The Hammer of Eden (41 page)

“What about other roads?”

“We have to hope he’s going a long way. If he gets off the freeway, we
lose him. This is one of the busiest road networks in California. You couldn’t seal it off watertight if you had the goddamn U.S. Army.”

*  *  *

Turning onto I-80, Priest heard the throb of a helicopter and looked up to see it passing overhead, coming from San Francisco across the bay toward Oakland. “Shit,” he said. “They can’t be after us, can they?”

“I told you,” Melanie said. “They can trace phone calls like, instantly.”

“But what are they going to do? They don’t even know which way we headed when we left the gas station!”

“They could close the freeway, I guess.”

“Which one? Nine-eighty, eight-eighty, five-eighty, or eighty? North or south?”

“Maybe all of them. You know cops, they do what they like.”

“Shit.” Priest put his foot down.

“Don’t get stopped for goddamn speeding.”

“Okay, okay!” He slowed down again.

“Can’t we get off the freeway?”

He shook his head. “No other way home. There are side roads, but they don’t cross the water. All we could do is hole up in Berkeley. Park somewhere and sleep in the car. But we don’t have time, we have to get home to get the seismic vibrator.” He shook his head. “Nothing to do but run for it.”

The traffic thinned as they left Oakland and Berkeley behind. Priest peered into the darkness ahead, alert for flashing lights. He was relieved to reach the Carquinez Bridge. Once they were across the water, they could use country roads. It might take them half the night to get home, but they would be out of danger.

He approached the toll plaza slowly, scanning for signs of police activity. Only one booth was open, but that was not surprising after midnight. No blue lights, no cruisers, no cops. He pulled up and fished in his jeans pocket for change.

When he looked up he saw a Highway Patrol officer.

Priest’s heart seemed to stop.

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

O
aktree 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.”

Priest said: “You notice they don’t mention the Hammer of Eden? They know that was me in Sacramento. But they’re trying to pretend it had nothing to do with us. They think they’re preventing panic. They’re wasting their time. In twenty minutes there’s going to be the biggest panic California has ever seen.”

“All right!” Melanie said. She was tense but excited, her face flushed, her eyes bright with hope and fear.

But, secretly, Priest was full of doubt.
Will it work this time?

Only one way to find out
.

He put the truck in gear and drove down the hill.

The link road from the freeway looped around and joined the old country road leading into the town from the east. Priest swung onto Main Street. There was a coffee shop right on the fault line. Priest pulled onto the parking apron in front. The ’Cuda slid in beside the truck. “Go buy some doughnuts,” he told Melanie. “Look natural.”

She jumped out and sauntered across to the coffee shop.

Priest engaged the parking brake and flicked the switch that lowered the hammer of the seismic vibrator to the ground.

A uniformed cop came out of the coffee shop.

Priest said: “Shit.”

The cop was carrying a paper bag and heading purposefully across the lot. Priest guessed he had stopped off to get coffee for himself and his partner. But where was the patrol car? Priest looked around and spotted the blue-and-white roof light of a car that was mostly concealed by a minivan. He had not noticed it as he drove in. He cursed himself for inattention.

But it was too late for regrets. The cop spotted the truck, changed direction, and came over to Priest’s window.

“Hi, how you doin’ today?” the cop said in a friendly tone. He was a tall, thin boy in his early twenties with short fair hair.

“I’m just fine,” Priest said.
Small-town cops, they act like they’re everyone’s next-door neighbor
. “How are you?”

“You know you can’t operate that ride without a permit, don’t you?”

“Same everywhere,” Priest told him. “But we’re aiming to set up in Pismo Beach. We just stopped for coffee, same as you.”

“Okay. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“You, too.”

The cop walked off, and Priest shook his head in amazement.
If you realized who I am, buddy, you’d choke on your chocolate-frosted doughnut
.

He looked through the rear window and checked the dials of the vibrating mechanism. Everything was green.

Melanie reappeared. “Go get in the car with the others,” Priest told her. “I’ll be right there.”

He set the machine to vibrate on a signal from the remote control, then jumped out, leaving the engine running.

Melanie and Star were in the backseat of the ’Cuda, sitting as far apart as they could: they were polite, but they could not hide their hostility to each other. Oaktree was at the wheel. Priest jumped into the front passenger seat. “Drive back up the hill to where we stopped before,” he said.

Oaktree pulled away.

Priest turned on the radio and tuned to John Truth.

“Seven twenty-five on Friday evening, and the threat of an earthquake by the terrorist group the Hammer of Eden has failed to materialize, heaven be praised. What’s the scariest thing that ever happened to
you?
Call John Truth now and tell us. It could be something dumb, like a mouse in your refrigerator, or maybe you were the victim of a robbery. Share your thoughts with the world, on
John Truth Live
tonight.”

Priest turned to Melanie. “Call him on your cell phone.”

“What if they trace the call?”

“It’s a radio station, not the goddamn FBI, they can’t trace calls. Go ahead.”

“Okay.” Melanie tapped out the number John Truth was repeating on the radio. “It’s busy.”

“Keep trying.”

“This phone has automatic redial.”

Oaktree stopped the car at the top of the hill, and they looked down on the town. Priest anxiously scanned the parking area in front of the coffee shop. The cops were still there. He did not want to start the vibrator while they were so close—one of them might have the presence of mind to jump into the cab and switch off the engine. “Those damn cops!” he muttered. “Why don’t they go catch some criminals?”

“Don’t say that—they might come after us,” Oaktree joked.

“We’re not criminals,” Star said forcefully. “We’re trying to save our country.”

“Damn right,” Priest said with a smile, and he punched the air.

“I mean it,” she said. “In a hundred years’ time, when people look back, they’ll say we were the rational ones, and the government was insane for letting America be destroyed by pollution. Like deserters in World War One—they were hated then, but nowadays everybody says the men who ran away were the only ones who weren’t mad.”

Oaktree said: “That’s the truth.”

The police cruiser pulled away from the coffee shop.

“I got through!” Melanie said. “I got through to—Hello? Yes, I’ll
hold for John Truth.… He says to turn off the radio, you guys.…” Priest snapped off the car radio. “I want to talk about the earthquake,” Melanie went on, answering questions. “It’s … Melinda. Oh! He’s gone. Fuck, I nearly told him my name!”

“It wouldn’t matter, there must be a million Melanies,” Priest said. “Give me the phone.”

She handed it over, and Priest put it to his ear. He heard a commercial for a Lexus dealership in San Jose. It seemed the station played the show to people waiting on hold. He watched the police cruiser come up the hill toward him. It went past the truck, pulled onto the freeway, and disappeared.