anything to make it continue, to feel him licking her and fondling her, making her head swim and her heart pound and her entire body feel like a woman’s body is supposed to feel. She wanted it to continue. She wanted it to go on forever.
And for that, killing her revolting husband seemed a very small price to pay.
24
The sergeant at arms met Ben halfway to the front table. Ben raised his right hand and laid the other on the Bible proffered. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“I do.”
Chairman Perkins tapped his gavel. “Please take your seat, Senator Kincaid.”
Ben pulled out the chair at the center table and tried not to think about the unblinking eye of the camera that he knew was now poised upon him, beaming his likeness to countless millions of televisions across the country, perhaps across the world. His knees were already wobbly and he knew it would not take much to give his whole body the shakes, something that would probably not make a great impression on the committee, much less the television audience.
Chairman Perkins cleared his throat. “I understand that you have a few remarks you would like to make before we begin questioning, Senator.”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do.” All of a sudden, Ben seriously wished he had kept the script Tracy Sobel had offered him. It was the usual political claptrap, rhetorical questions and stacked arguments and such, but at least he wouldn’t have to think. Because right at the moment, he was having a hard time with the thinking.
“I have been asked to give my thoughts regarding the proposed Constitutional amendment this committee is considering.” Sobel had asked him not to refer to it as the president’s amendment out of respect to Congress, which has the constitutional authority to start the amendment process. “Let me begin by saying that, as a lawyer, I understand the gravity involved in any effort to amend the Constitution. Once done, it can only be undone by another amendment. No court can declare the law invalid; a law which is part of the Constitution is by definition constitutional. Therefore, this consideration is perhaps the most important of any proposed laws this body has the possibility of adopting.”
Ben made the mistake of looking at the television camera; the red light was on and he knew what that meant. The world was watching. His mouth went dry. A cold clamminess spread across his entire body. He struggled to keep it together.
“We have amended this Constitution relatively few times since the Bill of Rights, and the most important of those have come about when there was a sense of great need, either just before, during, or after times of great crisis. I will suggest to you that this is another such time.”
Good God, what was it Sobel wanted him to be sure to say? He couldn’t remember. Oh-right. “It may seem strange to some of you that I, a criminal defense attorney, favor a bill that some see as an abridgement of the Bill of Rights. But if this amendment becomes part of the Constitution, then by definition, no rights have been abridged. The law has changed. Our laws, including the Bill of Rights and the way we interpret them, have changed repeatedly throughout the history of this nation. It would be strange indeed if now, after all this nation has been through, they did not change again. Who can deny that recent years have witnessed violence of a magnitude never before imagined outside of a war battleground? The first attack on the World Trade Center, the bombing of the Murrah Building, 9/11. And now this most recent horror. While the death toll does not approach that of the previous two tragedies, in many ways, the shock value was greater. In this instance, viewers all across the nation witnessed a blatant attempt to take out the head of our government-which came dangerously close to success. We lost our first lady, one of the most beloved women in American history. If for no other reason, in the memory of that dear lady, we must take action to see that nothing like that is ever repeated. To ensure that the people of this nation are as safe as it is possible to be in this modern world. That is why I urge each and every one of you to give the strongest consideration to lending your support to this proposal, and to allow it to leave the committee for a vote of the full Senate.”
Ben resisted the temptation to add “Whew!”
As he scanned the faces of the senators on the committee, he saw very little indication of how any of them were disposed to vote. In fact, he saw little of anything. Had he put them to sleep?
Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw Tracy Sobel, her arms folded across her chest, obviously unhappy. And he knew why. As far as they could tell from the unofficial polling that had taken place nonstop since the amendment had first been proposed, the committee appeared to be evenly divided. If there was to be any chance of this getting to the Senate floor, someone-several someones, perhaps-was going to have to change their minds. That was the job they had chosen Ben to do, because he had the potential to be emotional and dramatic. Instead, he had come across like a robot, carefully analyzing the pros and cons and coming up with a logical but unexciting conclusion.
If logic were enough to win the day, Ben’s participation would not have been requested or required. They needed more. He hadn’t delivered.
“Will you take questions, Senator Kincaid?”
Hell, no, he wanted to say, but he went with, “Of course.”
Senator Scolieri from Ohio was the first to speak. “Senator, as a Republican, I’m getting a lot of mail from people who are concerned that this amendment represents an erosion of civil rights, and that once those rights are removed, we may never retrieve them. I’m curious what you, as a Democrat, would say in response.”
“I would say that the Emergency Security Council, if it is ever convened, is a temporary measure.”
“But how temporary? The amendment puts no limitations on how long an emergency state can be sustained.”
“Realistically, Senator, I don’t think there’s any way it could. We can’t predict the future. We have to give the Council the power it needs to get the job done.”
“But what is the job?” asked Senator Keyes, a Texan Republican. Keyes had been chairman of the Judiciary Committee during the Roush confirmation, and Ben’s archenemy throughout the entire proceeding. But now that they appeared to be on the same side, for all you could tell, he and Keyes were the closest of friends. What was that expression about politics and bedfellows? “Shouldn’t there be some explanation of what constitutes an emergency situation? Otherwise, doesn’t the Council have too much leeway?”
“I think any attempt to define what constitutes an emergency situation would either be so vague as to be pointless or so specific as to render the amendment ineffectual. Could the Founding Fathers have predicted that one day a foreign nation would be able to threaten us without leaving their own borders? Obviously not. Could they predict airplanes being used as weapons, or ricin powder in the mail, or contaminants capable of poisoning entire water supplies? No. And sadly, I am certain that the years to come will introduce new threats we couldn’t begin to discuss or describe today. The amendment must remain open-ended so it will be capable of adapting to a changing world.”
Ben glanced over his shoulder. Sobel seemed slightly more pleased. At least, he supposed, the question- and-answer session was more animated than his lame little speech had been. But he knew she wanted more. Moreover-he knew they needed more if they were going to get this amendment out of committee.
The time for the softball questions had passed, as the chairman shifted his gaze from the Republicans to the Democrats. How ironic-the hostile questioning would come from Ben’s own party.
“I have a question.” This came from Senator Lucy Largent, a liberal Democrat from California. “Senator Kincaid, this amendment appears to me to put an enormous amount of power in the hands of the director of Homeland Security. Are we taking a terribly big risk here? Putting so much power in the hands of one person?”
“The Constitution already puts a great deal of power in the hands of one person. The President of the United States.”
“But the president is elected by the people. The director of Homeland Security is appointed.”
“By the president, who is elected by the people,” Ben replied succinctly. “We all know that the president
