Dark Rivers of the Heart

The sky was still blue and cloudless, but the day seemed darker than it had been before.

Spencer said, “There’s enough paranoia in this concept for half a dozen Oliver Stone movies.”

“Stone sees the shadow of the oppressor but doesn’t understand who casts it,” she said. “Hell, even the average FBI or ATF agent is unaware this agency exists. It operates at a very high level.”

“How high?” he wondered.

“Its top officers answer to Thomas Summerton.”

Spencer frowned. “Is that name supposed to mean something?”

“He’s independently wealthy, a major political fund-raiser and wheeler-dealer. And currently the first deputy attorney general.”

“Of what?”

“Of the Kingdom of Oz — what do you think?” she said impatiently. “First Deputy Attorney General of the United States!”

“You’ve got to be putting me on.”

“Look it up in an almanac, read a newspaper.”

“I don’t mean you’re kidding about him being the first deputy. I mean, about him being involved in a conspiracy like this.”

“I know it for a fact. I know him. Personally.”

“But in that position, he’s the second most powerful person in the Department of Justice. The next link up the chain from him…”

“Curdles your blood, doesn’t it?”

“Are you saying the attorney general knows about this?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I hope not. I’ve never seen any evidence. But I don’t rule out anything anymore.”

Ahead, in the westbound lane, a gray Chevrolet van topped a hill and came toward them. Spencer didn’t like the looks of it. According to Valerie’s schedule, they weren’t likely to be in immediate danger for the better part of two hours yet. But she might be wrong. Maybe the agency didn’t have to fly in thugs from Vegas. Maybe it already had operatives in the area.

He wanted to tell her to turn off the road at once. They had to put trees between themselves and any fusillade of machine-gun fire directed at them. But there was nowhere to go: no connecting road in sight and a six- foot drop beyond the narrow shoulder.

He put his hand on the SIG 9mm pistol that lay in his lap.

As the oncoming Chevy passed the Rover, the driver gave them a look of astonished recognition. He was big. About forty. A broad, hard face. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened as he spoke to another man in the van with him, and then he was gone.

Spencer turned in his seat to look after the Chevy, but because of Rocky and half a ton of gear, he wasn’t able to see through the tailgate window. He peered in his side mirror and watched the van as it dwindled westward behind them. No brake lights. It wasn’t turning to follow the Rover.

Belatedly, he realized that the driver’s look of astonishment had nothing to do with recognition. The man simply had been amazed by how fast they were going. According to the speedometer, Valerie was pressing eighty- five miles per hour, thirty over the legal speed limit and fifteen or twenty too fast for the condition of the road.

Spencer’s heart was thudding. Not because of her driving.

Valerie met his eyes again. She was clearly aware of the fear that had gripped him. “I warned you that you didn’t really want to know who they are.” She turned her attention to the highway. “Kind of gives you the heebie- jeebies, doesn’t it?”

“Heebie-jeebies doesn’t quite describe it. I feel as if…”

“You’ve been given an ice-water enema?” she suggested.

“You find even this funny?”

“On one level.”

“Not me. Jesus. If the attorney general knows,” he said, “then the next link up the chain—”

“The President of the United States.”

“I don’t know what’s worse: that maybe the president and the attorney general sanction an agency like you described…or that it operates at such a high level without their knowledge. Because if they don’t know, and they stumble across its existence—”

“They’re dead meat.”

“And if they don’t know, then the people who’re running this country aren’t the people we elected.”

“I can’t say it goes as high as the attorney general. And I don’t have a clue about Oval Office involvement. I hope not. But—”

“But you don’t rule out anything anymore,” he finished for her.

“Not after what I’ve been through. These days, I don’t really trust anyone but God and myself. Lately I’m not so sure about God.”

* * *

Down in the concrete aural cavity, where the agency listened to Las Vegas with a multitude of secret ears, Roy Miro said good-bye to Eve Jammer.

There were no tears, no qualms at being separated and possibly never seeing each other again. They were confident of being together soon. Roy was still energized by the spiritual power of Kevorkian, felt all but immortal. For her part, Eve seemed never to have realized that she could die or that anything she truly wanted — such as Roy — could be denied her.

They stood close. He put down his attache case to be able to hold her flawless hands, and he said, “I’ll try to be back here this evening, but there’s no guarantee.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said huskily. “But if you can’t make it, I’ll do something to remember you by, something that will remind me how exciting you are and make me even more eager to have you back.”

“What? Tell me what you’re going to do, so I can carry the image in my mind, an image of you to make the time away pass faster.”

He was surprised at how good he was at this love talk. He had always known that he was a shameless romantic, but he had never been sure that he would know how to act when and if he ever found a woman who measured up to his standards.

“I don’t want to tell you now,” she said playfully. “I want you to dream, wonder, imagine. Because when you get back and I tell you—then we’ll have the most thrilling night we’ve had yet.”

The heat pouring off Eve was incredible. Roy wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and melt in her radiance.

He kissed her on the cheek. His lips were chapped from the desert air, and her skin was hot. It was a deliciously dry kiss.

Turning away from her was agony. At the elevator, as the doors slid open, he looked back.

She was poised on one foot, the other raised. On the concrete floor was a black spider.

“Darling, no!” he said.

She looked up at him, baffled.

“A spider is a perfect little creation, Mother Nature at her best. A spinner of beautiful webs. A perfectly engineered killing machine. Its kind have been here since before the first man ever walked the earth. It deserves to live in peace.”

“I don’t like them much,” she said with the cutest little pout that Roy had ever seen.

“When I get back, we’ll examine one together, under a magnifying glass,” he promised. “You’ll see how perfect it is, how compact and efficient and functional. Once I show you how perfect arachnids are, they’ll never seem the same to you again. You’ll cherish them.”

“Well,” she said reluctantly, “all right,” and she carefully stepped over the spider instead of tramping on it.

Full of love, Roy rode the elevator to the top floor of the high rise. He climbed a service staircase to the roof.

Eight of the twelve men in the strike force had already boarded the first of the two customized executive