Protect and Defend

by Richard North Patterson

  “I don’t know any of my colleagues who would put a relationship with a former clerk above their duty to be impartial. When I was here before, you asked me that very question—and I answered, truthfully, that I would not.” Pausing, Caroline remained composed, almost professorial. “Our other obligation is to ensure we avoid the appearance of partiality. We believe a one-year period satisfies that need.”

  “Even in a case as important as this,” Harshman persisted, “with a clerk who’s also a friend?”

  Intent, Kerry watched the screen. Softly, he said to Caroline, “It’s time.”

  Caroline appeared to gather herself. “Yes,” she answered. “Perhaps the best analogy I can offer, Senator, is one which you’ll find familiar: the Senate rule which permits former senators to lobby members one year after they leave.

  “After a year, the Senate has concluded, there is no inference of any undue influence …”

  Watching, Kerry heard Ellen Penn’s knowing laugh of delight. “For example,” Caroline went on, “I’ve become aware that your former colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Taylor, represents the Christian Commitment in urging members of this body to defeat my nomination.

  “Obviously, no one here believes that Senator Taylor’s advocacy is in any way improper, or that those senators who might oppose me are acting from anything but conviction …”

  “Catch Harshman,” Kit Pace remarked. “He looks like he gargled with vinegar …”

  “Or,” Caroline continued blandly, “that his activities in raising money for your party are any other than a legitimate exercise of his First Amendment rights of speech.

  “Were it otherwise, Senator, surely you would have taken the lead in changing the rules which permit Senator Taylor to come here …”

  Sitting beside Harshman, Chad Palmer turned away, obviously attempting not to smile.

  “It’s all too funny,” Mace Taylor said to the screen. “It’s all too funny, Chad.” Angered and dismayed, Gage said nothing.

  “Are you questioning my integrity?” Harshman demanded with genuine indignation.

  Caroline’s expression did not change. “To the contrary,” she said, “I was affirming my belief in your integrity. I believe you were questioning mine.

  “I hope I can change your mind, though I don’t presume I can. Beyond that, I can only hope that all ninety-nine of your colleagues have the chance to judge me for themselves …”

  “Kilcannon saw us coming,” Gage said abruptly. “He primed her. They know we’re trying to kill her in committee.”

  Taylor scowled in disbelief. “Bullshit, Mac. Palmer told him—or her.”

  On the screen, Paul Harshman hesitated, and then spoke with weary disdain. “Very well, Judge Masters. Let’s take your Tierney opinion on its so-called merits …”

  SEVENTEEN

  THE SENATE was running late that evening, caught in a debate over gun control, and so Chad Palmer and Kate Jarman sneaked out for a quick dinner at the Oval Room.

  They had a corner table, and the dim-lit elegant surroundings lent a sense of privacy. After looking about, Kate asked quietly, “What are you going to do about her?”

  Chad did not need to ask whom Kate meant. She studied him, her thin face and light blue eyes betraying a keen intelligence which grasped the essence of Chad’s dilemma—he was a potential candidate for President, caught between his party base and his own sense of what was right. “Tell me how it went today,” he parried, “and maybe I’ll know.”

  Kate smiled. “From where I sat—five chairs away from Paul—I was glad I wasn’t next to him. People watching might think we’re friends.”

  “It was that bad?”

  Her smile became skeptical. “You were sitting next to him. Which moment did you enjoy least: when Harshman asked who Dad was with her daughter looking on, or when she stuck Mace Taylor in his ear? Gage should issue Paul a regulator.” She lowered her voice. “It’s one thing to vote against her. But I hear Mac wants to kill her in committee.”

  Chad did not bother to deny this. Sipping from his Stolichnaya on the rocks, he answered, “Did you hear he mentioned you?”

  Kate stopped smiling. “He doesn’t have to run for reelection in Vermont, where gays have civil unions and one of our congressmen’s a literal socialist. I won’t get my ticket re-punched by pandering to the far right.

  “And then there’s what Paul would call the merits, which seem worthy of some attention. About the daughter, I think Masters has the high ground—she’s a class act, and I don’t think calling her a ‘liar’ is going to work, especially when her chief accuser ends up sounding like Cotton Mather.” Kate played with the straw in her gin and tonic. “About the Tierney case, I think she’s probably more right than wrong. But for anyone in our party to say that is a risk—I don’t want a primary challenge from some nut job.”

