Balance of Power

was no point in attempting to delude her, and Lara had no heart to try. 'The painful truth,' she continued softly, 'is that, on a visceral level, Mary holds us both responsible for what John Bowden did. At least for now.'

    Speaking this aloud, Lara found, deepened her sense of sorrow. For a moment, she felt the impulse to express her misgivings about what she was about to ask, both of Sarah and of Mary. But though Sarah seemed to regard her with sympathy, this was not the reason that Lara had asked her here.

    'The President,' Lara told her, 'has a personal interest in a lawsuit.'

    For a moment, Sarah was quiet. 'In the lawsuit,' she asked, 'or in its conduct?'

    'Both,' Lara answered. 'I think it was Clausewitz who said that war is diplomacy by other means. This lawsuit would be politics by other means.'

    'How so?'

    'One of the harsher lessons Kerry's learned is that there are powers a President doesn't have, or can't exercise because the political price is far too high.' Pausing, Lara heard the bitterness beneath the softness of her voice. 'We couldn't protect Joan's privacy—the media wouldn't allow it. We couldn't use the Secret Service to protect her life—the law wouldn't allow it. We couldn't get background checks at gun shows—the SSA wouldn't allow it. And now Kerry can't be seen as using the legal system to advance a 'personal agenda.' That's what saving lives is called when a President's relatives are murdered.'

    Perhaps out of respect for Lara's feelings, Sarah paused before asking, 'What does the President want from this?'

    'The same things I want,' Lara said firmly. 'To expose the facts behind the development and marketing of the gun and bullets that killed my mother, sister and niece. To split Lexington off from the industry, and show that the SSA can't protect it any longer. To find out where the murderer got the gun. To keep building support for the law Kerry wants enacted. In short, to coordinate the legal and the political, without publicly acknowledging his role.'

    'And how would we accomplish that?'

    Briefly, Lara hesitated. 'Through me.'

    Sarah's gaze grew contemplative. 'I admire you,' she confessed. 'You don't know how much. Part of me wants to help you in any way I can.

    'But the more cautious part has to question my own motives. Am I so young—or ambitious—that I'd take direction from a President without knowing where it leads? Or so flexible that I'd put his interests ahead of my presumptive client's?'

    The questions, Lara thought, reinforced her good opinion of Sarah Dash. 'None of the above,' she answered. 'You simply care about this issue for its own sake.'

    'Same problem,' Sarah rejoined. 'Mary might wonder when caring about the issue takes precedence over her. She can find a host of able lawyers to represent her interests.'

    'That's the problem. One may have already found her. Robert Lenihan.'

    'Bob Lenihan?' Sarah said in surprise. 'He's more than able. He's spent the last ten years extracting a fortune from my old firm's corporate clients.'

    Lara nodded. 'Then you know that he also has his own agenda— notoriety, political influence and money. Do you really think you'd have less concern for her than he might?'

    Sarah gazed at her in open curiosity. 'Just how,' she inquired, 'will you go about shouldering aside Bob Lenihan?'

    Nothing but total candor, Lara realized, would satisfy Sarah Dash. 'We won't. That's not in Kerry's political interests—he needs the plaintiffs' lawyers, and their money, as a counterweight to the SSA. What we envision is that you and Bob Lenihan will serve as Mary's cocounsel . . .'

    'Wait,' Sarah held up her hand, her tone combining humor with incredulity. 'On top of everything else— including enough political and familial complications to challenge Machiavelli—you'd be throwing me in a scorpion pit with an egomaniac with twenty more years' experience, a talent for treachery and manipulation, and all the motive in the world to turn these gifts on me.'

    Lara found herself smiling. 'I think that pretty well states it,' she said wryly. 'Or, perhaps, understates it.'

    Despite herself, Sarah began to laugh. 'Please,' she said, 'don't try to oversell this. It's so attractive on its own.'

* * *

    Once more, Lara Kilcannon transformed before Sarah's eyes. While still pleasant, her expression became serious, her voice soft. 'I know this is a lot to take in. All that I can tell you is that I'm not asking just for Kerry's sake. Or I could never ask Mary to consider how best to value the family we both lost.'

    Pensive, Sarah composed her answer. She had not fully gauged the pitfalls of the First Lady's proposal, most of all entering the world of Kerry and Lara Kilcannon. But that they had invited her was compelling. At heart, Sarah agreed with them—the case was far bigger than Mary Costello. It was the case of any lawyer's career: the chance to establish moral, if not legal, responsibility for the death of Lara's family and, by doing so, to transform America's relationship to guns. 'If Mary wants to meet me,' she said at last, 'I'd explain that I'd be taking this on as a cause; that her lawsuit would be a political weapon; that whatever money she might recover is not my sole concern. After that, it's up to her.'

    For a moment, Sarah imagined the relief she saw on Lara's face warring with her deeper worries about Mary. 'Thank you,' the First Lady said simply.

FIVE

'So now you want to pick my lawyer,' Mary said.

    On a bright fall afternoon, she and Lara walked along a path in Golden Gate Park. The cramped space of Mary's studio apartment, with its newly framed photographs of Inez, Joan, and Marie, had been too much for Lara. The park, with its spacious paths, the menthol scent from eucalyptus overhead, reminded her of the family picnics Inez would organize after Sunday Mass, evoking happier memories. But now her Secret Service detail led and followed. To Lara, the two surviving sisters composed an awkward picture—intense, unsmiling, walking slightly apart—belying the benign explanation that the First Lady had flown to San Francisco merely to spend time with Mary before commencing her travels as advocate.

    'I can't pick your lawyer,' Lara answered. 'Only you can. But we wanted you to have the broadest range of advice. The Kilcannon Center sees these suits not simply as wrongful death actions, but as a way of saving lives. Isn't that what we want?'

    ' 'We'?' Mary's tone was pointed. 'The other day, at school, a new teacher I barely know came up to me. I could see how hard it was for her to tell me how she felt.

    'I was ready to say that I was okay, and that I was grateful for her thoughts.' Mary's voice became quiet and bitter. 'Do you know what she asked me, Lara? 'How is your sister doing?' She'd watched you with Cathie Civitch, and she was worried for you.'

    For a moment, Lara was speechless. For her, the appearance on NBC had been an ordeal, intensified by the pressure of an audience which had proven to be the largest ever for a prime-time interview. But, for Mary, it was another chapter in the lifelong story of Lara eclipsing her sisters, served up with a sad new twist—Mary as the forgotten mourner. 'I'm sorry,' Lara said.

    In profile, Mary's thin face, gazing straight ahead, conveyed her sense of distance. 'I'm just trying to make you see this, Lara. You can go on television. You can give speeches, tell people what laws to pass.' Abruptly, Mary stopped, standing with folded arms and tears filling her eyes. 'I didn't decide how to 'protect' Joanie and Marie. No one even asked me. I had to hear about it two days before your wedding.

    'Three days later they were dead. I was there, Lara—I saw them die. I went to the hospital and prayed for Marie. But all I've got is recurring nightmares and a lawsuit