Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

Judy knelt beside him and touched his hair. “Poor Dusty!” she said. “What happened?”

“He gets allergy attacks,” Michael explained.

“Did you call the doctor?”

“No need. I’ve given him the drug he needs to suppress the reaction.”

“How fast does it work?”

“It’s already working. He’s past the worst. But he may stay like this for days.”

“I wish I could do something for you, little man,” Judy said to Dusty.

A female voice said: “I’ll take care of him, thank you.”

Judy stood up and turned around. The woman who had just walked in looked as if she had stepped off a couturier’s catwalk. She had a pale oval face and straight red hair that fell past her shoulders. Although she was tall and thin, her bust was generous and her hips curvy. Her long legs were clad in close-fitting tan jeans, and she wore a fashionable lime green top with a V neck.

Until this moment Judy had felt smartly dressed in khaki shorts, tan loafers that showed off her pretty ankles, and a white polo shirt that gleamed against her café-au-lait skin. Now she felt dowdy, middle-aged, and out of date by comparison with this vision of street chic. And Michael was bound to notice that Judy had a big ass and small tits by comparison.

“This is Melanie, Dusty’s mom,” Michael said. “Melanie, meet my friend Judy Maddox.”

Melanie nodded curtly.

So that’s his wife .

Michael had not mentioned the FBI. Did he want Melanie to think Judy was a girlfriend?

“This is my father, Bo Maddox,” Judy said.

Melanie did not trouble to make small talk. “I was just leaving,” she said. She was carrying a small duffel bag with a picture of Donald Duck on the side, obviously Dusty’s.

Judy felt put down by Michael’s tall, voguish wife. She was annoyed with herself for the reaction. Why should I give a damn?

Melanie looked around the room and said: “Michael, where’s the rabbit?”

“Here.” Michael picked up a grubby soft toy from his desk and gave it to her.

She looked at the child on the couch. “This never happens in the mountains,” she said coldly.

Michael looked anguished. “What am I going to do, not see him?”

“We’ll have to meet somewhere out of town.”

“I want him to stay with me. It’s not the same if he doesn’t sleep over.”

“If he doesn’t sleep over, he won’t get like this.”

“I know, I know.”

Judy’s heart went out to Michael. He was obviously in distress, and his wife was so cold.

Melanie stuffed the rabbit into the Donald Duck bag and closed the zip. “We have to go.”

“I’ll carry him to your car.” Michael picked up Dusty from the couch. “Come on, tiger, let’s go.”

When they had left, Bo looked at Judy and said: “Wow. Unhappy families.”

She nodded. But she liked Michael better than before. She wanted to put her arms around him and say, You’re doing your best, no one can do more .

“He’s your type, though,” Bo said.

“I have a type?”

“You like a challenge.”

“That’s because I grew up with one.”

“Me?” He pretended to be outraged. “I spoiled you rotten.”

She pecked his cheek. “You did, too.”

When Michael returned he was grim faced and preoccupied. He did not offer Judy and Bo a drink or a cup of coffee, and he had forgotten all about Cap’n Crunch. He sat at his computer. “Look at this,” he said without preamble.

Judy and Bo stood behind him and looked over his shoulder.

He put a chart on the screen. “Here’s the seismograph of the Owens Valley tremor, with the mysterious preliminary vibrations I couldn’t understand — remember?”

“I sure do,” Judy said.

“Here’s a typical earthquake of about the same magnitude. This has normal foreshocks. See the difference?”

“Yes.” The normal foreshocks were uneven and sporadic, whereas the Owens Valley vibrations followed a pattern that seemed too regular to be natural.

“Now look at this.” He brought a third chart up on the screen. It showed a neat pattern of even vibrations, just like the Owens Valley chart.

“What made those vibrations?” Judy said.

“A seismic vibrator,” Michael announced triumphantly.

Bo said: “What the hell is that?”

Judy almost said, I don’t know, but I think I want one . She smothered a grin.

Michael said: “It’s a machine used by the oil industry to explore underground. Basically, it’s a huge jackhammer mounted on a truck. It sends vibrations through the earth’s crust.”

“And those vibrations triggered the earthquake?”

“I don’t think it can be a coincidence.”

Judy nodded solemnly. “That’s it, then. They really can cause earthquakes.” She felt a cold chill descend as the news sank in.

Bo said: “Jesus, I hope they don’t come to San Francisco.”

“Or Berkeley,” said Michael. “You know, although I told you it was possible, I never really believed it, in my heart, until now.”

Judy said: “The Owens Valley tremor was quite minor.”

Michael shook his head. “We can’t take comfort from that. The size of the earthquake bears no relation to the strength of the triggering vibration. It depends on the pressure in the fault. The seismic vibrator could trigger anything from a barely perceptible tremor to another Loma Prieta.”

Judy remembered the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 as vividly as if it were last night’s bad dream. “Shit,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

Bo said: “You’re off the case.”

Michael frowned, puzzled. “You told me that,” he said to Judy. “But you didn’t say why.”

“Office politics,” Judy said. “We have a new boss who doesn’t like me, and he reassigned the case to someone he prefers.”

“I don’t believe this!” Michael said. “A terrorist group is causing earthquakes and the FBI is having a family spat about who gets to chase after them!”

“What can I tell you? Do scientists let personal squabbles get in the way of their search for the truth?”

Michael gave one of his sudden unexpected grins. “You bet your ass they do. But listen. Surely you can pass on this information to Marvin Whatever?”

“When I told my boss about Los Alamos, he ordered me not to interfere again.”

“This is incredible!” Michael said, becoming angry. “You can’t just ignore what I’ve told you.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t do that,” Judy said curtly. “Let’s keep cool and think for a moment. What’s the first thing we need to do with this information? If we can find out where the seismic vibrator came from, we may have a lead on the Hammer of Eden.”

“Right,” Bo said. “Either they bought it, or more likely they stole it.”

Judy asked Michael: “How many of these machines are there in the continental United States? A hundred? A thousand?”

“In there somewhere,” he said.

“Anyhow, not many. So the people who manufacture them probably have a record of every sale. I could track them down tonight, get them to make a list. And if the truck was stolen, it may be listed on the National Crime Information Center.” The NCIC, run by FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., could be accessed by any law enforcement agency.

Bo said: “The NCIC is only as good as the information that’s put in. We don’t have a license plate for this, and there’s no telling how it might be categorized on the computer. I could have the San Francisco PD put out a multistate query on the CLETS Computer.” CLETS was the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. “And I could get the newspapers to print a picture of one of these trucks, get members of the public looking out for it.”