Nate paused, trying to conceal his discomfort. “That doesn’t give us much time to catch up. Can I buy you a drink later on?”
Her face seemed to relax, and she touched him on the wrist. “I’d really like that, Nate.” He could hardly look at her.
SEVEN
Clayton Slade stood next to Peter Lake, the special agent in charge, waiting for Kerry’s last speech of the day.
They were on the campus of a junior college in Los Angeles, selected because of its outreach program for battered women. It was five o’clock; the sky was a cloud-streaked blue, the palm trees were deep green in the fading sun. The plaza where Kerry was to speak was set amidst a spacious lawn, which slanted upward on both sides; the knoll where Clayton and Peter were standing offered the best view.
To Clayton, everything appeared in order—the Service people siphoning the crowd through magnetometers; the volunteers gathered in front of the platform, holding two-sided “Kilcannon for President” signs; the press bleachers set up on the other side of the plaza. There was only one three-story building overlooking the plaza: Clayton knew from experience that the Service had already secured the rooms facing the speakers’ platform and placed sharpshooters on the rooftop. The PA system worked: upbeat rock music pumped through the speakers, and a young Latina county commissioner had just assured the crowd that “the next President of the United States will be here in ten minutes.” The schedule was holding; with luck, Kerry’s speech would make both the early and the late evening newscasts.
“Seems like good advance work,” Peter observed.
“At least so far,” Clayton answered. “What’s funny is I couldn’t pick the advance man for this event out of a lineup—they’re always on to the next one. The only signs this guy is real are the charges on his credit card.”
Peter smiled. “Stiffing the campaign, is he?”
“Uh-huh. According to our chief of advance, his girlfriend dumped him for spending fifty-seven straight days on the road. He finally made it back to their apartment in D.C., and she put his suitcase in the hallway and told him that New Hampshire was due north. Now his only address is a sky page number and a bunch of room service bills for Roederer Cristal. I can’t even find the sonofabitch.”
Though Peter smiled again, Clayton noted that he never stopped watching his agents. But their interchange was cordial, even warm. Kerry Kilcannon was what the Service called a “high-risk protectee,” and Clayton felt fortunate that Peter Lake was running the detail.
At fifty-three, Peter had the stocky frame and broken nose of the linebacker he had been in college. But he was many other things—a lawyer by training, a reader of the classics, and a deeply religious man. He had first been drawn to the Service when, at thirteen, his father had taken him to see John F. Kennedy speak. His father had adored Kennedy, but what fascinated Peter was the Secret Service detail. “I guess I missed the point,” he’d remarked dryly to Clayton, but Clayton had come to know better. The desire to protect was the deepest part of Peter’s nature.
Sometimes this had led to conflict—it was inKerry ’s nature to be a Secret Service nightmare. What Kerry feared most was to look fearful: this drove him to plunge into crowds; to change his schedule on impulse; to refuse to wear a Kevlar vest despite several requests from Peter Lake.
At length, Peter had told Clayton, “The senator’s a fatalist. My job isnot to be one. I’m going to need your help.” This conversation had two results: Kerry Kilcannon’s Secret Service detail became as large as the President’s own, and Clayton made it his personal business to keep Peter informed.
Now, waiting for Kerry to appear, Clayton saw Peter scan the roofline of the three-story building. Outdoor events were the most dangerous, Clayton knew. The Service could control an auditorium, but there were too many ways to shoot a candidate in the open—from a building, a car, any vantage point that afforded a line of fire to a marksman with a high-powered weapon.That was what Peter Lake remembered about Jack Kennedy.
Peter had fifty agents assigned to Kerry Kilcannon, running in three eight-hour shifts, with teams leapfrogging California to cover each event. Planning Kerry’s protection was as stressful as the protection itself, and in this way, it was like advance work—one error by an advance man could ruin an event; one error by the Service, and Kerry might be dead. “The presidency is the biggest nut magnet in the world,” Peter had told Clayton. “And some of these would-be assassins don’t care about themselves. All they want is to get close enough.”
