by Ken Follett
"You bet. So long."
Judy put her feet up on her desk and studied her shoes. She was sure now that Simon had been trying to persuade her not to resign. Kincaid might think this was a bullshit case, but Simon's message was that the Hammer of Eden might be a genuine threat, a group that really needed to be tracked down and put out of action.
In which case her career at the FBI was not necessarily over. She could make a triumph of a case that had been given to her as a deliberate insult. That would make her seem brilliant at the same time as it made Kincaid appear dumb. The prospect was enticing.
She put her feet down and looked at her screen. Because she had not touched the keys for a while, her screen saver had come on. It was a photograph of her at the age of seven, with gaps in her teeth and a plastic clip holding her hair back off her forehead. She was sitting on her father's knee. He was still a patrolman then, wearing the uniform of a San Francisco cop. She had taken his cap and was trying to put it on her own head. The picture had been taken by her mother.
She imagined herself working for Brooks Fielding, driving a Porsche, and going to court to defend people like the Foong brothers.
She touched the space bar and the screen saver disappeared. In its place she saw the words she had written: "Dear Brian: This is to confirm my resignation." Her hands hovered over the keyboard. After a long pause, she spoke aloud. "Aw, hell," she said. Then she erased the sentence and wrote: "I would like to apologize for my rudeness ..."
3
The Tuesday morning sun was coming up over I-80. Priest's 1971 Plymouth 'Cuda headed for San Francisco, its built-in roar making fifty-five miles per hour sound like ninety.
He had bought the car new, at the height of his business career. Then, when his wholesale drinks business collapsed and the IRS was about to arrest him, he had fled with nothing but the clothes he stood up in--a navy business suit, as it happened, with broad lapels and flared pants--and his car. He still had both.
During the hippie era, the only cool car to own was a Volkswagen Beetle. Driving the bright yellow 'Cuda, Priest looked like a pimp, Star used to tell him. So they gave it a trippy paint job: planets on the roof, flowers on the trunk lid, and an Indian goddess on the hood with eight arms trailing over the fenders, all in purple and pink and turquoise. In twenty-five years the colors had faded to a mottled brown, but you could still make out the design if you looked closely. And now the car was a collectible.
He had set out at three A.M. Melanie had slept all the way. She lay with her head in his lap, her fabulously long legs folded on the worn black upholstery. As he drove, he toyed with her hair. She had sixties hair, long and straight with a part in the middle, although she had been born around the time the Beatles split up.
The kid was asleep, too, lying full length on the backseat, mouth open. Priest's German shepherd dog, Spirit, lay beside him. The dog was quiet, but every time Priest looked back at him he had one eye open.
Priest felt anxious.
He told himself he should feel good. This was like the old days. In his youth he always had something going, some scam, a project, a plan to make money or steal money or have a party or start a riot. Then he discovered peace. But sometimes he felt that life had become too peaceful. Stealing the seismic vibrator had revived his old self. He felt more alive now, with a pretty girl beside him and a battle of wits ahead, than he had for years.
All the same, he was worried.
He had stuck his neck all the way out. He had boasted that he could bend the governor of California to his will, and he had promised an earthquake. If he failed, he would be finished. He would lose everything that was dear to him. And if he was caught, he would be in jail until he was an old man.
But he was extraordinary. He had always known he was not like other people. The rules did not apply to him. He did things no one else thought of.
And he was already halfway to his goal. He had stolen a seismic vibrator. He had killed a man for it, but he had gotten away with the murder: there had been no repercussions except for occasional nightmares in which Mario got out of his burning pickup, with his clothes alight and fresh blood pouring from his smashed head, and came staggering after Priest.
The truck was now hidden in a lonely valley in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Today Priest was going to find out exactly where to place it so as to cause an earthquake.
And Melanie's husband was going to give him that information.
Michael Quercus knew more than anyone else in the world about the San Andreas fault, according to Melanie. His accumulated data was stored on his computer. Priest wanted to steal his backup disk.
