Balance of Power

* * *

In the limousine, Kerry turned to Lara. Her face was etched with sadness.

    'All day,' he told her, 'I've been watching you pay tribute to your family, comfort Mary, and give Felice Serrano at least a measure of peace. The word that comes to me is 'grace,' in all its meanings.'

    As if exhausted, she rested her shoulder against his. In quiet despair, she answered, 'In the end, being with them helped me. But what do we do now?'

* * *

The next morning, Kit Pace announced that the President and First Lady would return to Martha's Vineyard, for several days of rest and seclusion. Among the staff, the decision was controversial, though none had a voice. But Kit was more than satisfied. Lara's eulogy, widely reprinted, had touched the vast public which wished to mourn with her, as had her calls and visits to the victims' families who, when asked, had remarked on her kindness and concern. As for their planned retreat to Martha's Vineyard, Americans would admire a man, even a President, who subordinates all else to supporting his wife in her time of loss. If the country waited a few more days, Kit believed, the Kilcannons' reentry into public life would be all the more compelling. She wondered if they understood this perfectly.

SIX

On CNN, James Kilcannon lay on his back, a pool of blood beneath his head, dying as the crowd around him screamed its horror and grief. And then he vanished, replaced by a percussive pop as Inez Costello fell.

    In the wake of the Costello murders, Bill Schneider reported, support for stricter gun laws has swollen to over ninety percent . . .

    As Marie Bowden toppled backward, Kerry hit the remote.

    In numb silence, he and Clayton gazed at the darkened screen. Lara had vanished upstairs: the two men sat alone. Quietly, Clayton asked, 'Will Martha's Vineyard help, I wonder?'

    'I don't know.' Kerry's tone commingled irony and sorrow. 'I have to comfort her—if I can—and be seen as comforting her. It feels like I'm trapped in a silent movie, as Lara's husband and as President.'

    Clayton narrowed his eyes in thought. 'The husband part may be beyond me. But the politics of this won't keep.'

    Kerry turned to him. 'I have to do something, Clayton. You know that.'

    'Because of Lara?'

    'Because of me. Because it's time.' Kerry stood, hands jammed in his pockets. 'Standing up to the SSA is part of what I ran on. First I lost a brother. Now guns have decimated Lara's family. What's the point of becoming President if I don't use the office to accomplish what I've fought for ever since Jamie died.'

    'You have to do something,' Clayton agreed. 'The question is, what?' He puffed his cheeks, exhaling. 'You can put in a bill to change the law, then push it symbolically, knowing you'll lose in Congress but gain an issue against the GOP when you run for reelection. Or you can go all out, split the Democratic Party, and put at risk the rest of your agenda . . .'

    'An 'issue,' ' Kerry replied with scorn and anger. 'Is that what those three caskets were? An 'issue'?'

    Clayton's voice was soft. 'You hired me to be straight with you. I've watched you go over the Bowden file, obsessing about what more—or less—you could have done, as if the whole thing turned on you.

    'You're not God, Kerry. You didn't abuse Joan Bowden. You didn't stalk her child. What choice did she have but to leave . . . ?'

    'I convinced her to leave, dammit. I exposed Bowden on national TV . . .'

    'Because the Chronicle was going to. So who killed Lara's family? The media? You? Maybe Bowden did . . .'

    'Maybe Lexington did,' Kerry said tightly. 'Or maybe the SSA.'

    Clayton crossed his arms. 'All I'm saying is to take your time. Politics isn't therapy.'

    Kerry's anger expressed itself in a mirthless smile, a voice muted with suppressed emotion. 'Maybe I'm too self-involved for office. Maybe I hate the people who put this gun in Bowden's hands. Maybe I'm sublimating guilt through action. But I'm not a fool.' Now Kerry's voice became quiet and cool. 'If these murders are too much for me, just maybe, at last, they're too much for the country. You can take guilt and grief and anger and turn it into something better.

    'For the past few days, I've been watching Lara, wondering what to do. And there's nothing.' Kerry's tone was softer yet. 'I'm sick of comforting victims when there is no comfort. I'm sick of the SSA. I'm sick of guns and death.'

    'Sick of guns,' Clayton responded evenly. 'Period. And everyone knows it. Which makes you less than the perfect Messiah.' Clayton's face took on a stubborn cast. 'I hope you know how little I enjoy this conversation. But we need to have it before you and Lara go to Martha's Vineyard. If you make this into Armageddon, people will be flooding gun shops, and the SSA will be shoveling money and votes at the GOP to take down every Democrat in Congress who stands a chance of losing . . .'

    'That's supposed to stop me? Fear of losing?'

    'Maybe it should,' Clayton rejoined. 'The SSA's the most powerful lobby in Washington—on this issue, far more powerful than you.

    'Consider how the world looks to Chuck Hampton and the Democrats in the Senate. Last November, you barely won. You lost the South, the border states, and the interior West. Thanks to the Masters nomination—at least until these shootings—you were the first Democratic President in history to achieve a majority disapproval rating from Republicans two short months into your Presidency.' Rising, Clayton stood face-to-face with Kerry. 'Guns are even more polarizing than abor tion. You'll have to be prepared to launch a second campaign—visiting every county sheriff in every border state, telling sentimental stories about your dad the cop until you want to throw up—and stake your Presidency on your success.

    'Maybe Hampton's people wouldn't run from you like the plague. Maybe, Mr. President, these murders have changed everything. But you had better pray that's so.'

    Tense, Clayton looked into his best friend's cool blue eyes. 'They could change everything,' Kerry rejoined. 'Now people know that a spousal abuser like John Bowden can go to a gun show and buy a Lexington P-2 and Eagle's Claw bullets. God help me, I couldn't have done better than Bowden if I'd invented him. Which, perhaps, I did.'

    'Which makes it personal,' Clayton shot back. 'The SSA will say that you're manipulative and obsessed, that you're excusing your failure to protect Lara's family by blaming it on them . . .'

    'Fuck them,' Kerry snapped. 'I'll never get the Kilcannon haters, or the people who believe our government is out to get them. What I need is the majority of decent people—gun owners included—who think the life of a six- year-old girl outweighs the 'right' of a madman to buy any weapon he wants. Then maybe I can defeat the SSA in Congress, and save the next Marie.' Pausing, Kerry's gaze became intense, almost implacable. 'The SSA claims they've never lost. But there's a selfdestructive quality about them, a tendency to go too far and say too much. They'll cannibalize the pro-gun movement if we can corner them . . .'

    'Do that,' Clayton admonished, 'and they'll try to destroy you. They'll make the fight over the Masters nomination and late term abortion look like nothing.'

    'Maybe so,' Kerry answered with a shrug. 'But what divides people over abortion is an insoluble moral question: whether a fetus is an inviolate life from the moment of conception. The SSA has manufactured the division over gun rights out of paranoia and cultural distrust, and what's manufactured can be changed.'