Kerry’s stomach was a knot; he felt constricted, as though two years of emotions had nowhere to go. “Please.” Her voice had a desperate quality. “Let’s talk about something else. We used to be able to talk.”
He gestured toward the couch. She sat at one end, facing him; he sat at the other. It was instinctive, he realized—this was how they would sit in his apartment at the end of a day, each with a wineglass, sharing whatever had happened since they were last together. Only, now she looked tentative, like a bird about to take flight.
“I’m seeing Cutler tomorrow,” he told her. “No choice.”
Somehow this subject seemed easier for her. “What are you going to do?”
“About Cutler? Lie, of course.”
“I mean about the campaign.”
“Withdraw, probably. We’ve found a way to back off Mason. But I think the Republicans know, too.”
He watched her take that in. Beneath her stillness, Kerry sensed a shiver. But when she looked at him again, her gaze was cool and direct. “Have you ever considered,” she said, “that the truth might be an option? You never wanted me to do it, after all.”
Briefly, the thought made Kerry angry. “Throw you to the wolves, career and all, and explain what a stand-up guy I was? No way.” Pausing, he softened this with a smile. “Besides, Clayton says it wouldn’t work.”
He saw the answering trace of humor at the corners of her eyes. “Howis Clayton these days?”
“Tired. Like me.”
She looked away, pensive again. “Do you know what’s so terrible?” she told him. “I don’t even remember what this woman looked like. It was just that what I went through was harder than I expected.”
Kerry watched her. “Maybe that’s because,” he answered, “you didn’t do it just for you. There was the small matter of my career.”
Lara tilted her head, as if to readjust the focus of her thoughts. “What has it been like, Kerry? Running for President.”
She needed to know, Kerry thought: his candidacy was the culmination of her decision. But she was also finding her emotional bearings, he guessed, and the subject of his endangered quest, however fraught, was less damaging than all they had lost together. For a moment, he looked about the suite—its neutral colors, its look of a furniture showroom, way station for a thousand strangers who left no trace—and sadly realized that he and Lara had always been in hiding.
“The word that comes to me,” he said at last, “is ‘more.’
“More pressure—what you say and do affects so many people, and the scrutiny’s so relentless.
“More intoxicating, because you become gripped by a vision of yourself at the center of the world. Everything and everyone else is all about you—the choices are yours, you get all the credit and all the blame—and it occurs on such an epic scale.” It was a relief to say what he felt again, Kerry realized, in a way he had never done with anyone else. “The President once warned me about the sheer enormity of running: how demanding it was and, sometimes, how degrading. He was right—there’s no way to imagine it. But there’s something that’s even worse.
“I’ve come to believe that who I am, and whatI believe in, is what the country needs.” Pausing, he finished quietly: “It’s embarrassing to say it aloud. Even to you.”
Her gaze was soft. “Embarrassing? Or painful, now?”
She was right, Kerry knew: the thought of giving up ravaged him. “No one could have tried harder, Lara. Ever since I was a kid, there’s never been any other way for me.” He looked into her face. “But I’ve also done things far worse than lying to Nate Cutler, things I never thought I’d do. Things I’d neverhad to do, because Jamie had done them for me.
“In the last few days, for the first time, I’ve begun to comprehend him: he was the one who had to make it on his own. And I wish I could talk to him now.”
She sat up, intent, more the woman he remembered. “What would you say?”
“That I finally understand what he said before he died: ‘But what does it mean?’ And that it’s helped me. Because the only reason to go through all this is to make itmean something.” His voice was quiet again. “Every day, I’ve tried to do that.”
Somehow, the last phrase seemed to echo with his loneliness. Lara looked away.
“Overseas,” he asked her. “Was it what you hoped?”
Lara put her feet up on the couch, sitting crosswise. “By the time I went,” she said in an even voice, “I was hoping for so many things. One was to be so absorbed in work that I forgot you.
“The work was good. But what I saw—especially in Bosnia and Africa—was terrible.
