Dark Rivers of the Heart

at the main desk in the lounge was a distinguished-looking British gentleman named Danfield, though she didn't know if that was his first or last name.
        After Danfield signed her in and chatted pleasantly with her, Eve walked the familiar route through the hushed halls. Original paintings by famous American artists of previous centuries were well complemented by antique Persian runners on wine-dark mahogany floors polished to a watery sheen.
        When she entered Roy's suite, she found the dear man shuffling around in his walker, getting some exercise. With the attention of the finest specialists and therapists in the world, he had regained full use of his arms. Increasingly, he seemed certain to be able to walk on his own again within a few months-though with a limp.
        She gave him a dry kiss on the cheek. He favored her with one even dryer.
        "You're more beautiful every time you visit," he said.
        "Well, men's heads still turn," she said, "but not like they used to, not when I have to wear clothes like these.
        A future First Lady of the United States couldn't dress as would a former Las Vegas showgirl who'd gotten a thrill out of driving men insane.
        These days she even wore a bra that spread her breasts out and restrained them, to make her appear less amply endowed than she really was.
        She had never been a showgirl anyway, and her surname had not been Jammer but Lincoln, as in Abraham. She had attended school in five different states and West Germany, because her father had been a career military man who'd been transferred from base to base. She had graduated from the Sorbonne in Paris and had spent a number of years teaching poor children in the Kingdom of Tonga, in the South Pacific.
        At least, that was what every data record would reveal to even the most industrious reporter armed with the most powerful computer and the cleverest mind.
        She and Roy sat side by side on a settee. Pots of hot tea, an array of pastries, clotted cream, and jam had been provided on a charming little Chippendale table.
        While they sipped and munched, she told him about the three hundred million that her father had transferred to her. Roy was so happy for her that tears came to his eyes. He was a dear man. re.
        The time when they could be together again, every night, without any subterfuge, seemed depressingly distant. E. Jackson Haynes would assume the office of president on January twentieth, seventeen months hence. He and the vice-president would be assassinated the following year-though Jackson was unaware of that detail. With the approval of constitutional scholars and the advice of the Supreme Court of the United States, both houses of Congress would take the unprecedented step of calling for a special election. Eve Mare Lincoln Haynes, widow of the martyred president, would run for the office, be elected by a landslide, and begin serving her first term.
        "A year after that, I'll have mourned a decent length of time," she told Roy. "Don't you think a year?"
        "More than decent. Especially as the public will love you so much and want happiness for you."
        "And then I can marry the heroic FBI agent who tracked down and killed that escaped maniac, Steven Ackblom."
        "Four years until we're together forever," Roy said. "Not so long, really. I promise you, Eve, I'll make you happy and do honor to my position as First Gentleman."
        "I know you will, darling," she said.
        "And by then, anyone who doesn't like anything you do-"
        "-we shall treat with utmost compassion."
        "Exactly."
        "Now let's not talk any more about how long we have to wait.
        Let's discuss more of your wonderful ideas. Let's make plans."
        For a long time they talked about uniforms for a variety of new federal organizations they wished to create, with a special focus on whether metal snaps and zippers were more exciting than traditional bone buttons.
        In THE BROILING SUN, hard-bodied young men and legions of strikingly attractive women in the briefest of bikinis soaked up the rays and casually struck poses for one another. Children built sand castles.
        Retirees sat under umbrellas, wearing straw hats, soaking up the shade.
        They were all happily oblivious of eyes in the sky and of the possibility that they could be instantaneously vaporized at the whim of politicians of