Balance of Power

'Kilcannon flipped him. Time to choose, Cassie.'

    Senator Rollins inhaled. 'It will be—in about three minutes. Where's Slezak?'

    Fasano's eyes bored into her. 'No clue. Whoever he's promised his vote to, it isn't me.' His voice reverted to its cool, clipped tenor. 'Slezak's not on my team. You are. Don't embarrass me any further.'

    Around them the edgy buzz of conversation rose, both the senators and the gallery anticipating the end game. 'Then don't embarrass me,' she said softly. 'There are people watching.'

    'No need,' Fasano answered. 'I've said all I should ever need to say.' Abruptly turning, he walked away.

* * *

    On the screen the count stood at forty-eight to forty-eight, with one certain vote for each side yet to come. The clock read 2:14.

    'Come on, Cassie,' the President murmured. Something kept him from speaking Slezak's name.

* * *

'That looked chummy,' Chad said on his return. His voice was conversational, as if reporting something of mild interest. 'You and Slezak still have a couple of minutes. Care to know what turned Coletti?'

    Contemplating yet again the potential consequences of defying the Majority Leader, Cassie remained shaken. 'Sure.'

    With a smile, Chad told her.

    After a moment, Cassie shook her head. 'You know, I really despise these people.'

    'Lexington?'

    'The SSA.'

    Chad gave a querying look. 'And so?'

    Somewhat belatedly, it struck Cassie that, all kindnesses aside, Chad would not mind at all if Fasano lost. 'Tell me something,' she replied. 'What inspired you to sign on as Frank's point man?'

    Chad glanced about them. 'We cut a deal,' he told her in an undertone. 'This thing for a straight up-and-down vote on campaign finance reform.'

    After a moment, Cassie nodded. 'I thought it must be something better than what Frank offered me—an end to my career. Or the President.'

    'What did Kerry offer you?'

    'A chance to do the right thing. I just hate it when that happens.'

    Chad, she saw, was looking over her shoulder. 'Slezak isn't moving,' he reported. 'You've got about a minute.'

    Cassie glanced at her watch. 'Fuck it, Chad. This is becoming way too undignified.'

    With that, she walked briskly toward the clerk.

* * *

'There goes Cassie,' Clayton said.

    At the corner of the screen, the countdown showed 1:14. As Cassie spoke to the clerk, Kerry heard the door to the Oval Office ease open, and turned to see Lara slipping through. Softly, she told her husband, 'I couldn't stand watching up there alone.'

    Kerry's whole being felt taut. 'You're in time for the final curtain. Cassie's about to vote.'

* * *

Aware of the drama of the moment, the clerk peered at the junior senator from Maine through glasses so thick that they magnified his eyes—which, at the moment, resembled those of a startled bug. Smiling, she said, 'Doing a brisk business, I see. Where does the vote stand?'

'Fifty 'no,' ' he answered. 'Forty-eight 'yes.' '

'Close. What do you think I should do?'

    Mute, he looked up at her, unwilling to venture a response. Cassie felt her colleagues crowding in behind her, straining to hear whether her vote would be 'yes' with the President and Hampton, or 'no' with the Majority Leader and her party. 'Oh, well,' she told the clerk. 'Record my vote as 'yes.' '

    Behind her she heard a stir. Glancing up at the Vice President, Cassie gave Ellen Penn a smile. After all, there were so few times a Vice President got to seize the limelight, and one of those was voting to break a tie.

* * *

'It's all on Slezak,' Kerry told his wife.

    Standing behind him, Lara gripped the top of his chair. Her fingers were white, she noticed. For a moment, remembering the murders, the tortured dealings with her younger sister which had led to the filing of the lawsuit, she had been unaware of herself.

    'Please, God,' she murmured, an utterance which was half prayer, half superstition. Reaching back, Kerry touched her hand.

* * *

    On the floor of the Senate, the gazes of her colleagues—some direct, some more circumspect—moved to the junior senator from Michigan.

    Slowly, Slezak walked forward. 'He can't bolt now,' Chad whispered from behind her. 'He'd be cutting Kerry's balls off.'

    That was probably right, Cassie thought. Odds were that Slezak had been holding back his vote to find out, through Cassie, whether the vote would make a difference to the leader of his party. But when she glanced at Senator Hampton, he was standing stock-still, watching Slezak's progress with the same raptness as the others. With Paul Harshman at his shoulder, Senator Fasano pressed close to the clerk's desk.

    As Slezak reached the clerk, head butting forward, Fasano edged aside. Briefly, Slezak glanced at him, and nodded.

* * *

    On the screen, the tally hung suspended, fifty to forty-nine. Kerry and Lara knew only that Slezak had cast his vote.

    A white numeral changed, a 'zero' became a 'one.'

    The President stood in disbelief. 'We lost,' Clayton said tersely. 'Slezak fucked us.'

    Standing, Kerry turned to Lara, heedless of anyone else, and took her in his arms. 'It's not over,' he promised. 'All I need is thirty-four votes against the final bill.'

    She would know this, of course, just as she knew that the struggle to hold those votes could be even more vicious than what had gone before, political trench warfare waged senator to senator. It was just that he felt the need to speak. In answer, Lara held him close.