“Those places weren’t a game, like the Hill sometimes seemed to me. It was a matter of antediluvian prejudice, psychosis, ego, brute ignorance.” Her voice hardened. “Bosnia didn’t need to happen. It was ripped apart by people who did it on purpose: in their own way, Karadzic and Milosevic were as evil as Hitler—they had just had a few million less victims to work with. Rwanda was pretty much the same. And the world at large donated its usual proportions of bumbling, cowardice, and indifference.
“I would say it was unbelievable, Kerry, but I came to believe it. The day I knew that for sure was when I interviewed a Tutsi woman in Rwanda while she identified the bodies of ten members of her family, mostly children, chopped to pieces with machetes by her Hutu neighbors.” Lara’s tone grew quieter. “I did the interview, and we filmed the bodies. Because I wanted the world to know.”
The quality of the experience, Kerry saw, was difficult for her to convey. It seemed that Lara did not believe anyone could understand; she stared at the couch in front of her, and her voice became a monotone. “They didn’t know, really, because they didn’t want to. Sometimes I could still get something done—maybe prod the government to help get food to people. But I never knew what became of the ones I saw.” She gave the smallest shrug. “I had airplane tickets, credit cards, a passport—the freedom to come and go. It was like being a voyeur, only I was watching things most people turn away from.”
As if to reach her, Kerry touched her wrist. “Did you haveanyone ?” he asked.
She looked at him with renewed directness. “The choices were other journalists or someone from whatever country you were in. And there were problems with both.
“There was a night in Sarajevo, after the war started again. I went to dinner at the apartment of a guy from AP—a bunch of other journalists, mostly, and a college professor I’d brought.
“Paul was my age—a Serb, very perceptive, handsome in his mustached, dark-eyed way—and quite political. We’d become friends, as much as you could with anyone in such a crazy place, and he sat next to me at dinner. There was the sound of shelling nearby; all of us ignored it—we were drinking cheap wine and telling stories, getting drunker and drunker as the sound of explosions moved closer. Beneath the table, Paul held my hand.
“A shell hit the building.
“The walls rattled and the lights went out. Suddenly Paul pulled me under the table, holding me, and then a second shell hit, and we were kissing each other quite desperately. It was too dark to see—I think I could have made love to him right there.” Briefly, Lara’s fingers grazed her throat; Kerry had the sad sense of remembered surprise, of widowed desire. Softly, she finished. “Then I thought of the hurricane, and you.”
Silent, Kerry covered her hand.
She looked up at him. “It wasn’t only that,” she said simply. “Paul was part of the story. I never wanted to be part of the story again.”
The words had a painful resonance—by covering the campaign, Lara was part of the story, so badly compromised that she might never see herself as a reporter after this. Or be one.
“What happened to him?” Kerry asked.
“He was murdered. By Karadzic’s people.”
Kerry removed his hand—a gesture of consolation seemed pointless and, from him, ill-timed. He wondered if it was possible, now, to know her.
“I’ve ima
gined seeing you again,” he said finally. “A thousand ways. But in my heart, it was always as if the last two years had never happened. That somehow we’d still be us . . .”
Her gaze was penetrating, just as he remembered. This much was familiar—her inability to look away for long. And then Kerry realized what he was sure of.
He took both her hands. “Do you remember what I said once, about running for President? That the love of any one thing is barbaric?”
She smiled faintly. “We were driving to Kinkead’s. In that beat-up car of yours.”
“My saving grace, Lara, is that I love two things. The other one is you.”
* * *
It was past midnight when Nate knocked on Lara’s door.
He did not feel right about this. But his directive was not simply to watch Lara—it was to question her further, the better to prepare himself for tomorrow morning’s confrontation with Kilcannon. What Mason had done might make her more susceptible; certainly, it had made her that much more a target.
No answer.
Pausing, Nate leaned the side of his head against the door. He heard nothing stir. Puzzled, he took the elevator from the sixth floor to the lobby and called her from the house phone—once, then twice, for ten rings each.
