Ken Follett: The Hammer of Eden

Melanie gasped. There was a shot of her husband, Michael, carrying Dusty. “Oh, no!” she said.

“They’re not arresting Dusty,” Priest said impatiently.

“But where will Michael take him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if there’s going to be an earthquake!”

“Michael knows better than anyone where the fault lines are! He won’t be anywhere dangerous.”

“Oh, God, I hope not, especially if he has Dusty with him.”

Priest had watched enough TV. “Let’s go out,” he said. “Bring your phone.”

Melanie drove the pickup out, and Priest locked the warehouse behind them. “Head for the airport,” he told her as he got in.

Avoiding the freeways, they got close to the airport before they were stuck in traffic. Priest figured there had to be thousands of people using phones in the vicinity — trying to get flights, calling their families, checking how big the traffic jam was. He called the John Truth show.

John Truth himself answered. Priest figured he was hoping for this call. “I have a new demand, so listen carefully,” Priest said.

“Don’t worry, I’m taping this,” Truth said.

“I guess I’ll be on your show tonight, huh, John?” Priest said with a smile.

“I hope you’ll be in goddamn jail,” Truth said nastily.

“Well, fuck you, too.” There was no need for the guy to get pissy. “My new demand is a presidential pardon for everyone in the Hammer of Eden.”

“I’ll let the president know.”

Now it was like he was being sarcastic. Didn’t he understand how important this was? “That’s as well as the freeze on new power plants.”

“Wait a minute,” Truth said. “Now that everyone knows where your commune is, you don’t need a statewide freeze. You just want to stop your valley from being flooded, don’t you?”

Priest considered. He had not thought of this, but Truth was right. Still, he decided not to agree. “Hell, no,” he said. “I’ve got principles. California needs less electric power, not more, if it’s going to be a decent place for my grandchildren to live in. Our original demand stands. There will be another earthquake if the governor doesn’t agree.”

“How can you do this?”

The question took Priest by surprise. “What?”

“How can you do this? How can you bring such suffering and misery to so many people — killing, wounding, damaging property, making people flee their homes in fear.… How will you ever sleep?”

The question angered Priest. “Don’t make like you’re the ethical one,” he said. “I’m trying to save California.”

“By killing people.”

Priest lost patience. “Shut the fuck up and listen,” he said. “I’m going to tell you about the next earthquake.” According to Melanie, the seismic window would open at six-forty P.M. “Seven o’clock,” Priest said. “It will hit at seven tonight.”

“Can you tell me—”

Priest broke the connection.

He was silent for a while. The conversation left him with an uneasy feeling. Truth should have been scared to death, but he had almost bantered with Priest. He had treated Priest like a loser, that was it.

They came to a junction. “We could turn here and head back,” Melanie said. “No traffic the other way.”

“Okay.”

She made the turn. She was thoughtful. “Will we ever go back to the valley?” she said. “Now that the FBI and everyone knows about it?”

“Yes!” he said.

“Don’t shout!”

“Yes, we will,” he said more quietly. “I know it looks bad, and we may have to stay away for a while. I’m sure we’ll lose this year’s vintage. The media will crawl all over the place for weeks. But they will forget about us, eventually. There’ll be a war, or an election, or a sex scandal, and we’ll be old news. Then we can slip quietly back, and move into our homes, and get the vines back in shape, and grow a new crop.”

Melanie smiled. “Yeah,” she said.

She believes it. I’m not sure I do. But I’m not going to think about it anymore. Fretting will sap my will. No doubts now. Just action .

Melanie said: “You want to go back to the warehouse?”

“No. I’ll go crazy shut up in that hole all day. Head for the city and see if we can find a restaurant that’s serving brunch. I’m starving.”

Judy and Michael took Dusty to Stockton, where Michael’s parents lived. They went in a helicopter. Dusty was thrilled. It landed on the football field of a high school in the suburbs.

Michael’s father was a retired accountant, and they had a neat suburban house that backed onto a golf course. Judy drank coffee in the kitchen while Michael settled Dusty in. Mrs. Quercus said worriedly: “Maybe this dreadful affair will give the business a boost, anyway — it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” Judy recalled that they had put money into Michael’s consultancy, and he was worried about paying them back. But Mrs. Quercus was right — his being the FBI’s earthquake expert might help.

Judy’s mind was on the seismic vibrator. It was not in Silver River Valley. It had not been sighted since Friday evening, though the panels that made it look like a carnival ride had been found at the roadside by one of the hundreds of rescue workers still clearing up the mess at Felicitas.

She knew what Granger was driving. She had found out by asking the commune members what cars they had and checking which was missing. He was using a pickup truck, and she had put out an all-points bulletin on it. In theory every cop in California should be looking for it, although most of them would be too busy coping with the emergency.

She was tantalized unbearably by the thought that she might have caught Granger at the commune if she had fought harder and persuaded Cleever to raid the place last night instead of this morning. But she had just been too tired. She felt better today — the raid had pumped adrenaline into her system and given her energy. But she was bruised physically and mentally, running on empty.

A small TV set on the kitchen counter was on with the sound muted. The news came on, and Judy asked Mrs. Quercus to turn up the volume. There was an interview with John Truth, who had spoken on the phone to Granger. He played an extract from his tape of the conversation. “Seven o’clock,” Granger said on the tape. “It will hit at seven tonight.”

Judy shivered. He meant it. There was no regret or remorse in his voice, no sign that he hesitated to risk the lives of so many people. He sounded rational, but there was a flaw in his humanity. He did not really care about the suffering of others. It was the characteristic of psychopaths.

She wondered what Simon Sparrow would make of the voice. But it was too late now for psycholinguistics. She went to the kitchen door and called: “Michael! We have to go!”

She would have liked to leave Michael here with Dusty, where they would both be safe. But she needed him at the command post. His expertise might be crucial.

He came in with Dusty. “I’m about ready,” he said. The phone rang and Mrs. Quercus picked it up. After a moment she held out the receiver to Dusty. “Someone for you,” she said.

Dusty took the phone and said tentatively: “Hello?” Then his face brightened. “Hi, Mom!”

Judy froze.

It was Melanie.

Dusty said: “I woke up this morning and you were gone! Then Daddy came to get me!”

Melanie was with Priest and the seismic vibrator, almost certainly. Judy grabbed her mobile and dialed the command post. She got Raja and said quietly: “Trace a call. Melanie Quercus is calling a number in Stockton.” She read the number off the instrument Dusty was using. “Call started a minute ago, still in progress.”