Balance of Power

    'It's temporary,' Weller said stubbornly.

    'Temporary? You're dying from asbestosis. And Beltway tunnel

vision.' Kerry's tone maintained the same ironic sympathy. 'Believe me, I understand how this can happen. You're playing golf with the president of an asbestos company, who starts complaining about how all these bogus lawsuits will drag his company under. You, too, hate bogus lawsuits, and plaintiffs' lawyers, and your golf buddy is so committed to your common principles that he's already raised three hundred thousand for your next campaign.

    'So you're glad to stick an immunity provision in Fasano's tort reform bill, and sign on as its cosponsor. The problem is that you've got constituents who are dying off from asbestosis—but not quite fast enough to keep them from voting against you.' Kerry's voice became crisp. 'And now they've started dying off on television. Airtime in Montana is cheap, and the victims are plentiful. They'll be dying on you from now until next November. Then it's your turn.'

    This, as Kerry expected, induced silence. 'What do you want?' Weller asked.

    'They're not my ads, Leo. Only the trial lawyers can help you. But I can suggest what a sensible man in your position would do.

    'I wouldn't vote in favor of my gun bill—too risky. But before another day passes, I'd take my name off that tort reform bill and promise to vote against it.' Kerry's voice hardened. 'The whole bill. Then the trial lawyers will have to find some other way of getting rid of you.'

    Weller responded with more silence. The man might be a fool, Kerry knew, but he had his pride. He disliked being made an object lesson in such a public way—the helpless symbol of Kerry's resolve—and the humiliation which would follow such a public change in the balance of the Senate. 'I'll consider it,' Weller said in grudging tones.

    'You do that, Leo,' the President replied. 'Personally, I find those ads truly painful to watch.'

FIFTEEN

In a cramped windowless room in the Federal Detention Facility in Phoenix, Sarah cross-examined George Johnson.

    On the long flight to Arizona, Sarah's imagination had summoned a Hells Angels prototype—bearded, fleshy, tattooed. But though the person across from her had committed three violent felonies and had spearheaded the robbery of the Lexington P-2 used to slaughter Lara's family, Johnson was slight and pale, distinguished only by close-cropped hair, darting eyes, and a twitching restlessness which kept some part of him constantly in motion. The contrast with his voice—flat, emotionless, distant—made his tics more unnerving.

    Watching the prisoner, Nolan, too, looked uncomfortable. For all of his authority and arrogance, Nolan had little experience with the underside of America, and Sarah had left him to guess why she had noticed the deposition of a federal prisoner. 'Why are you in custody?' Sarah asked Johnson.

    Briefly, he glanced at his lawyer, a federal public defender with spiked hair, a severe face, and incongruous turquoise earrings. When the woman nodded, Sarah realized that Lara Kilcannon had been right—this man was prepared to admit his guilt. With a shrug of the shoulders, so quick that it resembled a spasm, Johnson answered, 'I stole a truckload of Lexington P-2s from a gun store in Phoenix.'

    Nolan's eyes met Harrison Fancher's. 'For what purpose?' Sarah asked.

    A contemptuous smile played at the edges of Johnson's mouth. 'Selling them.'

    'Why did you need the money?'

    'For the Liberty Force. To finance our resistance.'

    His tone betrayed something beyond anger—a rigid adherence to an ordered view of his surroundings, peopled by his enemies. 'Resistance to what?'

    'Jews.' His eyes bored into Sarah's, and the word held a distinct contempt. 'The cabal that uses our so-called democratic government and drug and entertainment culture—all the blacks and queers and dykes and race traitors—to control our economy, castrate male authority and pollute the white Christian race. Their master plan is to force us into their polyglot world order.'

    And take away our tree forts, Sarah thought. But Johnson's tone of certainty chilled her—it bespoke the kind of conviction needed to blow up buildings. 'Where were you arrested?'

    'At a gun show, in Phoenix. The ATF busted a buyer and he turned on me.'

    By now Nolan's taut attention was palpable. 'Why did you sell at a gun show?' Sarah asked.

    Again, Johnson twitched his shoulders. 'The shows get listed in that SSA magazine, and people are willing to pay a premium. Arizona and Nevada are the best. Lots of buyers, no questions.'

    Briefly, Sarah hesitated. 'Was there a particular reason you stole P-2s?'

    With an oddly fastidious gesture, Johnson examined his fingernails, so pristine and closely trimmed that she wondered where he had obtained the manicure. 'The P-2's popular at gun shows, and you can't buy them in California.' Pausing, he added with quiet irony. 'It's not accurate enough for the resistance. But customers like its features.'

    'What about the customer who turned you in?'

    'Don't know.' His flat voice hinted at disdain for the pettiness of his customer's ambitions. 'All I know is they caught him robbing a 7-Eleven.'

    Slowly, Sarah slid a photograph across the table. 'Have you ever seen this man before?'

    Gazing down, Johnson emitted a harsh laugh. 'John Bowden. Some call him an American patriot.'

    The poison in his answer stunned Sarah into momentary silence. She rested a finger on one edge of the photograph. 'Do you know where Bowden got his gun?'

    Silent, Johnson glanced at his lawyer. Turning to Sarah, his eyes were veiled, and his body stiff with tension, as though fighting against his deepest instincts. In a reluctant tone between mumble and whisper, he said, 'You'd have to ask Ben Gehringer. He stole the guns with me.'

    Sarah, too, felt tense. 'To sell at gun shows?'

    'Yes.' Staring at Bowden's picture, Johnson seemed to contemplate the imponderable workings of fate. 'I took Arizona, and he got Nevada.'

* * *

    By the time Nolan began his interrogation, the room felt hot and stifling, and Sarah had begun imagining the smell emanating from Johnson's body as the sour stench of fanaticism.

    'You do realize,' Nolan said pointedly, 'that you spent this morning incriminating yourself.'

    'Who defines the 'crime'?' Johnson answered with disdain. 'Our 'government,' this handmaiden of Jews and mongrels? I refuse to acknowledge its authority.'

    This seemed to spur in Nolan an answering contempt. 'Have you made any arrangement with the government—however you might despise it—in exchange for your testimony today?'

    'No.'

    Nolan stared at him. 'Or discussed such an arrangement with anyone at all?'

    'When you answer that,' the lawyer admonished Johnson, 'exclude any conversations with counsel.'

    The frustration seemed to issue from Nolan like heat. She could feel his suspicion harden to certainty—that a deal contrived by Kilcannon himself was eroding his client's defense. 'No,' Johnson answered in an undertone of defiance. 'No one from the government. Only my lawyer.'

    But he did not look at Nolan. To Sarah, George Johnson's distaste for his turncoat customer had doubled back on himself. Faced with growing old in prison, he had turned Judas, become another nail in the coffin of the white