Balance of Power

by Richard North Patterson

  Chad was briefly silent. "There's nothing in this bill on guns," he said.

  Kerry paused to reflect. Chad had not known about the asbestosis clause, but was very certain that the bill contained "nothing" on guns. His implicit addendum, Kerry realized, was "not yet."

  Kerry thanked him, and got off.

  * * *

  A few days after the bill was introduced, Senator Harshman came to Chad Palmer's office.

  This was rare; the two men detested each other. Gaunt and selfrighteous, Harshman did not bother to sit. Instead he handed Chad a plain manila envelope.

  "I believe you've been expecting this," Harshman told him. "I'm suggesting some additional safeguards for the Civil Justice Reform Act."

  To Harshman's obvious annoyance, Chad opened the envelope and made a show of reading it quite carefully. " 'Safeguards,' " Palmer murmured. "After all these years, Paul, you're developing a gift for understatement."

  Harshman scowled. "It's high time we choose between the Second Amendment and a bunch of corporate ambulance chasers."

  "Oh, it's the patriotic thing, all right. I'm sure even Mary Costello would agree." Chad summoned his most pleasant smile. "You needn't linger, Senator. I'm sure you're busy, and it's time for me to take a shower."

  * * *

  Two hours later, Chuck Hampton called the President. "You were right," Hampton said. "There's a new clause. It doesn't immunize gun companies by name, but that's its effect. Chad's counsel gave us the language."

  Still, Kerry reflected, he could not help but feel betrayed. He and Chad disagreed about many things, but this cut to the core. Quietly, he said, "With Lara's family four weeks dead. It's as direct a challenge as Fasano could make."

  "More direct than you know, Mr. President. The provision wiping out gun lawsuits is retroactive. If it passes as part of the final bill, it will terminate lawsuits which have already been filed, even if they're ready for trial."

  Including Mary's, Kerry thought. "Then Fasano's sold out to the SSA."

  "True enough." Hampton's tone was grave. "And he's in a hurry, too. He already means to stall your gun safety legislation and try to pass this first."

  "He can't pass it this way," Kerry answered. "The restrictions on plaintiffs' lawyers are way too extreme. He can't get enough Democrats to survive a veto."

  "Agreed. But he's at least appearing to give an array of interests what they want. He's preparing for an all-out war, supported by a slew of business groups and the foot soldiers of the right. He clearly means to keep the gun provision in the final bill, and jam it through as a package."

  Turning, Kerry gazed at the twilit garden outside the Oval Office. "It's no time for gentility," he said. "We need to split corporate interests from the gun lobby, any way we can. Or, at a minimum, to divide the gun manufacturers and the SSA."

  "How do we accomplish that?"

  "I'll reflect on it, Chuck."

  But whether he liked it or not, Kerry already knew. His next call was to Lara.

  TWELVE

  Philadelphia. Frank Fasano's territory. Lara' s sixth city in as many days. Exhausted, she sat in her hotel suite, reading the mail dropped off for her by strangers, and which she had demanded to see.

  The last piece, a flat manila envelope, contained a photograph of skeletal corpses heaped in a pile at Auschwitz, a collage of decimated limbs and pale skin and vacant eyes. The note scrawled in one corner read, "This is what will happen once you disarm our country." The second photo in the envelope was taken from the videotape of the murders, with Lara's head superimposed on her mother's neck. In close-up the wound in Inez's throat was a jagged tear.

  Carefully, Lara placed the photographs in the hate pile for Peter Lake.

  She would be speaking soon, meeting with victims' families. That would help keep this bottomless hatred from driving her into a well of grief. Since her wedding, she had learned that grief must be managed.

  Beside the pile for Peter was a service tray with the remnants of a tuna sandwich and a glass of iced tea. As with the meals she had eaten, her first seven days on the road were a blur—press conferences, speeches, interviews, meetings with victims, sessions with sympathetic Republicans, an hour on Oprah Winfrey, visits to women's shelters. Five days before, reminded of the AIDS quilt, she had proposed a web site dedicated to all those lost to guns in the last twenty years, with photographs and brief descriptions of their lives. Already thirty thousand photographs had joined Inez, Joan and Marie in a cyberspace memorial, growing hour by hour. Last night's town meeting in Pittsburgh had run past midnight; Lara had stayed to answer every question, to hear every story of pain and loss.

  She was glad to be doing this. The cause was her mission, and forward motion was imperative. Every day took her farther from the moment of devastation until, she had to believe, a healing—perhaps so deep within her that at times she did not feel it—would bring her to that moment when, though forever changed, she would be herself again. She craved this as much for Kerry as for her.

  Every night they talked, no matter the hour, before she fell asleep. She missed him then, desperately. It reminded her of Kosovo, when she had thought she might never see him. But now, absent some terrible event, she knew that she would.

  Absent some terrible event.

  From their first meeting, she had felt his bone-deep fatalism, his sense that happiness might be fleeting, contingent. Then she had attributed it to the murder of James Kilcannon. Now she understood it.

