Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

“The river is dry because the water was diverted to Los Angeles years ago.”

They passed through a sleepy small town every twenty miles or so. Now there was no way to be inconspicuous. There was little traffic, and the seismic vibrator was stared at every time they waited at a stoplight. Plenty of men would remember it. Yeah, I seen that rig. Looked like she might be for layin’ blacktop or somethin’. What was she, anyway?

Melanie switched on her laptop and unfolded her map. She said musingly: “Somewhere beneath us, two vast slabs of the earth’s crust are wedged together, stuck, straining to spring free.”

The thought made Priest feel cold. He could hardly believe he aimed to release all that pent-up destructive force. I must be out of my mind .

“Somewhere in the next five or ten miles,” she said.

“What’s the time?”

“Just after one.”

They had cut it fine. The seismic window would open in half an hour and close fifty minutes later.

Melanie directed Priest down a side turning that crossed the flat valley floor. It was not really a road, just a track cleared through the boulders and scrub. Although the ground seemed almost level, the main road disappeared from view behind them, and they could see only the tops of high trucks passing.

“Pull up here,” Melanie said at last.

Priest stopped the truck, and they both got out. The sun beat down on them from a merciless sky. The ’Cuda pulled up behind them, and Star and Oaktree got out, stretching their arms and legs after the long drive.

“Look at that,” Melanie said. “See the dry gulch?”

Priest could see where a stream, long ago dried up, had cut a channel through the rocky ground. But where Melanie was pointing, the gulch came to an abrupt end, as if it had been walled off. “That’s strange,” Priest said.

“Now look a few yards to the right.”

Priest followed her moving finger. The streambed began again just as abruptly and continued toward the middle of the valley. Priest realized what she was pointing out. “That’s the fault line,” he said. “Last time there was an earthquake, one whole side of this valley picked up its skirts and shifted five yards, then sat down again.”

“That’s about it.”

Oaktree said: “And we’re about to make it happen again, is that right?” There was a note of awe in his voice.

“We’re going to try,” Priest said briskly. “And we don’t have much time.” He turned to Melanie. “Is the truck in exactly the right place?”

“I guess,” she said. “A few yards one way or another up here on the surface shouldn’t make any difference five miles down.”

“Okay.” He hesitated. He almost felt he ought to make a speech. He said: “Well, I’ll get started.”

He got into the cabin of the truck and settled into the driver’s seat, then started the engine that ran the vibrator. He threw the switch that lowered the steel plate to the ground. He set the vibrator to shake for thirty seconds in the middle of its frequency range. He looked through the rear window of the cab and checked the gauges. The readouts were normal. He picked up the remote radio controller and got out of the truck.

“All set,” he said.

The four of them got into the ’Cuda. Oaktree took the wheel. They drove back to the road, crossed it, and headed into the scrub on the far side. They went partway up the hillside, then Melanie said: “This is fine.”

Oaktree stopped the car.

Priest hoped they were not conspicuous from the road. If they were, there was nothing he could do about it. But the muddy colors of the ’Cuda’s paint job blended into the brown landscape.

Oaktree said nervously: “Is this far enough away?”

“I think so,” Melanie said coolly. She was not scared at all. Studying her face, Priest saw a hint of mad excitement in her eyes. It was almost sexual. Was she taking her revenge on the seismologists who had rejected her, or the husband who had let her down, or the whole damn world? Whatever the explanation, she was getting a big charge out of this.

They got out and stood looking across the valley. They could just see the top of the truck.

Star said to Priest: “It was a mistake for us both to come. If we die, Flower has no one.”

“She has the whole commune,” Priest said. “You and I are not the only adults she loves and trusts. We’re not a nuclear family, and that’s one very good reason why.”

Melanie looked annoyed. “We’re a quarter of a mile from the fault, assuming it runs along the valley floor,” she said in a cut-the-crap tone of voice. “We’ll feel the earth move, but we’re not in any danger. People who are hurt in earthquakes generally get hit by parts of buildings: falling ceilings, bridges that collapse, flying glass, stuff like that. We’re safe here.”

Star looked over her shoulder. “The mountain isn’t going to fall on us?”

“It might. And we might all be killed in a car wreck driving back to Silver River Valley. But it’s so unlikely that we shouldn’t waste time worrying about it.”

“That’s easy for you to say — your child’s father is three hundred miles away in San Francisco.”

Priest said: “I don’t care if I die here. I can’t raise my children in suburban America.”

Oaktree muttered: “This has to work. This just has to work.”

Melanie said: “For God’s sake, Priest, we don’t have all day. Just press the damn button.”

Priest looked up and down the road and waited for a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited to pass. “Okay,” he said when the road was clear. “This is it.”

He pressed the button on the remote control.

He heard the roar of the vibrator immediately, though it was muted by distance. He felt the vibration in the soles of his feet, a faint but definite trembling sensation.

Star said: “Oh, God.”

A cloud of dust billowed around the truck.

All four of them were taut as guitar strings, their bodies tensed for the first hint of movement in the earth.

Seconds passed.

Priest’s eyes raked the landscape, looking for signs of a tremor, though he guessed he would feel it before he saw it.

Come on, come on!

The seismic exploration crews normally set the vibrator for a seven-second “sweep.” Priest had set this one for thirty seconds. It seemed like an hour.

At last the noise stopped.

Melanie said: “Goddamn it.”

Priest’s heart sank. There was no earthquake. It had failed.

Maybe it was just a crazy hippie idea, like levitating the Pentagon.

“Try it again,” said Melanie.

Priest looked at the remote control in his hand. Why not?

There was a sixteen-wheel truck approaching along U.S. 395, but this time Priest did not wait. If Melanie was right, the truck would be unaffected by the tremor. If Melanie was wrong, they would all be dead.

He pressed the button.

The distant roar started up, there was a perceptible vibration in the ground, and a cloud of dust engulfed the seismic vibrator.

Priest wondered if the road would open up under the sixteen-wheeler.

Nothing happened.

The thirty seconds passed more quickly this time. Priest was surprised when the noise stopped. Is that all?

Despair engulfed him. Perhaps the Silver River Valley commune was a dream that had come to an end. What am I going to do? Where will I live? How can I avoid ending up like Bones?

But Melanie was not ready to give up. “Let’s move the truck a ways and try again.”

“But you said the exact position doesn’t matter,” Oaktree pointed out. “ ‘A few yards one way or another up here on the surface shouldn’t make any difference five miles down,’ that’s what you said.”