole in his head. It was a stupid, superstitious thought, but he could not shake it. His stomach churned. For a moment he felt weak, too weak to drive. Then he pulled himself together.

Mario was not the first man he had killed.

Jack Kassner had been a cop, and he had robbed Priest’s mother.

Priest’s mother had been a whore. She had been only thirteen years old when she gave birth to him. By the time Ricky was fifteen, she was working with three other women out of an apartment over a dirty bookstore on Seventh Street in the skid row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. Jack Kassner was a vice squad detective who came once a month for his shakedown money. He usually took a free blow job at the same time. One day he saw Priest’s mother getting the bribe money out of the box in the back room. That night the vice squad raided the apartment, and Kassner stole fifteen hundred dollars, which was a lot of money in the sixties. Priest’s mother did not mind doing a few days in the slammer, but she was heartbroken to lose all the money she had saved. Kassner told the women that if they complained, he would slap them with drug-trafficking charges and they would all go down for a couple of years.

Kassner thought he was in no danger from three B-girls and a kid. But the next evening, as he stood in the men’s room of the Blue Light bar on Broadway, pissing away a few beers, little Ricky Granger stuck a razor-sharp six-inch knife in his back, easily slicing through the black mohair suit jacket and the white nylon shirt and penetrating the kidney. Kassner was in so much pain, he never got his hand on his gun. Ricky stabbed him several more times, quickly, as the cop lay on the wet concrete floor of the men’s room, vomiting blood; then he rinsed his blade under the tap and walked out.

Looking back, Priest marveled at the cool assurance of his fifteen-year-old self. It had taken only fifteen or twenty seconds, but during that time anyone might have stepped into the room. However, he had felt no fear, no shame, no guilt.

But after that he had been afraid of the dark.

He was not in the dark very much in those days. The lights usually stayed on all night in his mother’s apartment. But sometimes he would wake up a little before dawn on a slow night, like a Monday, and find that everyone was asleep and the lights were out; and then he would be possessed by blind, irrational terror and would blunder around the room, bumping into furry creatures and touching strange clammy surfaces, until he found the light switch and sat on the edge of the bed, panting and perspiring, slowly recovering as he realized that the clammy surface was the mirror and the furry creature his fleece-lined jacket.

He had been afraid of the dark until he found Star.

He recalled a song that had been a hit the year he met her, and he began to sing: “Smoke on the water …” The band was Deep Purple, he recalled. Everyone was playing their album that summer.

It was a good apocalyptic song to sing at the wheel of a seismic vibrator.

He passed the entrance to the dump and drove on, heading north.

“We’ll do it tonight,” Priest had said. “We’ll tell the governor there’ll be an earthquake four weeks from today.”

Star was dubious. “We’re not even sure this is possible. Maybe we should do everything else first, get all our ducks lined up in a row, then issue the ultimatum.”

“Hell, no!” Priest said. The suggestion angered him. He knew that the group had to be led. He needed to get them committed. They had to go out on a limb, take a risk, and feel there was no turning back. Otherwise tomorrow they would think of reasons to get scared and back out.

They were fired up now. The letter had arrived today, and they were all angry and desperate. Star was grimly determined; Melanie was in a fury; Oaktree was ready to declare war; Paul Beale was reverting to his street hoodlum type. Song had hardly spoken, but she was the helpless child of the group and would go along with the others. Only Aneth was opposed, and her opposition would be feeble because she was a weak person. She would be quick to raise objections, but she would back down even faster.

Priest himself knew with cold certainty that if this place ceased to exist, his life would be over.

Now Aneth said: “But an earthquake might kill people.”

Priest said: “I’ll tell you how I figure this will pan out. I guess we’ll have to cause a small, harmless tremor, out in the desert somewhere, just to prove we can do what we say. Then, when we threaten a second earthquake, the governor will negotiate.”

Aneth turned her attention back to her child.

Oaktree said: “I’m with Priest. Do it tonight.”

Star gave in. “How should we make the threat?”

“An anonymous phone call or letter, I guess,” Priest said. “But it has to be impossible to trace.”

Melanie said: “We could post it on an Internet bulletin board. If we used my laptop and mobile phone, no one could possibly trace it.”

Priest had never seen a computer until Melanie arrived. He threw a questioning glance at Paul Beale, who knew all about such things. Paul nodded and said: “Good idea.”

“All right,” Priest said. “Get your stuff.”

Melanie went off.

“How will we sign the message?” Star said. “We need a name.”

Song said: “Something that symbolizes a peace-loving group who have been driven to take extreme measures.”

“I know,” Priest said. “We’ll call ourselves the Hammer of Eden.”

It was just before midnight on the first of May.

Priest became tense as he reached the outskirts of San Antonio. In the original plan, Mario would have driven the truck as far as the airport. But now Priest was alone as he entered the maze of freeways that encircled the city, and he began to sweat.

There was no way he could read a map.

When he had to drive an unfamiliar road, he always took Star with him to navigate. She and the other Rice Eaters knew he could not read. The last time he drove alone on strange roads had been in the late autumn of 1972, when he fled from Los Angeles and finished up, by accident, at the commune in Silver River Valley. He had not cared where he went then. In fact, he would have been happy to die. But now he wanted to live.

Even road signs were difficult for him. If he stopped and concentrated for a while, he could tell the difference between “East” and “West” or “North” and “South.” Despite his remarkable ability to calculate in his head, he could not read numbers without staring hard and thinking long. With an effort, he could recognize signs for Route 10: a stick with a circle. But there was a lot of other stuff on road signs that meant nothing to him and confused the picture.

He tried to stay calm, but it was difficult. He liked to be in control. He was maddened by the sense of helplessness and bewilderment that came over him when he lost his way. He knew by the sun which way was north. When he felt he might be going wrong, he pulled into the next gas station or shopping mall and asked for directions. He hated doing it, for people noticed the seismic vibrator — it was a big rig, and the machinery on the back looked kind of intriguing — and there was a danger he would be remembered. But he had to take the risk.

And the directions were not always helpful. Gas station attendants would say things like “Yeah, easy, just follow Corpus Christi Highway until you see a sign for Brooks Air Force Base.”

Priest just forced himself to remain calm, keep asking questions, and hide his frustration and anxiety. He played the part of a friendly but stupid truck driver, the kind of person who would be forgotten by the next day. And eventually he got out of San Antonio on the right road, sending up prayers of thanks to whatever gods might be listening.

A few minutes later, passing through a small town, he was relieved to see the blue Honda parked at a McDonald’s restaurant.

He hugged Star gratefully. “What the hell happened?” she said worriedly. “I expected you a couple of hours ago!”

He decided not to tell her he had killed Mario. “I got lost in San Antonio,” he said.

“I was afraid of that. When I came through I was surprised how complicated the freeway system was.”

“I guess it’s not half as bad as San Francisco, but I know San Francisco.”

“Well, you’re here now. Let’s order coffee and get you calmed down.”

Priest bought a beanburger and got a free plastic clown, which he put carefully in his pocket for his six-year-old son, Smiler.

When they drove on, Star took the wheel of the truck. They planned to drive nonstop all the way to California. It would take at least two days and nights, maybe more. One would sleep while the other drove. They had some amphetamines to combat drowsiness.

They left the Honda in the McDonald’s lot. As they pulled away, Star handed Priest a paper bag, saying: “I got you a present.”

Inside was a pair of scissors and a battery-powered electric shaver.

“Now you can get rid of that damn beard,” she said.

He grinned. He turned the rearview mirror toward himself and started to cut. His hair grew fast and thick, and the bushy beard and mustache had made him round faced. Now his own face gradually reemerged. With the scissors he trimmed the hair down to a stubble, then he used the shaver to finish the job. Finally he took off his cowboy hat and undid his plait.

He threw the hat out the window and looked at his reflection. His hair was pushed back from a high forehead and fell in waves around a gaunt face. He had a nose like a blade and hollow cheeks, but he had a sensual mouth — many women had told him that. However, it was his eyes they usually talked about. They were dark brown, almost black, and people said they had a forceful, staring quality that could be mesmerizing. Priest knew it was not the eyes themselves, but the intensity of the look that could captivate a woman: he gave her the feeling that he was concentrating powerfully on her and nothing else. He could do it to men, too. He practiced the Look now, in the mirror.

“Handsome devil,” Star said — laughing at him, but in a nice way, affectionate.

“Smart, too,” Priest said.

“I guess you are. You got us this machine, anyway.”

Priest nodded. “And you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

2

In the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco, early on Monday morning, FBI agent Judy Maddox sat in a courtroom on the fifteenth floor, waiting.

The court was furnished in blond wood. New courtrooms always were. They generally had no windows, so the architects tried to make them brighter by using light colors. That was her theory. She spent a lot of time waiting in courtrooms. Most law enforcement personnel did.

She was worried. In court she was often worried. Months of work, sometimes years, went into preparing a case, but there was no telling how it would go once it got to court. The defense might be inspired or incompetent, the judge a sharp-eyed sage or a senile old fool, the jury a group of intelligent, responsible citizens or a bunch of lowlife jerks who ought to be behind bars themselves.

Four men were on trial today: John Parton, Ernest “Taxman” Dias, Foong Lee, and Foong Ho. The Foong brothers were the big-time crooks, the other two their executives. In cooperation with a Hong Kong triad, they had set up a network for laundering money from the Northern California dope industry. It had taken Judy a year to figure out how they were doing it and another year to prove it.

She had one big advantage when going after Asian crooks: she looked Oriental. Her father was a green-eyed Irishman, but she took more after her late mother, who had been Vietnamese. Judy was slender and dark haired, with an upward slant to her eyes. The middle-aged Chinese gangsters she had been investigating had never suspected that this pretty little half-Asian girl was a hotshot FBI agent.

She was working with an assistant U.S. attorney whom she knew unusually well. His name was Don Riley, and until a year ago they had been living together. He was her age, thirty-six, and he was experienced, energetic, and as smart as a whip.

She had thought they had a watertight case. But the accused men had hired the top criminal law firm in the city and put together a clever, vigorous defense. Their lawyers had undermined the credibility of witnesses who were, inevitably, from the criminal milieu themselves; and they had exploited the documentary evidence amassed by Judy to confuse and bewilder the jury.

Now neither Judy nor Don could guess which way it would go.

Judy had a special reason to be worried about this case. Her immediate boss, the supervisor of the Asian Organized Crime squad, was about to retire, and she had applied for the job. The overall head of the San Francisco office, the special agent in charge, or SAC, would support her application, she knew. But she had a rival: Marvin Hayes, another high-flying agent in her age group. And Marvin also had powerful support: his best friend was the assistant special agent in charge responsible for all the organized crime and white-collar crime squads.

Promotions were granted by a career board, but the opinions of the SAC and ASACs carried a lot of weight. Right now the contest between Judy and Marvin Hayes was close.

She wanted that job. She wanted to rise far and fast in the FBI. She was a good agent, she would be an outstanding supervisor, and one of these days she would be the best SAC the bureau had ever had. She was proud of the FBI, but she knew she could make it better: with faster introduction of new techniques like profiling through the use of streamlined management systems and — most of all — by getting rid of agents like Marvin Hayes.

Hayes was the old-fashioned type of law enforcement officer: lazy, brutal, and unscrupulous. He had not put as many bad guys in jail as Judy, but he had made more high-profile arrests. He was good at insinuating himself into a glamorous investigation and quick to distance himself from a case that was going south.

The SAC had hinted to Judy that she would get the job, rather than Marvin, if she won her case today.

In court with Judy were most of the team on the Foong case: her supervisor, the other agents who had worked with her, a linguist, the squad secretary, and two San Francisco Police Department detectives. To her surprise, neither the ASAC nor the SAC was there. This was a big case, and the result was important to both of them. She felt a twinge of unease. She wondered if something was going on at the office that she did not know about. She decided to step outside and call. But before she got to the door, the clerk of the court entered and announced that the jury was about to return. She sat down again.

A moment later Don came back in, smelling of cigarettes: he had started smoking again since they split. He gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. She smiled at him. He looked nice, with his neat short haircut, dark blue suit, white button-down shirt, and dark red Armani tie. But there was no chemistry, no zing: she no longer wanted to muss his hair and undo his tie and slide her hand inside the white shirt.

The defense lawyers returned, the accused men were walked into the dock, the jury entered, and at last the judge emerged from his chambers and took his seat.

Judy crossed her fingers under the table.

The clerk stood up. “Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

Absolute silence descended. Judy realized she was tapping her foot. She stopped.

The foreman, a Chinese shopkeeper, stood up. Judy had spent many hours wondering whether he would sympathize with the accused, because two of them were Chinese, or hate them for dishonoring the race. In a quiet voice he said: “We have.”

“And how do you find the accused — guilty or not guilty?”

“Guilty as charged.”

There was a second of silence as the news sank in. Behind her, Judy heard a groan from the dock. She resisted the impulse to whoop with joy. She looked at Don, who was smiling broadly at her. The expensive defense lawyers shuffled papers and avoided each other’s eyes. Two reporters got up and left hastily, heading for the phones.

The judge, a thin, sour-faced man of around fifty, thanked the jury and adjourned the case for sentencing in a week’s time.

I did it, Judy thought. I won the case, I put the bad guys in jail, and my promotion is in the bag. Supervising Special Agent Judy Maddox, only thirty-six, a rising star.

“All stand,” the clerk said.

The judge went out.

Don hugged Judy.

“You did a great job,” she told him. “Thanks.”

“You gave me a great case,” he said.

She could tell he wanted to kiss her, so she stepped back a pace. “Well, we both did good,” she said.

She turned to her colleagues and went around them all, shaking hands and hugging and thanking them for their work. Then the defense lawyers came over. The senior of the two was David Fielding, a partner in the firm of Brooks Fielding. He was a distinguished-looking man of about sixty. “Congratulations, Ms. Maddox, on a well-deserved win,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said. “It was closer than I expected. I thought I had it buttoned up until you got started.”

He acknowledged the compliment with a tilt of his well-groomed head. “Your preparation was immaculate. Were you trained as a lawyer?”

“I went to Stanford Law School.”

“I thought you must have a law degree. Well, if you ever get tired of the FBI, please come and see me. With my firm you could be earning three times your present salary in less than a year.”

She was flattered, but she also felt condescended to, so her reply was sharp. “That’s a nice offer, but I want to put bad guys in jail, not keep them out.”

“I admire your idealism,” he said smoothly, and turned to speak to Don.

Judy realized she had been waspish. It was a fault of hers, she knew. But what the hell, she did not want a job with Brooks Fielding.

She picked up her briefcase. She was eager to share her victory with the SAC. The San Francisco field office of the FBI was in the same building as the court, on two lower floors. As she turned to leave, Don grabbed her arm. “Have dinner with me?” he said. “We ought to celebrate.”

She did not have a date. “Sure.”

“I’ll make a reservation and call you.”

As she left the room, she remembered the feeling she had had earlier, that he wanted to kiss her; and she wished she had invented an excuse.

As she entered the lobby of the FBI office she wondered again why the SAC and the ASAC had not come to court for the verdict. There was no sign of unusual activity here. The carpeted corridors were quiet. The robot mailman, a motorized cart, hummed from door to door on its predetermined route. For a law enforcement agency, they had fancy premises. The difference between the FBI and a police precinct house was like the difference between corporate headquarters and the factory floor.

She headed for the SAC’s office. Milton Lestrange had always had a soft spot for her. He had been an early supporter of women agents, who now numbered ten percent of agents. Some SACs barked orders like army generals, but Milt was always calm and courteous.

As soon as she entered his outer office she knew something was wrong. His secretary had obviously been crying. Judy said: “Linda, are you okay?” The secretary, a middle-aged woman who was normally coldly efficient, burst into tears. Judy went to comfort her, but Linda waved her away and pointed to the door of the inner office.

Judy went in.

It was a large room, expensively furnished, with a big desk and a polished conference table. Sitting behind Lestrange’s desk, with his jacket off and his tie loosened, was ASAC Brian Kincaid, a big, barrel-chested man with thick white hair. He looked up and said: “Come in, Judy.”

“What the hell is going on?” she said. “Where’s Milt?”

“I have bad news,” he said, though he did not look too sad. “Milt is in the hospital. He’s been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”

“Oh, my God.” Judy sat down.

Lestrange had gone to the hospital yesterday — for a routine checkup, he had said, but he must have known there was something wrong.

Kincaid went on: “He’ll be having an operation, some kind of intestinal bypass, and he won’t be back here for a while, at best.”

“Poor Milt!” Judy was shocked. He had seemed like a man at his peak: fit, vigorous, a good boss. Now he had been diagnosed with a deadly illness. She wanted to do something to comfort him, but she felt helpless. “I guess Jessica’s with him,” she said. Jessica was Milt’s second wife.

“Yes, and his brother’s flying up from Los Angeles today. Here in the office—”

“What about his first wife?”

Kincaid looked irritated. “I don’t know about her. I talked to Jessica.”

“Someone should tell her. I’ll see if I can get a number for her.”

“Whatever.” Kincaid was impatient to get off the personal stuff and talk about work. “Here in the office, there are some changes, inevitably. I’ve been made acting SAC in Milt’s absence.”

Judy’s heart sank. “Congratulations,” she said, trying for a neutral tone.

“I’m moving you to the Domestic Terrorism desk.”

At first Judy was just puzzled. “What for?”

“I think you’ll do well there.” He picked up the phone and spoke to Linda. “Ask Matt Peters to come in and see me right away.” Peters was supervisor of the DT squad.

“But I just won my case,” Judy said indignantly. “I put the Foong brothers in jail today!”

“Well done. That doesn’t change my decision.”

“Wait a minute. You know I’ve applied for the job of supervisor in the Asian Organized Crime squad. If I get moved off the squad now, it’s going to look like I had some kind of problem.”

“I think you need to broaden your experience.”

“And I think you want Marvin to get the Asian desk.”

“You’re right. I believe Marvin is the best person for that job.”

What a jerk, Judy thought furiously. He gets made boss and the first thing he does is use his new power to promote a buddy. “You can’t do this,” she said. “We have Equal Employment Opportunity rules.”

“Go ahead, make a complaint,” Kincaid said. “Marvin is better qualified than you.”

“I’ve put a hell of a lot more bad guys in jail.”

Kincaid gave her a complacent smile and played his trump card. “But he’s spent two years at headquarters in Washington.”

He was right, Judy thought despairingly. She had never worked at FBI headquarters. And although it was not an absolute requirement, headquarters experience was thought desirable in a supervisor. So there was no point in her making an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint. Everyone knew she was the better agent, but Marvin looked better on paper.

Judy fought back tears. She had worked her socks off for two years and scored a major victory against organized crime, and now she was being cheated of her reward by this creep.

Matt Peters came in. He was a stocky guy of about forty-five, bald, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a tie. Like Marvin Hayes, he was close to Kincaid. Judy began to feel surrounded.

“Congratulations on winning your case,” Peters said to Judy. “I’ll be glad to have you on my squad.”

“Thank you.” Judy could not think what else to say.

Kincaid said: “Matt has a new assignment for you.”

Peters had a file under his arm, and now he handed it to Judy. “The governor has received a terrorist threat from a group calling itself the Hammer of Eden.”

Judy opened the file, but she could hardly make out the words. She was shaking with anger and an overwhelming sense of futility. To cover her emotions she tried to talk about the case. “What are they demanding?”

“A freeze on the building of new power plants in California.”

“Nuclear plants?”

“Any kind. They gave us four weeks to comply. They say they’re the radical offshoot of the Green California Campaign.”

Judy tried to concentrate. Green California was a legitimate environmental pressure group based in San Francisco. It was hard to believe they would do something like this. But all such organizations were capable of attracting nutcases. “And what’s the threat?”

“An earthquake.”

She looked up from the file. “You’re putting me on.”

Matt shook his bald head.

Because she was angry and upset, she did not bother to sweeten her words. “This is stupid,” she said bluntly. “No one can cause an earthquake. They might as well threaten us with three feet of snow.”

He shrugged. “Check it out.”

Judy knew that high-profile politicians received threats every day. Messages from crazies were not investigated by the FBI unless there was something special about them. “How was this threat communicated?”

“It appeared on an Internet bulletin board on the first of May. It’s all in the file.”

She looked him in the eye. She was in no mood to take any crap. “There’s something you’re not telling me. This threat has no credibility whatsoever.” She looked at her watch. “Today is the twenty-fifth. We’ve ignored the message for three and a half weeks. Now, suddenly, with four days left to the deadline, we’re worried?”

“John Truth saw the bulletin board — surfing the Net, I guess. Maybe he was desperate for a hot new topic. Anyway, he talked about the threat on his show Friday night, and he got a lot of calls.”

“I get it.” John Truth was a controversial talk radio host. His show came out of San Francisco, but it was syndicated live on stations all over California. Judy became even angrier. “John Truth pressured the governor to do something about the terrorist message. The governor responded by calling in the FBI to investigate. So we have to go through the motions of an investigation that no one really believes in.”

“That’s about it.”

Judy took a deep breath. She addressed Kincaid, not Peters, because she knew this was his doing. “This office has been trying to nail the Foong brothers for twenty years. Today I put them in jail.” She raised her voice. “And now you give me a bullshit case like this?”

Kincaid looked pleased with himself. “If you want to be in the Bureau, you’ll have to learn to take the rough with the smooth.”

“I learned, Brian!”

“Don’t yell.”

“I learned,” she repeated in a lower voice. “Ten years ago, when I was new and inexperienced and my supervisor didn’t know how far he could rely on me, I was given assignments like this — and I took them cheerfully, and did them conscientiously, and proved that I goddamn well deserve to be trusted with real work!”

