Balance of Power

by Richard North Patterson

  "The version with Faye Dunaway?" Lara asked.

  "Uh-huh. And Steve McQueen. They made love on the beach."

  Lara smiled. Together, they watched the sun vanish beneath the ocean, leaving striations of orange-streaked clouds in a darkening cobalt sky.

  * * *

  When the Costellos landed at San Francisco International, Marie at last awakened.

  As the others slowly gathered their belongings, Joan dabbed the sleep from her daughter's eyes with a moistened cloth. The little girl stretched. "Are we home?"

  "Nearly home."

  Together, the four Costellos left the plane, reentering a life without the privileges of proximity to Lara. Marie ran ahead on the moving rubber pathway, at times turning to glance back at her mother. Reaching the security gate, she paused, looking back again.

  On the other side were cameramen and people with microphones. "Marie," someone called out. But before she could answer, two men in sport coats had swooped down, standing between her and the cameras, and then she felt her mother's hand on her shoulder.

  "Marie," the man called again. But Marie had already learned to stare straight ahead. She hoped that his feelings weren't hurt.

  * * *

  Beneath a woolen blanket, Lara gazed at the star-streaked sky, brighter for the absence of city lights. "Do you know the constellations?" she asked.

  "No."

  "Neither do I. Maybe we can send someone for a book on stars."

  That, Lara realized, had become her notion of a major project. Content, she listened to the deep spill of the ocean.

  Abruptly, Kerry tensed, touching her arm in warning. Startled, she turned to see him staring ahead of them, quite still.

  The skunk, its tail arched distinctively, sniffed at Kerry's feet.

  Hostage to its impulses, the two humans watched the animal, afraid to move. At last, the skunk lowered its tail and ambled away.

  "Where's Peter," Kerry inquired, "when we really need him?"

  TWENTY-FOUR

  With a pneumatic hiss, the glass door opened for John Bowden.

  His coordination was impaired by drink; as he walked, the rows of baggage carousels seemed to magnify, then recede. His mind oscillated between a foggy stupor and a fractured vision of what might come. In the crook of his arm was the box for a girl's pastel Lego set.

  It was a little past six o'clock. The baggage area was crowded with passengers awaiting luggage; the digital sign above the carousel nearest Bowden listed three incoming flights. As he approached it, a middleaged blonde woman saw the Lego set he carried, and smiled at him.

  Ignoring her, Bowden read the sign. Boston, New York, Miami.

  He moved on, more quickly now. He could feel anger pulsing in his temple, imagine the release of pain which would come with each pull of the trigger. Above carousel three the sign flashed "Flight 88— Washington/Dulles—IN."

  Abruptly, Bowden stopped.

  The first trickle of passengers began to gather at the empty carousel. To the side, Bowden began to pace.

  The crowd thickened, surrounding the metal oval. A sheen of sweat dampened Bowden's forehead. He paced now in concentric circles, agitated, eyes darting as he scanned the new arrivals.

  Still they did not come.

  His skin felt clammy now. The heat of alcohol cooled into a numbness against which the compulsive pacing became his only weapon. His T-shirt was rancid with sweat; depression seeped through him like nightfall.

  The carousel was still. At the edge of his consciousness, a woman's voice announced, "The baggage for Flight 88 from Washington-Dulles now will be arriving at carousel five . . ."

  Bowden began moving.

  • • •

  Marie was glad her mommy had taken her to the bathroom.

  The baggage was taking too long. Holding her grandmother's hand, she waited for her bright-flowered suitcase, wondering how grown-ups could keep watching a rubber belt turning with nothing on it.

  Amidst the crowd, her family formed a small group with the two security guards who had met them. This nearness to those she loved—her grandmother's hand, her head against her mother's waist, the sound of her mother talking quietly to Mary—made Marie feel warm and secure. Doll hugged to her chest, she peeked out at the men with cameras.

  Her mother had refused to talk to them; her aunt and grandmother would not either. Although she did not know why, her mother seemed to fear these strangers. She looked away, and then peered out again.

  Daddy.

  He was carrying a box with pink ribbons wrapped around it. Startled, Marie glanced up at her mother.

  Daddy had come to meet her with a present. But her mother did not see him.

  Her daddy saw her now.

  Tentative, she raised her arm, a tiny wave to say she saw him, too.

  * * *

  Bowden sank to his knees, eyes fixed on Marie. As her mouth formed words he could not hear, her mother turned toward him.

  Fumbling, he opened the box.

  As he slung it over his shoulder, the gun felt heavy, solid. The movement around him slowed, and then his eyes met Joan's.

  First, she would watch the others die.

  Gun at his hip, Bowden aimed at Inez Costello.

  "No," his wife cried out.

  Inez turned, startled at the anguish in her daughter's voice. Bowden pulled the trigger.

