Dark Rivers of the Heart

many fingers lost, bones shattered? Jesus, Jesus, his hands were spastic with pain yet half numb, so he couldn't assess the damage.
        The worst of it was the fiery agony in his forehead, cheeks, the left corner of his mouth. Excruciating. Desperate to quell the pain, he pressed his hands to his face. He was afraid of what he would find, of the damage he would feel, but his hands throbbed so fiercely that his sense of touch wasn't trustworthy.
        How many new scars if he survived-how many pale and puckered cicatricial welts or red keloid monstrosities from hairline to chin?
        Get out, get away, find help.
        He kicked-crawled-clawed-twitched like a wounded crab through the darkness. Disoriented and terrified, he nevertheless scrambled in the right direction, across a floor now littered with what seemed to be small marbles, into the bedroom doorway. He clambered to his feet.
        He figured he was caught in a gang war over disputed turf Los Angeles in the nineties was more violent than Chicago during Prohibition.
        Modern youth gangs were more savage and better armed than the Mafia, pumped up with drugs and their own brand of racism, as cold-blooded and merciless as snakes.
        Gasping for breath, feeling blindly with aching hands, he stumbled into the hall. Pain coruscated through his legs, weakening him and testing his balance. Staying on his feet was as difficult as it would have been in a revolving fun-house barrel.
        Windows shattered in other rooms, followed by a few muffled explosions.
        The hallway was windowless, so he wasn't hit again.
        In spite of his confusion and fear, Spencer realized he didn't smell blood. Didn't taste it. In fact, he wasn't bleeding.
        The shrapnel hadn't cut him, so it wasn't actually shrapnel. Not marbles, either, littering the floor. Hard rubber pellets. From a sting grenade. Only law-enforcement agencies had sting grenades. He had used them himself.
        Seconds ago a swat team of some kind must have initiated an assault on the bungalow, launching the grenades to disable any occupants.
        The moving van had no doubt been covert transport for the assault force.
        The movement he had seen at the back of it, out of the corner of his eye, hadn't been imaginary after all.
        He should have been relieved. The assault was an action of the local police, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, or another law-enforcement organization. Apparently he had stumbled into one of their operations.
        He knew the drill. If he dropped to the floor, facedown, arms extended over his head, hands spread to prove they were empty, he would be fine; he wouldn't be shot; they would handcuff him, question him, but they wouldn't harm him further.
        Except that he had a big problem: He didn't belong in that bungalow.
        He was a trespasser. From their point of view, he might even be a burglar.
        To them, his explanation for being there would seem lame at best.
        Hell, they would think it was crazy. He didn't really understand it himself-why he was so stricken with Valerie, why he had needed to know about her, why he had been bold enough and stupid enough to enter her house.
        He didn't drop to the floor. On wobbly legs, he staggered through the tunnel-black hall, sliding one hand along the wall.
        The woman was mixed up in something illegal, and at first the authorities would think that he was involved as well. He would be taken into custody, detained for questioning, maybe even booked on suspicion of aiding and abetting Valerie in whatever she had done.
        They would find out who he was.
        The news media would dredge up his past. His face would be on television, in newspapers and magazines. He had lived many years in blessed anonymity, his new name unknown, his appearance altered by time, no longer recognizable. But his privacy was about to be stolen.
        He would be center ring at the circus again, harassed by reporters, whispered about every time he went out in public.
        No. Intolerable. He couldn't. go through that again. He would rather die.
        They were cops of some kind, and he was innocent of any serious offense; but they were not on his side right now. Without meaning to destroy him, they would do so simply by exposing him to the press.
        More shattering glass. Two explosions.
        The officers on the swat team were taking no