He put down the phone, reflective. She had to be out; a reporter might not answer the door, but a late-night phone call could be too important to miss. He meandered through the lobby, a miracle of brass and mirrors, to the bar.
There was the usual collection—bored businesspeople, a handful of his colleagues, a few politicians who supported Mason or Kilcannon. But no Lara. Nor had Nate expected to find her; he could not imagine that, tonight, she would want to be with anyone there.
Could they bethatfoolish? he wondered.
Kilcannon was ten floors above her; there would be agents in front of his suite, on the stairwell, by the elevator. Nate collected himself, then walked to the elevator and punched the button for sixteen.
The elevator whistled upward, glided to a stop, and opened with a metallic chime.
There were three agents waiting. To Nate’s surprise, one was Peter Lake; as special agent in charge, Peter did not pull protective duty, and he tried to sleep when things were quiet.
Peter regarded him impassively. “What can I do for you, Nate?”
Nate felt edgy. “What areyou doing up? Is there a problem?”
“No problem. But this floor’s off-limits. As you know.”
Nate shrugged, eyes not moving from Peter’s face. “I was going to meet Lara Costello,” he said. “Is she already with Kilcannon?”
Nate saw a split-second’s hesitance, and then Peter shook his head. “You also know we don’t answer questions. But when the Pope shows up, I’ll ask Kit to phone you.”
Pressing the elevator button, Peter placed a comradely hand on Nate’s shoulder. The door slid open. Unresisting, Nate said good night and entered.
Once the door shut, he pushed the button for Lara’s floor.
* * *
Trailing behind the others, Sean walked through the darkened chute where, tomorrow, Kerry Kilcannon would enter the plaza.
The barriers were already up, creating a narrow gauntlet that passed between a hotel and an office tower. Looming above, the lights from hotel rooms and office windows formed an irregular grid. But at ground level the shops were dim, their windows near-opaque; the street was bare except for a homeless straggler pushing a shopping cart, metal wheels scraping the sidewalk. Darkness imposed its own quiet; ahead, Ted Gallagher murmured to Donna Nicoletti and Rick Ginsberg.
Sean tried to imagine himself as Kerry Kilcannon in the last, unknowing moments of his life. But there were no crowds, no cheers, and the night felt close and chill; Sean thought again of his father, a closet door closing between them, and shivered.
Ahead, a slim figure paused: Kate Feeney.
She fell in beside him, not speaking. Instinctively, Sean found the outline of the handgun, hidden in his jacket. He had been so conscious of it that, a passenger in Kate’s car, he had felt she must sense its presence; for a confusing moment, it was as if they conspired together.
Sean heard the hollow sound of a hammer striking wood. Then, emerging from between the buildings, the chute ended at an open plaza.
At night, the plaza was a bowl of shadows. From the rear, a large, twisted form emerged—a contorted concrete sculpture, Sean realized, twenty-five feet high. Behind it was a broad deserted street, the looming face of a clock tower; in the distance, the Bay Bridge was a bracelet of lights, suspended from its cables.
Searching out the hammering sound, Sean turned to his left.
Against the office building, a wooden platform had begun to rise. It was skeletal in the darkness—like the remnants of some earlier civilization, Sean thought, the workmen like archaeologists.
The advance group formed a cluster, facing the bare plaza.
“Where’s the checkpoint?” Sean heard Rick Ginsberg ask.
Turning, Gallagher stood at the end of the chute. “You’ll be right here,” he said to Sean and Kate, “with our agent. As soon as we finish the sweep.”
Because of the sweep, Sean realized in despair, he could not hide the gun. He felt new fear course through him.
Crossing the plaza, the group stopped in front of the platform. Disheartened, Sean followed.
“Here’swhere the volunteers with signs will be,” Nicoletti said. “Right behind the press pool.”
Gallagher gazed up, surveying windows. Sean kept his eyes on the platform.