  A red stain appeared from the shredded flesh of Inez Costello's throat.

  Bowden froze, stunned at his power. Joan's screams filled the air; one of the guards reached inside his shirt. A gentle pull of the trigger launched him backward. In a split second Bowden sprayed three more bullets. A blonde girl slumped, then the second guard. Passengers dove to the floor.

  There was no one in front of Joan.

  An unearthly calm came over him. First she would watch her sister die, feel the weight of all she had done to him.

  * * *

  On her hands and knees, Mary scrambled onto the metal slope of the baggage carousel.

  Shrieks of panic echoed behind her. As she crawled toward the mouth of the baggage tunnel, a bullet exploded the suitcase beside her.

  Frenzied, she reached the opening, pushing aside the luggage it expelled. Another bullet smashed the rubber flaps across it, then two more. In a panic, Mary scrambled inside.

  The belt kept carrying her backward. Twisting to face forward, she pushed against its momentum with the palms of both hands, the baggage piled behind her shoving at her feet. Through the swinging flaps she saw John Bowden aim the gun.

  * * *

  Alarms began shrieking. The sound made Bowden's finger twitch.

  A bullet parted the rubber flap near Mary's face.

  To both sides of the carousel people ran or fell flat on the tile, hands covering their faces or curled like fetuses. Now each movement was too fast for him.

  Panicking, he turned to aim at Joan.

  She clutched Marie, gaping in terror and disbelief. Her daughter's face pressed against her leg. At their feet her mother lay in a spreading pool of blood.

  "John," she cried out, and then the bullet shattered her jaw.

  Marie fell with her mother, looking into her ruined face. She turned away, eyes shut, doll clutched to her chest.

  Her father stared at her, gun frozen. His eyes were still and wide.

  "Stop!" a man's voice shouted.

  Bowden flinched. In an involuntary reflex, the gun jerked in his hand.

  "No . . . ," he cried out.

  Marie's doll shattered in china pieces.

  * * *

  Desperate, Mary struggled to fight the moving belt. As her head cleared the rubber flaps she heard Bowden's wail of grief.

  "Marie . . ."

  Staring in horror at something Mary could not see, Bowden placed the gun to his temple.

  There was a short, percussive pop, a spume of red. Bowden crumpled.

  As Mary's arms went slack, the conveyor belt expelled her with the luggage. Turning facefirst on th
e carousel, she passed Marie.

  Mary began sobbing.

  With a shudder, the belt stopped moving. In the terrible silence, Mary slowly raised her head.

  Around her, passengers wept, some prone, others rising to their knees. A woman, staggering past, chattered like a monkey. Police stood over Bowden's body. Near Marie a paramedic felt Inez's wrist. Beside them, Joan stared emptily at Mary. A burly man with a Minicam bent over them, filming.

  Dropping Inez Costello's wrist, the paramedic turned to Marie.

  The child lay on her back, chest stained with blood. The paramedic touched her wrist. "Bring a stretcher," she called out. "This one's still alive."

  * * *

  Entering the baggage area, Inspector Charles Monk passed a team of paramedics hurrying a dark-haired child to an ambulance.

  It was rush hour. There was no heliport at SF General; the sheriff would have to block Highway 101, freezing traffic so that the ambulance could weave its way to the emergency room. Fifteen minutes, at least. Perhaps a lifetime.

  Stopping, Monk surveyed the crime scene.

  There were at least six dead—a slender woman of middle age; a plump woman of perhaps thirty; a blonde teenager sprawled backward on the carousel, arms akimbo; two clean-cut men in identical sport coats, one white, the other Hispanic; and, perhaps forty feet away, a skinny man in a T-shirt lying beside a spatter of his blood and brains.

  Nearby was the empty box of a child's Lego set. A Lexington P-2 lay beneath his outflung arm.

  Can't accomplish all this with a knife, Monk thought.

  The scene was quieter now. The emergency response team had done its work: the baggage area was sealed; the media cordoned off; crime scene investigators sifted through the debris; the police were interviewing witnesses. A cop sat with a young woman, slumped in a chair near the entrance, eyes dull with shock.

  Kneeling in front of her, Monk felt his weight, his age, the throb in his damaged knee. "What happened here?" he asked.

  She could not form an answer. "This is the President's family," the cop said softly. "The shooter was his brother-in-law."

  TWENTY -FIVE

  Dr. Callie Hines was staring at her office wall when the beeper went off.

  She had just finished patching up a sixteen-year-old Asian kid with an abdominal knife wound—unusual in Callie's experience, which featured gunshot wounds at the rate of one a day. But this was the rhythm of an emergency room surgeon: crazy energy, stasis, then a beeper. She snatched it out of her pocket.

