The Hammer of Eden

But he needed to be sure.

“I need to get to a TV,” he said.

He jumped out of the car. The carnival ride had pulled over near the hiding place of the seismic vibrator, and Oaktree and Star were getting out. In a few words he explained the situation to them. “You make a start here while I drive into Silver City,” he said. “I’ll take Melanie — I want her opinion, too.”

He got back in the car, drove out of the woods, and headed for Silver City.

On the outskirts of the small town there was an electronics store. Priest parked and they got out.

Priest looked around nervously. It was still light. What if he should meet someone who had seen his face on TV? Everything hung on whether the picture was like him. He had to know. He had to take a chance. He approached the store.

The window displayed several TV sets all showing the same picture. The program was some kind of game show. A silver-haired host in a powder blue suit was joshing a middle-aged woman wearing too much eyeliner.

Priest glanced up and down the sidewalk. There was no one else about. He looked at his watch: almost seven. The news would be on in a few seconds.

The silver-haired host put his arm around the woman and spoke to the camera. There was a shot of an audience applauding with hysterical enthusiasm. Then the news came on. There were two anchors, a man and a woman. They spoke for a few seconds.

Then the multiple screens showed a black-and-white picture of a heavily bearded man in a cowboy hat.

Priest stared at it.

The picture did not look like him at all.

“What do you think?” he said.

“Even I wouldn’t know it was supposed to be you,” Melanie said.

Relief washed over him in a tidal wave. His disguise had worked. The beard changed the shape of his face, and the hat hid his most distinctive feature, the long, thick, wavy hair. Even he might not have recognized the picture if he had not known it was supposed to be him.

He relaxed. “Thank you, god of the hippies,” he said.

The screens all flickered, and another picture appeared. Priest was shocked to see, reproduced a dozen times, a police photo of himself at nineteen. He was so thin, his face looked like a skull. He was trim now, but in those days, doping and drinking and never eating a regular meal, he had been a skeleton. His face was drawn, his expression sullen. His hair was lank and dull, with a Beatles haircut that must have been out of date even then.

Priest said: “Would you recognize me?”

“Yes,” she said. “By the nose.”

He looked again. She was right; the picture showed his distinctive narrow nose, like a curved knife.

Melanie added: “But I don’t think anyone else would know you, certainly not strangers.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She put an arm around his waist and squeezed affectionately. “You looked like such a bad boy when you were young.”

“I guess I was.”

“Where did they get that picture, anyway?”

“From my police record, I’m assuming.”

She looked up at him. “I didn’t know you had a police record. What did you do?”

“You want a list?”

She seemed shocked and disapproving. Don’t get moral on me, baby — remember who told us how to cause an earthquake. “I gave up the life of crime when I came to the valley,” he said. “I didn’t do anything wrong for the next twenty-five years — until I met you.”

A frown wrinkled her brow. She did not think of herself as a criminal, he realized. In her own eyes she was a normally respectable citizen who had been driven to commit a desperate act. She still believed she was of a different race from people who robbed and murdered.

Work it out any way you like, honey — just stay with the plan.

The two anchors reappeared, then the scene shifted to a skyscraper. A line of words appeared at the bottom of the screen. Priest did not need to be able to read them: he recognized the place. It was the Federal Building, where the FBI had its San Francisco office. A demonstration was going on, and Priest recalled Melanie reading about it in the newspaper. They were demonstrating in support of the Hammer of Eden, she had said. A bunch of people with placards and bullhorns were haranguing a group entering the building.

The camera focused on a young woman with an Asian cast to her features. She caught Priest’s eye because she was beautiful in the exotic way that strongly appealed to him. She was slender and dressed in an elegant dark pantsuit, but she had a formidable don’t-fuck-with-me look on her face, and she elbowed her way through the crowd with a calm ruthlessness.

Melanie said: “Oh, my God, it’s her!”

Priest was startled. “You know that woman?”

“I met her on Sunday!”

“Where?”

“At Michael’s apartment, when I went to get Dusty.”

“Who is she?”

“Michael just introduced her as Judy Maddox, he didn’t say anything about her.”

“What’s she doing at the Federal Building?”

“It says, right there on the screen: ‘FBI agent Judy Maddox, in charge of Hammer of Eden case.’ She’s the detective who’s after us!”

Priest was fascinated. Was this his enemy? She was gorgeous. Just looking at her on TV made him want to touch her golden skin with his fingertips.

I should be scared, not turned on. She’s a hell of a detective. She caught on about the seismic vibrator, found out where it came from, and got my name and picture. She’s smart and she works fast.

“And you met her at Michael’s place?”

“Yes.”

Priest was spooked. She was too close. She had met Melanie! His intuition told him he was in great danger from this agent. The fact that he was so attracted to her, after seeing her only briefly on TV, made it worse. It was as if she had some kind of power over him.

Melanie went on: “Michael didn’t say she was with the FBI. I thought she was a new girlfriend, so I kind of froze her out. She brought this older guy with her, said he was her father, though he didn’t look Asian.”

“Girlfriend or not, I don’t like her getting this close to us!” He turned away from the store and walked slowly back to the car. His brain was racing. Maybe it was not so surprising that the agent on the case had consulted a leading seismologist. Agent Maddox had talked to Michael for the same reason Priest had: he knew about earthquakes. Priest guessed it was Michael who had helped her make the link to the seismic vibrator.

What else had he told her?

They sat in the car, but Priest did not start the engine. “This is bad for us,” he said. “Very bad.”

“What’s bad?” Melanie said defensively. “It’s okay if Michael wants to screw around with an FBI agent. Maybe she sticks her gun up his ass. I don’t care.”

It was not like her to talk dirty. She’s really shook. “What’s bad is, Michael could give her the same information he gave us.”

Melanie frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“Think about it. What’s on Agent Maddox’s mind? She’s asking: ‘Where will the Hammer of Eden strike next?’ Michael can help her with that. He can look at his data, same way you did, and figure out the most likely places for an earthquake. Then the FBI can stake out those locations and watch for a seismic vibrator.”

“I never thought of that.” Melanie stared at him. “My fucking bastard husband and his FBI floozie are going to screw this up for us, is that what you’re telling me?”

Priest glanced at her. She looked about ready to cut his throat. “Calm down, will you?”

“God damn.”