Dark Rivers of the Heart

satellites in the system."
        "I thought they were busy making better televisions."
        She was working diligently on the keyboard again, getting ready for the worst. "Damn it, my right hand's cramping."
        He saw that she had targeted the house.
        She said, "The U.S. has something similar, but I don't have any codes that'll get me into our system. 'The fools on our side call it the Hyper space Hammer, which has nothing to do with what it is.
        It's just a name they liked from a video game."
        "You invent the game?"
        "Actually, yes."
        "They make an amusement park ride out of it?"
        "Yes."
        "I saw one."
        Moving past the house now. Not even looking up at the windows.
        Not tempting fate.
        "You can commandeer a secret japanese defense satellite?"
        "Through the D.O.D," she said.
        "Department of Defense."
        "The Japanese don't know it, but the D.O.D can grab Godzilla's brain any time they want. I'm just using the doorways that the D.O.D has already installed."
        He remembered something that she had said in the desert only that morning, when he had expressed surprise about the possibility of satellite surveillance. He quoted it back to her: " 'You'd be surprised what's up there. "Surprised" is one word."
        "
        "The Israelis have their own system."
        "The Israelis!"
        "Yeah, little Israel. They worry me less than anyone else who's got it.
        Chinese. Think about that. Maybe the French. No more jokes about Paris cabdrivers. God knows who else has it."
        They were almost past the house.
        A small round hole was punched through the side window behind Ellie, even as the sound of the shot cracked the night, and Spencer felt the round thud into the back of his seat. The velocity of the bullet was so great that the tempered glass crazed slightly but did not collapse inward.
        Thank God, Rocky was barking energetically instead of squealing in agony.
        "Stupid bastards," Ellie said as she pressed FNTER again.
        Out of airless space, a lambent column of blue-white light shot down into the two-story Victorian farmhouse, instantly vaporizing a core two meters in diameter. The rest of the structure exploded.
        Flames filled the night. If anyone was left alive in that crumbling house, they would have to get out too fast to worry about holding on to their weapons and taking additional potshots at the pickup.
        Ellie was shaken. "I couldn't risk them hitting the up-link behind us.
        If that goes, we're in deep trouble."
        "The Russians have this?"
        "This and weirder stuff."
        "Weirder stuff."
        "That's why most everyone else is desperate to get their version of Godzilla. Zhirinovsky. Heard of him?"
        "Russian politician."
        Bending her head again to the VDT, entering new instructions, she said,
        "Him and the people associated with him, the whole network of them even after he's gone-they're old-fashioned communists who want to rule the world. Except this time they're actually willing to blow it up if they don't get their way. No more graceful defeats. And even if someone's smart enough to wipe out the Zhirinovsky faction, there's always some new power freak, somewhere, calling himself a politician."
        Forty yards ahead, on the right, a Ford Bronco erupted from concealment in a stand of trees and bushes. It pulled across the driveway, blocking their escape.
        Spencer halted the pickup.
        Though the driver of the Bronco stayed behind the wheel, two men with high-power rifles jumped out of the back and dropped into sharpshooter positions. They raised their weapons.
        "Down!" Spencer said, and pushed her head below window level even as he slid down in his seat.
        "They aren't," she said in disbelief.
        "They are."
        "Blocking the driveway?"
        "Two sharpshooters and a Bronco."
        "Haven't they been paying attention?"
        "Stay down, Rocky," he said.
        The dog was standing again with his forepaws on the front seat, bobbing his head excitedly.
        "Rocky, down!" Spencer said fiercely.
        The dog whimpered as though his feelings had been hurt, but he dropped to the floor in back.
        Ellie said, "How far are they?"
        Spencer risked a quick peek, slid down again, and a bullet rang off the window