  It was a nine hundred call; whoever they were bringing in was at risk of dying. Rising from her chair, Callie walked briskly to the elevator, a lean black woman with a model's figure, a smooth lineless face, and cool seen-it-all eyes. She had just reached the emergency room area when her cell phone rang.

  This was the paramedic team. There had been a mass shooting at SFO; glancing at her watch, Callie envisioned Highway 101 at rush hour. In the background, she could hear the piercing whine of sirens. "Who's the patient?" Callie asked.

  "A six-year-old girl." The woman's voice was taut. "It's a Room One case."

  Inwardly, Callie winced. Gunshot wounds for teens were common, but not a child this small; Operating Room One was reserved for patients at death's door. "What kind of wound?" she asked.

  "Abdominal. Her blood pressure's low—we intubated her, applied pressure to the wound, and started an IV."

  "Is she conscious?"

  "Yes." A slight pause. "This one's a VIP."

  The remark was unusual—the ER was not a status-conscious place. "A VIP six-year-old?" Callie asked.

  "It's Lara Kilcannon's niece. Her mother and one sister died at the scene."

  Callie prided herself on nervelessness; now she drew a breath, calling on her reserves of calm. "I'll be waiting," she said.

  • • •

  "Mr. President."

  Turning, Kerry saw a shadow walking quickly through the sea grass, backlit by the waxing moon above the sand dunes. "Mr. President," Peter Lake repeated, more softly now.

  Something had happened, Kerry thought; perhaps they had found Al Anwar. He felt Lara's hand clasp his.

  * * *

  Peter knelt. In the darkness, Lara tensed: though he had called out to Kerry, Peter was looking at her.

  "I have bad news." Peter's face was bleak, his voice hesitant and strained. "There's been a shooting at SFO. Your mother and Joan are dead."

  "No . . ." For an instant Lara could not see; Kerry's grip tightened, as if to pull her back from some abyss.

  "What about Mary?" she asked. "And Marie?"

  Her voice sounded calm, as though someone else had posed the question. "Mary's all right," Peter answered, then glanced at Kerry. "But Marie was wounded. They're taking her to SF General."

  Kerry pulled Lara close. Resistant, she twisted her face toward Peter. "Was it John?"

  "Yes."

  Lara felt her stomach knot, heard the thickness in Kerry's voice. "Get me the hospital," he demanded.

  * * *

  Callie Hines stood near the slick whiteboard, watching a resident enter the name of new patients in Magic Marker. In the last few minutes, she had seen a parade worthy of a Brueghel painting: two prisoners in manacles; a homeless black man with pneumonia; a twenty-year-old Hispanic woman with AIDS, overdosed on heroin; a bipolar white man, HIV positive, who had slashed his wrists; a cocaine addict pregnant with her fourth child, her left arm amputated.

  This intake, though heavy, was lighter than in winter—with the chilly rains, the homeless would seek refuge in the waiting room or, in desperation, attempt to hide in the tunnels beneath the hospital. This was no place, Callie thought once more, for those who would close their eyes to pathology and poverty, hopelessness passed down from one generation to the next.

  The ambulance bay burst open.

  On the gurney lay a small dark-haired girl with tubes in her nose

  and throat. She was conscious: her eyes were wide with shock—not simply to her body, Callie thought, but to her spirit, her sense of what the world was.

  Callie rushed with her to the trauma room.

  * * *

  Mary Costello could not think or feel. Her only focus was Marie.

  Two cops in a squad car sped her to the hospital. At the door of the emergency ward one of them punched numbered buttons on a panel; the door swung open, and a plump black woman took her to a sterile room with a telephone and pastoral pictures on otherwise bare walls. Mary felt claustrophobic.

  "I need to see her," Mary said.

  The social worker took her hand. "She's already in the trauma room. The prognosis isn't good. They'll have to operate as soon as possible . . ."

  "I know that. That's why I have to be there."

  The woman appraised her. "Will you be okay?" she asked.

  "Not if I stay here."

  The woman nodded. "All right," she said, and led Mary to the trauma room.

  * * *

  Marie lay on a gurney. She was surrounded by men and women in purple scrubs or white jackets, all wearing masks and leaded aprons; two cylindrical lamps and an X-ray machine extended toward her from the ceiling; a screen monitored her heartbeat. A blonde woman doctor directed the activity; to the side, a handsome, somewhat imperious black woman watched with folded arms.

  Marie's bloody clothes were in a paper bag beside the gurney. An anesthesiologist stood at her head, administering oxygen. Marie moaned softly. "I'll get the morphine," someone said.

  Stunned, Mary tried to absorb this. A young doctor in glasses turned to her. "You the aunt?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Do you know who her doctor is, or whether she's taking any medication?"

  Helpless, Mary shook her head.

  "What about allergies?"

  "I don't know."

  He turned away. Beneath the calm, Mary felt the pulse of urgency. "How much blood out?" the blonde doctor asked.