Protect and Defend

by Richard North Patterson

  “You’ve managed to force this on us,” Nolan had said. “We’ll all have ample time to live with that.”

  And so here she was. All that stood between her and a confrontation with the United States government was the pretty red-haired girl who, glancing quickly over her shoulder, peered through Sarah’s car window.

  Mary Ann sat next to her, gazing at the affidavit Sarah had given her to sign. Sarah could imagine how fateful it must seem to read its recitations—that she was twenty-four weeks pregnant; that her baby was hydrocephalic; that she risked infertility and other medical complications; that she wanted an abortion; that her parents would not consent. And that, therefore, she was petitioning the court to invalidate an act of Congress.

  Mary Ann seemed hardly to breathe. In a frail voice, she asked, “What happens if I sign this?”

  The “if” did not elude Sarah. “Let’s start with today,” she said. “An hour before I go to court, I’ll call the Department of Justice to give them notice.

  “At around three o’clock, I’ll go to the clerk’s office, file our papers, and ask to see the motions judge.” Sarah kept her recitation clipped, dispassionate. “Justice will have a lawyer from the U.S. Attorney’s office waiting for me. Together, we’ll go before the judge.

  “I’ll tell the judge what you want—an order ruling that the statute is unconstitutional, and that you can have an abortion. He’ll set a hearing date ten days from now. I’ll ask that the hearing be closed, our papers sealed from the public, and your identity concealed …”

  “Will my parents be there?”

  “Not today, I’d guess. But because you’re challenging the statute, not proceeding with it, the Justice Department may feel free to contact them—if for no other reason than that they’re prospective witnesses.” Pausing, Sarah considered her next words with care. “It’s possible that, by the time you get home tonight, your parents will already know.”

  Mary Ann shook her head as though waking from a dream. “Ten days,” she murmured. “How long will the hearing take?”

  “Several days beyond that.”

  “And then the court decides?”

  “Yes. But if we win, the government will go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where I used to work, and after that, they can seek review in the Supreme Court. The Protection of Life Act is an act of Congress, and it’s their duty to defend it.” Sarah lowered her voice. “The courts will expedite our case, but it will still take several weeks. All that time you’ll be getting more pregnant, and living at home.”

  Mary Ann closed her eyes. “God …”

  Sarah touched her shoulder, speaking softly. “I expect your parents will pressure you to withdraw the suit. If you want an abortion, you’ll have to stick with this—in and out of court. Otherwise, it’s better to change your mind right now.”

  Mary Ann slumped in the passenger seat. It seemed to be her characteristic posture when daunted or depressed; looking at the slender girl, her belly concealed by a bulky sweater, Sarah felt afraid for her.

  Breathing deeply, Mary Ann took Sarah’s hand.

  Surprised, Sarah looked down at the girl’s fingers, entwined in hers. Suddenly, Sarah wondered if part of her apprehension was for herself and that Mary Ann, sensing this, sought both to give, and receive, comfort.

  “It’s all right,” the girl said.

  Closing the door to his office, Senator Chad Palmer took the President’s call.

  “Let me guess,” he said to Kerry. “You’re really doing it.”

  “Yes. This afternoon, in the Rose Garden.”

  Standing, Chad felt apprehension mingle with anticipation. “Today? You’ve certainly managed to sit on this one.”

  “That was the idea, Chad. No one in the Senate knows.”

  “Not even Gage?”

  “Especially not Gage.” The President’s voice was calm. “I’m hoping to get her confirmed as soon as possible. A lot of that depends on how quickly you can move her through committee.”

  At once Chad grasped Kerry’s strategy—a surprise nomination; a lightning blitz of praise and good publicity; a surge of anticipation for the first female Chief Justice. And with this an inexorable pressure on the Senate to vote before prospective enemies discovered what Kerry and Chad already knew. Chad acknowledged the new president’s cleverness: once Chad had entered their conspiracy of silence, he, too, had a stake in its success, a price to pay for its failure.

