Balance of Power

    On the giant screen, Lara's family died in jerky images. "So fast," Kerry murmured. "It's just so fast."

    His expression never changed. When it was done, the President asked Clayton to run the tape again.

THREE

To Inspector Charles Monk, the airport hotel room where John Bowden planned the shooting looked like the inside of a madman's brain. He had kicked the sheets off the bed, as though in his tormented sleep; strewn on the floor were the pastel pieces of a Lego set; an empty vodka bottle; a candy bar wrapper; and a copy of the SSA magazine, The Defender, its cover a grotesque caricature of Kerry Kilcannon as Adolf Hitler. But amidst the detritus was a clue to his final hours—an airline schedule with the flights from Dulles to SFO underscored in pencil. Perhaps Bowden had persuaded someone to tell him which flight the Costellos would take; perhaps he had guessed; perhaps he had met every flight. Monk might never know.

    There was one more puzzlement—the stubs of boarding passes to and from Las Vegas. What, Monk wondered, had compelled a man so disturbed to make this trip in a single day?

    Musing, he picked up The Defender and began to riffle its pages.

* * *

    In the morning, Clayton found the President where he had left him, studying his file on John Bowden. His clothes were the same; his eyes slits. It was plain that he had not slept.

    Fax in hand, Clayton approached him, feeling both dread and duty. "What is it?" Kerry asked shortly.

    Standing by the wing chair where Kerry sat, Clayton rested one hand on his friend's shoulder, and placed the fax before him.

    It was a copy of a letter and the envelope which had contained it. The envelope was addressed to "Little Prick Killcannon"; its return address was "HELL." Pained, Clayton watched the President decipher the jagged handwriting:

Dear Brother-in-law,

You only met me once. But that was enough for you.

You took away my wife and daughter. She wouldn't have left except for

you. Then you made sure the world hated me so much she'd never come backto me, no matter how much I begged her or tried to change.

    It must have felt good to have so much power. You took everything away from me. Except my gun. That's my power.

    By the time you get this you'll understand what you've done. You and

your new wife will hurt much longer than me and my wife. Because I let you live.

    Read this to her, so you both can suffer like I did.

Your friend,John Bowden

Kerry stared at the letter. Very quietly, he said, "Get me the police."

* * *

As she had wished, Lara had gone to the funeral home alone.

    The room was cool and dim and quiet; as Lara requested, the caskets were open. She closed the wooden door behind her, leaving Peter Lake outside.

    Slowly, Lara approached the caskets.

    Her mother wore a high-necked black dress. Her features had the waxen cast of death; once more, Lara reflected how different a face was when bereft of its animating spirit. Gently, her curled fingers grazed her mother's cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't know."

    After a time, she went to her sister.

    Joan's jawline was distorted. Gazing into her face, Lara wondered at Mary's memories, and whether she could ever sleep in peace. "Please," she implored her sister, "forgive me, Joanie."

    At last she stood over the smallest casket.

    Marie's face was frozen in endless sleep. Lara touched her eyes.

    In Kosovo, she had seen murdered women and children in scores, developed the psychic carapace she needed to survive. She had learned to accept the brutal compartmentalization of her trade—the face of a dead child one day; a dinner in Paris the next. But these three faces came with memories which formed the sinew of Lara's life. Gazing at Marie, Lara remembered the smell and feel of her as a newborn, less than a week old. Marie was not meant to die at six, scarred by terrible knowledge.

    And now this murdered child would become the vortex of the worlds of media and politics, filled with calculation and ambition, swirling around her family as Lara mourned. Even in death she could not protect them; nor, as terrible as this moment was, could she leave them.

    She stayed with them for an hour. Then, beginning with Marie, she kissed the cool foreheads of her niece, sister, and mother, saying goodbye, and closed their caskets forever.

* * *

When Lara returned, Kerry was waiting in their bedroom.