Protect and Defend (3 page)

“I take it he’s dead,” Kerry said.

Kit nodded. “Massive stroke.” Softly, she added, “He might have lived longer if he hadn’t despised you so much.”

Kerry accepted this for what he thought it was—not callousness, but fact. “Do we have a statement?” he asked.

Kit handed him a single typed page. Scanning it, Kerry murmured, “I suppose it’s a mercy, at moments like this, that we so seldom say all we feel.” He paused, then asked Kit, “How’s his wife?”

“Numb, I’m told. His death’s hardly a surprise, but they’d been married fifty-two years. Three kids, eight grandchildren.”

“I’ll call her before the inaugural balls start.” Turning to Clayton, Kerry inquired, “What do we do about
them?
”

“For sure not cancel. You’ve got thousands of supporters here, waiting for that night they’ll tell their grandchildren about. You owe them, and the country, a new beginning. And Carlie“—referring to Clayton’s wife—“has a new dress.”

Kerry smiled briefly. “So does Lara. I’ll just have to find something appropriate to say at every ball, perhaps after a moment of silence. What else?”

Clayton leaned back on the couch. “For openers, you’ve got a new Chief Justice to appoint.”

Once more, Kerry had a moment of disbelief—first that he was President, then that he would be tested so soon. “Not tonight, I hope.”

“Soon. We’ve got a four-four split on the Court— conservative versus moderate-to-liberal—with a full calendar of major cases. And it’s not like anyone thought the Chief Justice would be with us that long—our transition team already has a shortlist of names, and they’ve started up files on each.”

“Good. Run them by our political people.”

“Your constituent groups will want to weigh in, too,” Kit observed. “Hispanics, blacks, labor, pro-choice women, trial lawyers. They all think you owe them, and they’re right.”

“Haven’t they seen the Cabinet?” Clayton rejoined. “We’ve at least made a down payment.” He turned to Kerry. “What we need here is a consensus choice—the Republicans still control the Senate, and Macdonald Gage is laying for you. Maybe Palmer, too, now that he’s in charge of running the
hearings on whoever you send over. I think we should look for a moderate Republican.”

“I thought they were an endangered species,” Kerry said dryly. Standing, he told Clayton, “Get me the list tomorrow. Along with a new chair.”

Kit frowned, as if unwilling to drop the subject. “Without pro-choice women, Mr. President, you couldn’t have carried California, and none of us would be here. As Ellen Penn no doubt will remind you.”

At this mention of his feisty new Vice President, formerly the junior senator from California, Kerry feigned a wince; arguably, he owed his election to Ellen, and she would not be shy in pressing her views. “Spare me. I’ll be hearing from Ellen soon enough.”

“With reason,” Kit persisted. “The pro-choice movement is scared to death—you’ve got this damned Protection of Life Act the Republicans just passed, which your predecessor was too scared to veto. Even you were conveniently absent for
that vote
.”

“The pro-choice movement,” Kerry answered, “can be too damned hard to please. I was running for President, not auditioning for a supplement to
Profiles in Courage
. One vote in the Senate wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“Exactly. So pro-choice women gave you a pass, expecting you’d look out for them once you got here. Especially on the Court.”

Kerry folded his arms. “I’ve been President for about five hours, I’ve got eleven balls to go to, and I’m still struggling to remember what to do if there’s a nuclear attack. If it’s all right with you, Kit, I’ll reserve the Supreme Court for my first full day on the job.”

As though to short-circuit Kerry’s irritation, Clayton intervened. “Even with Bannon’s death,” he told Kerry, “people will remember your inaugural address. You made it sound even better than it read. CNN called it the best since Kennedy’s.”

Kerry smiled, mollified, and noted with amusement that he still needed Clayton’s reassurance. At once Kit caught the spirit. “You were terrific,” she averred. “The only thing that could have gone better is if the Service had let you get to Bannon before Palmer did. He’s gotten too much airtime.”

Clayton gave a short laugh. “The most dangerous place in
Washington,” he agreed, “is the space between Chad Palmer and a Minicam.”

As he was meant to, Kerry smiled at them both. But beneath their mordant humor, he understood that Clayton and Kit already saw Chad Palmer as his chief rival, and that this would be the prism through which they viewed everything Chad did. And so, they were warning, should Kerry.

“That’s all right,” he answered. “Let Chad be the hero. He earned the right, when I was still in college.”

“W
HAT’S YOUR NAME
?” Sarah inquired.

The girl looked down. “Mary Ann.”

Sitting beside her, Sarah waited for her to look up again. Then she asked, “How far along
are
you?”