  “Gage won’t want that,” he answered. “He’ll be leaning on me for time to pick her apart. Couched in the usual eyewash like ‘all deliberate speed’ and ‘exercising our constitutional prerogatives.’”

  “Mac Gage,” Kerry responded, “will die without ever having said a single thing worth remembering. A politician’s most dreaded legacy.”

  Chad was unamused. “Maybe. But someone could get hurt here. Better you—or Masters—than me.”

  “I understand,” Kerry said evenly. “But your ultimate interest is in confirming her, and it’s the right thing to do. There are ways to walk the line between Gage and me which help Caroline Masters without hurting you. Starting with your deep concern that the work of the Court not be interrupted …”

  “By the meddling of senators, you mean? Not so long ago you were one of us. So you know how much we treasure our moments in the sun.” Chad paused, and his voice became cool. “I appreciate the heads-up, Mr. President. But I’ll run these hearings as I see fit. Don’t get so wrapped up in your new office that you forget what you’ve known about me for the last twelve years.”

  There was a brief silence, and then a soft laugh from Kerry told Chad he had hit his target. “Actually,” the President told him, “I’ve spent the last few nights designing the Kilcannon Memorial.”

  “Is it an obelisk? Or does it have pillars?”

  “Both.” Kerry’s tone became sober again. “I appreciate your help, Chad. And I sincerely expect this nomination to wind up being good for both of us.”

  Once more, Chad felt the small tingle of foreboding. “That’s a comfort,” he answered. “Someday I’d like a monument of my own.”

  THIRTEEN

  MOMENTS BEFORE the announcement, Caroline waited with her family in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

  The President and Clayton Slade had scheduled the event for Friday afternoon; until Monday the White House could control the news cycle. In the last few hours they had pressed their allies to follow with prompt statements of approval—labor unions, minorities, trial lawyers, environmentalists, women’s groups. To disarm the Republicans, they had prepared for the media a bipartisan list of admirers from among Caroline’s colleagues, the establishment bar, former corporate clients, and ex-partners at Kenyon & Walker. The White House communications office would prime the press with favorable stories—young women in college or law school inspired by Caroline’s appointment; victims grateful for her favorable rulings in cases regarding rape and domestic violence. By Monday, a first impression of overwhelming and well-deserved support would be planted in the public mind.

  All of this, Clayton explained, was aimed at Chad Palmer and Macdonald Gage. Administration spokespeople would fan across the Sunday morning talk shows, stressing that both senators had voted to confirm her for the Court of Appeals. Those same shows would be badgering Palmer and Gage to appear; there would be little either man could do except venture cautious praise of a judge who, by Monday, would be one of the most famous women in America.

  There would be no escaping her, Caroline thought wryly. Tapes of the Carelli trial would punctuate the news; on Sunday, Lara Costello was hosting a luncheon for Caroline to meet other prominent women; tonight, after the announcement, she and Jackson Watts were dining with the President and Lara at a Washington restaurant, where a photographer and a reporter from the Post’s style section would be waiting to record the moment. But nothing was more important, Clayton had emphasized, than the first vivid image—Kerry Kilcannon in the Rose Garden, introducing Ame
rica to its new Chief Justice.

  “We want a tableau,” Clayton had told her. “You, the President, the Vice President, your friend Jackson Watts, and your family—sister, brother-in-law, and niece.”

  This comment filled Caroline with misgivings, and not just because Clayton knew the truth. The focus on Brett made her uneasy; her half sister Betty—jealous of Caroline and fearful, even now, that she would somehow reclaim Brett as her own—would be loath to appear. But Caroline was losing control, swept up in Kerry Kilcannon’s determination to secure swift confirmation. This was one of its costs.

  “I’ll call my sister,” she had promised.