“Ten years is nothing,” Kincaid said. “I’ve been here twenty-five.”

She tried reasoning with him. “Look, you’ve just been put in charge of this office. Your first act is to give one of your best agents a job that should have gone to a rookie. Everyone will know what you’ve done. People will think you’ve got some kind of grudge.”

“You’re right, I just got this job. And you’re already telling me how to do it. Get back to work, Maddox.”

She stared at him. Surely he would not just dismiss her.

He said: “This meeting is over.”

Judy could not take it. Her rage boiled over.

“It’s not just this meeting that’s over,” she said. She stood up. “Fuck you, Kincaid.”

A look of astonishment came over his face.

Judy said: “I quit.”

And then she walked out.

“You said that?” Judy’s father said.

“Yeah. I knew you’d disapprove.”

“You were right about that, anyway.”

They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking green tea. Judy’s father was a detective with the San Francisco police. He did a lot of undercover work. He was a powerfully built man, very fit for his age, with bright green eyes and gray hair in a ponytail.

He was close to retirement and dreading it. Law enforcement was his life. He wished he could remain a cop until he was seventy. He was horrified by the idea of his daughter quitting when she did not have to.

Judy’s parents had met in Saigon. Her father was with the army in the days when American troops there were still called “advisers.” Her mother came from a middle-class Vietnamese family: Judy’s grandfather had been an accountant with the Finance Ministry there. Judy’s father brought his bride home, and Judy was born in San Francisco. As a baby she called her parents Bo and Me, the Vietnamese equivalent of Daddy and Mommy. The cops caught on to this, and her father became known as Bo Maddox.

Judy adored him. When she was thirteen her mother died in a car wreck. Since then Judy had been close to Bo. After she had broken up with Don Riley a year ago, she had moved into her father’s house.

She sighed. “I don’t often lose it, you have to admit.”

“Only when it’s really important.”

“But now that I’ve told Kincaid I’m quitting, I guess I will.”

“Now that you’ve cursed him like that, I guess you’ll have to.”

Judy got up and poured more tea for both of them. She was still boiling with fury inside. “He’s such a damn fool.”

“He must be, because he just lost a good agent.” Bo sipped his tea. “But you’re dumber — you lost a great job.”

“I was offered a better one today.”

“Where?”

“Brooks Fielding, the law firm. I could earn three times my FBI salary.”

“Keeping mobsters out of jail!” Bo said indignantly.

“Everyone’s entitled to a vigorous defense.”

“Why don’t you marry Don Riley and have babies? Grandchildren would give me something to do in retirement.”

Judy winced. She had never told Bo the real story of her breakup with Don. The simple truth was that he had had an affair. Feeling guilty, he had confessed to Judy. It was only a brief fling with a colleague, and Judy had tried to forgive him, but her feelings for Don were not the same afterward. Never again did she feel the urge to make love to him. She had not felt drawn to anyone else, either. A switch had been thrown somewhere inside her, and her sex drive had closed down.

Bo did not know any of this. He saw Don Riley as the perfect husband: handsome, intelligent, successful, and working in law enforcement.

Judy said: “Don asked me to have a celebration dinner, but I think I’ll cancel.”

“I guess I ought to know better than to tell you who to marry,” Bo said with a rueful grin. He stood up. “I’ve got to go. We have a raid going down tonight.”

She did not like it when he worked at night. “Have you eaten?” she asked anxiously. “Shall I make you some eggs before you go?”

“No, thanks, honey. I’ll get a sandwich later.” He pulled on a leather jacket and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“Bye.”

As the door slammed, the phone rang. It was Don. “I got us a table at Masa’s,” he said.

Judy sighed. Masa’s was very swanky. “Don, I hate to let you down, but I’d rather not.”

“Are you serious? I practically had to offer my sister’s body to the maître d’ to get a table at this short notice.”

“I don’t feel like celebrating. Bad stuff happened at the office today.” She told him about Lestrange getting cancer and Kincaid giving her a dumb-ass assignment. “So I’m quitting the Bureau.”

Don was shocked. “I don’t believe it! You love the FBI.”

“I used to.”

“This is terrible!”

“Not so terrible. It’s time for me to make some money, anyway. I was a hotshot at law school, you know. I got better grades than a couple of people who are earning fortunes now.”

“Sure, help a murderer beat the rap, write a book about it, make a million dollars … Is this you? Am I speaking to Judy Maddox? Hello?”

“I don’t know, Don, but with all this on my mind, I’m not in the mood to go out on the town.”

There was a pause. Judy knew that Don was resigning himself to the inevitable. After a moment he said: “Okay, but you have to make it up to me. Tomorrow?”

Judy did not have the energy to fence with him anymore. “Sure,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She hung up.

She turned on the TV and looked in the fridge, thinking about dinner. But she did not feel hungry. She took out a can of beer and opened it. She watched TV for three or four minutes before realizing the show was in Spanish. She decided she did not want the beer. She turned off the TV and poured the beer down the sink.

She thought about going to Everton’s, the FBI agents’ favorite bar. She liked to hang out there, drinking beer and eating hamburgers and swapping war stories. But she was not sure she would be welcome now, especially if Kincaid was there. She was already beginning to feel like an outsider.

She decided to write her résumé. She would go into the office and do it on her computer. Better to be out doing something than sitting at home getting cabin fever.

She picked up her gun, then hesitated. Agents were on duty twenty-four hours a day and were obliged to be armed except in court, inside a jail, or at the office. But if I’m no longer an agent, I don’t have to go armed. Then she changed her mind. Hell, if I see a robbery in progress and I have to drive on by because I left my weapon at home, I’m going to feel pretty stupid.

It was a standard-issue FBI weapon, a SIG-Sauer P228 pistol. It normally held thirteen rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, but Judy always racked back the slide and chambered the first bullet, then removed the clip and added an extra round, making fourteen. She also had a Remington model 870 five-chamber shotgun. Like all agents, she did firearms training once a month, usually at the sheriff’s range in Santa Rita. Her marksmanship was tested four times a year. The qualification course never gave her any trouble: she had a good eye and a steady hand, and her reflexes were quick.

Like most agents, she had never fired her gun except in training.

FBI agents were investigators. They were highly educated and well paid. They did not dress for combat. It was perfectly normal to go through an entire twenty-five-year career with the Bureau and never get involved in a shoot-out or even a fistfight. But they had to be ready for it.

Judy put her weapon into a shoulder bag. She was wearing the ao dai, a traditional Vietnamese garment like a long blouse, with a little upright collar and side slits, always worn over baggy pants. It was her favorite casual wear because it was so comfortable, but she knew it also looked good on her: the white material showed off her shoulder-length black hair and honey-colored skin, and the close-fitting blouse flattered her petite figure. She would not normally wear it to the office, but it was late in the evening, and anyway she had resigned.

She went outside. Her Chevrolet Monte Carlo was parked at the curb. It was an FBI car, and she would not be sorry to lose it. When she was a defense lawyer she could get something more exciting — a little European sports car, maybe, a Porsche or an MG.

Her father’s house was in the Richmond neighborhood. It was not very swanky, but an honest cop never got rich. Judy took the Geary Expressway downtown. Rush hour was over and traffic was light, so she was at the Federal Building in a few minutes. She parked in the underground garage and took the elevator to the twelfth floor.

Now that she was leaving the Bureau, the office took on a cozy familiarity that made her feel nostalgic. The gray carpet, the neatly numbered rooms, the desks and files and computers, all spoke of a powerful, well-resourced organization, confident and dedicated. There were a few people working late. She entered the office of the Asian Organized Crime squad. The room was empty. She turned on the lights, sat at her desk, and booted up her computer.

When she thought about writing her résumé, her mind went blank.

There was not much to say about her life before the FBI: just school and two dull years in the legal department of Mutual American Insurance. She needed to give a clear account of her ten years in the Bureau, showing how she had succeeded and progressed. But instead of an ordered narrative, her memory produced a disjointed series of flashbacks: the serial rapist who had thanked her, from the dock, for putting him in jail where he could do no more harm; a company called Holy Bible Investments that had robbed dozens of elderly widows of their savings; the time she had found herself alone in a room with an armed man who had kidnapped two small children, and she had persuaded him to give her his gun …

She could hardly tell Brooks Fielding about those moments. They wanted Perry Mason, not Wyatt Earp.

She decided to write her formal letter of resignation first.

She put the date, then typed: “To the Acting Special Agent in Charge.”

She wrote: “Dear Brian: This is to confirm my resignation.”

It hurt.

She had given ten years of her life to the FBI. Other women had got married and had children, or started their own business, or written a novel, or sailed around the world. She had dedicated herself to being a terrific agent. Now she was throwing it all away. The thought brought tears to her eyes. What kind of an idiot am I, sitting alone in my office crying to my damn computer?

Then Simon Sparrow came in.

He was a heavily muscled man with neat short hair and a mustache. He was a year or two older than Judy. Like her, he was dressed casually, in tan chinos and a short-sleeved sports shirt. He had a doctorate in linguistics and had spent five years with the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. His specialty was threat analysis.

He liked Judy and she liked him. With the men in the office he talked men’s talk, football and guns and cars, but when he was alone with Judy he noticed and commented on her outfits and her jewelry the way a girlfriend would.

He had a file in his hand. “Your earthquake threat is fascinating,” he said, his eyes glowing with enthusiasm.

She blew her nose. He had surely seen that she was upset, but he was tactfully pretending not to notice.

He went on: “I was going to leave this on your desk, but I’m glad I’ve caught you.”

He had obviously been working late to finish his report, and Judy did not want to deflate his keenness by telling him she was quitting. “Take a seat,” she said, composing herself.

“Congratulations on winning your case today!”

“Thanks.”

“You must be so pleased.”

“I should be. But I had a fight with Brian Kincaid right afterward.”

“Oh, him.” Simon dismissed their boss with a flap of his hand. “If you apologize nicely, he’ll have to forgive you. He can’t afford to lose you, you’re too good.”

That was unexpected. Simon was normally more sympathetic. It was almost as if he had known beforehand. But if he knew about the fight, he knew she had resigned. So why had he brought her the report?

Intrigued, she said: “Tell me about your analysis of the threat.”

“It had me mystified for a while.” He handed her a printout of the message as it had originally appeared on the Internet bulletin board. “Quantico were puzzled, too,” he added. He would have automatically consulted the Behavioral Science Unit on this, Judy knew.

She had seen the message before: it was in the file Matt Peters had handed her earlier today. She studied it again.

It did not tell her much, but she knew that Simon would mine every word and comma for meaning.

“What do you make of it?” he asked.

She thought for a minute. “I see a nerdy young student with greasy hair, wearing a washed-out Guns n’ Roses T-shirt, sitting at his computer fantasizing about making the world obey him, instead of ignoring him the way it always has.”

“Well, that’s about as wrong as could be,” Simon said with a smile. “He’s an uneducated low-income man in his forties.”

Judy shook her head in amazement. She was always astonished by the way Simon drew conclusions from evidence she could not even see. “How do you know?”

“The vocabulary and sentence structure. Look at the salutation. Affluent people don’t start a letter with ‘Hi,’ they put ‘Dear Sir.’ And college graduates generally avoid double negatives such as ‘you never do nothing.’ ”

Judy nodded. “So you’re looking for Joe Bluecollar, aged forty-five. That sounds pretty straightforward. What puzzled you?”

“Contradictory indications. Other elements in the message suggest a young middle-class woman. The spelling is perfect. There’s a semicolon in the first sentence, which indicates some education. And the number of exclamation points suggests a female — sorry, Judy, but it’s the truth.”

“How do you know she’s young?”

“Older writers are more likely to use initial capital letters for a phrase such as ‘state governor’ and hyphenate words such as ‘offshoot’ that young writers run together to make one word. Also, the use of a computer and the Internet suggest someone both young and educated.”

She studied Simon. Was he deliberately getting her interested to stop her from resigning? If he was, it wouldn’t work. Once she had made a decision, she hated to change her mind. But she was fascinated by the mystery Simon had posed. “Are you about to tell me this message was written by someone with a split personality?”

“Nope. Simpler than that. It was written by two people: the man dictating, the woman typing.”

“Clever!” Judy was beginning to see a picture of the two individuals behind this threat. Like a hunting dog that scents game, she was tense, alert, the anticipation of the chase already thrilling in her veins. I can smell these people, I want to know where they are, I’m sure I can catch them.

But I’ve resigned.

“I ask myself why he dictates,” Simon said. “It might come naturally to a corporate executive who was used to having a secretary, but this is just a regular guy.”

Simon spoke casually, as if this were just idle speculation, but Judy knew that his intuitions were often inspired. “Any theories?”

“I wonder if he’s illiterate?”

“He could simply be lazy.”

“True.” Simon shrugged. “I just have a hunch.”

“All right,” Judy said. “You’ve got a nice college girl who is somehow in the thrall of a street guy. Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. She’s probably in danger, but is anyone else? The threat of an earthquake just doesn’t seem real.”

Simon shook his head. “I think we have to take it seriously.”

Judy could not contain her curiosity. “Why?”

“As you know, we analyze threats according to motivation, intent, and target selection.”

Judy nodded. This was basic stuff.

“Motivation is either emotional or practical. In other words, is the perpetrator doing this just to make himself feel good, or because he wants something?”

Judy thought the answer was pretty obvious. “On the face of it, these people have a specific goal. They want the state to stop building power plants.”

“Right. And that means they don’t really want to hurt anyone. They hope to achieve their aims just by making a threat.”

“Whereas the emotional types would rather kill people.”

“Exactly. Next, intent is either political, criminal, or mentally disturbed.”

“Political, in this case, at least on the surface.”

“Right. Political ideas can be a pretext for an act that is basically insane, but I don’t get that feeling here, do you?”

Judy saw where he was heading. “You’re trying to tell me these people are rational. But it’s insane to threaten an earthquake!”

“I’ll come back to that, okay? Finally, target selection is either specific or random. Trying to kill the president is specific; going berserk with a machine gun in Disneyland is random. Taking the earthquake threat seriously, just for the sake of argument, it would obviously kill a lot of people indiscriminately, so it’s random.”

Judy leaned forward. “All right, you’ve got practical intent, political motivation, and random targeting. What does that tell you?”

“The textbook says these people are either bargaining or seeking publicity. I say they’re bargaining. If they wanted publicity, they wouldn’t have chosen to put their message on an obscure bulletin board on the Internet — they would have gone for TV or the newspapers. But they didn’t. So I think they simply wanted to communicate with the governor.”

“They’re naive if they think the governor reads his messages.”

“I agree. These people display an odd combination of sophistication and ignorance.”

“But they’re serious.”

“Yeah, and I’ve got another reason for believing that. Their demand — for a freeze on new power plants — isn’t the kind of thing you would choose for a pretext. It’s too down-to-earth. If you were making it up, you’d go for something splashy, like a ban on air-conditioning in Beverly Hills.”

“So who the hell are these people?”

“We don’t know. The typical terrorist shows an escalating pattern. He begins with threatening phone calls and anonymous letters; then he writes to the newspapers and TV stations; then he starts hanging around government buildings, fantasizing. By the time he shows up for the White House tour with a Saturday night special in a plastic shopping bag, we’ve got quite a lot of his work on the FBI computer. But not this one. I’ve had the linguistic fingerprint checked against all past terrorist threats on record at Quantico, but there’s no match. These people are new.”

“So we know nothing about them?”

“We know plenty. They live in California, obviously.”

“How do you know that?”

“The message is addressed ‘To the state governor.’ If they were in another state, they would send it ‘To the governor of California.’ ”

“What else?”

“They’re Americans, and there’s no indication of any particular ethnic group: their language shows no characteristically black, Asian, or Hispanic features.”

“You left out one thing,” Judy told him.

“What?”

“They’re crazy.”

He shook his head.

Judy said: “Simon, come on! They think they can cause an earthquake. They have to be crazy!”

He said stubbornly: “I don’t know anything about seismology, but I know psychology, and I’m not comfortable with the theory that these people are out of their minds. They’re sane, serious, and focused. And that means they’re dangerous.”

“I don’t buy it.”

He stood up. “I’m beat. Want to go for a beer?”

“Not tonight, Simon — but thanks. And thanks for the report. You’re the best.”

“You bet. So long.”

Judy put her feet up on her desk and studied her shoes. She was sure now that Simon had been trying to persuade her not to resign. Kincaid might think this was a bullshit case, but Simon’s message was that the Hammer of Eden might be a genuine threat, a group that really needed to be tracked down and put out of action.

In which case her career at the FBI was not necessarily over. She could make a triumph of a case that had been given to her as a deliberate insult. That would make her seem brilliant at the same time as it made Kincaid appear dumb. The prospect was enticing.

She put her feet down and looked at her screen. Because she had not touched the keys for a while, her screen saver had come on. It was a photograph of her at the age of seven, with gaps in her teeth and a plastic clip holding her hair back off her forehead. She was sitting on her father’s knee. He was still a patrolman then, wearing the uniform of a San Francisco cop. She had taken his cap and was trying to put it on her own head. The picture had been taken by her mother.

She imagined herself working for Brooks Fielding, driving a Porsche, and going to court to defend people like the Foong brothers.

She touched the space bar and the screen saver disappeared. In its place she saw the words she had written: “Dear Brian: This is to confirm my resignation.” Her hands hovered over the keyboard. After a long pause, she spoke aloud. “Aw, hell,” she said. Then she erased the sentence and wrote: “I would like to apologize for my rudeness …”

3

The Tuesday morning sun was coming up over I-80. Priest’s 1971 Plymouth ’Cuda headed for San Francisco, its built-in roar making fifty-five miles per hour sound like ninety.

He had bought the car new, at the height of his business career. Then, when his wholesale drinks business collapsed and the IRS was about to arrest him, he had fled with nothing but the clothes he stood up in — a navy business suit, as it happened, with broad lapels and flared pants — and his car. He still had both.

During the hippie era, the only cool car to own was a Volkswagen Beetle. Driving the bright yellow ’Cuda, Priest looked like a pimp, Star used to tell him. So they gave it a trippy paint job: planets on the roof, flowers on the trunk lid, and an Indian goddess on the hood with eight arms trailing over the fenders, all in purple and pink and turquoise. In twenty-five years the colors had faded to a mottled brown, but you could still make out the design if you looked closely. And now the car was a collectible.

He had set out at three A.M. Melanie had slept all the way. She lay with her head in his lap, her fabulously long legs folded on the worn black upholstery. As he drove, he toyed with her hair. She had sixties hair, long and straight with a part in the middle, although she had been born around the time the Beatles split up.

The kid was asleep, too, lying full length on the backseat, mouth open. Priest’s German shepherd dog, Spirit, lay beside him. The dog was quiet, but every time Priest looked back at him he had one eye open.

Priest felt anxious.

He told himself he should feel good. This was like the old days. In his youth he always had something going, some scam, a project, a plan to make money or steal money or have a party or start a riot. Then he discovered peace. But sometimes he felt that life had become too peaceful. Stealing the seismic vibrator had revived his old self. He felt more alive now, with a pretty girl beside him and a battle of wits ahead, than he had for years.

All the same, he was worried.

He had stuck his neck all the way out. He had boasted that he could bend the governor of California to his will, and he had promised an earthquake. If he failed, he would be finished. He would lose everything that was dear to him. And if he was caught, he would be in jail until he was an old man.

But he was extraordinary. He had always known he was not like other people. The rules did not apply to him. He did things no one else thought of.

And he was already halfway to his goal. He had stolen a seismic vibrator. He had killed a man for it, but he had gotten away with the murder: there had been no repercussions except for occasional nightmares in which Mario got out of his burning pickup, with his clothes alight and fresh blood pouring from his smashed head, and came staggering after Priest.

The truck was now hidden in a lonely valley in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Today Priest was going to find out exactly where to place it so as to cause an earthquake.

And Melanie’s husband was going to give him that information.

Michael Quercus knew more than anyone else in the world about the San Andreas fault, according to Melanie. His accumulated data was stored on his computer. Priest wanted to steal his backup disk.

And he had to make sure that Michael would never know what had happened.

For that, he needed Melanie. Which was why he was worried. He had known her only a few weeks. In that short time he had become the dominant person in her life, he knew; but he had never put her through a test like this. And she had been married to Michael for six years. She might suddenly regret leaving her husband; she might realize how much she missed the dishwasher and the TV; she might be struck by the danger and the illegality of what she and Priest were doing; there was no telling what might happen to someone as bitter and confused and troubled as Melanie.

In the rear seat, her five-year-old son woke up.

Spirit, the dog, moved first, and Priest heard the click of his claws on the plastic of the seat. Then there was a childish yawn.

Dustin, known as Dusty, was an unlucky boy. He suffered from multiple allergies. Priest had not yet seen one of his attacks, but Melanie had described them: Dusty sneezed uncontrollably, his eyes bulged, and he broke out in itchy skin rashes. She carried powerful suppressing drugs, but she said they mitigated the symptoms only partially.

Now Dusty started to fret.

“Mommy, I’m thirsty,” he said.

Melanie came awake. She sat upright, stretching, and Priest glanced at the outline of her breasts in the skimpy T-shirt she wore. She turned around and said: “Drink some water, Dusty, you have a bottle right there.”

“I don’t want water,” he whined. “I want orange juice.”

“We don’t have any goddamn juice,” she snapped.

Dusty started to cry.

Melanie was a nervous mother, frightened of doing the wrong thing. She was obsessive about her son’s health, so she was overprotective, but at the same time, her tension made her cranky with him. She felt sure her husband would one day try to take the boy away from her, so she was terrified of doing anything that would enable him to call her a bad mother.

