The cop was in the booth, behind the attendant, staring at Priest with a surprised expression.
The toll attendant took Priest’s money but did not turn on the green light.
The officer stepped quickly out of the booth.
Melanie said: “Shit! What now?”
Priest considered making a run for it but quickly decided against it. That would just start a chase. His old car could not outrun the cops.
“Good evening, sir,” the officer said. He was a fat man of about fifty wearing a bulletproof vest over his uniform. “Please pull over to the right side of the road.”
Priest did as he said. A Highway Patrol car was parked beside the road, where it could not be seen from the other side of the toll plaza.
Melanie whispered: “What are you going to do?”
“Try to stay calm,” Priest said.
There was another officer waiting in the parked car. He got out when he saw Priest pull up. He, too, was wearing a bulletproof vest. The first officer came over from the tollbooth.
Priest opened the glove compartment and took out the revolver he had stolen that morning from Los Alamos.
Then he got out of the car.
It took Judy only a few minutes to reach the Texaco gas station from which the phone call had been made. The Oakland police had moved fast. In the parking lot, four cruisers were parked at the corners of a square, facing inward, their blue roof lights flashing, their headlights illuminating a cleared landing space. The chopper came down.
Judy jumped out. A police sergeant greeted her. “Take me to the phone,” she said. He led her inside. The pay phone was in a corner next to the rest rooms. Behind the counter were two clerks, a middle-aged black woman and a young white man with an earring. They looked scared. Judy asked the sergeant: “Have you questioned them at all?”
“Nope,” he said. “Just told them it was a routine search.”
They would have to be dumb to believe that, Judy thought, with four police cars and an FBI helicopter outside. She introduced herself and said: “Did you notice anyone using that phone around”—she checked her watch—“fifteen minutes ago?”
The woman said: “A lot of people use the phone.” Judy instantly got the sense that she did not like cops.
Judy looked at the young man. “I’m talking about a tall white man about fifty.”
“There was a guy like that,” he replied. He turned to the woman. “Didn’t you notice him? He looked kind of like an old hippie.”
“I never saw him,” she replied stubbornly.
Judy produced the E-fit picture. “Could this be him?”
The young man looked dubious. “He didn’t have glasses. And his hair was real long. That’s why I thought he must be a hippie.” He looked more closely. “It could be him, though.”
The woman looked hard at the picture. “I remember now,” she said. “I believe that is him. Skinny guy wearing a blue jean shirt.”
“That’s really helpful,” Judy said gratefully. “Now, this question is really important. What kind of car was he driving?”
“I didn’t look,” the man said. “You know how many cars come through here every day? And it’s dark now.”
Judy looked at the woman, who shook her head sadly. “Honey, you’re asking the wrong person — I can’t tell the difference between a Ford and a Cadillac.”
Judy could not hide her disappointment. “Hell,” she said. She pulled herself together. “Thanks anyway, folks.”
She stepped outside. “Any other witnesses?” she said to the sergeant.
“Nope. There may have been other customers in here at the same time, but they’re long gone. Only those two work here.”
Charlie Marsh came hurrying up with a mobile phone to his ear. “Granger’s been spotted,” he said to Judy. “Two CHPs stopped him at the toll plaza at Carquinez Bridge.”
“Incredible!” Judy said. Then something about Charlie’s face made her realize the news could not be good. “We have him in custody?”
“No,” Charlie said. “He shot them. They were wearing vests, but he shot them both in the head. He got away.”
“Did we get a make on his car?”
“No. Tollbooth attendant didn’t notice.”
Judy could not keep the note of despair out of her voice. “Then he’s got clean away?”
“Yeah.”
“And the two Highway Patrol officers?”
“Both dead.”
The police sergeant paled. “God rest their souls,” he whispered.
Judy turned away, sick with disgust. “And God help us catch Ricky Granger,” she said. “Before he kills anyone else.”
17
Oaktree had done a great job of making the seismic vibrator look like a carnival ride.
The gaily painted red-and-yellow panels of The Dragon’s Mouth completely concealed the massive steel plate, the large vibrating engine, and the complex of tanks and valves that controlled the machine. As Priest drove across the state on Friday afternoon, from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada through the Sacramento valley to the coastal range, other drivers smiled and honked in a friendly way, and children waved from the rear windows of station wagons.
The Highway Patrol ignored him.
Priest drove the truck with Melanie beside him. Star and Oaktree followed in the old ’Cuda. They reached Felicitas in the early evening. The seismic window would open a few minutes after seven P.M. It was a good time: Priest would have twilight for his getaway. Plus, the FBI and the cops had now been on alert for eighteen hours — they should be getting tired, their reactions slow. They might already be starting to believe there would be no earthquake.
He pulled off the freeway and stopped the truck. At the end of the exit ramp there was a gas station and a Big Ribs restaurant where several families were eating dinner. The kids stared through the windows at the carnival ride. Next to the restaurant was a field with five or six horses grazing; then came a low glass office building. The road leading from here into town was lined with houses, and Priest could also see a school and a small wood-frame building that looked like a Baptist chapel.
Melanie said: “The fault line runs right across Main Street.”
“How can you tell?”
“Look at the sidewalk trees.” There was a line of mature pines on the far side of the street. “The trees at the western end stand about five feet farther back than those to the east.”
Sure enough, Priest saw that the line was broken about halfway along the street. West of the break, the trees grew in the middle of the sidewalk instead of at the curb.
Priest turned on the truck’s radio. The John Truth show was just beginning. “Perfect,” he said.
The newsreader said: “A top aide to Governor Mike Robson was abducted in Sacramento in a bizarre incident yesterday. The kidnapper accosted cabinet secretary Al Honeymoon in the parking garage of the Capitol Building, forced him to drive out of town, then abandoned him on I-80.”
