Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

“What’s the real-life equivalent of the ruler? A nuclear bomb?”

“They don’t need anything so powerful. They have to send a shock wave through the earth’s crust, that’s all. If they know exactly where the fault is vulnerable, they might do it with a charge of dynamite, precisely placed.”

“Anyone can get hold of dynamite if they really want to.”

“The explosion would have to be underground. I guess drilling a shaft would be the challenge for a terrorist group.”

Judy wondered if the blue-collar man imagined by Simon Sparrow was a drilling rig operator. Such men would surely need a special license. A quick check with the Department of Motor Vehicles might yield a list of all of them in California. There could not be many.

Quercus went on: “They would obviously need drilling equipment, expertise, and some kind of pretext to get permission.”

Those problems were not insurmountable. “Is it really so simple?” Judy said.

“Listen, I’m not telling you this would work. I’m saying it might. No one will know for sure until they try it. I can try to give you some insight into how these things happen, but you’ll have to make your own assessment of the risk.”

Judy nodded. She had used almost the same words last night in telling Bo what she needed. Quercus might act like an asshole sometimes, but as Bo would say, everyone needed an asshole now and again. “So knowing where to place the charge is everything?”

“Yes.”

“Who has that information?”

“Universities, the state geologist … me. We all share information.”

“Anyone can get hold of it?”

“It’s not secret, though you would need to have some scientific knowledge to interpret the data.”

“So someone in the terrorist group would have to be a seismologist.”

“Yes. Could be a student.”

Judy thought of the educated thirty-year-old woman who was doing the typing, according to Simon’s theory. She could be a graduate student. How many geology students were there in California? How long would it take to find and interview them all?

Quercus went on: “And there’s one other factor: earth tides. The oceans move this way and that under the gravitational influence of the moon, and the solid earth is subject to the same forces. Twice a day there’s a seismic window, when the fault line is under extra stress because of the tides; and that’s when an earthquake is most likely — or most easy to trigger. Which is my specialty. I’m the only person who has done extensive calculations of seismic windows for California faults.”

“Could someone have gotten this data from you?”

“Well, I’m in the business of selling it.” He gave a rueful smile. “But, as you can see, my business isn’t making me rich. I have one contract, with a big insurance company, and that pays the rent, but unfortunately that’s all. My theories about seismic windows make me kind of a maverick, and corporate America hates mavericks.”

The note of wry self-deprecation was surprising, and Judy started to like him better. “Someone might have taken the information without your knowledge. Have you been burgled lately?”

“Never.”

“Could your data have been copied by a friend or relative?”

“I don’t think so. No one spends time in this room without my being here.”

She picked up the photo from his desk. “Your wife, or girlfriend?”

He looked annoyed and took the picture out of her hand. “I’m separated from my wife, and I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Is that so?” said Judy. She had got everything she needed from him. She stood up. “I appreciate your time, Professor.”

“Please call me Michael. I’ve enjoyed talking to you.”

She was surprised.

He added: “You pick up fast. That makes it more fun.”

“Well … good.”

He walked her to the door of the apartment and shook her hand. He had big hands, but his grip was surprisingly gentle. “Anything else you want to know, I’ll be glad to help.”

She risked a gibe. “So long as I call ahead for an appointment, right?”

He did not smile. “Right.”

Driving back across the bay, she reflected that the danger was now clear. A terrorist group might conceivably be able to cause an earthquake. They would need accurate data on critically stressed points on the fault line, and perhaps on seismic windows, but that was obtainable. They had to have someone to interpret the data. And they needed some way to send shock waves through the earth. That would be the most difficult task, but it was not out of the question.

She had the unwelcome task of telling the governor’s aide that the whole thing was horrifyingly possible.

Priest woke at first light on Thursday.

He generally woke early, all the year round. He never needed much sleep, unless he had been partying too hard, and that was rare now.

One more day .

From the governor’s office there had been nothing but a maddening silence. They acted as if no threat had been made. So did the rest of the world, by and large. The Hammer of Eden was rarely mentioned in the news broadcasts Priest listened to on his car radio.

Only John Truth took them seriously. He kept taunting Governor Mike Robson in his daily radio show. Until yesterday, all the governor would say was that the FBI was investigating. But last night Truth had reported that the governor had promised a statement today.

That statement would decide everything. If it was conciliatory, and gave at least a hint that the governor would consider the demand, Priest would rejoice. But if the statement was unyielding, Priest would have to cause an earthquake.

He wondered if he really could.

Melanie sounded convincing when she talked about the fault line and what it would take to make it slip. But no one had ever tried this. Even she admitted she could not be one hundred percent sure it would work. What if it failed? What if it worked and they were caught? What if it worked and they were killed in the earthquake — who would take care of the communards and the children?

He rolled over. Melanie’s head lay on the pillow beside him. He studied her face in repose. Her skin was very white, and her eyelashes were almost transparent. A strand of long ginger-colored hair fell across her cheek. He pulled the sheet back a little and looked at her breasts, heavy and soft. He contemplated waking her. Under the covers, he reached out and stroked her, running his hand across her belly and into the triangle of reddish hair below. She stirred, swallowed, then turned over and moved away.

He sat up. He was in the one-room house that had been his home for the last twenty-five years. As well as the bed, it had an old couch in front of the fireplace and a table in the corner with a fat yellow candle in a holder. There was no electric light.

In the early days of the commune, most people lived in cabins like this, and the kids all slept in a bunkhouse. But over the years some permanent couples had formed, and they had built bigger places with separate bedrooms for their children. Priest and Star had kept their own individual houses, but the trend was against them. It was best not to fight the inevitable: Priest had learned that from Star. Now there were six family homes as well as the original fifteen cabins. Right now the commune consisted of twenty-five adults and ten children, plus Melanie and Dusty. One cabin was empty.

This room was as familiar as his hand, but lately the well-known objects had taken on a new aura. For years his eye had passed over without registering them: the picture of Priest that Star had painted for his thirtieth birthday; the elaborately decorated hookah left behind by a French girl called Marie-Louise; the rickety shelf Flower had made in woodwork class; the fruit crate in which he kept his clothes. Now that he knew he might have to leave, each homely item looked special and wonderful, and it brought a lump to his throat to look at them. His room was like a photograph album in which every picture unchained a string of memories: the birth of Ringo; the day Smiler nearly drowned in the river; making love to twin sisters called Jane and Eliza; the warm, dry autumn of their first grape harvest; the taste of the ‘89 vintage. When he looked around and thought of the people who wanted to take it all away from him, he was filled with a rage that burned inside him like vitriol in his belly.