Balance of Power

Balance

of

Power

ALSO BY RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON

Protect and Defend

Dark Lady

No Safe Place

Silent Witness

The Final Judgment

Eyes of a Child

Degree of Guilt

Private Screening

Escape the Night

The Outside Man

The Lasko Tangent

Balance

of

Power

Richard North Patterson

B a l l a n t i n e B o o k s • N e w y o r k

A Ballantine Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 2003 by Richard North Patterson

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of

Canada Limited, Toronto.

Balance of Power is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are a product of the

author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Patterson, Richard North. Balance of power / Richard North Patterson.—1st ed.

     p. cm. eISBN 0-345-46988-7

1. Firearms—Law and legislation—Fiction. 2. Firearms industry and trade—Fiction. 3. Presidents' spouses— Fiction. 4. Washington (D.C.)— Fiction. 5. Gun control—Fiction. 6. Presidents—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3566.A8242B35 2003 813'.54—dc21

2003051848

Design by C. Linda Dingler

v1.0

For Philip Rotner

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

—THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION

C H A R A C T E R S

The White House

Kerry Francis Kilcannon, President of the United States

Lara Costello Kilcannon, First Lady of the United States

Ellen Penn, Vice President of the United States

Clayton Slade, Chief of Staff to the President

Kit Pace, Press Secretary to the President

Peter Lake, head of the President's Secret Service detail

Liz Curry, Director of Legislative Affairs

Alex Cole, Congressional Liaison

Jack Sanders, Chief Domestic Policy Advisor

Connie Coulter, Press Secretary to the First Lady

Francesca Thibault, White House Social Secretary

The First Lady's Family

Inez Costello, Lara's mother

Joan Costello Bowden, Lara's younger sister

John Bowden, Lara's brother-in-law

Marie Bowden, Lara's niece

Mary Costello, Lara's youngest sister

The United States Senate

Senator Francis Xavier Fasano of Pennsylvania, Senate Majority Leader

Senator Charles Hampton of Vermont, Senate Minority Leader

Senator Chad Palmer of Ohio, Chairman of the Commerce Committee

Senator Paul Harshman of Idaho

Senator Cassie Rollins of Maine