“I may grab a couple of hours’ rest.”
She seemed to remember parking her car outside on the parade ground. It felt like months ago, but in fact it had been Thursday night, only forty-eight hours ago.
On the way out she met Michael. “You look exhausted,” he said. “Let me drive you home.”
“Then how will I get back here?”
“I’ll nap on your couch and drive you back.”
She stopped and looked at him. “I have to tell you, my face is so sore I don’t think I could kiss, let alone anything else.”
“I’ll settle for holding your hand,” he said with a smile.
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Well, what do you say?”
“Will you tuck me into bed, and bring me hot milk and aspirins?”
“Yes. Will you let me watch you sleep?”
He read her expression. “I think I’m hearing yes,” he said.
She smiled. “Yes.”
Priest was mad as hell when he got back from Sacramento. He had been sure the governor was going to make a deal. He felt he was on the very brink of victory. He had been congratulating himself already. And it had all been a sham. Governor Robson had had no thought of making a deal. The whole thing had been a setup. The FBI had imagined they could catch him in a dumb-ass trap like some two-bit crook. It was the disrespect that really got to him. They thought he was some dope.
They would learn the truth. And the lesson would be dear.
It would cost them another earthquake.
Everyone at the commune was still stunned by the departure of Dale and Poem. It had reminded them of something they had been pretending to forget: that tomorrow they were all supposed to leave the valley.
Priest told the Rice Eaters how much pressure they had put on the governor. The freeways were still jammed with minivans full of kids and suitcases escaping from the earthquake to come. In the semideserted neighborhoods they had left behind, looters were walking out of suburban homes loaded with microwave ovens and CD players and computers.
But they also knew the governor showed no signs of giving in.
Although it was Saturday night, nobody wanted to party. After supper and evening worship, most of them retired to their cabins. Melanie went to the bunkhouse to read to the children. Priest sat outside his cabin, watching the moon go down over the valley, and slowly calmed down. He opened a five-year-old bottle of his own wine, a vintage with the smoky flavor he loved.
It was a battle of nerves, he told himself when he was able to think calmly. Who could tough it out longer, him or the governor? Which of them could best keep their people under control? Would the earthquakes bring the state government to its knees before the FBI could track Priest down to his mountain lair?
Star came into view, backlit by moonlight, walking barefoot and smoking a joint. She took a deep pull on the joint, bent over Priest, and kissed him, opening her mouth. He inhaled the intoxicating smoke from her lungs. He breathed out, smiled, and said: “I remember the first time you did that. It was the sexiest thing that ever happened to me.”
“Really?” she said. “Sexier than a blow job?”
“A lot. Remember, when I was seven years old I saw my mother giving a blow job to a john. She never kissed them, though. I was the only person she kissed. She told me that.”
“Priest, what a hell of a life you’ve had.”
He frowned. “You make it sound as if it’s over.”
“This part of it is over, though, isn’t it?”
“No!”
“It’s almost midnight. Your deadline is about to run out. The governor isn’t going to give in.”
“He has to,” Priest said. “It’s only a matter of time.” He stood up. “I have to listen to the radio news.”
She walked with him as he crossed the vineyard in the moonlight and climbed the track to the cars. “Let’s go away,” she said suddenly. “Just you and me and Flower. Let’s get in a car, right now, and leave. We won’t say good-bye, or pack a bag, or even take spare clothes or anything. We’ll just take off, the way I did when I left San Francisco in 1969. We’ll go where the mood takes us — Oregon, or Las Vegas, or even New York. What about Charleston? I’ve always wanted to see the South.”
Without answering, he got in the Cadillac and turned on the radio. Star sat beside him. Brenda Lee was singing “Let’s Jump the Broomstick.”
“Come on, Priest, what do you say?”
The news came on, and he turned up the volume.
“Suspected Hammer of Eden terrorist leader Richard Granger slipped through the fingers of the FBI in Sacramento today. Meanwhile, residents fleeing neighborhoods near the San Andreas fault have brought traffic to a standstill on many freeways within the San Francisco Bay Area, with miles of cars blocking long sections of Interstate Routes 280, 580, 680, and 880. And a Haight-Ashbury rare-record dealer claims FBI agents bought from him an album with a photograph of another terrorist suspect.”
“Album?” Star said. “What the fuck …?”
“Store owner Vic Plumstead told reporters the FBI called him in to help track down a sixties album, which they believed featured the voice of one of the Hammer of Eden suspects. After days of effort, he said, he found the album, by an obscure rock band,
“Jesus Christ! I’d almost forgotten them myself!”
“The FBI would not confirm or deny they are seeking the vocalist, Stella Higgins.”
“Shit!” Star burst out. “They know my name!”
Priest’s mind was racing. How dangerous was this? The name was not much use to them. Star had not used it for almost thirty years. No one knew where Stella Higgins lived.
Yes, they did.
He suppressed a groan of despair. The name Stella Higgins was on the lease for this land. And he had said that to the two FBI agents who had come here on the day they raided Los Alamos.
This changed everything. Sooner or later someone at the FBI would make the connection.
And if by some mischance the FBI failed to figure it out, there was a Silver City sheriff’s deputy, currently on vacation in the Bahamas, who had written the name “Stella Higgins” on a file that was due to come up in court in a couple of weeks’ time.
Silver River Valley was a secret no more.
The thought made him unbearably sad.
What could he do?
Maybe he
He could still hold things together.
His original plan had been that the authorities would never know who the Hammer of Eden were or why they had demanded a ban on new power plants. Now the FBI was about to find out — but maybe they could be forced to keep it secret. That could become part of Priest’s demand. If they could bring themselves to agree to the freeze, they could swallow this, too.
Yes, it was outrageous — but this whole thing was outrageous. He could do it.
But he would have to stay out of the clutches of the FBI.
He opened the car door and got out. “Let’s go,” he said to Star. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
She got out slowly. “You won’t run away with me?” she said sadly.
“Hell, no.” He slammed the door and walked away.
She followed him across the vineyard and back to the settlement. She went to her cabin without saying good night.
