The Hammer of Eden

18

Judy and Michael got back to the emergency operations center a few minutes before midnight.

She had been awake for forty hours, but she did not feel sleepy. The horror of the earthquake was still with her. Every few seconds she would see, in her mind’s eye, one of the nightmare pictures of those few seconds: the train wreck, the screaming people, the helicopter bursting into flames, or the old Chevy tumbling over and over in the air. She was spooked and jittery as she walked into the old officers’ club.

But Michael’s revelation had given her new hope. It was a shock to learn that his wife was one of the terrorists, but it was also the most promising lead yet. If Judy could find Melanie, she could find the Hammer of Eden.

And if she could do it in two days, she could prevent another earthquake.

She went into the old ballroom that had become the command post. Stuart Cleever, the big shot from Washington who had taken control, stood at the head shed. He was a neat, orderly guy, immaculately dressed in a gray suit with a white shirt and a striped tie.

Beside him stood Brian Kincaid.

The bastard has wormed his way back onto the case. He wants to impress the guy from Washington.

Brian was ready for her. “What the hell went wrong?” he said as soon as he saw her.

“We were too late, by a few seconds,” she said wearily.

“You told us you had all the sites under surveillance,” he snapped.

“We had the likeliest. But they knew that. So they picked a secondary site. It was a risk for them — more chance of failure — but their gamble paid off.”

Kincaid turned to Cleever with a shrug, as if to say, “Believe that and you’ll believe anything.”

Cleever said to Judy: “As soon as you’ve made a full report, I want you to go home and get some rest. Brian will take charge of your team.”

I knew it. Kincaid has poisoned Cleever against me.

Time to go for broke.

Judy said: “I’d like a break, but not just yet. I believe I will have the terrorists under arrest within twelve hours.”

Brian let out an exclamation of surprise.

Cleever said: “How?”

“I’ve just developed a new lead. I know who their seismologist is.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Melanie Quercus. She’s the estranged wife of Michael, who’s been helping us. She got the information about where the fault is under tension from her husband — stole it off his computer. And I suspect she also stole the list of sites we had under surveillance.”

Kincaid said: “Quercus should be a suspect, too! He could be in cahoots with her!”

Judy had anticipated this. “I’m sure he’s not,” she said. “But he’s taking a lie detector test right now, just to make sure.”

“Good enough,” Cleever said. “Can you find the wife?”

“She told Michael she was living in a commune in Humboldt County. My team are already searching our databases for communes there. We have a two-man resident agency in that neighborhood, in a town called Eureka, and I’ve asked them to contact the local police.”

Cleever nodded. He gave Judy an appraising look. “What do you want to do?”

“I’d like to drive up there now. I’ll sleep on the way. By the time I get there the local guys will have the addresses of all communes in the area. I’d like to raid them all at dawn.”

Brian said: “You don’t have enough evidence for search warrants.”

He was right. The mere fact that Melanie had said she was living in a commune in Del Norte County did not constitute probable cause. But Judy knew the law better than Brian. “After two earthquakes, I think we have exigent circumstances, don’t you?” That meant that people’s lives were in danger.

Brian looked baffled, but Cleever understood. “The legal desk can solve that problem, it’s what they’re here for.” He paused. “I like this plan,” he said. “I think we should do it. Brian, do you have any other comment?”

Kincaid looked sulky. “She better be right, that’s all.”

Judy rode north in a car driven by a woman agent she did not know, one of several dozen drafted in from FBI offices in Sacramento and Los Angeles to help in the crisis.

Michael sat beside Judy in the back. He had begged to come. He was worried sick about Dusty. If Melanie was part of a terrorist group causing earthquakes, what kind of danger might their son be in? Judy had got Cleever’s agreement by arguing that someone had to take care of the boy after Melanie was arrested.

Shortly after they crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, Judy took a call from Carl Theobald. Michael had told them which of the five hundred or so American cell-phone companies Melanie used, and Carl had got hold of her call records. The phone company had been able to identify the general area from which each call had been made, because of roaming charges.

Judy was hoping most of them had been made from Del Norte County, but she was disappointed.

“There’s really no pattern at all,” Carl said wearily. “She made calls from the Owens Valley area, from San Francisco, from Felicitas, and from various places in between; but all that tells us is that she’s been traveling all over the state, and we knew that already. There are no calls from the part of the state you’re headed for.”

“That suggests she has a regular phone there.”

“Or she’s cautious.”

“Thanks, Carl. It was worth a try. Now get some sleep.”

“You mean this isn’t a dream? Shit.”

Judy laughed and hung up.

The driver tuned the car radio to an easy-listening station, and Nat Cole sang “Let There Be Love” as they sped through the night. Judy and Michael could talk without being overheard.

“The terrible thing about it is that I’m not surprised,” Michael said after a thoughtful silence. “I guess I sort of always knew Melanie was crazy. I should never have let her take him away — but she’s his mother, you know?”

Judy reached for his hand in the dark. “You did your best, I guess,” she said.

He squeezed her hand gratefully. “I just hope he’s okay now.”

“Yeah.”

Drifting off to sleep, Judy kept hold of his hand.

They all met up at five A.M. in the Eureka office of the FBI. As well as the local resident agents, there were representatives from the town’s police department and the county sheriff’s office. The FBI always liked to involve local law enforcement personnel in a raid — it was a way of maintaining good relations with people whose help they often needed.

There were four residential communes in Humboldt County listed in Communities Directory: A Guide to Cooperative Living. The FBI database had revealed a fifth, and local knowledge had added two more.

One of the local FBI agents pointed out that the commune known as Phoenix Village was only eight miles from the site of a proposed nuclear power plant. Judy’s pulse accelerated when she heard that, and she led the group that raided Phoenix.

As she approached the location, in a Humboldt County sheriff’s cruiser at the head of a convoy of four cars, her tiredness fell away. She felt keen and energetic again. She had failed to prevent the Felicitas earthquake, but she could make sure there was not another.

The entrance to Phoenix was a side turning off a country road, marked by a neat painted sign showing a bird rising from flames. There was no gate or guard. The cars roared into the settlement on a well-made road and pulled up around a traffic circle. The agents leaped out of the cars and fanned out through the houses. Each had a copy of the picture of Melanie and Dusty that Michael kept on his desk.

She’s here, somewhere, probably in bed with Ricky Granger, sleeping after the exertions of yesterday. I hope they’re having bad dreams.

The village looked peaceful in the early light. There were several barnlike buildings plus a geodesic dome. The agents covered front and back entrances before knocking on the doors. Near the traffic circle, Judy found a map of the village painted on a board, listing the houses and other buildings. There was a shop, a massage center, a mailroom, and an auto repair shop. As well as fifteen houses, the map showed pasture, orchards, playgrounds, and a sports field.

It was cool in the morning this far north, and Judy shivered, wishing she had worn something heavier than her linen pantsuit.

She waited for the shout of triumph that would tell her an agent had identified Melanie. Michael paced around the traffic circle, his whole body stiff with tension. What a shock, to learn that your wife has become a terrorist, the kind of person a cop would shoot and everyone would cheer. No wonder he’s tense. It’s a miracle he isn’t banging his head against the wall.

Next to the map was a village notice board. Judy read about a folk dance workshop that was being organized to raise funds for the Expanding Light Fireplace fund. These people had an air of harmlessness that was remarkably plausible.

The agents entered every building and looked in every room, moving rapidly from house to house. After a few minutes a man came out of one of the larger houses and walked across to the traffic circle. He was about fifty, with disheveled hair and beard, wearing homemade leather sandals and a rough blanket around his shoulders. He said to Michael: “Are you in charge here?”

Judy said: “I’m in charge.”

He turned to her. “Would you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

“I’d be glad to,” she said crisply. “We’re looking for this woman.” She held out the photo.

The man did not take it from her. “I’ve already seen that,” he said. “She’s not one of us.”

Judy had a depressing feeling that he was telling the truth.

“This is a religious community,” he said with mounting indignation. “We’re law-abiding citizens. We don’t use drugs. We pay our taxes and obey local ordinances. We don’t deserve to be treated like criminals.”

“We just have to be sure this woman is not hiding out here.”

“Who is she, and why do you think she’s here? Or is it just that you assume people who live in communes are suspect?”

“No, we don’t make that assumption,” Judy said. She was tempted to snap at the guy, but she reminded herself that she had woken him up at six o’clock in the morning. “This woman is part of a terrorist group. She told her estranged husband she was living in a commune in Humboldt County. We’re sorry we have to wake up everyone in every commune in the county, but I hope you can understand that it is very important. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have disturbed you, and, frankly, we wouldn’t have put ourselves to so much trouble.”

He looked at her keenly, then nodded, his attitude changing. “Okay,” he said. “I believe you. Is there anything I can do to make your job easier?”

She thought for a moment. “Is every building in your community marked on this map?”

“No,” he said. “There are three new houses on the west side just beyond the orchard. But please try to be quiet — there’s a new baby in one of them.”

“Okay.”

Sally Dobro, a middle-aged woman agent, came up. “I think we’ve checked every building here,” she said. “There’s no sign of any of our suspects.”

Judy said: “There are three houses west of the orchard — did you find those?”

“No,” Sally said. “Sorry. I’ll do it right away.”

“Go quietly,” Judy said. “There’s a new baby in one.”

“You got it.”

Sally went off, and the man in the blanket nodded his appreciation.

Judy’s mobile phone rang. She answered and heard the voice of Agent Frederick Tan. “We’ve just checked out every building in the Magic Hill commune. Zilch.”

“Thanks, Freddie.”

In the next ten minutes the other raid leaders called her.

They all had the same message.

Melanie Quercus was not to be found.

Judy sank into a pit of despair. “Hell,” she said. “I screwed it up.”

Michael was equally dismayed. He said fretfully: “Do you think we’ve missed a commune?”

“Either that, or she lied about the location.”

He looked thoughtful. “I’m just remembering the conversation,” he said. “I asked her where she was living, but he answered the question.”

Judy nodded. “I think he lied. He’s smart like that.”

“I’ve just remembered his name,” Michael said. “She called him Priest.”

19

On Saturday morning at breakfast, Dale and Poem stood up in the cookhouse in front of everyone and asked for quiet. “We have an announcement,” Poem said.

Priest thought she must be pregnant again. He got ready to cheer and clap and make the short congratulatory speech that would be expected of him. He felt full of exuberance. Although he had not yet saved the commune, he was close. His opponent might not be out for the count, but he was down on the canvas, struggling to stay in the fight.

Poem hesitated, then looked at Dale. His face was solemn. “We’re leaving the commune today,” he said.

There was a shocked silence. Priest was dumbstruck. People did not leave, not unless he wanted them to. These folk were under his spell. And Dale was the oenologist, the key man in winemaking. They could not afford to lose him.

And today of all days! If Dale had heard the news — as Priest had, an hour ago, sitting in a stationary car listening to the radio — he would know that California was in a panic. The airports were mobbed, and the freeways were jammed with people fleeing the cities and all neighborhoods close to the San Andreas fault. Governor Robson had called out the National Guard. The vice president was on a plane, coming to inspect the damage at Felicitas. More and more people — state senators and assemblymen, city mayors, community leaders, and journalists — were urging the governor to give in to the demand made by the Hammer of Eden. But Dale knew nothing of all this.

Priest was not the only one to be shocked by the announcement. Apple burst into tears, and at that Poem started crying, too. Melanie was the first to speak. She said: “But Dale — why?”

“You know why,” he said. “This valley is going to be flooded.”

“But where will you go?”

“Rutherford. It’s in Napa Valley.”

“You have a regular job?”

Dale nodded. “In a winery.”

It was no surprise that Dale had been able to get a job, Priest thought. His expertise was priceless. He would probably make big money. The surprise was that he wanted to go back to the straight world.

Several of the women were crying now. Song said: “Can’t you wait and hope, like the rest of us?”

Poem answered her tearfully. “We have three children. We have no right to take risks with their lives. We can’t stay here, hoping for a miracle, until the waters start rising around our homes.”

Priest spoke for the first time. “This valley is not going to be flooded.”

“You don’t know that,” Dale said.

The room went quiet. It was unusual for someone to contradict Priest so directly.

“This valley is not going to be flooded,” Priest repeated.

Dale said: “We all know that something’s been going on, Priest. In the last six weeks you’ve been away more than you’ve been home. Yesterday four of you were out until midnight, and this morning there’s a dented Cadillac up there in the parking circle. But whatever you’re up to, you haven’t shared it with us. And I can’t risk the future of my children on your faith. Shirley feels the same.”

Poem’s real name was Shirley, Priest recalled. For Dale to use it meant he was already detaching himself from the commune.