Now, waiting for Kerry, Clayton saw Dan Biasi and Joe Morton standing in front of the speakers’ platform, watching the crowd. That both wore sunglasses was a backhanded tribute to John Hinckley. After Hinckley shot Reagan, the Service had identified him in prior films of a speech given by Jimmy Carter, mingling with the crowd. When questioned, Hinckley had admitted planning to shoot Carter. What had stopped him was a Secret Service agent wearing sunglasses. Unable to see his eyes, Hinckley believed that the agent was watching him.
“Maybe hewas ,” Peter Lake had told Clayton. “What we look for is any face that’s not part of the crowd experience—serious while everyone around him is cheering, watchingus instead of the candidate. Review those films, and Hinckley’s face is justdifferent from anyone else. You don’t even have to know who he is.”
Behind the speakers’ platform, Clayton saw the lead car of the motorcade coming to a stop. He looked at the press platform and, for the first time, spotted Lara Costello, with her cameraman. Then Kerry Kilcannon stepped from the black Lincoln, flanked by Secret Service agents, and headed for the platform.
The crowd began to cheer.
“Kerry, Kerry, Kerry . . .”
Standing beside Clayton, Peter Lake was intent, unsmiling. All at once, Clayton thought how drained Peter and his agents must feel at night—they were as taut as the assassin they were watching for. “You always wonder,” Peter had told him over a drink, “which time it will be.”
Clayton placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Six more days,” he said.
* * *
Edgy, Lara Costello waited for Kerry to appear.
Next to her, Lee McAlpine was showing Nate a love letter from an Ethiopian security guard who had seen her once on C-SPAN. “Dear Genius Woman,” the letter began. What followed was a tortured poem describing the despair of living in Ethiopia—the absence of food, of opportunity, of the hope of a better life—and an offer to become Lee’s “lover and guard dog.” Lee found this quite amusing; Lara had been to Ethiopia and knew that what the poem described was true.
Lee turned to her. “C-SPAN,” she said. “Amazing. You must get letters like this all the time.”
That she had seen more than Lee, Lara reminded herself, did not make her Mother Teresa. “From Ethiopia?” she answered. “Some. But most of them just want food. And they don’t write nearly as well.”
Lee gave her a brief quizzical look, then put the letter in the pocket of her jeans.
Scanning the crowd, Lara distracted herself by noting details she might use: that an angry-looking pro-life woman was holding a sign which read “Abort Kerry Kilcannon”; that the crowd was young and multiracial; that, knowing they had an attractive candidate, the Kilcannon signs used Kerry’s picture. Then she spotted a young black man with a hand-lettered “KFK” sign. At once, she remembered Kerry on the beach during that last weekend, smiling when she asked him why he refused to use his initials.
“Change one letter,” he had told her, “and I’m someone in a white hood. Or maybe a bucket of fried chicken.”
“Or a Kennedy,” she answered.
Kerry had stopped smiling. “I’m a policeman’s son from Newark. All I’ve got in common with the Kennedys is a murdered brother.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker and stared out at Nantucket Sound, adding softly, “I hate the way people romanticize death. One look at the back of Jamie’s head . . .”
They never spoke of it again. Perhaps, Lara thought, if she had known how
little time was left . . .
“Kerry, Kerry, Kerry . . . ,”the crowd began chanting.
Suddenly he was on the platform, perhaps a hundred feet away, a slim figure in shirtsleeves, his tie unknotted.
Lara felt the briefest pulse, the tightness of a caught breath. She could not see his face well. At this distance, he was all energy and movement, sending a current through the crowd. The visuals were good, Lara thought: waiting on the platform were a black congresswoman from South Central and several advocates for battered women.
Kerry paused, talking with each of them, and then walked to the podium. Perhaps, Lara thought, she only imagined that Kerry waited until he saw her, or that this moment—Kerry suddenly quite still—lasted more than a few seconds. But in that brief time she experienced two years’ worth of regret, loss, the guilt that never quite left her. Then she shut it down, like a curtain drawing closed, and Kerry began to speak.