  There was a brisk knock on the door. Briefly entering, Peter Lake glanced at the photographs, then Lara, without comment. She touched his sleeve, a mute thanks for his kindness.

  "I'm ready," she said.

  * * *

  The hotel auditorium was jammed. This was good, Lara thought. Not only was Philadelphia Fasano's home, but the state's junior Republican senator, far weaker than Fasano, was up for reelection.

  With other survivors seated behind her, Lara spoke in a calm, clear voice. The audience listened with the taut stillness which now greeted her every appearance.

  "None of us," she said, "wanted to believe that homicides or suicides or accidental deaths would take someone we loved. But now they have.

  "So what can we do? We can try to wall off our grief. Or all of us, together, can give witness to these tragedies and say that the violence must stop." Pausing, she felt her listeners drawing closer, an emotional bond expressed in a collective forward leaning of their bodies, an openness in their expressions. "It's not enough," she continued, "to share the comfort of good intentions.

  "We must vote this issue—period—with no rationalizations or excuses. We must demand that our representatives, and our parties, support an end to violence as the price of our support. We must demand that they make protecting victims a first priority of public service, not just a pious wish. And when it's time, we must descend on Washington and call for change until there is change."

  Applause burst from the audience. Lara's voice cut through the sound. "This commitment," she continued, "is not easy. But it will be far harder to explain to the parents and children of those who died, or their children's children, why so many deaths have followed . . ."

  * * *

  The audience lingered, wanting to share a word, or simply touch her. Lara moved among them, Peter at her side.

  Turning from the mother of a victim, Lara faced an elderly man with a cane. His face was slick with perspiration, and his rough voice trembled. "I always wondered what it would be like," he told her, "to look into the face of evil."

  Peter grabbed his arm. With an effort of will, Lara held her composure. "Whose face do you see?" she asked. "My mother, or my sister? Or, perhaps, my six-year-old niece."

  A second Secret Service agent moved the man away, still trembling with a rage which Lara would never fathom, his hands balled into fists.

  * * *

  "How was it," Kerry asked, "in the land of Frank Fasano?"

  She had taken a bath and slipped between coo
l sheets before returning his call. "For a while I forgot about Fasano," she answered. "This is taking me somewhere different, Kerry. Journalists develop a shield. Now I'm learning not to protect myself." Pausing, she tried to put emotions to words. "I just feel it's good I'm here. Certainly for me."

  "Then I'm glad you are." Now it was Kerry who paused. "Something's come up, Lara. Fasano's tort reform bill has mutated—it would wipe out Mary's lawsuit against Lexington, before Lenihan and Sarah Dash can even start."

  In this moment, Lara felt herself being transported, against her will, back into the world of politics. "That's one way," she said after a time, "of suppressing evidence. I guess you want me to call Sarah."

  "Yes. They need to file in a hurry, with maximum impact. And, if possible, to drive a wedge between Lexington and the SSA."

  "How?" Lara asked.

  Kerry answered with a question. "Do you recall Martin Bresler?"

  THIRTEEN

  "I'm not naive," Martin Bresler told Sarah in an agitated voice. "If I cooperate with you, sooner or later my name will come out."

  It was early morning, and Sarah's office was quiet. The night before, she had been revising the complaint against Lexington Arms, planning to file in two days' time, when Lara Kilcannon's call had turned these plans on their head. Calling Bresler in Washington, Sarah recited the facts as Lara related them: that Bresler had been working on a voluntary agreement to require background checks at gun shows; that Lexington had been amenable; and that, by destroying Bresler's association of gun manufacturers, the SSA had thwarted the deal and paved the way for the Costello murders. Even over the telephone, Sarah could hear the impact this blunt recitation was having on Martin Bresler.

  "You've got two choices," Sarah replied. "You can cooperate with us in private, and we'll keep your name out of this as long as we can. Or we can take your deposition as soon as we file, under oath, with Lexington's lawyers in the room. Which effectively means the SSA."

  "If I 'cooperate,' " Bresler retorted, "you may sue the SSA. Why would I touch that? I don't think you get it, Ms. Dash. I've got two kids in college, and my career's on life support. I'm just trying to land a job . . ."

  "Exactly," Sarah said in a calm, implacable tone. "I'm offering you a chance to do the right thing in private, which gives you more time to regroup before the SSA finds out. But letting you off the hook is not an option."

  Sarah waited out Bresler's silence. "I'll have to call you back," Bresler said in a defeated tone. Only then did Sarah permit herself to feel a certain pity.

  * * *

  With quiet fury, Kerry said, "This is the SSA's Trojan horse. Designed to humiliate me, politically and personally."

  Alone with Kerry in the Oval Office, Chad Palmer remained calm. "Fasano," he answered, "would call that a 'leadership priority.' As for Trojan horses, I must say that you're taking a keen interest in Mary Costello's prospective lawsuit.

  "We have a fundamental difference of opinion, Mr. President. You and people like Bob Lenihan think that lawsuits against gun companies will force them to give you what Congress won't. Others think they're an abuse of a legal system too open to abuse already . . ."