“I’ll tell you what will save this valley,” Priest said. Why not tell them about the earthquake — why not? They should be pleased — proud! “The power of prayer. Prayer will save us.”

“I’ll pray for you,” Dale said. “So will Shirley. We’ll pray for all of you. But we’re not staying.”

Poem wiped her tears on her sleeve. “I guess that’s it. We’re sorry. We packed last night, not that we have much. I hope Slow will drive us to the bus station in Silver City.”

Priest stood up and went to them. He put one arm around Dale’s shoulders and the other around Poem’s. Hugging them to him, he said in a low, persuasive voice: “I understand your pain. Let’s all go to the temple and meditate together. After that, whatever you decide to do will be the right thing.”

Dale moved away, detaching himself from Priest’s embrace. “No,” he said. “Those days are gone.”

Priest was shocked. He was using his full persuasive power, and it was not working. Fury rose inside him, dangerously uncontrollable. He wanted to scream at Dale’s faithlessness and ingratitude. He would have killed them both if he could. But he knew that showing his anger would be a mistake. He had to maintain the facade of calm control.

However, he could not summon up the grit to bid them a gracious farewell. Torn between rage and the need for restraint, he walked silently, with as much dignity as he could muster, out of the cookhouse.

He returned to his cabin.

Two more days and it would have been okay. One day!

He sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Spirit lay on the floor, watching him mournfully. They were both silent and still, brooding. Melanie would follow him in a minute or two.

But it was Star who came in.

She had not spoken to him since she and Oaktree had driven away from Felicitas last night in the Toyota minivan. He knew she was angered and distressed by the earthquake. He had not yet had time to talk her down.

She said: “I’m going to the police.”

Priest was astonished. Star loathed cops passionately. For her to enter a precinct house would be like Billy Graham going to a gay club. “You’re out of your mind,” he said.

“We killed people yesterday,” she said. “I listened to the radio on the drive back. At least twelve people died, and more than a hundred were hospitalized. Babies and children were hurt. People lost their homes, everything they had — poor people, not just rich. And we did that to them.”

Everything is falling apart — just when I’m about to win!

He reached for her hand. “Do you think I wanted to kill people?”

She backed away, refusing to take his hand. “You sure as hell didn’t look sad when it happened.”

I’ve got to hold it together for just a little longer. I must.

He made himself look penitent. “I was happy the vibrator worked, yes. I was glad we were able to carry out our threat. But I didn’t intend to hurt anyone. I knew there was a risk, and I decided to take it, because what was at stake was so important. I thought you made the same decision.”

“I did, and it was a bad decision, a wicked decision.” Tears came to her eyes. “For Christ’s sake, can’t you see what’s happened to us? We were the kids who believed in love and peace — now we’re killing people! You’re just like Lyndon Johnson. He bombed the Vietnamese and justified it. We said he was full of shit, and he was. I’ve dedicated my whole life to not being like that!”

“So you feel you made a mistake,” Priest said. “I can understand that. What’s hard for me to dig is that you want to redeem yourself by punishing me and the whole commune. You want to betray us to the cops.”

She was taken aback. “I hadn’t looked at it that way,” she said. “I don’t want to punish anyone.”

He had her now. “So what do you really want?” He did not give her time to answer for herself. “I think you need to be sure it’s over.”

“I guess so, yeah.”

He reached out to her, and this time she let him hold her hands. “It’s over,” he said softly.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“There will be no more earthquakes. The governor will give in. You’ll see.”

Speeding back to San Francisco, Judy was diverted to Sacramento for a meeting at the governor’s office. She grabbed another three or four hours’ sleep in the car, and when she arrived at the Capitol Building she felt ready to bite the world.

Stuart Cleever and Charlie Marsh had flown there from San Francisco. The head of the FBI’s Sacramento office joined them. They met at noon in the conference room of the Horseshoe, the governor’s suite. Al Honeymoon was in the chair.

“There’s a twelve-mile traffic jam on I-80 with people trying to get away from the San Andreas fault,” Honeymoon said. “The other major freeways are almost as bad.”

Cleever said: “The president called the director of the FBI and asked him about public order.” He looked at Judy as if all this was her fault.

“He called Governor Robson, too,” Honeymoon said.

“As of this moment, we do not have a serious public order problem,” Cleever said. “There are reports of looting in three neighborhoods in San Francisco and one in Oakland, but it’s sporadic. The governor has called out the National Guard and stationed them in the armories, although we don’t need them yet. However, if there should be another earthquake …”

The thought made Judy feel ill. “There can’t be another earthquake,” she said.

They all looked at her. Honeymoon made a sardonic face. “You have a suggestion?”

She did. It was a poor one, but they were desperate. “There’s only one thing I can think of,” she said. “Set a trap for him.”

“How?”

“Tell him Governor Robson wants to negotiate with him personally.”

Cleever said: “I don’t believe he’d fall for it.”

“I don’t know.” Judy frowned. “He’s smart, and any smart person would suspect a trap. But he’s a psychopath, and they just love controlling others, calling attention to themselves and their actions, manipulating people and circumstances. The idea of personally negotiating with the governor of California is going to tempt him mightily.”

Honeymoon said: “I guess I’m the only person here who’s met him.”

“That’s right,” Judy said. “I’ve seen him, and spoken to him on the phone, but you spent several minutes in a car with him. What was your impression?”

“You’ve summed him up about right — a smart psychopath. I believe he was angry with me for not being more impressed by him. Like I should have been, I don’t know, more deferential.”

Judy suppressed a grin. Honeymoon did not defer to many people.

Honeymoon went on: “He understood the political difficulties of what he was asking for. I told him the governor could not give in to blackmail. He’d thought of that already, and he had his answer prepared.”

“What was it?”

“He said we could deny what really happened. Announce a freeze on power plant building and say it had nothing to do with the earthquake threat.”

“Is that a possibility?” Judy said.

“Yes. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if the governor put it to me as a plan, I’d have to say it could be made to work. However, the question is academic. I know Mike Robson, and he won’t do it.”

“But he could pretend,” Judy said.

“What do you mean?”

“We could tell Granger the governor is willing to announce the freeze, but only under the right conditions, as he has to protect his political future. He wants to talk personally with Granger to agree to those conditions.”

Stuart Cleever put in: “The Supreme Court has ruled that law enforcement personnel may use trickery, ruse, and deceit. The only thing we’re not permitted to do is threaten to take away the suspect’s children. And if we promise immunity from prosecution, it sticks — we can’t prosecute. But we can certainly do what Judy suggests without violating any laws.”

“Okay,” Honeymoon said. “I don’t know if this is going to work, but I guess we have to try. Let’s do it.”

Priest and Melanie drove into Sacramento in the dented Cadillac. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the town was thronged with people.

Listening to the car radio soon after midday, Priest had heard the voice of John Truth, although it was not time for his show. “Here is a special message for Peter Shoebury of Eisenhower Junior High,” Truth had said. Shoebury was the man whose identity Priest had borrowed for the FBI press conference, and Eisenhower was the imaginary school attended by Flower. Priest realized the message was for him. “Would Peter Shoebury please call me at the following number,” Truth had said.

“They want to make a deal,” he had said to Melanie. “That’s it — we’ve won!”

While Melanie drove around downtown, surrounded by hundreds of cars and thousands of people, Priest made the call from her mobile phone. Even if the FBI was tracing the call, he figured, they would not be able to pick one car out of the traffic.

His heart was in his mouth as he listened to the ringing tone. I won the lottery and I’m here to pick up my check.

The call was answered by a woman. “Hello?” She sounded guarded. Maybe she had received a lot of crank calls in response to the radio spot.

“This is Peter Shoebury from Eisenhower Junior High.”

The response was instant. “I’m going to connect you with Al Honeymoon, the governor’s cabinet secretary.”

Yes!

“I just need to verify your identity first.”

It’s a trick. “How do you propose to do that?”

“Would you mind giving me the name of the student reporter who was with you a week ago?”

Priest remembered Flower saying, “I’ll never forgive you for calling me Florence.”

Warily he said: “It was Florence.”

“Connecting you now.”

No trick — just a precaution.

Priest scanned the streets anxiously, alert for a police car or a bunch of FBI men bearing down on his car. He saw nothing but shoppers and tourists. A moment later the deep voice of Honeymoon said: “Mr. Granger?”

Priest got right to the point. “Are you ready to do the sensible thing?”

“We’re ready to talk.”

“What does that mean?”

“The governor wants to meet with you today, with the object of negotiating a resolution to this crisis.”

Priest said: “Is the governor willing to announce the freeze we want?”

Honeymoon hesitated. “Yes,” he said reluctantly. “But there must be conditions.”

“What kind?”

“When you and I spoke in my car, and I told you that the governor could not give in to blackmail, you mentioned spin doctors.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a sophisticated individual, you understand that the governor’s political future is at risk here. The announcement of this freeze will have to be handled very delicately.”

Honeymoon had changed his tune, Priest thought with satisfaction. The arrogance was gone. He had developed respect for his opponent. That was gratifying. “In other words, the governor has to cover his ass and he wants to make sure I won’t blow it for him.”

“You might look at it that way.”

“Where do we meet?”

“In the governor’s office here at the Capitol Building.”

You’re out of your frigging mind.

Honeymoon went on: “No police, no FBI. You would be guaranteed freedom to leave the meeting without hindrance, regardless of the outcome.”

Yeah, right.

Priest said: “Do you believe in fairies?”

“What?”

“You know, little flying people that can do magic? You believe they exist?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Me either. So I’m not going to fall into your trap.”

“I give you my word—”

“Forget it. Just forget it, okay?”

There was silence at the other end.

Melanie turned a corner, and they drove past the grand classical facade of the Capitol Building. Honeymoon was in there somewhere, talking on the phone, surrounded by FBI men. Looking at the white columns and the dome, Priest said: “I’ll tell you where we’ll meet, and you’d better make notes. Are you ready?”

“Don’t worry, I’m taking notes.”

“Set up a little round table and a couple of garden chairs in front of the Capitol Building, on the lawn there, right in the middle. It’ll be like a photo opportunity. Have the governor sitting there at three o’clock.”

“Out in the open?”

“Hey, if I was going to shoot him, I could do it easier than this.”

“I guess so.…”

“In his pocket the governor must have a signed letter guaranteeing me immunity from prosecution.”

“I can’t agree to all this—”

“Talk to your boss. He’ll agree.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Have a photographer there with one of them instant cameras. I want a picture of him handing me the letter of immunity, for proof. Got that?”

“Got it.”

“You better play this straight. No tricks. My seismic vibrator is already in place, ready to trigger another earthquake. This one will strike a major city. I’m not saying which one, but I’m talking thousands of deaths.”

“I understand.”

“If the governor doesn’t appear today at three o’clock … bang.”

He broke the connection.

“Wow,” said Melanie. “A meeting with the governor. Do you think it’s a trap?”

Priest frowned. “It might be,” he said. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Judy could not fault the setup. Charlie Marsh had worked on it with the Sacramento FBI. There were at least thirty agents within sight of the white garden table with the umbrella that sat prettily on the lawn, but she could not see any of them. Some stood behind the windows of the surrounding government offices, others crouched in cars and vans on the street and in the parking lot, more lurked in the pillared cupola of the Capitol Building. All were heavily armed.

Judy herself was playing the part of the photographer, with cameras and lenses around her neck. Her gun was in a camera bag slung from her shoulder. While she waited for the governor to appear, she looked through her viewfinder at the table and chairs, pretending to frame a shot.

In the hopes Granger wouldn’t recognize her, she wore a blond wig. It was one she kept permanently in her car. She used it a lot on surveillance work, especially if she spent several days following the same targets, to reduce the risk that she might be noticed and recognized. She had to put up with a certain amount of teasing when she wore it. Hey, Maddox, send the cute blonde over to my car, but you can stay where you are.

Granger was watching, she knew. No one had spotted him, but he had called, an hour ago, to protest against the erection of crowd barriers around the block. He wanted the public using the street, and visitors touring the building, just as normal.

The barriers had been taken away.

There was no other fence around the grounds, so tourists were wandering freely across the lawns, and tour parties were following their prescribed routes around the Capitol, its gardens, and the elegant government buildings on adjacent streets. Judy surreptitiously studied everyone through her lens. She ignored superficial appearances and concentrated on features that could not easily be disguised. She scrutinized every tall, thin man of middle age, regardless of hair, face, or dress.

At one minute to three she still had not seen Ricky Granger.

Michael Quercus, who had met Granger face-to-face, was also watching. He was in a surveillance van with blacked-out windows parked around the corner. He had to stay out of sight, for fear Granger would recognize him and be spooked.

