Protect and Defend

by Richard North Patterson

  “The forty-one against,” Gage told Taylor, “are solid. But some of them won’t support a filibuster. So I can’t just shut her down, and calling a vote is risky.

  “Kilcannon knows that. The longer this goes on, the more support he can try to build: women’s rallies, rooms full of adopted kids—hell, I bet he’s got Barbara Walters lined up to interview the daughter. An exercise in lacrimation.” Gage spread his hands in frustration. “In the age of confessions, there’s no underrating the bad taste of the American people. I can imagine Masters and the daughter’s newly proud dad reunited on Jerry Springer. Whoever he might be.”

  With a surprising fastidiousness, Taylor pursed his lips to sip coffee from Gage’s china, displaying starched French cuffs and silver cuff links. “The father,” he said. “That’s the only detail Kilcannon spared us—we’re not even sure if it was a man, or a turkey baster.”

  “They’re not saying,” Gage responded. “It’s ‘private.’ But someone has to know.”

  “We’ll try to find out—just in case the guy dropped LSD with her when she was pregnant.” Taylor put down the cup. “All we know is she was dating Watts in college, and no one ever saw her using drugs, or holding hands with another girl. Sort of makes you wonder how we could miss a baby.”

  “It does,” Gage said pointedly. “It surely does.”

  Taylor looked up at him. “Don’t blame us, Mac. Blame Palmer. You’ve gone too easy on him.” His voice lowered, an implied warning. “I know you’ve heard from folks like Barry Saunders. They want this lady gone, and they don’t want Kilcannon rolling us. Seems to me like it’s gut-check time. For you, and for Palmer.”

  One by one, Gage felt his options closing. He could not yet call a vote, and time might be his enemy. He did not have Kilcannon’s platform, or his talent for swaying the public mood. And the Tierney case was heading to its conclusion—which, in the worst case, might reveal that the fetus had no cerebral cortex, and no prayer of ever living.

  “I have a plan,” Gage said. “One way or the other, Palmer will see the light.”

  “We need more hearings,” Paul Harshman told his colleagues.

  All fifty-five Republicans were gathered in the Old Senate Chamber, an ornate amphitheater suited to their numbers. But the reactions of most interest to Macdonald Gage were those of Chad Palmer and Kate Jarman, bellwethers of party moderates.

  “We have a woman,” Harshman continued, “whose latest and greatest ruling is pro-abortion, whose personal life is dubious, whose ethics are in question, and who—skip the fancy words—lied to us about all of that.

  “‘Oh, no,’” he said in mocking imitation of Masters, “‘I’ve got an open mind. Sarah Dash is nothing to me. Oh, and isn’t my niece just lovely.’” His voice filled with scorn, he gazed at Palmer, “And we just lapped it up …”

  “No,” Chad Palmer interjected pleasantly. “I did. You, Paul, were on the cutting edge. I can only regret my folly, and wonder what might have been.”

  With Harshman, Gage reflected, Chad could not seem to help himself. Though a few of their colleagues smiled, Harsh-man’s bony frame seemed to twist in indignation. “You may find promiscuity and lying funny, Senator. I can assure you my constituents do not.

  “There are fifty-five of us in this chamber. I think you’ll find that the great majority want to reopen our committee’s hearings—in great measure because of what the nominee, and you, chose not to ‘share’ with us.”

  Chad shrugged. “You’ve heard my reasons. All of us know how ugly politics has gotten. We can sit here in this hermetically sealed room sounding righteous, but it seems like a lot of the country agreed with Kilcannon’s speech—at least about privacy. If we react like lemmings to whatever interest groups want her head on a platter, they may get sick of us all.” Pausing, he looked around him. “Do we really think the public wants a spectacle—”

  “They want the truth,” Harshman interrupted. “In these morally equivocal times, perjury may not seem important to some of us, even perjury by a nominee for Chief Justice. But the core of our supporters, thank God, retain their moral bearings.”

  Palmer rolled his eyes. For a dead man, Gage thought, he looked remarkably unrepentant, and this concerned him—for some of his colleagues, Chad’s devil-may-care persona held a certain charm.