Priest took charge. He said: “Hey, whoa, what the heck is that coming up behind us?” He made himself sound really scared.

Melanie looked around. “It’s just a truck.”

“That’s what you think. It’s disguised as a truck, but really it’s a Centaurian fighter spacecraft with photon torpedoes. Dusty, I need you to tap three times on the rear window to raise our invisible magnetic armor. Quick!”

Dusty tapped on the window.

“Now, we’ll know he’s firing his torpedoes if we see an orange light flashing on his port fender. You better watch for that, Dusty.”

The truck was closing on them fast, and a minute later its left side indicator flashed and it pulled out to pass them.

Dusty said: “It’s firing, it’s firing!”

“Okay, I’ll try to hold the magnetic armor while you fire back! That water bottle is actually a laser gun!”

Dusty pointed the bottle at the truck and made zapping noises. Spirit joined in, barking furiously at the truck as it passed. Melanie started to laugh.

When the truck pulled back into the slow lane ahead of them, Priest said: “Whew. We were lucky to come out of that in one piece. I think they’ve given up for now.”

“Will there be any more Centaurians?” Dusty asked eagerly.

“You and Spirit keep watch out the back and let me know what you see, okay?”

“Okay.”

Melanie smiled and said quietly: “Thanks. You’re so good with him.”

I’m good with everyone: men, women, children, and pets. I got charisma. I wasn’t born with it — I learned. It’s just a way of making people do what you want. Anything from persuading a faithful wife to commit adultery, all the way down to getting a scratchy kid to stop whining. All you need is charm.

“Let me know what exit to take,” Priest said.

“Just watch for signs to Berkeley.”

She did not know he could not read. “There’s probably more than one. Just tell me where to turn.”

A few minutes later they left the freeway and entered the leafy university town. Priest could feel Melanie’s tension rise. He knew that all her rage against society and her disappointment with life somehow centered on this man she had left six months ago. She directed Priest through the intersections to Euclid Avenue, a street of modest houses and apartment buildings probably rented by graduate students and younger faculty.

“I still think I should go in alone,” she said.

It was out of the question. Melanie was not steady enough. Priest could not rely on her when he was beside her, so there was no way he would trust her alone. “No,” he said.

“Maybe I—”

He allowed a flash of anger to show. “No!”

“Okay, okay,” she said hastily. She bit her lip.

Dusty said excitedly: “Hey, this is where Daddy lives!”

“That’s right, honey,” Melanie said. She pointed to a low-rise stucco apartment building, and Priest parked outside it.

Melanie turned to Dusty, but Priest forestalled her. “He stays in the car.”

“I’m not sure how safe—”

“He’s got the dog.”

“He might get scared.”

Priest twisted around to speak to Dusty. “Hey, Lieutenant, I need you and Ensign Spirit to stand guard over our spacecraft while First Officer Mom and I go inside the spaceport.”

“Am I going to see Daddy?”

“Of course. But I’d like a few minutes with him first. Think you can handle the guard duty assignment?”

“You bet!”

“In the space navy, you have to say ‘Aye, sir!’ not ‘You bet.’ ”

“Aye, sir!”

“Very good. Carry on.” Priest got out of the car.

Melanie got out, but she still looked troubled. “For Christ’s sake, don’t let Michael know we left his kid in the car,” she said.

Priest did not reply. You might be afraid of offending Michael, baby, but I don’t give a flying fuck.

Melanie took her purse off the seat and slung it over her shoulder. They walked up the path to the building door. Melanie pressed the entry phone buzzer and held it down.

Her husband was a night owl, she had told Priest. He liked to work in the evening and sleep late. That was why they had chosen to get here before seven o’clock in the morning. Priest hoped Michael would be too bleary-eyed to wonder whether their visit had a hidden purpose. If he got suspicious, stealing his disk might be impossible.

Melanie said he was a workaholic, Priest recalled as they waited for Michael to answer. He spent his days driving all over California, checking the instruments that measured small geological movements in the San Andreas and other faults, and the nights inputting the data into his computer.

But what had finally driven her to leave him was an incident with Dusty. She and the child had been vegetarian for two years, and they would eat only organic food and health store products. Melanie believed the strict diet reduced Dusty’s allergy attacks, although Michael was skeptical. Then one day she had discovered that Michael had bought Dusty a hamburger. To her, that was like poisoning the child. She still shook with fury when she told the story. She had left that night, taking Dusty with her.

Priest thought she might be right about the allergy attacks. The commune had been vegetarian ever since the early seventies, when vegetarianism was eccentric. At the time Priest had doubted the value of the diet but had been in favor of a discipline that set them apart from the world outside. Their grapes were grown without chemicals simply because they had been unable to afford sprays, so they had made a virtue of necessity and called their wine organic, which turned out to be a strong selling point. But he could not help noticing that after a quarter century of this life the communards were a remarkably healthy bunch. It was rare for them to have a medical emergency they could not cope with themselves. So he was now convinced. But, unlike Melanie, he was not obsessive about diet. He still liked fish, and now and again he would unintentionally eat meat in a soup or a sandwich and would shrug it off. But if Melanie discovered that her mushroom omelet had been cooked in bacon fat, she would throw up.

A grouchy voice came through the intercom. “Who is it?”

“Melanie.”

There was a buzz, and the building door opened. Priest followed Melanie inside and up the stairs. An apartment was open on the second floor. Michael Quercus stood in the doorway.

Priest was surprised by his appearance. He had been expecting a weedy professorial type, probably bald, wearing brown clothes. Quercus was around thirty-five. Tall and athletic, he had a head of short black curls and the shadow of a heavy beard on his cheeks. He wore only a towel around his waist, so Priest could see that he had broad, well-muscled shoulders and a flat belly. They must have made a handsome couple.

As Melanie reached the top of the stairs, Michael said: “I’ve been very worried — where the hell have you been?”

Melanie said: “Can’t you put some clothes on?”

“You didn’t say you had company,” he replied coolly. He stayed in the doorway. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Priest could see he was barely controlling his stored-up rage.

“I’m here to explain,” Melanie said. She was enjoying Michael’s fury. What a screwed-up marriage. “This is my friend Priest. May we come in?”

Michael stared at her angrily. “This had better be pretty fucking good, Melanie.” He turned his back and walked inside.

Melanie and Priest followed him into a small hallway. He opened the bathroom door, took a dark blue cotton robe off a hook, and slipped into it, taking his time. He discarded his towel and tied the belt. Then he led them into the living room.

This was clearly his office. As well as a couch and a TV set, there was a computer screen and keyboard on the table and a row of electronic machines with blinking lights on a deep shelf. Somewhere in those bland pale gray boxes was stored the information Priest needed. He felt tantalized. There was no way he could get at it unaided. He had to depend on Melanie.

One wall was entirely taken up with a huge map. “What the hell is that?” Priest said.

Michael just gave him a who-the-fuck-are-you look and said nothing, but Melanie answered the question. “It’s the San Andreas fault.” She pointed. “Beginning at Point Arena lighthouse a hundred miles north of here in Mendocino County, all the way south and east, past Los Angeles and inland to San Bernardino. A crack in the earth’s crust, seven hundred miles long.”

Melanie had explained Michael’s work to Priest. His specialty was the calculation of pressure at different places along seismic faults. It was partly a matter of precise measurement of small movements in the earth’s crust, partly a question of estimating the accumulated energy based on the lapse of time since the last earthquake. His work had won him academic prizes. But a year ago he had quit the university to start his own business, a consultancy offering advice on earthquake hazards to construction firms and insurance companies.

Melanie was a computer wizard and had helped Michael devise his setup. She had programmed his machine to back up every day between four A.M. and six A.M., when he was asleep. Everything on his computer, she had explained to Priest, was copied onto an optical disk. When he switched on his screen in the morning, he would take the disk out of the disk drive and put it in a fireproof box. That way, if his computer crashed or the house burned down, his precious data would not be lost.

It was a wonder to Priest that information about the San Andreas fault could be kept on a little disk, but then books were just as much of a mystery. He simply had to accept what he was told. The important thing was that with Michael’s disk Melanie would be able to tell Priest where to place the seismic vibrator.

Now they just had to get Michael out of the room long enough for Melanie to snatch the disk from the optical drive.

“Tell me, Michael,” Priest said. “All this stuff.” He indicated the map and the computers with a wave of his hand, then fixed Michael with the Look. “How does it make you feel?”

Most people got flustered when Priest gave them the Look and asked them a personal question. Sometimes they gave a revealing answer because they were so disconcerted. But Michael seemed immune. He just looked blankly at Priest and said: “It doesn’t make me feel anything, I use it.” Then he turned to Melanie and said: “Now, are you going to tell me why you disappeared?”

Arrogant prick.

“It’s very simple,” she said. “A friend offered me and Dusty the use of her cabin in the mountains.” Priest had told her not to say which mountains. “It was a late cancellation of a rental.” Her tone of voice indicated that she did not see why she had to explain something so simple. “We can’t afford vacations, so I grabbed at the chance.”

That was when Priest had met her. She and Dusty had been wandering in the forest and got completely lost. Melanie was a city girl and could not even find her way by the sun. Priest was out on his own that day, fishing for sockeye salmon. It was a perfect spring afternoon, sunny and mild. He had been sitting on the bank of a stream, smoking a joint, when he heard a child crying.

He knew it was not one of the commune children, whose voices he would have recognized. Following the sound, he found Dusty and Melanie. She was close to tears. When she saw Priest she said: “Thank God, I thought we were going to die out here!”

He had stared at her for a long moment. She was a little weird, with her long red hair and green eyes, but in the cutoff jeans and a halter top she looked good enough to eat. It was magical, coming across a damsel in distress like that when he was alone in the wilderness. If it had not been for the kid, Priest would have tried to lay her right then and there, on the springy mattress of fallen pine needles beside the splashing stream.

That was when he had asked her if she was from Mars. “No,” she said, “Oakland.”

Priest knew where the vacation cabins were. He picked up his fishing rod and led her through the forest, following the trails and ridges that were so familiar to him. It was a long walk, and on the way he talked to her, asking sympathetic questions, giving his engaging grin now and again, and found out all about her.

She was a woman in deep trouble.

She had left her husband and moved in with the bass guitarist in a hot rock band; but the bassist had thrown her out after a few weeks. She had no one to turn to: her father was dead, and her mother lived in New York with a guy who had tried to get into bed with Melanie the one night she had slept at their apartment. She had exhausted the hospitality of her friends and borrowed all the money they could afford to lend. Her career was a washout, and she was working in a supermarket, stacking shelves, leaving Dusty with a neighbor all day. She lived in a slum that was so dirty, it gave the kid constant allergy attacks. She needed to move to a place with clean air, but she could not find a job outside the city. She was up a blind alley and desperate. She had been trying to calculate the exact overdose of sleeping pills that would kill her and the child when a girlfriend had offered her this vacation.

Priest liked people in trouble. He knew how to relate to them. All you had to do was offer them what they needed, and they became your slaves. He was uncomfortable with confident, self-sufficient types: they were too hard to control.

By the time they reached the cabin it was suppertime. Melanie made pasta and salad, then put Dusty to bed. When the child was asleep, Priest seduced her on the rug. She was frantic with desire. All her pent-up emotional charge was released by sex, and she made love as if it were her last chance ever, scratching his back and biting his shoulders and pulling him deep inside her as if she wanted to swallow him up. It was the most exciting encounter Priest could remember.

Now her supercilious handsome-professor husband was complaining. “That was five weeks ago. You can’t just take my son and disappear without even a phone call!”

“You could have called me.”

“I didn’t know where you were!”

“I have a mobile.”

“I tried. I couldn’t get an answer.”

“The service was cut off because you didn’t pay the bill. You’re supposed to pay it, we agreed.”

“I was a couple of days late, that’s all! They must have turned it back on.”

“Well, you called when it was cut off, I guess.”

This family row was not bringing Priest closer to that disk, he fretted. Got to get Michael out of the room, some way, any way. He interrupted to say: “Why don’t we all have some coffee?” He wanted Michael to go into the kitchen to make it.

Michael jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Help yourself,” he said brusquely.

Shit.

Michael turned back to Melanie. “It doesn’t matter why I couldn’t reach you. I couldn’t. That’s why you have to call me before taking Dusty away on vacation.”

Melanie said: “Listen, Michael, there’s something I haven’t told you yet.”

Michael looked exasperated, then sighed and said: “Sit down, why don’t you.” He sat behind his desk.

Melanie sank into a corner of the couch, folding her legs beneath her in a familiar way that made Priest think this had been her regular seat. Priest perched on the arm of the couch, not wanting to sit lower than Michael. I can’t even figure out which of those machines is the disk drive. Come on, Melanie, lose the damn husband!

Michael’s tone of voice suggested he had been through scenes like this with Melanie before. “All right, make your pitch,” he said wearily. “What is it this time?”

“I’m going to move to the mountains, permanently. I’m living with Priest and a bunch of people.”

“Where?”

Priest answered that question. He did not want Michael to know where they lived. “It’s in Humboldt County.” That was in redwood country at the northern end of California. In fact the commune was in Sierra County, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, near the eastern border of the state. Both were far from Berkeley.

Michael was outraged. “You can’t take Dusty to live hundreds of miles away from his father!”

“There’s a reason,” Melanie persisted. “In the last five weeks, Dusty hasn’t had a single allergy attack. He’s healthy in the mountains, Michael.”

Priest added: “It’s probably the pure air and water. No pollution.”

Michael was skeptical. “It’s the desert, not the mountains, that normally suits people with allergies.”

“Don’t talk to me about normally!” Melanie flared. “I can’t go to the desert — I don’t have any money. This is the only place I can afford where Dusty can be healthy!”

“Is Priest paying your rent?”

Go ahead, asshole, insult me, talk about me like I’m not here; and I’ll just carry on fucking your sexy wife.

Melanie said: “It’s a commune.”

“Jesus, Melanie, what kind of people have you fallen in with now? First a junkie guitar player—”

“Wait a minute, Blade was not a junkie—”

“—now a godforsaken hippie commune!”

Melanie was so involved in this quarrel that she had forgotten why they were here. The disk, Melanie, the damn disk! Priest interrupted again. “Why don’t you ask Dusty how he feels about this, Michael?”

“I will.”

Melanie shot Priest a despairing look.

He ignored her. “Dusty’s right outside, in my car.”

Michael flushed with anger. “You left my son outside in the car?”

“He’s okay, my dog’s with him.”

Michael glared furiously at Melanie. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted.

Priest said: “Why don’t you just go and get him?”

“I don’t need your fucking permission to get my own son. Give me the car keys.”

“It’s not locked,” Priest said mildly.

Michael stormed out.

“I told you not to tell him Dusty was outside!” Melanie wailed. “Why did you do it?”

“To get him out of the goddamn room,” Priest said. “Now grab that disk.”

“But you’ve made him so mad!”

“He was angry already!” This was no good, Priest realized. She might be too frightened to do what was needed. He stood up. He took her hands, pulled her upright, and gave her the Look. “You don’t have to be afraid of him. You’re with me now. I take care of you. Be cool. Say your mantra.”

“But—”

“Say it.”

“Lat hoo, dat soo.”

“Keep saying it.”

“Lat hoo, dat soo, lat hoo, dat soo.” She became calmer.

“Now get the disk.”

She nodded. Still saying her mantra under her breath, she bent over the row of machines on the shelf. She pressed a button and a flat plastic square popped out of a slot.

Priest had noticed before that “disks” were always square in the world of computers.

She opened her purse and took out another disk that looked similar. “Shit!” she said.

“What?” Priest said worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s changed his brand!”

Priest looked at the two disks. They seemed the same to him. “What’s the difference?”

“Look, mine is a Sony, but Michael’s is a Philips.”

“Will he notice?”

“He might.”

“Damn.” It was vital that Michael did not know his data had been stolen.

“He’ll probably start work as soon as we’ve gone. He’ll eject the disk and swap it with the one in the fireproof box, and if he looks at them, he’ll see they’re different.”

“And he’s sure to connect that with us.” Priest felt a surge of panic. It was all turning to shit.

Melanie said: “I could buy a Philips disk and come back another day.”

Priest shook his head. “I don’t want to do this again. We might fail again. And we’re running out of time. The deadline is three days away. Does he keep spare disks?”

“He should. Sometimes a disk gets corrupted.” She looked around. “I wonder where they are.” She stood in the middle of the floor, helpless.

Priest could have screamed with frustration. He had dreaded something like this. Melanie had completely gone to pieces, and they had only a minute or two. He had to get her calmed down fast. “Melanie,” he said, struggling to make his voice low and reassuring, “you have two disks in your hand. Put them both in your purse.”

She obeyed him automatically.

“Now close your purse.”

She did that.

Priest heard the building door slam. Michael was on his way back. Priest felt perspiration break out in the small of his back. “Think: when you were living here, did Michael have a stationery cupboard?”

“Yes. Well, a drawer.”

“Well?” Wake up, girl! “Where is it?”

She pointed to a cheap white chest against the wall.

Priest yanked open the top drawer. He saw a package of yellow pads, a box of cheap ballpoints, a couple of reams of white paper, some envelopes — and an open box of disks.

He heard Dusty’s voice. It seemed to come from the vestibule at the entrance to the apartment.

With shaking fingers, he fumbled a disk out of the packet and handed it to Melanie. “Will this do?”

“Yes, it’s a Philips.”

Priest closed the drawer.

Michael walked in with Dusty in his arms.

Melanie stood frozen with the disk in her hand.

For God’s sake, Melanie, do something!

Dusty was saying: “And you know what, Daddy? I didn’t sneeze in the mountains.”

Michael’s attention was fixed on Dusty. “How about that?” he said.

Melanie regained her composure. As Michael bent to put Dusty down on the couch, she stooped over the disk drive and slid the disk into the slot. The machine whirred softly and drew it in, like a snake eating a rat.

“You didn’t sneeze?” Michael said to Dusty. “Not once?”

“Uh-uh.”

Melanie straightened up. Michael had not seen what she did.

Priest closed his eyes. The relief was overwhelming. They had got away with it. They had Michael’s data — and he would never know.

Michael said: “That dog doesn’t make you sneeze?”

“No, Spirit is a clean dog. Priest makes him wash in the stream, and then he comes out and shakes himself and it’s like a rainstorm!” Dusty laughed with pleasure as he remembered.

“Is that right?” his father said.

Melanie said: “I told you, Michael.”

Her voice sounded shaky, but Michael did not seem to notice. “All right, all right,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “If it makes such a difference to Dusty’s health, we’ll just have to work something out.”

She looked relieved. “Thanks.”

Priest allowed himself the ghost of a smile. It was all over. His plan had moved another crucial step forward.

Now they just had to hope that Michael’s computer did not crash. If that happened, and he tried to retrieve his data from the optical disk, he would discover that it was blank. But Melanie said that crashes were rare. In all probability there would be no crash today. And tonight the computer would back up again, overwriting the blank disk with Michael’s data. By this time tomorrow it would be impossible to tell that a switch had been made.

Michael said: “Well, at least you came here to talk about it. I appreciate that.”

Melanie would much rather have dealt with her husband on the phone, Priest knew. But her move to the commune was a perfect pretext for visiting Michael. He and Melanie could never have paid a casual social call on her husband without making him suspicious. But this way it would not occur to Michael to wonder why they had come.

In fact, Michael was not the suspicious type, Priest felt sure. He was brainy but guileless. He had no ability to look beneath the surface and see what was really going on in the heart of another human being.

Priest himself had that ability in spades.

Melanie was saying: “I’ll bring Dusty to see you as often as you like. I’ll drive down.”

Priest could see into her heart. She was being nice to Michael, now that he had given her what she wanted — she had her head to one side, and she was smiling prettily at him — but she did not love him, not anymore.

Michael was different. He was angry with her for leaving him, that was clear. But he still cared for her. He was not over her yet, not quite. A part of him still wanted her back. He would have asked her, but he was too proud.

Priest felt jealous.

I hate you, Michael.

4

Judy woke up early on Tuesday wondering if she had a job.

Yesterday she had said: “I quit.” But she had been angry and frustrated. Today she was sure she did not want to leave the FBI. The prospect of spending her life defending criminals, instead of catching them, depressed her. Had she changed her mind too late? Last night she had left a note on Brian Kincaid’s desk. Would he accept her apology? Or would he insist on her resignation?

Bo came in at six A.M. and she warmed up some pho, the noodle soup that the Vietnamese ate for breakfast. Then she dressed in her smartest outfit, a dark blue Armani suit with a short skirt. On a good day it made her sophisticated, authoritative, and sexy all at the same time. If I’m going to be fired, I might as well look like someone they’ll miss.

She was stiff with tension as she drove to work. She parked in the garage beneath the Federal Building and took the elevator to the FBI floor. She went straight to the SAC’s office.

Brian Kincaid was behind the big desk, wearing a white shirt with red suspenders. He looked up at her. “Good morning,” he said coldly.

“Morn—” Her mouth was dry. She swallowed and started again. “Good morning, Brian. Did you get my note?”

“Yes, I did.”

Obviously he wasn’t going to make this any easier for her.

She could not think what else to say, so she simply looked at him and waited.

Eventually he said: “Your apology is accepted.”

She felt weak with relief. “Thank you.”

“You can move your personal stuff into the Domestic Terrorism squad room.”

“Okay.” There were worse fates, she reflected. There were several people she liked in the DT squad. She began to relax.

Kincaid said: “Get to work on the Hammer of Eden case right away. We need something to tell the governor.”

Judy was surprised. “You’re seeing the governor?”

“His cabinet secretary.” He checked a note on his desk. “A Mr. Albert Honeymoon.”

