Protect and Defend

by Richard North Patterson

  It was a mistake the President would not have made.

  But on this night, Kerry tried to banish Chad from his thoughts.

  “So, Mr. President,” Leo Weller was saying, “you want my assurance that, if necessary, I’ll vote to shut down a filibuster. Despite the wishes of my leader.”

  Kerry heard this for what it was—a testing of the waters, Weller’s efforts to ferret out the highest bidder. Amiable and crafty, the senior senator from Montana faced a tough fight for reelection: only a president could reward Weller’s supporters with appointments, or sign or veto bills important to their interests.

  “You can have it all,” Kerry answered easily. “You can vote against Judge Masters once she comes to the floor—after you vote to make sure she gets a vote. It’s the democratic way.”

  On the other end, Weller chuckled softly. “It’s interesting strategy, is what it is. You start by inducing a few of us who oppose her to help get her a majority vote. Then you try to get at least five Republicans to vote for her, to get you to fifty. At which point, Ellen Penn comes down to preside over the Senate, and casts the deciding vote.”

  “Neatly summarized,” the President replied. “So consider your alternative. Gage gets forty of you to sink Caroline Masters. We’ve got forty-five: I’ll use them to shut down votes on everything he wants—tort reform, tax cuts, you name it. And I won’t make helping you a top priority, either.

  “So consider, Leo, just what it is Mac offers you. Besides a deck chair on the Titanic.”

  “Lots of things,” Weller answered cheerfully. “The chairmanship of Agriculture, my bills called up for a vote …”

  “Only if you’re still in the majority, and Gage is still the leader. I wouldn’t bet on either: as a political matter, opposing Masters is dumb—you look like toadies for the Christian right.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not.” Weller’s voice was cool now, the pose of relaxation abruptly gone. “You’re talking about shutting down the Senate, Mr. President …”

  “I’m talking about making sure Gage never tries this again. The only way out for your side is to make sure it never happens in the first place.” Kerry’s tone was calm, analytic. “Gage wants to be President, and thinks he needs the Christian right. So he’s overlooking your more immediate problem—reelection. You’ve got a tough race next year, and you need something for your people.”

  “With all respect, Mr. President, my people don’t give a shit about Caroline Masters. They’re too busy with their lives to care about editorials and noble speeches …”

  “But some of them do care about grazing rights. You’ve got a bill pending that would expand them into public lands. The environmentalists want it blocked—or vetoed. Which, as of now, I’m inclined to do.”

  “Fine,” Weller said in an unimpressed tone. “Do that, and the kid your party’s putting up against me won’t have a prayer.”

  “If you say so,” Kerry answered blithely. “I’m sure when he calls you a dinosaur, and asks what you’ve done for Montana lately, your current forty percent favorable rating will carry you to victory. Perhaps a landslide.”

  Weller gave a terse chuckle of acknowledgment: the President could imagine his cherubic face become shrewd, lips pursed in calculation. “So I vote for cloture, and get my grazing rights.”

  “It’s fair to say,” Kerry answered, “that you’d find me more impressionable.”

  There was silence, Weller weighing the benefits of an amenable president, the detriments of offending his almost equally powerful antagonist, a man whom he must live with day-to-day. At length, Weller said, “There’s also the matter of a judgeship. I’d like to do something for my last campaign manager …”

  Kerry glanced at the memo in front of him. “A guy named Bob Quinn, to be specific. I’m told his only flaw, besides being a conservative, is that he’s a truly mediocre lawyer. None of which suggests that he wouldn’t make a brilliant judge.”

  Weller gave another short laugh. “You’re very well informed, Mr. President. Except that Bob’s perfectly well qualified …”

  “For the District Court, perhaps. The Court of Appeals—which I’m informed you want for him—is pushing it.”

  “Bob,” Weller countered bluntly, “has his heart set on the Court of Appeals.”

  Kerry paused, weighing the balance of power, replaying Weller’s tone of voice. “Tell your old friend Bob,” he answered, “that I have a soft spot for him. I, too, was once a mediocre lawyer …”

  “I doubt that, Mr. President.”