Judy spoke into a little microphone under her shirt, clipped to her bra. “My guess is that Granger won’t show until after the governor appears.”

A tiny speaker behind her ear crackled, and she heard Charlie Marsh reply. “We were just saying the same thing. I wish we could have got this done without exposing the governor.”

They had talked about using a body double, but Governor Robson himself had nixed that plan, saying he would not allow someone else to risk dying in his place.

Now Judy said: “But if we can’t …”

“So be it,” said Charlie.

A moment later the governor emerged from the grand front entrance of the building.

Judy was surprised that he was a little below average height. Seeing him on television, she had imagined him a tall man. He looked bulkier than usual on account of the bulletproof vest under his suit coat. He walked across the lawn with a relaxed, confident stride and sat at the little table under the umbrella.

Judy took a few pictures of him. She kept her camera bag slung from her shoulder so that she could get to her weapon quickly.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement.

An old Chevrolet Impala was approaching slowly on Tenth Street.

It had a faded two-tone paint job, sky blue and cream, rusting around the wheel arches. The face of the driver was in shade.

She darted a glance around. Not a single agent was in sight, but everyone would be watching the car.

It stopped at the curb right opposite Governor Robson.

Judy’s heart beat faster.

“I guess this is him,” said the governor in a remarkably calm voice.

The door of the car opened.

The figure that stepped out wore blue jeans, a checked workshirt open over a white T-shirt, and sandals. When he stood upright, Judy saw that he was about six feet tall, maybe a little more, and thin, with long, dark hair.

He wore large-framed sunglasses and a colorful cotton scarf as a headband.

Judy stared at him, wishing she could see his eyes.

Her earpiece crackled. “Judy? Is it him?”

“I can’t tell!” she said. “It could be.”

He looked around. It was a big lawn, and the table had been placed twenty or thirty yards back from the curb. He started toward the governor.

Judy could feel everyone’s eyes on her, waiting for her sign.

She moved, placing herself between him and the governor. The man noticed her move, hesitated, then continued walking.

Charlie spoke again. “Well?”

“I don’t know!” she whispered, trying not to move her lips. “Give me a few more seconds!”

“Don’t take too long.”

“I don’t think it’s him,” Judy said. All the pictures had shown a nose like the blade of a knife. This man had a broad, flat nose.

“Sure?”

“It’s not him.”

The man was within touching distance of Judy. He stepped around her and approached the governor. Without pausing in his stride, he put his hand inside his shirt.

In her earpiece Charlie said: “He’s reaching for something!”

Judy dropped to one knee and fumbled for the pistol in her camera bag.

The man began to pull something out of his shirt. Judy saw a dark-colored cylinder, like the barrel of a gun. She yelled: “Freeze! FBI!”

Agents burst out of cars and vans and came running from the Capitol Building.

The man froze.

Judy pointed her gun at his head and said: “Pull it out real slow and pass it to me.”

“Okay, okay, don’t shoot me!” The man drew the object out of his shirt. It was a magazine, rolled up into a cylinder, with a rubber band around it.

Judy took it from him. Still pointing her gun at him, she examined the magazine. It was this week’s Time. There was nothing inside the cylinder.

The man said in a frightened voice: “Some guy gave me a hundred dollars to hand it to the governor!”

Agents surrounded Mike Robson and bundled him back into the Capitol Building.

Judy looked around, scanning the grounds and the streets. Granger is watching this, he has to be. Where the hell is he? People had stopped to stare at the running agents. A tour group was coming down the steps of the grand entrance, led by a guide. As Judy watched, a man in a Hawaiian shirt peeled off from the group and walked away, and something about him caught Judy’s eye.

She frowned. He was tall. Because the shirt was baggy and hung loose around his hips, she could not tell whether he was thin or fat. His hair was covered by a baseball cap.

She went after him, walking fast.

He did not seem to be in a hurry. Judy did not raise the alarm. If she got every agent here chasing some innocent tourist, that might permit the real Granger to get away. But instinct made her quicken her pace. She had to see this man’s face.

He turned the corner of the building. Judy broke into a run.

She heard Charlie’s voice in her earpiece. “Judy? What’s up?”

“Just checking someone out,” she said, panting a little. “Probably a tourist, but get a couple of guys to follow me in case I need backup.”

“You got it.”

She reached the corner and saw the Hawaiian shirt pass through a pair of tall wood doors and disappear into the Capitol Building. It seemed to her that he was walking more briskly. She looked back over her shoulder. Charlie was talking to a couple of youngsters and pointing at her.

On the side street across the garden, Michael jumped out of a parked van and came running toward her. She pointed into the building. “Did you see that guy?” she yelled.

“Yes, that was him!” he called back.

“You stay here,” she shouted. He was a civilian; she did not want him involved. “Keep the hell out of this!” She ran into the Capitol Building.

She found herself in a grand lobby with an elaborate mosaic floor. It was cool and quiet. Ahead of her was a broad carpeted staircase with an ornately carved balustrade. Did he go left or right, up or down? She chose left. The corridor dog-legged right. She raced past an elevator bank and found herself in the rotunda, a circular room with some kind of sculpture in the middle. The room extended up two floors to a richly decorated dome. Here she faced another choice: had he gone straight ahead, turned right toward the Horseshoe, or gone up the stairs on her left? She looked around. A tour group stared fearfully at her gun. She glanced up to the circular gallery at second-floor level and caught a glimpse of a brightly colored shirt.

She bounded up one of the paired grand staircases.

At the top of the stairs she looked across the gallery. On the far side was an open doorway leading to a different world, a modern corridor with strip lighting and a plastic-tiled floor. The Hawaiian shirt was in the corridor.

He was running now.

Judy went after him. As she ran, she spoke into her bra mike, panting. “It’s him, Charlie! What the hell happened to my backup?”

“They lost you, where are you?”

“On the second floor in the office section.”

“Okay.”

The office doors were shut, and there was no one in the corridors: it was Saturday. She followed the shirt around a corner, then another, and a third. She was keeping him in view but not gaining on him.

The bastard is very fit.

Coming full circle, he returned to the gallery. She lost sight of him momentarily and guessed he had gone up again.

Breathing hard, she went up another ornate staircase to the third floor.

Helpful signs told her that the senate gallery was to her right, the assembly to her left. She turned left, came to the door of the gallery, and found it locked. No doubt the other would be the same. She returned to the head of the staircase. Where had he gone?

In a corner she noticed a sign that read “North Stair — No Roof Access.” She opened it and found herself in a narrow functional stairwell with plain floor tiles and an iron balustrade. She could hear her quarry clattering down the stairs, but she could not see him.

She hurtled down.

She emerged at ground level in the rotunda. She could not see Granger, but she spotted Michael, looking around distractedly. He caught her eye. “Did you see him?” she called.

“No.”

“Stay back!”

From the rotunda, a marble corridor led to the governor’s quarters. Her view was obscured by a tour party being shown the door to the Horseshoe. Was that a Hawaiian shirt beyond them? She was not sure. She ran after it, along the marble hall, past framed displays featuring each county in the state. To her left, another corridor led to an exit with a plate-glass automatic door. She saw the shirt going out.

She followed. Granger was darting across L Street, dodging perilously through the impatient traffic. Drivers swerved to avoid him and honked indignantly. He jumped on the hood of a yellow coupé, denting it. The driver opened the door and leaped out in a rage, then saw Judy with her gun and hastily got back in his car.

She sprinted across the street, taking the same mad risks with the traffic. She darted in front of a bus that pulled up with a screech of brakes, ran across the hood of the same yellow coupé, and forced a stretch limousine to swerve across three lanes. She was almost at the sidewalk when a motorcycle came speeding up the inside lane straight at her. She stepped back, and he missed her by an inch.

Granger sped along Eleventh Street, then dodged into an entrance. Judy flew after him. He had gone into a parking garage. She turned into the garage, going as fast as she could, and something hit her, a mighty blow in the face.

Pain exploded in her nose and forehead. She was blinded. She fell on her back, hitting the concrete with a crash. She lay still, paralyzed by shock and pain, unable even to think. A few seconds later she felt a strong hand behind her head and heard, as if from a great distance, the voice of Michael saying: “Judy, for God’s sake, are you alive?”

Her head began to clear, and her vision came back. Michael’s face swam into focus.

“Speak to me, say something!” Michael said.

She opened her mouth. “It hurts,” she mumbled.

“Thank God!” He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his khakis and wiped her mouth with surprising gentleness. “Your nose is bleeding.”

She sat upright. “What happened?”

“I saw you turning inside, going like greased lightning, then the next minute you were flat on the ground. I think he was waiting for you and hit you as you came around the corner. If I get my hands on him …”

Judy realized she had dropped her weapon. “My gun …”

He looked around, picked it up, and handed it to her.

“Help me up.”

He pulled her to her feet.

Her face hurt like hell, but she could see clearly and her legs felt steady. She tried to think straight.

Maybe I haven’t lost him yet.

There was an elevator, but he could not have had time to take it. He must have gone up the ramp. She knew this garage — she parked here herself when she came to see Honeymoon — and she recalled that it spanned the width of the block, with entrances on Tenth and Eleventh Streets. Maybe Granger knew that, too, and was already getting away by the Tenth Street door.

There was nothing to do but follow.

“I’m going after him,” she said.

She ran up the ramp. Michael followed. She let him. She had twice ordered him to stay back, and she could not spare the breath to tell him again.

They reached the first parking level. Judy’s head started throbbing, and her legs suddenly felt weak. She knew she could not go much farther. They started across the floor.

Suddenly a black car shot out of its parking slot straight at them.

Judy leaped sideways, fell to the ground, and rolled, frantically fast, until she was underneath a parked car.

She saw the wheels of the black car as it turned with a squeal of tires and accelerated down the ramp like a shot from a gun.

Judy stood up, searching frantically for Michael. She had heard him shout with surprise and fear. Had the car hit him?

She saw him a few yards from her, on his hands and knees, white with shock.

“Are you all right?” she said.

He got to his feet. “I’m fine, just shook up.”

Judy looked to see the make of the black car, but it had disappeared.

“Shit,” she said. “I lost him.”

20

As Judy was entering the officers’ club at seven P.M., Raja Khan came running out.

He stopped when he saw her. “What happened to you?”

What happened to me? I failed to prevent the earthquake, I made a wrong guess about where Melanie Quercus was hiding out, and I let Ricky Granger slip through my fingers. I blew it, and tomorrow there will be another earthquake, and more people will die, and it will be my fault.

“Ricky Granger punched me in the nose,” she said. She had a bandage across her face. The pills they had given her at the hospital in Sacramento had eased the pain, but she felt battered and dispirited. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“We were looking for a record album called Raining Fresh Daisies, remember?”

“Sure. We hoped it might give us a lead on the woman that called the John Truth show.”

“I’ve located a copy — and it’s right here in town. A store called Vinyl Vic’s.”

“Give that agent a gold star!” Judy felt her energy returning. This could be the lead she needed. It wasn’t much, but it filled her with hope again. Perhaps there was still a chance she could prevent another earthquake. “I’m coming with you.”

They jumped into Raja’s dirty Dodge Colt. The floor was littered with candy bar wrappers. Raja tore out of the parking lot and headed for Haight-Ashbury. “The guy who owns the store is called Vic Plumstead,” he said as he drove. “When I called a couple of days ago, he wasn’t there, and I got a part-time kid who said he didn’t think they had the record but he would ask the boss. I left a card, and Vic called me five minutes ago.”

“At last, a piece of luck!”

“The record was released in 1969 on a San Francisco label, Transcendental Tracks. It got some publicity and sold a few copies in the Bay Area, but the label never had another success and went out of business after a few months.”

Judy’s elation cooled. “That means there are no files we can search for clues to where she might be now.”

“Maybe the album itself will give us something.”

Vinyl Vic’s was a small store stuffed to bursting with old records. A few conventional sales racks in the middle of the floor had been swamped by cardboard boxes and fruit crates stacked to the ceiling. The place smelled like a dusty old library. There was one customer, a tattooed man in leather shorts, studying an early David Bowie album. At the back, a small, thin man in tight blue jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt stood beside a cash register, sipping coffee from a mug that said “Legalize it!”

Raja introduced himself. “You must be Vic. I spoke to you on the phone a few minutes ago.”

Vic stared at them. He seemed surprised. He said: “Finally, the FBI hits my place, and it’s two Asians? What happened?”

Raja said: “I’m the token nonwhite, and she’s the token woman. Every FBI office has to have one of each, it’s a rule. All the other agents are white men with short haircuts.”