  “I think you’ll find,” Gage interposed, “that you’re both in agreement on the bottom line—Caroline Masters has to go. Chad feels his responsibilities there as keenly as anyone.”

  The remark, intended to remind Palmer of his lapse, clearly struck its target: as often when cornered, Chad Palmer’s eyes grew hooded, as though to conceal his resentment.

  Walking to the front of the room, Gage thrust his hands in his pockets, speaking with studied solemnity. “This is that rare moment,” he began, “when a vote has constitutional significance. The President has challenged us. Each of us has to decide how we value unborn life, how we value truth, how we value the Court, and how we value ourselves as senators.

  “The vote on Masters must be a vote of conscience. We’re facing an opponent who is castigating us before we’ve even voted. So I don’t want to add to your burdens with pressures of my own.”

  Pausing, Gage surveyed the blank faces of politicians who, while appearing to accept this piety, knew better: they knew the stakes for Gage and Palmer, and the infinite variety of ways—from bad committee assignments to pet bills which died without a vote—through which Gage could punish them without a word. Kate Jarman, her head back, seemed to smile at the ornate ceiling.

  “But Paul’s right,” Gage went on. “Process is important, and many unanswered questions have arisen since the committee recommended we confirm her. Our constitutional obligation is to probe these issues thoroughly.” Pacing, Gage spoke more rapidly. “Two months ago Kerry Kilcannon was one of us. He was elected President by a sliver. The voters didn’t make him some demigod we suddenly should bow and scrape to. Many of our constituents expect us to control his excesses, as is our duty.

  “Will we abandon our pro-life principles? Will we shrink from raising questions of character because Caroline Masters is a woman?” Turning to Chad, Gage spoke quietly. “If we do, we’ll be complicit in a cover-up, even if we were never privy to it.”

  This remark, a thinly veiled reference to Chad’s protection of the nominee, induced from Chad a faint but defiant smile. “Whatever we do,” Gage went on, “we should do it as a united party. That’s why I called this meeting—to see where we stand on new hearings. Because if most of us want them, but can’t get them through the Senate, we’d look pitiful indeed.”

  For this, Gage believed, he had the votes. So, apparently, did Chad: that he understood the true purpose of this exercise was apparent in the skeptical gaze he focused on Macdonald Gage. “Mr. Chairman,” Gage said to him, “any thoughts? After all, the hearings would be yours to run.”

  Chad smiled again. “Not if I can help it.” He turned to the others, eyes sweeping the room. “I’ve got no illusions about the sentiments here, or the pressures we all feel. Despite,” he added wryly, “Mac’s best efforts to spare us.

  “I don’t doubt, either, that some of you question my judgment regarding Caroline Masters. I respect that, and I suppose I’ll have to live with it.

  “What I’m not sure any of us can live with are more hearings.” He glanced at Harshman. “Paul and I have had the pleasure of meeting Caroline Masters at first hand. But we seem to have different perceptions of that experience.

  “What I saw is a woman who’s very resourceful, and extremely clever. What she isn’t, always, is sympathetic.” His tone turned dry. “But we have it in our power to fix that.

  “If we start pounding her about protecting her daughter, or—frankly—implying that she’s lesbian, she’s smart enough to kill us, and savvy enough to do it in a way that makes the public glad she did. And then we’d have to go to the Senate, and try to vote her down.” Chad’s voice rose. “Better to do it now. It
’s one thing to vote against her. It’s another to make her a martyr. Remember how we looked after Anita Hill? Masters and Kilcannon will make that look like a stroll in the park.

  “We’ve all read the Tierney decision. We all know about the daughter now. We always knew Dash clerked for her. What else do we need to know?

  “Time won’t make this better. And the resolution of the Tierney case—in brutal fact—may well make it worse.” Once more, Chad turned to Gage. “You’ve got my vote against her, Mac. Round up the remaining votes you need, and bring her to the floor.”