  “But that my fellow-feeling ends at the District Court,” Kerry continued crisply. “So ask your friend if that will do.”

  Once more, Weller was silent. “If it has to do,” he said at last, “I think it will.”

  “Which brings us back to Mac Gage’s filibuster.”

  “If it comes to that,” Senator Weller said slowly, “I’m willing to oppose it.”

  The President felt a relief his voice could not betray. “Do that, Leo, and you can pass on the good news to Mr. Quinn. And to all those cattle, too.”

  Putting down the phone, the President saw Lara standing in the doorway. With a smile, she said, “Impressive.”

  She was wearing leather gloves and an overcoat, and her skin retained the flush of cold. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  “The last few minutes,” she answered. “Your man Bob Quinn sounds like the next Cardozo. I only hope his district has more cows than people.”

  Kerry smiled. “One does what one must. You’re staying for a while, I hope.”

  Crossing the room, she bent to kiss him. “These days,” she told him, “it’s the only way to see you. ‘She also serves who lies in wait.’”

  Kerry gazed up at her. “It’s been hard,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I understand. I’m getting used to you being President.”

  Kerry wished that his calls were done. More than that, he wished that he could pause to tell Lara about Chad Palmer. But he had no time, and Chad’s story had such resonance for them that he was reluctant to share it.

  “I won’t be that long,” he said. “Unless India bombs Pakistan, perhaps another hour.”

  Lara shrugged off her coat, draping it over a chair. “That’s fine. I’ve got some calls of my own to make, and I left the new Stephen King on your nightstand.”

  Kerry smiled again. “Marry me,” he told her, “and maybe you can finish it.”

  At 8:00 p.m., typical for Chad, he was driving the few short blocks to his town house for a late dinner with Allie. Perhaps, tonight, he should tell her.

  Two days had passed, with what seemed to Chad an eerie silence hanging over him. Perhaps some of the eeriness was from his own silence with Allie; after so long together, no matter how painful the subject, it was hard to withhold something so central to their lives.

  Pulling from the parking lot, he stopped for a moment, gazing back over his shoulder at the dome of the Capitol, glowing marble-white against the night sky. When he had first arrived—even with the bitter hardship which had gone before—the dome at night had seemed symbolic, a dream of America. But tonight the dream felt soiled: he had risen here, and now his wife and daughter might pay for it.

  Over the last two days, he had contemplated this with a numbing disbelief, as though, despite his hard-earned knowledge of the ways of power, he had felt himself immune. How many others, he thought now, had shared this illusion and then found themselves ruined, ghosts from another life.

  As he turned onto East Capitol, Chad’s cell phone jangled.

  Though he was used to this, Chad started. It could be anyone, he reminded himself; he made a point of being accessible, and his aides, colleagues, and key supporters had his number. And more than a few reporters.

  “Chad?”

  To his relief, it was Allie. “I’m just a few blocks from home,” he answered. “Two minutes.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you.” Chad suddenly graspe
d the tension in her voice. “Someone from the Internet Frontier called, whatever that is. He said it’s personal, and urgent—that he needs to see you at their offices, now.”

  Chad felt her tension like a contagion; the Internet Frontier had first revealed the identity of Mary Ann Tierney. “Why now?” he asked with deceptive calm.

  Allie’s voice rose. “He’s on deadline, he said—the editor, Henry Nielsen. They’re running a story in three hours, and he wants to talk to you first.”

  Allie sensed what was happening, Chad realized—years of worry had taught her what this must mean. He steered over to the curb, and stopped. “Where’s Kyle?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I just tried her apartment.”

  “Is her number listed?”

  Allie hesitated. “No,” she answered, in a voice filled with bewilderment and fear.

  “Good. Leave her a message not to answer the phone, or talk to anyone …”

  “Chad,” Allie demanded with tenacious self-control, “what’s this all about?”