“Oh, right.” Vic looked baffled. He didn’t know whether Raja was kidding or not.

Judy said impatiently: “What about this record?”

“Here it is.” Vic turned to one side, and Judy saw he had a turntable behind the cash register. He swung the arm over the disk and lowered the stylus. A burst of manic guitar introduced a surprisingly laid-back jazz-funk track with piano chords over a complex drumbeat. Then the woman’s voice came in:

“I think it’s quite meaningful, actually,” Vic said.

Judy thought it was crap, but she did not care. It was the voice on the John Truth tape, without question. Younger, clearer, gentler, but with that same unmistakable low, sexy tone. “Do you have the sleeve?” she said urgently.

“Sure.” He handed it to her.

It was curling at the corners, and the transparent plastic coating was peeling off the glossy paper. The front had a swirling multicolored design that induced eyestrain. The words “Raining Fresh Daisies” could just be discerned. Judy turned it over. The back was grubby, and there was a coffee ring in the top right-hand corner.

The sleeve notes began: “Music opens the doors that lead to parallel universes.…”

Judy skipped over the words. At the bottom was a row of five monochrome photographs, just head and shoulders, four men and a woman. She read the captions:

Judy frowned. “Stella Higgins,” she said excitedly. “I believe I’ve heard that name before!” She felt sure, but she could not remember where. Maybe it was wishful thinking. She stared at the small black-and-white head shot. She saw a girl of about twenty with a smiling, sensual face framed by wavy dark hair and the wide, generous mouth Simon Sparrow had predicted. “She was beautiful,” Judy murmured, almost to herself. She searched the face for the craziness that would make a person threaten an earthquake, but she could see no sign of it. All she saw was a young woman full of vitality and hope. What went wrong with your life?

“Can we borrow this?” Judy said.

Vic looked sulky. “I’m here to sell records, not lend them,” he said.

She was not going to argue. “How much?”

“Fifty bucks.”

“Okay.”

He stopped the turntable, picked up the disk, and slipped it into its paper cover. Judy paid him. “Thank you, Vic. We appreciate your help.”

Driving back in Raja’s car, she said: “Stella Higgins. Where have I seen that name?”

Raja shook his head. “It doesn’t ring any bells with me.”

As they got out of the car, she gave him the album. “Make blowups of her photo and circulate them to police departments,” she said. “Give the record to Simon Sparrow. You never know what he might come up with.”

They entered into the command post. The big ballroom now looked crowded. The head shed had been augmented by another table. Among the people crowded around would be several more suits from FBI headquarters in Washington, Judy assumed, plus people from the city, state, and federal emergency management agencies.

She went to the investigation team table. Most of her people were working the phones, running down leads. Judy spoke to Carl Theobald. “What are you on?”

“Sightings of tan Plymouth ’Cudas.”

“I’ve got something better for you. We have the California phone book on CD-ROM here somewhere. Look up the name Stella Higgins.”

“And if I find her?”

“Call her and see if she sounds like the woman on the John Truth tape.”

She sat at a computer and initiated a search of criminal records. There was a Stella Higgins in the files, she found. The woman had been fined for possession of marijuana and been given a suspended sentence for assaulting a police officer at a demonstration. Her date of birth was about right, and her address was on Haight Street. There was no picture in the database, but it sounded like the right woman.

Both convictions were dated 1968, and there was nothing since.

Stella’s record was like that of Ricky Granger, who had dropped off the radar in the early seventies. Judy printed the file and pinned it to the suspect board. She sent an agent to check out the Haight Street address, though she felt sure Higgins would not be there thirty years later.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Bo. His eyes were full of concern. “My baby, what happened to your face?” He touched the bandage on her nose with gentle fingertips.

“I guess I was careless,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head. “I’m on duty tonight, but I had to stop by and see how you are.”

“Who told you I was hurt?”

“That married guy, Michael.”

That married guy. She grinned. Reminding me that Michael belongs to someone else. “There’s no real damage, but I guess I’m going to have two beautiful black eyes.”

“You got to get some rest. When are you going home?”

“I don’t know. I just made a breakthrough. Take a seat.” She told him about Raining Fresh Daisies. “The way I see it, she’s a beautiful girl living in San Francisco in the sixties, going on demos, smoking dope, and hanging out with rock bands. The sixties turn into the seventies, she becomes disillusioned or maybe just bored, and she hooks up with a charismatic guy who is on the run from the Mob. The two of them start a cult. Somehow the group survives, making jewelry or whatever, for three decades. Then something goes wrong. Somehow, their existence is threatened by a plan to build a power plant. As they face the ruin of everything they’ve worked for and built up over the years, they cast about for some way, any way, to block this power plant. Then a seismologist joins the group and comes up with a crazy idea.”

Bo nodded. “It makes sense, or a kind of sense, the kind that appeals to wackos.”

“Granger has the criminal experience to steal the seismic vibrator, and the personal magnetism to persuade other cult members to go along with the scheme.”

Bo looked thoughtful. “They probably don’t own their home,” he said.

“Why?”

“Well, imagine they live someplace close to where this nuclear plant is going, so they have to move away. If they owned their house, or farm, or whatever, they’d get compensation, and they could start again somewhere else. So I’m guessing they have a short lease, or maybe they’re squatters.”

“You’re probably right, but it doesn’t help. There’s no statewide database of land leases.”

Carl Theobald came up with a notebook in his hand. “Three hits in the phone book. Stella Higgins in Los Angeles is a woman of about seventy with a quavery voice. Mrs. Higgins in Stockton has a strong accent from some African country, maybe Nigeria. And S. J. Higgins in Diamond Heights is a man called Sidney.”

“Damn,” Judy said. She explained to Bo: “Stella Higgins is the voice on the John Truth tape — and I’m sure I’ve seen the name before.”

Bo said: “Try your own files.”

“What?”

“If the name seems familiar, that could be because it has already come up during this investigation. Search the case files.”

“Good idea.”

“I gotta go,” he said. “With all these people getting out of the city and leaving their homes empty, the San Francisco PD is going to have a busy night. Good luck — and get some rest.”

“Thanks, Bo.” Judy activated the find function on the computer and had it search the entire Hammer of Eden directory for “Stella Higgins.”

Carl watched over her shoulder. It was a big directory, and the search took a while.

Finally the screen flickered and said:

1 file(s) found

Judy felt a burst of elation.

Carl shouted: “Christ! The name is already in the computer!”

Oh, my God, I think I’ve found her.

Two more agents looked over Judy’s shoulder as she opened the file.

It was a large document containing all the notes made by agents during the abortive raid on Los Alamos six days ago.

“What the hell?” Judy was mystified. “Was she at Los Alamos and we missed her?”

Stuart Cleever appeared at her side. “What’s all the fuss about?”

“We’ve found the woman who called John Truth!” Judy said.

“Where?”

“Silver River Valley.”

“How did she slip through your fingers?”

It was Marvin Hayes, not me, who organized that raid. “I don’t know, I’m working on it, give me a minute!” She used the search function to locate the name in the notes.

Stella Higgins had not been at Los Alamos. That was why they had missed her.

Two agents had visited a winery a few miles up the valley. The site was rented from the federal government, and the name of the tenant was Stella Higgins.

“Damn, we were so close!” Judy cried in exasperation. “We almost had her a week ago!”

“Print this so everyone can see it,” Cleever said.

Judy hit the print button and read on.

The agents had conscientiously noted the name and age of every adult at the winery. Some were couples with children, Judy saw, and most gave their address as that of the winery. So they were living there.

Maybe it was a cult, and the agents simply had not realized that.

Or the people had been careful to conceal the true nature of their community.

“We’ve got them!” Judy said. “We were sidetracked, the first time by Los Alamos, who seemed perfect suspects. Then, when they turned out to be clean, we thought we must be barking up the wrong tree. That made us careless about checking for other communes in that valley. So we overlooked the real perpetrators. But we’ve found them now.”

Stuart Cleever said: “I think you’re right.” He turned to the SWAT team table. “Charlie, call the Sacramento office and organize a joint raid. Judy has the location. We’ll hit them at first light.”

Judy said: “We should raid them now. If we wait until morning, they may be gone.”

“Why would they leave now?” Cleever shook his head. “Nighttime is too risky. The suspects can slip away in the darkness, especially in the countryside.”

He had a point, but instinct told Judy not to wait. “I’d rather take that risk,” she said. “Now that we know where they are, let’s go get ’em.”

“No,” he said decisively. “No further discussion, please, Judy. We raid at dawn.”

She hesitated. She was sure it was the wrong decision. But she was too tired to argue anymore. “So be it,” she said. “What time do we head out, Charlie?”

Marsh looked at his watch. “Leaving here at two A.M.”

“I may grab a couple of hours’ rest.”

She seemed to remember parking her car outside on the parade ground. It felt like months ago, but in fact it had been Thursday night, only forty-eight hours ago.

On the way out she met Michael. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Let me drive you home.”

“Then how will I get back here?”

“I’ll nap on your couch and drive you back.”

She stopped and looked at him. “I have to tell you, my face is so sore I don’t think I could kiss, let alone anything else.”

“I’ll settle for holding your hand,” he said with a smile.

I’m beginning to think this guy cares for me.

He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Well, what do you say?”

“Will you tuck me into bed, and bring me hot milk and aspirins?”

“Yes. Will you let me watch you sleep?”

Oh, boy, I’d like that better than anything in the world.

He read her expression. “I think I’m hearing yes,” he said.

She smiled. “Yes.”

Priest was mad as hell when he got back from Sacramento. He had been sure the governor was going to make a deal. He felt he was on the very brink of victory. He had been congratulating himself already. And it had all been a sham. Governor Robson had had no thought of making a deal. The whole thing had been a setup. The FBI had imagined they could catch him in a dumb-ass trap like some two-bit crook. It was the disrespect that really got to him. They thought he was some dope.

They would learn the truth. And the lesson would be dear.

It would cost them another earthquake.

Everyone at the commune was still stunned by the departure of Dale and Poem. It had reminded them of something they had been pretending to forget: that tomorrow they were all supposed to leave the valley.

Priest told the Rice Eaters how much pressure they had put on the governor. The freeways were still jammed with minivans full of kids and suitcases escaping from the earthquake to come. In the semideserted neighborhoods they had left behind, looters were walking out of suburban homes loaded with microwave ovens and CD players and computers.

But they also knew the governor showed no signs of giving in.

Although it was Saturday night, nobody wanted to party. After supper and evening worship, most of them retired to their cabins. Melanie went to the bunkhouse to read to the children. Priest sat outside his cabin, watching the moon go down over the valley, and slowly calmed down. He opened a five-year-old bottle of his own wine, a vintage with the smoky flavor he loved.

It was a battle of nerves, he told himself when he was able to think calmly. Who could tough it out longer, him or the governor? Which of them could best keep their people under control? Would the earthquakes bring the state government to its knees before the FBI could track Priest down to his mountain lair?

Star came into view, backlit by moonlight, walking barefoot and smoking a joint. She took a deep pull on the joint, bent over Priest, and kissed him, opening her mouth. He inhaled the intoxicating smoke from her lungs. He breathed out, smiled, and said: “I remember the first time you did that. It was the sexiest thing that ever happened to me.”

“Really?” she said. “Sexier than a blow job?”

“A lot. Remember, when I was seven years old I saw my mother giving a blow job to a john. She never kissed them, though. I was the only person she kissed. She told me that.”

“Priest, what a hell of a life you’ve had.”

He frowned. “You make it sound as if it’s over.”

“This part of it is over, though, isn’t it?”

“No!”

“It’s almost midnight. Your deadline is about to run out. The governor isn’t going to give in.”

“He has to,” Priest said. “It’s only a matter of time.” He stood up. “I have to listen to the radio news.”

She walked with him as he crossed the vineyard in the moonlight and climbed the track to the cars. “Let’s go away,” she said suddenly. “Just you and me and Flower. Let’s get in a car, right now, and leave. We won’t say good-bye, or pack a bag, or even take spare clothes or anything. We’ll just take off, the way I did when I left San Francisco in 1969. We’ll go where the mood takes us — Oregon, or Las Vegas, or even New York. What about Charleston? I’ve always wanted to see the South.”

Without answering, he got in the Cadillac and turned on the radio. Star sat beside him. Brenda Lee was singing “Let’s Jump the Broomstick.”

“Come on, Priest, what do you say?”

The news came on, and he turned up the volume.