* * *
A few minutes into his speech, Kerry noticed them—a handful of women scattered among the cheering volunteers. Their faces were tense, and they did not join in the applause. Kerry had a preternatural sense of crowds; had it not been for the impact of seeing Lara, he would have spotted them at once.
Now, as he spoke, they edged closer to one another.
“It is not just battered women who suffer.” Kerry paused, scanning the faces before him. “The children who witness the brutality of a father to a mother are scarred by that experience forever; by the helplessness they feel, by the anger it breeds, by the prospect—borne out by bitter experience—that many of those who witness abuse as children will practice abuse as adults.”
The crowd was quiet now. Kerry saw an Asian woman with tears on her face and wondered what emotion he had touched, what experience of pain had come to the surface. But that group of women still watched him intently, seeming detached from the excitement surrounding them.
“Should children be punished,” Kerry asked, “because their father is abusive and their mother has no skills? Shouldwomen be abandoned because, after a good-faith effort, the one way to protect themselves is to leave?
“I think this country is better than that . . .”
Suddenly forming a line, the women held their banner aloft for the TV cameras.
“Abortion Is a Right,” the banner read, “Not a Favor.”
The women began a chant—their voices ragged but audible enough for the press to hear.
“We will not apologize,”they called out.“We will not apologize.”
* * *
Watching from the bleachers, Nate Cutler felt the pieces fall into place: the memo in his pocket; Mason’s speech in Boston; the demonstrators now.
Next to him, Lara Costello seemed taut. “Whoare they?” she asked.
“Anthony’s Legions, I expect—militant pro-choicers. Kilcannon’s advance team fucked up somehow, and nowthis is what gets on the news.”
When he turned to her, Lara was quite pale.
* * *
Lara felt Nate watching her.
“I’m not asking you to apologize,” Kerry told the women. “Neither is anyone here.”
Quickly, a trim woman with glasses and long gray hair called out to Kerry, “We want to be heard.”
Kerry hesitated, then nodded. “Come on up.”
“Risky,” Nate murmured.
Lara shook her head. “He can’t blow them off—not after Boston.” All around them, the television Minicams followed the woman’s progress to the speakers’ platform.
Kerry gestured toward the podium. Nodding curtly, the woman stepped to the microphone. Amplified by the PA system, her voice was high, nervous.
“On behalf of pro-choice women,” she began, “we want answers to our questions.
“You’ve said a fetus is a life. Does it have legal rights? Do you believe that a woman who has an abortion is, effectively, a murderer?”
Tense, Lara watched Kerry’s face. But at this distance, all that she could see was how intently he seemed to listen.
The woman turned to him. “You also say, Senator Kilcannon, thatyou’re pro-choice. Does that mean you believe a woman has an absolute right to choose?
“Do you support the right to a partial-birth abortion?
“Do you support the use of the abortion pill RU-486, to protect women from potential violence like at the Boston clinic?
“Do your personal and religious beliefs mean that a Kilcannon presidency would be a risk to pro-choice women?”
Abruptly, she faced Kerry. “In the last two years, the right to choose has been eroded in Congress and in the courts. Your party isour only protection. The Vice President’s position is clear. We feel threatened by your recent statements on choice, and we need to know just who you really are.”
The questions were straightforward, each a perfect sound bite. For a moment, Lara shut her eyes.
“My turn?” Kerry asked politely, and walked to the podium. The crowd was silent, waiting.
“First,” he said crisply, “I support the right to choose.
“I support the use of RU-486.
“I support the partial-birth abortion to protect the life or physical health of the mother.
“My personal and religious beliefs are just that—I don’t propose to force them on anyone, let alone make women and their doctors outlaws. Only a woman can make this difficult judgment, based on herown life and herown beliefs.”
