Balance of Power

interposed. 'The question is vague and overbroad. Why does anybody testify?'

    Nettled, Nolan turned to the reporter. 'Please read back the question.'

    'Why?' Sarah snapped. 'It won't get any better.'

    'Yes,' the public defender agreed. 'I'd like you to rephrase the question.'

    Nolan stared at the witness. 'Do you,' he asked in an accusatory tone, 'have an agreement with plaintiff's counsel regarding your testimony here today?'

    'You mean like yours with Martin Bresler?' Sarah asked. 'Let me clear that up for you. We've never met with Mr. Gehringer. Except for scheduling matters, we've never spoken to his counsel. We have no deal with either one.

    'What about you, John? Did you meet with Martin Bresler? Did you help choose his lawyers? Did you and Bresler's lawyer work out some arrangement? Or did Mr. Fancher do all that?'

    Nolan turned from her in icy disdain. 'Why don't you answer the question?' Sarah persisted. 'I answered yours.'

    Nolan remained silent, plainly reining in his temper. Then he asked the witness, 'Do you have any arrangement with the United States government which includes your testimony in this lawsuit?'

    As Gehringer stared at nothing, his lawyer intervened. 'Any answer,' he said, 'is governed by the attorney- client privilege . . .'

    'Nonsense,' Nolan interrupted. 'Any deal goes to this witness's credibility.'

    'There is no deal,' the lawyer answered firmly. 'That's all I'm privileged to tell you.'

    Abruptly, Harrison Fancher jabbed a bony finger at Sarah. 'You know what's happening here. Kilcannon fed you this witness. He's abused the power of the federal government to resuscitate a worthless case.'

    'That kind of abuse,' Sarah retorted mockingly, 'cries out for exposure. Why don't you two go to Gardner Bond and ask him to unseal this deposition. Then you can call a press conference and give copies to the media. I'm sure they'll share your moral outrage.'

    Fancher's mouth worked. Raising his head, Nolan allowed himself only an angry smile. Sarah wished that this brief moment of pleasure could salve her hatred and frustration.

EIGHTEEN

On the television in her office in Portland, Maine, Cassie Rollins watched an obese actor caricaturing a trial lawyer rip the stars off an American flag.

    Tell Cassie Rollins, the voice-over intoned, that it's time to stop greedy plaintiffs' lawyers from raising prices and wiping out our jobs. The white print at the bottom of the screen gave the telephone number of Cassie's Washington office and the name of the ad's supposed sponsor 'Citizens for Consumer Rights.'

    'Tell the SSA,' Cassie remarked wryly, 'that it's un-American to use an alias.' She turned to her Chief of Staff. 'How many calls have we had on this?'

    'About four hundred,' Leslie Shoop responded. 'But the ad has only been running three days.'

    Cassie had a new appreciation of the term 'punch-drunk.' A fullpage ad called 'The Case for Tort Reform' was running in Maine's daily papers; political writers were reporting rumors of a primary challenge by the SSA's pet candidate; her office was receiving a rising tide of phone messages, letters, faxes and e-mails; groups she had never heard of—such as 'Maine Women for Self-Defense'—were calling to demand a meeting.

    'It's like an avalanche,' Cassie had murmured to Kate Jarman of Vermont as they left the Senate floor. 'I'm spending every weekend back home, and my approval rating's five points down.'

    Chuck Hampton's junior colleague gave her friend a shrewd but sympathetic look. 'It's not an avalanche,' she had answered. 'It's Frank. The SSA wants this, so he can't afford to lose. He's given them a hunting license—as it were.'

    Cassie nodded. 'He as good as told me that. Never doubt him.'

    'I never did.' Kate kept her voice low. 'Frank wants to be President, and he knows who's got the money, and the votes. Maybe Chuck can get by with supporting Kilcannon—their party's different. But I'm not bucking Frank on this one. A lot of my gun owners are figuratively up in arms, and they're not nearly as fervent as yours.'

    To Cassie, this warning was more disheartening for its source, a fel low moderate whose judgment she respected. 'In other words, I'm being dumb.'

    Kate looked at her askance. 'Never dumb, Cassie. I'm not up for reelection, and you could get nailed either way. But the safe play may be to cave in to Fasano.'

    Perhaps so, Cassie mused as she watched the screen. But she did not like the influence of gun owners and fundamentalists within her party's base, the increasingly shopworn claim of her fellow moderates—even as the right wing marginalized them in the Senate—that they were working for change from within. On her television, Governor Abel Randolph appeared, brandishing a gun.

    'This is the newest one,' Leslie Shoop advised her.

    The setting was a press conference held to dramatize Randolph's support for safety locks. As he fumbled with the device, failing to unlock it, his audience began to snicker. The camera caught the state's lieutenant governor, a woman, vainly trying to suppress a smile.

    If this were a rape, the narrator said, not a press conference, how much time would you have to protect yourself? Call Cassie Rollins and tell her you're not laughing. This time the white print read, 'Maine Women for SelfDefense.'

    'At least this clears up who they are,' Cassie said. 'Charles Dane in drag.'

    'True. But they sure make Abel look dumb.' Leslie hit the remote. 'It's both an invitation, and a warning. The warning is obvious—'look at what we're doing to you.' The invitation is 'look what we'll do to Abel Randolph for you if you give us what we want.' '

    For a moment, Cassie gazed at the blank screen. Then they left for a Kiwanis meeting, the start of a busy weekend.

* * *

    Four days later, on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Charles Hampton of Vermont moved to strike the gun immunity provision from the Civil Justice Reform Act.

    Afterward Hampton crossed the aisle and, smiling, placed a hand on the shoulder of his friend Chad Palmer. 'I only did it to get you time on C-SPAN,' Hampton assured the senior senator from Ohio. 'After all, this sterling piece of legislation came out of your committee.'

    Hampton saw a flash of irritation, perhaps embarrassment, and then a more equable expression returned to his colleague's handsome face and, with it, the look—belied by the harshness of Chad's life—of the all-American boy, one of life's winners. 'My finest hour,' Palmer answered with a shrug.

    Hampton's own gaze turned sober. 'I'm glad it's someone's,' he said. 'This is going to be a bloodbath.'

* * *

    In her office on the first floor of the Hart Building, the junior senator from Maine took a call from her erstwhile colleague. Dryly, she inquired, 'Is this the artist currently known as 'KFK'?'

    'Yes,' the President answered with a laugh. ' 'Kentucky Fried Kilcannon.' Or so your leader hopes.'

    'My leader,' Cassie rejoined, 'is a serious man.'

    'So am I, Cassie. I've been trying to figure out what to threaten you with. I can't think of anything nearly as