Balance of Power

    As always, Hampton reflected, Air Force One was an icon of speed and power, a symbol of Presidential authority. The White House Military Office planned each flight to the minute, and its arrival never failed to create a sense of occasion. But he could not easily imagine the nature of this flight. It triggered a series of memories which had begun when Hampton was twelve: the flight from Dallas, when Jacqueline Kennedy, her coat stained with blood, accompanied her husband's body; the terrible majesty, five years later, of the funeral train for Robert Kennedy; the day, one year after Hampton entered the Senate, when the Presidential campaign of James Kilcannon ended with a funeral watched by millions.

    On this day, Chuck Hampton felt more depressed than at any time in his public life. And, perhaps, more worried. It was too soon to contact Kerry Kilcannon, either to convey his condolences or his concerns. But soon enough to call Senator Vic Coletti of Connecticut—as Kerry Kilcannon once remarked, for Vic Coletti, politics, like rust, never sleeps.

    "What are you going to do?" Coletti asked.

    Hampton gazed out the window at the green fields behind his farmhouse. "Express sympathy, of course. Just watching this has made me sick."

    "What about substance?"

    "A general statement—that we need to do more to stop gun violence. But I don't know exactly how this happened, and I can't get ahead of our members."

    "I wouldn't," Coletti said soberly. "I've already talked to five. They feel terrible for the President and Lara, of course. But we've been making points on the stuff ordinary citizens care about most—health care, education, jobs. They don't want this shooting to swallow our agenda whole."

    "And you?"

    Coletti hesitated. "I don't mean to sound callous, Chuck. But, politically, I don't think we need this."

    Listening, Hampton heard what Coletti did not say expressly: that Connecticut was the home of several gun companies—including Lexington Arms, vulnerable to SSA pressure after its meetings with Kerry Kilcannon. "What about your gun industry?" Hampton asked.

    "I don't care about the guns. I care about the jobs. The people who hold them tend to vote." Coletti's tone became admonitory. "It's not just me—you'll hear this from our members in the South and Rocky Mountain states. The SSA's like the Communist Party—deviate from the party line, and they put you against the wall and shoot you."

    "Our pro–gun control members," Hampton countered, "will want to strike while this is hot."

    "Well, that's a problem, isn't it. Remember how you got your job— Carter Grace forgot he was from Tennessee, and came out in support of gun control and Kerry Kilcannon. The voters called him home."

    Hampton frowned. "Tell me about it—whenever I want to discourage the President from charging ahead on this, I always mention Carter. But this could change things."

    "He'll do something," Coletti mused.

    "Well," Hampton agreed, "he pretty much has to now, whether he wants to or not. But the problem is he'll want to. The only question is what."

    For a moment, Vic Coletti was quiet. "Depending on the answer," he warned his leader, "there'll be hell to pay in the Senate. And in both our lives."

TWO

Sealed inside Air Force One, Kerry and Lara passed over the heartland of America.

    In the first months of his Presidency, Kerry had taken pleasure in being master of this plane—taller than a five-story building and at least a city block long, with a conference room, commodious kitchen, and generous seating area—even as its operating room, arsenal of weapons, and antimissile devices reminded him of the grimmer aspects of his job. But now the quiet of his living quarters seemed eerie, its sleek modern decor sterile and depressing.

    Lara slumped on the couch, arms clasped as if hugging herself, gazing emptily at nothing. Her eyes were bruised with sleeplessness, a night of sobbing so anguished and attenuated that, for now, she had no more left to give. "All that protection," she said quietly.

    This, Kerry supposed, referred to the security ringing Andrews as they had departed, a terrible contrast to the meagerness of their provisions for her family. Kerry had no answer.

    Someday you'll go too far, he had told John Bowden. And then, trust me, you'll be the one who suffers most.

    His own demons had drawn him into Joan Bowden's life, perhaps driven her husband to the edge. If so, he had led her to her death, taking Inez and Marie with her. Perhaps it was a mercy that he would never know for sure.

    He reached for Lara's hand—to give comfort or, he acknowledged bleakly, to receive it. Her fingers were lifeless in his.

* * *

Lara barely felt his touch.

    She had entrusted her family to Kerry, and then lost them to the Presidency, the merciless glare that had left Joan's family with no private place to heal. They had been hers to protect, and now Kerry's failure was hers.