"Is a sealed settlement 'justice for her family'?" Sarah asked. "A secret payment in return for a dismissal, perhaps dooming the President's chances of sustaining a veto? Instead of trying to save lives, Mary would be helping the SSA to keep anyone else from suing the gun industry, ever. So why don't we call this what it is, Bob—blood money."
A flush crept across Lenihan's neck. "At least the SSA will have paid for what happened. They'll know it, and Mary will know it. There are a thousand ways to dedicate some of this money to the memory of Inez, Joan, and Marie, ways that would have touched them."
How many ways, Sarah wanted to ask, can you say 'venal'? She felt the clutch of her stomach, and then, glancing at Mary, decided that silence was more eloquent than speech.
Head lowered, Mary was rubbing her eyes. Even Lenihan knew enough to join Sarah in her quiet.
They both watched Mary for some moments. Then, squaring her shoulders, Mary looked up at Lenihan, her voice quiet but clear. "I just can't do it," she told him. "No matter what."
Sarah felt a brief spurt of elation. But there was no defiance in Mary's words, no hope of a public triumph. Only a curious resignation, a note of weary fatalism. Perhaps the torment of this decision had exhausted her but, if only for her own sake, Sarah selfishly wished for a greater show of spirit.
Lenihan saw this at once. "Exactly what are you saying, Mary?"
"That it's wrong to take money from these people." A hint of steel crept into Mary's voice. "Tell them that for me."
* * *
For the two days after Lenihan's call, Charles Dane worked the phones, pressuring Fasano, cajoling senators to switch their votes. The surface of Washington—including what Dane alone felt as an eerie silence from the White House—remained unchanged.
On the final day, Kerry Kilcannon appeared in the White House press room. "This morning," he began, "I have vetoed the Civil Justice Reform Act . . ."
SEVEN
One day after the veto, at a time which assured that it would consume the newspapers and airwaves for the next twenty-four hours, the story struck.
Shortly after eight o'clock in the morning, a wan Kit Pace appeared in the President's office and handed him copy from a right-wing Internet columnist. Its narrative was devastating: that Kerry was married when his relationship with Lara began; that they had commenced a "two-year clandestine affair" while Lara had covered Capitol Hill for the New York Times; that Lara had become pregnant; that she had "aborted Senator Kilcannon's unborn child"; that she had exiled herself by taking an overseas assignment to preserve his political future; that after Kerry's subsequent divorce, "having laundered their secret, Kilcannon and Costello presented themselves as newly involved, concealing the truth so that they could seek election as America's sweethearts"; and, finally, that "their presence as First Couple is the result of cold-blooded infanticide and a coolheaded deception designed not only to disguise their moral unfitness but to endear themselves to an unsuspecting electorate." The story was accompanied by a verbatim transcript of the counselor's notes from her postabortion interview with Lara, still dazed from anesthesia, her torrent of emotion recorded under the veil of supposed confidence.
Kerry had never seen the notes. The devastation he found there evoked the visceral memory of his own desperation—making call after call which went unanswered; pleading with Lara through her voice mail to save their child; rushing to her apartment to find her gone; her final call to him, once it was done, to say that they had loved each other, that neither had intended harm, that their relationship was finished, that Lara was going away. "I have to start over," had been her final words. "Please, if you still love me, the one gift you can give me is not to make it harder . . ." Then her voice had broken off, just before the click of her telephone preceded a dial tone.
Looking up, Kerry knew at once that Kit had read it all. Within hours, the embarrassment and pain he could see on her face would be reflected, often with less charity, in the hearts and minds of every American within the reach of a television, or radio, or computer, or telephone, or newspaper, or of any friend, neighbor, coworker or stranger at a grocery store who had heard the story first. All that his adversaries had needed to do they had done: the Internet column was a pebble dropped in an electronic pond, and its ripples would swiftly reach the water's edge.
"I've already prepared copies of our statement," she told him. "If we don't get it out now, the Bob Woodward game will start—a media freefor-all, with thousands of reporters competing for new details. At least this way the story will lead with what you have to say."
Gazing at the counselor's notes, Kerry shook his head. "I don't think our statement covers this. It's not enough now."
When Kit had gone, Kerry called Lara and, a few difficult moments later, Minority Leader Chuck Hampton. Then he picked up a legal pad and swiftly scrawled some notes.
* * *
At nine-fifteen, the President appeared in the White House press room. A stunned Frank Fasano watched his office television with Senator Paul Harshman; Fasano had known of the story for less than twenty minutes and he was still absorbing, with no little sense of dread, the pattern and meaning of the events which now enveloped Kerry Kilcannon.
Kilcannon looked somber but composed. I have a brief statement to make, he began. I will not be taking questions.
"My God," Fasano said, "it's true."
"Of course it's true," Harshman answered with grim asperity. "The only value he's ever held is accumulating power."
