The Hammer of Eden

“Good night,” he said, sounding bewildered.

A few moments later he called after her: “Are you angry?”

“No,” she said over her shoulder. “Not anymore.”

* * *

Priest expected Melanie to return to the commune around midafternoon. When suppertime came and she still had not arrived, he started to worry.

By nightfall he was frantic. What had happened to her? Had she decided to go back to her husband? Had she confessed everything to him? Was she even now spilling the beans to Agent Judy Maddox in an interrogation room at the Federal Building in San Francisco?

He could not sit still in the cookhouse or lie on his bed. He took a candle lamp and walked across the vineyard and through the woods to the parking circle and waited there, listening for the engine of her old Subaru — or the throb of the FBI helicopter that would herald the end of everything.

Spirit heard it first. He cocked his ears, tensed, then ran up the mud road, barking. Priest stood up, straining his hearing. It was the Subaru. Relief swamped him. He watched the lights approach through the trees. He had the beginnings of a headache. He had not had a headache for years.

Melanie parked erratically, got out, and slammed the car door.

“I hate you,” she said to Priest. “I hate you for making me do that.”

“Was I right?” he said. “Is Michael making a list for the FBI?”

“Fuck you!”

Priest realized he had goofed. He should have been understanding and sympathetic. For a moment he had allowed his anxiety to cloud his judgment. Now he would have to spend time talking her around. “I asked you to do it because I love you, don’t you understand that?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t understand anything.” She folded her arms across her chest and turned away from him, staring into the darkness of the woods. “All I know is, I feel like a prostitute.”

Priest was bursting to know what she had found out, but he made himself calm. “Where have you been?” he said.

“Driving around. I stopped for a drink.”

He was silent for a minute. Then he said: “A prostitute does it for money — then she spends the money on stupid clothes and drugs. You did it to save your child. I know you feel bad, but you’re not bad. You’re good.”

At last she turned to him. There were tears in her eyes. “It’s not just that we had sex,” she said. “It’s worse than that. I liked it. That’s what makes me feel ashamed. I came. I really did. I screamed.”

Priest felt a hot wave of jealousy and strained to suppress it. He would make Michael Quercus suffer for that one day. But now was not the time to say so. He needed to cool things down here. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Really, it’s okay. I understand. Weird things happen.” He put his arms around her and hugged her.

Slowly she relaxed. He could feel the tension leaving her bit by bit. “You don’t mind?” she said. “You’re not mad?”

“Not a bit,” he lied, stroking her long hair. Come on, come on!

“You were right about the list,” she said.

At last.

“That FBI woman had asked Michael to work out the best locations for an earthquake, just the way you imagined it.”

Of course she did. I’m so damn smart.

Melanie went on: “He was sitting at his computer when I got there, just finishing.”

“So what happened?”

“I made him dinner, and like that.”

Priest could imagine. If Melanie decided to be seductive, she was irresistible. And she was at her most alluring when she wanted something. She probably took a bath and put on a robe, then moved around the apartment smelling of soap and flowers, pouring wine or making coffee, letting the robe fall open now and again to show him tantalizing glimpses of her long legs and her soft breasts. She would have asked Michael questions and listened intently to his answers, smiling at him in a way that said I like you so much, you can do anything you want with me.

“When the phone rang I told him not to answer, then I took it off the hook. But the damn woman came over anyway, and when Michael didn’t answer the door she broke it down. Boy, did she have a shock.” Priest figured she needed to get all this off her chest, so he did not hurry her. “She almost died of embarrassment.”

“Did he give her the list?”

“Not then. I guess she was too confused to ask. But she called this morning, and he faxed it to her.”

“And did you get it?”

“While he was in the shower, I got to his computer and printed out another copy.”

So where the hell is it?

She reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulled out a single sheet of paper folded in four, and gave it to Priest.

Thank God.

He unfolded it and looked at it in the light of the lamp. The typed letters and numbers meant nothing to him. “These are the places he’s told her to watch?”

“Yes, they’re going to stake out each of these locations, looking for a seismic vibrator, just the way you predicted.”

Judy Maddox was clever. The FBI surveillance would make it very difficult for him to operate the seismic vibrator, especially if he had to try several different locations, as he had in Owens Valley.

But he was even cleverer than Judy. He had anticipated this move by her. And he had thought of a way around it. “You understand how Michael picked these sites?” he said.

“Sure. They’re the places where the tension in the fault is highest.”

“So you could do the same thing.”

“I already have. And I picked the same places he did.”

He folded the paper and gave it back to her. “Now, listen very carefully. This is important. Could you look over the data again and pick the five next best locations?”

“Yes.”

“And could we cause an earthquake at one of them?”

“Probably,” she said. “It’s maybe not as sure, but the chances are good.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the new sites. Right after I talk to Mr. Honeymoon.”

16

At five A.M., the guard at the entrance to the Los Alamos place was yawning.

He became alert when Melanie and Priest pulled up in the ’Cuda. Priest got out of the car. “How are you, buddy?” he said as he walked across to the gate.

The guard hefted his rifle, assumed a mean expression, and said: “Who are you and what do you want?”

Priest hit him in the face very hard, crushing his nose. Blood spurted. The guard cried out, his hands flying to his face. Priest said: “Ow!” His fist hurt. It was a long time since he had punched anyone.

His instincts took over. He kicked the guard’s legs from under him. The man fell on his back, and his rifle went flying through the air. Priest kicked him in the ribs three or four times, fast and hard, trying to break the bones. Then he kicked his face and head. The man curled up in a ball, sobbing in pain, helpless with fear.

Priest stopped, breathing hard. It all came back to him in a flood of remembered excitement. There had been a time when he had done this sort of thing every day. It was so easy to frighten people when you knew how.

He knelt and took the handgun from the man’s belt. This was what he had come for.

He looked at the weapon in disgust. It was a reproduction of a long-barreled.44-caliber Remington revolver