“Suspected Hammer of Eden terrorist leader Richard Granger slipped through the fingers of the FBI in Sacramento today. Meanwhile, residents fleeing neighborhoods near the San Andreas fault have brought traffic to a standstill on many freeways within the San Francisco Bay Area, with miles of cars blocking long sections of Interstate Routes 280, 580, 680, and 880. And a Haight-Ashbury rare-record dealer claims FBI agents bought from him an album with a photograph of another terrorist suspect.”

“Album?” Star said. “What the fuck …?”

“Store owner Vic Plumstead told reporters the FBI called him in to help track down a sixties album, which they believed featured the voice of one of the Hammer of Eden suspects. After days of effort, he said, he found the album, by an obscure rock band, Raining Fresh Daisies.”

“Jesus Christ! I’d almost forgotten them myself!”

“The FBI would not confirm or deny they are seeking the vocalist, Stella Higgins.”

“Shit!” Star burst out. “They know my name!”

Priest’s mind was racing. How dangerous was this? The name was not much use to them. Star had not used it for almost thirty years. No one knew where Stella Higgins lived.

Yes, they did.

He suppressed a groan of despair. The name Stella Higgins was on the lease for this land. And he had said that to the two FBI agents who had come here on the day they raided Los Alamos.

This changed everything. Sooner or later someone at the FBI would make the connection.

And if by some mischance the FBI failed to figure it out, there was a Silver City sheriff’s deputy, currently on vacation in the Bahamas, who had written the name “Stella Higgins” on a file that was due to come up in court in a couple of weeks’ time.

Silver River Valley was a secret no more.

The thought made him unbearably sad.

What could he do?

Maybe he should run away with Star now. The keys were in the car. They could be in Nevada in a couple of hours. By midday tomorrow they would be five hundred miles away.

Hell, no. I’m not beat yet.

He could still hold things together.

His original plan had been that the authorities would never know who the Hammer of Eden were or why they had demanded a ban on new power plants. Now the FBI was about to find out — but maybe they could be forced to keep it secret. That could become part of Priest’s demand. If they could bring themselves to agree to the freeze, they could swallow this, too.

Yes, it was outrageous — but this whole thing was outrageous. He could do it.

But he would have to stay out of the clutches of the FBI.

He opened the car door and got out. “Let’s go,” he said to Star. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

She got out slowly. “You won’t run away with me?” she said sadly.

“Hell, no.” He slammed the door and walked away.

She followed him across the vineyard and back to the settlement. She went to her cabin without saying good night.

Priest went to Melanie’s cabin. She was asleep. He shook her roughly to wake her. “Get up,” he said. “We have to go. Quickly.”

Judy watched and waited while Stella Higgins cried her heart out.

She was a big woman, and though she might have been attractive in different circumstances, she now looked destroyed. Her face was contorted with grief, her old-fashioned eye makeup was running down her cheeks, and her heavy shoulders shook with sobs.

They sat in the tiny cabin that was her home. All around were medical supplies: boxes of bandages, cartons of aspirin and Rolaids, Tylenol and Trojans, bottles of colic water, cough syrup, and iodine. The walls were decorated with kids’ drawings of Star taking care of sick children. It was a primitive building, without electric power or running water, but it had a happy feel.

Judy went to the door and looked out, giving Star a minute to recover her composure. The place was beautiful in the pale sunlight of early morning. The last ribbons of a light mist were vanishing from the trees on the steep hillsides, and the river flashed and glittered in the fork of the valley. On the lower slopes was a neat vineyard, the ordered rows of vines with their shoots tied to wooden trellises. For a moment Judy was taken by a sense of spiritual peace, a feeling that here in this place things were as they should be, and it was the rest of the world that was weird. She shook herself to get rid of the spooky sensation.

Michael appeared. Once again he had wanted to be here to take care of Dusty, and Judy had told Stuart Cleever that he should be indulged because his expertise was so important to the investigation. He was leading Dusty by the hand. “How is he?” Judy asked.

“He’s just fine,” Michael said.

“Have you found Melanie?”

“She’s not here. Dusty says there’s a big girl called Flower who’s been looking after him.”

“Any idea where Melanie went?”

“No.” He nodded toward Star. “What does she say?”

“Nothing, yet.” Judy went back inside and sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me about Ricky Granger,” she said.

“There’s good in him as well as bad,” Star said as her weeping subsided. “He was a hoodlum before, I know, he’s even killed people, but in all the time we were together, more than twenty-five years, he didn’t once hurt anyone, until now, until someone thought up the idea of this stupid fucking dam.”

“All I want to do,” Judy said gently, “is find him before he hurts any more people.”

Star nodded. “I know.”

Judy made Star look at her. “Where did he go?”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Star said. “But I don’t.”

21

Priest and Melanie drove to San Francisco in the commune’s pickup truck. Priest figured the dented Cadillac was too conspicuous, and the police might be looking for Melanie’s orange Subaru.

All the traffic was heading in the opposite direction, so they were not much delayed. They reached the city a little after five on Sunday morning. A few people were on the streets: a teenage couple embracing at a bus stop, two nervy crackheads buying one last rock from a dealer in a long coat, a helpless drunk zigzagging across the road. However, the waterfront district was deserted. The derelict industrial landscape looked bleak and eerie in the early-morning light. They found the Perpetua Diaries warehouse, and Priest unlocked the door. The real-estate agent had kept his promise: the electric power was on, and there was water in the rest room.

Melanie drove the pickup inside, and Priest checked the seismic vibrator. He started the engine, then lowered and raised the plate. Everything worked.

They lay down to sleep on the couch in the small office, close together. Priest stayed awake, running over his position again and again. No matter how he looked at it, the only smart thing for Governor Robson to do was give in. Priest found himself making imaginary speeches on the John Truth show, pointing out how dumb the governor was being. He could stop the earthquakes with one word! After an hour of this he realized it was pointless. Lying on his back, he went through the relaxation ritual he used for meditation. His body became still, his heartbeat calmed, his mind emptied, and he went to sleep.

When he woke it was ten o’clock in the morning.

He put a pan of water on the hot plate. He had brought from the commune a can of organic ground coffee and some cups.

Melanie turned on the TV. “I miss the news, living at the commune,” she said. “I used to watch it all the time.”

“I hate the news, normally,” Priest said. “It gets you worried about a million things you can’t do nothing about.” But he watched with her, to see if there was anything about him.

It was all about him.

“Authorities in California are taking seriously the threat of an earthquake today as the terrorist deadline looms closer,” said the anchor, and there was footage of city employees erecting a tent hospital in Golden Gate Park.

The sight made Priest angry. “Why don’t you just give us what we want?” he said to the TV.

The next clip showed FBI agents raiding log cabins in the mountains. After a moment Melanie said: “My God, it’s our commune!”

They saw Star, wrapped in her old purple silk robe, her face a picture of grief, being walked out of her cabin by two men in bulletproof vests.

Priest cursed. He was not surprised — it was the possibility of a raid that had led him to leave so hastily last night — but all the same he found himself plunged into rage and despair by the sight. His home had been violated by these self-righteous bastards.

You should have left us alone. Now it’s too late.

He saw Judy Maddox, looking grim. You were hoping to catch me in your net, weren’t you? She was not so pretty today. She had two black eyes and a large Band-Aid across her nose. You lied to me and tried to trap me, and you got a bloody nose for it.

But in his heart he was daunted. All along he had underestimated the FBI. When he started out he had never dreamed that he would see agents invade the sanctuary of the valley that had been a secret place for so many years. Judy Maddox was smarter than he had imagined.

Melanie gasped. There was a shot of her husband, Michael, carrying Dusty. “Oh, no!” she said.

“They’re not arresting Dusty,” Priest said impatiently.

“But where will Michael take him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if there’s going to be an earthquake!”

“Michael knows better than anyone where the fault lines are! He won’t be anywhere dangerous.”

“Oh, God, I hope not, especially if he has Dusty with him.”

Priest had watched enough TV. “Let’s go out,” he said. “Bring your phone.”

Melanie drove the pickup out, and Priest locked the warehouse behind them. “Head for the airport,” he told her as he got in.

Avoiding the freeways, they got close to the airport before they were stuck in traffic. Priest figured there had to be thousands of people using phones in the vicinity — trying to get flights, calling their families, checking how big the traffic jam was. He called the John Truth show.

John Truth himself answered. Priest figured he was hoping for this call. “I have a new demand, so listen carefully,” Priest said.

“Don’t worry, I’m taping this,” Truth said.

“I guess I’ll be on your show tonight, huh, John?” Priest said with a smile.

“I hope you’ll be in goddamn jail,” Truth said nastily.

“Well, fuck you, too.” There was no need for the guy to get pissy. “My new demand is a presidential pardon for everyone in the Hammer of Eden.”

“I’ll let the president know.”

Now it was like he was being sarcastic. Didn’t he understand how important this was? “That’s as well as the freeze on new power plants.”

“Wait a minute,” Truth said. “Now that everyone knows where your commune is, you don’t need a statewide freeze. You just want to stop your valley from being flooded, don’t you?”

Priest considered. He had not thought of this, but Truth was right. Still, he decided not to agree. “Hell, no,” he said. “I’ve got principles. California needs less electric power, not more, if it’s going to be a decent place for my grandchildren to live in. Our original demand stands. There will be another earthquake if the governor doesn’t agree.”

“How can you do this?”

The question took Priest by surprise. “What?”

“How can you do this? How can you bring such suffering and misery to so many people — killing, wounding, damaging property, making people flee their homes in fear.… How will you ever sleep?”

The question angered Priest. “Don’t make like you’re the ethical one,” he said. “I’m trying to save California.”

“By killing people.”

Priest lost patience. “Shut the fuck up and listen,” he said. “I’m going to tell you about the next earthquake.” According to Melanie, the seismic window would open at six-forty P.M. “Seven o’clock,” Priest said. “It will hit at seven tonight.”

“Can you tell me—”

Priest broke the connection.

He was silent for a while. The conversation left him with an uneasy feeling. Truth should have been scared to death, but he had almost bantered with Priest. He had treated Priest like a loser, that was it.

They came to a junction. “We could turn here and head back,” Melanie said. “No traffic the other way.”

“Okay.”

She made the turn. She was thoughtful. “Will we ever go back to the valley?” she said. “Now that the FBI and everyone knows about it?”

“Yes!” he said.

“Don’t shout!”

“Yes, we will,” he said more quietly. “I know it looks bad, and we may have to stay away for a while. I’m sure we’ll lose this year’s vintage. The media will crawl all over the place for weeks. But they will forget about us, eventually. There’ll be a war, or an election, or a sex scandal, and we’ll be old news. Then we can slip quietly back, and move into our homes, and get the vines back in shape, and grow a new crop.”

Melanie smiled. “Yeah,” she said.

She believes it. I’m not sure I do. But I’m not going to think about it anymore. Fretting will sap my will. No doubts now. Just action.

Melanie said: “You want to go back to the warehouse?”

“No. I’ll go crazy shut up in that hole all day. Head for the city and see if we can find a restaurant that’s serving brunch. I’m starving.”

Judy and Michael took Dusty to Stockton, where Michael’s parents lived. They went in a helicopter. Dusty was thrilled. It landed on the football field of a high school in the suburbs.

Michael’s father was a retired accountant, and they had a neat suburban house that backed onto a golf course. Judy drank coffee in the kitchen while Michael settled Dusty in. Mrs. Quercus said worriedly: “Maybe this dreadful affair will give the business a boost, anyway — it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” Judy recalled that they had put money into Michael’s consultancy, and he was worried about paying them back. But Mrs. Quercus was right — his being the FBI’s earthquake expert might help.

Judy’s mind was on the seismic vibrator. It was not in Silver River Valley. It had not been sighted since Friday evening, though the panels that made it look like a carnival ride had been found at the roadside by one of the hundreds of rescue workers still clearing up the mess at Felicitas.

She knew what Granger was driving. She had found out by asking the commune members what cars they had and checking which was missing. He was using a pickup truck, and she had put out an all-points bulletin on it. In theory every cop in California should be looking for it, although most of them would be too busy coping with the emergency.

She was tantalized unbearably by the thought that she might have caught Granger at the commune if she had fought harder and persuaded Cleever to raid the place last night instead of this morning. But she had just been too tired. She felt better today — the raid had pumped adrenaline into her system and given her energy. But she was bruised physically and mentally, running on empty.

A small TV set on the kitchen counter was on with the sound muted. The news came on, and Judy asked Mrs. Quercus to turn up the volume. There was an interview with John Truth, who had spoken on the phone to Granger. He played an extract from his tape of the conversation. “Seven o’clock,” Granger said on the tape. “It will hit at seven tonight.”

