Ken Follett: The Hammer of Eden

Priest listened in to the conversations of the few people walking around. Everyone had an excuse for not leaving town.

“I’m not worried, our building is earthquake-proof.…”

“So’s mine, but at seven o’clock I’m going to be in the middle of the park.…”

“I’m a fatalist; either this earthquake has my name on it or it doesn’t.…”

“Exactly, you could drive to Vegas and get killed in a car wreck.…”

“I’ve had my house retrofitted.…”

“No one can cause earthquakes, it was a coincidence.…”

They got back to the car a few minutes after four.

Priest did not see the cop until it was almost too late.

The Bloody Marys had made him strangely calm, and he felt almost invulnerable, so he was not looking out for the police. He was only eight or ten feet from the pickup truck when he noticed a uniformed San Francisco cop staring at the license plate and speaking into a walkie-talkie.

Priest stopped dead and grabbed Melanie’s arm.

A moment later he realized that the smart thing to do was walk right by; but by then it was too late.

The cop glanced up from the license plate and caught Priest’s eye.

Priest looked at Melanie. She had not seen the cop. He almost said, Don’t look at the car , but just in time he realized that would be sure to make her look. Instead he said the next thing that came into his head. “Look at my hand.” He turned his palm up.

She stared at it, then looked at him again. “What am I supposed to see?”

“Keep looking at my hand while I explain.”

She did as he said.

“We’re going to walk right past the car. There’s a cop taking the number. He’s noticed us; I can see him out of the corner of my eye.”

She looked up from his hand to his face. Then, to his astonishment, she slapped him.

It hurt. He gasped.

Melanie cried: “And now you can just go back to your dumb blonde!”

“What?” he said angrily.

She walked on.

He watched her in astonishment. She strode past the pickup truck.

The cop looked at Priest with a faint grin.

Priest walked after Melanie, saying: “Now just wait a minute!”

The cop returned his attention to the license plate.

Priest caught up with Melanie, and they turned a corner.

“Very cute,” he said. “But you didn’t have to hit me so hard.”

A powerful portable spotlight shone on Michael, and a miniature microphone was clipped to the front of his dark green polo shirt. A small television camera on a tripod was aimed at him. Behind him, the young seismologists he had brought in worked at their screens. In front of him sat Alex Day, a twentysomething television reporter with a fashionably short haircut. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, which Judy thought was overly dramatic.

Dusty stood beside Judy, holding her hand trustingly, watching his daddy being interviewed.

Michael was saying: “Yes, we can identify locations where an earthquake could most easily be triggered — but, unfortunately, we can’t tell which one the terrorists have chosen until they start up their seismic vibrator.”

“And what’s your advice to citizens?” Alex Day asked. “How can they protect themselves if there is an earthquake?”

“The motto is ‘Duck, cover, and hold,’ and that’s the best counsel,” he replied. “Duck under a table or desk, cover your face to protect yourself from flying glass, and hold your position until the shaking stops.”

Judy whispered to Dusty: “Okay, go to Daddy.”

Dusty walked into the shot. Michael lifted the boy onto his knee. On cue Alex Day said: “Anything special we can do to protect youngsters?”

“Well, you could practice the ‘Duck, cover, and hold’ drill with them right now, so they’ll know what to do if they feel a tremor. Make sure they’re wearing sturdy shoes, not thongs or sandals, because there will be a lot of broken glass around. And keep them close, so you don’t have to go searching for them afterward.”

“Anything people should avoid?”

“Don’t run out of the house. Most injuries in earthquakes are caused by falling bricks and other debris from damaged buildings.”

“Professor Quercus, thank you for being with us today.”

Alex Day smiled at Michael and Dusty for a long frozen moment, then the cameraman said: “Great.”

Everyone relaxed. The crew started rapidly packing up their equipment.

Dusty said: “When can I go to Grandma’s in the helicopter?”

“Right now,” Michael told him.

Judy said: “How soon will that be on the air, Alex?”

“It hardly needs editing, so it will go right out. Within half an hour, I’d say.”

Judy looked at the clock. It was five-fifteen.

Priest and Melanie walked for half an hour without seeing a taxi. Then Melanie called a cab service on her mobile phone. They waited, but no car came.

Priest felt as if he was going mad. After all he had done, his great scheme was in jeopardy because he could not find a goddamn taxi!

But at last a dusty Chevrolet pulled up at Pier 39. The driver had an unreadable Central European name, and he seemed stoned. He understood no English except “left” and “right,” and he was probably the only person in San Francisco who had not heard about the earthquake.

They got back to the warehouse at six-twenty.

At the emergency operations center, Judy slumped in her chair, staring at the phone.

It was six twenty-five. In thirty-five minutes Granger would start up his seismic vibrator. If it worked as well as it had the last two times, there would be an earthquake. But this one would be the worst. Assuming Melanie had told the truth, and the vibrator was somewhere in the San Francisco peninsula, the quake would almost certainly hit the city.

Around two million people had fled the metropolitan area since Friday night, when Granger had announced on the John Truth show that the next earthquake would hit San Francisco. But that left more than a million men, women, and children who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes: the poor, the old, and the sick, plus all the cops, firefighters, nurses, and city employees waiting to begin rescue work. And that included Bo.

On the TV screen, Alex Day was speaking from a temporary studio set up at the mayor’s emergency command center on Turk Street, a few blocks away. The mayor was wearing a hard hat and a purple vest and telling citizens to duck, cover, and hold.

The interview with Michael ran every few minutes on all channels: the television editors had been told its real purpose.

But it seemed Melanie was not watching.

Priest’s pickup had been found parked at Fisherman’s Wharf at four o’clock. It was under surveillance, but he had not returned to it. Right now, every garage and parking lot in the neighborhood was being searched for a seismic vibrator.

The ballroom of the officers’ club was full of people. There were at least forty suits around the head shed. Michael and his helpers were clustered around their computers, waiting for the inappropriately cheerful musical warning sound that would be the first sign of the seismic tremor they all feared. Judy’s team was still working the phones, following up sightings of people who looked like Granger or Melanie, but there was an increasingly desperate tone to their voices. Using Dusty in the TV interview with Michael had been their last shot, and it seemed to have failed.

Most of the agents working in the EOC had homes in the Bay Area. The admin desk had organized the evacuation of all their families. The building they were in was considered as safe as any: it had been retrofitted by the military to make it earthquake-resistant. But they could not flee. Like soldiers, like firefighters, like cops, they had to go where the danger was. It was their job. Outside, on the parade ground, a fleet of helicopters stood ready, with their rotors turning, waiting to take Judy and her colleagues into the earthquake zone.