“I’ve heard of him.” Honeymoon was the governor’s right-hand man. The case had taken on a higher profile, Judy realized.

“Let me have a report by tomorrow night.”

That hardly gave her time to make progress, given how little she had to begin with. Tomorrow was Wednesday. “But the deadline is Friday.”

“The meeting with Honeymoon is on Thursday.”

“I’ll get you something concrete to give him.”

“You can give it to him yourself. Mr. Honeymoon insists on seeing what he calls the person at the sharp end. We need to be at the governor’s office in Sacramento at twelve noon.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“Any questions?”

She shook her head. “I’ll get right on it.”

As she left, she felt elated that she had her job back but dismayed by the news that she had to report to the governor’s aide. It was not likely she would catch the people behind the threat in only two days, so she was almost doomed to report failure.

She emptied her desk in the Asian Organized Crime squad and carried her stuff down the corridor to Domestic Terrorism. Her new supervisor, Matt Peters, allocated her a desk. She knew all the agents, and they congratulated her on the Foong brothers case, though in subdued tones — everyone knew she had fought with Kincaid yesterday.

Peters assigned a young agent to work with her on the Hammer of Eden case. He was Raja Khan, a fast-talking Hindu with an MBA. He was twenty-six. Judy was pleased. Although inexperienced, he was intelligent and keen.

She briefed him on the case and sent him to check out the Green California Campaign. “Be nice,” she told him. “Tell them we don’t believe they’re involved, but we have to eliminate them.”

“What am I looking for?”

“A couple: a blue-collar man of about forty-five who may be illiterate, and an educated woman of about thirty who is probably dominated by the man. But I don’t think you’ll find them there. That would be too easy.”

“Alternatively …?”

“The most useful thing you can do is get the names of all the officers of the organization, paid or volunteer, and run them through the computer to see if any of them have any record of criminal or subversive activity.”

“You got it,” Raja said. “What will you do?”

“I’m going to learn about earthquakes.”

Judy had been in one major earthquake.

The Santa Rosa earthquake had caused damage worth $6 million — not much, as these things go — and had been felt over the relatively small area of twelve thousand square miles. The Maddox family was then living in Marin County, north of San Francisco, and Judy was in first grade. It was a minor tremor, she knew now. But at the time she had been six years old, and it had seemed like the end of the world.

First there was a noise like a train, but real close, and she came awake fast and looked around her bedroom in the clear light of dawn, searching for the source of the sound, scared to death.

Then the house began to shake. Her ceiling light with its pink-fringed shade whipped back and forth. On her bedside table, Best Fairy Tales leaped up in the air like a magic book and came down open at “Tom Thumb,” the story Bo had read her last night. Her hairbrush and her toy makeup set danced on the Formica top of the dresser. Her wooden horse rocked furiously with no one on it. A row of dolls fell off their shelf, as if diving into the rug, and Judy thought they had come alive, like toys in a fable. She found her voice at last and screamed once: “DADDY!”

From the next room she heard her father curse, then there was a thud as his feet hit the floor. The noise and the shaking grew worse, and she heard her mother cry out. Bo came to Judy’s door and turned the handle, but it would not open. She heard another thud as he shouldered it, but it was stuck.

Her window smashed, and shards of glass fell inward, landing on the chair where her school clothes were neatly folded, ready for the morning: gray skirt, white blouse, green V-neck sweater, navy blue underwear, and white socks. The wooden horse rocked so hard, it fell over on top of the dollhouse, smashing the miniature roof; and Judy knew the roof of her real house might be smashed as easily. A framed picture of a rosy-cheeked Mexican boy came off its hook on the wall, flew through the air, and hit her head. She cried out in pain.

Then her chest of drawers began to walk.

It was an old bow-fronted pine chest her mother had bought in a junk shop and painted white. It had three drawers, and it stood on short legs that ended in feet like lions’ paws. At first it seemed to dance in place, restlessly, on its four feet. Then it shuffled from side to side, like someone hesitating nervously in a doorway. Finally it started to move toward her.

She screamed again.

Her bedroom door shook as Bo tried to break it down.

The chest inched across the floor toward her. She hoped maybe the rug would halt its advance, but the chest just pushed the rug with its lions’ paws.

Her bed shook so violently that she fell out.

The chest came within a few inches of her and stopped. The middle drawer came open like a wide mouth ready to swallow her. She screamed at the top of her voice.

The door shattered and Bo burst in.

Then the shaking stopped.

Thirty years later she could still feel the terror that had possessed her like a fit as the world fell apart around her. She had been frightened of closing the bedroom door for years afterward; and she was still scared of earthquakes. In California, feeling the ground move in a minor tremor was commonplace, but she had never really gotten used to it. And when she felt the earth shake, or saw television pictures of collapsed buildings, the dread that crept through her veins like a drug was not the fear of being crushed or burned, but the blind panic of a little girl whose world suddenly started to fall apart.

She was still on edge that evening as she walked into the sophisticated ambience of Masa’s, wearing a black silk sheath and the row of pearls Don Riley had given her the Christmas they were living together.

Don ordered a white burgundy called Corton Charlemagne. He drank most of it: Judy loved the nutty taste, but she was not comfortable drinking alcohol when she had a semi-automatic pistol loaded with nine-millimeter ammunition tucked into her black patent evening purse.

She told Don that Brian Kincaid had accepted her apology and allowed her to withdraw her resignation.

“He had to,” Don said. “Refusing would be tantamount to firing you. And it would look real bad for him if he lost one of his best people on his first day as acting SAC.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Judy said, but she was thinking that it was easy for Don to be wise after the event.

“Sure I’m right.”

“Remember, Brian is KMA.” It stood for kiss my ass, and it meant the person had built up such a generous pension entitlement that he could retire comfortably at any time that suited him.

“Yeah, but he has his pride. Imagine where he explains to headquarters how come he had to let you go. ‘She said “fuck” to me,’ he says. Washington goes: ‘So what are you, a priest? You never heard an agent say “fuck” before?’ Uh-uh.” Don shook his head. “Kincaid would seem like a wimp to refuse your apology.”

“I guess so.”

“Anyway, I’m real glad we may be working together again soon.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to many more brilliant prosecutions by the great team of Riley and Maddox.”

She clinked glasses and took a sip of wine.

They talked over the case as they ate, recalling the mistakes they had made, the surprises they had sprung on the defense, the moments of tension and triumph.

When they were drinking coffee, Don said: “Do you miss me?”

Judy frowned. It would be cruel to say no, and anyway it was not true. But she did not want to give him false encouragement. “I miss some things,” she said. “I like you when you’re funny and smart.” She also missed having a warm body beside her at night, but she was not going to tell him that.

He said: “I miss talking about my work, and hearing about yours.”

“I guess I talk to Bo now.”

“I miss him, too.”

“He likes you. He thinks you’re the ideal husband—”

“I am, I am!”

“—for someone in law enforcement.”

Don shrugged. “I’ll settle for that.”

Judy grinned. “Maybe you and Bo should get married.”

“Ho, ho.” He paid the bill. “Judy, there’s something I want to say.”

“I’m listening.”

“I think I’m ready to be a father.”

For some reason that angered her. “So what am I supposed to do about it — shout hooray and open my legs?”

He was taken aback. “I mean.… well, I thought you wanted commitment.”

“Commitment? Don, all I asked was that you refrain from shtupping your secretary, but you couldn’t manage that!”

He looked mortified. “Okay, don’t get mad. I’m just trying to tell you that I’ve changed.”

“And now I’m supposed to come running back to you as if nothing had happened?”

“I guess I still don’t understand you.”

“You probably never will.” His evident distress softened her. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.” When they were living together she had always been the after-dinner driver.

They left the restaurant in an awkward silence. In the car he said: “I thought we might at least talk about it.” Don the lawyer, negotiating.

“We can talk.” But how can I tell you that my heart is cold?

“What happened with Paula … it was the worst mistake of my whole life.”

She believed him. He was not drunk, just mellow enough to say what he felt. She sighed. She wanted him to be happy. She was fond of him, and she hated to see him in pain. It hurt her, too. Part of her wished she could give him what he wanted.

He said: “We had some good times together.” He stroked her thigh through the silk dress.

She said: “If you feel me up while I’m driving, I’ll throw you out of the car.”

He knew she could do it. “Whatever you say.” He took his hand away.

A moment later she wished she had not been so harsh. It was not such a bad thing, to have a man’s hand on your thigh. Don was not the world’s greatest lover — he was enthusiastic, but unimaginative. However, he was better than nothing, and nothing was what she had had since she’d left him.

Why don’t I have a man? I don’t want to grow old alone. Is there something wrong with me?

Hell, no.

A minute later she pulled up outside his building. “Thanks, Don,” she said. “For a great prosecution and a great dinner.”

He leaned over to kiss her. She offered her cheek, but he kissed her lips, and she did not want to make a big thing of it, so she let him. His kiss lingered until she broke away. Then he said: “Come in for a while. I’ll make you a cappuccino.”

The longing look in his eyes almost broke her will. How hard could it be? she asked herself. She could put her gun in his safe, drink a large, heartwarming brandy, and spend the night in the arms of a decent man who adored her. “No,” she said firmly. “Good night.”

He stared at her for a long moment, misery in his eyes. She looked back, embarrassed and sorry, but resolute.

“Good night,” he said at last. He got out and closed the car door.

Judy pulled away. When she glanced in the rearview mirror she saw him standing on the sidewalk, his hand half-raised in a kind of wave. She ran a red light and turned a corner, then at last she felt alone again.

When she got home, Bo was watching Conan O’Brien and chuckling. “This guy breaks me up,” he said. They watched his monologue until the commercial break, then Bo turned off the TV. “I solved a murder today,” he said. “How about that?”

Judy knew he had several unsolved cases on his desk. “Which one?”

“The Telegraph Hill rape-murder.”

“Who did it?”

“A guy who’s already in jail. He was arrested a while back for harassing young girls in the park. I had a hunch about him and searched his apartment. He had a pair of police handcuffs like the ones found on the body, but he denied the murder, and I couldn’t break him. Today I got his DNA test back from the lab. It matches the semen from the victim’s body. I told him that and he confessed. Jackpot.”

“Well done!” She kissed the top of his head.

“How about you?”

“Well, I still have a job, but it remains to be seen whether I have a career.”

“You have a career, come on.”

“I don’t know. If I get demoted for putting the Foong brothers in jail, what will they do to me when I have a failure?”

“You’ve suffered a setback. It’s just temporary. You’ll get over it, I promise.”

She smiled, remembering the time she had thought there was nothing her father could not do. “Well, I didn’t make much progress with my case.”

“Last night you thought it was a bullshit assignment anyway.”

“Today I’m not so sure. The linguistic analysis showed that these people are dangerous, whoever they are.”

“But they can’t trigger an earthquake.”

“I don’t know.”

Bo raised his eyebrows. “You think it’s possible?”

“I’ve spent most of today trying to find out. I spoke to three seismologists and got three different answers.”

“Scientists are like that.”

“What I really wanted was for them to tell me firmly it couldn’t happen. But one said it was ‘unlikely,’ one said the possibility was ‘vanishingly small,’ and the third said it could be done with a nuclear bomb.”

“Could these people — what are they called?”

“The Hammer of Eden.”

“Could they have a nuclear device?”

“It’s possible. They’re smart, focused, serious. But then why would they talk about earthquakes? Why not just threaten us with their bomb?”

“Yeah,” Bo said thoughtfully. “That would be just as terrifying and a lot more credible.”

“But who can tell how these people’s minds work?”

“What’s your next step?”

“I have one more seismologist to see, a Michael Quercus. The others all say he’s kind of a maverick, but he’s the leading authority on what causes earthquakes.”

She had already tried to interview Quercus. Late that afternoon she had rung his doorbell. He had told her, through the entry phone, to call for an appointment.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” she had said. “This is the FBI.”

“Does that mean you don’t have to make appointments?”

She had cursed under her breath. She was a law enforcement officer, not a damn replacement window salesperson. “It does, generally,” she said into the intercom. “Most people feel our work is too important to wait.”

“No, they don’t,” he replied. “Most people are scared of you, that’s why they let you in without an appointment. Call me. I’m in the phone book.”

“I’m here about a matter of public safety, Professor. I’ve been told you’re an expert who can give me crucial information that will help in our work of protecting people. I’m sorry I didn’t have the opportunity of calling for an appointment, but now that I’m here, I would really appreciate it if you would see me for a few minutes.”

There was no reply, and she realized he had hung up at his end.

She had driven back to the office, fuming. She did not make appointments: agents rarely did. She preferred to catch people off-guard. Almost everyone she interviewed had something to hide. The less time they had to prepare, the more likely they were to make a revealing mistake. But Quercus was infuriatingly correct: she had no right to barge in on him.

Swallowing her pride, she had called him and made an appointment for tomorrow.

She decided not to tell Bo any of this. “What I really need,” she said, “is someone to explain the science to me in such a way that I can make my own judgment about whether a terrorist could cause an earthquake.”

“And you need to find these Hammer of Eden people and bust them for making threats. Any progress there?”

She shook her head. “I had someone interview everyone at the Green California Campaign. No one there matches the profile, none have any kind of criminal or subversive record; in fact, there’s nothing suspicious about them at all.”

Bo nodded. “It always was unlikely the perpetrators would have told the truth about who they were. Don’t be discouraged. You’ve only been on the case a day and a half.”

“True — but that leaves only two clear days to their deadline. And I have to go to Sacramento on Thursday to report to the governor’s office.”

“You’d better start early tomorrow.” He got up off the couch.

They both went upstairs. Judy paused at her bedroom door. “Remember that earthquake, when I was six?”

He nodded. “It wasn’t much, by California standards, but it scared you half to death.”

Judy smiled. “I thought it was the end of the world.”

“The shaking must have shifted the house a little, because your bedroom door jammed shut, and I nearly busted my shoulder breaking it down.”

“I thought it was you that made the shaking stop. I believed that for years.”

“Afterward you were scared of that damn chest of drawers that your mother liked so much. You wouldn’t have it in the house.”

“I thought it wanted to eat me.”

“In the end I chopped it up for firewood.” Suddenly Bo looked sad. “I wish I could have those years back, to live all over again.”

She knew he was thinking of her mother. “Yeah,” she said.

“Good night, kid.”

“Night, Bo.”

As she drove across the Bay Bridge on Wednesday morning, heading for Berkeley, Judy wondered what Michael Quercus looked like. His irritable manner suggested a peevish professor, stooped and shabby, peering irritably at the world through glasses that kept falling down his nose. Or he could be an academic fat cat in a pinstripe suit, charming to people who might donate money to the university, contemptuously indifferent to anyone who could not be of use to him.

She parked in the shade of a magnolia tree on Euclid Avenue. As she rang his bell she had a horrible feeling he might find another excuse to send her away; but when she gave her name there was a buzz and the door opened. She climbed two flights to his apartment. It was open. She walked in. The place was small and cheap: his business could not be making much money. She passed through a vestibule and found herself in his office-cum — living room.

He was sitting at his desk in khakis, tan walking boots, and a navy blue polo shirt. Michael Quercus was neither a peevish professor nor an academic fat cat, she saw immediately. He was a hunk: tall, fit, good-looking, with sexy hair, dark and curly. She quickly summed him up as one of those guys who were so big and handsome and confident, they thought they could do anything they liked.

He, too, was surprised. His eyes widened and he said: “Are you the FBI agent?”

She gave him a firm handshake. “Were you expecting someone else?”

He shrugged. “You don’t look like Efrem Zimbalist, Junior.”

Zimbalist was the actor who played Inspector Lewis Erskine in the long-running television show The FBI. Judy said mildly: “I’ve been an agent for ten years. Can you imagine how many people have already made that joke?”

To her surprise he grinned broadly. “Okay,” he said. “You got me.”

That’s better.

She noticed a framed photo on his desk. It showed a pretty redhead with a child in her arms. People always liked to talk about their children. “Who’s this?” she said.

“Nobody important. You want to get to the point?”

Forget friendly.

She took him at his word and asked her question right out. “I need to know if a terrorist group could trigger an earthquake.”

“Have you had a threat?”

I’m supposed to be asking the questions. “You haven’t heard? It’s been talked about on the radio. Don’t you listen to John Truth?”

He shook his head. “Is it serious?”

“That’s what I need to establish.”

“Okay. Well, the short answer is yes.”

Judy felt a frisson of fear. Quercus seemed so sure. She had been hoping for the opposite answer. She said: “How could they do it?”

“Take a nuclear bomb, put it at the bottom of a deep mine shaft, and detonate it. That’ll do the trick. But you probably want a more realistic scenario.”

“Yeah. Imagine you wanted to trigger an earthquake.”

“Oh, I could do it.”

Judy wondered if he was just bragging. “Explain how.”

“Okay.” He reached down behind his desk and picked up a short plank of wood and a regular house brick. He obviously kept them there for this purpose. He put the plank on his desk and the brick on the plank. Then he lifted one end of the plank slowly until the brick slid down the slope onto the desk. “The brick slips when the gravity pulling it overcomes the friction holding it still,” he said. “Okay so far?”

“Sure.”

“A fault such as the San Andreas is a place where two adjacent slabs of the earth’s crust are moving in different directions. Imagine a pair of icebergs scraping past one another. They don’t move smoothly: they get jammed. Then, when they’re stuck, pressure builds up, slowly but surely, over the decades.”

“So how does that lead to earthquakes?”

“Something happens to release all that stored-up energy.” He lifted one end of the plank again. This time he stopped just before the brick began to slide. “Several sections of the San Andreas fault are like this — just about ready to slip, any decade now. Take this.”

He handed Judy a clear plastic twelve-inch ruler.

“Now tap the plank sharply just in front of the brick.”

She did so, and the brick began to slide.

Quercus grabbed it and stopped it. “When the plank is tilted, it takes only a little tap to make the brick move. And where the San Andreas is under tremendous pressure, a little nudge may be enough to unjam the slabs. Then they slip — and all that pent-up energy shakes the earth.”

Quercus might be abrasive, but once he got onto his subject he was a pleasure to listen to. He was a clear thinker, and he explained himself easily, without condescending. Despite the ominous picture he was painting, Judy realized she was enjoying talking to him, and not just because he was so good-looking. “Is that what happens in most earthquakes?”

“I believe so, though some other seismologists might disagree. There are natural vibrations that resound through the earth’s crust from time to time. Most earthquakes are probably triggered by the right vibration in the right place at the right time.”

How am I going to explain all this to Mr. Honeymoon? He’s going to want simple yes-no answers. “So how does that help our terrorists?”

“They need a ruler, and they need to know where to tap.”

“What’s the real-life equivalent of the ruler? A nuclear bomb?”

“They don’t need anything so powerful. They have to send a shock wave through the earth’s crust, that’s all. If they know exactly where the fault is vulnerable, they might do it with a charge of dynamite, precisely placed.”

“Anyone can get hold of dynamite if they really want to.”

“The explosion would have to be underground. I guess drilling a shaft would be the challenge for a terrorist group.”

Judy wondered if the blue-collar man imagined by Simon Sparrow was a drilling rig operator. Such men would surely need a special license. A quick check with the Department of Motor Vehicles might yield a list of all of them in California. There could not be many.

Quercus went on: “They would obviously need drilling equipment, expertise, and some kind of pretext to get permission.”

Those problems were not insurmountable. “Is it really so simple?” Judy said.

“Listen, I’m not telling you this would work. I’m saying it might. No one will know for sure until they try it. I can try to give you some insight into how these things happen, but you’ll have to make your own assessment of the risk.”

Judy nodded. She had used almost the same words last night in telling Bo what she needed. Quercus might act like an asshole sometimes, but as Bo would say, everyone needed an asshole now and again. “So knowing where to place the charge is everything?”

“Yes.”

“Who has that information?”

“Universities, the state geologist … me. We all share information.”

“Anyone can get hold of it?”

“It’s not secret, though you would need to have some scientific knowledge to interpret the data.”

“So someone in the terrorist group would have to be a seismologist.”

“Yes. Could be a student.”

Judy thought of the educated thirty-year-old woman who was doing the typing, according to Simon’s theory. She could be a graduate student. How many geology students were there in California? How long would it take to find and interview them all?

Quercus went on: “And there’s one other factor: earth tides. The oceans move this way and that under the gravitational influence of the moon, and the solid earth is subject to the same forces. Twice a day there’s a seismic window, when the fault line is under extra stress because of the tides; and that’s when an earthquake is most likely — or most easy to trigger. Which is my specialty. I’m the only person who has done extensive calculations of seismic windows for California faults.”

“Could someone have gotten this data from you?”

“Well, I’m in the business of selling it.” He gave a rueful smile. “But, as you can see, my business isn’t making me rich. I have one contract, with a big insurance company, and that pays the rent, but unfortunately that’s all. My theories about seismic windows make me kind of a maverick, and corporate America hates mavericks.”

The note of wry self-deprecation was surprising, and Judy started to like him better. “Someone might have taken the information without your knowledge. Have you been burgled lately?”

“Never.”

“Could your data have been copied by a friend or relative?”

“I don’t think so. No one spends time in this room without my being here.”

She picked up the photo from his desk. “Your wife, or girlfriend?”

He looked annoyed and took the picture out of her hand. “I’m separated from my wife, and I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Is that so?” said Judy. She had got everything she needed from him. She stood up. “I appreciate your time, Professor.”

“Please call me Michael. I’ve enjoyed talking to you.”

She was surprised.

He added: “You pick up fast. That makes it more fun.”

“Well … good.”

He walked her to the door of the apartment and shook her hand. He had big hands, but his grip was surprisingly gentle. “Anything else you want to know, I’ll be glad to help.”

