Balance of Power

    Many of you may not believe that such victims or their families should recover damages. Fine. If they're not entitled to do so under existing state law, then they won't. But the Republican leadership should not sacrifice the many interests of your members simply to ensure that the survivors of those who are killed with guns never receive a dime . . .

    "Ever hear of life insurance?" Leo Weller retorted.

    "Jesus," Chad Palmer jibed good-naturedly. "I hope you don't try that one on the stump. Your opponent will kick your ass without ever leaving home."

    "The people of Montana," Leo rejoined, "don't like gun-grabbers or plaintiffs' lawyers. Or East Coast liberals like your pal Kilcannon." With a disgusted wave of the hand toward the President's image, Weller left.

    I will veto this bill, Kilcannon concluded. I cannot, in good conscience,

accept what is unconscionable. But the compromise I've offered you still stands.Just tell Senator Fasano to call me, day or night . . .

    "Still with me?" Fasano asked Palmer in a muted, mocking tone. "Or should we call KFK together?"

    Palmer shoved his hands in his pockets. "We're not whores like Leo," he answered. "We gave each other our word, and now we're both going to keep it."

* * *

    Returning from his meeting with Cassie Rollins, Dane switched on CNN, intending to glance at it while returning his messages.

    From Atlantic City, Kilcannon had traveled to his hometown of Newark—on the television, with the word "LIVE" emblazoned beneath their images, the President and First Lady were visiting an elementary school in Vailsburg, Kilcannon's old neighborhood. Beside them, looking discomfited, was Democratic Senator James Torchio of New Jersey, a swing vote on tort reform. As they sat in a circle with a mixture of black, white, and Hispanic schoolkids, a boy of roughly seven described the killing of his sister by a playmate with a loaded gun.

    Finishing, the boy turned to Lara. Baldly, he said, They shot your sister, too. I saw it on TV—she was bloody and everything.

    For an instant, the First Lady seemed stricken. The boy looked confused, as though wondering if he had said something wrong. Then Lara crossed the circle, taking him in her arms. Then you know how I feel, she told him gently. And I know how you feel.

    Dane stabbed the remote button, and the screen went dark.

FOUR

Trying to suspend her disbelief, Sarah watched the President of the United States face John Nolan across a conference table in the Washington office of Nolan's firm.

    Sitting beside the President was his personal lawyer, Professor Avram Gold of Harvard Law School. Sarah had known—because Lara Kilcannon had told her—that Kerry Kilcannon would not resist Nolan's demand for a deposition. To comply, Sarah had agreed, would provide a telling contrast with Lexington's resistance to producing George Callister. But Nolan's barely reined-in aggressiveness was palpable. From her tenure as Nolan's associate, she knew that he regarded Kilcannon with the bonedeep loathing—irrational to Sarah—that the Republican right reserved for this particular President. Drawn by this admixture of history and emotion, the other principal combatants surrounded the conference table: both Lenihan and Sarah; Harrison Fancher and his chief associate; the lead associate for Nolan. To commemorate the occasion, and to ensure that any flashes of Presidential temper or embarrassment were captured on film, Nolan had obtained an order from his fellow ideologue Gardner Bond that the proceedings be videotaped. From a corner, a cameraman aimed his lens directly at Kilcannon.