NO SAFE PLACE

by Richard North Patterson

  “The President was right,” he said. “You think you know what it takes to run. But you don’t.”

  Beside him, Clayton stared ahead. “And so?”

  “So I’m a Catholic, not a Quaker. Find out what else is there.”

  * * *

  “So,” Kate Feeney asked Sean, “how did you do?”

  The question startled him. He had been absorbed in his search for a gun—the dealer who could not help him, the street hustler he did not trust. But Sean found himself still sitting in Kilcannon headquarters, at nine in the evening, after hours of calls to strangers.

  “I did all right,” he managed to say. “But there’s lots of undecideds.”

  Kate frowned, thoughtful. “Some of mine are waiting for the debate. That’s good for Kerry, don’t you think?”

  Sean nodded. It was hard to speak.

  “Well,” she said, “Kerry’s coming here tomorrow. That should help.”

  Sean stared at the table. “I wonder if we’ll get to meet him.”

  “God, I’dlove to.” Kate no longer sounded tired. “I think he’s the best thing that could happen to this country. He’s so caring and honest, and he doesn’t play political games.”

  So caring,Sean thought bitterly.So honest. What did she really know about this ally of abortionists, breaker of promises, traitor to his own religion? Standing, he shoved both hands in the pockets of his blue jeans.

  Kate looked up at him. Her guileless expression held pity for his awkwardness, Sean suspected—or, worse, concealed disquiet. “Aren’t you sticking around for pizza?” she asked.

  For an instant, Sean wished to stay. Just to be alone with her, to have her understand his silence. Then his own distrust, the fear of rejection, hit him like a slap in the face.

  “No,” he said. “Tomorrow I’m coming in early.”

  He turned and walked away.

  Rick Ginsberg stood amidst a knot of people—listening, nodding, providing guidance. Sean waited, a few feet distant, not wanting to be part of them.

  At last, Rick noticed him. He wiped his glasses, looking weary, as the mahogany-skinned receptionist told him they were nearly out of leaflets. “I’ll call them,” he said tiredly. “First thing.”

  Satisfied, she headed toward the pizza. Rick put on his glasses, regarding Sean with a wry, complicit smile.It never ends, the smile said.You know how it is.

  “What’s up, John?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just that Senator Kilcannon’s coming tomorrow, and I wondered . . .” He shrugged, eyes on the tile.

  “You want to meet him.” Rick’s tone was patient. “That might be tough, tomorrow. We’ve already got people going to the events, and you’ve been great on the phones.”

  Sean looked up at him. “It would mean a lot.”

  Rick studied him. Quietly, he answered, “Then I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  It was nine-thirty in San Francisco before the weary band of reporters reached the Saint Francis Hotel, another hour before Nate was able to retrieve his luggage and locate his room. That made it one-thirty a.m. in Washington; when he called his editor at home, it took her five rings to answer, and her voice sounded thick and dazed.

  Without apology, Nate said, “Your message read ‘urgent.’ ”

  “Yeah,” Jane answered. “There’s something more.” Abruptly, she seemed to have awakened. “Sheila Kahn talked to one of Costello’s ex-neighbors—a retired army colonel who detests Kilcannon’s politics and told Sheila he ‘knew the little bastard on sight.’

  “Anyhow, this man claims he was walking his greyhound one fine spring morning, and who should come out the front door of the building but Kerry Kilcannon, wearing a tuxedo. Kilcannon saw him, the colonel says, and looked the other way. Then he walked to an old compact car with New Jersey plates saying ‘USS’ and drove off.”

  Was itthat night, Nate wondered. “Did this guy ever see him with Lara?”

  “No. Never with her. And only that once.”

  Nate lay back in his bed. That the memory was so clear did not surprise him; in a white evening dress, Lara had looked so slim and elegant that she had, figuratively speaking, stopped his heart. It was the moment when Nate had stopped deluding himself and begun wondering what to do. “This would have been three years ago,” he asked, “right?”

