Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

“Well, Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t giving a press conference today, I checked.”

She grinned sheepishly. “Too bad.”

“But if you just ask the kinds of questions a reporter from Teen would think of, you’ll be fine.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “What’s the press conference about?”

“A group who claim they caused an earthquake. Now, I don’t want you to tell everyone about this. It has to be a secret, okay?”

“Okay.”

He would tell the Rice Eaters about it when he got back, he decided. “It’s all right to talk to Mom and Melanie about it, and Oaktree and Song and Aneth and Paul Beale, but no one else. That’s really important.”

“Gotcha.”

He knew he was taking a crazy risk. If things went wrong, he could lose everything. He might even be arrested in front of his daughter. This could end up being the worst day of her life. But mad risks had always been his style.

When he had proposed planting the grapevines, Star had pointed out that they held their land on a one-year lease. They could break their backs digging and planting and never see the fruits of their labor. She had argued that they should negotiate a ten-year lease before starting work. It sounded sensible, but Priest had known it would be fatal. If they postponed the start, they would never do it. He had persuaded them to take the risk. At the end of that year, the commune had become a community. And the government had renewed Star’s lease — that year and every year, until now.

He thought about putting on the navy blue suit. However, it was so old-fashioned that it would be conspicuous in San Francisco, so he wore his usual blue jeans. Although it was warm, he put on a T-shirt and a checked flannel shirt with a long tail, which he wore untucked. From the tool shed he took a heavy knife with a four-inch blade in a neat leather sheath. He stuck it in the waistband of his jeans, at the back, where it was concealed by the tail of his shirt.

He was high on adrenaline throughout the four-hour drive to San Francisco. He had nightmare visions: the two of them being arrested, himself bundled off to a jail cell, Flower sitting alone in an interrogation room at FBI headquarters, being questioned about her parents. But fear gave him a buzz.

They reached the city at eleven A.M. They left the car in a parking lot on Golden Gate. At a drugstore, Priest bought Flower a spiral-bound notebook and two pencils. Then he took her to a coffee shop. While she was drinking her soda, he said, “I’ll be right back,” and stepped outside.

He walked toward Union Square, scanning the faces of passersby, searching for a man who looked like him. The streets were busy with shoppers, and he had hundreds of faces to pick from. He saw a man with a thin face and dark hair studying the menu outside a restaurant, and for a moment he thought he had found his victim. Feeling wire-taut with tension, he watched for a few seconds; then the guy turned around and Priest saw that his right eye was permanently closed by some kind of injury.

Disappointed, Priest walked on. It was not easy. There were plenty of dark men in their forties, but most of them were twenty or thirty pounds heavier than Priest. He saw another likely candidate, but the guy had a camera around his neck. A tourist was no good: Priest needed someone with local credentials. This is one of the greatest shopping centers in the world, and it’s Saturday morning: there has to be one man here who looks like me .

He checked his watch: eleven-thirty. He was running out of time.

At last he struck lucky: a thin-faced guy of about fifty, wearing large-framed glasses, walking briskly. He was dressed in navy slacks and a green polo shirt but carried a worn tan attaché case, and looked miserable: Priest guessed he was going to the office to do some Saturday catching up. Now I need his wallet . Priest followed him around a corner, psyching himself up, waiting for an opportunity.

I’m angry, I’m desperate, I’m a crazy man escaped from the asylum, I’ve got to have twenty bucks for a fix, I hate everyone, I want to slash and kill, I’m mad, mad, mad …

The man walked past the lot where the ’Cuda was parked and turned into a street of old office buildings. For a moment there was no one else in sight. Priest drew the knife, then ran up to him and said: “Hey!”

The man stopped reflexively and turned.

Priest grabbed the guy by the shirt, shoved the knife in front of his face, and screamed: “GIMME YOUR FUCKIN’ WALLET OR I’LL SLIT YOUR FUCKIN’ THROAT!”

The guy should have collapsed in terror, but he did not. Jesus, he’s a tough guy . His face showed anger, not fear.

Staring into his eyes, Priest read the thought It’s only one guy, and he doesn’t have a gun .

Priest hesitated, suddenly fearful. Shit, I can’t afford for this to go wrong . There was a split-second standoff. A casually dressed man with a briefcase heading for work on Saturday morning … could he be a police detective?

But it was too late now for second thoughts. Before the guy could move, Priest flicked the blade across his cheek, drawing a thin two-inch line of red blood just below the right lens of his spectacles.

The man’s courage evaporated, and all thought of resistance left him. His eyes widened in fear, and his body seemed to sag. “Okay! Okay!” he said in a high-pitched, shaky voice.

Not a cop, after all .

Priest screamed: “NOW! NOW! GIMME IT NOW!”

“It’s in my case.…”

Priest grabbed the briefcase from the man’s hand. At the last minute he decided to take the guy’s glasses, too. He snatched them off his face, turned around, and ran away.

At the corner he looked back. The guy was throwing up on the sidewalk.

Priest turned right. He dropped his knife into a garbage bin and walked on. At the next corner he stopped by a building site and opened the case. Inside was a file folder, a notebook and some pens, a paper package that looked as if it contained a sandwich, and a leather billfold. Priest took the billfold and threw the case over the fence into a builder’s skip.

He returned to the coffee shop and sat down with Flower. His coffee was still warm. I haven’t lost the touch. Thirty years since I last did that, but I can still scare the shit out of people. Way to go, Ricky .

He opened the billfold. It contained money, credit cards, business cards, and some kind of identity card with a photo. Priest pulled out a business card and handed it to Flower. “My card, ma’am.”

She giggled. “You’re Peter Shoebury, of Watkins, Colefax and Brown.”

“I’m a lawyer?”

“I guess.”

He looked at the photo on the identity card. It was about half an inch square and had been taken in an automatic photo booth. It was about ten years old, he guessed. It did not look exactly like Priest, but neither did it look much like Peter Shoebury. Photos were like that.

Still, Priest could improve the resemblance. Shoebury had straight dark hair, but it was short. Priest said: “Can I borrow your hairband?”

“Sure.” Flower took a rubber band out of her hair and shook her locks around her face. Priest did the reverse, pulling his hair back into a ponytail and tying it with the band. Then he put on the glasses.

He showed Flower the photo. “How do you like my secret identity?”

“Hmm.” She looked at the back of the card. “This will admit you to the downtown office, but not the Oakland branch.”

“I guess I can live with that.”

She grinned. “Daddy, where did you get this?”

He raised one eyebrow at her and said: “I borrowed it.”

“Did you pick someone’s pocket?”

“Sort of.” He could see she thought that was roguish rather than wicked. He let her believe what she wanted. He looked at the clock on the wall. It was eleven forty-five. “Are you ready to go?”