She risked a gibe. “So long as I call ahead for an appointment, right?”

He did not smile. “Right.”

Driving back across the bay, she reflected that the danger was now clear. A terrorist group might conceivably be able to cause an earthquake. They would need accurate data on critically stressed points on the fault line, and perhaps on seismic windows, but that was obtainable. They had to have someone to interpret the data. And they needed some way to send shock waves through the earth. That would be the most difficult task, but it was not out of the question.

She had the unwelcome task of telling the governor’s aide that the whole thing was horrifyingly possible.

5

Priest woke at first light on Thursday.

He generally woke early, all the year round. He never needed much sleep, unless he had been partying too hard, and that was rare now.

One more day.

From the governor’s office there had been nothing but a maddening silence. They acted as if no threat had been made. So did the rest of the world, by and large. The Hammer of Eden was rarely mentioned in the news broadcasts Priest listened to on his car radio.

Only John Truth took them seriously. He kept taunting Governor Mike Robson in his daily radio show. Until yesterday, all the governor would say was that the FBI was investigating. But last night Truth had reported that the governor had promised a statement today.

That statement would decide everything. If it was conciliatory, and gave at least a hint that the governor would consider the demand, Priest would rejoice. But if the statement was unyielding, Priest would have to cause an earthquake.

He wondered if he really could.

Melanie sounded convincing when she talked about the fault line and what it would take to make it slip. But no one had ever tried this. Even she admitted she could not be one hundred percent sure it would work. What if it failed? What if it worked and they were caught? What if it worked and they were killed in the earthquake — who would take care of the communards and the children?

He rolled over. Melanie’s head lay on the pillow beside him. He studied her face in repose. Her skin was very white, and her eyelashes were almost transparent. A strand of long ginger-colored hair fell across her cheek. He pulled the sheet back a little and looked at her breasts, heavy and soft. He contemplated waking her. Under the covers, he reached out and stroked her, running his hand across her belly and into the triangle of reddish hair below. She stirred, swallowed, then turned over and moved away.

He sat up. He was in the one-room house that had been his home for the last twenty-five years. As well as the bed, it had an old couch in front of the fireplace and a table in the corner with a fat yellow candle in a holder. There was no electric light.

In the early days of the commune, most people lived in cabins like this, and the kids all slept in a bunkhouse. But over the years some permanent couples had formed, and they had built bigger places with separate bedrooms for their children. Priest and Star had kept their own individual houses, but the trend was against them. It was best not to fight the inevitable: Priest had learned that from Star. Now there were six family homes as well as the original fifteen cabins. Right now the commune consisted of twenty-five adults and ten children, plus Melanie and Dusty. One cabin was empty.

This room was as familiar as his hand, but lately the well-known objects had taken on a new aura. For years his eye had passed over without registering them: the picture of Priest that Star had painted for his thirtieth birthday; the elaborately decorated hookah left behind by a French girl called Marie-Louise; the rickety shelf Flower had made in woodwork class; the fruit crate in which he kept his clothes. Now that he knew he might have to leave, each homely item looked special and wonderful, and it brought a lump to his throat to look at them. His room was like a photograph album in which every picture unchained a string of memories: the birth of Ringo; the day Smiler nearly drowned in the river; making love to twin sisters called Jane and Eliza; the warm, dry autumn of their first grape harvest; the taste of the ‘89 vintage. When he looked around and thought of the people who wanted to take it all away from him, he was filled with a rage that burned inside him like vitriol in his belly.

He picked up a towel, stepped into his sandals, and went outside naked. His dog, Spirit, greeted him with a quiet snuffle. It was a clear, crisp morning, with patches of high cloud in the blue sky. The sun had not yet appeared over the mountains, and the valley was in shadow. No one else was about.

He walked downhill through the little village, and Spirit followed. Although the communal spirit was still strong, people had customized their homes with individual touches. One woman had planted the ground around her house with flowers and small shrubs: Priest had named her Garden in consequence. Dale and Poem, who were a couple, had let their children paint the outside walls, and the result was a colorful mess. A man called Slow, who was retarded, had built a crooked porch on which stood a wobbly homemade rocking chair.

Priest knew the place might not be beautiful to other eyes. The paths were muddy, the buildings were rickety, and the layout was haphazard. There was no zoning: the kids’ bunkhouse was right next to the wine barn, and the carpentry yard was in the midst of the cabins. The privies were moved every year, to no avail: no matter where they were sited, you could always smell them on a hot day. Yet everything about the place warmed his heart. And when he looked farther away and saw the forested hillsides soaring steeply from the gleaming river all the way to the blue peaks of the Sierra Nevada, he had a view that was so beautiful it hurt.

But now, every time he looked at it, the thought that he might lose it stabbed him like a knife.

Beside the river, a wooden box on a boulder held soap, cheap razors, and a hand mirror. He lathered his face and shaved, then stepped into the cold stream and washed all over. He dried himself briskly on the coarse towel.

There was no piped water here. In winter, when it was too cold to bathe in the river, they had a communal bath night twice a week and heated great barrels of water in the cookhouse to wash one another: it was quite sexy. But in summer only babies had warm water.

He went back up the hill and dressed quickly in the blue jeans and workshirt he always wore. He walked over to the cookhouse and stepped inside. The door was not locked: no doors had locks here. He built up the fire with logs and lit it, put on a pan of water for coffee, and went out.

He liked to walk around when the others were all abed. He whispered their names as he passed their homes: “Moon. Chocolate. Giggle.” He imagined each one lying there, sleeping: Apple, a fat girl, lying on her back with her mouth open, snoring; Juice and Alaska, two middle-aged women, entwined together; the kids in the bunkhouse — his own Flower, Ringo, and Smiler; Melanie’s Dusty; the twins, Bubble and Chip, all pink cheeks and tousled hair…

My people.

May they live here forever.

He passed the workshop, where they kept spades and hoes and pruning shears; the concrete circle where they trod the grapes in October; and the barn where the wine from last year’s harvest stood in huge wooden casks, slowly settling and clarifying, now almost ready to be blended and bottled.

He paused outside the temple.

He felt very proud. From the very beginning they had talked of building a temple. For many years it had seemed an impossible dream. There was always too much else to do — land to clear and vines to plant, barns to build, the vegetable garden and the free shop and the kids’ lessons. But five years ago the commune had seemed to reach a plateau. For the first time, Priest was not worried about whether they would have enough to eat through the coming winter. He no longer felt that one bad harvest could wipe them out. There was nothing undone on the list of urgent tasks he carried in his head. So he had announced that it was time to build the temple.

And here it was.

It meant a lot to Priest. It showed that his community was mature. They were not living hand to mouth anymore. They could feed themselves and have time and resources to spare for building a place of worship. They were no longer a bunch of hippies trying out an idealistic dream. The dream worked; they had proved it. The temple was the emblem of their triumph.

He stepped inside. It was a simple wooden structure with a single skylight and no furniture. Everyone sat cross-legged in a circle on the plank floor to worship. It was also the schoolhouse and meeting room. The only decoration was a banner Star had made. Priest could not read it, but he knew what it said:

These were the Five Paradoxes of Baghram. Priest said he had learned them from an Indian guru he had studied under in Los Angeles, but in fact he had made them up. Pretty good for a guy who can’t read.

He stood in the center of the room for several minutes, eyes closed, arms hanging loosely at his sides, focusing his energy. There was nothing phony about this. He had learned meditation techniques from Star, and they really worked. He felt his mind clarify like the wine in the casks. He prayed that Governor Mike Robson’s heart would be softened and he would announce a freeze on the building of new power plants in California. He imagined the handsome governor in his dark suit and white shirt, sitting in a leather chair behind a polished desk; and in his vision the governor said: “I have decided to give these people what they want — not just to avoid an earthquake, but because it makes sense anyway.”

After a few minutes, Priest’s spiritual strength was renewed. He felt alert, confident, centered.

When he went outside again, he decided to check on the vines.

There had been no grapes originally. When Star arrived there was nothing in the valley but a ruined hunting lodge. For three years the commune had lurched from crisis to crisis, riven by quarrels, washed out in storms, sustained only by begging trips to towns. Then Priest came.

It took him less than a year to become Star’s acknowledged equal as joint leader. First he had organized the begging trips for maximum efficiency. They would hit a town like Sacramento or Stockton on a Saturday morning, when the streets were crowded with shoppers. Each individual would be assigned a different corner. Everyone had to have a pitch: Aneth would say she was trying to get the bus fare home to her folks in New York, Song would strum her guitar and sing “There but for Fortune,” Slow would say he had not eaten for three days, Bones would make people smile with a sign saying “Why lie? It’s for beer.”

But begging was only a stopgap. Under Priest’s direction, the hippies had terraced the hillside, diverted a brook for irrigation, and planted a vineyard. The tremendous team effort made them into a strongly knit group, and the wine enabled them to live without begging. Now their chardonnay was sought after by connoisseurs.

Priest walked along the neat rows. Herbs and flowers were planted between the vines, partly because they were useful and pretty, but mainly to attract ladybugs and wasps that would destroy greenflies and other pests. No chemicals were used here: they relied on natural methods. They grew clover, too, because it fixed nitrogen from the air, and when they plowed it into the soil it acted as a natural fertilizer.

The vines were sprouting. It was late May, so the annual peril of frost killing the new shoots was past. At this point in the cycle, most of the work consisted of tying the shoots to trellises to train their growth and prevent wind damage.

Priest had learned about wine during his years as a liquor wholesaler, and Star had studied the subject in books, but they could not have succeeded without old Raymond Dellavalle, a good-natured wine grower who helped them because, Priest guessed, he wished his own youth had been more daring.

Priest’s vineyard had saved the commune, but the commune had saved Priest’s life. He had arrived here a fugitive — on the run from the Mob, the Los Angeles police, and the Internal Revenue Service all at once. He was a drunk and a cocaine abuser, lonely, broke, and suicidal. He had driven down the dirt road to the commune, following vague directions from a hitchhiker, and wandered through the trees until he came upon a bunch of naked hippies sitting on the ground chanting. He had stared at them for a long while, spellbound by the mantra and the sense of profound calm that rose up like smoke from a fire. One or two had smiled at him, but they had continued their ritual. Eventually he had stripped off, slowly, like a man in a trance, discarding his business suit, pink shirt, platform shoes, and red-and-white jockey shorts. Then, naked, he had sat down with them.

Here he had found peace, a new religion, work, friends, and lovers. At a time when he was ready to drive his yellow Plymouth ’Cuda 440-6 right over the edge of a cliff, the commune had given meaning to his life.

Now there would never be any other existence for him. This place was all he had, and he would die to defend it.

I may have to.

He would listen to John Truth’s radio show tonight. If the governor was going to open the door to negotiation, or make any other concession, it would surely be announced before the end of the broadcast.

When he came to the far side of the vineyard, he decided to check on the seismic vibrator.

He walked up the hill. There was no road, just a well-trodden path through the forest. Vehicles could not get through to the village. A quarter of a mile from the houses, he arrived at a muddy clearing. Parked under the trees were his old ’Cuda, a rusty Volkswagen minibus that was even older, Melanie’s orange Subaru, and the communal pickup, a dark green Ford Ranger. From here a dirt track wound two miles through the forest, uphill and down, disappearing into a mudslide here and passing through a stream there, until at last it reached the county road, a two-lane blacktop. It was ten miles to the nearest town, Silver City.

Once a year the entire commune would spend a day rolling barrels of wine up the hill and through the trees to this clearing, there to be loaded onto Paul Beale’s truck for transport to his bottling plant in Napa. It was the big day in their calendar, and they always held a feast that night, then took a holiday on the following day, to celebrate a successful year. The ceremony took place eight months after the harvest, so it was due in a few days’ time. This year, Priest resolved, they would hold the party the day after the governor reprieved the valley.

In return for the wine, Paul Beale brought food for the communal kitchen and kept the free shop stocked with supplies: clothing, candy, cigarettes, stationery, books, tampons, toothpaste, everything anyone needed. The system operated without money. However, Paul kept accounts, and at the end of each year, he deposited surplus cash in a bank account that only Priest and Star knew about.

From the clearing, Priest headed along the track for a mile, skirting rainwater pools and clambering over deadfalls, then turned off and followed an invisible way through the trees. There were no tire tracks because he had carefully brushed the carpet of pine needles that formed the forest floor. He came to a hollow and stopped. All he could see was a pile of vegetation: broken branches and uprooted saplings heaped twelve feet high like a bonfire. He had to go right up to the pile and push aside some of the brush to confirm that the truck was still there under its camouflage.

Not that he thought anyone would come here looking for the truck. The Ricky Granger who had been hired as a juggie by Ritkin Seismex in the South Texas oilfield had no traceable connection with this remote vineyard in Sierra County, California. However, it did occasionally happen that a couple of backpackers would lose their way radically and wander onto the commune’s land — as Melanie had — and they would sure as hell wonder why this large piece of expensive machinery was parked out here in the woods. So Priest and the Rice Eaters had slaved for two hours to conceal the truck. Priest was pretty sure it could not be seen even from the air.

He exposed a wheel and kicked the tire, just like the skeptical purchaser of a used car. He had killed a man for this vehicle. He thought briefly about Mario’s pretty wife and kids and wondered whether they had realized yet that Mario was never coming home. Then he put the thought out of his mind.

He wanted to reassure himself that the truck would be ready to go tomorrow morning. Just looking at it made him edgy. He felt a powerful urge to get going right away, today, now, just to ease the tension. But he had announced a deadline, and timing would be important.

This waiting was unbearable. He thought of getting in and starting the truck, just to make sure everything was okay; but that would be foolish. He was suffering from dumb nerves. The truck would be fine. He would do better to stay away and leave it alone until tomorrow.

He parted another section of the covering and looked at the steel plate that hammered the earth. If Melanie’s scheme worked, the vibration would unleash an earthquake. There was a pure kind of justice about the plan. They would be using the earth’s stored-up energy as a threat to force the governor to take care of the environment. The earth was saving the earth. It felt right to Priest in a way that was almost holy.

Spirit gave a low bark, as if he had heard something. It was probably a rabbit, but Priest nervously replaced the branches he had moved, then headed back.

He made his way through the trees to the track and turned toward the village.

He stopped in the middle of the track and frowned, mystified. On the way here he had stepped over a fallen bough. Now it had been moved to the side. Spirit had not been barking at rabbits. Someone else was about. He had not heard anyone, but sounds were quickly muffled in the dense vegetation. Who was it? Had someone followed him? Had they seen him looking at the seismic vibrator?

As he headed home, Spirit became agitated. When they came within sight of the parking circle, Priest saw why.

There in the muddy clearing, parked beside his ’Cuda, was a police car.

Priest’s heart stopped.

So soon! How could they have tracked him down so soon?

He stared at the cruiser.

It was a white Ford Crown Victoria with a green stripe along the side, a silver six-pointed sheriff’s star on the door, four aerials, and a rack of blue, red, and orange lights on the roof.

Be calm. All things must pass.

The police might not be here for the vibrator. Idle curiosity might have brought a cop wandering down the track: it had never happened before, but it was possible. There were lots of other possible reasons. They could be searching for a tourist who had gone missing. A sheriff’s deputy could be looking for a secret place to meet his neighbor’s wife.

They might not even realize there was a commune here. Perhaps they need never find out. If Priest slipped back into the woods—

Too late. Just as the thought entered his head, a cop stepped around the trunk of a tree.

Spirit barked fiercely.

“Quiet,” Priest said, and the dog fell silent.

The cop was wearing the gray-green uniform of a sheriff’s deputy, with a star over the left breast of the short jacket, a cowboy hat, and a gun on his pants belt.

He saw Priest and waved.

Priest hesitated, then slowly raised his hand and waved back.

Then, reluctantly, he walked up to the car.

He hated cops. Most of them were thieves and bullies and psychopaths. They used their uniform and their position to conceal the fact that they were worse criminals than the people they arrested. But he would force himself to be polite, just as if he were some dumb suburban citizen who imagined the police were there to protect him.

He breathed evenly, relaxed the muscles of his face, smiled, and said: “Howdy.”

The cop was alone. He was young, maybe twenty-five or thirty, with short light brown hair. His body in the uniform was already beefy: in ten years’ time he would have a beer gut.

“Are there any residences near here?” the cop asked.

Priest was tempted to lie, but a moment’s reflection told him it was too risky. The cop only had to walk a quarter of a mile in the right direction to stumble upon the houses, and his suspicions would be aroused if he found he had been lied to. So Priest told the truth. “You’re not far from the Silver River Winery.”

“I never heard of it before.”

That was no accident. In the phone book, its address and number were Paul Beale’s in Napa. None of the communards registered to vote. None of them paid taxes because none had any income. They had always been secretive. Star had a horror of publicity that dated from the time the hippie movement had been destroyed by overexposure in the media. But many of the communards had a reason to hide away. Some had debts, others were wanted by the police. Oaktree had been a deserter, Song had escaped from an uncle who sexually abused her, and Aneth’s husband had beaten her up and swore that if she left him, he would seek her out wherever she might be.

The commune continued to act as a sanctuary, and some of the more recent arrivals were also on the run. The only way anyone could find out about the place was from people such as Paul Beale who had lived here for a while, then returned to the world outside, and they were very cautious about sharing the secret.

There had never been a cop here.

“How come I never heard of the place?” the cop said. “I been a deputy here ten years.”

“It’s pretty small,” Priest said.

“You the owner?”

“No, just a worker.”

“So what do you do here, make wine?”

Oh, boy, an intellectual giant. “Yeah, that about sums it up.” The cop did not pick up the irony. Priest went on: “What brings you to these parts so early in the morning? We haven’t had a crime here since Charlie got drunk and voted for Jimmy Carter.” He grinned. There was no Charlie: he was trying to make the kind of joke a cop might like.

But this one remained straight-faced. “I’m looking for the parents of a young girl who gives her name as Flower.”

A terrible fear possessed Priest, and he suddenly felt as cold as the grave. “Oh, my God, what’s happened?”

“She’s under arrest.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s not injured in any way, if that’s what you mean.”

“Thank God. I thought you were going to say she’d been in an accident.” Priest’s brain began to recover from the shock. “How can she be in jail? I thought she was here, asleep in her bed!”

“Obviously not. How are you connected with her?”

“I’m her father.”

“Then you’ll need to come to Silver City.”

“Silver City? How long has she been there?”

“Just overnight. We didn’t want to keep her that long, but for a while she refused to tell us her address. She broke down an hour or so ago.”

Priest’s heart lurched to think of his little girl in custody, trying to keep the secret of the commune until she broke down. Tears came to his eyes.

The cop went on: “Even so, you were god-awful hard to find. In the end I got directions from a bunch of damn gun-toting freaks about five miles down the valley from here.”

Priest nodded. “Los Alamos.”

“Yeah. Had a damn big sign up saying ‘We do not recognize the jurisdiction of the United States government.’ Assholes.”

“I know them,” Priest said. They were right-wing vigilantes who had taken over a big old farmhouse in a lonely spot and now guarded it with high-powered firearms and dreamed of fighting off a Chinese invasion. Unfortunately they were the commune’s nearest neighbors. “Why is Flower in custody? Did she do something wrong?”

“That is the usual reason,” the cop said sarcastically.

“What did she do?”

“She was caught stealing from a store.”

“From a store?” Why would a kid who had access to a free shop want to do that? “What did she steal?”

“A large-size color photograph of Leonardo DiCaprio.”

Priest wanted to punch the cop in the face, but that would not have helped Flower, so instead he thanked the man for coming here and promised that he and Flower’s mother would appear at the sheriff’s office in Silver City within an hour to pick up their daughter. Satisfied, the cop drove away.

Priest went to Star’s cabin. It doubled as the commune’s clinic. Star had no medical training, but she had picked up a great deal of knowledge from her physician father and nurse mother. As a girl she had got used to medical emergencies and had even assisted at births. Her room was full of boxes of bandages, jars of ointment, aspirins, cough medicines, and contraceptives.

When Priest woke her and told her the bad news, she became hysterical. She hated the police almost as much as he did. In the sixties she had been beaten by cops with nightsticks on demonstrations, sold bad dope by undercover narcs, and, on one occasion, raped by detectives in a precinct house. She jumped out of bed, screaming, and started hitting him. He held her wrists and tried to calm her down.

“We have to go there now and get her out!” Star yelled.

“Right,” he said. “Just get dressed first, okay?”

She stopped struggling. “Okay.”

While she was pulling on her jeans he said: “You were busted at thirteen, you told me.”

“Yeah, and a dirty old sergeant with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth put his hands on my tits and said I was going to grow up into a beautiful lady.”

“It won’t help Flower if you go in there mad and get yourself arrested, too,” he pointed out.

She got control of herself. “You’re right, Priest. For her sake, we have to ingratiate ourselves with those motherfuckers.” She combed her hair and glanced in a small mirror. “All right. I’m ready to eat shit.”

Priest had always believed it was best to be conventionally dressed when dealing with the police. He woke Dale and got from him the old dark blue suit. It was communal property now, and Dale had worn it most recently, to go to court when the wife he had left twenty years ago finally decided to divorce him. Priest put the suit on over his workshirt and tied the twenty-five-year-old pink-and-green “kipper” tie. The shoes had long worn out, so he put his sandals back on. Then he and Star got in the ’Cuda.

When they reached the county road, Priest said: “How come neither of us noticed she wasn’t at home last night?”

“I went to say good night to her, but Pearl told me she had gone to the privy.”

“I got that story, too! Pearl must have known what happened and covered up for her!” Pearl, the daughter of Dale and Poem, was twelve years old and Flower’s best friend.