  “How did you knowthat ?”

  “Lara and I were both at theTimes . She’d invited Kilcannon to the Congressional Correspondents Dinner—a real coup for a rookie. But I didn’t figure they were fucking.”

  “Well, they were, it seems. Staying over at her place wasn’t smart.”

  For another moment, Nate was quiet. He could also remember when Lara had first mentioned Kerry Kilcannon, months before that dinner. How soon after that, Nate wondered, had Kilcannon begun to see Lara as he did?

  “It’s not enough,” Nate said at last.

  “Of course not.” Jane’s tone was filled with impatience. “But surely for a question, or to catch Kilcannon in a lie. When are you meeting with him?”

  Nate could feel his own frustration. “Kit Pace is stonewalling me. When I tried to tell her this was for his ears only, Kit did the old ‘tell me why I should bother him at a time like this . . .’ ”

  “Because you’reyou ,” Jane snapped. “And fromNewsworld , not the fuckingWichita Bugle . Don’t they know what we can do?”

  “Of course. I even gave her a deadline—seventy-two hours.” Pausing, Nate made himself sound less defensive. “Maybe Lara’s told Kilcannon. Kit figures we can’t run this without telling them what it is, and she’s playing for time.”

  There was silence on the other end. “She’s right,” Jane answered tersely. “And we don’t have time. Tell Kit that we want Kilcannon tomorrow, and what we want to ask him. In case Kit’s forgotten what she already knows.” Jane’s voice filled with real anger. “It’s totally unethical: Costello’s not a reporter, she’s Kilcannon’s fifth column. She deserves whatever happens as much as he does.”

  NINE

  At ten forty-five—one forty-five in Newark—Clayton told Carlie how much he loved her, and slowly put down the telephone.

  They had a deal: no matter how late, Clayton could call. She missed him, of course, but there was something else neither needed to say—that Clayton did not sleep well without hearing that, as far as Carlie knew, the twins were fine. No matter that they were in college now; since Ethan’s death, for Clayton not to ask felt like an act of carelessness. It was deeper than superstition, much more than a habit.

  Tonight, as so often, after Clayton asked about the twins, Carlie asked how Kerry was.

  This association, too, was something they both understood. When they were at the hospital, waiting for their son to die, Kerry had stayed up with them. His wife was the one person with whom Clayton had shared the deepest secret of Kerry’s life and how it had begun. So that two nights before, when Clayton told her Lara was back, Carlie had emitted a long sigh. Not for the politics of it but for Kerry himself.

  Go back to Washington,they had told him after Ethan’s funeral.We’ll be all right . . .

  If Kerry had stayed with them, Clayton wondered now, would it ever have happened? But this was hindsight: they—and perhaps Kerry—had known nothing.

  Restless, Clayton turned on the television, the nightly tracking polls strewn next to him on the bed.

  In five minutes of channel surfing, he saw two “Mason for President” ads stressing the Vice President’s “consistent support for every woman’s right to choose.” But the local CBS station featured Mason himself.

  The Vice President had flown back from Boston to San Francisco the night before, Clayton knew, and the news clip showed him at a breakfast for entrepreneurial women. As Clayton watched, Mason looked up from his text and said firmly,“By the way, I want to emphasize what I’ve said many times before—economic opportunity for women goes hand in hand with reproductive freedom . . .”

  The telephone ran
g.

  “Looked at the numbers?” Jack Sleeper asked without preface.

  “Oh, yeah,” Clayton answered. “Still down three percent statewide. But Kerry was strong all day, and he says to run the ad where he gets shot. I’ve already told Frank.”

  “Thank God,” Jack said fervently. “Kerry could win the whole fucking thing. Not just this, but the presidency.”

  Except forNewsworld , Clayton thought. Jack’s relief was so evident that he was glad the pollster did not know.

  On the screen, the well-dressed businesswomen rose to applaud Mason.“The highlight for many,” the reporter’s voice broke in,“was Mason’s linkage of economic progress with reproductive choice . . .”