Kerry turned to the woman. “Those positions are as clear as I can make them. They’re the same as Dick Mason’s, or any of the thousands of politicians in this country who call themselves ‘pro-choice.’
“And,” he added, “they are absolutely devoid of moral content orany thought too complicated to fit onto a bumper sticker.”
“Jesus,” Nate said. “He was almost out of this.” But those listening seemed rapt; Lara felt herself stand straighter.
Kerry faced the crowd. “In an environment where pro-life fanatics use harassment and even violence, to concede how complex abortion is may seem like a step backward. I sympathize with those fears. But having an abortion is the most wrenching decision some women will ever have to make, and no ‘position’I take will ever change that.
“Why are so many people so uncomfortable with partial-birth abortion? Because it makes it so painfully clear that an abortion is not just another operation and that the words we use to avoid that truth—like ‘procedure’ and ‘choice’—beg the difficult questions each woman must face alone.”
His voice grew soft. “Any parent who has ever seen a sonogram, or listened to the heartbeat of an unborn baby, or thanked God for the doctor who saved their premature child, knows that.”
“Oh, Kerry,”Lara said under her breath. The crowd was utterly silent.
“I didn’t come here to talk about abortion. I wish it weren’t an issue. It’s not the proper business of a senator—or a President—to force pregnant women to have children.” Once more, Kerry turned to the woman. “Your rights are safe with me. You needn’t apologize for anything. ButI refuse to apologize for believing what I believe.”
For a long moment, there was silence. And then the applause started, slowly building—a solemn sound, different than cheers. To Lara, it was the sound of respect.
Beside her, Nate was quiet.
EIGHT
Checking his watch, Nate saw that it was nearly six o’clock.
As the crowd drifted away, the print reporters hurried to the press filing area, a canvas tent on the knoll overlooking the plaza. But Nate had no deadline; his responsibilities were to write a weekly article and to accumulate materials forNewsworld ’s special “Campaign 2000” issue, covering the early primaries to the November general election.
Today’s incident would be part of that, he was certain. But the deeper story could become the campaign’s central drama, rich in character, irony, and, to Nate, something akin to tragedy. Though part of Nate recoiled, he could imagine that, for the rest of his life, he would be known as
the reporter who had brought down Kerry Kilcannon.
On the field near the press tent, he spotted Lara.
She was setting up for a shoot. At a distance, she seemed to be practicing her lines as she paced, waiting for her cue. He could not resist watching.
Crossing the field, he stood to one side.
Lara stared at the ground, oblivious to anything but the cameraman, the instructions coming through her earpiece, her own thoughts. “When I say ‘private trauma,’ ” she said through her microphone, “that’s your cue to roll the tape.”
She cocked her head, as if listening. “All right,” she answered, and faced the camera.
A moment passed. “Speaking in Los Angeles,” Lara began, “Kerry Kilcannon capped a day devoted to issues targeting female voters—education, day care, support for battered women. But his appearance outside a women’s shelter was interrupted by pro-choice militants, demanding that he clarify his recent statement that a fetus is a ‘life.’ His response was to suggest that abortion is a public right but—at least for some women—a private trauma . . .”
Abruptly, Lara stopped. Nate realized that the technicians in the NBC sound truck were running the tape. Listening, Lara was intent, motionless. Then she raised her eyes to the camera.
“This wasnot the speech,” Lara continued, “that Kerry Kilcannon had planned. In the California primary, the women’s vote is critical, and the campaign had hoped to avoid further problems on the abortion issue.
“Senator Kilcannondid strongly affirm his pro-choice stance. But by implying that those views begged deeper moral questions, he may have said more than he needed to. The question is whether voters will remember his public position or his personal qualms—and how they will feel about either.
“Lara Costello, NBC News, with the Kilcannon campaign in Los Angeles.”
Lara was still for a moment. When she turned to him, Nate realized that she had been aware of him all along. Her gaze was level, cool.
“Well?” she asked.
At once, Nate felt uncomfortable. “Kilcannon went too far.”
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