“I went back later, but all the candles were out and the bunkhouse was in darkness, so I didn’t want to wake them up. I never imagined.…”

“Why would you? The darn kid has spent every night of her life in the same place — no reason to think she was anywhere else.”

They drove into Silver City. The sheriff’s office was next door to the courthouse. They entered a gloomy lobby decorated with yellowing news clippings of ancient murders. There was a reception desk behind a window with an intercom and a buzzer. A deputy in a khaki shirt and green tie said: “Help you?”

Star said: “My name is Stella Higgins, and you have my daughter here.”

The deputy gave them a hard look. Priest figured he was appraising them, wondering what kind of parents they were. He said, “Just one moment, please,” and disappeared.

Priest spoke to Star in a low voice. “I think we should be respectable, law-abiding citizens who are appalled that a child of theirs is in trouble with the police. We have nothing but profound respect for law enforcement personnel. We are sorry to have caused trouble to such hardworking folk.”

“Gotcha,” Star said tightly.

A door opened and the deputy let them in. “Mr. and Mrs. Higgins,” he said. Priest did not correct him. “Follow me, please.” He led them to a conference room with a gray carpet and bland modern furniture.

Flower was waiting.

She was going to be formidable and voluptuous like her mother one day, but at thirteen she was still a lanky, awkward girl. Now she was sullen and tearful at the same time. But she seemed unharmed. Star hugged her silently, then Priest did the same.

Star said: “Honey, have you spent the night in jail?”

Flower shook her head. “At some house,” she said.

The deputy explained. “California law is very strict. Juveniles can’t be jailed under the same roof as adult criminals. So we have a couple of people in town who are willing to take charge of young offenders overnight. Flower stayed at the home of Miss Waterlow, a local schoolteacher who also happens to be the sheriff’s sister.”

Priest asked Flower: “Was it okay?”

The child nodded dumbly.

He began to feel better. Hell, worse things can happen to kids.

The deputy said: “Sit down, please, Mr. and Mrs. Higgins. I’m the probation officer, and it’s part of my job to deal with juvenile offenders.”

They sat down.

“Flower is charged with stealing a poster worth $9.99 from the Silver Disc Music Store.”

Star turned to her daughter. “I can’t understand this,” she said. “Why would you steal a poster of a damn movie star?”

Flower was suddenly vocal. She yelled: “I just wanted it, okay? I just wanted it!” Then she burst into tears.

Priest addressed the deputy. “We’d like to take our daughter home as soon as possible. What do we need to do?”

“Mr. Higgins, I should point out to you that the maximum penalty for what Flower has done would be imprisonment until the age of twenty-one.”

“Jesus Christ!” Priest exclaimed.

“However, I wouldn’t expect such a harsh punishment for a first offense. Tell me, has Flower been in trouble before?”

“Never.”

“Are you surprised by what she has done?”

“Yes.”

“We’re flabbergasted,” said Star.

The deputy probed their home life, trying to establish whether Flower was well cared for. Priest answered most of the questions, giving the impression that they were simple agricultural workers. He said nothing of their communal life or their beliefs. The deputy asked where Flower attended school, and Priest explained that there was a school at the winery for the children of workers.

The deputy seemed satisfied with the answers. Flower had to sign a promise to appear in court in four weeks’ time at ten A.M. The deputy asked for one of the parents to countersign, and Star obliged. They did not have to post bail. They were out of there in less than an hour.

Outside the sheriff’s office, Priest said: “This doesn’t make you a bad person, Flower. You did a dumb thing, but we love you as much as we always did. Just remember that. And we’ll all talk about it when we get home.”

They drove back to the winery. For a while Priest had been unable to think about anything except how his daughter was, but now that he had her back safe and well, he began to reflect on the wider implications of her arrest. The commune had never previously attracted the attention of the police. There was no theft, because they did not acknowledge private property. Sometimes there were fistfights, but the communards dealt with such situations themselves. No one had ever died here. They had no phone to call the police. They never broke any laws except the drug laws, and they were discreet about that.

But now the place was on the map.

It was the worst possible moment for this to happen.

There was nothing he could do about it other than to be extra cautious. He resolved not to blame Flower. At her age he had been a full-time professional thief, with an arrest record that stretched back three years. If any parent could understand, he should.

He switched on the car radio. At the top of the hour there was a news bulletin. The last item referred to the earthquake threat. “Governor Mike Robson meets with FBI agents this morning to discuss the terrorist group the Hammer of Eden, who have threatened to cause an earthquake,” said the newsreader. “A spokesman for the Bureau said that all threats are taken seriously but would not comment further ahead of the meeting.”

The governor would make his announcement after he met with the FBI, Priest guessed. He wished the radio station had given the time of the meeting.

It was midmorning when they got home. Melanie’s car was gone from the parking circle: she had taken Dusty to San Francisco to leave him with his father for the weekend.

There was a subdued air at the winery. Most of the group were weeding in the vineyard, working without the usual songs and laughter. Outside the cookhouse Holly, the mother of his sons Ringo and Smiler, grimly fried onions while Slow, who was always sensitive to atmosphere, looked frightened as he scrubbed early potatoes from the vegetable garden. Even Oaktree, the carpenter, seemed quiet as he bent over his workbench, sawing a plank.

When they saw Priest and Star returning with Flower, they all began to finish up the tasks they were doing and head for the temple. When there was a crisis they always met to discuss it. If it was a minor matter, it could wait until the end of the day, but this was too important to be postponed.

On their way to the temple, Priest and his family were intercepted by Dale and Poem with their daughter, Pearl.

Dale, a small man with neat, short hair, was the most conventional one in the group. He was a key person because he was an expert winemaker and he controlled the blend of each year’s vintage. But Priest sometimes felt he treated the commune as if it were any other village. Dale and Poem had been the first couple to build a family cabin. Poem was a dark-skinned woman with a French accent. She had a wild streak — Priest knew, he had slept with her many times — but with Dale she had become kind of domesticated. Dale was one of the few who might conceivably make the readjustment to normal life if he had to leave. Most of them would not, Priest felt: they would end up in jail or institutionalized or dead.

“There’s something you should see,” Dale said.

Priest noticed a quick interchange between the girls. Flower shot an accusing glare at Pearl, who looked frightened and guilty.

“What now?” said Star.

Dale led them all to the one empty cabin. At present it was used as a study room by the older children. There was a rough table, some chairs, and a cupboard containing books and pencils. The ceiling had a trapdoor leading to a crawl space under the sloping roof. Now the trapdoor was open and a stepladder stood beneath it.

Priest had a horrible feeling he knew what was coming.

Dale lit a candle and went up the ladder. Priest and Star followed. In the roof space, illuminated by the flickering candle, they saw the girls’ secret cache: a box full of cheap jewelry, makeup, fashionable clothes, and teen magazines.

Priest said quietly: “All the things we brought them up to consider worthless.”

Dale said: “They’ve been hitchhiking to Silver City. They’ve done it three times in the past four weeks. They take these clothes and change out of their jeans and workshirts when they get there.”

Star said: “What do they do there?”

“Hang out on the street, talk to boys, and steal from stores.”

Priest put his hand into the box and pulled out a narrow-bodied T-shirt, blue with a single orange stripe. It was made of nylon and felt thin and trashy. It was the kind of clothing he despised: it gave no warmth or protection, and it did nothing but cover the beauty of the human body with a layer of ugliness.

With the shirt in his hand, he retreated down the stepladder. Star and Dale followed.

The two girls looked mortified.

Priest said: “Let’s go to the temple and discuss this with the group.”

By the time they got there, everyone else had assembled, children included. They were sitting cross-legged on the floor, waiting.

Priest sat in the middle, as always. The discussions were democratic in theory, and the commune had no leaders, but in practice he and Star dominated all meetings. Priest would steer the dialogue toward the outcome he wanted, usually by asking questions rather than stating a point of view. If he liked an idea, he would encourage a discussion of its benefits; if he wanted to squash a proposal, he would ask how they could be sure it would work. And if the mood of the meeting was against him, he would pretend to be persuaded, then subvert the decision later.

“Who wants to begin?” he said.

Aneth spoke up. She was a motherly type in her forties, and she believed in understanding rather than condemning. She said: “Maybe Flower and Pearl should begin, by telling us why they wanted to go to Silver City.”

“To meet people,” Flower said defiantly.

Aneth smiled. “Boys, you mean?”

Flower shrugged.

Aneth said: “Well, I guess that’s understandable … but why did you have to steal?”

“To look nice!”

Star gave an exasperated sigh. “What’s wrong with your regular clothes?”

“Mom, be serious,” Flower said scornfully.

Star leaned forward and slapped her face.

Flower gasped. A red mark appeared on her cheek.

“Don’t you dare speak to me that way,” Star said. “You’ve just been caught stealing, and I’ve had to get you out of jail, so don’t talk as if I’m the stupid one.”

Pearl started to cry.

Priest sighed. He should have seen this coming. There was nothing wrong with the clothes in the free shop. They had jeans in blue, black, or tan; denim workshirts; T-shirts in white, gray, red, and yellow; sandals and boots; heavy wool sweaters for the winter; waterproof coats for working in the rain. But the same clothes were worn by everyone, and had been for years. Of course the children wanted something different. Thirty-five years ago Priest had stolen a Beatle jacket from a boutique called Rave on San Pedro Street.

Poem said to her daughter: “Pearl, cherie, you don’t like your clothes?”

Between sobs she said: “We wanted to look like Melanie.”

“Ah,” Priest said, and he saw it all.

Melanie was still wearing the clothes she had brought here: skimpy tops that showed her midriff, miniskirts and short shorts, funky shoes and cute caps. She looked chic and sexy. It was not surprising the girls had adopted her as a role model.

Dale said: “We need to talk about Melanie.” He sounded apprehensive. Most of them were nervous about saying anything that might be seen as a criticism of Priest.

Priest felt defensive. He had brought Melanie here, and he was her lover. And she was crucial to the plan. She was the only one who could interpret the data from Michael’s disk, which had now been copied onto her laptop. Priest could not let them turn on her. “We never make people change their clothes when they join us,” he said. “They wear out their old stuff first, it’s always been the rule.”

Alaska spoke up. A former schoolteacher, she had come here with her lover, Juice, ten years ago, after they had been ostracized in the small town where they lived for coming out as lesbians. “It’s not just her clothes,” Alaska said. “She doesn’t do much work.” Juice nodded agreement.

Priest argued: “I’ve seen her in the kitchen, washing dishes and baking cookies.”

Alaska looked scared, but she persisted. “Some light domestic chores. She doesn’t work in the vineyard. She’s a passenger, Priest.”

Star saw Priest coming under attack and weighed in on his side. “We’ve had a lot of people like that. Remember what Holly was like when she first came?”

Holly had been a bit like Melanie, a pretty girl who was attracted first to Priest and then to the commune.

Holly grinned ruefully. “I admit it. I was lazy. But eventually I started to feel bad about not pulling my weight. Nobody said anything to me. I just realized I’d be happier doing my fair share.”

Now Garden spoke. A former junkie, she was twenty-five but looked forty. “Melanie’s a bad influence. She talks to the kids about pop records and TV shows and trash like that.”

Priest said: “Obviously we need to have a discussion with Melanie about this when she gets back from San Francisco. I know she’s going to be very upset when she hears what Flower and Pearl have done.”

Dale was not satisfied. “What bugs a lot of us …”

Priest frowned. This sounded as if a group of them had been talking behind his back. Jesus, have I got a full-scale rebellion on my hands? He let his displeasure show in his voice. “Well? What bugs a lot of you?”

Dale swallowed. “Her mobile phone and computer.”

There was no power line into the valley, so they had few electrical appliances; and there had grown up a kind of puritanism about things like TV and videotapes. Priest had to listen to his car radio to hear the news. They had come to look down on anything electrical. Melanie’s equipment, which she recharged at the public library in Silver City by plugging into an outlet normally used for the vacuum cleaner, had drawn some disapproving stares. Now several people nodded agreement with Dale’s complaint.

There was a special reason why Melanie had to keep her mobile and her computer. But Priest could not explain it to Dale. He was not a Rice Eater. Although he was a full member of the group and had been here for years, Priest could not be sure he would go along with the earthquake plan. He might freak.

Priest realized he had to end this. It was getting out of control. Discontented people had to be dealt with one by one, not in a collective discussion where they reinforced one another.

But before he could say anything, Poem weighed in. “Priest, is there something going on? Something you’re not telling us about? I never really understood why you and Star had to go away for two and a half weeks.”

Song, supporting Priest, said: “Wow, that’s such a mistrustful question!”

The group was falling apart, Priest could see. It was the imminent prospect of having to leave the valley. There was no sign of the miracle he had hinted at. They saw their world coming to an end.

Star said: “I thought I told everyone. I had an uncle who died and left his affairs in a tangle, and I was his only relative, so I had to help the lawyers straighten everything out.”

Enough.

Priest knew how to choke off a protest. He spoke decisively. “I feel we’re discussing these things in a bad atmosphere,” he said. “Does anyone agree with me?”

They all did, of course. Most of them nodded.

“What do we do about it?” Priest looked at his ten-year-old son, a dark-eyed, serious child. “What do you say, Ringo?”

“We meditate together,” the boy said. It was the answer any of them would give.

Priest looked around. “Does everyone approve of Ringo’s idea?”

They did.

“Then let’s make ourselves ready.”

Each of them assumed the position they liked. Some lay flat on their backs, others bent into a fetal curl, one or two lay as if sleeping. Priest and several others sat cross-legged, hands loose on their knees, eyes closed, faces raised to heaven.

“Relax the small toe of your left foot,” Priest said in a quiet, penetrating voice. “Then the fourth toe, then the third, then the second, then the big toe. Relax your whole foot … and your ankle … and then your calf.” As he went slowly around the body, a contemplative peace descended on the room. People’s breathing slowed and became even, their bodies grew more and more still, and their faces gradually took on the tranquillity of meditation.

Finally Priest said a slow, deep syllable: “Om.”

With one voice the congregation replied: “Omm …”

My people.

May they live here forever.

6

The meeting at the governor’s office was scheduled for twelve noon. Sacramento, the state capital, was a couple of hours’ drive from San Francisco. Judy left home at nine forty-five to allow for heavy traffic getting out of the city.

The aide she was to meet, Al Honeymoon, was a well-known figure in California politics. Officially cabinet secretary, he was in fact hatchet man. Any time Governor Robson needed to run a new highway through a beauty spot, build a nuclear power station, fire a thousand government employees, or betray a faithful friend, he got Honeymoon to do the dirty work.

The two men had been colleagues for twenty years. When they met, Mike Robson was still only a state assemblyman and Honeymoon was fresh out of law school. Honeymoon had been selected for his bad-guy role because he was black, and the governor had shrewdly calculated that the press would hesitate to vilify a black man. Those liberal days were long gone, but Honeymoon had matured into a political operator of great skill and utter ruthlessness. No one liked him, but plenty of people were scared of him.

For the sake of the Bureau, Judy wanted to make a good impression on him. It was not often that political types had a direct personal interest in an FBI case. Judy knew that her handling of this assignment would forever color Honeymoon’s attitude to the Bureau and to law enforcement agencies in general. Personal experience always had more impact than reports and statistics.

The FBI liked to appear all-powerful and infallible. But she had made so little progress with the case that it would be kind of difficult to play that part, especially to a hard-ass like Honeymoon. Anyway, it was not her style. Her plan was simply to appear efficient and inspire confidence.

And she had another reason for giving a good account of herself. She wanted Governor Robson’s statement to open the door to a dialogue with the Hammer of Eden. A hint that the governor might negotiate could just persuade them to hold off. And if they responded by trying to communicate, that might give Judy new clues to who they were. Right now it was the only way she could think of to catch them. All other lines of inquiry had led to dead ends.

She thought it might be difficult to persuade the governor to give this hint. He would not want to give the impression he would listen to terrorist demands, for fear of encouraging others. But there should be a way to word the statement so that the message was clear only to the Hammer of Eden people.

She was not wearing her Armani power suit. Instinct told her that Honeymoon was more likely to warm to someone who came on as a working Joe, so she had put on a steel gray pantsuit, tied her hair back in a neat knot, and carried her gun in a holster on her hip. In case that was too severe, she wore small pearl earrings that called attention to her long neck. It never did any harm to look attractive.

She wondered idly whether Michael Quercus found her attractive. He was a dish; shame he was so irritating. Her mother would have approved of him. Judy could remember her saying: “I like a man who takes charge.” Quercus dressed nicely, in an understated kind of way. She wondered what his body was like under his clothes. Maybe he was covered with dark hair, like a monkey: she did not like hairy men. Maybe he was pale and soft, but she thought not: he seemed fit. She realized she was fantasizing about Quercus in the nude, and she felt annoyed with herself. The last thing I need is a bad-tempered matinee idol.

She decided to call ahead and check the parking. She dialed the governor’s office on her cell phone and got Honeymoon’s secretary. “I have a twelve noon meeting with Mr. Honeymoon, and I’m wondering if I can park at the Capitol Building. I’ve never been to Sacramento before.”

The secretary was a young man. “We have no visitor parking at the building, but there’s a parking garage on the next block.”

“Where exactly is that?”

“The entrance is on Tenth Street between K Street and L. The Capitol Building is on Tenth between L and M. It’s literally a minute away. But your meeting isn’t at noon, it’s at eleven-thirty.”

“What?”

“Your meeting is scheduled for eleven-thirty.”

“Has it been changed?”

“No, ma’am, it always was eleven-thirty.”

Judy was furious. To arrive late would create a bad impression even before she opened her mouth. This was already going wrong.

She controlled her anger. “I guess someone made a mistake.” She checked her watch. If she drove like hell, she could be there in ninety minutes. “It’s no problem, I’m running ahead of schedule,” she lied. “I’ll be there.”

“Very good.”

She put her foot down and watched the Monte Carlo’s speedometer climb to a hundred. Fortunately the road was not busy. Most of the morning traffic was headed the other way, into San Francisco.

Brian Kincaid had told her the time of the meeting, so he would be late, too. They were traveling separately because he had a second appointment in Sacramento, at the FBI field office there. Judy dialed the San Francisco office and spoke to the SAC’s secretary. “Linda, this is Judy. Would you call Brian and tell him the governor’s aide is expecting us at eleven-thirty, not twelve noon, please?”

“I think he knows that,” Linda said.

“No, he doesn’t. He told me twelve. See if you can reach him and warn him.”

“Sure will.”

“Thanks.” Judy hung up and concentrated on her driving.

A few minutes later she heard a police siren.

She looked in her mirror and saw the familiar tan paint job of a California Highway Patrol car.

“I do not fucking believe this,” she said.

She pulled over and braked hard. The patrol car pulled in behind her. She opened her door.

An amplified voice said: “STAY IN THE CAR.”

She took our her FBI shield, held it at arm’s length so the cop could see it, then got out.

“STAY IN THE CAR!”

She heard a note of fear in the voice and saw that the patrolman was alone. She sighed. She could just imagine some rookie cop pulling a gun and shooting her out of nervousness.

She held out her shield so he could see it. “FBI!” she shouted. “Look, for Christ’s sake!”

“GET BACK IN THE CAR!”

She looked at her watch. It was ten-thirty. Shaking with frustration, she sat in her car. She left the door open.

There was a maddeningly long wait.

At last the patrolman approached her. “The reason I stopped you is that you were doing ninety-nine miles per hour—”

“Just look at this,” she said, holding out her shield.

“What’s that?”

“For Christ’s sake, it’s an FBI shield! I’m an agent on urgent business and you’ve just delayed me!”

“Well, you sure don’t look like—”

She jumped out of the car, startling him, and waved a finger under his chin. “Don’t you tell me I don’t look like a fucking agent. You don’t recognize an FBI shield, so how would you know what an agent looks like?” She put her hands on her hips, pushing her jacket back so that he could see her holster.

“Can I see your license, please?”

“Hell, no. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to drive to Sacramento at ninety-nine miles per hour, do you understand?” She got back into the car.

“You can’t do that,” he said.

“Write your congressman,” she said, and she slammed the door and drove off.

She moved into the fast lane, accelerated to a hundred, then checked her watch. She had wasted about five minutes. She could still make it.

She had lost her temper with the patrolman. He would tell his superior, who would complain to the FBI. Judy would get a reprimand. But if she had been polite to the guy, she would still be there. “Shit,” she said feelingly.

She reached the turnoff for downtown Sacramento at eleven-twenty. By eleven twenty-five she was entering the parking garage on Tenth Street. It took her a couple of minutes to find a slot. She ran down the staircase and across the street.

The Capitol Building was a white stone palace like a wedding cake, set in immaculate gardens bordered by giant palm trees. She hurried along a marble hall to a large doorway with GOVERNOR carved over it. She stopped, took a couple of calming breaths, and checked her watch.

It was exactly eleven-thirty. She had got there on time. The Bureau would not look incompetent.

She opened the double doors and stepped inside.

She found herself in a large lobby presided over by a secretary behind an enormous desk. On one side was a row of chairs where, to her surprise, she saw Brian Kincaid waiting, looking cool and relaxed in a crisp dark gray suit, his white hair combed neatly, not at all like someone who had rushed to get here. She was suddenly conscious that she was perspiring.

When Kincaid caught her eye, she saw a flash of surprise in his expression, swiftly suppressed.

She said: “Uh … hi, Brian.”

“Morning.” He looked away.

He did not thank her for sending a message to warn him that the meeting was earlier.

She asked: “What time did you get here?”

“A few minutes ago.”

That meant he had known the correct time for the meeting. But he had told her it was half an hour later. Surely he had not deliberately misled her? It seemed almost childish.

