"I haven't forgotten that. I just want both of us to get out of it safely. "

In a way, Ambaniel has taken control of the situation, and Liu Zhan is furious. "You listen to me," he said, "there's only one way to solve this problem." You make a statement today. No new power plants are being built in California. ”

"I can't do it. ”

"Parking. "We're on the highway right now. ”

"Parking me!"

Ambaniel slowed down and stopped on the side of the road.

Liu's desire to unfold the gun was strong, but he suppressed it. "Get out of the car. Ambaniel put up gear and got out of the car.

Liu Zhan sat in the driver's seat. "Think about it yourself. As he spoke, he drove away. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw Ambanier waving his hand and trying to stop a passing car. The driver didn't pay attention. He tried again. No one.

Seeing the big man in a suit standing on the dusty side of the road trying to hitchhike, Liu Zhan felt a little happy. Even though he was holding a gun, Ambaniel seemed to have the upper hand, which annoyed him. Now this psychological disadvantage has finally been balanced. Ambaniel gave up waving to stop the car and started walking.

Liu Zhan smiled slightly, and then drove into the city.

Ren Lian was waiting for him in place. He parked the Lincoln Continental, left the keys in the car, and got into the car.

"What's going on?" Ren Lian said.

Liu Zhan shook his head in disgust. "Nothing happened. He said angrily, "It's a waste of time. Let's go. ”

She started the car and drove away.

Liu Zhan vetoed the first place Ren Lian took him to see.

It's a small seaside town, fifty kilometers north of San Francisco. They parked their car at the top of the cliff. There, a strong wind blew old private cars around. Liu Zhan rolled down the window and smelled the seawater. He would love to take off his boots and walk barefoot on the beach, feeling the damp sand between his toes, but he doesn't have time right now.

It's too revealing here. It's going to be too eye-catching for a truck to come by. And it's so far from the highway that you can't get out of it quickly. On top of that, there is nothing destructive about this place, with only a few houses clustered around a port.

"Earthquakes sometimes cause the greatest killings far from the epicenter. ”

"But you can't say anything about that kind of thing. Liu Zhan said.

"Yes. But what are you 100 percent sure of?"

"Well, but the best way to bring a skyscraper down is to create an earthquake under it, right?"

"All else being equal, that's true. ”

They headed south, crossing the Castle Hills and the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. Ren Lianxuan's second location is located in the heart of the city. They followed Route 1 through the Fortress Building and Golden Gate Park, stopping not far from the University of California's San Francisco campus. "The place is better. Liu Zhan said immediately. He is surrounded by residences, offices, shops and restaurants.

"If the epicenter is here, the worst hit is at the pier. Ren Lian said.

"How so? It's a long way from there. ”

It's all cultivated land over there. The sediment underneath is filled with water. This makes the vibrations stronger. But the ground here can be firm. And the buildings look solid. Most buildings survive an earthquake. The buildings that collapsed were either low-income families made of unreinforced masonry or concrete racks without pillars. "

Liu Zhan felt that these statements were nitpicking, she was just too nervous, after all, an earthquake is an earthquake, how can she underestimate it. I don't care if anybody knows what's going to fall, as long as something collapses.

"Let's go see the next place. He said.

Ren Lian guided him south along Interstate 280.

"Right where the San Andreas Fault and Highway 101 meet, there's a small town called Felicitas. She said.

They drove for about twenty minutes, and they were almost driving over the entrance ramp of Felicitas.

"Here, here!" Ren Lian exclaimed, "Didn't you see the sign?" Liu Zhan twisted the steering wheel violently, turned the car to the right, and went downhill.

"I didn't look at it. "

The entrance leads to a vantage point overlooking the town. Liu Zhan stopped the car and walked down. Felicitas was like a painting, unfolding in front of him. The main street runs across his field of vision, lined with low-slung shops and offices, with a few cars parked in front of the houses.

There's a wooden house with a bell tower in the town, and it's a chapel. To the north and south of the main street is a clean road network with trees on the side of the road. All the houses are one-storey. There was a dirt road on either side of the town, and they disappeared into the fields, and the north of the town was divided by a meandering river, like a jagged crack in a windowpane. In the distance, there is a railroad that stretches from east to west like a ruler. Behind Liu Zhan, the highway is erected on an arched concrete viaduct.

