Balance of Power

by Richard North Patterson

  "What are you going to do?" Coletti asked.

  Hampton gazed out the window at the green fields behind his farmhouse. "Express sympathy, of course. Just watching this has made me sick."

  "What about substance?"

  "A general statement—that we need to do more to stop gun violence. But I don't know exactly how this happened, and I can't get ahead of our members."

  "I wouldn't," Coletti said soberly. "I've already talked to five. They feel terrible for the President and Lara, of course. But we've been making points on the stuff ordinary citizens care about most—health care, education, jobs. They don't want this shooting to swallow our agenda whole."

  "And you?"

  Coletti hesitated. "I don't mean to sound callous, Chuck. But, politically, I don't think we need this."

  Listening, Hampton heard what Coletti did not say expressly: that Connecticut was the home of several gun companies—including Lexington Arms, vulnerable to SSA pressure after its meetings with Kerry Kilcannon. "What about your gun industry?" Hampton asked.

  "I don't care about the guns. I care about the jobs. The people who hold them tend to vote." Coletti's tone became admonitory. "It's not just me—you'll hear this from our members in the South and Rocky Mountain states. The SSA's like the Communist Party—deviate from the party line, and they put you against the wall and shoot you."

  "Our pro–gun control members," Hampton countered, "will want to strike while this is hot."

  "Well, that's a problem, isn't it. Remember how you got your job— Carter Grace forgot he was from Tennessee, and came out in support of gun control and Kerry Kilcannon. The voters called him home."

  Hampton frowned. "Tell me about it—whenever I want to discourage the President from charging ahead on this, I always mention Carter. But this could change things."

  "He'll do something," Coletti mused.

  "Well," Hampton agreed, "he pretty much has to now, whether he wants to or not. But the problem is he'll want to. The only question is what."

  For a moment, Vic Coletti was quiet. "Depending on the answer," he warned his leader, "there'll be hell to pay in the Senate. And in both our lives."

  TWO

  Sealed inside Air Force One, Kerry and Lara passed over the heartland of America.

  In the first months of his Presidency, Kerry had taken pleasure in being master of this plane—taller than a five-story building and at least a city block long, with a conference room, commodious kitchen, and generous seating area—even as its operating room, arsenal of weapons, and antimissile devices reminded him of the grimmer aspects of his job. But now the quiet of his living quarters seemed eerie, its sleek modern decor sterile and depressing.

  Lara slumped on the couch, arms clasped as if hugging herself, gazing emptily at nothing. Her eyes were bruised with sleeplessness, a night of sobbing so anguished and attenuated that, for now, she had no more left to give. "All that protection," she said quietly.

  This, Kerry supposed, referred to the security ringing Andrews as they had departed, a terrible contrast to the meagerness of their provisions for her family. Kerry had no answer.

  Someday you'll go too far, he had told John Bowden. And then, trust me, you'll be the one who suffers most.

  His own demons had drawn him into Joan Bowden's life, perhaps driven her husband to the edge. If so, he had led her to her death, taking Inez and Marie with her. Perhaps it was a mercy that he would never know for sure.

  He reached for Lara's hand—to give comfort or, he acknowledged bleakly, to receive it. Her fingers were lifeless in his.

  * * *

  Lara barely felt his touch.

  She had entrusted her family to Kerry, and then lost them to the Presidency, the merciless glare that had left Joan's family with no private place to heal. They had been hers to protect, and now Kerry's failure was hers.

  "We sacrificed them," she said in a toneless voice. "To the media, to the needs of the Presidency . . ."

  Kerry turned to her, his expression miserable and imploring. "All we wanted was to have them at our wedding . . ."

  "No," she interrupted softly. "It was never our wedding."

  * * *

  Even in his devastation, Kerry knew it was better to be silent.

  "Mary," Lara said at length. "However I feel . . ." Her voice faded. "As soon as we get there, I want to see her. Before anything else."

  "I'll make sure of it," Kerry answered. And then he realized how ironic and how empty, coming from him, those words must sound to her.

  * * *

  It was shortly before two p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, when the first tapes of the murder appeared.

  Clayton was about to leave the White House when Kit came to his office, grim-faced. "Turn on Fox News," she said simply.

  He did that.

  On the screen, Inez, Joan, Mary and Marie clustered near the baggage carousels. "Jesus," Clayton murmured.

  There was one soft pop. Inez Costello fell, blood spurting from her throat. Then there was chaos: the camera jerking; Mary crawling; a body spinning on the carousel; Joan's face; Marie's doll clutched to her chest, eyes frozen in fathomless horror.

  "Stop . . ." someone yelled.

  The doll shattered. The sheer force of the bullet knocked the child off her feet.