Before she had time to reach a conclusion, a young black man emerged from a side door. He spoke to Brian. “Agent Kincaid?”

He stood up. “That’s me.”

“And you must be Agent Maddox. Mr. Honeymoon will see you both now.”

They followed him along the corridor and around a corner. As they walked, he said: “We call this the Horseshoe, because the governor’s offices are grouped around three sides of a rectangle.”

Halfway along the second side they passed another lobby, this one occupied by two secretaries. A young man holding a file waited on a leather couch. Judy guessed that was the way to the governor’s personal office. A few steps on, they were shown into Honeymoon’s room.

He was a big man with close-cropped hair turning gray. He had taken off the coat of his gray pinstripe suit to reveal black suspenders. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled, but his silk tie was fastened tight in a high pin-through collar. He removed a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses and stood up. He had a dark, sculptured face that wore a don’t-fuck-with-me expression. He could have been a police lieutenant, except he was too well dressed.

Despite his intimidating appearance, his manner was courteous. He shook their hands and said: “I appreciate your coming here all the way from San Francisco.”

“No problem,” said Kincaid.

They sat down.

Without preamble Honeymoon said: “What’s your assessment of the situation?”

Kincaid said: “Well, sir, you particularly asked to meet with the agent at the sharp end, so I’ll let Judy here fill you in.”

Judy said: “We haven’t caught these people yet, I’m afraid.” Then she cursed herself for beginning with an apology. Be positive! “We’re fairly sure they’re not connected with the Green California Campaign — that was a weak attempt to lay a false trail. We don’t know who they are, but I can tell you some important things we have found out about them.”

Honeymoon said: “Go ahead, please.”

“First of all, linguistic analysis of the threat message tells us we’re dealing not with a lone individual, but with a group.”

Kincaid said: “Well, two people, at least.”

Judy glared at Kincaid, but he did not meet her eye.

Honeymoon said irritably: “Which is it, two or a group?”

Judy felt herself blush. “The message was composed by a man and typed by a woman, so there are at least two. We don’t yet know if there are more.”

“Okay. But please be exact.”

This was not going well.

Judy pressed on. “Point two: These people are not insane.”

Kincaid said: “Well, not clinically. But they sure as hell aren’t normal.” He laughed as if he had said something witty.

Judy silently cursed him for undermining her. “People who commit crimes of violence can be divided into two kinds, organized and disorganized. The disorganized kind act on the spur of the moment, use whatever weapons come to hand, and choose their victims at random. They’re the real crazies.”

Honeymoon was interested. “And the other kind?”

“The organized ones plan their crimes, carry their weapons with them, and attack victims who have been selected beforehand using some logical criteria.”

Kincaid said: “They’re just crazy in a different way.”

Judy tried to ignore him. “Such people may be sick, but they are not looney tunes. We can think of them as rational, and try to anticipate what they might do.”

“All right. And the Hammer of Eden people are organized.”

“Judging by their threat message, yes.”

“You rely a great deal on this linguistic analysis,” Honeymoon said skeptically.

“It’s a powerful tool.”

Kincaid put in: “It’s no substitute for careful investigative work. But in this case, it’s all we’ve got.”

The implication seemed to be that they had to fall back on linguistic analysis because Judy had failed to do the legwork. Feeling desperate, she struggled on. “We’re dealing with serious people — which means that if they can’t cause an earthquake, they may attempt something else.”

“Such as?”

“One of the more usual terrorist acts. Explode a bomb, take a hostage, murder a prominent figure.”

Kincaid said: “Assuming they have the capability, of course. So far we’ve nothing to indicate that.”

Judy took a deep breath. There was something she had to say, and she could not avoid it. “However, I’m not prepared to rule out the possibility that they really could cause an earthquake.”

Honeymoon said: “What?”

Kincaid laughed scornfully.

Judy said stubbornly: “It’s not likely, but it’s conceivable. That’s what I was told by California’s leading expert, Professor Quercus. I’d be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell you.”

Kincaid leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Judy has told you the textbook answers, Al,” he said in a we’re-all-boys-together tone of voice. “Now maybe I should tell you how it looks from the perspective of a certain amount of age and experience.”

Judy stared at him. I’ll get you for this if it’s the last thing I do, Kincaid. You’ve spent this entire meeting putting me down. But what if there really is an earthquake, you asshole? What will you say to the relatives of the dead?

“Please go on,” Honeymoon said to Kincaid.

“These people can’t cause an earthquake and they don’t give a flying fuck about power plants. My instinct tells me this is a guy trying to impress his girlfriend. He’s got the governor freaked out, he’s got the FBI running around like blue-assed flies, and the whole thing is on the John Truth radio show every night. Suddenly he’s a big shot, and she’s, like, wow!”

Judy felt totally humiliated. Kincaid had let her lay out her findings and then poured scorn on everything she had said. He had obviously planned this, and she was now sure that he had deliberately misled her about the time of the meeting in the hope that she would show up late. The whole thing was a strategy for discrediting her and at the same time making Kincaid look better. She felt sick.

Honeymoon stood up suddenly. “I’m going to advise the governor to take no action on this threat.” He added dismissively: “Thank you both.”

Judy realized it was too late to ask him to open the door to dialogue with the terrorists. The moment had passed. And any suggestion of hers would be nixed by Kincaid anyway. She felt despairing. What if it’s real? What if they actually can do it?

Kincaid said: “Any time we can be of assistance, you just let us know.”

Honeymoon looked faintly scornful. He hardly needed an invitation to use the services of the FBI. But he politely held out his hand to shake.

A moment later Judy and Kincaid were outside.

Judy remained silent as they walked around the Horseshoe and through the lobby into the marble hallway. There Kincaid stopped and said: “You did just fine in there, Judy. Don’t you worry about a thing.” He could not conceal his smirk.

She was determined not to let him see how rattled she was. She wanted to scream at him, but she forced herself to say calmly: “I think we did our job.”

“Sure we did. Where are you parked?”

“In the garage across the street.” She jerked a thumb.

“I’m the opposite side. See you later.”

“You bet.”

Judy watched him walk away, then she turned and went in the other direction.

Crossing the street, she saw a See’s candy store. She went in and bought some chocolates.

Driving back to San Francisco, she ate the whole box.

7

Priest needed physical activity to keep him from going crazy with tension. After the meeting in the temple he went to the vineyard and started weeding. It was a hot day, and he soon worked up a sweat and took off his shirt.

Star worked beside him. After an hour or so she looked at her watch. “Time for a break,” she said. “Let’s go listen to the news.”

They sat in Priest’s car and turned on the radio. The bulletin was identical to the one they had heard earlier. Priest ground his teeth in frustration. “Damn, the governor has to say something soon!”

Star said: “We don’t expect him to give in right away, do we?”

“No, but I thought there would be some message, maybe just a hint of a concession. Hell, the idea of a freeze on new power plants ain’t exactly wacko. Millions of people in California probably agree with it.”

Star nodded. “Shit, in Los Angeles it’s already dangerous to breathe because of the pollution, for Christ’s sake! I can’t believe people really want to live that way.”

“But nothing happens.”

“Well, we figured all along we’d need to give a demonstration before they’d listen.”

“Yeah.” Priest hesitated, then blurted: “I guess I’m just scared it won’t work.”

“The seismic vibrator?”

He hesitated again. He would not have been this frank with anyone but Star, and he was already half regretting his confession of doubt. But he had begun, so he might as well finish. “The whole thing,” he said. “I’m scared there’ll be no earthquake, and then we’ll be lost.”

She was a little shocked, he could see. She was used to him being supremely confident about everything he did. But he had never done anything like this.

Walking back to the vineyard, she said: “Do something with Flower tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Spend time with her. Do something with her. You’re always playing with Dusty.”

Dusty was five. It was easy to have fun with him. He was fascinated by everything. Flower was thirteen, the age when everything grown-ups did seemed stupid. Priest was about to say this when he realized there was another reason for what Star was saying.

She thinks I may die tomorrow.

The thought hit him like a punch. He knew that this earthquake plan was dangerous, of course, but he had mainly considered the peril to himself and the risk of leaving the commune leaderless. He had not imagined Flower alone in the world at the age of thirteen.

“What’ll I do with her?” he said.

“She wants to learn the guitar.”

That was news to Priest. He was not much of a guitarist himself, but he could play folk songs and simple blues, enough to get her started anyway. He shrugged. “Okay, we’ll start tonight.”

They went back to work, but a few minutes later they were interrupted when Slow, grinning from ear to ear, shouted: “Hey, lookit who’s here!”

Priest looked across the vineyard. The person he was waiting for was Melanie. She had gone to San Francisco to take Dusty to his father. She was the only one who could tell Priest exactly where to use the seismic vibrator, and he would not feel comfortable until she was back. But it was too early to expect her, and anyway, Slow would not have gotten so excited about Melanie.

He saw a man coming down the hill, followed by a woman carrying a child. Priest frowned. Often a year went by without a single visitor coming to the valley. This morning they had had the cop; now these people. But were they strangers? He narrowed his eyes. The man’s rolling walk was terribly familiar. As the figures got closer, Priest said: “My God, is that Bones?”

“Yes, it is!” Star said delightedly. “Holy moley!” And she hurried toward the newcomers. Spirit joined in the excitement and ran with her, barking.

Priest followed more slowly. Bones, whose real name was Billy Owens, was a Rice Eater. But he had liked the way things were before Priest arrived. He enjoyed the hand-to-mouth existence of the early commune. He reveled in the constant crises and liked to be drunk or stoned, or both, within a couple of hours of waking up. He played the blues harmonica with manic brilliance and was the most successful street beggar they had. He had not joined a commune to find work, self-discipline, and a daily act of worship. So after a couple of years, when it became clear that the Priest-Star regime was permanent, Bones took off. He had not been seen since. Now, after more than twenty years, he was back.

Star threw her arms around him, hugged him hard, and kissed his lips. Those two had been a serious item for a while. All the men in the commune had slept with Star in those days, but she had had a special soft spot for Bones. Priest felt a twinge of jealousy as he watched Bones press Star’s body to his own.

When they let each other go, Priest could see that Bones did not look well. He had always been a thin man, but now he looked as if he were dying of starvation. He had wild hair and a straggly beard, but the beard was matted and the hair seemed to be falling out in clumps. His jeans and T-shirt were dirty, and the heel had come off one of his cowboy boots.

He’s here because he’s in trouble.

Bones introduced the woman as Debbie. She was younger than he, no more than twenty-five, and pretty in a pinched-looking way. Her child was a boy about eighteen months old. She and the kid were almost as thin and dirty as Bones.

It was time for their midday meal. They took Bones to the cookhouse. Lunch was a casserole made with pearl barley and flavored with herbs grown by Garden. Debbie ate ravenously and fed the child, too, but Bones took just a couple of spoonfuls, then lit a cigarette.

There was a lot of talk about the old times. Bones said: “I’ll tell you my favorite memory. One afternoon right on that hillside over there, Star explained to me about cunnilingus.” There was a ripple of laughter around the table. It was faintly embarrassed laughter, but Bones failed to pick up on that, and he went on: “I was twenty years old and I never knew people did that. I was shocked! But she made me try it. And the taste! Yech!”

“There was a lot you didn’t know,” Star said. “I remember you telling me that you couldn’t understand why you sometimes got headaches in the morning, and I had to explain to you that it happened whenever you got falling-down drunk the night before. You didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘hangover.’ ”

She had deftly changed the subject. In the old days it had been perfectly normal to talk about cunnilingus around the table, but things had changed since Bones left. No one had ever made an issue of cleaning up their conversation, but it had happened naturally as the children started to understand more.

Bones was nervy, laughing a lot, trying too hard to be friendly, fidgeting, chain-smoking. He wants something. But he’ll tell me what it is soon enough.

As they cleared the table and washed the bowls, Bones took Priest aside and said: “Got something I want to show you. Come on.”

Priest shrugged and went with him.

As they walked, Priest took out a little bag of marijuana and a pack of cigarette papers. The communards did not usually smoke dope during the day, because it slowed down the work in the vineyard, but today was a special day, and Priest felt the need to soothe his nerves. As they walked up the hill and through the trees, he rolled a joint with the ease of long practice.

Bones licked his lips. “You don’t have anything with, like, more of a kick, do you?”

“What are you using these days, Bones?”

“A little brown sugar now and again, you know, keep my head straight.”

Heroin.

So that was it. Bones had become a junkie.

“We don’t have any smack here,” Priest told him. “No one uses it.” And I’d get rid of anyone who did, faster than you can say spike.

Priest lit the joint.

When they reached the clearing where the cars were parked, Bones said: “This is it.”

At first Priest could not work out what he was looking at. It was a truck, but what kind? It was painted with a gay design in bright red and yellow, and along the side was a picture of a monster breathing fire and some lettering in the same gaudy colors.

Bones, who knew that Priest could not read, said: “The Dragon’s Mouth. It’s a carnival ride.”

Priest saw it then. A lot of small carnival rides were mounted on trucks. The truck engine powered the ride in use. Then the parts of the ride could be folded down and the truck driven to the next site.

Priest passed him the joint and said: “Is it yours?”

Bones took a long toke, held the smoke down, then blew out before answering. “I been making my living from this for ten years. But it needs work, and I can’t afford to get it fixed. So I have to sell it.”

Now Priest could see what was coming.

Bones took another draw on the joint but did not hand it back. “It’s probably worth fifty thousand dollars, but I’m asking ten.”

Priest nodded. “Sounds like a bargain … for someone.”

“Maybe you guys should buy it,” Bones said.

“What the fuck would I do with a carnival ride, Bones?”

“It’s a good investment. If you have a bad year with the wine, you could go out with the ride and make some money.”

They had bad years, sometimes. There was nothing they could do about the weather. But Paul Beale was always willing to give them credit. He believed in the ideals of the commune, even though he had been unable to live up to them himself. And he knew there would always be another vintage next year.

Priest shook his head. “No way. But I wish you luck, old buddy. Keep trying, you’ll find a buyer.”

Bones must have known it had been a long shot, but all the same he looked panicky. “Hey, Priest, you want to know the truth of it.… I’m in bad shape. Could you loan me a thousand bucks? That’d get me straight.”

It would get you stoned out of your head, you mean. Then, after a few days, you’d be right back where you were.

“We don’t have any money,” Priest told him. “We don’t use it here, don’t you remember that?”

Bones looked crafty. “You gotta have a stash somewhere, come on!”

And you think I’m going to tell you about it?

“Sorry, pal, can’t help.”

Bones nodded. “That’s a bummer, man. I mean, I’m in serious trouble.”

Priest said: “And don’t try to go behind my back and ask Star, because you’ll get the same answer.” He put a harsh note into his voice. “Are you listening to me?”

“Sure, sure,” Bones said, looking scared. “Be cool, Priest, man, be cool.”

“I’m cool,” Priest said.

Priest worried about Melanie all afternoon. She might have changed her mind and decided to go back to her husband or simply got scared and taken off in her car. Then he would be finished. There was no way he or anyone else here could interpret the data on Michael Quercus’s disk and figure out where to place the seismic vibrator tomorrow.

But she showed up at the end of the afternoon, to his great relief. He told her about Flower being arrested and warned her that one or two people wanted to put the blame on Melanie and her cute clothes. She said she would get some work clothes from the free shop.

After supper Priest went to Song’s cabin and picked up her guitar. “Are you using this?” he said politely. He would never say, “May I borrow your guitar?” because in theory all property was communal, so the guitar was his as much as hers, even though she had made it. However, in practice everyone always asked.

He sat outside his cabin with Flower and tuned the guitar. Spirit, the dog, watched alertly, as if he, too, were going to learn to play. “Most songs have three chords,” Priest began. “If you know three chords, you can play nine out of ten of the songs in the whole world.”

He showed her the chord of C. As she struggled to press the strings with her soft fingertips, he studied her face in the evening light: her perfect skin, the dark hair, green eyes like Star’s, the little frown as she concentrated. I have to stay alive, to take care of you.

He thought of himself at that age, already a criminal, experienced, skilled, hardened to violence, with a hatred of cops and a contempt for ordinary citizens who were dumb enough to let themselves get robbed. At thirteen I had already gone wrong. He was determined that Flower would not be like that. She had been brought up in a community of love and peace, untouched by the world that had corrupted little Ricky Granger and turned him into a hoodlum before he grew hair on his chin. You’ll be okay, I’ll make sure of it.

She played the chord, and Priest realized that a particular song had been running in his head ever since Bones arrived. It was a folkie number from the early sixties that Star had always liked.

“I’ll teach you a song your mommy used to sing to you when you were a baby,” he said. He took the guitar from her. “Do you remember this?” He sang:

In his head he heard Star’s unmistakable voice, low and sexy then as now.

Priest was about the same age as Bones, and Bones was dying. Priest had no doubt about that. Soon the girl and the baby would leave him. He would starve his body and feed his habit. He might overdose or poison himself with bad drugs, or he might just abuse his system until it gave up and he got pneumonia. One way or another, he was a dead man.

If I lose this place, I’ll go the same way as Bones.

As Flower struggled to play the chord of A minor, Priest toyed with the idea of returning to normal society. He fantasized going every day to a job, buying socks and wingtip shoes, owning a TV set and a toaster. The thought made him queasy. He had never lived straight. He had been brought up in a whorehouse, educated on the streets, briefly the owner of a semilegitimate business, and for most of his life the leader of a hippie commune cut off from the world.

He recalled the one regular job he had ever had. At eighteen he had gone to work for the Jenkinsons, the couple who ran the liquor store down the street. He had thought of them as old, at the time, but now he guessed they had been in their fifties. His intention had been to work just long enough to figure out where they kept their money, then steal it. But then he learned something about himself.

He discovered he had a queer talent for arithmetic. Each morning Mr. Jenkinson put ten dollars’ worth of change into the cash register. As customers bought liquor and paid and got change, Priest either served them himself or heard one of the Jenkinsons sing out the total, “Dollar twenty-nine, please, Mrs. Roberto,” or “Three bucks even, sir.” And the figures seemed to add themselves up in his head. All day long Priest always knew exactly how much money was in the till, and at the end of the day he could tell Mr. Jenkinson the total before he counted it.

He would hear Mr. Jenkinson talking to the salesmen who called, and he soon knew the wholesale and retail prices of every item in the store. From then on the automatic register in his brain calculated the profit on every transaction, and he was awestruck by how much the Jenkinsons were making without stealing from anyone.

He arranged for them to be robbed four times in a month, then made them an offer for the store. When they turned him down, he arranged a fifth robbery and made sure Mrs. Jenkinson got roughed up this time. After that Mr. Jenkinson accepted his offer.

Priest borrowed the deposit from the neighborhood loan shark and paid Mr. Jenkinson the installments out of the store’s takings. Although he could not read or write, he always knew his financial position exactly. Nobody could cheat him. One time he employed a respectable-looking middle-aged woman who stole a dollar out of the register every day. At the end of the week he deducted five dollars from her pay, beat her up, and told her not to come back.

Within a year he had four stores; two years later he had a wholesale liquor warehouse; after three years he was a millionaire; and at the end of his fourth year he was on the run.

He sometimes wondered what might have happened if he had paid off the loan shark in full, given his accountant honest figures to report to the IRS, and made a plea-bargain deal with the LAPD on the fraud charges. Maybe today he would have a company as big as Coca-Cola and be living in one of those mansions in Beverly Hills with a gardener and a pool boy and a five-car garage.

But as he tried to imagine it, he knew it could never have happened. That was not him. The guy who came down the stairs of the mansion in a white bathrobe, and coolly ordered the maid to squeeze him a glass of orange juice, had someone else’s face. Priest could never live in the square world. He had always had a problem with rules: he could never obey other people’s. That was why he had to live here.

In Silver River Valley I make the rules, I change the rules, I am the rules.

Flower told him her fingers hurt.

“Then it’s time to stop,” Priest said. “If you like, I’ll teach you another song tomorrow.” If I’m still alive.

“Does it hurt you?”

“No, but that’s only because I’m used to it. When you’ve practiced the guitar a little, your fingertips get hard pads on them, like the skin on your heel.”

“Does Noel Gallagher have hard pads?”

“If Noel Gallagher is a pop guitarist …”

“Of course! He’s in Oasis!”

“Well, then he has hard pads. Do you think you might like to be a musician?”

“No.”

“That was pretty definite. You have some other ideas?”

She looked guilty, as if she knew he was going to disapprove, but she screwed up her courage and said: “I want to be a writer.”

He was not sure how he felt about that. Your daddy will never be able to read your work. But he pretended enthusiasm. “That’s good! What kind?”

“For a magazine. Like Teen, maybe.”

“Why?”

“You get to meet stars and interview them, and write about fashions and makeup.”

Priest gritted his teeth and tried not to let his revulsion show. “Well, I like the idea that you might be a writer, anyway. If you wrote poetry and stories, instead of magazine articles, you could still live here in Silver River Valley.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said doubtfully.

He could see that she was not planning to spend her life here. But she was too young to understand. By the time she was old enough to decide for herself, she would have a different view. I hope.

Star came over. “Time for Truth,” she said.

Priest took the guitar from Flower. “Go and get ready for bed, now,” he said.

He and Star headed for the parking circle, dropping off the guitar at Song’s cabin on the way. They found Melanie already there, sitting in the backseat of the ’Cuda, listening to the radio. She had put on a bright yellow T-shirt and blue jeans from the free shop. Both were too big for her, and she had tucked in the T-shirt and pulled the jeans tight with a belt, showing off her tiny waist. She still looked like sex on a stick.