  Looking up, Senator Jarman fixed Chad with a level glance. “Kilcannon’s figured all that out,” she finished, “including what Gage is up to. Mac’s underrated him—before this is over, it could be a bloodbath.”

  His own situation, Chad reflected, was growing more perilous by the hour. “So what are you telling me?”

  “I could probably get by with voting against her. But I wouldn’t vote to kill her without having you for company. And even that’s unlikely to persuade me.”

  Though disheartened, Palmer smiled: Kate had given him early warning, so he could calibrate his moves. “You’re an honest woman, Kate. Thanks for letting me know.”

  She studied him with open curiosity. “What will you do?”

  “Tread water.” Briefly, he looked around them. “I think the hearings will sort themselves out. We’ll get a sense of public opinion, and how hard Gage wants to push this. Maybe he’ll back off.”

  Slowly, Kate shook her head. In quiet tones, she said, “You’re forgetting who his stockholders are. I don’t think Mac’s a free agent here—even if he thinks so. If I were you, I’d watch my back.”

  The next morning, alone in his office, Chad pondered Kate Jarman’s warning. He was studying a photo of Kyle smiling at him—an airbrushed version of family history—when his private line rang through.

  “Hello, Chad. Mac here.”

  Chad sat back. “Morning, Mac,” he answered. “I guess you’re calling to congratulate me on this morning’s CNN poll.”

  “Haven’t seen it.”

  “Well,” Chad said, “maybe you should look it over. Among those who watched yesterday’s hearings, Masters has roughly a ten point spread.”

  “It’s those damned TV spots,” Gage complained, “paid for by the fucking trial lawyers. There’s an ethical problem in itself—they’re purchasing a Chief Justice on the installment plan.”

  The spots were fresh in Chad’s mind: a handsome Caroline Masters, with Paul Newman’s distinctive voice asking, “Isn’t this who we want as a judge?” “You coin a nice phrase,” Chad answered, “and the Kilcannon ad blitz hasn’t helped. But neither did our colleague, Senator Torquemada.

  “She’s not a lesbian, Mac, or you’d have found out by now. And she acted to protect her daughter. Objecting to Tierney is fine. But burn her at the stake in committee, and you’ll create a martyr.”

  “Chad,” Gage said in exasperation, “we’ve trod this path before.”

  “No,” Chad snapped. “We’re treading it now, and it’s a bed of hot coals.” Hearing himself, he moderated his tone. “Know where CNN’s ten percent came from? A twenty percent edge among women.

  “That’s where Kerry ate our lunch four months ago. Now he’s found a way to make that worse—suburban women hate this kind of thing.” Pausing, Chad strained for a tone of politeness and sincerity. “When I was protecting her, I was protecting us. Fight her on the merits, Mac. Not on her personal life.”

  There was a long silence. “This is a time,” Gage said, “when our base expects action.”

  “From whom? George Armstrong Custer?” Chad felt his anxiety rising. “There are four m
ore days of hearings, Mac. Show me something, and I’ll reconsider. But yesterday was a disaster.”

  Conversation ended, Gage slowly put down the phone.

  “Well?” Taylor asked.

  Gage looked into his colleague’s face—the hammered cheekbones, the frontier squint of his eyes—and briefly wished, despite, his frustration with Palmer, that he did not have to answer.

  “We’ll have to see,” he said at length. “But it’s time to squeeze Kate Jarman. I don’t think Palmer’s going for it.”

  Four days later, after chairing a virtual colloquium by law professors and ethicists on the legal definition of perjury, Chad Palmer summoned the Republicans on Judiciary to his office. Kate Jarman, he noted, sat as far from Harshman as possible.

  Quickly, Chad surveyed the others: Jim Lambert of Alabama, dark, sleek, and guarded; the shrewd and amiable Cotter Ryan of Indiana; Jerry Deane of Georgia, looking, as always, red-faced and short of breath; Frank Fasano of Pennsylvania—young, ambitious, and wholly without humor; Bill Fitzgerald of Florida, chewing gum in his perennial fight against nicotine addiction; Dave Ruckles of Oklahoma, mean as a snake, with the sincere voice and constant eye contact of an evangelist or a stockbroker; Madison Starkweather of Mississippi, eighty-five and running on fumes and staff assistance, who had yielded the committee chairmanship in preparation for death. Somehow, Chad reflected, people elect us all—a truism he tried to remember in his unceasing fight with his own impatience.