  Marie . . . , a man's voice cried in anguish, and then the film went dark.

  This remarkable footage, the anchorman said soberly, was taken by a cameraman from our San Francisco affiliate. Only after a great deal of soulsearching did we conclude that it so illuminated the tragedy of domestic violence that the American public must see it for themselves . . .

  "Ghouls," Kit said tightly. "Now they're the king of cable news."

  It would be the centerpiece of the frenzy, Clayton knew, played endlessly until the funeral. And it would follow Kerry and Lara to the end of their days. More than ever, Clayton felt in his bones the pitiless nature of the Presidency.

  "They'll run it again," he told Kit. "Make me a copy."

  * * *

  Shortly after noon, in San Francisco, Air Force One landed at SFO.

  The first to disembark was the Air Force colonel who carried the briefcase with the response codes for a nuclear attack. As he passed it to the Army counterpart who shadowed Kerry on the ground, Peter Lake emerged, then others from the Secret Service. All air traffic had stopped; a caravan of police and Secret Service agents again waited on the tarmac.

  The President and First Lady were the last to disembark. Lara stopped at the foot of the stairs, as if searching for the place where her family had died. A young White House aide, dispatched the night before by Clayton, approached Kerry with a cell phone and the pained expression of a man who wished to be anywhere but this.

  "Mr. President," he said. "The Chief of Staff is calling."

  Clayton, Kerry guessed, was on a military aircraft headed for California. Taking the phone, he asked, "What is it?"

  "There's a tape of the murders," Clayton said bluntly. "You'll want to make sure Lara doesn't watch TV."

  Kerry's headache pounded from his temples to the back of his head. "Or read newspapers?"

  Clayton's voice was soft. "Why would she want to, Kerry?"

  The President glanced at his wife, looking warily about her as they unloaded his bulletproof black limousine from the cargo hold of Air Force One. "The tape," he said, "I hope you made a copy."

  * * *

  The motorcade took them to Pacific Heights.

  Overlooking the bay, the imposing brick mansion was surrounded by more police and Secret Service, and the street blocked by police checkpoints two hundred feet in either direction. Mary Costello awaited in the sunroom.

  Lara went to her. Awkwardly, Kerry stopped, several feet away.

  Tentative, Lara took her sister's hands. "He just kept shooting," Mary said brokenly. "I tried to hide—I couldn't help them . . ."

  Shivering, Mary began to weep.

  Lara pulled her close, her cheek pressed agains
t Mary's.

  "Your wedding," Mary said in a ragged voice. "We never should have come . . ."

  Over her shoulder, Lara stared through Kerry as if he were not there.

  * * *

  Clayton reached the mansion by four p.m., setting up his makeshift office in the library. But it was nightfall before the President came downstairs. Though they had not seen each other since the tragedy, Kerry said simply, "She's sedated."

  Face ravaged, he seemed to exist in his own space, a man so different that Clayton did not know what to say. "I'm so sorry, Kerry. I'm just so sorry."

  The President nodded. "Where's the tape?" he asked.

  Clayton did not quarrel with him. Only when they stood in the commodious screening room did Clayton ask, "Are you sure?" Kerry's silence was his answer.

  Clayton pushed the play button.

  On the giant screen, Lara's family died in jerky images. "So fast," Kerry murmured. "It's just so fast."

  His expression never changed. When it was done, the President asked Clayton to run the tape again.

  THREE

  To Inspector Charles Monk, the airport hotel room where John Bowden planned the shooting looked like the inside of a madman's brain. He had kicked the sheets off the bed, as though in his tormented sleep; strewn on the floor were the pastel pieces of a Lego set; an empty vodka bottle; a candy bar wrapper; and a copy of the SSA magazine, The Defender, its cover a grotesque caricature of Kerry Kilcannon as Adolf Hitler. But amidst the detritus was a clue to his final hours—an airline schedule with the flights from Dulles to SFO underscored in pencil. Perhaps Bowden had persuaded someone to tell him which flight the Costellos would take; perhaps he had guessed; perhaps he had met every flight. Monk might never know.

  There was one more puzzlement—the stubs of boarding passes to and from Las Vegas. What, Monk wondered, had compelled a man so disturbed to make this trip in a single day?

  Musing, he picked up The Defender and began to riffle its pages.

  * * *

  In the morning, Clayton found the President where he had left him, studying his file on John Bowden. His clothes were the same; his eyes slits. It was plain that he had not slept.

  Fax in hand, Clayton approached him, feeling both dread and duty. "What is it?" Kerry asked shortly.

  Standing by the wing chair where Kerry sat, Clayton rested one hand on his friend's shoulder, and placed the fax before him.

