Balance of Power

    Standing behind him, Lara gripped the top of his chair. Her fingers were white, she noticed. For a moment, remembering the murders, the tortured dealings with her younger sister which had led to the filing of the lawsuit, she had been unaware of herself.

    "Please, God," she murmured, an utterance which was half prayer, half superstition. Reaching back, Kerry touched her hand.

* * *

    On the floor of the Senate, the gazes of her colleagues—some direct, some more circumspect—moved to the junior senator from Michigan.

    Slowly, Slezak walked forward. "He can't bolt now," Chad whispered from behind her. "He'd be cutting Kerry's balls off."

    That was probably right, Cassie thought. Odds were that Slezak had been holding back his vote to find out, through Cassie, whether the vote would make a difference to the leader of his party. But when she glanced at Senator Hampton, he was standing stock-still, watching Slezak's progress with the same raptness as the others. With Paul Harshman at his shoulder, Senator Fasano pressed close to the clerk's desk.

    As Slezak reached the clerk, head butting forward, Fasano edged aside. Briefly, Slezak glanced at him, and nodded.

* * *

    On the screen, the tally hung suspended, fifty to forty-nine. Kerry and Lara knew only that Slezak had cast his vote.

    A white numeral changed, a "zero" became a "one."

    The President stood in disbelief. "We lost," Clayton said tersely. "Slezak fucked us."

    Standing, Kerry turned to Lara, heedless of anyone else, and took her in his arms. "It's not over," he promised. "All I need is thirty-four votes against the final bill."

    She would know this, of course, just as she knew that the struggle to hold those votes could be even more vicious than what had gone before, political trench warfare waged senator to senator. It was just that he felt the need to speak. In answer, Lara held him close.

* * *

Shortly after eight o'clock that evening, by a vote of sixty-six to thirty-four, the Senate passed the Civil Justice Reform Act. Senators Rollins and Coletti voted with the majority.

PART SIX

BALANCE OF

POWER

EARLY DECEMBER–CHRISTMAS WEEK

ONE

Early the next morning, the President responded.

    His first call was to Jeannie Griswold, the Attorney General of Michigan, promising as much support, funding, and campaign assistance as she needed to unseat Jack Slezak in the primary. After thankyou calls to Vic Coletti and Cassie Rollins, he gathered Clayton and his congressional relations team to determine the best course for sustaining his intended veto of the Civil Justice Reform Act.

    Once vetoed, the bill would return to the House of Representatives and, should it override the President, to the Senate. The House was hopeless, all concurred; the bill had passed by a margin well in excess of two-thirds. The battle would be in the Senate, where, at the moment, Frank Fasano was one vote shy of the two-thirds needed to overcome Kerry's veto. All effort would go there.

    The next subject was timing. Kerry had ten days to sign a veto message. The question was whether he was served by waiting, or by sending the bill back to Congress quickly, decisively and dramatically. The conferees read the morning's headlines like tea leaves. The most prominent of these, the Senate's vote, warred with the disclosure of documents adverse to Lexington and Judge Bond's order—public only in its bottom line—that George Callister be deposed.

    Jack Sanders, Kerry's Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, and Alex Cole, his Congressional Liaison, reached opposite conclusions. Sanders favored rapid action to underscore Kerry's resolve. Cole believed that the momentum of events—the arrest of Ben Gehringer; the leak of Lexington's documents—meant that Kerry could use the full ten days to build support and solidify Senate Democrats. Kerry dismissed the meeting with the tentative decision that he would wait before returning the bill to Congress.

    Only Clayton lingered. When the two men were alone, he pointed out, "You can control your timing, Mr. President, but not Fasano's. He can wait to schedule an override vote until this Congress ends—up to a year, by my reckoning, choosing whatever time you're weakest. That argues for throwing the bill back in his face tomorrow and daring him to act."

    Briefly, Kerry looked out the window at the bleakest of days, the steady drizzle spattering the glass. "I've considered that. But no matter what I do, Fasano won't wait, even if he has to keep the Senate in session up to Christmas Eve." Turning back to Clayton, the President added, "He can't."

    A fleeting smile crossed Clayton's face. "Mary's lawsuit."

    "Yup. Fasano's patrons can't let it go to trial or even risk more leaks. So Fasano's stuck in a vise between me and the SSA."

    Clayton considered him. "And you," he said pointedly, "want to give the lawsuit time to blow up in public before Fasano can hold a vote. Maybe some tidbit from George Callister's deposition."

    "It's only an idle wish," Kerry answered with a shrug. "No point in sharing it with Jack and Alex."