  “Here we are,” Chad began. “We vote Monday, and the Supreme Court has yet to rule in the Tierney case. So we know all we’re going to know before we’re forced to take a stand.”

  “We know plenty,” Paul Harshman said promptly. “This woman lied; she has a history of promiscuity and God knows what; the trial lawyers have purchased her at auction; her ethics are in question; and she has now acknowledged a radical pro-abortion agenda. She doesn’t belong on the Court.”

  Chad felt himself smile. “You surprise me, Paul. So what do we do?”

  Harshman looked at the others, and then at Palmer again. “We vote not to send her to the floor, Senator. And end this farce.”

  For once, Chad did not want to take the lead. His glance at Kate Jarman was a signal—it was time for her to give him cover.

  “Killing a Supreme Court nomination in committee,” she said to the others, “would be extraordinary. Apart from Masters’s testimony, there’s nothing new: the law professors have quarreled, though no one made a persuasive case for perjury; the interest groups have said what they’ve always said; and the Tierney opinion is what it is.

  “We’ve all had our chance to hyperventilate in public. But we’ve changed no minds—except those we’ve changed against us.” She paused, looking about the room. “I’m sure Mac’s talked to all of us. I know he’s talked to me. What I told him is that I won’t take on a suicide mission.”

  Harshman stared at her. “Mac says he’ll speak out for us.”

  “Which,” Kate answered dryly, “is an enormous spiritual comfort. But it won’t help me in Vermont.”

  Harshman looked at the others. “The rest of us,” he remarked to Kate, “don’t come from a people’s republic.”

  “True,” she answered with a smile. “But even you let women vote.”

  The lines were being drawn, Chad saw, where he always feared they would. Six of their seven colleagues came from conservative states; the seventh—Frank Fasano—was a committed pro-lifer whose national ambitions would rise and fall with the power of the Christian Commitment. And in no case were they prepared to defy Macdonald Gage.

  “Chad,” Fasano said, “I count eight of us for voting Masters down: everyone but Kate—and you. Nine is all we need.”

  Gage had orchestrated this neatly, Chad thought. “All you need to do,” Harshman told him, “is vote with us. For once.”

  He was trapped. In his mildest voice, Chad answered, “What you’re suggesting, Paul, might have been possible four days ago. Until you decided to go after her—”

  “The woman was arrogant,” Harshman interjected.

  “And now she’s sympathetic. Far more than you, in candor. Or any of us white guys who all ganged up on her, and now propose to kill her off in our own version of a smoke-filled room.

  “That,” Chad told the others, “would be a coup for Kerry Kilcannon. And it would harm the next Republican president—if we can ever elect another.

  “But forget the women we’re offending, if you like, and remember Robert Bork. The liberals trashed him, totally unfairly—as a person and as a judge. They nearly brought down Clarence Thomas, based on allegations about private conduct no one could prove or disprove.

  “After Bob Bork went down, he said to me, ‘They’ll never choose another judge who has opinions.’ How much farther do we want to go down that road? Especially when it hurts conservative judges at least as much as liberals.” Standing, Chad placed his hands on his hips. “It’s not good for the party, or the country, for Supreme Court nominations to continue as guerrilla warfare. If we want to vote down Masters, fine—let’s do that. But out in the open, on the Senate floor, with all one hundred of us voting. Not like this.”

  Harshman stared at him with contempt. “Payback’s a bitch,” he said. “But if it’s all that bad, let’s spare our party colleagues a vote. Show some guts for a change.”

  “I think they can step up to it,” Chad said evenly. “That’s what we’re elected for.” Once more, he faced the others. “I’m willing to take the lead. I’ll vote to send her to the floor with a negative recommendation.”

  By prearrangement, Kate Jarman said promptly, “So will I.”

  Glancing from Kate to Chad, Harshman’s eyes reflected his brief and bitter smile. “What about the eight of us?”