Eight huge light blue pipes lined up in a row. Lay down from the mountain. They reach the bottom of the highway, through the town, all the way to the west, disappear into the horizon, and look like an endless xylophone. "What's that?" Liu Zhan asked Ren Lian and thought for a while: "I guess it's a gas pipeline." ”

Liu Zhan sighed with satisfaction. "This place is so perfect," he said.

That day, they also went to a place.

After the earthquake, Liu Zhan needed a place to hide the seismic vibrator. His only weapon is to threaten to cause more earthquakes. He had to convince Ambanier and Governor McRae that he was capable of repeating the same trick again and again until they compromised and gave up on the general's affair, so it was crucial to hide the truck.

It's going to be more and more difficult to drive it on the road, so he needs to find a place to hide it, so that if necessary, he doesn't have to drive too far when he causes a third earthquake. Ren Lian guided him through Third Avenue, which runs parallel to the shores of San Francisco Bay Natural Harbor.

Between Third Avenue and the waterfront, there is a desolate industrial area. Abandoned railroads are laid along the battered streets. As far as the eye can see, there are abandoned factories and empty warehouses with broken windows; The devastated courtyard is littered with pawls, tires and ruined vehicles.

"It's a good place," Liu Zhan said, "and it's only half an hour's drive from Felicitas, and no one is interested in living in this kind of neighborhood." ”

Some developers are also optimistic that some buildings have put up signs for rent. Ren Lian pretended to be Liu Zhan's secretary and dialed the phone number on one of the signs and asked if the other party had any warehouses to rent. The warehouse has an area of 1,500 square meters, and the rent is very cheap.

An hour later, a attentive young salesman drove out to meet them. He showed them a hollow brick house with a hole in the roof, and a tattered sign hung on the door, Ren Lian read the words on it, there was a wide space for the seismic shaker.

There's also a usable bathroom and a small office with a heating plate left over from previous tenants and a large old TV.

Liu Zhan told the salesman that he needed a place to store the barrels for about a month, and the man didn't care what Liu Zhan was going to do with the place, and he was happy to rent out a property that was almost worthless.

He promised to supply water and electricity to the house the next day. Liu Zhan gave him four weeks' rent in advance, using the cash he had laundered from his overseas account in the summer, and the salesman felt like he had picked up a treasure.

He gave Ren Lian the key, shook hands with them, and then left quickly, lest Liu Zhan change his mind temporarily. Liu Zhan and Ren Lian drove back to the village.

On Thursday evening, Zhu Yuting took a shower. She was lying in the water, remembering the earthquake that scared her half to death when she was in the first grade of elementary school. The horrors of the time are as vivid as those of yesterday. There is nothing more terrible than discovering that the ground beneath your feet is not solid and solid, but fragile and dangerous.

Sometimes laughing, in moments of silence, she would see nightmarish visions of wrecked vehicles, collapsed bridges, collapsed buildings, raging fires and raging floods, but none of them were as horrific as her own experience when she was six years old.

She washed her hair, put the horrific memories behind her, and then packed her bags for the night and returned to the officers' club at ten o'clock in the evening.

There was silence in the club, and the atmosphere was still very tense. No one is still sure if the House of the Earth can actually cause an earthquake, but since Liu Zhan hijacked Ambanier in the garage of the state mansion and left him alone on Interstate 80, everyone has been convinced that the terrorists mean it.

Now, there are hundreds of people in the old ballroom. The on-site conductor was Cliff, the big man who flew in from Washington on Tuesday night.

Although Ambaniel had an order in advance, it was impossible for the Bureau of Investigation to have a lowly agent command such a large operation. Zhu Yuting didn't want to be fully responsible, so she didn't argue. But she can make sure that neither Zhu Wu nor Ma Wencai are directly involved. Zhu Yuting's title is Investigative Operations Coordinator. This gave her the scheduling authority she needed. At her level was Charlie, the Emergency Operations Coordinator, who commanded the SWAT team on standby in the next room.

Charlie is about forty-five years old, has a flat head, gray hair, has served in the army, is a fitness freak and a gun collector, not the type that Zhu Yuting usually likes, but he has a straightforward personality, very reliable, and she gets along with him. Between the conference area and the survey team's tables, Shang and his young seismologist assistant sat in front of a screen, monitoring signs of seismic activity. Shang Zhigen, like Zhu Yuting, went home for a few hours. When he returned, he was dressed in a clean khaki jacket and black polo shirt, carrying camping gear, ready for battle.