Quercus went on: "They would obviously need drilling equipment, expertise, and some kind of pretext to get permission."
Those problems were not insurmountable. "Is it really so simple?" Judy said.
"Listen, I'm not telling you this would work. I'm saying it might. No one will know for sure until they try it. I can try to give you some insight into how these things happen, but you'll have to make your own assessment of the risk."
Judy nodded. She had used almost the same words last night in telling Bo what she needed. Quercus might act like an asshole sometimes, but as Bo would say, everyone needed an asshole now and again. "So knowing where to place the charge is everything?"
"Yes."
"Who has that information?"
"Universities, the state geologist ... me. We all share information."
"Anyone can get hold of it?"
"It's not secret, though you would need to have some scientific knowledge to interpret the data."
"So someone in the terrorist group would have to be a seismologist."
"Yes. Could be a student."
Judy thought of the educated thirty-year-old woman who was doing the typing, according to Simon's theory. She could be a graduate student. How many geology students were there in California? How long would it take to find and interview them all?
Quercus went on: "And there's one other factor: earth tides. The oceans move this way and that under the gravitational influence of the moon, and the solid earth is subject to the same forces. Twice a day there's a seismic window, when the fault line is under extra stress because of the tides; and that's when an earthquake is most likely--or most easy to trigger. Which is my specialty. I'm the only person who has done extensive calculations of seismic windows for California faults."
"Could someone have gotten this data from you?"
"Well, I'm in the business of selling it." He gave a rueful smile. "But, as you can see, my business isn't making me rich. I have one contract, with a big insurance company, and that pays the rent, but unfortunately that's all. My theories about seismic windows make me kind of a maverick, and corporate America hates mavericks."
The note of wry self-deprecation was surprising, and Judy started to like him better. "Someone might have taken the information without your knowledge. Have you been burgled lately?"
"Never."
"Could your data have been copied by a friend or relative?"
"I don't think so. No one spends time in this room without my being here."
She picked up the photo from his desk. "Your wife, or girlfriend?"
He looked annoyed and took the picture out of her hand. "I'm separated from my wife, and I don't have a girlfriend."
"Is that so?" said Judy. She had got everything she needed from him. She stood up. "I appreciate your time, Professor."
"Please call me Michael. I've enjoyed talking to you."
She was surprised.
He added: "You pick up fast. That makes it more fun."
"Well ... good."
He walked her to the door of the apartment and shook her hand. He had big hands, but his grip was surprisingly gentle. "Anything else you want to know, I'll be glad to help."
She risked a gibe. "So long as I call ahead for an appointment, right?"
He did not smile. "Right."
Driving back across the bay, she reflected that the danger was now clear. A terrorist group might conceivably be able to cause an earthquake. They would need accurate data on critically stressed points on the fault line, and perhaps on seismic windows, but that was obtainable. They had to have someone to interpret the data. And they needed some way to send shock waves through the earth. That would be the most difficult task, but it was not out of the question.
She had the unwelcome task of telling the governor's aide that the whole thing was horrifyingly possible.
5
Priest woke at first light on Thursday.
He generally woke early, all the year round. He never needed much sleep, unless he had been partying too hard, and that was rare now.
One more day.
From the governor's office there had been nothing but a maddening silence. They acted as if no threat had been made. So did the rest of the world, by and large. The Hammer of Eden was rarely mentioned in the news broadcasts Priest listened to on his car radio.
Only John Truth took them seriously. He kept taunting Governor Mike Robson in his daily radio show. Until yesterday, all the governor would say was that the FBI was investigating. But last night Truth had reported that the governor had promised a statement today.
That statement would decide everything. If it was conciliatory, and gave at least a hint that the governor would consider the demand, Priest would rejoice. But if the statement was unyielding, Priest would have to cause an earthquake.
He wondered if he really could.
Melanie sounded convincing when she talked about the fault line and what it would take to make it slip. But no one had ever tried this. Even she admitted she could not be one hundred percent sure it would work. What if it failed? What if it worked and they were caught? What if it worked and they were killed in the earthquake--who would take care of the communards and the children?
He rolled over. Melanie's head lay on the pillow beside him. He studied her face in repose. Her skin was very white, and her eyelashes were almost transparent. A strand of long ginger-colored hair fell across her cheek. He pulled the sheet back a little and looked at her breasts, heavy and soft. He contemplated waking her. Under the covers, he reached out and stroked her, running his hand across her belly and into the triangle of reddish hair below. She stirred, swallowed, then turned over and moved away.
He sat up. He was in the one-room house that had been his home for the last twenty-five years. As well as the bed, it had an old couch in front of the fireplace and a table in the corner with a fat yellow candle in a holder. There was no electric light.
In the early days of the commune, most people lived in cabins like this, and the kids all slept in a bunkhouse. But over the years some permanent couples had formed, and they had built bigger places with separate bedrooms for their children. Priest and Star had kept their own individual houses, but the trend was against them. It was best not to fight the inevitable: Priest had learned that from Star. Now there were six family homes as well as the original fifteen cabins. Right now the commune consisted of twenty-five adults and ten children, plus Melanie and Dusty. One cabin was empty.
