Dark Rivers of the Heart

affectionate hugs, kisses on the cheek, and hand holding. The recordings that she had of him in his Vegas hideaway, engaged in sex with several different little girls and boys below the age of twelve, had ensured his prompt acceptance of her proposal of marriage and the strict terms of convenience under which their relationship would be conducted.

Jackson didn’t pout too much or too often about the arrangement. He was keen on the idea of being president. And without the library of recordings that Eve possessed, which incriminated all of his most serious political rivals, he wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of getting close to the White House.

For a while, she had worried that a few of the politicians and power brokers whose enmity she had earned would be too thickheaded to realize that the boxes in which she’d put them were inescapable. If they terminated her, they would all fall in the biggest, dirtiest series of political scandals in history. More than scandals. Many of these servants of the people had committed outrages appalling enough to cause riots in the streets, even if federal agents were dispatched with machine guns to quell them.

Some of the worst hard-asses hadn’t been convinced that she’d secreted copies of her recordings all over the world or that the contents of those laser discs were destined for the airwaves within hours of her death, from multiple — and, in many cases, automated — sources. The last of them had come around, however, when she had accessed their home television sets through satellite and cable facilities — while blocking all other customers — and had played for them, one by one, fragments of their recorded crimes. Sitting in their own bedrooms and dens, they had listened with astonishment, terrified that she was broadcasting those fragments to the world.

Computer technology was wonderful.

Many of the hard-asses had been with wives or mistresses when those unexpected, intensely personal broadcasts had appeared on their television screens. In most cases, their significant others were as guilty or as power mad as they were themselves, and eager to keep their mouths shut. However, one influential senator and a member of the president’s cabinet had been married to women who exhibited bizarre moral codes and who refused to keep secret what they had learned. Before divorce proceedings and public revelations could begin, both had been shot to death at different automatic-teller machines on the same night. That tragedy resulted in the lowering of the nation’s flag at all government buildings, citywide, for twenty-four hours — and in the introduction of a bill in Congress to require the posting of health warnings on all automated tellers.

Eve turned the air conditioner control to the highest setting. Just thinking about those women’s expressions when she’d put the gun to their heads made her hotter than ever.

She was still two miles from Cloverfield, and the Washington traffic was terrible. She wanted to blow her horn and flip a stiff finger at some of the insufferable morons who were causing the snarls at the intersections, but she had to be discreet. The next First Lady of the United States could not be seen flipping off anyone. Besides, she had learned from Roy that anger was a weakness. Anger should be controlled and transformed into that only truly ennobling emotion — compassion. These bad drivers didn’t want to tie up traffic; they were simply lacking in sufficient intellect to drive well. Their lives were probably blighted in many ways. They deserved not anger but compassionate release to a better world, whenever that release could be privately given.

She considered jotting down license numbers, to make it possible to find some of these poor souls later and, at her leisure, give them that gift of gifts. She was in too great a hurry, however, to be as compassionate as she would have liked.

She couldn’t wait to get to Cloverfield and share the good news about Daddy’s generosity. Through a complex chain of international trusts and corporations, her father — Thomas Summerton, First Deputy Attorney General of the United States — had transferred three hundred million dollars of his holdings to her, which provided her with as much freedom as did the laser-disc recordings from two years in that spider-infested Vegas bunker.

The smartest thing she had ever done, in a life of smart moves, was not to squeeze Daddy for money years ago, when she’d first gotten the goods on him. She had asked, instead, for a job with the agency. Daddy had believed that she’d wanted the bunker job because it was so easy: nothing to do down there but sit, read magazines, and collect a hundred thousand a year in salary. He’d made the mistake of thinking that she was a not- too-bright, small-time hustler.

Some men never seemed to stop thinking with their pants long enough to get wise. Tom Summerton was one of them.

Ages ago, when Eve’s mother had been Daddy’s mistress, he would have been wise to treat her better. But when she got pregnant and refused to abort the baby, he had dumped her. Hard. Even in those days, Daddy had been a rich young man and heir to even more, and although he hadn’t achieved much political power yet, he’d had great ambition. He easily could have afforded to treat Mama well. When she threatened to go public and ruin his reputation, however, he’d sent a couple of goons to beat her up, and she’d nearly had a miscarriage. Thereafter, poor Mama had been a bitter, frightened woman until the day she died.

Daddy had been thinking with his pants when he’d been stupid enough to keep a fifteen-year-old mistress like Mama. And later he’d been thinking with his pants pockets when he should have been thinking with his head or his heart.

He was thinking with his pants again when he’d allowed Eve to seduce him — though, of course, he hadn’t ever seen her before and hadn’t known that she was his daughter. By then, he had forgotten poor Mama as if she’d been a one-night stand, although he had been putting it to her for two years before he dumped her. And if Mama barely existed in his memory, the possibility of having fathered a child had been wiped off his mental slate completely.

Eve had not simply seduced him but had reduced him to a state of animal lust that, over a period of weeks, made him the easiest of marks. When she eventually suggested a little fantasy role- playing, wherein they would act like father and violated daughter in bed, he had been excited. Her pretend- resistance and pitiful cries of rape excited him to new feats of endurance. Preserved on high-resolution videotape. From four angles. Recorded on the finest audio equipment. She’d saved some of his ejaculate in order to have a genetic match done with a sample of her own blood, to convince him that she was, indeed, his darling child. The tape of their role-playing would unquestionably be viewed by authorities as nothing less than forcible incest.

Upon being presented with that package, Daddy had for once in his life thought with his brain. He was convinced that killing her would not save him, so he had been willing to pay whatever was necessary to buy her silence. He’d been surprised and pleased when she’d asked not for any of his money but for a secure, well-paid government job. He’d been less pleased when she’d wanted to know a lot more about the agency and the secret derring-do about which he’d bragged once or twice in bed. After a few difficult days, however, he had seen the wisdom of bringing her into the agency fold.

“You’re a cunning little bitch,” he said when they had reached agreement. He’d put an arm around her with genuine affection.

He had been disappointed, after giving her the job, to learn that they would not continue sleeping together, but he had gotten over that loss in time. He really had thought that “cunning” was the best word to describe her. Her ability to use her position in the bunker for her own ends didn’t become clear to him until he learned that she had married E. Jackson Haynes, after a whirlwind courtship of two days, and had managed to put most of the powerful politicians in the city under her thumb. Then she had gone to him to begin discussions regarding an inheritance — and Daddy had discovered that “cunning” might not be a sufficiently descriptive word.

Now she reached the end of the entrance drive to Cloverfield and parked at a red curb near the front door, beside a sign that stated NO PARKING ANYTIME. She put one of Jackson’s “Member of Congress” cards on the dashboard, relished the icy air of the Chrysler for one more moment, then stepped out into the August heat and humidity.

Cloverfield — all white columns and stately walls — was one of the finest institutions of its kind in the continental United States. A liveried doorman greeted her. The concierge at the main desk in the lounge was a distinguished-looking British gentleman named Danfield, though she didn’t know if that was his first or last name.

After Danfield signed her in and chatted pleasantly with her, Eve walked the familiar route through the hushed halls. Original paintings by famous American artists of previous centuries were well complemented by antique Persian runners on wine-dark mahogany floors polished to a watery sheen.