Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

Judy went to him and knelt beside him. She felt for a pulse in Melanie’s neck. There was none.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

He swallowed. “Poor Dusty,” he said.

Judy touched his face. “It will be all right,” she said.

A few moments later Lieutenant Forbes reappeared. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he said politely. “Did you say there was a dead man in that truck?”

“Yes,” she said. “I shot him.”

“Well,” the cop said, “he ain’t there now.”

Star was jailed for ten years.

At first, prison was torture. The regimented existence was hell for someone whose whole life had been about freedom. Then a pretty wardress called Jane fell in love with her and brought her makeup and books and marijuana, and things began to look up.

Flower was placed with foster parents, a Methodist minister and his wife. They were kindhearted people who could not begin to understand where Flower was coming from. She missed her parents, did poorly at school, and got in more trouble with the police. Then, a couple of years later, she found her grandma. Veronica Nightingale had been thirteen when she gave birth to Priest, so she was only in her mid-sixties when Flower found her. She was running a store in Los Angeles selling sex toys, lingerie, and porno videos. She had an apartment in Beverly Hills and drove a red sports car, and she told Flower stories about her daddy when he was a little boy. Flower ran away from the minister and his wife and moved in with her grandma.

Oaktree disappeared. Judy knew there had been a fourth person in the ’Cuda at Felicitas, and she had been able to piece together his role in the affair. She even got a full set of fingerprints from his woodwork shop at the commune. But no one knew where he had gone. However, his prints showed up a couple of years later, on a stolen car that had been used in an armed robbery in Seattle. The police did not suspect him, because he had a solid alibi, but Judy was automatically notified. When she reviewed the file with the U.S. attorney — her old friend Don Riley, now married to an insurance saleswoman — they realized they had only a weak case against Oaktree for his part in the Hammer of Eden, and they decided to let him be.

Milton Lestrange died of cancer. Brian Kincaid retired. Marvin Hayes resigned and became security director for a supermarket chain.

Michael Quercus became moderately famous. Because he was nice looking and good at explaining seismology, TV shows always called him first when they wanted a quote about earthquakes. His business prospered.

Judy was promoted to supervisor. She moved in with Michael and Dusty. When Michael’s business started to make real money, they bought a house together and decided to have a baby. A month later she was pregnant, so they got married. Bo cried at the wedding.

Judy figured out how Granger had got away.

The wound to his face was nasty but not serious. The bullet to his shoulder had nicked a vein, and the sudden loss of blood caused him to lose consciousness. Judy should have checked his pulse before going to help Michael, but she was weakened by her injuries and confused because of loss of blood, and she failed to follow routine.

Granger’s slumped position caused his blood pressure to rise again, and he came around a few seconds after she left. He crawled around the corner to Third Street, where he was lucky enough to find a car waiting at a stoplight. He got in, pointed his gun at the driver, and demanded to be taken to the city. En route he used Melanie’s mobile to call Paul Beale, the wine bottler who was a criminal associate of Granger’s from the old days. Beale had given him the address of a crooked doctor.

Granger made the driver drop him at a corner in a grungy neighborhood. (The traumatized citizen drove home, called the local police precinct house, got a busy signal, and did not get around to reporting the incident until the next day.) The doctor, a disbarred surgeon who was a morphine addict, patched Granger up. Granger stayed at the doctor’s apartment overnight, then left.

Judy never found out where he went after that.

The water is rising fast. It has flooded all the little wooden houses. Behind the closed doors, the homemade beds and chairs are floating. The cookhouse and the temple are also awash .

He has waited weeks for the water to reach the vineyard. Now it has, and the precious plants are drowning .

He had been hoping he might find Spirit here, but his dog is long gone .

He has drunk a bottle of his favorite wine. It is difficult for him to drink or eat, because of the wound to his face, which has been sewn up badly by a doctor who was stoned. But he has succeeded in pouring enough down his throat to make himself drunk .

He throws the bottle away and takes from his pocket a big joint of marijuana laced with enough heroin to knock him out. He lights it, takes a puff, and walks down the hill .

When the water is up to his thighs, he sits down .

He takes a last look around his valley. It is almost unrecognizable. There is no tumbling stream. Only the roofs of the buildings are visible, and they look like upturned shipwrecks floating on the surface of a lagoon. The vines he planted twenty-five years ago are now submerged .

It is not a valley anymore. It has become a lake, and everything that was here has been killed .

He takes a long pull on the joint between his fingers. He draws the deadly smoke deep into his lungs. He feels the rush of pleasure as the drug enters his bloodstream and the chemicals flood his brain. Little Ricky, happy at last, he thinks .

He rolls over and falls in the water. He lies face down, helpless, stoned out of his mind. Slowly his consciousness fades, like a distant lamp becoming dimmer, until, at last, the light goes out .

I am grateful to the following people for help with this book:

Governor Pete Wilson of California; Jonathan R. Wilcox, deputy director, Office of Public Affairs, Office of Governor Pete Wilson; Andrew Poat, chief deputy director, Department of Transportation;

Mark D. Zoback, professor of geophysics, chairman, Department of Geophysics, Stanford University;

In the San Francisco field office of the FBI: Special Agent George E. Grotz, director of press relations and public affairs, who opened many doors; Special Agent Candice DeLong, profiling coordinator, who generously spent much time helping me with the details of an agent’s life and work; Bob Walsh, special agent in charge; George Vinson, assistant special agent in charge; Charles W. Matthews III, associate special agent in charge; Supervising Special Agent John Gray, crisis management coordinator; Supervising Special Agent Don Whaley, chief division counsel; Supervising Special Agent Larry Long, Tech squad; Special Agent Tony Maxwell, evidence response team coordinator; Dominic Gizzi, administrative officer;

In the Sacramento field office of the FBI: Special Agent Carole Micozzi; Special Agent Mike Ernst;

Pearle Greaves, computer specialist, Information Resources Division, FBI headquarters;

Sierra County sheriff Lee Adams;

Lucien G. Canton, director, Mayor’s Office of Emergency Services, San Francisco;

James F. Davis, Ph.D., California State geologist; Ms. Sherry Reser, information officer, Department of Conservation;

Charles Yanez, manager, South Texas, Western Geophysical; Janet Loveday, Western Geophysical; Rhonda G. Boone, manager, corporate communications, Western Atlas International; Donnie McLendon, Western Geophysical, Freer, Texas; Mr. Jesse Rosas, bulldozer driver;