  Nettled, Gage felt the others divining a truth they had only suspected—he did not yet have the votes to defeat the nominee. “I’m not convinced,” Gage answered, “that new hearings will make Caroline Masters more—rather than less—attractive. And the time they’d take has virtues of its own. Vote now, and we look peremptory. After more deliberations, we’re statesmen.” He smiled at Kate Jarman, whose indecision was obvious. “And -women.”

  From the expressions of his colleagues, this observation sealed the result. Supporting a motion to recommit—even if not fatal to the nominee—was a vote to postpone the day of reckoning, the better to judge the volatile and swiftly changing public mood, while buttressing the reasons to oppose her. There would be time enough to face the ultimate test and—though the others did not yet know it—for Gage to force Chad Palmer’s hand.

  “Let’s have a vote,” Paul Harshman called out.

  “Why don’t we do that,” Gage said promptly. “What’s the sentiment for recommitment?”

  As he paused, looking around the room, people began to raise their hands—a cluster at first, then others less decisive and more scattered—until, as Gage had hoped, all but four had joined in: Chad Palmer, Kate Jarman, and two others.

  Palmer looked around him. With an air of resignation, he said, “That’s pretty clear, isn’t it. So when we vote to recommit tomorrow, we should make it unanimous. No divisions in the ranks.”

  Satisfied, Gage surveyed the room. “Is that all right with everybody?” When no one spoke, he added, “We’re all set, then.”

  With this, the meeting broke up. As the others left, Gage touched Palmer’s elbow, steering him aside.

  “Artfully done,” Chad murmured.

  “We need to talk,” Gage said bluntly.

  They sat in Chad’s office. Coolly, Chad said, “We can shit-can the Gilbert and Sullivan now. You want me to kill her in committee, don’t you.”

  Gage managed to cover his surprise: never, he admonished himself, should Chad’s cavalier manner distract him from the man’s hard intelligence. “You owe me,” Gage answered. “You owe us.”

  “Because I covered for this promiscuous judge?”

  “Yes.” Gage’s tone was factual. “I made you chairman—I could have induced Joe Silva to stay, rather than head up Labor. And your very first move is to sell me out to Kilcannon.

  “I can speculate on your reasons, Chad. But the party faithful don’t give a damn. Did you hear Rush Limbaugh this morning? He called you the Benedict Arnold of heroes.” Gage held up his thumb and forefinger, a millimeter apart. “On the national level, you’re that close to being through in our party. Unless you step up now, the people who make or break candidates will never forgive you.”

  Across the desk, Palmer surveyed him with the dead calm that Gage found so frustrating. “That’s quite a penance, Mac. I’ve been a senator since the age of thirty-four. In all that time, I’ve never seen the Judiciary Committee block a Supreme Court nominee from coming to the Senate floor.

  “I don’t know that it’s ever been done. A negative recommendation—sure. But just say to Masters, ‘Sorry, we’re not even sending you to the Senate’? Unheard of.”

  “Really. Then why did it trip off your tongue so quickly.”

  Picking up a pen, Palmer idly played with it, still eyeing Gage. “I know you, Mac. I was watching you just now. You’re not sure you can win. And if you lose, the ‘party faithful’ will be saying that you don’t have whatever it takes. So what’s the magic bullet? To kill her without a vote.

  “You don’t want your fingerprints on that one. Kilcannon will murder us with it—we’ll be the right-wing lackeys who thwarted democracy. But we’ve got a ten-to-eight majority on the committee. Unless Jesus appears to testify on her behalf, you figure Harshman and seven others will vote to kill her no matter what. That leaves Kate Jarman—and me.”

  “That leaves you,” Gage said evenly. “Nine to nine would kill it.” Gage’s voice was quiet but firm. “It’s a chance for you to show leadership, and make amends. You’d have my full support.”

  A brightness in Chad’s eyes bespoke a lingering amusement. Then it vanished: as Gage watched, he could see, almost feel, the progress of Palmer’s thoughts. Chad did not want to do this, and disliked being pushed, but he was not immune to political reality. He had allied himself with Kilcannon—now he faced deep trouble in his own party, and knew it.