Judy shivered. He meant it. There was no regret or remorse in his voice, no sign that he hesitated to risk the lives of so many people. He sounded rational, but there was a flaw in his humanity. He did not really care about the suffering of others. It was the characteristic of psychopaths.

She wondered what Simon Sparrow would make of the voice. But it was too late now for psycholinguistics. She went to the kitchen door and called: “Michael! We have to go!”

She would have liked to leave Michael here with Dusty, where they would both be safe. But she needed him at the command post. His expertise might be crucial.

He came in with Dusty. “I’m about ready,” he said. The phone rang and Mrs. Quercus picked it up. After a moment she held out the receiver to Dusty. “Someone for you,” she said.

Dusty took the phone and said tentatively: “Hello?” Then his face brightened. “Hi, Mom!”

Judy froze.

It was Melanie.

Dusty said: “I woke up this morning and you were gone! Then Daddy came to get me!”

Melanie was with Priest and the seismic vibrator, almost certainly. Judy grabbed her mobile and dialed the command post. She got Raja and said quietly: “Trace a call. Melanie Quercus is calling a number in Stockton.” She read the number off the instrument Dusty was using. “Call started a minute ago, still in progress.”

“I’m on it,” Raja said.

Judy broke the connection.

Dusty was listening, nodding and shaking his head occasionally, forgetting that his mother could not see his movements.

Then he abruptly offered the phone to his father. “She wants you.”

Judy whispered to Michael: “For God’s sake, find out where she is!”

He took the phone from Dusty and held it against his chest, muffling it. “Pick up the bedroom extension.”

“Where?”

Mrs. Quercus said: “Just across the hall, dear.”

Judy darted into the bedroom, threw herself across the flowered bedspread, and grabbed the phone from the bedside table, covering the mouthpiece with her hand.

She heard Michael say: “Melanie — where the hell are you?”

“Never mind,” Melanie replied. “I saw you and Dusty on TV. Is he okay?”

So she’s been watching TV, wherever she is.

“Dusty’s fine,” Michael said. “We just got here.”

“I was hoping you’d be there.”

Her voice was low, and Michael said: “Can you speak up?”

“No, I can’t, so just listen harder, okay?”

She doesn’t want Granger to hear her. That’s good — it may be a sign that they’re beginning to disagree.

“Okay, okay,” Michael said.

“You’re going to stay there with Dusty, right?”

“No,” Michael said. “I’m going into the city.”

“What? For God’s sake, Michael, it’s dangerous!”

“Is that where the earthquake will be — in San Francisco?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Will it be on the peninsula?”

“Yes, on the peninsula, so keep Dusty away!”

Judy’s cell phone beeped. Keeping the mouthpiece of the bedroom phone tightly covered, she put the cell phone to her other ear and said: “Yeah.”

It was Raja. “She’s calling on her mobile. It’s in downtown San Francisco. They can’t do better than that for a digital phone.”

“Get some people out in the streets looking for that pickup!”

“You got it.”

Judy broke the connection.

Michael was saying: “If you’re so worried, why don’t you just tell me where the seismic vibrator is?”

“I can’t do that!” Melanie hissed. “You’re out of your mind!”

“Come on. I’m out of my mind? You’re the one who’s causing earthquakes!”

“I can’t talk anymore.” There was a click.

Judy replaced the handset on the bedside phone and rolled over onto her back, her mind racing. Melanie had given away a great deal of information. She was somewhere in downtown San Francisco, and although that did not make her easy to find, it was a smaller haystack than the whole of California. She had said the earthquake would be triggered somewhere on the San Francisco peninsula, the broad neck of land between the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. The seismic vibrator had to be somewhere in that area. But most intriguing, to Judy, had been the hint of some division between Melanie and Granger. She had obviously been making the call without telling him, and she had seemed to be afraid he might overhear. That was hopeful. There might be a way Judy could take advantage of a split.

She closed her eyes, concentrating. Melanie was worried about Dusty. That was her weakness. How could it be used against her?

She heard footsteps and opened her eyes. Michael came into the room. He gave her a strange look.

“What?” she said.

“This may seem inappropriate, but you look great lying on a bed.”

She remembered she was in his parents’ house. She stood up.

He wrapped his arms around her. It felt good. “How’s your face?” he said.

She looked up at him. “If you’re very gentle …”

He kissed her lips softly.

If he wants to kiss me when I look this bad, he must really like me.

“Mm,” she said. “When this is all over …”

“Yes.”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

Then she started thinking about Melanie again.

“Michael …”

“Still here.”

She detached herself from his embrace. “Melanie is worried that Dusty might be in the earthquake zone.”

“He’s going to be here.”

“But you didn’t confirm that. She asked you, but you said if she was worried, she should tell you where the seismic vibrator is, and you never answered her question properly.”

“Still, the implication … I mean, why would I take him into danger?”

“I’m just saying, she may have a nagging doubt. And, wherever she is, there’s a TV.”

“She leaves the news on all day sometimes — it relaxes her.”

Judy felt a stab of jealousy. He knows her so well. “What if we had a reporter interview you, at the emergency operations center in San Francisco, about what you’re doing to help the Bureau … and Dusty was, like, just in the background somewhere?”

“Then she’d know he was in San Francisco.”

“And what would she do?”

“Call me and scream at me, I guess.”

“And if she couldn’t reach you …”

“She’d be real scared.”

“But would she stop Granger from operating the seismic vibrator?”

“Maybe. If she could.”

“Is it worth a try?”

“Is there another choice?”

Priest had a do-or-die feeling. Maybe the governor and the president would not give in to him, even after Felicitas. But tonight there would be a third earthquake. Then he would call John Truth and say: “I’ll do it again! Next time it could be Los Angeles, or San Bernardino, or San Jose. I can do this as often as I like. I’m going to keep on until you give in. The choice is yours!”

Downtown San Francisco was a ghost town. Few people wanted to shop or sightsee, though plenty were going to church. The restaurant was half-empty. Priest ordered eggs and drank three Bloody Marys. Melanie was subdued, worrying about Dusty. Priest thought the kid would be fine, he was with his father.

“Did I ever tell you why I’m called Granger?” he said to Melanie.

“It’s not your parents’ name?”

“My mother called herself Veronica Nightingale. She told me my father’s name was Stewart Granger. He had gone on a long trip, she said, but one day he would come back, in a big limousine loaded with presents — perfume and chocolates for her, and a bicycle for me. On rainy days, when I couldn’t play in the streets, I used to sit at the window watching for him, hour after hour.”

For a moment Melanie seemed to forget her own problems. “Poor kid,” she said.

“I was about twelve when I realized that Stewart Granger was a big movie star. He played Allan Quatermain in King Solomon’s Mines just about the time I was born. I guess he was my mother’s fantasy. Broke my heart, I can tell you. All those hours looking out the damn window.” Priest smiled, but the memory hurt.

“Who knows?” Melanie said. “Maybe he was your father. Movie stars go to hookers.”

“I guess I should ask him.”

“He’s dead.”

“Is he? I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, I read it in People magazine, a few years ago.”

Priest felt a pang of loss. Stewart Granger was the nearest thing to a father he had ever had. “Well, now I’ll never know.” He shrugged and called for the bill.

When they left the restaurant, Priest did not want to return to the warehouse. He could easily sit doing nothing when he was at the commune, but in a dingy room in an industrial wasteland he would get cabin fever. Twenty-five years of living in Silver River Valley had spoiled him for the city. So he and Melanie walked around Fisherman’s Wharf, making like tourists, enjoying the salty breeze off the bay.

They had altered their appearance, as a precaution. She had put up her distinctive long red hair and concealed it under a hat, and she wore sunglasses. Priest had greased his dark hair and plastered it to his head, and he had three days’ growth of dark stubble on his cheeks, giving him a Latin lover air that was quite different from his usual aging-hippie look. No one gave them a second glance.

Priest listened in to the conversations of the few people walking around. Everyone had an excuse for not leaving town.

“I’m not worried, our building is earthquake-proof.…”

“So’s mine, but at seven o’clock I’m going to be in the middle of the park.…”

“I’m a fatalist; either this earthquake has my name on it or it doesn’t.…”

“Exactly, you could drive to Vegas and get killed in a car wreck.…”

“I’ve had my house retrofitted.…”

“No one can cause earthquakes, it was a coincidence.…”

They got back to the car a few minutes after four.

Priest did not see the cop until it was almost too late.

The Bloody Marys had made him strangely calm, and he felt almost invulnerable, so he was not looking out for the police. He was only eight or ten feet from the pickup truck when he noticed a uniformed San Francisco cop staring at the license plate and speaking into a walkie-talkie.

Priest stopped dead and grabbed Melanie’s arm.

A moment later he realized that the smart thing to do was walk right by; but by then it was too late.

The cop glanced up from the license plate and caught Priest’s eye.

Priest looked at Melanie. She had not seen the cop. He almost said, Don’t look at the car, but just in time he realized that would be sure to make her look. Instead he said the next thing that came into his head. “Look at my hand.” He turned his palm up.

She stared at it, then looked at him again. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Keep looking at my hand while I explain.”

She did as he said.

“We’re going to walk right past the car. There’s a cop taking the number. He’s noticed us; I can see him out of the corner of my eye.”

She looked up from his hand to his face. Then, to his astonishment, she slapped him.

It hurt. He gasped.

Melanie cried: “And now you can just go back to your dumb blonde!”

“What?” he said angrily.

She walked on.

He watched her in astonishment. She strode past the pickup truck.

The cop looked at Priest with a faint grin.

Priest walked after Melanie, saying: “Now just wait a minute!”

The cop returned his attention to the license plate.

Priest caught up with Melanie, and they turned a corner.

“Very cute,” he said. “But you didn’t have to hit me so hard.”

A powerful portable spotlight shone on Michael, and a miniature microphone was clipped to the front of his dark green polo shirt. A small television camera on a tripod was aimed at him. Behind him, the young seismologists he had brought in worked at their screens. In front of him sat Alex Day, a twentysomething television reporter with a fashionably short haircut. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, which Judy thought was overly dramatic.

Dusty stood beside Judy, holding her hand trustingly, watching his daddy being interviewed.

Michael was saying: “Yes, we can identify locations where an earthquake could most easily be triggered — but, unfortunately, we can’t tell which one the terrorists have chosen until they start up their seismic vibrator.”

“And what’s your advice to citizens?” Alex Day asked. “How can they protect themselves if there is an earthquake?”

“The motto is ‘Duck, cover, and hold,’ and that’s the best counsel,” he replied. “Duck under a table or desk, cover your face to protect yourself from flying glass, and hold your position until the shaking stops.”

Judy whispered to Dusty: “Okay, go to Daddy.”

Dusty walked into the shot. Michael lifted the boy onto his knee. On cue Alex Day said: “Anything special we can do to protect youngsters?”

“Well, you could practice the ‘Duck, cover, and hold’ drill with them right now, so they’ll know what to do if they feel a tremor. Make sure they’re wearing sturdy shoes, not thongs or sandals, because there will be a lot of broken glass around. And keep them close, so you don’t have to go searching for them afterward.”

“Anything people should avoid?”

“Don’t run out of the house. Most injuries in earthquakes are caused by falling bricks and other debris from damaged buildings.”

“Professor Quercus, thank you for being with us today.”

Alex Day smiled at Michael and Dusty for a long frozen moment, then the cameraman said: “Great.”

Everyone relaxed. The crew started rapidly packing up their equipment.

Dusty said: “When can I go to Grandma’s in the helicopter?”

“Right now,” Michael told him.

Judy said: “How soon will that be on the air, Alex?”

“It hardly needs editing, so it will go right out. Within half an hour, I’d say.”

Judy looked at the clock. It was five-fifteen.

Priest and Melanie walked for half an hour without seeing a taxi. Then Melanie called a cab service on her mobile phone. They waited, but no car came.

Priest felt as if he was going mad. After all he had done, his great scheme was in jeopardy because he could not find a goddamn taxi!

But at last a dusty Chevrolet pulled up at Pier 39. The driver had an unreadable Central European name, and he seemed stoned. He understood no English except “left” and “right,” and he was probably the only person in San Francisco who had not heard about the earthquake.

They got back to the warehouse at six-twenty.

At the emergency operations center, Judy slumped in her chair, staring at the phone.

It was six twenty-five. In thirty-five minutes Granger would start up his seismic vibrator. If it worked as well as it had the last two times, there would be an earthquake. But this one would be the worst. Assuming Melanie had told the truth, and the vibrator was somewhere in the San Francisco peninsula, the quake would almost certainly hit the city.