  Chad sat again. “You don’t have the majority, Paul. There’d be the eight of you voting to kill her, then Kate and me, and then all eight Democrats—so Vic Coletti tells me—voting for a positive recommendation. I’d rather join them than reap the whirlwind.” Though his heart was not light, Chad smiled back at Harshman. “Viewed that way, I’m offering you a deal, and Gage a weapon. A ten-to-eight recommendation against.”

  The characteristic flush appeared on Harshman’s forehead; some day, Chad thought, the man would have a stroke. Biting off his words, Harshman said, “Seems like we’re stuck.”

  For a triumphant moment, Chad reflected, this gave him far less pleasure than apprehension. Somberly, he answered, “Seems like we all are.”

  EIGHTEEN

  A FEW HOURS after the Judiciary Committee sent the nomination of Caroline Masters back to the full Senate, Clayton came to the Oval Office.

  Kerry looked up from a summary of pending legislation. For the first time since their rupture, Clayton had the glint of amusement. “Gage just called,” he said.

  “About Caroline?”

  “Yes. He wants to see you.”

  At once, Kerry understood his friend’s expression. He felt a fleeting sense of satisfaction; perhaps, as President, he was proving more formidable than Gage had expected. “We have his attention,” Kerry observed. “Now that he has to beat us on the floor.”

  “What should I tell him?”

  Kerry smiled. “That I’m a busy man—what with running the world, and battling the forces of reaction. But I can always make time for my old friend from the Senate.”

  Ceremoniously, the two men shook hands. Then Kerry closed the door behind them and waved Gage to an overstuffed chair in front of the marble fireplace.

  Kerry felt each taking the other’s measure. Less than four months ago, they had been colleagues, with Kerry, a youthful two-term senator, subject to the velvet tyranny with which Mac Gage ran the Senate. Then, in the wondrous quadrennial act of community, the vote of a free people, the voters had made Kerry Kilcannon the most powerful man on earth, the occupant of an office Macdonald Gage desperately wanted. And so, while Gage remained “Mac,” Kerry had gone from the “little demagogue�
� behind his back and “Kerry” to his face, to “Mr. President.”

  It threw Gage off, Kerry sensed—the Majority Leader disliked having to recalibrate their relationship so drastically, and beneath his smooth and faintly avuncular manner was a novel trace of uncertainty. The White House press were clustered outside, Kerry knew, speculating on what it meant that Macdonald Gage—as Kit Pace had promptly informed them—had asked to see the President.

  “It’s been a while,” Kerry said pleasantly. “Since the inaugural, in fact.”

  Gage nodded, conveying with his actor’s range of expressions both his pleasure in seeing Kerry, and the sadness of this particular memory. “Since Roger Bannon’s passing,” he said solemnly. “A lot has happened in these few weeks.”

  Kerry saw no reason to replicate Gage’s mournful aura. Pleasantly, he said, “It surely has. Now and then I realize how long it’s been since I’ve last seen my old friends.”

  This veiled jibe—a reference to Gage’s long-distance war against Caroline Masters, marked by their absence of contact—induced in Gage a shrewd, appraising look. “My fault, Mr. President, no doubt about it. I haven’t wanted to impose myself. But we’re overdue for a visit.”

  “I certainly agree.”

  At this comment, a shade more pointed in tone, Gage leaned forward, closing the space between Kerry and himself. It was an old Senate trick—Gage using his bulk to assert dominance—and it conveyed without words that they were engaged in a struggle for power. “Overdue,” Gage repeated. “And now we have a problem.”

  Kerry smiled. “Which one?”

  Gage’s eyes widened, conveying mock surprise. “Why Caroline Masters, Mr. President.” His voice was soft. “The Honorable Caroline Masters.”

  “Well,” the President answered, “she’s certainly that.”

  Over the smallest of smiles, Gage’s eyes were combative. “It depends on your point of view.” He paused, his tone becoming reflective, statesmanlike. “She’s turned into plutonium, Mr. President. We’re about to invest a lot of resources in a contentious battle over whether she should lead the Court. No matter how it turns out—and I’m confident I know how—it will leave a legacy of rancor which will taint everything else the Senate tries to do.” Gage leaned closer, looking into Kerry’s eyes; but for his new status, the President sensed, Gage would have put a hand on his shoulder. “And for what, Mr. President? For what?”