  “You’ve seen Dick’s ads,” Clayton said to Sleeper. “The stuff on choice.”

  “Hesees what we see, Clayton. Among pro-choice women, the gap’s widening—we’re down another three in the Bay Area.” The pollster’s voice was firm. “I was right last night. Do a pro-choice event in San Francisco, where the problem’s worst.”

  Tired, Clayton stared at the poll numbers. “I’ll talk to Senator Penn,” he said at last. “San Francisco’s her base, and we damn sure need her help.”

  * * *

  Sean Burke stared at the television, transfixed.

  He was in shirtsleeves, standing on a platform before a crowd of farmers, suddenly speaking from Sean’s heart.“I am quite certain,” Kerry said,“that someone who chooses to take the life of another human should forfeit his right to live . . .”

  He understands,Sean thought.He knows that I am coming for him, that God’s law imposes death on the murderers of children. That his own death is retribution.

  Absolved, Sean shivered.

  The picture changed. Now Kerry stood in a park, his every word an accusation . . .

  “The notion that James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights so that racists and sociopaths and madmen could slaughter innocent men, women, and children with assault weaponsorhandguns is one of the most contemptible notions that an irresponsible minority has ever crammed down the throats of its potential victims . . .”

  Sean felt a sudden wave of nausea.

  He hurried to the bathroom. When he bent over the sink, spasms racking his body, his spittle was flecked with blood. Kerry’s voice accused him still.

  Sean dried his face. The lesson life had taught him, he remembered, was to trust no one. Least of all the street kid who had promised him a gun.

  Wiping his mouth, Sean swallowed an antacid pill.

  The knife was in his suitcase. He had bought it when he bought the gun, unsure of why he needed it, simply because he liked to feel its balance in his hand.

  Sean walked past the television. As he opened the tiny closet, he imagined himself locked inside, heard the angry voice of his father.

  “Do you think it ends with me?”Kerry asked.

  Fingers trembling, Sean slid the knife inside his jacket.

  * * *

  As Kerry watched, Lara’s face filled the screen.

  “In the short term,”she was saying,“these proposals have little chance of becoming law. But Kilcannon’s speech neatly balanced his earlier support for the death penalty with an issue that appeals to liberals, even as it showcased his gift for using demonstrators as foils . . .”

  The impact of seeing her was so intense that, for an instant, Kerry felt he could reply.Why so cynical? he wanted to ask.Have you forgotten so much about me that what I say comes down to neatness and balance? . . .

  How could you run,he imagined Lara asking in return,knowing what might happen?

  The question had always been there, unspoken. He could see it in her eyes the morning after their last fateful lovemaking, when the hurricane had passed and the world outside was silent. Could feel it in her fingertips as she gently touched his face.

  On the screen, Kerry’s own face appeared.

  “In the last half of this last century, men with guns stole our future by killing the best of our leaders . . .”

  Because ofthis, he answered her now. And because of you.

  That final weekend, she did not answer the telephone. Kerry had lost track of the times he had called her from his hotel room: at some point, pain and desperation had become the slow death of hope, then a terrible certainty, and he knew what she had done. Finally, the message on his home telephone, her voice weary, toneless. That it was over. That her feelings no longer mattered. That—for both their sakes—she could never see him again.

  As if he were someone else, Kerry had gone downstairs, to give the speech he had promised. As he spoke, another death occurred inside him.

  She washere now, in this hotel. Alone.

  Please, Kerry. Don’t try to contact me. It’s finished.

  The two years since came back to him: his decision to run, his debt to Clayton and to all those who believed in him. And, when none of this was quite enough, his respect for her wishes—the near certainty that, with all that had happened and was happening now, she would flinch at the sound of his voice.

  Hervoice filled the room.

  “Today was the twelfth anniversary of James Kilcannon’s death. Kerry Kilcannon never spoke of this. But then he didn’t have to. From his introduction by Stacey Tarrant to his last plunge into the crowd, his message was clear: ‘I’m the candidate with a moral mission, standing in my brother’s place.’ ”

  Kerry turned off the television, and then the lights.

