Simon paused the tape. “I’ve enhanced that odd little murmur. Here it is reconstructed.”
He released the pause switch. Judy heard a man’s voice, distorted with a lot of background hiss but clear enough to understand, say: “We do not recognize the jurisdiction of the United States government.” The background noise returned to normal, and the woman’s voice repeated: “We do not recognize the jurisdiction of the United States government.” She went on: “Now that you know we can do what we say, you’d better think again about our demand.”
Simon stopped the tape.
Judy said: “She was speaking words he had given her, and she forgot something, so he reminded her.”
Bo said: “Didn’t you figure the original Internet message had been dictated by a blue-collar guy, maybe illiterate, and typed by an educated woman?”
“Yes,” Simon said. “But this is a different woman — older.”
“So,” Bo said to Judy, “now you’re beginning to build up profiles of three unknown subjects.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “I’m off the case. Come on, Simon, you know this could get me into more trouble.”
“Okay.” He took the tape out of the machine and stood up. “I’ve told you all the important stuff, anyway. Let me know if you come up with some brilliant insight that I could pass on to Mogadon Marvin.”
Judy saw him to the door. “I’ll take my report to the office right now — Marvin will probably still be there,” he said. “Then I’m going to sleep. I was up all night on this.” He got into his sports car and roared off.
When she came back, Bo was making green tea, looking thoughtful. “So this streetwise guy has a bunch of classy dames to take dictation from him.”
Judy nodded. “I believe I know where you’re headed.”
“It’s a cult.”
“Yes. I was right to think Patty Hearst.” She shivered. The man behind all this must be a charismatic figure with power over women. He was uneducated, but this did not hold him back, for he had others carrying out his orders. “But something’s not right. That demand, for a freeze on new power plants — it’s just not wacky enough.”
“I agree,” Bo said. “It’s not showy. I think they have some down-to-earth selfish reason to want this freeze.”
“I wonder,” Judy mused. “Maybe they have an interest in one particular power plant.”
Bo stared at her. “Judy, that’s brilliant! Like, it’s going to pollute their salmon river or something.”
“In there somewhere,” she said. “But it hits them really hard.” She felt excited. She was on to something.
“The freeze on
“But how many possibilities can there be? Power plants aren’t built every day. And these things are controversial. Any proposal has to have been reported.”
“Let’s check.”
They went into the den. Judy’s laptop was on a side table. She sometimes wrote reports in here while Bo was watching football. The TV did not distract her, and she liked to be near him. She switched on the machine. Waiting for it to boot up, she said: “If we put together a list of sites where power plants are to be built, the FBI computer would tell us if there’s a cult near any of them.”
She accessed the files of the
Bo said: “Sierra County? That rings some kind of bell. Got an exact location?”
Judy clicked on the article. “Yeah … the proposal is to dam the Silver River.”
He frowned. “Silver River Valley …”
Judy turned from the computer screen. “Wait, this is familiar … isn’t there a vigilante group that has a big spread there?”
“That’s right!” said Bo. “They’re called Los Alamos. Run by a speed freak called Poco Latella, who originally came from Daly City. That’s how I know about them.”
“Right. They’re armed to the teeth, and they refused to recognize the U.S. government.… Jesus, they even used that sentence on the tape: ‘We do not recognize the jurisdiction of the United States government.’ Bo, I think we’ve got ’em.”
“What are you going to do?”
Judy’s heart sank as she remembered she was off the case. “If Kincaid finds out I’ve been working this case, he’ll bust a gut.”
“Los Alamos has to be checked out.”
“I’ll call Simon.” She picked up the phone and dialed the office. The switchboard operator was a guy she knew. “Hey, Charlie, this is Judy. Is Simon Sparrow in the office?”
“He came and went,” Charlie said. “Want me to try his car?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
She waited. Charlie came back on the line and said: “No answer. I tried his home number, too. Shall I put a message on his pager?”
“Yes, please.” Judy recalled that he had said he was going to sleep. “I bet he’s turned it off, though.”
“I’ll send him a message to call you.”
“Thanks.” She hung up and said to Bo: “I think I have to see Kincaid. I guess if I give him a hot lead, he can’t be too mad at me.”
Bo just shrugged. “You don’t have any choice, do you?”
Judy could not risk people getting killed just because she was afraid to confess what she had been doing. “No, I don’t have any choice,” she said.
She was wearing narrow black jeans and a strawberry pink T-shirt. The T-shirt was too figure hugging for the office, even on a Saturday. She went up to her room and changed it for a loose white polo shirt. Then she got in her Monte Carlo and drove downtown.
Marvin would have to organize a raid on Los Alamos. There might be trouble: vigilantes were crazy. The raid needed to be heavily manned and meticulously organized. The Bureau was terrified of another Waco. Every agent in the office would be drafted in for it. The Sacramento field office of the FBI would also be involved. They would probably strike at dawn tomorrow.
She went straight to Kincaid’s office. His secretary was in the outer room, working at her computer, wearing a Saturday outfit of white jeans and a red shirt. She picked up the phone and said: “Judy Maddox is here to see you.” After a moment she hung up and said to Judy: “Go right in.”
Judy hesitated at the door to the inner sanctum. The last two times she had entered this office, she had suffered humiliation and disappointment inside. But she was not superstitious. Maybe this time Kincaid would be understanding and gracious.
It still jarred her to see his beefy figure in the chair that used to belong to the slight, dapper Milton Lestrange. She had not yet visited Milt in the hospital, she realized. She made a mental note to go tonight or tomorrow.
Brian’s greeting was chilly. “What can I do for you, Judy?”
“I saw Simon Sparrow earlier,” she began. “He brought his report to me because he hadn’t heard I was off the case. Naturally, I told him to give it to Marvin.”
“Naturally.”
“But he told me a little of what he had found, and I speculated that the Hammer of Eden is a cult that feels somehow threatened by a planned building project for a power plant.”
Brian looked annoyed. “I’ll pass this on to Marvin,” he said impatiently.
Judy plowed on. “There are several power plant projects in California right now; I checked. And one of them is in Silver River Valley, where there is a right-wing vigilante group called Los Alamos. Brian, I think Los Alamos must be the Hammer of Eden. I think we should raid them.”
“Is that what you think?”
