Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

“Dave, Louise, Steve, and Ashok will form the second team. You’ll work with Simon Sparrow, checking tip-offs based on the recorded voice of the woman who phoned John Truth. By the way, some of the tip-offs Simon is working on mention a pop record. We asked John Truth to flag that up on his show last night.” She had not done this personally: the office press person had spoken to Truth’s producer. “So we may get calls about it.” She handed out a second briefing sheet with different questions.

“Raja.”

The youngest member of the team grinned his cocky grin. “I was afraid you’d forgotten about me.”

“In my dreams,” she said, and they all laughed. “Raja, I want you to prepare a short briefing to go out to all police departments, and especially the California Highway Patrol, telling them how to recognize a seismic vibrator.” She held up a hand. “And no vibrator jokes, please.” They laughed again.

“Now I’m going to get us some extra manpower and more work space. Meanwhile, I know you’ll do your best. One more thing.”

She paused, choosing her words. She needed to impress them with the importance of their work — but she felt she had to avoid coming right out and saying that the Hammer of Eden could cause earthquakes.

“These people are trying to blackmail the governor of California. They say they can make earthquakes happen.” She shrugged. “I’m not telling you they can. But it’s not as impossible as it sounds, and I’m sure as hell not telling you they can’t . Either way, you need to understand that this assignment is very, very serious.” She paused again, then finished: “Let’s get to it.”

They all moved to their seats.

Judy left the room and walked briskly along the corridor to the SAC’s office. The official start of the workday was eight-fifteen, but she was betting Brian Kincaid had come in early. He would have heard that she had called her team to a seven o’clock briefing, and he would want to know what was happening. She was about to tell him.

His secretary was not yet at her desk. Judy knocked on the inner door and went in.

Kincaid was sitting in the big chair with his suit coat on, looking as if he had nothing to do. The only items on his desk were a bran muffin with one bite taken out of it, and the paper bag it had come in. He was smoking a cigarette. Smoking was not allowed in FBI offices, but Kincaid was the boss, so there was no one to tell him to stop. He gave Judy a hostile glare and said: “If I asked you to make me a cup of coffee, I guess you’d call me a sexist pig.”

There was no way she was going to make his coffee. He would take it as a sign that he could carry on walking all over her. But she wanted to be conciliatory. “I’ll get you coffee,” she said. She picked up his phone and dialed the DT squad secretary. “Rosa, would you come to the SAC’s office and put on a pot of coffee for Mr. Kincaid? … Thank you.”

He still looked angry. Her gesture had done nothing to win him over. He probably felt that by getting him coffee without actually making it herself, she had in a way outwitted him.

Bottom line, I can’t win .

She got down to business. “I have more than a thousand leads to follow up on the voice of the woman on tape. I’m guessing we’ll get even more calls about the picture of Ricky Granger. I can’t begin to evaluate them all by Friday with nine people. I need twenty more agents.”

He laughed. “I’m not putting twenty people on this bullshit assignment.”

She ignored that. “I’ve notified the Strategic Information Operations Center.” SIOC was an information clearinghouse that operated from a bombproof office in the Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. “I’m assuming that as soon as the news gets around headquarters, they’ll send some people here — if only to take the credit for any success we have.”

“I didn’t tell you to notify SIOC.”

“I want to convene the Joint Terrorist Task Force so we’ll have delegates here from police departments, Customs, and the U.S. Federal Protective Service, all of whom will need somewhere to sit. And starting from sundown on Thursday, I plan to stake out the likeliest locations for the next earthquake.”

“There isn’t going to be one!”

“I’ll need extra personnel for that, too.”

“Forget it.”

“There isn’t a room big enough here at the office. We’re going to have to set up our emergency operations center someplace else. I checked out the Presidio buildings last night.” The Presidio was a disused military base near the Golden Gate Bridge. The officers’ club was habitable, though a skunk had been living there and the place smelled foul. “I’m going to use the ballroom of the officers’ club.”

Kincaid stood up. “You are like hell!” he shouted.

Judy sighed. There was no way to get this done without making a lifetime enemy of Brian Kincaid. “I have to call Mr. Honeymoon soon,” she said. “Do you want me to tell him you’re refusing to give me the manpower I need?”

Kincaid was red with fury. He stared at Judy as if he wanted to pull out his gun and blow her away. At last he said: “Your FBI career is over, you know that?”

He was probably right, but it hurt to hear him say it. “I never wanted to fight with you, Brian,” she said, striving to keep her voice low and reasonable. “But you dicked me around. I deserved a promotion after putting the Foong brothers away. Instead you promoted your buddy and gave me a bullshit assignment. You shouldn’t have done that. It was unprofessional.”

“Don’t tell me how to—”

She overrode him. “When the bullshit assignment turned into a big case, you took it away from me, then screwed it up. Every bad thing that’s happened to you is your own damn fault. Now you’re sulking. Well, I know your pride is wounded, and I know your feelings are hurt, and I just want you to understand that I don’t give a flying fuck.”

He stared at her with his mouth half-open.

She went to the door.

“Now I’m going to talk to Honeymoon at nine-thirty,” she said. “By then I’d like to have a senior logistics person assigned to my team with the authority to organize the manpower I need and set up a command post at the officers’ club. If I don’t, I’ll tell Honeymoon to call Washington. Your move.” She went out and slammed the door.

She felt the exhilaration that comes from a reckless act. She would have to fight every step, so she might as well fight hard. She would never be able to work with Kincaid again. The Bureau’s top brass would side with the superior officer in a situation like this. She was almost certainly finished. But this case was more important than her career. Hundreds of lives might be at stake. If she could prevent a catastrophe and capture the terrorists, she would retire proudly, and to hell with them all.

The DT squad secretary was in Kincaid’s outer office, filling the coffee machine. “Thanks, Rosa,” Judy said as she passed through. She returned to the DT office. The phone on her desk was ringing. She picked up. “Judy Maddox.”

“John Truth here.”

“Hello!” It was weird to hear the familiar radio voice on the other end of a phone. “You’re at work early!”

“I’m at home, but my producer just called me. My voice mail at the radio station was maxed with overnight calls about the Hammer of Eden woman.”

Judy was not supposed to talk to the media herself. All such contacts should go through the office media specialist, Madge Kelly, a young agent with a journalism degree. But Truth was not asking her for a quote, he was giving her information. And she was in too much of a hurry to tell Truth to call Madge. “Anything good?” she asked.