  Palmer exhaled, too absorbed in his dilemma to conceal its weight. “I’ll ponder it,” he said. “But I can’t promise to kill her before we’ve even conducted hearings. I’ll have to see how she looks then.”

  “See what?” Gage said with some impatience. “See if she starts looking like a lesbian again?”

  At once, the resistance reappeared in Palmer’s eyes. “Frankly, Mac, I don’t give a damn if she’s a lesbian. Harsh-man has persuaded me that caring makes you stupid.”

  Gage felt a flash of irritation, followed by a deeper, grimmer feeling. It was in his power to destroy this man, and only compassion and a certain caution had kept Gage from it. Soon compassion might be a luxury, and the power to prevent this might slip from Gage’s hands.

  “We’re not friends, Chad.” Gage spoke quietly, each word deliberate. “We’ll never be. But I’m speaking for your own good.

  “I came to you on this twice before, and came up empty. For my own sake as leader, I can’t accept that forever. Please understand that.”

  Palmer scrutinized Gage with care. It was an acknowledgment that they had never spoken like this before and, perhaps, of something more—the fear Chad Palmer must feel, knowing the forces arrayed against Masters, for himself and his family.

  “I understand,” Chad said.

  FOURTEEN

  WHEN CAROLINE MASTERS returned to Washington, she was greeted by a press corps so aggressive and disorderly that it seemed to her she was in the eye of a mob. They called out questions about Brett as she moved through the airport, head high, saying nothing. At a newsstand, her face stared back at her from the covers of Time, Newsweek, People, and U.S. News and World Report, with captions such as “What Is Moral?” and “Fit to Be Chief?” The Washington Post, with encouragement from the White House, was running a series on adoption; on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno characterized the Judiciary Committee as “one woman, and seventeen guys who are grateful extramarital sex doesn’t make men pregnant.” And, to Caroline’s surprise, Lara Costello began appearing on selected talk shows, repeating the line of attack begun in the President’s speech.

  Though the hearings were two days off, Caroline’s schedule was full. Spaced between preparation sessions were a White House reception with a plethora of celebrities, members of Congress, and prominent women from the worlds of politics, athletics, and a variety of charitable endeavors; a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Hampton and several female Democratic senators; a breakfast with a group of pro-choice Republican women who had broken with their party to support her; lunch with Lara Costello and other women from the media. The one woman who seemed to be missing—because Caroline refused to ask her—was Brett Allen.

  But Caroline’s first meeting was the most symbolic: a stroll with President Kilcannon on the grounds of the White House, to be duly photographed by the White House press corps and the hoard shoving lenses and Minicams through the bars of the iron fence. “So much of it is theater,” the President remarked as they walked. “Reagan wa
sn’t the only actor to be President, just the only one with screen credits.”

  It was the first time she had seen him since the Tierney decision. Though his outward manner was unconcerned, there were bruises of sleeplessness beneath his eyes, and he already looked subtly older. Caroline trod carefully; though the late-March weather was mild, the grounds were wet. “I don’t mind costarring in a silent film,” she answered. “But taking a pratfall in high heels just won’t do. I’ve caused you enough trouble already.”

  The President stopped, smiling a little. “I can’t say it’s been no trouble. But there’s a certain freedom in saying what you believe. And the opposition seems to find that worrisome.”

  Caroline shook her head. “Still, I never imagined reading that the future of your administration rides on me. That feels much bigger than I am.”

  The President shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit coat, his gaze serious and inquiring. “Bigger than what’s happened to you?”

  Caroline looked down; since the revelation, Brett had been secluded, avoiding the media, politely refusing to see either Caroline or Betty until she came to terms with her own feelings. The freshest image Caroline had of her was a fuzzy picture from the cover of US Magazine showing Brett, captured by a telephoto lens, putting out the garbage at dawn. “Maybe to me,” Caroline said. “Not to her.”

  The President was quiet. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I wanted to protect you both.”

  Caroline met his eyes; suddenly, he looked more troubled than she had expected. “Well,” she said, “I can’t say you didn’t warn me. It happened because I wanted the job.”