  * * *

  Alone in her room, Lara could not stop crying. It was as if all her strength had been for those who watched her watching Kerry, and when they were gone, she had none.

  He’ll never live to be President,Lee McAlpine had said.

  And if he lives, Lara thought now, he still may never be President. Because of what lay between them.

  I love you,she had imagined telling him.I want to be with you. Imagined this a thousand times, after it was too late. Imagined being selfish, no matter what the cost.

  Imagined it now. Like a child who did not like the story she had heard, and wished to change the ending.

  Except that it wastheir story—Kerry’s and hers—and she had written the ending herself.

  Washington, D.C.

  MAY 1996-APRIL 1997

  ONE

  The first time Lara Costello met Kerry Kilcannon left her intrigued and more than a little curious.

  Though she was new on Capitol Hill, prominent politicians had long since ceased to impress her; she had experienced enough in California to develop an ear for fraud and hollowness, a sense of how political posturing affected ordinary people. It was her focus on the inner landscape of her subjects that separated Lara from some of her peers. And this was partly what had brought her to where she was on that late-spring afternoon, waiting by the “Senators Only” elevator while the Senate debated a proposed constitutional amendment barring desecration of the flag. No subtleties here, Lara thought; the fascination was watching opponents pretzel themselves to avoid looking unpatriotic. All she wanted was a quote or two, and her story was complete.

  The door to the Senate swung open, and Ted Kennedy emerged, then Kerry Kilcannon. “What we really need here,” Kilcannon murmured to Kennedy, “is a mandatory death sentence. None of this ‘three flags and you’re out’ stuff.”

  Kennedy turned to his colleague and, seeing Kilcannon’s mischievous grin, began to chuckle. It was a nice moment, Lara thought—two Irishmen, standing in the shadowy elegance of the Senate, sharing a laugh about the vicissitudes of their job. Which one to approach? Lara wondered, and then Kennedy headed toward the Senate meeting room, Kilcannon toward the elevator.

  “Senator?” Lara said. “Lara Costello,New York Times .”

  Kilcannon stopped. He was not tall—five feet ten, at most. But what struck her was an incongruous youthfulness—a thatch of tousled hair, the slender build of a teenager not yet grown into his body—and then the startling contradiction of his eyes: their green-flecked blue irises were larger than most,
giving Lara the unsettling sense of a man who had seen more than someone twice his age. It was an illusion, Lara thought, abetted by her knowledge of his history.

  “I guess you’re new,” he said, and held out his hand.

  His handshake was cool and dry. “Two weeks,” Lara answered.

  Kilcannon smiled. “Another two, and you’ll have had enough.” He took a few steps and pushed the button to the “Senators Only” elevator. “What can I do for you? If anything.”

  “I wanted to ask you about the flag amendment.”

  Kilcannon gave a mock wince. “Isn’t it sufficient that I have tovote on this thing? Now I have to tell you what Ithink ?”

  Lara could not tell whether this was teasing, the somewhat quirky humor of someone willing to laugh at his own dilemma, or an outright refusal. “I’ve never noticed voting was the same as thinking,” she ventured. “It’s nice when someone does both, and even nicer when he shares.”

  Kerry cocked his head, appraising her. “Oh, well,” he said. “Why don’t you ride with me to the Russell Building.”

  She followed him into the elevator. Together, they descended to the bowels of Congress, the gray basement corridors where the Senate subway waited. Walking quickly, Kilcannon waved Lara into an open minicar. There was an energy about him, Lara thought, less the grace of an athlete than a certain restless vigor. But when he sat across from her, Kilcannon lapsed into stillness, preoccupied.

  The car began moving. “The flag amendment,” Lara said.

  Kilcannon looked up. “Oh,” he said, “that. Do you know how many actual cases of flag desecration we’ve had since 1776?”

  “No. I don’t.”