Balance of Power

child.'

* * *

After this Kerry could not sleep.

    He lay thinking for what seemed like hours, waiting until Lara's stirring told him that she, too, was awake.

    'If you do this,' he told her, 'use domestic violence as a wedge. Not even the SSA can advocate shooting women and children. If you keep the focus on the victims, instead of the gun lobby, there's less the SSA can say.'

* * *

The next morning she asked to walk alone.

    Kerry watched her become a small figure in an oversized sweater, perhaps a mile distant, gazing out to sea. It was an hour before she returned.

    When she did, she took his hand. 'At least you're here,' she said. 'If anything happened to you, I don't think I could bear it.'

* * *

    In candlelight Lara still looked wan. But at least, Kerry thought, she had begun to eat again.

    'It's not just my family,' she told him. 'This is a once-in-ageneration chance to save thousands of innocent lives. What choice do I have?'

    He could not quarrel with this. In his silence, Lara said quietly, 'We've talked about everything but you.'

    'What has there been to say?'

    'Quite a bit. We're caught in this cycle of guilt, me blaming myself, then blaming you. You've had nowhere to go.'

    Kerry could not speak. For the first time he fought back tears.

    Lara watched his face. 'John Bowden gave us a lot to live with. I'll try to do better, Kerry. For both our sakes.'

    When he reached out his hand, she took it, gazing at their fingers as they intertwined. 'I'll never put this behind me,' she said. 'Whether I want to or not, my life will always be defined by this. The only question is what I do with it.' Looking up at him, she finished softly, 'I think I'm ready now.'

* * *

    The next morning, before they left, Kerry watched with Peter Lake as Lara took her last walk on the beach.

    'Wherever she goes,' Kerry said, 'I want you to go with her.'

EIGHT

One day after the President and First Lady returned to Washington, Senator Frank Fasano and his wife Bernadette paid them a condolence call.

    The meeting was brief and awkward. To Fasano, Kerry Kilcannon looked subtly older, Lara's face hollowed by a loss of sleep and appetite. Though both were gracious, Fasano felt something beneath their cool facade which, while he could not define it, made him apprehensive.

    Leaving, Fasano could not shed his disquiet. 'What are you thinking?' Bernadette asked.

    Perhaps, Fasano reflected, what he felt was the chill of death, a bonedeep grasp of the torment both Kilcannons must be suffering. But a single word leapt to mind, unbidden. Lethal.

'That this is trouble,' he answered.

* * *

    That night, the President invited Senate Minority Leader Chuck Hampton to dine with him alone.

    They were seated in the Family Dining Room where, Hampton remembered reading, the Kilcannons had last dined with Lara's family. He could envision the Costellos admiring the Louis XVI mantel, the gold filigree, the silver centerpiece on the mahogany dining table. During Kilcannon's intermittent silences, Hampton could imagine him recalling the voices which had filled the room.

    The President himself made Hampton edgy. They had never been close; for Hampton, beneath Kilcannon's quickness and charm lay a molten core which eluded Hampton's reckoning. The year before, he had supported then–Vice President Dick Mason for his party's nomination, and one thing he was sure of was that Kerry Kilcannon would never forget this. Himself lawyerly and cerebral, Hampton sensed that, in the wake of the Costello murders, Kilcannon would not rest. Even his quiet felt purposeful.

    'Guns,' the President said at last. 'That's what we're here to talk about.'

    Watchful, Hampton dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. 'We should make it an issue,' he allowed.

    'An issue?' the President echoed coolly. 'I've heard that before, Chuck, including from you. But I'm less inclined to play the hollow man.'

    'You're hardly that, Mr. President.' Hampton summoned a faint, ironic smile. 'You gave us Caroline Masters, the gift that keeps on giving.'

    Kilcannon smiled as well, though his eyes did not. 'And changed the Supreme Court for a generation. While preserving the right to choose.'

    'At a price,' Hampton countered. 'Abortion's divisive enough. If we push gun control too hard, we'll tear apart our party.

    'You know your ex-colleagues, Mr. President. Close to an election year they're like feudal lords. They care most about their fiefdoms.' Smoothly, Hampton adopted a mollifying tone. 'Please don't misunderstand me. There's immense sympathy in the Senate for all that the First Lady and you have gone through. But our side is afraid of where that may take us.'

    'And where is that?'

    Hampton sighed. 'A political death spiral, Mr. President. Right now, the great majority of Americans say they favor 'stricter gun laws.' But no one's defined that for them. Once we propose a law, the SSA will attack it as confiscatory, and tell their people to vote against any legislator who stands with you.' Pausing, Hampton ticked off states on the fingers of one hand. 'Montana. New Mexico. Georgia. Nebraska. Missouri. In each state there's a Democratic senator up for reelection. In each state, ten months ago, you lost—lost rural votes, lost white males, lost by at least five percent. Our senators hold those seats by opposing gun control—that's the trade-off they have to make for favoring abortion rights. If you push this to the limit, you may well take them down.'

    Listening, the President's expression did not change. Quietly, he answered, 'It's different now.'

    Slowly, Hampton shook his head. 'Not to the SSA's core constituents. They're single-issue voters: 'protecting gun rights' is all they care about. There are no single-issue voters for gun control.

    'Fasano knows that. He's praying for you to go all out and inflame the Republican base. First he beats our people in the Senate, and then he goes after you.'