The caustic remark, Fasano found, induced a brief reflexive sympathy for the President he opposed—even in the face of personal conduct which appalled him. On television, the slightest edge of disdain entered Kilcannon's voice. Ten days ago, the President continued, Senator Jack Slezak came to the White House. He said that he'd received a warning—anonymous, he assured me—that if I vetoed the Civil Justice Reform Act certain facts regarding my life before becoming President would be made public.
Dane, Fasano thought. Only this could explain the confidence with which Dane had assured him that Kilcannon would be beaten. Glancing at Harshman, Fasano surmised that he did not know. Through deliberate hints, Dane had wanted Fasano to discern—at the same time as Kerry Kilcannon—the secret behind Kilcannon's ruin and, to that extent, for Fasano to be complicit in the SSA's hidden exercise of power. Never again would Fasano doubt the risks of defying Charles Dane.
Yesterday, Kilcannon said, I vetoed that bill. This morning an Internet columnist printed a story regarding my relationship to Lara prior to our engagement. In all factual respects—as opposed to its characterization of our motives or emotions—that story is true.
"Even the abortion," Fasano murmured. In his soul, he believed that abortion was the taking of human life; in the most graphic way, this illustrated the gulf between Fasano and a man he often thought to be devoid of spiritual values—a Catholic who passed himself as personally devoted to the teachings of their Church; a President who "reluctantly" distinguished between his religious beliefs and what government could dictate in the realm of private conduct; an adulterer who—in the hidden recesses of his life—cared nothing for the life of his own child. With unsparing self-knowledge, Fasano realized that his disgust over Kilcannon's acts soon would distance him from his visceral horror at Dane's use of them, enabling him to coldly assess their impact in the public sphere.
"It's over with," he murmured. "Certainly this veto, and maybe even his Presidency."
"If we don't take the lead," Harshman answered, "we don't deserve to be senators." Weighing Harshman's words, Fasano reflected on how difficult it would be to walk the public line between disapproval and savagery in a way which served his goals. Once more, he focused on the President.
But there is a deeper truth, Kilcannon said firmly. Personal lives are as complex as the reasons that people are happy, or sad. I'm lucky to have met the woman I was meant to be with. I don't think I need explain the hows or the whys, or that Lara need discuss with anyone a decisio
n which—in simple decency—other women are allowed to make in private.
" 'In simple decency,' " Harshman repeated with scorn. But the background buzz of astonishment from the press corps had yielded to silence.
In any life, the President continued, there are decisions which keep us up at night, long after they are made. There are decisions which others would make differently. But I do not think a public burning should be the price of a public career. I trust the American people to judge us on how we fulfill the public responsibilities they have given us. Pausing, Kilcannon looked unflinchingly into the camera. For our part, we will do our best. But as to this deeply private matter, we have nothing more to say.
With this, he turned, heading for the exit. Mr. President, a woman's voice called out, does this mean that Mrs. Kilcannon will cease to be a spokesperson regarding the gun issue?
The President kept walking. Then, abruptly, he turned, fixing his inquisitor with a long cold stare. I really did mean nothing, he said. To you or anyone. You'll have to do without us.
With that, Kilcannon left the room.
"Well?" Harshman inquired.
"No one said he lacks for nerve." Pausing, Fasano made his tone imperative. "I want the leadership in my office—now. We need to be disciplined, and let other people do whatever damage there's left to do. I don't want our senators on CNN before we've assessed the public mood."
"Don't you think," Harshman objected, "that we should lead the public mood?"
Fasano appraised him. "Have you stopped to wonder just where this story came from? I'll bet Kilcannon has. You may remember my predecessor, the once-powerful Macdonald Gage." He slowed his speech to underscore each word. "Suppose Kilcannon finds whoever planted the story. If that happens, you won't want to be their Siamese twin. So do me—and yourself—a favor, Paul. Shut up."
Before Harshman could respond, Fasano's intercom buzzed. "You'd better drop whatever you're doing," his Chief of Staff said tersely. "Hampton's taking the floor."
* * *
In the minute or so it took Fasano to lope from his office to the Senate's swinging door, Chuck Hampton had begun.
"I can't speak to the President's and First Lady's personal life," he told the Senate, "except to say that it's their business, not mine. The President was typically candid and direct, and the line he has drawn is one that we can all respect. Because of this, I fully trust that today's events will not affect his relationship to the members of this body."
You have every right to hope, was Fasano's mordant thought—he could hear the strain of the moment in Hampton's voice, detect the shock his counterpart must be feeling. This moment was pivotal to Hampton's leadership. In Fasano's wake, a steady stream of senators was repopulating the chamber—now Vic Coletti and Cassie Rollins—creating the crackle of crisis and drama.
"Blackmail," Hampton said in a rising voice, "is deplorable, and whoever did this is despicable. Whoever did this must not know Kerry Kilcannon.
"No gutter tactics can cause this President to back down. No blackmailer too cowardly to show his face in public can change the merits—or the demerits—of the Civil Justice Reform Act."