Pausing, a silent figure faced them, a workman. In the darkness, he was not unlike Kilcannon.
Instinctively, Sean moved closer.
The distance between them was thirty feet, he guessed. His sole chance would be from here, and only if he could somehow breach security.
Sean felt Kate Feeney touch his sleeve, affirming their shared duty.
EIGHT
Stunned, Lara gazed at her hands in Kerry’s, then into his face again.
“I love you,” he said. “Still.”
She felt her eyes close. How many times had she wished she could have the last days of their affair to live again, to choose some other path. But now she felt diminished, trapped by the harsh reality of the decisions she had made. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Tell me, Lara.”
She looked at him—older now, wearier, but still so emotionally immediate, so much the same man she had loved, that at first this recognition overwhelmed her. She stood, her hands in Kerry’s, shaking her head.
“No,”she managed.
He rose, hands on her waist now, face inches from hers. “Why?”
She turned from him. “Aside from all the guilt and regret—yoursand mine?”
“I don’t blame you for that. Please,listen to me.”
“You listen tome .” She turned on him, caught between anger and despair. “We can’t sneak around anymore. And once we’re out of the closet, the vultures will pick our bones. When did our affair start—tonight?” Slowing, her voice became a prayer for reason. “It would be all Nate Cutler needs, Kerry. You might as well admit the truth—”
“And if I did?”
“Then whenever you looked at me you’d see a lost baby and a lost chance. How many months would we last?”
Kerry thrust his hands in his pockets. His tone, though quiet, was etched with frustration. “That’s what you said two years ago. Look how well it’s worked.”
She gazed at him steadily. “Then let’s have the rest of the conversation, Kerry. Two years ago, I said you wanted to be President. I was right, wasn’t I?”
He looked down, then met her eyes again. “I suppose you were.”
“Well, there’s no supposing now.” Her voice softened. “Youdo love two things, Kerry. I watched your face tonight: even after what Mason did, you haven’t given up, have you? You’re still wondering how to bury this.”
He shrugged, silent. At length, he said, “It’s h
opeless.”
“If we go public, it will be. For good.” To ease the hurt, she went to him, clasping his arms. “We’d be on the cover of every magazine in America, and you’d be the punch line on Letterman and Leno I said you’d be two years ago. Because I made a decision for both of us, then told a stranger instead of you.”
He shook his head. “I’d rather risk it than be with anyone else. Whenever I looked at her, I’d wish she were you.”
Briefly, Lara tried smiling. “You reallyare a romantic, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said flatly. “Just too practical to live the way I have.” He cocked his head. “Are you being practical, Lara? Where doesyour career figure into this?”
She had felt so bleak, so compromised that—tonight—she had given it no thought. Moving away from him, she sat on the couch, alone. “I’d give a lot,” she said, “not to feel like such a whore. That’s part of what going overseas was about—penance. But, after tonight, I don’t know what it would take to feel like myself again.”
He fell quiet. She watched him, standing in the middle of a strange room, so much the captive of his own thoughts and feelings that minutes seemed to pass. “Maybe,” he said finally, “we could wait. You could go back to your job, get a grip. I deal with what I have to deal with. Then, after some time has passed . . .”
“We begin dating?”
“Something like that. No one needs to know that I’ve called you every night.” His voice grew soft again. “I’ve missed that too.”
“So have I, Kerry.” Lara struggled to find the truth. “But no matter how long we waited, Nate would wait us out—Nate, or your potential enemies. And imagine how ripe our story would be if you somehow managed to become President.”
“I suppose I’d have to marry you,” he answered. “Then the whole damned country would be stuck.”
Suddenly his unwillingness tosee made Lara angry at him. “And what a gift I’d be to fanatic right-to-lifers: the First Lady of the United States, symbol of heartless abortion. I wouldn’t do that to you, me,or other women—never mind that, for myself, I’ve come to hate what I did.” She stood again. “These people play forkeeps , Kerry—on both sides. They’d use me to destroy you.”
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