“Then guess again! Try to figure out where these people might be!”
“All right,” he said. “Stop yelling.” He sat at his computer and put his hand on the mouse.
On Carl Theobald’s radio a voice said: “Here it comes now.”
An alarm sounded on Michael’s computer.
Judy said: “What’s that? Is it a tremor?”
Michael clicked his mouse. “Wait, it’s just coming on screen.… No, it’s not a tremor. It’s a seismic vibrator.”
Judy looked over his shoulder. On the screen she saw a pattern just like the one he had shown her on Sunday. “Where is it?” she said. “Give me a location!”
“I’m working on it,” he snapped back. “Shouting at me won’t make the computer triangulate faster.”
How could he be so damn touchy at a time like this? “Why is there no earthquake? Maybe their method isn’t working!”
“In Owens Valley it didn’t work the first time.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Okay, here are the coordinates.”
Judy and Charlie Marsh went to the wall map. Michael sang out coordinates. “Here!” Judy said triumphantly. “Right on Route 101, south of San Francisco. A town called Felicitas. Carl, call the local police. Raja, notify the Highway Patrol. Charlie, I’m coming with you in the chopper.”
“This is not pinpoint accurate,” Michael warned. “The vibrator could be anywhere within a mile or so of the coordinates.”
“How can we narrow it down?”
“If I look at the landscape, I can spot the fault line.”
“You better come in the helicopter. Grab a bulletproof vest. Let’s go!”
“It’s not working!” Priest said, trying to control his alarm.
Melanie said: “It didn’t work the first time in Owens Valley, don’t you remember?” She sounded exasperated. “We had to move the truck and try again.”
“Shit, I hope we have time,” Priest said. “Drive, Oaktree! Back to the truck!”
Oaktree put the old car in drive and tore down the hill.
Priest turned and shouted to Melanie over the roar of the engine. “Where do you think we should move it to?”
“There’s a side street almost opposite the coffee shop — go down there about four hundred yards. That’s where the fault line runs.”
“Okay.”
Oaktree stopped the car in front of the coffee shop. Priest leaped out. A heavy middle-aged woman stood in front of him. “Did you hear that noise?” she said. “It seemed to be coming from your truck. It was earsplitting!”
“Get out of my way or I’ll split your fucking head,” Priest said. He jumped into the truck. He raised the plate, put the transmission in drive, and pulled away. He shot out onto the street in front of a big old station wagon. The wagon screeched to a halt, and the driver honked indignantly. Priest headed down the side street.
He drove four hundred yards and stopped outside a neat one-story house with a fenced garden. A small white dog barked fiercely at him through the fence. Working with feverish haste, he again lowered the plate of the vibrator and checked its dials. He set it to remote operation, jumped out, and got back into the ’Cuda.
Oaktree screeched around in a U-turn and tore off. As they raced along Main Street, Priest observed that their activities were beginning to attract attention. They were watched by a couple carrying shopping bags, two boys on mountain bikes, and three fat men who came out of a bar to see what was going on.
They came to the end of Main Street and turned up the hill. “This is far enough,” Priest said. Oaktree stopped the car, and Priest activated the remote control.
He could hear the truck vibrating six blocks away.
Star said shakily: “Are we safe here?”
They were silent, frozen in suspense, waiting for the earthquake.
The truck vibrated for thirty seconds, then stopped.
“Too safe,” Priest said to Star.
Oaktree said: “It ain’t fucking working, Priest!”
“This happened last time,” Priest said desperately. “It’s gonna work!”
Melanie said: “You know what I think? The earth here is too soft. The town is close to the river. Soft, wet ground soaks up vibrations.”
Priest turned to her accusingly. “Yesterday you told me earthquakes cause
“I said that buildings on wet soil are more likely to be damaged, because the ground underneath them moves more. But for transmitting shock waves to the fault, rock should be better.”
“Skip the goddamn lecture!” Priest said. “Where do we try next?”
She pointed up the hill. “Where we came off the freeway. It’s not directly on the fault line, but the ground should be rock.”
Oaktree raised an eyebrow at Priest. Priest said: “Back to the truck, go!”
They raced back along Main Street, watched now by more people. Oaktree screeched into the side street and skidded to a halt next to the seismic vibrator. Priest jumped into the truck, raised the plate, and pulled away, flooring the gas pedal.
The truck moved with painful slowness through the town and crawled up the hill.
When it was halfway up, the police car they had seen earlier came off the freeway ramp, lights flashing and siren sounding, and sped past them, heading into town.
At last the truck arrived at the spot from which Priest had first looked over the town and pronounced it perfect. He stopped across the road from the Big Ribs restaurant. For the third time, he lowered the vibrator’s plate.
Behind him he could see the ’Cuda. Coming back up the hill from the town was the police cruiser. Glancing up, he spotted a helicopter in the distant sky.
He had no time to get clear of the truck and use the remote. He would have to activate the vibrator sitting here in the driver’s seat.
He put his hand on the control, hesitated, and pulled the lever.
From the helicopter, Felicitas looked like a town asleep.
It was a bright, clear evening. Judy could see Main Street and the grid of streets around it, the trees in the gardens and the cars in the driveways, but nothing seemed to be moving. A man watering flowers was so motionless, he seemed to be a statue; a woman in a big straw hat stood still on the sidewalk; three teenage girls on a street corner were frozen in place; two boys had stopped their bicycles in the middle of the road.
There was movement on the freeway that flew past the town on the elegant arches of a viaduct. As well as the usual mixture of cars and trucks, she spotted two police cruisers a mile or so away, approaching the town at high speed, coming, she assumed, in response to her emergency call.
But in the town no one moved.
After a moment she figured out what was going on.
They were listening.
The roar of the helicopter prevented her from hearing what they were listening to, but she could guess. It had to be the seismic vibrator.
But where was it?
The chopper flew low enough for her to identify the makes of cars parked on Main Street, but she could not see a vehicle big enough to be a seismic vibrator. None of the trees that partly obscured the side streets seemed big enough to hide a full-size truck.
She spoke to Michael over the headset. “Can you see the fault line?”
“Yes.” He was studying a map and comparing it with the landscape beneath. “It crosses the railroad, the
