Brande was a bit on the old fashioned side, she thought. Bridgette had taught him to open doors for women, and he never failed to do so. Whenever he was in a car, he wanted to drive. She had to force herself to picture him driving a race car, as he used to do in road rallies, because on the streets of the city, he was a cautious driver.
Brande’s condo was in Crown Point, on Mission Bay. He had offered to flip a coin when they decided they might as well share their quarters, but she had readily given up her apartment. His place was spacious, even if a bit sparse on decoration. What there was too masculine, anyway, but she was working on it. His condo also boasted a two car garage, and the rental car he had leased for the last four months was sitting in one of the stalls because they had driven her car to work together that morning.
He left the Ingraham Street causeway crossing the bay, passed La Cima Drive, and turned into the driveway.
Thomas pushed the button on the remote control.
The garage door came up and the light went on.
Revealing his rental Mercury.
And a 1957 Thunderbird roadster in bright red for which she had paid $27,000.
He was rolling up the drive at a fair clip, and the tires chirped on the concrete when he slammed the brakes on.
“What the hell?”
“What do you think?” she asked.
Brande slapped the shift lever into Park and got out. She followed him into the garage as he made a complete circuit of the Thunderbird. His fingers trailed over the smooth finish, and in the dim light of the door opener light, his eyes sparkled. Thomas thought that, if she ever had a child, this would be what Christmas was like.
He bent and peered in through the driver’s side window, then stood up and looked across the top at her.
“Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know. Okey helped me pick it out. It’s supposed to be a first class restoration.”
“When did you decide to collect cars?”
“Me? Oh, it’s not mine, Dane.”
“What?”
“It’s yours.”
“Rae, this is crazy.”
“I broke your Bonneville.”
“Not your fault. And I’m fixing it.”
“You’ve found what? Two fenders and a hood? What about the windshield frame?”
“That’s a little tough,” he admitted, moving around to the front of the T Bird. “But I’ll find it.”
She moved up to meet him at the front fender. “In the meantime, you need something to drive.”
Brande slipped his arms around her waist. “It’s lovely, Rae, though not as lovely as you.”
She kissed him. There was still some salt tang of the sea on his lips.
His hands moved up her back, caressing.
“Got something in mind, sailor?” she asked.
“I can get the top off, and we can go for a ride.”
“Let’s.”
Then she realized that he meant the car.
CHAPTER THREE
Avery Hampstead had landed at Denver International Airport late in the afternoon the previous day, so he had rented a car and then checked into a Holiday Inn off Interstate 25. He had a leisurely dinner of Rocky Mountain Oysters, imported from Bruce’s Bar in Severance, Colorado. The deep fried bull’s testicles lived up to their international reputation for excellence, and he recalled reading a piece of trivia: The entrance to Severance had a sign reading, “Where the geese fly, and the bulls cry.”
The area was known for its fine goose hunting, also.
After dinner, he had a glass of Chablis in the lounge and listened to Lannie Garrett. Despite his lack of company, he had an enjoyable evening.
And he felt a little guilty about it. The taxpayers were footing the bill.
So he rose at six in the morning to put in a couple extra hours for the taxpayers. After his wakeup call, he had breakfast in the coffee shop, tossed his carryall in the rented car, and drove west on Interstate 70 until a sign told him that it was time to turn off the freeway. He drove slowly into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, enjoying the scenery. The south sides of the mountains, protected from sunlight, still had traces of the last snow clinging stubbornly to cold ground.
He was early enough to take a spin around the Coors brewery to examine the basis of that fortune and still be present when the doors opened at the National Center for Earthquake Information. Dr. Emmett Schaefer was waiting for him.
Shaefer was a shock haired, tiny bit of energy. His eyelids and his hands moved in rapid flutters. Hampstead had the feeling that almost everyone around the man, Hampstead especially, was slowing him down.
They introduced themselves to each other, and Shaefer found them cups of coffee. Hampstead didn’t think the man needed stimulants beyond what was self generated.
In Shaefer’s office, which was a jumble of charts, diagrams, and printouts, the seismologist directed him to a chair at a small conference table.
“Are you familiar with our operations, Mr. Undersecretary?”
“Let’s speed things up, Doctor. I can get by on Avery, rather than a title, and yes, I know that you monitor disturbances in the earth’s crust. Every time we have an earthquake in California, the media flock here to interview the experts.”
“Would you like to see the monitoring room?”
“I think I’ve seen it on TV.”
Shaefer smiled a thin smile and spread a long sheet of paper out on the table top. Hampstead recognized it as the paper fed from a roll through the automatic ink pens that provided a graphic record of one thing or another. By his eye, the squiggle of ink lines that worked their way down the center of the paper appeared consistent.
Shaefer unrolled two more long sheets, and then aligned the three sheets on the table.
“We have an anomaly,” he said, “which we could have lived with. In fact, however, we have three of them, and that’s what makes them out of the ordinary.”
He ran his forefinger along the squiggle on one sheet and tapped a neatly clipped fingernail against the dried ink.
Hampstead leaned forward and stared at the indicated point. It didn’t appear much different to him. The points of several lines were perhaps a couple millimeters out of line with the other points.
“And here,” Shaefer said.
He tapped the next sheet.
“And here.”
“Yes, I see that, Doctor. What do you suppose it means?”
“This first one occurred six hundred and twenty two miles off the coast. It measured one point two on the Richter scale. Nothing to be concerned about, really. There’s a small fracture zone in the area. It could have been simply a mild shift. It happens all the time.”
“Uh huh,” Hampstead said to fill in the gap of silence when Shaefer looked up at him.
“Then, some twenty seven hours later, and thirty miles farther to the west, there was another disturbance, this one measuring one point one.”
“Aftershock?” Hampstead asked, trying to be knowledgeable.
“No, no. It’s in what we believe to be completely another structure.”
“Believe to be?”
“It is nearly twenty thousand feet below the surface. The area hasn’t been fully explored.”
“I see.”
“The third movement occurred thirty two hours after the second, some thirty miles northwest.”
“I see,” Hampstead said again. “It’s moving away from the coast.”
“Yes. That appears to be the case.” Shaefer abruptly stood up, un-collapsed a collapsible pointer, and moved to a chart on the wall. The head of the chart said “Pacific Ocean Floor,” and Hampstead recognized a few of the seabed features from the charts he used himself.