Hampton, Fasano realized, was making a credible effort to cauterize the damage and keep his troops in line. Next to Fasano, Macdonald Gage had appeared, appraising Hampton with a cool eye which did nothing to conceal Gage's pleasure at the harsh recompense now visited on the President who had tarnished him so effectively.
"We can only hope," Hampton told the Senate, "that this act of viciousness will not drain further public life of all decency or compassion. For if compassion attached itself only to perfection, there would be little mercy for any of us."
"How true," Gage said with quiet bitterness. "And how convenient for Hampton to remember that now." But Fasano heard a moral different from that which Gage intended: Gage had stood too close to the man who had destroyed Chad Palmer's daughter, and Kilcannon had made him pay for it. Fasano had no intention of joining his predecessor in the ranks of the walking dead.
Hampton's eyes scanned the chamber, almost full now. "The current Hobbesian state of nature which pervades our political life—the survival not of the fittest, but the most vicious; the use of scandal through the media by groups or individuals bent on destroying their ideological opponents—threatens to drive the higher decencies from public life. It has, and will, cost us the services of good men and women of exemplary public character. And it causes, like the slow, repeated dripping of water on a stone, the erosion of all forgiveness, all ability to value others for the whole of who they are. Martin Luther King was an adulterer, and he taught a nation to be far better than we were . . ."
"Martin Luther King," Gage scoffed under his breath. "Why not Jesus Christ himself? If Chuck's desperate enough to exhume old Martin's tired sins, Kilcannon's beyond saving . . ."
But Fasano was not yet—not quite—sure.
Leaving the Senate after Hampton's speech, Palmer took the Senate subway through the grey subterranean corridors which traversed the bowels of Congress. His fellow senators and their aides were as grim as cave dwellers uncertain of the environment in the greater world beyond.
Cassie Rollins sat beside him in the open car. "What did you think?"
Chad turned to her. Very softly, he said, "That I hoped never to see anything like this again."
Nodding, Cassie touched his arm. Their quiet lasted until the subway reached its destination.
Entering the elevator, Chad asked, "Care to watch some cable news?"
"Thanks. It might be good to get an initial reading on the echo chamber."
The corridor near Chad's office was jammed with reporters, Minicams, microphones. "What did you think of the President's statement?" someone asked the two senators.
Cassie shook her head. Sweeping by the swarm of media, Chad snapped brusquely, "Chuck Hampton said it for me. You can run clips of him in my place."
As they reached the inner sanctum of his office, Cassie murmured, "Frank won't like that."
"Fuck Fasano. All he bought was my crummy vote, not the right to turn me into a prick like Harshman." Palmer grabbed the remote and materialized CNN.
A half hour of CNN reassured Fasano that, as he had fervently hoped, the SSA was remaining silent. It was left to the Reverend Bob Christy, avuncular head of the Christian Commitment, to set the tone for the right-wing drumbeat that would consume every minute between the President's announcement and the last moment of Nightline and, in the endless frontiers of cyberspace, beyond.
Christy addressed the interviewer from his office in Charlotte, North Carolina. Paula, he admonished, this is not a private matter. It goes to the heart of the immoral policies advocated by this President and this First Lady.
How much better, now, do we understand the nomination of the proabortionist Caroline Masters to lead our highest court?
How much more clearly do we discern the true depth—in every sense of the word—of our President's all-too-personal commitment to the taking of unborn life?
How much more naked, now, is the contradiction between our First Lady's concern for "saving lives" when the murderer has a gun, and the taking of an innocent life which God himself had placed into her hands . . .
There was no turning back, Fasano knew. Not when even a sanctimonious blowhard like Bob Christy could touch the viscera of Fasano's own deepest convictions. Dane had played this brilliantly: the armies of the cultural right—the fundamentalists, the antiabortionists, the avatars of traditional values—were as essential to his party as the SSA and, in their fresh revulsion for Kilcannon, would demand no less than his emasculation. It was now Fasano's unavoidable task to accomplish this while maintaining the aura of a statesman.
The appalling truth, the Reverend Christy was saying, is that Lara Kilcannon used her own family to promote a cynical, secular, antilife, progovernment agenda, asking us to mourn for her six-year-old niece after killing her own unborn child . . .
Fasano turned him off.
/> EIGHT
At one o'clock that afternoon, Fasano took a call from Charles Dane.
The media was in full cry, although not, thanks to Fasano's crisp directions, with the help of a single Republican senator. Nor, as of yet, had any Democrats save Hampton leapt to the President's defense. On CNN, a pro-life woman sparred with the president of a leading prochoice group, personifying the war of ideologies which, Fasano thought, would inevitably diminish the Kilcannons by virtue of its subject matter.
"It appears," Dane said blandly, "that God has smiled on us."
The irony held a pointed subtext—the deliberate intimation, in Fasano's view, of their mutual complicity. "Have you and God been in touch?" Fasano could not resist asking.
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