Dark Rivers of the Heart

outrages perpetrated upon him would have occupied the time and energies of numerous clever, malicious, industrious demons.

At eleven-thirty Friday night, as Harris was making love to his wife, Jessica, and as their daughters — Willa and Ondine — were asleep or watching television in other bedrooms, an FBI special-weapons-and-tactics team, in a joint operation between the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, raided the Descoteaux house on a quiet street in Burbank. The assault was executed with the stalwart commitment and merciless force exhibited by any platoon of United States Marines in any battle in any war in the country’s history.

On all sides of the house, with a synchronization that would have been envied by the most demanding symphony-orchestra conductor, stun grenades were launched through windows. The blasts of sound instantly disoriented Harris, Jessica, and their daughters, and also temporarily impaired their motor-nerve functions.

Even as porcelain figurines toppled and paintings clattered against walls in response to those shock waves, the front and back doors were battered down. Heavily armed men in black helmets and bullet-resistant vests swarmed into the Descoteaux residence and dispersed like a doomsday tide through its rooms.

One moment, in romantically soft amber lamplight, Harris was in the arms of his wife, gliding back and forth on the sweet dissolving edge of bliss. The next moment, passion having turned to terror, he was staggering around in the infuriatingly dim lamplight, naked and confused. His limbs twitched, his knees repeatedly buckled, and the room seemed to tumble like a giant barrel in a carnival fun house.

Though his ears were ringing, he heard men shouting elsewhere in the house: “FBI! FBI! FBI!” The booming voices weren’t reassuring. Addled by a stun grenade, he couldn’t think what those letters meant.

He remembered the nightstand. His revolver. Loaded.

He couldn’t recall how to open a drawer. Suddenly it seemed to require superhuman intelligence, the dexterity of a torch juggler.

Then the bedroom was crowded with men as big as professional football players, all shouting at once. They forced Harris to lie facedown on the floor, with his hands behind his head.

His mind cleared. He remembered the meaning of FBI. Terror and confusion didn’t evaporate, but diminished to fear and bafflement.

A helicopter roared into position above the house. Searchlights swept the yard. Over the furious pounding of the rotors, Harris heard a sound so cold that he felt as if ice had formed in his blood: his daughters, screaming as the doors to their rooms crashed open.

Being required to lie naked on the floor while Jessica was rousted from bed, equally naked, was deeply humiliating. They made her stand in a corner, with only her hands to cover herself, while they searched the bed for weapons. After an eternity, they tossed a blanket to her, and she wrapped herself in it.

Harris was eventually permitted to sit on the edge of the bed, still naked, burning with humiliation. They presented the search warrant, and he was surprised to find his name and address. He had assumed that they had invaded the wrong house. He explained that he was an LAPD captain, but they already knew and were unmoved.

At last Harris was permitted to dress in gray exercise sweats. He and Jessica were taken into the living room.

Ondine and Willa were huddled on the sofa, hugging each other for emotional support. The girls tried to rush to their parents but were restrained by officers who ordered them to remain seated.

Ondine was thirteen, and Willa was fourteen. Both girls had their mother’s beauty. Ondine was dressed for bed in panties and a T-shirt that featured the face of a rap singer. Willa was wearing a cut-off T-shirt, cut-off pajama bottoms, and yellow knee socks.

Some officers were looking at the girls in a way they had no right to look. Harris asked that his daughters be allowed to put on robes, but he was ignored. While Jessica was taken to an armchair, Harris was flanked by two men who tried to lead him out of the room.

When he again requested that the girls be given robes and was ignored, he pulled away from his escorts, indignant. His indignation was interpreted as resistance. He was hit in the stomach with the butt of an assault rifle, driven to his knees, and handcuffed.

In the garage, a man who identified himself as “Agent Gurland” was at the workbench, examining a hundred plastic-wrapped kilos of cocaine, worth millions. Harris stared in disbelief, with a growing chill, as he was told that the coke had been found in his garage.

“I’m innocent. I’m a cop. I’ve been set up. This is nuts!”

Gurland perfunctorily recited a list of constitutional rights.

Harris was infuriated by their indifference to everything he said. His anger and frustration earned him more rough handling as he was escorted out of the house to a car at the curb. Along the street, neighbors had come onto their lawns and porches to watch.

He was taken to a federal detention facility. There he was permitted to call his attorney — who was his brother, Darius.

By virtue of being a policeman, and therefore endangered if confined with cop-hating felons, he expected to be segregated in the lockup. Instead, he was put into a holding cell with six men waiting to be charged on offenses ranging from interstate transportation of illegal drugs to the hatchet murder of a federal marshal.

All claimed that they were being railroaded. Although a few were obviously bad pieces of work, the captain found himself more than half believing their protestations of innocence.

At two-thirty Saturday morning, sitting across from Harris at a scarred Formica-topped table in a lawyer- client conference room, Darius said, “This is total bullshit, total, it stinks, it really reeks. You’re the most honest man I’ve ever known, a straight arrow since you were a kid. You made it hell for a brother to measure up. You’re an annoying goddamned saint, is what you are! Anyone who says you’re a cocaine dealer is a moron or a liar. Listen, don’t worry about this, don’t worry for a minute, a second, a nanosecond. You have an exemplary past, not a stain, the record of an annoying goddamned saint. We’ll get low bail, and eventually we’ll convince them it’s a mistake or a conspiracy. Listen, I swear to you, it’s never going to go to trial, on our mother’s grave, I swear to you.”

Darius was five years younger than Harris but resembled him to such an extent that they seemed to be twins. He was also as brilliant as he was hyperkinetic, a fine criminal trial attorney. If Darius said there was no reason to worry, Harris would try not to worry.

“Listen, if it’s a conspiracy,” Darius said, “who’s behind it? What walking slime would do this? Why? What enemies have you made?”

“I can’t think of any. Not any who’re capable of this.”

“It’s total bullshit. We’ll have them crawling on their bellies to apologize, the bastards, the morons, the ignorant geeks. This burns me. Even saints make enemies, Harris.”

“I can’t point a finger,” Harris insisted.

“Maybe saints especially make enemies.”

Less than eight hours later, shortly after ten o’clock Saturday morning, with his brother at his side, Harris was brought before a judge. He was ordered held for trial. The federal prosecutor wanted a ten-million-dollar bail, but Darius argued for Harris’s release on his own recognizance. Bail was set at five hundred thousand, which Darius considered acceptable because Harris would be free upon posting ten percent to a bondsman’s ninety.

Harris and Jessica had seventy-three thousand in stocks and savings accounts. Since Harris didn’t intend to flee prosecution, they would get their money back when he went to court.

The situation wasn’t ideal. But before they could proceed to structure a legal counteroffensive and get the charges dismissed, Harris had to regain his freedom and escape the extraordinary danger faced by a police officer in jail. At least events were finally moving in the right direction.

Seven hours later, at five o’clock Saturday afternoon, Harris was taken from the holding cell to the lawyer- client conference room, where Darius was waiting for him again — with bad news. The FBI had persuaded a judge that probable cause existed to conclude that the Descoteaux house had been used for illegal purposes, thus permitting immediate application of federal property-forfeiture statutes. The FBI and DEA then acquired liens against the house and its contents.

To protect the government’s interests, federal marshals had evicted Jessica, Willa, and Ondine, permitting them to pack only a few articles of clothing. The locks had been changed. At least for the time being, guards were