“Wait a minute.” Priest was getting an idea. Melanie was the link. Maybe she could find out what Michael had told the beautiful FBI agent. “There could be a way around this. Tell me something, how do you feel about Michael now?”
“Like, nothing. It’s over, and I’m glad. I just hope we can work out our divorce without too much hostility, is all.”
Priest studied her. He did not believe her. What she felt for Michael was rage. “We have to know whether the FBI has staked out possible earthquake locations — and if so, which ones. I think he might tell you.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I believe he’s still carrying a torch for you, sort of.”
She stared at him. “Priest, what the hell is this about?”
Priest took a deep breath. “He’d tell you anything, if you slept with him.”
“Fuck you, Priest, I won’t do it. Fuck you!”
“I hate to ask you.” It was true. He did not want her to sleep with Michael. He believed that no one should have sex unless they wanted to. He had learned from Star that the most disgusting thing about marriage was the right it gave one person to have sex with another. So this whole scheme was a betrayal of his beliefs. “But I have no choice.”
“Forget it,” Melanie said.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry I asked.” He started the car. “I just wish I could think of some other way.”
They were silent for a few minutes, driving through the mountains.
“I’m sorry, Priest,” she said eventually. “I just can’t do it.”
“I told you, don’t worry about it.”
They turned off the road and drove down the long, rough track toward the commune. The carnival ride was no longer visible from the track; Priest guessed that Oaktree and Star had concealed it for the night.
He parked in the cleared circle at the end of the track. As they walked through the woods to the village in the twilight, he took Melanie’s hand. After a moment’s hesitation she moved closer to him and squeezed his hand fondly.
Work in the vineyard was over. Because of the warm weather, the big table had been dragged out of the cookhouse into the yard. Some of the children were putting out plates and cutlery while Slow sliced a long loaf of home-baked bread. There were bottles of the commune’s own wine on the table, and a spicy aroma was drifting over the scene.
Priest and Melanie went to Melanie’s hut to check on Dusty. They saw immediately that he was better. He was sleeping peacefully. The swelling had gone down, his nose had stopped running, and he was breathing normally. Flower had gone to sleep in the chair beside the bed, with the book open on her lap.
Priest watched as Melanie tucked in the sheet around the sleeping boy and kissed his forehead. She looked up at Priest and whispered: “This is the only place he’s ever been okay.”
“It’s the only place
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
14
The Domestic Terrorism squad of the San Francisco FBI worked in a narrow room along one side of the Federal Building. With its desks and room dividers it looked like a million other offices, except that the shirtsleeved young men and smart-suited women wore guns in holsters on their hips or under their arms.
At seven o’clock on Tuesday morning they were standing, sitting on desk corners, or leaning against the wall, some sipping coffee from Styrofoam containers, others holding pens and pads, ready to take notes. The whole squad, except for the supervisor, had been put under Judy’s orders. There was a low buzz of conversation.
Judy knew what they were talking about. She had gone up against the acting SAC — and won. It did not happen often. In an hour the entire floor would be alive with rumor and gossip. She would not be surprised to hear by the end of the day that she had prevailed because she was having an affair with Al Honeymoon.
The noise died away when she stood up and said: “Pay attention, everyone.”
She looked over the group for a moment and experienced a familiar thrill. They were all fit, hardworking, well dressed, honest, and smart, the smartest young people in America. She felt proud to work with them.
She began to speak. “We’re going to divide into two teams. Peter, Jack, Sally, and Lee will check out tips based on the pictures we have of Ricky Granger.” She handed out a briefing sheet that she had worked on overnight. A list of questions would enable the agents to eliminate most of the tips and assess which ones merited a visit by an agent or neighborhood cop. Many of the men identified as “Ricky Granger” could be ruled out fast: African Americans, men with foreign accents, twenty-year-olds, short men. On the other hand, the agents would be quick to visit any suspect who fit the description and had been away from home for the two-week period during which Granger had worked in Shiloh, Texas.
“Dave, Louise, Steve, and Ashok will form the second team. You’ll work with Simon Sparrow, checking tip- offs based on the recorded voice of the woman who phoned John Truth. By the way, some of the tip-offs Simon is working on mention a pop record. We asked John Truth to flag that up on his show last night.” She had not done this personally: the office press person had spoken to Truth’s producer. “So we may get calls about it.” She handed out a second briefing sheet with different questions.
“Raja.”
The youngest member of the team grinned his cocky grin. “I was afraid you’d forgotten about me.”
“In my dreams,” she said, and they all laughed. “Raja, I want you to prepare a short briefing to go out to all police departments, and especially the California Highway Patrol, telling them how to recognize a seismic vibrator.” She held up a hand. “And no vibrator jokes, please.” They laughed again.
“Now I’m going to get us some extra manpower and more work space. Meanwhile, I know you’ll do your best. One more thing.”
She paused, choosing her words. She needed to impress them with the importance of their work — but she felt she had to avoid coming right out and saying that the Hammer of Eden could cause earthquakes.
“These people are trying to blackmail the governor of California. They
They all moved to their seats.
Judy left the room and walked briskly along the corridor to the SAC’s office. The official start of the workday was eight-fifteen, but she was betting Brian Kincaid had come in early. He would have heard that she had called her team to a seven o’clock briefing, and he would want to know what was happening. She was about to tell him.
His secretary was not yet at her desk. Judy knocked on the inner door and went in.
Kincaid was sitting in the big chair with his suit coat on, looking as if he had nothing to do. The only items on his desk were a bran muffin with one bite taken out of it, and the paper bag it had come in. He was smoking a cigarette. Smoking was not allowed in FBI offices, but Kincaid was the boss, so there was no one to tell him to stop. He gave Judy a hostile glare and said: “If I asked you to make me a cup of coffee, I guess you’d call me a sexist pig.”
There was no way she was going to make his coffee. He would take it as a sign that he could carry on walking all over her. But she wanted to be conciliatory. “I’ll get you coffee,” she said. She picked up his phone and dialed the DT squad secretary. “Rosa, would you come to the SAC’s office and put on a pot of coffee for Mr. Kincaid? … Thank you.”
He still looked angry. Her gesture had done nothing to win him over. He probably felt that by getting him coffee without actually making it herself, she had in a way outwitted him.
She got down to business. “I have more than a thousand leads to follow up on the voice of the woman on tape. I’m guessing we’ll get even more calls about the picture of Ricky Granger. I can’t begin to evaluate them all by