Around two million people had fled the metropolitan area since Friday night, when Granger had announced on the John Truth show that the next earthquake would hit San Francisco. But that left more than a million men, women, and children who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes: the poor, the old, and the sick, plus all the cops, firefighters, nurses, and city employees waiting to begin rescue work. And that included Bo.

On the TV screen, Alex Day was speaking from a temporary studio set up at the mayor’s emergency command center on Turk Street, a few blocks away. The mayor was wearing a hard hat and a purple vest and telling citizens to duck, cover, and hold.

The interview with Michael ran every few minutes on all channels: the television editors had been told its real purpose.

But it seemed Melanie was not watching.

Priest’s pickup had been found parked at Fisherman’s Wharf at four o’clock. It was under surveillance, but he had not returned to it. Right now, every garage and parking lot in the neighborhood was being searched for a seismic vibrator.

The ballroom of the officers’ club was full of people. There were at least forty suits around the head shed. Michael and his helpers were clustered around their computers, waiting for the inappropriately cheerful musical warning sound that would be the first sign of the seismic tremor they all feared. Judy’s team was still working the phones, following up sightings of people who looked like Granger or Melanie, but there was an increasingly desperate tone to their voices. Using Dusty in the TV interview with Michael had been their last shot, and it seemed to have failed.

Most of the agents working in the EOC had homes in the Bay Area. The admin desk had organized the evacuation of all their families. The building they were in was considered as safe as any: it had been retrofitted by the military to make it earthquake-resistant. But they could not flee. Like soldiers, like firefighters, like cops, they had to go where the danger was. It was their job. Outside, on the parade ground, a fleet of helicopters stood ready, with their rotors turning, waiting to take Judy and her colleagues into the earthquake zone.

Priest went to the bathroom. While he was washing his hands, he heard Melanie scream.

He ran to the office with wet hands. He found her staring at the TV. “What is it?” he said.

Her face was white, and her hand covered her mouth. “Dusty!” she said, pointing at the screen.

Priest saw Melanie’s husband being interviewed. He had their son on his knee. A moment later the picture changed, and a female anchor said: “That was Alex Day, interviewing one of the world’s leading seismologists, Professor Michael Quercus, at the FBI’s emergency operations center in the Presidio.”

“Dusty’s in San Francisco!” Melanie said hysterically.

“No, he’s not,” Priest said. “Maybe he was, when the interview was filmed. By now he’s miles away.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Of course I do. So do you. Michael’s going to take care of his kid.”

“I wish I could be sure,” Melanie said in a shaky voice.

“Make a cup of coffee,” Priest said, just to give her something to do.

“Okay.” She took the pan from the hot plate and went to fill it with water in the rest room.

Judy looked at the clock. It was six-thirty.

Her phone rang.

The room fell silent.

She snatched up the handset, dropped it, cursed, picked it up again, and held it to her ear. “Yes?”

The switchboard operator said: “Melanie Quercus asking for her husband.”

Thank God! Melanie pointed at Raja. “Trace the call.”

He was already speaking into his phone.

Judy said to the operator: “Put her on.”

All the suits from the head shed gathered around Judy’s chair. They stood silent, straining to hear.

This could be the most important phone call of my life.

There was a click on the line. Judy tried to make her voice calm and said: “Agent Maddox here.”

“Where’s Michael?”

Melanie sounded so frightened and lost that Judy felt a surge of compassion for her. She seemed no more than a foolish mother worried about her child.

Get real, Judy. This woman is a killer.

Judy hardened her heart. “Where are you, Melanie?”

“Please,” Melanie whispered. “Just tell me where he’s taken Dusty.”

“Let’s make a deal,” Judy said. “I’ll make sure Dusty’s okay — if you tell me where the seismic vibrator is.”

“Can I speak to my husband?”

“Are you with Ricky Granger? I mean Priest?”

“Yes.”

“And you have the seismic vibrator, wherever you are?”

“Yes.”

Then we’ve almost got you.

“Melanie — do you really want to kill all those people?”

“No, but we have to.…”

“You won’t be able to take care of Dusty while you’re in jail. You’ll miss watching him grow up.” Judy heard a sob at the other end of the line. “You’ll only ever see him through a glass partition. By the time they let you out, he’ll be a grown man who doesn’t know you.”

Melanie was crying.

“Tell me where you are, Melanie.”

In the big ballroom, the silence was total. No one moved.

Melanie whispered something, but Judy could not hear it.

“Speak up!”

At the other end of the line, in the background, a man shouted: “Who the fuck are you calling?”

Judy said: “Quickly, quickly! Tell me where you are!”

The man roared: “Give me that goddamn phone!”

Melanie said: “Perpetua—” Then she screamed.

A moment later the connection was broken.

Raja said: “She’s somewhere on the Bay Shore, south of the city.”

“That’s not good enough!” Judy cried.

“They can’t be more precise!”

“Shit!”

Stuart Cleever said: “Quiet, everybody. We’ll play the tape back in a moment. First, Judy, did she give you any clues?”

“She said something at the end. It sounded like “Perpetual.’ Carl, check for a street called Perpetual.”

Raja said: “We should check for a company, too. They could be in the garage of an office building.”

“Do that.”

Cleever pounded the table in frustration. “What made her hang up?”

“I think Granger found her calling and took the phone away.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I’d like to get in the air,” Judy said. “We can fly down the shoreline. Michael can come with me and point out where fault lines run. Maybe we’ll spot the seismic vibrator.”

“Do it,” Cleever said.

Priest stared at Melanie in fury as she cowered up against the grimy washbasin. She had tried to betray him. He would have shot her right there and then if he had had a gun. But the revolver he had taken from the guard at Los Alamos was in the seismic vibrator, under the driver’s seat.

He switched off Melanie’s phone, dropped it into his shirt pocket, and tried to make himself calm. This was something Star had taught him. As a young man he had given way to his rages, knowing that they frightened others, because people were easier to deal with when they were scared. But Star had taught him to breathe right and relax and think, which was better in the long run.

Now he considered the damage Melanie had done. Had the FBI been able to trace her phone? Could they find out where a mobile was calling from? He had to assume they could. If so, they would soon be cruising the neighborhood, looking for a seismic vibrator.

He had run out of time. The seismic window opened at six-forty. He looked at his watch: it was six thirty-five. To hell with his seven o’clock deadline — he had to trigger the earthquake right now.

He ran out of the rest room. The seismic vibrator stood in the middle of the empty warehouse, facing the high entrance doors. He jumped up into the driver’s cabin and started the engine.

It took a minute or two for pressure to build up in the vibrating mechanism. He watched the gauges impatiently. Come on, come on! At last the readings went green.

The passenger door of the truck opened, and Melanie climbed in. “Don’t do it!” she yelled. “I don’t know where Dusty is!”

Priest reached out to the lever that lowered the plate of the vibrator to the ground.

Melanie knocked his hand aside. “Please, don’t!”

Priest hit her backhanded across the face. She screamed, and blood came from her lip. “Stay out of the damn way!” he yelled. He pulled the lever, and the plate descended.

Melanie reached across and threw the lever back to its start position.

Priest saw red. He hit her again.

She cried out and covered her face with her hands, but she did not flee.

Priest returned the lever to the down position.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t.”

What am I going to do with this stupid bitch? He remembered the gun. It was under his seat. He reached down and snatched it up. It was too big, a clumsy weapon in such a small space. He pointed it at Melanie. “Get out of the truck,” he said.

To his surprise she reached across him again, pressing her body against the barrel of the gun, and threw the lever.

He pulled the trigger.

The bang was deafening in the little cabin of the truck.

For a split second, a small part of his mind felt a shock of grief that he had ruined her beautiful body; but he dismissed the feeling.

She was thrown back across the cab. The door was still open, and she fell out and tumbled down, hitting the floor of the warehouse with a sickening thud.

Priest did not stop to see if she was dead.

For the third time, he pulled the lever.

Slowly the plate descended to the ground.

When it made contact, Priest started the machine.

The helicopter was a four-seater. Judy sat next to the pilot, Michael behind. As they flew south along the shore of the San Francisco Bay, Judy heard in her headphones the voice of one of Michael’s student assistants, calling from the command post. “Michael! This is Paula! It’s started up — a seismic vibrator!”

Judy went cold with fear. I thought I had more time! She checked her watch: it was six forty-five. Granger’s deadline was still fifteen minutes away. Melanie’s phone call must have made him start early.

Michael was saying: “Any tremors on the seismograph?”

“No — just the seismic vibrator, so far.”

No earthquake yet. Thank God.

Judy shouted into her microphone: “Give us the location, quickly!”

“Wait a minute, the coordinates are coming up now.”

Judy grabbed a map.

Hurry, hurry!

A long moment later Paula read the numbers on her screen. Judy found the location on her map. She said to the pilot: “Due south two miles, then about five hundred yards inland.”

Her stomach lurched as the chopper dived and picked up speed.

They were flying over the old waterfront neighborhood, full of derelict factories and car dumps. It would have been quiet on a normal Sunday: today it was empty. Judy scanned the horizon, looking for a truck that could be the seismic vibrator.

To the south she saw two police patrol cars speeding toward the same location. Looking west, she spotted the FBI SWAT wagon approaching. Back at the Presidio, the other helicopters would be lifting off, full of armed agents. Soon half the law enforcement vehicles in Northern California would be heading for the map coordinates Paula had given out.

Michael said into his microphone: “Paula! What’s happening on your screens?”

“Nothing — the vibrator is operating, but it’s not having any effect.”

“Thank God!” Judy said.

Michael said: “If he follows his previous pattern, he’ll move the truck a quarter of a mile and try again.”

The pilot said: “This is it. We’ve arrived at the coordinates.” The helicopter began to circle.

Judy and Michael stared out, searching frantically for the seismic vibrator.

On the ground, nothing moved.

Priest cursed.

The vibrating machinery was operating, but there was no earthquake.

This had happened before, both times. Melanie had said she did not really understand why it worked in some locations but not others. It probably had something to do with different kinds of subsoil. Both times the vibrator had triggered an earthquake on the third try. But today Priest really needed to be lucky the first time.

He was not.

Boiling with frustration, he turned off the mechanism and raised the plate.

He had to move the truck.

He jumped out. Stepping over Melanie, who was crumpled up against the wall, bleeding onto the concrete floor, he ran to the entrance. There was a pair of old-fashioned high doors that folded back to admit big vehicles. Inset into one panel was a small, people-size door. Priest threw it open.

Over the entrance to a small warehouse Judy saw a sign that read “Perpetua Diaries.”

She had thought Melanie was saying “Perpetual.”

“That’s the place!” she yelled. “Go down!”

The helicopter descended rapidly, avoiding a power line that ran from pole to pole along the side of the road, and touched down in the middle of the deserted street.

As soon as she felt the bump of contact with the ground, Judy opened the door.

Priest looked out.

A helicopter had landed in the road. As he watched, someone jumped out. It was a woman with a wound dressing on her face. He recognized Judy Maddox.

He screamed a curse that was lost in the noise of the chopper.

There was no time to open the big doors.

He dashed back to the truck, got in, and rammed the shift into reverse. He backed as far as he could into the warehouse, stopping when the rear bumper hit the wall. Then he engaged first gear. He revved the engine high, then let out the clutch with a jerk. The truck lurched forward.

Priest pressed the pedal to the floor. Engine screaming, the big truck gathered speed the length of the warehouse, then crashed into the old wooden door.

Judy Maddox was standing right in front of the door, gun in hand. Shock and fear showed on her face as the truck burst through the door. Priest grinned savagely as he bore down on her. She dived sideways, and the truck missed her by an inch.

The helicopter was in the middle of the road. A man was getting out. Priest recognized Michael Quercus.

He steered toward the helicopter, changed up a gear, and accelerated.

Judy rolled over, aimed at the driver’s door, and squeezed off two shots. She thought she might have hit something, but she failed to stop the truck.

The chopper lifted quickly.

Michael ran to the side of the road.

Judy guessed that Granger was hoping to clip the helicopter’s undercarriage, as he had in Felicitas, but this time the pilot was too quick for him and lifted high as the truck charged the space where the aircraft had been.

But, in his haste, the pilot forgot the roadside power lines.

There were five or six cables stretched between tall poles. The rotor blade caught in the lines, slicing through some. The helicopter’s engine faltered. One of the poles tilted under the strain and fell. The rotor blade began to spin freely again, but the chopper had lost lift, and it fell to the ground with a mighty crash.

Priest had one hope left.

If he could drive a quarter of a mile, then get the plate down and the vibrator operating, he might yet trigger an earthquake before the FBI could get to him. And in the chaos of an earthquake, he might escape, as he had before.

He wrenched the wheel around and headed down the road.

