Dark Rivers of the Heart

discredited him, he would be discharged from duty regardless of the outcome in federal court. Consequently, Carl was keeping a safe professional distance.
        Harris hung up, sat at the kitchen table, and quietly conveyed the essence of the conversation to jessica and Darius. He was aware of an unnerving hollowness in his voice, but he couldn't get rid of it.
        "At least it's suspension with pay," Jessica said.
        "They have to keep paying me or get in trouble with the union," Harris explained. "It's no gift."
        Darius brewed a pot of coffee, and while Jessica continued with her pie-making, he and Harris remained in the kitchen, so the three of them could discuss legal options and strategies. Although the situation was grim, it felt good to be talking about taking action, striking back.
        But the hits just kept on coming.
        Not even half an hour passed before Carl Falkenberg called to inform Harris that the Internal Revenue Service had served the LAPD with a legal order to garnishee his wages against "possible unpaid taxes from trafficking in illegal drugs." Although his suspension was with pay, his weekly salary would have to be held in trust until the issue of his guilt or innocence was determined in court.
        Walking back to the table and sitting opposite his brother again, Harris told them the latest. His voice was now as flat and emotionless as that of a talking machine.
        Darius exploded off his chair, furious. "Damn it, this is not right, this does not wash, no way, I'll be damned if it does! Nobody has proved anything. We'll get this garnishment withdrawn. We'll start on it right now.
        It might take a few days, but we'll make them eat that piece of paper, harris, I swear to you that we'll make the bastards eat it."
        He hurried out of the kitchen, evidently to his study and the telephone there.
        For a long spiral of seconds, Harris and Jessica stared at each other.
        Neither of them spoke. They had been married so long that sometimes they didn't have to speak to know what they would have said to each other.
        She returned her attention to the dough in the pie pan, which she had been crimping along the edge with her thumb and forefinger. Ever since Harris had come home, Jessica's hands had been trembling noticeably.
        Now the tremors were gone. Her hands were steady. He had the terrible feeling that her steadiness was the result of a bleak resignation to the unbeatable superiority of the unknown forces arrayed against them.
        He looked out the window beside the table. Sunshine streamed through ficus branches. The flowers in the beds of English primrose were almost Day-Glo bright. 'The backyard was expansive, well and lushly landscaped, with a swimming pool in the center of a used-brick patio. To every dreamer living in deprivation, that backyard was a perfect symbol of success. A highly motivating image. But Harris Descoteaux knew what it really was. Just another room in the prison.
        While the JetRanger flew due north, Ellie sat in one of the two seats in the last row of the passenger cabin. She held the open attache case on her lap and worked with the computer that was built into it.
        She was still marveling over her good fortune. When she had first boarded the chopper and had searched the cabin to be sure no agency men were hiding there, before they had even taken off, she had discovered the computer on the deck at the end of the aisle. She recognized it immediately as hardware developed for the agency, because she'd actually looked over Danny's shoulder when he had been designing some of the critical software for it. She realized that it was plugged in and on-line, but she was too busy to check it out closely until after they got off the ground and disabled the second JetRanger.
        Safely in the air, northbound toward Salt Lake City, she returned to the computer and was astonished when she realized that the image on the display screen was the satellite look-down of the very shopping center from which they had just escaped. If the agency had temporarily hijacked Earthguard 3 from the E.P.A to search for her and Spencer, they could only have done so through their omnipotent home-office computer system in Virginia. Mama. Only Mama had such power. The workstation that had been abandoned in the chopper was online with ama, the megabitch herself.
        If she had found the computer