  “Not on the cell phone,” he snapped. “Just call her. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE INTERNET FRONTIER did not waste money on decor. Its floor plan was open, stark, principally decorated with posters for movies and rock concerts, reflecting its self-image as lean, mean, liberal, and iconoclastic. But Henry Nielsen’s office at least had walls, sealing Chad and the editor in chief from the eyes and ears of those who looked up from their desks as Chad walked quickly through the floor.

  Closing the door behind him, Nielsen motioned Chad to a chair. In the fluorescent light, Nielsen’s caramel hair and pale skin made him look bleached out. But his quiet aggressiveness reminded Chad of the first time the Frontier had come to his attention: as the source of rumors about an unnamed senator—in fact Gage’s predecessor as Majority Leader—who embraced “family values” but sexually exploited teenage runaways.

  Silent, Nielsen placed a Xeroxed document in Chad’s hand. Chad found himself staring, once again, at Allie’s signature.

  “We’ve found the boyfriend,” Nielsen said.

  Chad felt a last moment of disbelief that the world of predatory journalism, in which private lives were grist for journalistic competitors, had now ensnared his family. Rather than resisting, Chad asked simply, “How?”

  “A list came with that. Names, addresses, telephone numbers.”

  It was the same list the President had given him, Chad knew, no doubt provided by the same source. This fact did not preclude deception by the White House itself—warning him first, then providing Nielsen with the document. But, at least until recently, such callousness ran counter to Chad’s assessment of the President. And there were other possibilities: the President’s anonymous source; enemies within his own party. The only certainty, he knew with a miserable clarity, was that—in days, if not hours—Allie and Kyle would be exposed.

  “We’re satisfied,” Nielsen told him, “—in fact, we know—that four years ago, with your wife’s consent, your daughter had a first trimester abortion.”

  At great cost, Chad imposed on himself a stony calm. “Have you talked to Kyle?” he asked.

  “We can’t find her.”

  For this much, Chad felt grateful. But whatever Nielsen felt was unclear; he talked with the clinical air of a doctor describing a course of treatment. “We’re aware she had emotional difficulties,” Nielsen told him, “problems with drugs and alcohol. We’d like your perspective for our story. In fact, we’d like her perspective—to us, it would give dimension to what, as of now, is just another dreary instance of political hypocrisy.”

  Reigning in his temper, Chad assessed his tormentor’s motives and perceived the germs of a bargain—access to Kyle in exchange for better treatment. But there was not much time to probe this, and the prospect filled him with loathing and despair.

  “So that’s your hook,” Chad said bitingly. “Hypocrisy—with you as the protector of public sanctity. What does my daughter count for, when you’re wearing the First Amendment like a Communion dress.” Suddenly, Chad’s emotions slipped out of his control. “What’s twenty years of her life, or her mother’s endless worry about her, or all the things which go into who she is that you can’t possibly understand, and don’t give a shit about. Any more than the damage you inflict matters to you at all.

  “You’ve got advertisers to solicit, readers to titillate, competitors to beat. Whatever maggot sent you this knows that all too well. They know you, pal—we all do. You’re part of the ecology remaking public life into a cesspool—the willing tool of politicians and interest groups to destroy whoever’s in the way.” Chad’s voice became commanding. “Tell me who gave you this.”

  For an instant, Nielsen seemed to recoil. “I can’t do that, Senator. We have to protect our sources.”

  He was not claiming, Chad saw at once, that the document had arrived by surprise in this morning’s mail. More quietly, Chad said, “They know that, too—that you’ll let them destroy someone from ambush. At least consider their motives.”

  Nielsen folded his arms. “We do.”

  “Really. Like you did when you made Macdonald Gage Majority Leader.”

  “That wasn’t our intention.” Though clearly tense, Nielsen summoned a note of patience. “We never revealed the senator’s name. We merely published what we believed to be true, and suddenly Gage’s predecessor resigned. Confirming the accuracy of our story.” Nielsen fixed Chad with a pointed stare. “As for its relevance, hypocrisy seems to be a common vice. The senator had accused the Secretary of Transportation of lying about an affair with a subordinate who at least had the virtue of being past the age of consent.”