This room was as familiar as his hand, but lately the well-known objects had taken on a new aura. For years his eye had passed over without registering them: the picture of Priest that Star had painted for his thirtieth birthday; the elaborately decorated hookah left behind by a French girl called Marie-Louise; the rickety shelf Flower had made in woodwork class; the fruit crate in which he kept his clothes. Now that he knew he might have to leave, each homely item looked special and wonderful, and it brought a lump to his throat to look at them. His room was like a photograph album in which every picture unchained a string of memories: the birth of Ringo; the day Smiler nearly drowned in the river; making love to twin sisters called Jane and Eliza; the warm, dry autumn of their first grape harvest; the taste of the '89 vintage. When he looked around and thought of the people who wanted to take it all away from him, he was filled with a rage that burned inside him like vitriol in his belly.
He picked up a towel, stepped into his sandals, and went outside naked. His dog, Spirit, greeted him with a quiet snuffle. It was a clear, crisp morning, with patches of high cloud in the blue sky. The sun had not yet appeared over the mountains, and the valley was in shadow. No one else was about.
He walked downhill through the little village, and Spirit followed. Although the communal spirit was still strong, people had customized their homes with individual touches. One woman had planted the ground around her house with flowers and small shrubs: Priest had named her Garden in consequence. Dale and Poem, who were a couple, had let their chi
ldren paint the outside walls, and the result was a colorful mess. A man called Slow, who was retarded, had built a crooked porch on which stood a wobbly homemade rocking chair.
Priest knew the place might not be beautiful to other eyes. The paths were muddy, the buildings were rickety, and the layout was haphazard. There was no zoning: the kids' bunkhouse was right next to the wine barn, and the carpentry yard was in the midst of the cabins. The privies were moved every year, to no avail: no matter where they were sited, you could always smell them on a hot day. Yet everything about the place warmed his heart. And when he looked farther away and saw the forested hillsides soaring steeply from the gleaming river all the way to the blue peaks of the Sierra Nevada, he had a view that was so beautiful it hurt.
But now, every time he looked at it, the thought that he might lose it stabbed him like a knife.
Beside the river, a wooden box on a boulder held soap, cheap razors, and a hand mirror. He lathered his face and shaved, then stepped into the cold stream and washed all over. He dried himself briskly on the coarse towel.
There was no piped water here. In winter, when it was too cold to bathe in the river, they had a communal bath night twice a week and heated great barrels of water in the cookhouse to wash one another: it was quite sexy. But in summer only babies had warm water.
He went back up the hill and dressed quickly in the blue jeans and workshirt he always wore. He walked over to the cookhouse and stepped inside. The door was not locked: no doors had locks here. He built up the fire with logs and lit it, put on a pan of water for coffee, and went out.
He liked to walk around when the others were all abed. He whispered their names as he passed their homes: "Moon. Chocolate. Giggle." He imagined each one lying there, sleeping: Apple, a fat girl, lying on her back with her mouth open, snoring; Juice and Alaska, two middle-aged women, entwined together; the kids in the bunkhouse--his own Flower, Ringo, and Smiler; Melanie's Dusty; the twins, Bubble and Chip, all pink cheeks and tousled hair...
My people.
May they live here forever.
He passed the workshop, where they kept spades and hoes and pruning shears; the concrete circle where they trod the grapes in October; and the barn where the wine from last year's harvest stood in huge wooden casks, slowly settling and clarifying, now almost ready to be blended and bottled.
He paused outside the temple.
He felt very proud. From the very beginning they had talked of building a temple. For many years it had seemed an impossible dream. There was always too much else to do--land to clear and vines to plant, barns to build, the vegetable garden and the free shop and the kids' lessons. But five years ago the commune had seemed to reach a plateau. For the first time, Priest was not worried about whether they would have enough to eat through the coming winter. He no longer felt that one bad harvest could wipe them out. There was nothing undone on the list of urgent tasks he carried in his head. So he had announced that it was time to build the temple.
And here it was.
It meant a lot to Priest. It showed that his community was mature. They were not living hand to mouth anymore. They could feed themselves and have time and resources to spare for building a place of worship. They were no longer a bunch of hippies trying out an idealistic dream. The dream worked; they had proved it. The temple was the emblem of their triumph.
He stepped inside. It was a simple wooden structure with a single skylight and no furniture. Everyone sat cross-legged in a circle on the plank floor to worship. It was also the schoolhouse and meeting room. The only decoration was a banner Star had made. Priest could not read it, but he knew what it said:
Meditation is life: all else is distraction
Money makes you poor
Marriage is the greatest infidelity
When no one owns anything, we all own everything
Do what you like is the only law
These were the Five Paradoxes of Baghram. Priest said he had learned them from an Indian guru he had studied under in Los Angeles, but in fact he had made them up. Pretty good for a guy who can't read.
He stood in the center of the room for several minutes, eyes closed, arms hanging loosely at his sides, focusing his energy. There was nothing phony about this. He had learned meditation techniques from Star, and they really worked. He felt his mind clarify like the wine in the casks. He prayed that Governor Mike Robson's heart would be softened and he would announce a freeze on the building of new power plants in California. He imagined the handsome governor in his dark suit and white shirt, sitting in a leather chair behind a polished desk; and in his vision the governor said: "I have decided to give these people what they want--not just to avoid an earthquake, but because it makes sense anyway."
