The Hammer of Eden

Priest went to Melanie’s cabin. She was asleep. He shook her roughly to wake her. “Get up,” he said. “We have to go. Quickly.”

* * *

Judy watched and waited while Stella Higgins cried her heart out.

She was a big woman, and though she might have been attractive in different circumstances, she now looked destroyed. Her face was contorted with grief, her old-fashioned eye makeup was running down her cheeks, and her heavy shoulders shook with sobs.

They sat in the tiny cabin that was her home. All around were medical supplies: boxes of bandages, cartons of aspirin and Rolaids, Tylenol and Trojans, bottles of colic water, cough syrup, and iodine. The walls were decorated with kids’ drawings of Star taking care of sick children. It was a primitive building, without electric power or running water, but it had a happy feel.

Judy went to the door and looked out, giving Star a minute to recover her composure. The place was beautiful in the pale sunlight of early morning. The last ribbons of a light mist were vanishing from the trees on the steep hillsides, and the river flashed and glittered in the fork of the valley. On the lower slopes was a neat vineyard, the ordered rows of vines with their shoots tied to wooden trellises. For a moment Judy was taken by a sense of spiritual peace, a feeling that here in this place things were as they should be, and it was the rest of the world that was weird. She shook herself to get rid of the spooky sensation.

Michael appeared. Once again he had wanted to be here to take care of Dusty, and Judy had told Stuart Cleever that he should be indulged because his expertise was so important to the investigation. He was leading Dusty by the hand. “How is he?” Judy asked.

“He’s just fine,” Michael said.

“Have you found Melanie?”

“She’s not here. Dusty says there’s a big girl called Flower who’s been looking after him.”

“Any idea where Melanie went?”

“No.” He nodded toward Star. “What does she say?”

“Nothing, yet.” Judy went back inside and sat on the edge of the bed. “Tell me about Ricky Granger,” she said.

“There’s good in him as well as bad,” Star said as her weeping subsided. “He was a hoodlum before, I know, he’s even killed people, but in all the time we were together, more than twenty-five years, he didn’t once hurt anyone, until now, until someone thought up the idea of this stupid fucking dam.”

“All I want to do,” Judy said gently, “is find him before he hurts any more people.”

Star nodded. “I know.”

Judy made Star look at her. “Where did he go?”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Star said. “But I don’t.”

21

Priest and Melanie drove to San Francisco in the commune’s pickup truck. Priest figured the dented Cadillac was too conspicuous, and the police might be looking for Melanie’s orange Subaru.

All the traffic was heading in the opposite direction, so they were not much delayed. They reached the city a little after five on Sunday morning. A few people were on the streets: a teenage couple embracing at a bus stop, two nervy crackheads buying one last rock from a dealer in a long coat, a helpless drunk zigzagging across the road. However, the waterfront district was deserted. The derelict industrial landscape looked bleak and eerie in the early-morning light. They found the Perpetua Diaries warehouse, and Priest unlocked the door. The real-estate agent had kept his promise: the electric power was on, and there was water in the rest room.

Melanie drove the pickup inside, and Priest checked the seismic vibrator. He started the engine, then lowered and raised the plate. Everything worked.

They lay down to sleep on the couch in the small office, close together. Priest stayed awake, running over his position again and again. No matter how he looked at it, the only smart thing for Governor Robson to do was give in. Priest found himself making imaginary speeches on the John Truth show, pointing out how dumb the governor was being. He could stop the earthquakes with one word! After an hour of this he realized it was pointless. Lying on his back, he went through the relaxation ritual he used for meditation. His body became still, his heartbeat calmed, his mind emptied, and he went to sleep.

When he woke it was ten o’clock in the morning.

He put a pan of water on the hot plate. He had brought from the commune a can of organic ground coffee and some cups.

Melanie turned on the TV. “I miss the news, living at the commune,” she said. “I used to watch it all the time.”

“I hate the news, normally,” Priest said. “It gets you worried about a million things you can’t do nothing about.” But he watched with her, to see if there was anything about him.

It was all about him.

“Authorities in California are taking seriously the threat of an earthquake today as the terrorist deadline looms closer,” said the anchor, and there was footage of city employees erecting a tent hospital in Golden Gate Park.

The sight made Priest angry. “Why don’t you just give us what we want?” he said to the TV.

The next clip showed FBI agents raiding log cabins in the mountains. After a moment Melanie said: “My God, it’s our commune!”

They saw Star, wrapped in her old purple silk robe, her face a picture of grief, being walked out of her cabin by two men in bulletproof vests.

Priest cursed. He was not surprised — it was the possibility of a raid that had led him to leave so hastily last night — but all the same he found himself plunged into rage and despair by the sight. His home had been violated by these self-righteous bastards.

You should have left us alone. Now it’s too late.

He saw Judy Maddox, looking grim. You were hoping to catch me in your net, weren’t you? She was not so pretty today. She had two black eyes and a large Band-Aid across her nose. You lied to me and tried to trap me, and you got a bloody nose for it.

But in his heart he was daunted. All along he had underestimated the FBI. When he started out he had never dreamed that he would see agents invade the sanctuary of the valley that had been a secret place for so many years. Judy Maddox was smarter than he had imagined.

Melanie gasped. There was a shot of her husband, Michael, carrying Dusty. “Oh, no!” she said.

“They’re not arresting Dusty,” Priest said impatiently.

“But where will Michael take him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if there’s going to be an earthquake!”

“Michael knows better than anyone where the fault lines are! He won’t be anywhere dangerous.”

“Oh, God, I hope not, especially if he has Dusty with him.”

Priest had watched enough TV. “Let’s go out,” he said. “Bring your phone.”

Melanie drove the pickup out, and Priest locked the warehouse behind them. “Head for the airport,” he told her as he got in.

Avoiding the freeways, they got close to the airport before they were stuck in traffic. Priest figured there had to be thousands of people using phones in the vicinity — trying to get flights, calling their families, checking how big the traffic jam was. He called the John Truth show.

John Truth himself answered. Priest figured he was hoping for this call. “I have a new demand, so listen carefully,” Priest said.

“Don’t worry, I’m taping this,” Truth said.

“I guess I’ll be on your show tonight, huh, John?” Priest said with a smile.

“I hope you’ll be in goddamn jail,” Truth said nastily.