He pulled away, and the Buick followed.
As he approached the entrance to the Los Alamos spread a few minutes later, Priest rolled down his window, listening for gunfire. He heard none. It seemed the FBI had caught Los Alamos sleeping.
He rounded a bend and saw two cars parked near the entrance to the place. The wooden five-bar gate that had blocked the track was smashed to splinters: he guessed the FBI had driven their armored trucks right through it without stopping. The gate was normally guarded — where was the sentry? Then he saw a man in camouflage pants, facedown on the grass, hands cuffed behind his back, guarded by four agents. The feds were taking no chances.
The agents looked up alertly at the ’Cuda, then relaxed when they saw the green Buick following it.
Priest drove slowly, like a curious passerby.
Behind him, the Buick pulled over and stopped near the busted gate.
As soon as he was out of sight, Priest stepped on the gas.
When he got back to the commune he went straight to Star’s cabin, to tell her about the FBI.
He found her in bed with Bones.
He touched her shoulder to wake her, then said: “We need to talk. I’ll wait outside.”
She nodded. Bones did not stir.
Priest stepped outside while she got dressed. He had no objection to Star renewing her relationship with Bones, of course. Priest was sleeping with Melanie regularly, and Star had the right to amuse herself with an old flame. All the same he felt a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. In bed together, were they passionate, hungry for each other — or relaxed and playful? Did Star think of Priest while she was making love to Bones, or did she put all other lovers out of her mind and think only of the one she was with? Did she compare them in her head and notice that one was more energetic, or more tender, or more skillful? These questions were not new. He recalled having the same thoughts whenever Star had a lover. This was just like the early days, except that they were all so much older.
He knew that his commune was not like others. Paul Beale followed the fortunes of other groups. They had all started with similar ideals, but most had compromised. They generally still worshiped together, following a guru or a religious discipline of some kind, but they had reverted to private property and the use of money and no longer practiced complete sexual freedom. They were weak, Priest figured. They had not had the strength of will to stick to their ideals and make them work. In self-satisfied moments he told himself it was a question of leadership.
Star came out in her jeans and a baggy bright blue sweatshirt. For someone who had just got up, she looked great. Priest told her so. “A good fuck does wonders for my complexion,” she said. There was just enough of an edge in her voice to make Priest think that Bones was some kind of revenge for Melanie. Was this going to be a destabilizing factor? He already had too much to worry about.
He put that thought aside for the moment. Walking to the cookhouse, he told Star about the FBI raid on Los Alamos. “They may decide to check out the other residences in the valley, and if so, they’ll probably find their way here. They won’t be suspicious so long as we don’t let them know we’re a commune. We just have to maintain our usual pretense. If we’re itinerant workers, with no long-term interest in the valley, there’s no reason we should care about the dam.”
She nodded. “You’d better remind everyone at breakfast. The Rice Eaters will know what’s really on your mind. The others will think it’s just our normal policy of not saying anything that might attract attention. What about the children?”
“They won’t question kids. They’re the FBI, not the Gestapo.”
“Okay.”
They went into the cookhouse and started coffee.
It was midmorning when two agents stumbled down the hill with mud on their loafers and weeds clinging to the cuffs of their pants. Priest was watching from the barn. If he recognized anyone from yesterday, he planned to slip away through the cabins and disappear into the woods. But he had never seen these two before. The younger man was tall and broad, with a Nordic look, pale blond hair and fair skin. The older was an Asian man with black hair thinning on top. They were not the two who had questioned him this morning, and he was sure neither had been at the press conference.
Most of the adults were in the vineyard, spraying the vines with diluted hot sauce to keep the deer from eating the new shoots. The children were in the temple, having a Sunday school lesson from Star, who was telling them the story of Moses in the bullrushes.
Despite the careful preparations he had made, Priest felt a stab of sheer terror as the agents approached. For twenty-five years this place had been a secret sanctuary. Until last Thursday, when a cop had come looking for the parents of Flower, no official had ever set foot here: no county surveyor, no mailman, not even a garbage collector. And here was the FBI. If he could have called down a bolt of lightning to strike the agents dead, he would have done it without a second thought.
He took a deep breath, then walked across the slope of the hillside to the vineyard. Dale greeted the two agents, as arranged. Priest filled a watering can with the pepper mixture and began to spray, moving toward Dale so that he could hear the conversation.
The Asian man spoke in a friendly tone. “We’re FBI agents, making some routine inquiries in the neighborhood. I’m Bill Ho, and this is John Aldritch.”
That was encouraging, Priest told himself. It sounded as though they had no special interest in the vineyard: they were just looking around, hoping to pick up clues. It was a fishing expedition. But the thought did not make him feel much less tense.
Ho looked around appreciatively, taking in the valley. “What a beautiful spot.”
Dale nodded. “We’re very attached to it.”
Aldritch, the younger agent, said impatiently: “Are you in charge here?” He had a southern accent.
“I’m the foreman,” Dale said. “How can I help you?”
Ho said: “Do you folks live here?”
Priest pretended to go on working, but his heart was thumping, and he strained to hear.
“Most of us are seasonal workers,” Dale said, following the script agreed upon with Priest. “The company provides accommodation because this place is so far from anywhere.”
Aldritch said: “Strange place for a fruit farm.”
“It’s not a fruit farm, it’s a winery. Would you like to try a glass of last year’s vintage? It’s really very good.”
“No thanks. Unless you have an alcohol-free product.”
“No, sorry. Just the real thing.”
“Who owns the place?”
“The Napa Bottling Company.”
Aldritch made a note.
Ho glanced toward the cluster of buildings on the far side of the vineyard. “Mind if we take a look around?”
Dale shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.” He resumed his work.
Priest watched anxiously as the agents headed off. On the surface, it was a plausible story that these people were badly paid workers living in low-grade accommodation provided by a stingy management. But there were clues here that might make a smart agent ask more questions. The temple was the most obvious. Star had folded up the old banner bearing the Five Paradoxes of Baghram. All the same, someone with an inquiring mind might ask why the schoolroom was a round building with no windows and no furniture.
Also, there were marijuana patches in the woods nearby. The FBI agents were not interested in small-time doping, but cultivation did not fit in with the fiction of a transient population. The free shop looked like any other shop until you noticed that there were no prices on anything and no cash register.
There might be a hundred other ways the pretense would fall apart under thorough investigation, but Priest was hoping the FBI was focused on Los Alamos and just checking out the neighbors as a matter of routine.
He had to fight the temptation to follow the agents. He was desperate to see what they looked at, and hear what they said to each other, as they poked around his home. But he forced himself to keep spraying, glancing up