  So here they were—as Caroline had mordantly put it to Betty—“hiding in plain sight.” A typical American family: Betty’s husband, Larry, a college professor who, Caroline happened to know, had once been involved with a student; Betty, daughter of their father’s first wife, who had always despised Caroline’s French mother; Caroline herself. A woman who sometimes mourned her youth, and still remembered holding a child in her arms …

  “Wake up, Dorothy. You’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  Startled, Caroline turned from the window to Brett, her niece by law, her daughter in secret.

  Brett was smiling at her; the expression was so like Caroline’s mother that, once more, she was grateful that the two had never met. Had Brett even seen a picture of Nicole Dessaliers, she would have seen herself: brown curly hair, a delicate chin, a full, even mouth, slender face, high forehead, vivid green eyes. But Brett’s beauty was animated by more kindness than Nicole had been able to muster—for that, Caroline supposed, she had Betty and Larry to thank. For all their flaws, a family.

  “Was I that adrift?” Caroline asked.

  “A million miles away,” Brett answered. “You looked like how I feel when I’m writing a short story.”

  Caroline returned her smile. “If only I could put my mental absences to such good use. Instead I was experiencing amazement that my prosaic life had come to this.”

  “I think it’s all very cool,” Brett murmured in parody of a high schooler. “Except for the President, who’s hot.”

  For Caroline, this moment lightened the occasion, distracting her from the myriad ways in which Brett Allen touched her heart. She looked around them at the oval-shaped room, its wallpaper depicting a panorama of American scenes populated by white males, and at the people who were here on her account. Considerably more awed than their daughter, Larry and Betty were listening to Kerry Kilcannon who, on public occasions, seemed to generate his own electricity, a compound of youth, magnetism, and a certain restless vigor—“hot” was as good a word as any. Jackson Watts was chatting with Lara Costello, who had the dark, perceptive eyes and grave loveliness Caroline somehow associated with Latinas. Near them, Clayton Slade, a bulky African American, towered over Ellen Penn—not only Jewish, but the first woman to serve as Vice President. Taken together, they symbolized the ways in which the face of America was changing, the present century quite different from the last. And now Caroline would be part of this.

  Kit Pace, the President’s press secretary, bustled into the room and murmured to him. Breaking away from the Allens, Kilcannon crossed the room and said to Caroline with a smile, “Kit tells me it’s show time. Are you ready?”

  “Yes. And very grateful. Not only for the honor, but for everything.”

  The look in Kilcannon’s eyes showed that he understood her meaning. Briefly, he turned to Brett, including her in his smile, and then to Caroline again. “Oh, the honor’s mine,” he said. “The first woman to become Chief Justice should also be the best. You are.”

  The Rose Garden was jammed with dignitaries in folding chairs, reporters, sound equipment, boom mikes, cameras. Seated behind the podium were Ellen, Jackson, Caroline, Brett, Betty, and Larry. Clayton Slade’s tableau.

  From the podium, Kerry Kilcannon praised her. The words came to Caroline as if in a dream.

  “A great Chief Justice must be many things—wise, impartial, respectful of precedent, a person of great character, intellect, and learning. But she must be more than that.”

  Kilcannon’s voice, though soft, carried above the crowd. “When she renders an opinion, a Chief Justice must see more than the words of a statute, hear more than the cloistered quiet of the Court. She must see the faces and hear the voices of people she will never meet, yet whose lives she can alter with the stroke of a pen. For the dream of justice is not the exclusive property of lawyers, nor is it confined to books or laws. It is a dream which has drawn countless men and women to our shores, from the first settlers to the family fleeing oppression at this very moment, believing that their future can be kinder than their past.

  “We owe them no more, but no less, than justice.”

  It was artful, Caroline thought: without demeaning Roger Bannon, the President was serving notice that the new spirit he had promised the country would also touch the Court.

  “Judge Masters,” Kilcannon concluded, “personifies that ideal. For all of these reasons—her gifts, and her humanity— it is with great pride and pleasure that I introduce my nominee for Chief Justice of the United States, the Honorable Caroline Clark Masters.”