After a few minutes, Priest's spiritual strength was renewed. He felt alert, confident, centered.
When he went outside again, he decided to check on the vines.
There had been no grapes originally. When Star arrived there was nothing in the valley but a ruined hunting lodge. For three years the commune had lurched from crisis to crisis, riven by quarrels, washed out in storms, sustained only by begging trips to towns. Then Priest came.
It took him less than a year to become Star's acknowledged equal as joint leader. First he had organized the begging trips for maximum efficiency. They would hit a town like Sacramento or Stockton on a Saturday morning, when the streets were crowded with shoppers. Each individual would be assigned a different corner. Everyone had to have a pitch: Aneth would say she was trying to get the bus fare home to her folks in New York, Song would strum her guitar and sing "There but for Fortune," Slow would say he had not eaten for three days, Bones would make people smile with a sign saying "Why lie? It's for beer."
But begging was only a stopgap. Under Priest's direction, the hippies had terraced the hillside, diverted a brook for irrigation, and planted a vineyard. The tremendous team effort made them into a strongly knit group, and the wine enabled them to live without begging. Now their chardonnay was sought after by connoisseurs.
Priest walked along the neat rows. Herbs and flowers were planted between the vines, partly because they were useful and pretty, but mainly to attract ladybugs and wasps that would destroy greenflies and other pests. No chemicals were used here: they relied on natural methods. They grew clover, too, because it fixed nitrogen from the air, and when they plowed it into the soil it acted as a natural fertilizer.
The vines were sprouting. It was late May, so the annual peril of frost killing the new shoots was past. At this point in the cycle, most of the work consisted of tying the shoots to trellises to train their growth and prevent wind damage.
Priest had learned about wine during his years as a liquor wholesaler, and Star had studied the subject in books, but they could not have succeeded without old Raymond Dellavalle, a good-natured wine grower who helped them because, Priest guessed, he wished his own youth had been more daring.
Priest's vineyard had saved the commune, but the commune had saved Priest's life. He had arrived here a fugitive--on the run from the Mob, the Los Angeles police, and the Internal Revenue Service all at once. He was a drunk and a cocaine abuser, lonely, broke, and suicidal. He had driven down the dirt road to the commune, following vague directions from a hitchhiker, and wandered through the trees until he came upon a bunch of naked hippies sitting on the ground chanting. He had stared at them for a long while, spellbound by the mantra and the sense of profound calm that rose up like smoke from a fire. One or two had smiled at him, but they had continued their ritual. Eventually he had stripped off, slowly, like a man in a trance, discarding his business suit, pink shirt, platform shoes, and red-and-white jockey shorts. Then, naked, he had sat down with them.
Here he had found peace, a new religion, work, friends, and lovers. At a time when he was ready to drive his yellow Plymouth 'Cuda 440-6 right over the edge of a cliff, the commune had given meaning to his life.
Now there would never be any other existence for him.
This place was all he had, and he would die to defend it.
I may have to.
He would listen to John Truth's radio show tonight. If the governor was going to open the door to negotiation, or make any other concession, it would surely be announced before the end of the broadcast.
When he came to the far side of the vineyard, he decided to check on the seismic vibrator.
He walked up the hill. There was no road, just a well-trodden path through the forest. Vehicles could not get through to the village. A quarter of a mile from the houses, he arrived at a muddy clearing. Parked under the trees were his old 'Cuda, a rusty Volkswagen minibus that was even older, Melanie's orange Subaru, and the communal pickup, a dark green Ford Ranger. From here a dirt track wound two miles through the forest, uphill and down, disappearing into a mudslide here and passing through a stream there, until at last it reached the county road, a two-lane blacktop. It was ten miles to the nearest town, Silver City.
Once a year the entire commune would spend a day rolling barrels of wine up the hill and through the trees to this clearing, there to be loaded onto Paul Beale's truck for transport to his bottling plant in Napa. It was the big day in their calendar, and they always held a feast that night, then took a holiday on the following day, to celebrate a successful year. The ceremony took place eight months after the harvest, so it was due in a few days' time. This year, Priest resolved, they would hold the party the day after the governor reprieved the valley.
In return for the wine, Paul Beale brought food for the communal kitchen and kept the free shop stocked with supplies: clothing, candy, cigarettes, stationery, books, tampons, toothpaste, everything anyone needed. The system operated without money. However, Paul kept accounts, and at the end of each year, he deposited surplus cash in a bank account that only Priest and Star knew about.
From the clearing, Priest headed along the track for a mile, skirting rainwater pools and clambering over deadfalls, then turned off and followed an invisible way through the trees. There were no tire tracks because he had carefully brushed the carpet of pine needles that formed the forest floor. He came to a hollow and stopped. All he could see was a pile of vegetation: broken branches and uprooted saplings heaped twelve feet high like a bonfire. He had to go right up to the pile and push aside some of the brush to confirm that the truck was still there under its camouflage.