Balance of Power

    Monk gazed at Nolan with a dispassion which somehow conveyed dislike. 'No,' he answered softly. 'Not for a fact.'

    'So you don't know—because you can't know—whether he saw that ad.'

    Monk sat back. 'Under the rules of common sense, Mr. Nolan, I do know. Like you know. Just not under the rules of evidence.'

    Silent, Nolan considered him, and then, smiling faintly, turned to Sarah. 'Your witness, Ms. Dash. I think that's all I need.'

FIVE

When Kerry had first fallen in love with Lara Costello, there were moments when he had felt consumed by the wonder of being with her—her quick grin, the way she turned her head to look at him, and, a rarity in his life, the sense of understanding and of being understood, of being seen for who he was. After a time, there was no thought he feared to express, no emotion he feared to share with her. Seeing her after several days spent apart, he would feel a fresh jolt of excitement, and then the gentler, deeper sensation of being whole. Kerry had been a lonely boy, who gave his trust to few; his trust, once given, was deep, his loyalty complete. But the harsh world of politics had reinforced his instinct that trust, like love, could be painful and fraught with risk. So that Lara became at once a refuge and so central to his life that it began to scare him.

    He had been married then, to Meg. That had cost him a child with Lara. Then two years followed without seeing her, during which he used his uphill, insurgent race for the Presidency as an antidote, until it had consumed him. When Lara at last returned, Kerry, since divorced, discovered that he wanted two things equally—the Presidency, and a life with her.

    Now he had them both, and Laura and he had paid an incalculable price. Often he wished that he could return to the days before the abortion; he would divorce Meg and marry Lara, so that they could live their life as a family, never feeling as they both did now. Then he would have seen her once-familiar smile of amusement—clean and white and sharp— instead of the sorrow he now read in her eyes, a reminder of her constant grief, the obligation she felt to Kerry's drive against gun violence, the only fit memorial they could offer.

    One night Kerry told her all of that.

    He had not planned to. She had been in their bathroom, brushing her hair before bed. Kerry had been preoccupied. Still in jeans and a sweater, he had stretched out on the bedroom couch, contemplating the complex calculus of the Senate, the thorny and uniquely vicious politics of guns. And then he looked up, and saw her reflection in the mirror.

    The change he felt was surprising, almost chemical. For a time, he simply watched the graceful curve of her neck, the dark eyes, filled with thought, indifferent to her image in the glass. Then he went to her.

    When his face appeared behind hers, she looked surprised, and then her reflection smiled faintly at the sight of his. When he kissed her neck, she leaned back against him.

    'What is it?' she asked.

    He told her.

    Her eyes in the mirror were soft, intent. Only after he was done did she turn to him, resting her forehead against his chin. 'I know,' she murmured. 'But that's not how it is for us.'

    Kerry held her. And then he felt her hands slip beneath his sweater to trace the line of his back. As she arched back, looking up at him, he untied the sash at her waist. With a whisper, her silk robe slipped to the floor.

    'Yes,' she said softly. 'Yes.'

* * *

    Afterward they lay awake in the dark, the fingers of one hand curled in the other's, and talked about the past—not with regret, but remembering the signs, trivial and deep, that they were falling in love without yet being lovers. 'When something happened,' she recalled, 'good or bad, you were the person I wanted to call. Or an issue would pop up, and I wanted to know what you thought.

    'It was ridiculous, of course. You were married, a senator, perhaps even a future President. I was the highly objective professional who viewed you with the utmost skepticism. And suddenly I stopped.' Her voice filled with remembered warmth. 'It was a rotten trick, transforming yourself from a subject into a person.'

    'No choice,' he said casually. 'It was the only way I had of sleeping with you.'

    'Really? When did you start flattering yourself that that would happen?'

    'About a minute before it did.' His tone was serious now. 'I never felt entitled, just lucky. I still do.'

    'Looking back, Kerry, you were inevitable. The night it happened, from the moment I kissed you, I wanted you so much I couldn't think straight.' Pausing, she added quietly, 'Sometimes I felt like we were the same person. What you needed from me, I did from you.'

    Kerry hesitated. 'And now?'

'I still do.' Her voice was quieter yet. 'More than ever.'

    His fingers tightened around hers. For several minutes they were silent.

    'Lying on the couch,' she inquired, 'what were you thinking? You were so still that it was like you were somewhere else.'

    'You were watching me?'

    'Oh, I do that sometimes. Typically when you're too preoccupied to notice. Which describes a fair chunk of your day.'

    'Have I become that bad?'

    'You were always like that—here, and then gone. I never minded.' Another moment passed. 'So what was it?'

    'Other than you?'

    'Yes.'

    Carefully, he explained his calculation.

    After he finished, she was silent for some time. But in the relaxation of her grasp, Kerry could feel her keen political mind focusing wholly on his problem. 'The key,' she finally said, 'is Lenihan. Handle him and the SSA's in trouble.'

* * *

    The next morning Kerry took Air Force One to Chicago for a speech on stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.

    The subject was delicate. In tone and content, his message—that 'respect for life requires using medicine to save the living'—would further inflame the religious right and its allies in the House and Senate. But, in conscience, Kerry felt he had no choice. To him, the plight of those afflicted with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, paralysis and the like far outweighed the presumptive plight of a frozen embryo already slated for destruction. Carefully, he read and reread his speech, changing words and phrases. Satisfied, he put it aside, gazing out the window.

    Below, the woods and fields of Ohio, Chad Palmer's state, were burnished with the last colors of late fall, its farms and villages dots on the tinted landscape. As he often did, Kerry found himself imagining the lives represented by the dots. Never more than in Air Force One, crossing the American continent, did he feel the depth of his responsibility for the country he loved, the people he was sworn to serve. He brooded on this awhile longer, and then called Robert Lenihan.

* * *