John Truth had a flat nasal twang that could become hypnotic. His specialty was saying aloud the things his listeners believed in their hearts but were ashamed to admit to. It was mostly standard fascist-pig stuff: AIDS was a punishment for sin, intelligence was racially inherited, what the world needed was stricter discipline, all politicians were stupid and corrupt, and like that. Priest imagined that his audience was mostly the kind of fat white men who learned everything they knew in bars. “This guy,” Star said. “He’s everything I hate about America: prejudiced, sanctimonious, hypocritical, self-righteous, and really fucking stupid.”

“That’s a fact,” Priest said. “Listen up.”

Truth was saying: “I’m going to read once more that statement made by the governor’s cabinet secretary, Mr. Honeymoon.”

Priest’s hackles rose, and Star said: “That son of a bitch!” Honeymoon was the man behind the scheme to flood Silver River Valley, and they hated him.

John Truth went on, speaking slowly and ponderously, as if every syllable was significant. “Listen to this. ‘The FBI has investigated the threat which appeared on an Internet bulletin board on the first of May. That investigation has determined that there is no substance to the threat.’ ”

Priest’s heart sank. This was what he had expected, but all the same he was dismayed. He had hoped for at least some slight hint of appeasement. But Honeymoon sounded completely intractable.

Truth carried on reading. “ ‘Governor Mike Robson, following the FBI’s recommendation, has decided to take no further action.’ That, my friends, is the statement in its entirety.” Truth obviously felt it was outrageously short. “Are you satisfied? The terrorist deadline runs out tomorrow. Do you feel reassured? Call John Truth on this number now to tell the world what you think.”

Priest said: “That means we have to do it.”

Melanie said: “Well, I never expected the governor to cave in without a demonstration.”

“Nor did I, I guess.” He frowned. “The statement mentioned the FBI twice. It sounds to me like Mike Robson is getting ready to blame the feds if things go wrong. And that makes me wonder if in his heart he’s not so sure.”

“So if we give him proof that we really can cause an earthquake …”

“Maybe he’ll think again.”

Star looked downcast. “Shit,” she said. “I guess I’ve been hoping we wouldn’t have to do this.”

Priest was alarmed. He did not want Star to get cold feet at this point. Her support was necessary to carry the rest of the Rice Eaters. “We can do this without hurting anyone,” he said. “Melanie has picked the perfect location.” He turned to the backseat. “Tell Star what we talked about.”

Melanie leaned forward and unfolded a map so that Star and Priest could see it. She did not know that Priest could not read maps. “Here’s the Owens Valley fault,” she said, pointing to a red streak. “There were major earthquakes in 1790 and 1872, so another one is overdue.”

Star said: “Surely earthquakes don’t happen according to a regular timetable?”

“No. But the history of the fault shows that enough pressure for an earthquake builds up over about a century. Which means we can cause one now if we give a nudge in the right place.”

“Which is where?” Star said.

Melanie pointed to a spot on the map. “Round about here.”

“You can’t be exact?”

“Not until I get there. Michael’s data gives us the location within about a mile. When I look at the landscape I should be able to pinpoint the spot.”

“How?”

“Evidence of earlier earthquakes.”

“Okay.”

“Now, the best time, according to Michael’s seismic window, will be between one-thirty and two-twenty.”

“How can you be sure no one will get hurt?”

“Look at the map. Owens Valley is thinly populated, just a few small towns strung along a dried-up riverbed. The point I’ve chosen is miles from any human habitation.”

Priest added: “We can be sure the earthquake will be minor. The effects will hardly be felt in the nearest town.” He knew this was not certain, and so did Melanie; but he gave her a hard stare, and she did not contradict him.

Star said: “If the effects are hardly felt, no one’s going to give a shit, so why do it?”

She was being contrary, but that was just a sign of how tense she was. Priest said: “We said we would cause an earthquake tomorrow. As soon as we’ve done it, we’ll call John Truth on Melanie’s mobile phone and tell him we kept our promise.” What a moment that will be, what a feeling!

“Will he believe us?”

Melanie said: “He’ll have to, when he checks the seismograph.”

Priest said: “Imagine how Governor Robson and his people will feel.” He could hear the exultation in his own voice. “Especially that asshole Honeymoon. They’ll be, like, ‘Shit! These people really can cause earthquakes, man! What the fuck we gonna do?’ ”

“And then what?” said Star.

“Then we threaten to do it again. But this time, we don’t give them a month. We give them a week.”

“How will we make the threat? Same way we did before?”

Melanie answered. “I don’t think so. I’m sure they have a way of monitoring the bulletin board and tracing the phone call. And if we use a different bulletin board, there’s always the chance that no one will notice our message. Remember, it was three weeks before John Truth picked up on our last one.”

“So we call and threaten a second earthquake.”

Priest put in: “But next time it won’t be in a remote wilderness — it’ll be someplace where real damage will be done.” He caught an apprehensive look from Star. “We don’t have to mean it,” he added. “Once we’ve shown our power, just the threat ought to be enough.”

Star said: “Inshallah.” She had picked it up from Poem, who was Algerian. “If God wills.”

It was pitch dark when they left the next morning.

The seismic vibrator had not been seen in daylight within a hundred miles of the valley, and Priest wanted to keep it that way. He planned to leave home and return in darkness. The round trip would be about five hundred miles, eleven hours driving in a truck with a top speed of forty-five. They would take the ’Cuda as a backup car, Priest had decided. Oaktree would come with them to share the driving.

Priest used a flashlight to illuminate the way through the trees to where the truck was concealed. The four of them were silent, anxious. It took them half an hour to remove the branches they had piled over the vehicle.

He was tense when at last he sat behind the wheel, slid the key into the ignition, and turned on the engine. It started the first time with a satisfying roar, and he felt exultant.

The commune’s houses were more than a mile away, and he was sure no one would hear the engine at such a distance. The dense forest muffled sound. Later, of course, everyone would notice that four commune members were away. Aneth had been briefed to say they had gone to a vineyard in Napa that Paul Beale wanted them to see, where a new hybrid vine had been planted. It was unusual for people to make trips out of the commune; but there would be few questions, for no one liked to challenge Priest.

He turned on the headlights, and Melanie climbed into the truck beside him. He engaged low gear and steered the heavy vehicle through the trees to the dirt track, then turned uphill and headed for the road. The all-terrain tires coped easily with streambeds and mudslides.

Jesus, I wonder if this is going to work.

An earthquake? Come on!

But it has to work.

He got on the road and headed east. After twenty minutes they climbed out of Silver River Valley and hit Route 89. Priest turned south. He checked his mirrors and saw that Star and Oaktree were still behind in the ’Cuda.

Beside him, Melanie was very calm. Probing gently, he said: “Was Dusty okay last night?”

“Fine, he likes visiting his father. Michael could always find time for him, never for me.”

Melanie’s bitterness was familiar. What surprised Priest was her lack of fear. Unlike him, she was not agonizing over what would happen to her child if she died today. She seemed completely confident that nothing would go wrong, the earthquake would not harm her. Was it that she knew more than Priest? Or was she the type of person who just ignored uncomfortable facts? Priest was not sure.

As dawn broke they were looping around the north end of Lake Tahoe. The motionless water looked like a disk of polished steel fallen amid the mountains. The seismic vibrator was a conspicuous vehicle on the winding road that followed the pine-fringed shore; but the vacationers were still asleep, and the truck was seen only by a few bleary-eyed workers on their way to jobs in hotels and restaurants.

By sunup they were on U.S. 395, across the border in Nevada, bowling south through a flat desert landscape. They took a break at a truck stop, parking the seismic vibrator where it could not be seen from the road, and ate a breakfast of oily western omelets and watery coffee.

When the road swung back into California it climbed into the mountains, and for a couple of hours the scenery was majestic, with steep forested slopes, a grander version of Silver River Valley. They dropped down again beside a silvery sea that Melanie said was Mono Lake.

Soon afterward they were on a two-lane road that cut a straight line down a long, dusty valley. The valley widened until the mountains on the far side were just a blue haze, then it narrowed again. The ground on either side of the road was tan colored and stony, with a scattering of low brush. There was no river, but the salt flats looked like a distant sheet of water.

Melanie said: “This is Owens Valley.”

The landscape gave Priest the feeling that some kind of disaster had blighted it. “What happened here?” he said.

“The river is dry because the water was diverted to Los Angeles years ago.”

They passed through a sleepy small town every twenty miles or so. Now there was no way to be inconspicuous. There was little traffic, and the seismic vibrator was stared at every time they waited at a stoplight. Plenty of men would remember it. Yeah, I seen that rig. Looked like she might be for layin’ blacktop or somethin’. What was she, anyway?

Melanie switched on her laptop and unfolded her map. She said musingly: “Somewhere beneath us, two vast slabs of the earth’s crust are wedged together, stuck, straining to spring free.”

The thought made Priest feel cold. He could hardly believe he aimed to release all that pent-up destructive force. I must be out of my mind.

“Somewhere in the next five or ten miles,” she said.

“What’s the time?”

“Just after one.”

They had cut it fine. The seismic window would open in half an hour and close fifty minutes later.

Melanie directed Priest down a side turning that crossed the flat valley floor. It was not really a road, just a track cleared through the boulders and scrub. Although the ground seemed almost level, the main road disappeared from view behind them, and they could see only the tops of high trucks passing.

“Pull up here,” Melanie said at last.

Priest stopped the truck, and they both got out. The sun beat down on them from a merciless sky. The ’Cuda pulled up behind them, and Star and Oaktree got out, stretching their arms and legs after the long drive.

“Look at that,” Melanie said. “See the dry gulch?”

Priest could see where a stream, long ago dried up, had cut a channel through the rocky ground. But where Melanie was pointing, the gulch came to an abrupt end, as if it had been walled off. “That’s strange,” Priest said.

“Now look a few yards to the right.”

Priest followed her moving finger. The streambed began again just as abruptly and continued toward the middle of the valley. Priest realized what she was pointing out. “That’s the fault line,” he said. “Last time there was an earthquake, one whole side of this valley picked up its skirts and shifted five yards, then sat down again.”

“That’s about it.”

Oaktree said: “And we’re about to make it happen again, is that right?” There was a note of awe in his voice.

“We’re going to try,” Priest said briskly. “And we don’t have much time.” He turned to Melanie. “Is the truck in exactly the right place?”

“I guess,” she said. “A few yards one way or another up here on the surface shouldn’t make any difference five miles down.”

“Okay.” He hesitated. He almost felt he ought to make a speech. He said: “Well, I’ll get started.”

He got into the cabin of the truck and settled into the driver’s seat, then started the engine that ran the vibrator. He threw the switch that lowered the steel plate to the ground. He set the vibrator to shake for thirty seconds in the middle of its frequency range. He looked through the rear window of the cab and checked the gauges. The readouts were normal. He picked up the remote radio controller and got out of the truck.

“All set,” he said.

The four of them got into the ’Cuda. Oaktree took the wheel. They drove back to the road, crossed it, and headed into the scrub on the far side. They went partway up the hillside, then Melanie said: “This is fine.”

Oaktree stopped the car.

Priest hoped they were not conspicuous from the road. If they were, there was nothing he could do about it. But the muddy colors of the ’Cuda’s paint job blended into the brown landscape.

Oaktree said nervously: “Is this far enough away?”

“I think so,” Melanie said coolly. She was not scared at all. Studying her face, Priest saw a hint of mad excitement in her eyes. It was almost sexual. Was she taking her revenge on the seismologists who had rejected her, or the husband who had let her down, or the whole damn world? Whatever the explanation, she was getting a big charge out of this.

They got out and stood looking across the valley. They could just see the top of the truck.

Star said to Priest: “It was a mistake for us both to come. If we die, Flower has no one.”

“She has the whole commune,” Priest said. “You and I are not the only adults she loves and trusts. We’re not a nuclear family, and that’s one very good reason why.”

Melanie looked annoyed. “We’re a quarter of a mile from the fault, assuming it runs along the valley floor,” she said in a cut-the-crap tone of voice. “We’ll feel the earth move, but we’re not in any danger. People who are hurt in earthquakes generally get hit by parts of buildings: falling ceilings, bridges that collapse, flying glass, stuff like that. We’re safe here.”

Star looked over her shoulder. “The mountain isn’t going to fall on us?”

“It might. And we might all be killed in a car wreck driving back to Silver River Valley. But it’s so unlikely that we shouldn’t waste time worrying about it.”

“That’s easy for you to say — your child’s father is three hundred miles away in San Francisco.”

Priest said: “I don’t care if I die here. I can’t raise my children in suburban America.”

Oaktree muttered: “This has to work. This just has to work.”

Melanie said: “For God’s sake, Priest, we don’t have all day. Just press the damn button.”

Priest looked up and down the road and waited for a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited to pass. “Okay,” he said when the road was clear. “This is it.”

He pressed the button on the remote control.

He heard the roar of the vibrator immediately, though it was muted by distance. He felt the vibration in the soles of his feet, a faint but definite trembling sensation.

Star said: “Oh, God.”

A cloud of dust billowed around the truck.

All four of them were taut as guitar strings, their bodies tensed for the first hint of movement in the earth.

Seconds passed.

Priest’s eyes raked the landscape, looking for signs of a tremor, though he guessed he would feel it before he saw it.

Come on, come on!

The seismic exploration crews normally set the vibrator for a seven-second “sweep.” Priest had set this one for thirty seconds. It seemed like an hour.

At last the noise stopped.

Melanie said: “Goddamn it.”

Priest’s heart sank. There was no earthquake. It had failed.

Maybe it was just a crazy hippie idea, like levitating the Pentagon.

“Try it again,” said Melanie.

Priest looked at the remote control in his hand. Why not?

There was a sixteen-wheel truck approaching along U.S. 395, but this time Priest did not wait. If Melanie was right, the truck would be unaffected by the tremor. If Melanie was wrong, they would all be dead.

He pressed the button.

The distant roar started up, there was a perceptible vibration in the ground, and a cloud of dust engulfed the seismic vibrator.

Priest wondered if the road would open up under the sixteen-wheeler.

Nothing happened.

The thirty seconds passed more quickly this time. Priest was surprised when the noise stopped. Is that all?

Despair engulfed him. Perhaps the Silver River Valley commune was a dream that had come to an end. What am I going to do? Where will I live? How can I avoid ending up like Bones?

But Melanie was not ready to give up. “Let’s move the truck a ways and try again.”

“But you said the exact position doesn’t matter,” Oaktree pointed out. “ ‘A few yards one way or another up here on the surface shouldn’t make any difference five miles down,’ that’s what you said.”

“Then we’ll move it more than a few yards,” Melanie said angrily. “We’re running out of time, let’s go!”

Priest did not argue with her. She was transformed. Normally she was dominated by Priest. She was a damsel in distress, he had rescued her, and she was so grateful, she had to be eternally submissive to his will. But now she was in charge, impatient and domineering. Priest could put up with that as long as she could do what she had promised. He would bring her back into line later.

They got into the ’Cuda and drove fast across the baked earth to the seismic vibrator. Then Priest and Melanie climbed into the cab of the truck and she directed him as he drove, while Oaktree and Star followed in the car. They were no longer following the track, but cutting straight through the brush. The truck’s big wheels crushed the scrubby bushes and rolled easily over the stones, but Priest wondered if the low-slung ’Cuda would suffer damage. He guessed Oaktree would honk if he had trouble.

Melanie scanned the landscape for the telltale features that showed where the fault line ran. Priest saw no more displaced streambeds. But after half a mile Melanie pointed at what looked like a miniature cliff about four feet high. “Fault scarp,” she said. “About a hundred years old.”

“I see it,” Priest said. There was a dip in the ground, like a bowl; and a break in the rim of the bowl showed where the earth had moved sideways, as if the bowl had cracked and been glued together clumsily.

Melanie said: “Let’s try here.”

Priest stopped the truck and lowered the plate. Swiftly he rechecked the gauges and set the vibrator. This time he programmed a sixty-second sweep. When all was set he jumped out of the truck.

He checked his watch anxiously. It was two o’clock. They had only twenty minutes left.

Again they drove the ’Cuda across U.S. 395 and up the hill on the far side. The drivers of the few vehicles that passed continued to ignore them. But Priest was nervous. Sooner or later someone would ask what they were doing. He did not want to have to explain himself to a curious cop or a nosy town councilman. He had a plausible story ready, about a university research project on the geology of the dried-up riverbed, but he did not want anyone to remember his face.

They all got out of the car and looked across the valley to where the seismic vibrator stood near the scarp. Priest wished with all his heart that this time he would see the earth move and open. Come on, God — give me this one, okay?

He pressed the button.

The truck roared, the earth trembled faintly, and the dust rose. The vibration went on for a full minute instead of half. But there was no earthquake. They just waited longer for disappointment.

When the noise died away, Star said: “This isn’t going to work, is it?”

Melanie threw her a furious look. Turning to Priest, she said: “Can you alter the frequency of the vibrations?”

“Yes,” Priest said. “Right now it’s set near the middle, so I can go up or down. Why?”

“There’s a theory that pitch may be a crucial factor. See, the earth is constantly resounding with faint vibrations. So why aren’t there earthquakes all the time? Maybe because a vibration has to be just the right pitch to dislodge the fault. You know how a musical note can shatter a glass?”

“I never saw it happen, except in a cartoon, but I know what you mean. The answer is yes. When they use the vibrator in seismic exploration, they vary the pitch over a seven-second sweep.”

“They do?” Melanie was curious. “Why?”

“I don’t know, maybe it gives them a better reading on the geophones. Anyway, it didn’t seem the right thing for us, so I didn’t select that feature, but I can.”

“Let’s try it.”

“Okay — but we need to hurry. It’s already five after two.”

They jumped into the car. Oaktree drove fast, skidding across the dusty desert. Priest reset the controls of the vibrator for a sweep of gradually increasing pitch over a period of sixty seconds. As they raced back to their observation point, he checked his watch again. “Two-fifteen,” he said. “This is our last chance.”

“Don’t worry,” Melanie said. “I’m out of ideas. If this doesn’t work, I’m giving up.”

Oaktree stopped the car, and they got out again.

The thought of driving all the way back to Silver River with nothing to celebrate depressed Priest so profoundly that he felt he would want to crash the truck on the freeway and end it all. Maybe that was his way out. He wondered if Star would like to die with him. I can see it now: the two of us, an overdose of painkillers, a bottle of wine to wash down the pills …

“What are you waiting for?” said Melanie. “It’s two-twenty. Press the damn button!”

Priest pressed the button.

As before, the truck roared and the ground trembled and a cloud of dust rose from the earth around the pounding steel plate of the vibrator. This time the roar did not stay at the same moderate pitch but started at a profound bass rumble and began slowly to climb.

Then it happened.

The earth beneath Priest’s feet seemed to ripple like a choppy sea. Then he felt as if someone took him by the leg and threw him down. He landed flat on his back, hitting the ground hard. It knocked the wind out of him.

Star and Melanie screamed at the same time, Melanie with a high-pitched shriek and Star with a roar of shock and fright. Priest saw them both fall, Melanie next to him and Star a few steps away. Oaktree staggered, stayed on his feet, and fell last.

Priest was silently terrified. I’ve had it, this is it, I’m going to die.

There was a noise like an express train thundering past close by. Dust rose from the ground, small stones flew through the air, and boulders rolled every which way.

The ground continued to move as if someone had hold of the end of a rug and would not stop shaking it. The feeling was unbelievably disorienting, as if the world had suddenly become a completely strange place. It was terrifying.

I’m not ready to die.

Priest caught his breath and struggled to his knees. Then, as he got one foot flat on the ground, Melanie grabbed his arm and pulled him down again. He screamed at her: “Let me go, you dumb cunt!” But he could not hear his own words.

The ground heaved up and threw him downhill, away from the ’Cuda. Melanie fell on top of him. He thought the car might turn over and crush both of them, and he tried to roll out of its path. He could not see Star or Oaktree. A flying thornbush whipped his face, scratching him. Dust got into his eyes, and he was momentarily blinded. He lost all sense of direction. He curled up in a ball, covering his face with his arms, and waited for death.

Christ, if I’m going to die, I wish I could die with Star.

The shaking stopped as suddenly as it had started. He had no idea whether it had lasted ten seconds or ten minutes.

A moment later the noise died away.

Priest rubbed the dust out of his eyes and stood up. His vision cleared slowly. He saw Melanie at his feet. He extended a hand and pulled her up. “Are you okay?” he said.

“I think so,” she replied shakily.

The dust in the air thinned, and he saw Oaktree getting to his feet unsteadily. Where was Star? Then he saw her a few steps away. She lay on her back with her eyes closed. His heart lurched. Not dead, please God, not dead. He knelt by her side. “Star!” he said urgently. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes. “Jesus,” she said. “That was a blast!”

Priest grinned, fighting back tears of relief.

He helped Star to her feet. “We’re all alive,” he said.

The dust was settling fast. He looked across the valley and saw the truck. It was upright and seemed undamaged. A few yards from it there was a great gash in the ground that ran north and south in the middle of the valley as far as he could see.

“Well, I’ll be darned,” he said quietly. “Look at that.”

“It worked,” said Melanie.

“We did it,” Oaktree said. “Goddamn it, we caused a motherfucking earthquake!”

Priest grinned at them all. “That’s the truth,” he said.

He kissed Star, then Melanie; then Oaktree kissed them both; then Star kissed Melanie. They all laughed. Then Priest started to dance. He did a red Indian war hop, there in the middle of the broken valley, his boots kicking up the newly settled dust. Star joined in, then Melanie and Oaktree, and the four of them went round and round in a circle, shouting and whooping and laughing until the tears came to their eyes.