Judy fired again as the truck swung away from the downed helicopter. She was hoping to hit either Granger or some essential part of the engine, but she was unlucky. The truck lumbered down the potholed road.

She looked at the crashed helicopter. The pilot was not moving. She looked back to the seismic vibrator as it gradually gathered speed.

I wish I had a rifle.

Michael ran up to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said. She made a decision. “You see if you can help the pilot — I’ll go after Granger.”

He hesitated, then said: “Okay.”

Judy holstered her pistol and ran after the truck.

It was a sluggish vehicle, taking long moments to accelerate. At first she closed the distance rapidly. Then Granger changed gear, and the truck picked up speed. Judy ran as fast as she could, heart pounding, chest aching. The tail of the truck carried a huge spare wheel. She was still gaining on it, but not so rapidly. Just when she thought she would never catch it, Granger shifted gears again, and in the momentary slowdown, Judy put on a burst of speed and leaped for the tailgate.

She got one foot on the bumper and grabbed the spare wheel. For a frightening moment she thought she would slip and fall; and she looked down to see the road speeding beneath her. But she managed to hold on. She clambered onto the flatbed among the tanks and valves of the machinery. She staggered to keep her balance, almost fell, and righted herself.

She did not know whether Granger had seen her.

He could not operate the vibrator while the truck was in motion, so she remained where she was, heart thumping, waiting for him to stop.

But he had seen her.

She heard glass shatter and saw the barrel of a gun poke through the rear window of the driver’s cabin. She ducked instinctively. The next moment she heard a slug ricochet off a tank beside her. She leaned to the left so that she was directly behind Granger, and crouched low, heart in her mouth. She heard another shot and cringed, but it missed her. Then he seemed to give up.

But he had not.

The truck braked fiercely. Judy was thrown forward, banging her head painfully against a pipe. Then Granger swerved violently to the right. Judy swung sideways and thought for a terrifying moment that she would be hurled to her death on the hard surface of the road, but she managed to hang on. She saw that Granger was heading suicidally straight for the brick front of a disused factory. She clung to a tank.

At the last moment he braked hard and swerved, but he was a fraction of a second too late. He averted a head-on smash, but the offside fender plowed into the brickwork with a crash of crumpling metal and breaking glass. Judy felt an agonizing pain in her ribs as she was crushed against the tank she was holding. Then she was thrown into the air.

For a dizzy moment she was totally disoriented. Then she hit the ground, landing on her left side. All the breath was knocked out of her body so that she could not even yell with pain. Her head banged against the road, her left arm went numb, and panic filled her mind.

Her head cleared a second or two later. She hurt, but she could move. Her bulletproof jacket had helped to protect her. Her black corduroys were ripped and one knee was bleeding, but not badly. Her nose was bleeding, too: she had reopened the wound Granger had given her yesterday.

She had fallen near the rear corner of the truck, close to its enormous double wheels. If Granger reversed a yard, he would kill her. She rolled sideways, staying behind the truck but getting away from its giant tires. The effort sent sharp pain through her ribs, and she cursed.

The truck did not reverse. Granger was not trying to run her over. Perhaps he had not seen where she had fallen.

She looked up and down the street. She could see Michael struggling to get the pilot out of the crashed helicopter, four hundred yards away. In the other direction, there was no sign of the SWAT wagon or the police cars she had spotted from the air, or of the other FBI helicopters. They were probably seconds away — but she did not have seconds to spare.

She got to her knees and drew her weapon. She expected Granger to jump out of the cabin and shoot at her, but he did not.

She struggled painfully to her feet.

If she approached on the driver’s side of the truck, he would surely see her in his side-view mirror. She went to the other side and risked a peek around the rear corner. There was a big mirror on this side, too.

She dropped to her knees, lay flat on her belly, and crawled under the truck.

She wriggled forward until she was almost beneath the driver’s cab.

She heard a new noise above her and wondered what it was. Glancing up, she saw a huge steel plate above her.

It was being lowered onto her.

Frantically she rolled sideways. Her foot caught on one of the rear wheels. For a few horrendous seconds she struggled to free herself as the massive plate moved inexorably down. It would crush her leg like a plastic toy. At the last moment she pulled her foot out of her shoe and rolled clear.

She was out in the open. Granger would see her at any second. If he leaned out of the passenger door now, gun in hand, he could shoot her easily.

There was a blast like a bomb in her ears, and the ground beneath her shook violently. He had started the vibrator.

She had to stop it. She thought momentarily of Bo’s house. In her mind she saw it crumble and fall, then the whole street collapse.

Pressing her left hand to her side to ease the pain, she forced herself to her feet.

Two paces took her to the nearside door. She needed to open it with her right hand, so she shifted the gun to her left — she could shoot with either — and pointed it up to the sky.

Now.

She jumped onto the step, grabbed the door handle, and flung it open.

She came face-to-face with Richard Granger.

He looked as scared as she felt.

She pointed the gun at him with her left hand. “Turn it off!” she screamed. “Turn it off!”

“Okay,” he said, and he grinned and reached beneath his seat.

The grin alerted her. She knew he was not going to turn off the vibrator. She got ready to shoot him.

She had never shot anyone before.

His hand came up holding a revolver like something out of the Wild West.

As the long barrel swung toward her, she aimed her pistol at his head and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit him in the face, beside the nose.

He shot her a split second later. The flash and noise of the double gunshot was terrific. She felt a burning pain across her right temple.

Years of training came into play. She had been taught always to fire twice, and her muscles remembered. Automatically she pulled the trigger again. This time she hit his shoulder. Blood spurted immediately. He spun sideways and fell back against the door, dropping the gun from limp fingers.

Oh, Jesus, is that what it’s like when you kill someone?

Judy felt her own blood course down her right cheek. She fought a wave of faintness and nausea. She held the gun pointed at Granger.

The machine was still vibrating.

She stared at the mass of switches and dials. She had just shot the one person who knew how to turn the thing off. Panic swept over her. She fought it down. There must be a key.

There was.

She reached over the inert body of Ricky Granger and turned it.

Suddenly there was quiet.

She glanced along the street. Outside the Perpetua Diaries warehouse, the helicopter was on fire.

Michael!

She opened the door of the truck, fighting to stay conscious. She knew there was something she ought to do, something important, before she went to help Michael, but she could not think what it was. She gave up trying to remember and climbed out of the truck.

A distant police siren came closer, and she saw a patrol car approaching. She waved it down. “FBI,” she said weakly. “Take me to that chopper.” She opened the door and fell into the car.

The cop drove the four hundred yards to the warehouse and pulled up a safe distance from the burning aircraft. Judy got out. She could not see anyone inside the helicopter. “Michael!” she yelled. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” He was behind the busted doors of the warehouse, bending over the pilot. Judy ran to him. “This guy needs help,” Michael said. He looked at her face. “Jesus, so do you!”

“I’m all right,” she said. “Help is on the way.” She pulled out her cell phone and called the command post. She got Raja. He said: “Judy, what’s happening?”

“You tell me, for Christ’s sake!”

“The vibrator stopped.”

“I know, I stopped it. Any tremors?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

Judy slumped with relief. She had stopped the machine in time. There would be no earthquake.

She leaned against the wall. She felt faint. She struggled to stay upright.

She felt no triumph, no sense of victory. Perhaps that would come later, with Raja and Carl and the others, in Everton’s bar. For now she was drained empty.

Another patrol car pulled up, and an officer got out. “Lieutenant Forbes,” he said. “What the hell went on here? Where’s the perpetrator?”

Judy pointed along the street to the seismic vibrator. “He’s in the front of that truck,” she said. “Dead.”

“We’ll take a look.” The lieutenant got back in his car and tore off down the street.

Michael had disappeared. Looking for him, Judy stepped inside the warehouse.

She saw him sitting on the concrete floor in a pool of blood. But he was unhurt. In his arms he held Melanie. Her face was even paler than usual, and her skimpy T-shirt was soaked with blood from a grisly wound in her chest.

Michael’s face was contorted with grief.

Judy went to him and knelt beside him. She felt for a pulse in Melanie’s neck. There was none.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

He swallowed. “Poor Dusty,” he said.

Judy touched his face. “It will be all right,” she said.

A few moments later Lieutenant Forbes reappeared. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said politely. “Did you say there was a dead man in that truck?”

“Yes,” she said. “I shot him.”

“Well,” the cop said, “he ain’t there now.”

22

Star was jailed for ten years.

At first, prison was torture. The regimented existence was hell for someone whose whole life had been about freedom. Then a pretty wardress called Jane fell in love with her and brought her makeup and books and marijuana, and things began to look up.

Flower was placed with foster parents, a Methodist minister and his wife. They were kindhearted people who could not begin to understand where Flower was coming from. She missed her parents, did poorly at school, and got in more trouble with the police. Then, a couple of years later, she found her grandma. Veronica Nightingale had been thirteen when she gave birth to Priest, so she was only in her mid-sixties when Flower found her. She was running a store in Los Angeles selling sex toys, lingerie, and porno videos. She had an apartment in Beverly Hills and drove a red sports car, and she told Flower stories about her daddy when he was a little boy. Flower ran away from the minister and his wife and moved in with her grandma.

Oaktree disappeared. Judy knew there had been a fourth person in the ’Cuda at Felicitas, and she had been able to piece together his role in the affair. She even got a full set of fingerprints from his woodwork shop at the commune. But no one knew where he had gone. However, his prints showed up a couple of years later, on a stolen car that had been used in an armed robbery in Seattle. The police did not suspect him, because he had a solid alibi, but Judy was automatically notified. When she reviewed the file with the U.S. attorney — her old friend Don Riley, now married to an insurance saleswoman — they realized they had only a weak case against Oaktree for his part in the Hammer of Eden, and they decided to let him be.

Milton Lestrange died of cancer. Brian Kincaid retired. Marvin Hayes resigned and became security director for a supermarket chain.

Michael Quercus became moderately famous. Because he was nice looking and good at explaining seismology, TV shows always called him first when they wanted a quote about earthquakes. His business prospered.

Judy was promoted to supervisor. She moved in with Michael and Dusty. When Michael’s business started to make real money, they bought a house together and decided to have a baby. A month later she was pregnant, so they got married. Bo cried at the wedding.

Judy figured out how Granger had got away.

The wound to his face was nasty but not serious. The bullet to his shoulder had nicked a vein, and the sudden loss of blood caused him to lose consciousness. Judy should have checked his pulse before going to help Michael, but she was weakened by her injuries and confused because of loss of blood, and she failed to follow routine.

Granger’s slumped position caused his blood pressure to rise again, and he came around a few seconds after she left. He crawled around the corner to Third Street, where he was lucky enough to find a car waiting at a stoplight. He got in, pointed his gun at the driver, and demanded to be taken to the city. En route he used Melanie’s mobile to call Paul Beale, the wine bottler who was a criminal associate of Granger’s from the old days. Beale had given him the address of a crooked doctor.

Granger made the driver drop him at a corner in a grungy neighborhood. (The traumatized citizen drove home, called the local police precinct house, got a busy signal, and did not get around to reporting the incident until the next day.) The doctor, a disbarred surgeon who was a morphine addict, patched Granger up. Granger stayed at the doctor’s apartment overnight, then left.

Judy never found out where he went after that.

The water is rising fast. It has flooded all the little wooden houses. Behind the closed doors, the homemade beds and chairs are floating. The cookhouse and the temple are also awash.

He has waited weeks for the water to reach the vineyard. Now it has, and the precious plants are drowning.

He had been hoping he might find Spirit here, but his dog is long gone.

He has drunk a bottle of his favorite wine. It is difficult for him to drink or eat, because of the wound to his face, which has been sewn up badly by a doctor who was stoned. But he has succeeded in pouring enough down his throat to make himself drunk.

He throws the bottle away and takes from his pocket a big joint of marijuana laced with enough heroin to knock him out. He lights it, takes a puff, and walks down the hill.

When the water is up to his thighs, he sits down.

He takes a last look around his valley. It is almost unrecognizable. There is no tumbling stream. Only the roofs of the buildings are visible, and they look like upturned shipwrecks floating on the surface of a lagoon. The vines he planted twenty-five years ago are now submerged.

It is not a valley anymore. It has become a lake, and everything that was here has been killed.

He takes a long pull on the joint between his fingers. He draws the deadly smoke deep into his lungs. He feels the rush of pleasure as the drug enters his bloodstream and the chemicals flood his brain. Little Ricky, happy at last, he thinks.

He rolls over and falls in the water. He lies face down, helpless, stoned out of his mind. Slowly his consciousness fades, like a distant lamp becoming dimmer, until, at last, the light goes out.