Balance of Power

    He was restrained by the images of a former press secretary and his wife, who had become gun safety activists after the husband's wounding by a would-be assassin. The husband had suffered a grave cerebral injury; in clear but halting speech, he said, I'm all for hunting and sport shooting. All I want is to make our country safer. Nodding, his wife looked into the camera, That's why we were so offended when Senator Paul Harshman told the SSA convention that "next to Kerry Kilcannon," my husband was the "leading enemy" of gun owners in America.

    "Do me a favor," Fasano remarked. "Quit inviting Paul to speak. It's like giving gasoline and matches to a pyromaniac . . ."

    He was cut off by a metallic beep—his cell phone. "Bernadette," he murmured. As Dane hit the stop button, Fasano turned away. "Sweetheart?" he answered softly.

    "I'm sorry," Bernadette's voice was wan but wry, "but if I'm any judge of these things, our newest product in development is about to go on-line."

    Through his anxiety, Fasano felt himself smile: their sixth child in nine years qualified Bernadette as an expert. "Will he or she hang on until I get there?"

    "I'll tell 'her' to," Bernadette said, hoping aloud for a daughter. "But this one time I want your promise to 'be home soon' to be more than aspirational."

    "Promise," Fasano said, and hung up.

    "Another Fasano on the way?" Dane inquired amiably.

    "My wife's never wrong. Got to run."

    Dane nodded toward the screen. "Too bad. You're missing the best one—a knife in Leo Weller's back."

    Fasano reached for his briefcase. "Why am I not surprised? But I'm afraid it'll have to keep."

    "Don't let all this worry you," Dane told him. "We're ready to respond to this garbage. We promised to protect you and your people, and we will—big-time."

    He was supposed to feel grateful and beholden, Fasano knew. Nodding, he headed for the glass door.

    "Good luck," Dane said. "I guess you don't know what flavor this one is?"

    "We never ask." Briefly, Fasano paused in the doorway. "When you're in my business, Charles, you treasure the few surprises which are nice ones."

* * *

    A day later, after the President's noontime speech on corporate responsibility to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Kit Pace surprised the traveling media contingent by announcing an unscheduled three-hour stopover in Las Vegas. She explained this only as "personal time"; to repeated inquiries, she intimated that Kerry would be meeting with unspecified supporters. "I doubt he'll be playing the slots," she observed, "but I'm sure the press pool will catch him if he does." All of which, Kerry was certain, would suggest to the ever-alert White House press corps that something surprising was up—the precise reaction he had hoped for.

    On the flight from San Francisco, Kerry placed a congratulatory call to the Majority Leader on the birth of his fifth son. "Come up with a name?" Kerry asked.

    "Francis Xavier Fasano, Junior." Kerry heard the smile in Fasano's voice. "After five boys, Bernadette's a broken woman, and we'd about run out of names. So I was able to sneak 'Frank Junior' by her."

    It would be a nice anecdote for the media and home-state audiences; to Kerry's trained ear, it already had a certain practiced sound. But beneath this he heard Fasano's joy and pride—even in an obligatory conversation with an adversary who, Kerry well knew, Fasano personally disliked. Feeling a moment's envy, Kerry rued the absence of children in his life, and then, sadly, thought of Marie. "Lara has a will of steel," he told Fasano, "and I'm sure we'll stop well short of six. I doubt the world will ever see Kerry junior."

    "For some of us," Fasano said dryly, "Kerry senior is more than enough to handle." But this was the closest they got to politics. Kerry passed over his own family concerns, including today's source of anxiety and anger—Lara's deposition. Hanging up, he wondered how it was going.

    In search of distraction, Kerry went to his private quarters with Kit, to review the television ads prepared by the Trial Lawyers for Justice.

    Of the first five, his favorite showed a retired Army general—a veteran of Vietnam—dressed in hunting gear and holding a Lexington P-2. When I was in Vietnam, the general said brusquely, I needed this kind of gun. But I sure don't need it for hunting deer. All it's good for is hunting people . . .

    "Who don't have a sporting chance," Kerry added softly. "We have to separate the hunters from the crazies. This one does."

    "That's not bad," Kit agreed. "But check out the next one."