And he had to make sure that Michael would never know what had happened.
For that, he needed Melanie. Which was why he was worried. He had known her only a few weeks. In that short time he had become the dominant person in her life, he knew; but he had never put her through a test like this. And she had been married to Michael for six years. She might suddenly regret leaving her husband; she might realize how much she missed the dishwasher and the TV; she might be struck by the danger and the illegality of what she and Priest were doing; there was no telling what might happen to someone as bitter and confused and troubled as Melanie.
In the rear seat, her five-year-old son woke up.
Spirit, the dog, moved first, and Priest heard the click of his claws on the plastic of the seat. Then there was a childish yawn.
Dustin, known as Dusty, was an unlucky boy. He suffered from multiple allergies. Priest had not yet seen one of his attacks, but Melanie had described them: Dusty sneezed uncontrollably, his eyes bulged, and he broke out in itchy skin rashes. She carried powerful suppressing drugs, but she said they mitigated the symptoms only partially.
Now Dusty started to fret.
"Mommy, I'm thirsty," he said.
Melanie came awake. She sat upright, stretching, and Priest glanced at the outline of her breasts in the skimpy T-shirt she wore. She turned around and said: "Drink some water, Dusty, you have a bottle right there."
"I don't want water," he whined. "I want orange juice."
"We don't have any goddamn juice," she snapped.
Dusty started to cry.
Melanie was a nervous mother, frightened of doing the wrong thing. She was obsessive about her son's health, so she was overprotective, but at the same time, her tension made her cranky with him. She felt sure her husband would one day try to take the boy away from her, so she was terrified of doing anything that would enable him to call her a bad mother.
Priest took charge. He said: "Hey, whoa, what the heck is that coming up behind us?" He made himself sound really scared.
Melanie looked around. "It's just a truck."
"That's what you think. It's disguised as a truck, but really it's a Centaurian fighter spacecraft with photon torpedoes. Dusty, I need you to tap three times on the rear window to raise our invisible magnetic armor. Quick!"
Dusty tapped on the window.
"Now, we'll know he's firing his torpedoes if we see an orange light flashing on his port fender. You better watch for that, Dusty."
The truck was closing on them fast, and a minute later its left side indicator flashed and it pulled out to pass them.
Dusty said: "It's firing, it's firing!"
"Okay, I'll try to hold the magnetic armor while you fire back! That water bottle is actually a laser gun!"
Dusty pointed the bottle at the truck and made zapping noises. Spirit joined in, barking furiously at the truck as it passed. Melanie started to laugh.
When the truck pulled back into the slow lane ahead of them, Priest said: "Whew. We were lucky to come out of that in one piece. I think they've given up for now."
"Will there be any more Centaurians?" Dusty asked eagerly.
"You and Spirit keep watch out the back and let me know what you see, okay?"
"Okay."
Melanie smiled and said quietly: "Thanks. You're so good with him."
I'm go
od with everyone: men, women, children, and pets. I got charisma. I wasn't born with it--I learned. It's just a way of making people do what you want. Anything from persuading a faithful wife to commit adultery, all the way down to getting a scratchy kid to stop whining. All you need is charm.
"Let me know what exit to take," Priest said.
"Just watch for signs to Berkeley."
She did not know he could not read. "There's probably more than one. Just tell me where to turn."
A few minutes later they left the freeway and entered the leafy university town. Priest could feel Melanie's tension rise. He knew that all her rage against society and her disappointment with life somehow centered on this man she had left six months ago. She directed Priest through the intersections to Euclid Avenue, a street of modest houses and apartment buildings probably rented by graduate students and younger faculty.
"I still think I should go in alone," she said.
It was out of the question. Melanie was not steady enough. Priest could not rely on her when he was beside her, so there was no way he would trust her alone. "No," he said.
"Maybe I--"
He allowed a flash of anger to show. "No!"
"Okay, okay," she said hastily. She bit her lip.