  It was a copy of a letter and the envelope which had contained it. The envelope was addressed to "Little Prick Killcannon"; its return address was "HELL." Pained, Clayton watched the President decipher the jagged handwriting:

  Dear Brother-in-law,

  You only met me once. But that was enough for you.

  You took away my wife and daughter. She wouldn't have left except for

  you. Then you made sure the world hated me so much she'd never come back to me, no matter how much I begged her or tried to change.

  It must have felt good to have so much power. You took everything away from me. Except my gun. That's my power.

  By the time you get this you'll understand what you've done. You and your new wife will hurt much longer than me and my wife. Because I let you live.

  Read this to her, so you both can suffer like I did.

  Your friend, John Bowden

  Kerry stared at the letter. Very quietly, he said, "Get me the police."

  * * *

  As she had wished, Lara had gone to the funeral home alone.

  The room was cool and dim and quiet; as Lara requested, the caskets were open. She closed the wooden door behind her, leaving Peter Lake outside.

  Slowly, Lara approached the caskets.

  Her mother wore a high-necked black dress. Her features had the waxen cast of death; once more, Lara reflected how different a face was when bereft of its animating spirit. Gently, her curled fingers grazed her mother's cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know."

  After a time, she went to her sister.

  Joan's jawline was distorted. Gazing into her face, Lara wondered at Mary's memories, and whether she could ever sleep in peace. "Please," she implored her sister, "forgive me, Joanie."

  At last she stood over the smallest casket.

  Marie's face was frozen in endless sleep. Lara touched her eyes.

  In Kosovo, she had seen murdered women and children in scores, developed the psychic carapace she needed to survive. She had learned to accept the brutal compartmentalization of her trade—the face of a dead child one day; a dinner in Paris the next. But these three faces came with memories which formed the sinew of Lara's life. Gazing at Marie, Lara remembered the smell and feel of her as a newborn, less than a week old. Marie was not meant to die at six, scarred by terrible knowledge.

  And now this murdered child would become the vortex of the worlds of media and politics, filled with calculation and ambition, swirling around her family as Lara mourned. Even in death she could not protect them; nor, as terrible as this moment was, could she leave them.

  She stayed with them for an hour. Then, beginning with Marie, she kissed the cool foreheads of her niece, sister, and mother, saying goodbye, and closed their caskets forever.

  * * *

  When Lara returned, Kerry was waiting in their bedroom.

  To Kerry, she seemed stripped to her essence—her eyes were open wounds, her last defense the steely calm of a journalist familiar with death. He could not ask about her visit.

  "There's a letter from Bowden," he said gently. "It's addressed to me. I wish you never had to read it. But it will be public—soon."

  Briefly, Lara's eyes closed, and then she nodded. As she sat on the edge of the bed, Kerry placed the letter beside her. Without touching it, Lara read. When she had finished, she did not look up.

  "Leave me," she requested with a fearful gentleness.

  Heartsick, Kerry kept himself from touching her. Kneeling beside her, he still spoke softly. "There's more, I'm afraid. They're playing a video of the shooting. On Fox TV."

  Her eyes did not move. "You've seen it."

  "Yes." For a moment, Kerry hesitated. "So have the families of the other victims. While you were gone, I called them."

  She spoke in a monotone. "And now you want us to see them."

  "I should. If you can't, I'll do it alone."

  "Oh, I'll go." Her mouth moved in a brief and bitter smile. "I'm the First Lady, after all." Her voice became soft again. "Just not today."

  Briefly, he imagined her at the mortuary, alone with those she loved. "There's a police inspector coming, Lara. I want to find out how Bowden got the gun."

  Still she did not look at him. "Does it matter?"

  "It does to me." Pausing, Kerry studied her profile. "Do you want to see him?"

  "Someone can tell me when he's here." When, at last, she looked at him, tears formed in her eyes. "But first I should see that film, shouldn't I."

  * * *

  Charles Monk took the bullet from its glassine bag and placed it on the coffee table.

  The President stared at its serrated points. "This is Marie's?"

  "Yes."

  "On the film," Kerry said, "I heard twelve shots."

  "That's right. The gun can take a forty-round magazine. This was the eleventh round. Bowden's was the twelfth."

  Kerry fought back an anger so deep that it threatened his train of thought. "Did he mean to shoot her?"

  Monk frowned. "We can't be sure. From the witnesses, we don't think so—seems like shouting startled him. According to the autopsy, he was legally intoxicated three times over. We don't think he was trained in gun use."

  Silent, Kerry touched the sharp edges of the Eagle's Claw. "The points are made of copper," Monk explained. "Not alloy, which is softer.

  "The tip is notched to split like that. Get hit in the extremities, and an Eagle's Claw will maim you. Get hit in the trunk, you're likely to die."

  "And the gun?"