  “So,” Chad said with disgust, “I’m the moral equivalent of a liar or a statutory rapist. Or both.”

  Nielsen glanced at his watch, as though to remind Chad that their time was running out. “What you are is a key player in the most controversial Supreme Court nomination in memory, of the first woman to be named as Chief.

  “It turns on two legal issues, late-term abortion and parental consent; a personal one, the decision of a pro-choice judge to have a child out of marriage; and an ethical one—whether she lied about it, or at least was obliged to say more than she did.

  “Now let’s apply all that to you.” As if swept up in his own argument, Nielsen’s voice became prosecutorial. “You supported the Protection of Life Act. You oppose Judge Masters. You say abortion is, effectively, murder. Yet you—or at least your wife—consented to the ‘murder’ of your prospective grandchild. Unlike Martin Tierney, I might add …”

  “Whose name,” Chad snapped, “you made public for his pains. Was he a hypocrite, too?”

  “Not at all,” Nielsen shot back. “He was a prominent pro-life advocate, opposed by his own daughter, which made it news. But when it came to your own daughter, you said one thing in public and did the opposite in private. Which suggests you were obliged to say much more than you did—exactly the sin with which Harshman and the right seek to pillory Caroline Masters.” Nielsen’s tone became soft but skeptical. “Unless you’re saying this comes as a complete surprise.”

  He was trapped, Chad realized. He would not lie to protect himself, nor ask Allie or Kyle to lie for him; to protect them, his only choice was candor, his only hope delay. In an even tone Chad said, “Let’s go off the record.”

  Nielsen settled back. “All right.”

  “You’re right about Kyle, Mr. Nielsen. She did have problems with substance abuse. But that’s just symptomatic.

  “From childhood, she’s had emotional problems—moments of elation, days of terrible depression, a crushing lack of confidence. For a time we thought she was bipolar, and someday we may find out that she is.

  “For certain, she was starved for love and affirmation.” Pausing, Chad forced himself to continue his painful admissions, stifle his contempt for his listener. “No doubt some of that was my fault. Until this happened, I was
pretty much an absentee father. Among the substitutes she found was a boy who used both drugs and alcohol—and her.

  “Kyle was barely sixteen, and a mess. As soon as she got pregnant, the boy ditched her.

  “Parental consent means just that—a parent can consent. My wife believed Kyle couldn’t withstand having a child, and that abortion was the only means of saving her. I couldn’t stop her, and didn’t try. That’s all there is.”

  Nielsen regarded him with, it seemed, a measured sympathy. “Then you could have told that story, Senator. Instead of continuing to vote and speak as if nothing had happened.”

  Chad sighed. “Mr. Nielsen, my beliefs never changed. But I did become much quieter about them …”

  “To protect yourself?”

  “To some degree. But mainly to protect Kyle.” Chad paused, remembering his helplessness. “After Kyle’s abortion, if I talked about ‘taking life,’ I became a distant and disapproving father. There’d been too much of that already.”

  Nielsen considered him. Chad had an uncomfortable sensation: though very different from the darkened cell in which he had spent two years of his life, the blank white walls and harsh fluorescent light made him feel entrapped, diminished. “Your account at least lends nuance,” Nielsen said. “I urge you to tell it, and have your wife and daughter do the same. Otherwise, the facts appear in their harshest light.”

  Once more, Chad felt a visceral loathing: at once judge, executioner, and father confessor, Henry Nielsen—perhaps ten years out of journalism school—offered public humiliation for Chad’s family as balm for Chad’s own political ruin.

  “Print this story,” Chad said, “and you’ll damage our daughter much worse than Allie or me. She’s made progress, Mr. Nielsen—can you possibly know what that means to us? And she loves me now, as I love her.

  “If you do this to her, you’ll do more than dredge up an awful time she’s started to put behind her. You’ll make her mistake the reason for my political ruin.” Chad’s eyes bored into Nielsen’s. “I don’t know, truly, what the guilt and shame of that will do to her. And if I don’t, you can’t.”