Dusty said excitedly: "Hey, this is where Daddy lives!"
"That's right, honey," Melanie said. She pointed to a low-rise stucco apartment building, and Priest parked outside it.
Melanie turned to Dusty, but Priest forestalled her. "He stays in the car."
"I'm not sure how safe--"
"He's got the dog."
"He might get scared."
Priest twisted around to speak to Dusty. "Hey, Lieutenant, I need you and Ensign Spirit to stand guard over our spacecraft while First Officer Mom and I go inside the spaceport."
"Am I going to see Daddy?"
"Of course. But I'd like a few minutes with him first. Think you can handle the guard duty assignment?"
"You bet!"
"In the space navy, you have to say 'Aye, sir!' not 'You bet.' "
"Aye, sir!"
"Very good. Carry on." Priest got out of the car.
Melanie got out, but she still looked troubled. "For Christ's sake, don't let Michael know we left his kid in the car," she said.
Priest did not reply. You might be afraid of offending Michael, baby, but I don't give a flying fuck.
Melanie took her purse off the seat and slung it over her shoulder. They walked up the path to the building door. Melanie pressed the entry phone buzzer and held it down.
Her husband was a night owl, she had told Priest. He liked to work in the evening and sleep late. That was why they had chosen to get here before seven o'clock in the morning. Priest hoped Michael would be too bleary-eyed to wonder whether their visit had a hidden purpose. If he got suspicious, stealing his disk might be impossible.
Melanie said he was a workaholic, Priest recalled as they waited for Michael to answer. He spent his days driving all over California, checking the instruments that measured small geological movements in the San Andreas and other faults, and the nights inputting the data into his computer.
But what had finally driven her to leave him was an incident with Dusty. She and the child had been vegetarian for two years, and they would eat only organic food and health store products. Melanie believed the strict diet reduced Dusty's allergy attacks, although Michael was skeptical. Then one day she had discovered that Michael had bought Dusty a hamburger. To her, that was like poisoning the child. She still shook with fury when she told the story. She had left that night, taking Dusty with her.
Priest thought she might be right about the allergy attacks. The commune had been vegetarian ever since the early seventies, when vegetarianism was eccentric. At the time Priest had doubted the value of the diet but had been in favor of a discipline that set them apart from the world outside. Their grapes were grown without chemicals simply because they had been unable to afford sprays, so they had made a virtue of necessity and called their wine organic, which turned out to be a strong selling point. But he could not help noticing that after a quarter century of this life the communards were a remarkably healthy bunch. It was rare for them to have a medical emergency they could not cope with themselves. So he was now convinced. But, unlike Melanie, he was not obsessive about diet. He still liked fish, and now and again he would unintentionally eat meat in a soup or a sandwich and would shrug it off. But if Melanie discovered that her mushroom omelet had been cooked in bacon fat, she would throw up.
A grouchy voice came through the intercom. "Who is it?"
"Melanie."
There was a buzz, and the building door opened. Priest followed Melanie inside and up the stairs. An apartment was open on the second floor. Michael Quercus stood in the doorway.
Priest was surprised by his appearance. He had been expecting a weedy professorial type, probably bald, wearing brown clothes. Quercus was around thirty-five. Tall and athletic, he had a head of short black curls and the shadow of a heavy beard on his cheeks. He wore only a towel around his waist, so Priest could see that he had broad, well-muscled shoulders and a flat belly. They must have made a handsome couple.
As Melanie reached the top of the stairs, Michael said: "I've been very worried--where the hell have you been?"
Melanie said: "Can't you put some clothes on?"
"You didn't say you had company," he replied coolly. He stayed in the doorway. "Are you going to answer my question?"
Priest could see he was barely controlling his stored-up rage.
"I'm here to explain," Melanie said. She was enjoying Michael's fury. What a screwed-up marriage. "This is my friend Priest. May we come in?"
Michael stared at her angrily. "This had better be pretty fucking good, Melanie." He turned his back and walked inside.