  Smiling at Caroline, the President motioned her to the podium. Kilcannon clasped her hand. “Congratulations,” he said quietly. “To both of us.”

  Turning, Caroline faced the crowd and the cameras, the lenses glinting in the pale sun. There was no need to manufacture the humility she felt. But the moment required something more.

  “Thank you, Mr. President.” Turning to Kilcannon, she smiled. “This morning my niece, detecting my feelings of wonderment, informed me that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  “Still, it’s difficult not to feel a little bit like Dorothy.”

  There was a small appreciative chuckle from the crowd. “Suffice it to say,” Caroline told the President, “that I will do all that is in my power to justify your confidence.”

  With an air of command, Caroline faced their audience. “I’m also grateful,” she told them, “for the presence of my family—my sister, Betty Allen; her husband, Larry; and my niece, Brett. For I know as well as anyone the importance of those who love us, and that few of us succeed—or fail— alone.”

  The complexity of this statement in her own case, Caroline thought, did not preclude its truth. The myth of family was as deep as the need for it—she could read this in the faces before her, solemn and attentive.

  “I look forward,” she went on, “to appearing before the Senate, and I should reserve any extended statements for those who bear the responsibility of voting on my nomination.

  “Also, like the President, I do not wish to dwell on the obvious—that I’m a woman. We are, I hope, drawing nearer to the time when such a thing is unremarkable.”

  Pausing, Caroline gazed out at the grounds which surrounded them. “But when I passed through these gates this morning, I realized that, at the beginning of the last century, Ellen Penn and I would have been outside them—picketing for the right to vote.” Glancing at Ellen Penn, Caroline added wryly, “So I think I can speak for the Vice President in saying that we like this century a good deal better …”

  The audience broke into smiles and applause. We’re launched, Caroline thought, and hoped that her quest would end as well as it had begun.

  FOURTEEN

  WITHIN MINUTES of her arrival at court, Sarah’s strategy was in ruins.

  She had imagined that the process would work as usual— meeting her opponent at the clerk’s office; conferencing with the judge in his chambers; debating the date and form of a hearing, with Sarah having the advantage of surprise; securing an agreement to protect Mary Ann Tierney’s privacy and, to the extent possible, her emotions. In Sarah’s mind, her opponent was a harried lawyer from the U.S. Attorney’s office, taking instructions from the Justice Department—which, under the new administration, might not be eager for controversy. The first sign of trouble was when she entered
the clerk’s office and encountered not a lawyer but a group.

  The government lawyer was what she expected—a man barely older than Sarah, whose purpose was to buy time for his superiors in Washington. But next to him was a graying, somewhat theatrical advocate whose specialty was representing the media in seeking broad public access to judicial proceedings. A few feet away, taut and silent, stood a man and woman whose pain was as stark as their discomfort.

  The woman, slender and pale, had the haunted look of a mother who blames herself for the loss of a child. But it was the man who held Sarah’s attention; tall and slender, he had a fine chiseled face, a high forehead, gray hair swept back over his temples, and blue eyes so pale as to seem translucent. Sarah felt both enmity and intimacy: these two people, so different from her in outlook, were the figures of authority— loved and feared—whom Mary Ann Tierney had asked her to defeat. Ignoring the others, she crossed the room to meet them. “I’m Sarah Dash,” she said simply. “I represent Mary Ann.”

  Margaret turned away. But Martin Tierney answered, “We represent our daughter, Ms. Dash. And our grandchild.” That this was said with civility made the rebuke seem more harsh than anger would have: at once, Sarah knew that little— today, or afterward—would be as she imagined it.

  On the nineteenth floor of the federal building, Judge Patrick Leary’s corner office afforded a sweeping panorama of San Francisco, and sufficient room for a sofa, two chairs, a large desk, and a glossy conference table around which the parties sat, with Leary at the head.