  "Are you supporting this thing," Kerry interjected, "or just tolerating it?"

  "Supporting it," Chad said baldly. "I mean to get it through committee and speak for it on the floor."

  Kerry felt shaken. There was no need to remind Chad of the immensity of his decision, or of how much more difficult it would make the President's task. Softly, he said, "You despise the SSA almost as much as I do. What in the world did Fasano offer you?"

  For an instant, Chad looked discomfited. Almost unique among politicians, in Kerry's mind, Palmer possessed a sense of shame which diminished his skill at functional insincerity. "I'm sorry this is personal to you," he said at length. "But, this time, I'm not carrying your water. Caroline Masters was enough."

  Though spoken quietly, the last phrase reminded Kerry that he would always be associated with the death of Chad's daughter and that Chad's bitterness, however well suppressed, would never entirely vanish. With equal quiet, Kerry answered, "Then I have a courtesy to ask. Not for me, but for Lara."

  Chad hesitated. "What might that be, Mr. President?"

  "You've scheduled hearings, including on this gun immunity clause. The witness list is up to you."

  Chad stared at him. "You want me to call Lara."

  "And Mary."

  A grim comprehension stole into Chad's eyes. Personally and politically, he could not ban a First Lady and her sister, the survivors of a nationally televised slaughter, from confronting him on every cable news network in America. Now Chad would pay a price, and so would Frank Fasano. "Please tell the First Lady," Chad said with formal courtesy, "that I welcome them both."

  FOURTEEN

  Two mornings later, Martin Bresler met with Bob Lenihan and Sarah Dash.

  To assure that no one saw them, Sarah rented a vacation home in Sea Ranch, a windswept compound along the rugged northern coast of Sonoma County, set amidst low vegetation and sheltering pines. The three sat drinking coffee on a wooden bench at the tip of a bluff overlooking the ocean, watching high waves slap against rocks and cliffs which turned blue water into a perpetual white spray. Seated between the lawyers, Bresler hunched in a defensive crouch.

  "No affidavit," he stated flatly. "Nothing in writing."

  He was a small man, with receding dark hair, liquid eyes and a mobile, expressive face. There was something diminished about him, Sarah thought, a natural volubility turned to suspicion. "We can't do that," Lenihan insisted. "What's to keep you from telling us any story you want, then walking away from it when crunch time comes?"

  Remaining hunched, Bresler did not look at anyone. "And if crunch time never comes? What if your case settles or gets thrown out? I don't want some document sitting around with my name on it . . ."

  "Are you that scared?" Sarah interjected.

  "Are you that naive?" Bresler snapped. "Once you hear my story, you'll understand. Right now, let me ask how you'd enjoy this scenario—I can't get hired in the gun industry; Republicans treat me like a pariah; and I'm scouring Washington for a lobbyist job when the last one blew up in my face.

  "I'm talking to you because it's the only way to avoid having to testify. But if I'm forced to, I don't want to have signed an affidavit so that Lexington's lawyers can use it as a fucking blueprint to grill me with." Pausing, he sipped coffee, still gazing at the sparkling blue water beneath an electric blue sky. "So do you want my help? Or do you want a deposition from someone who's suffering an enormous memory lapse?"

  Sarah looked past him, at Lenihan. "Let's talk," she said.

  * * *

  Sarah and Lenihan stood at the edge of the bluff, out of hearing distance from Bresler. A high wind whistled past their ears. "Fuck him," Lenihan said. "Stick the little pissant in steerage and fly him back to Washington where he belongs. If we want his testimony, we take his deposition."

  Sarah crossed her arms. "When the First Lady calls, she's calling for the President—as well as for herself and Mary, who's our client, after all. What do we lose by hearing this guy out?"

  "Hearing him," Lenihan answered, "is probably just a waste of time. But relying on what he tells us is criminal stupidity." He turned toward Martin Bresler with an air of disdain. "That's treachery in human form."

  Sarah shrugged. "He's also what we need."

  * * *

  Placing his mug on the burl redwood coffee table, Bresler settled back on the couch. "It started," he told the lawyers, "with me thinking I could find a middle ground between Kilcannon and the SSA. It ended with me as political roadkill, the First Lady's family slaughtered, and Lexington staring down the barrel of a lawsuit."

  Still annoyed, Lenihan frowned at Bresler's portentousness. "We know how it ended," he said. "Just try your hardest to get us there. From the beginning."

  * * *

  Four months earlier, seated in his office, Frank
Fasano had looked from Bresler to Jerry Kirk, Vice President of Bresler's association of gun manufacturers, the Gun Sports Coalition. As always, Kirk, with a placid face and sandy hair as thin as his glasses were thick, wore an expression of myopic amiability. "Marty's right," Kirk assured Fasano. "If you announce an agreement on trigger locks between our manufacturers and the Republicans in Congress, you steal the issue from Kilcannon and all of us look reasonable for a change. It's the classic win-win, which is why we're coming to you instead of him."