Melanie and Priest followed him into a small hallway. He opened the bathroom door, took a dark blue cotton robe off a hook, and slipped into it, taking his time. He discarded his towel and tied the belt. Then he led them into the living room.
This was clearly his office. As well as a couch and a TV set, there was a computer screen and keyboard on the table and a row of electronic machines with blinking lights on a deep shelf. Somewhere in those bland pale gray boxes was stored the information Priest needed. He felt tantalized. There was no way he could get at it unaided. He had to depend on Melanie.
One wall was entirely taken up with a huge map. "What the hell is that?" Priest said.
Michael just gave him a who-the-fuck-are-you look and said nothing, but Melanie answered the question. "It's the San Andreas fault." She pointed. "Beginning at Point Arena lighthouse a hundred miles north of here in Mendocino County, all the way south and east, past Los Angeles and inland to San Bernardino. A crack in the earth's crust, seven hundred miles long."
Melanie had explained Michael's work to Priest. His specialty was the calculation of pressure at different places along seismic faults. It was partly a matter of precise measurement of small movements in the earth's crust, partly a question of estimating the accumulated energy based on the lapse of time since the last earthquake. His work had won him academic prizes. But a year ago he had quit the university to start his own business, a consultancy offering advice on earthquake hazards to construction firms and insurance companies.
Melanie was a computer wizard and had helped Michael devise his setup. She had programmed his machine to back up every day between four A.M. and six A.M., when he was asleep. Everything on his computer, she had explained to Priest, was copied onto an optical disk. When he switched on his screen in the morning, he would take the disk out of the disk drive and put it in a fireproof box. That way, if his computer crashed or the house burned down, his precious data would not be lost.
It was a wonder to Priest that information about the San Andreas fault could be kept on a little disk, but then books were just as much of a mystery. He simply had to accept what he was told. The important thing was that with Michae
l's disk Melanie would be able to tell Priest where to place the seismic vibrator.
Now they just had to get Michael out of the room long enough for Melanie to snatch the disk from the optical drive.
"Tell me, Michael," Priest said. "All this stuff." He indicated the map and the computers with a wave of his hand, then fixed Michael with the Look. "How does it make you feel?"
Most people got flustered when Priest gave them the Look and asked them a personal question. Sometimes they gave a revealing answer because they were so disconcerted. But Michael seemed immune. He just looked blankly at Priest and said: "It doesn't make me feel anything, I use it." Then he turned to Melanie and said: "Now, are you going to tell me why you disappeared?"
Arrogant prick.
"It's very simple," she said. "A friend offered me and Dusty the use of her cabin in the mountains." Priest had told her not to say which mountains. "It was a late cancellation of a rental." Her tone of voice indicated that she did not see why she had to explain something so simple. "We can't afford vacations, so I grabbed at the chance."
That was when Priest had met her. She and Dusty had been wandering in the forest and got completely lost. Melanie was a city girl and could not even find her way by the sun. Priest was out on his own that day, fishing for sockeye salmon. It was a perfect spring afternoon, sunny and mild. He had been sitting on the bank of a stream, smoking a joint, when he heard a child crying.
He knew it was not one of the commune children, whose voices he would have recognized. Following the sound, he found Dusty and Melanie. She was close to tears. When she saw Priest she said: "Thank God, I thought we were going to die out here!"
He had stared at her for a long moment. She was a little weird, with her long red hair and green eyes, but in the cutoff jeans and a halter top she looked good enough to eat. It was magical, coming across a damsel in distress like that when he was alone in the wilderness. If it had not been for the kid, Priest would have tried to lay her right then and there, on the springy mattress of fallen pine needles beside the splashing stream.
That was when he had asked her if she was from Mars. "No," she said, "Oakland."
Priest knew where the vacation cabins were. He picked up his fishing rod and led her through the forest, following the trails and ridges that were so familiar to him. It was a long walk, and on the way he talked to her, asking sympathetic questions, giving his engaging grin now and again, and found out all about her.