Once more, Mary Ann turned away, as if the question were a rebuke. “Five and a half months,” she murmured.

“And you’re how old?”

“Fifteen.”

So far, Sarah thought, it was as bad as she had expected. “Are you living with your parents?” she asked.

The girl’s face grew taut. Her answer, a quick nod, resembled a hiccup.

“If you haven’t talked to them …”

“Please …” Swallowing convulsively, Mary Ann burst out, “My baby’s not right. I’m afraid of it.”

The moment she saw the technician’s face, Mary Ann had known there was something wrong.

A sonogram was routine, the woman had said—afterward there would be pictures and, if Mary Ann wished to know, they could tell her the baby’s sex. Her mother, tight-lipped
and alert, held her hand: there were times when it felt to Mary Ann that this was her mother’s pregnancy.

For a while, the whole thing had seemed like it was happening to someone else, or maybe in a dream. Her first time, in the back seat of Tony’s car; crying from the pain of it; feeling abandoned after Tony, with a hurried kiss, dropped her at the corner; resenting the lie she told her parents about seeing a movie with a friend. In her room, she had undressed, studying her body in the mirror. Then she turned out the lights. Alone in bed, she felt confused again, yet proud that a boy so much older and more popular had wanted her. She went to sleep wishing that Tony were next to her.

He never called again. It was like the secret grew within her until it became a baby, and her mother found her vomiting in the bathroom. This time she could not lie.

Her mother took her to the doctor.

Afterward they sat in the living room. Her father, too contained and gentle to rebuke her, explained what they would do: Mary Ann would continue at Saint Ignatius; her mother and father would support her and the baby; with enough resolve and sacrifice the three of them could assure that Mary Ann went to college. Her mother remained silent and stricken. For her parents, Tony’s role was done: shamed, Mary Ann tried to imagine that Tony—filled with pride, or perhaps remorse—would come for her.

But Tony would not see her. A few girlfriends were kinder. And it was her mother—whose long silences at the dinner table had been more painful than words—who helped to decorate the guest room for a baby, and who shared Mary Ann’s wonder at the stir of life inside her. With each checkup, her mother had become more animated—until the sonogram.

Quiet, the technician stared at it. When her mother stood to see the baby’s image on the screen, the woman switched it off.

“What is it?” her mother asked.

The technician remained calm. “Dr. McNally will talk to you,” she answered, “as soon as he reviews the pictures.”

For the next forty minutes, her mother made forced chatter while Mary Ann wondered what the technician had seen growing inside her. Then a nurse led them to Dr. McNally’s office.

The doctor sat at his desk. Fifteen years before, he had delivered Mary Ann; today his avuncular face, a map of Ireland, was troubled. “Can I speak to your mother?” he asked.

This frightened Mary Ann still further. “Why?” she said stubbornly. “It’s
my
baby.”

McNally gave her mother a glance, then spoke to Mary Ann. “There’s a problem, you see. Your baby’s hydrocephalic.”

In the silence, Mary Ann saw her mother’s eyes briefly shut. Margaret Tierney placed an arm on Mary Ann’s shoulder.

“In layman’s terms,” McNally continued gently, “his head is swollen with water. Often, unfortunately, it doesn’t manifest until several months into the pregnancy.” He looked from Mary Ann to her mother. “Mary Ann is twenty weeks pregnant— within a week or two of viability, on average. Nothing is certain. But the condition tends to impede development of the brain.”

Her mother blanched. “‘Tends’?” she repeated.

McNally faced her. “There’s a slim chance the brain will develop normally. But the condition obscures it: we can’t tell from a sonogram what cerebral development is occurring.” He paused, his reluctance palpable. “In all likelihood, the baby will die soon after birth. But I’m afraid it’s a matter of wait and see.”

To Mary Ann, it was like she could not move or speak, yet could hear everything around her. As she fought back tears, her mother moved still closer. “But she’s barely fifteen. A head that size …”

“Trust in us. We can perform a classical cesarean section, for Mary Ann’s protection.”

To Mary Ann, his words seemed to arrive slowly, as if from a great distance. She felt her mother kiss the crown of her head; for a time her mother’s face rested there, as though Mary Ann were small again.

“What about future pregnancies?” Her mother’s voice was tight, a signal of fear. “The risk of not bearing children.”

Head lowered, Mary Ann closed her eyes. Softly, McNally told her mother, “I understand, Margaret. Believe me, I do. But these days the risk is relatively small.”

“
How
small?”

“Five percent, at most. Probably far lower.”

Only then did Mary Ann begin to cry, tears running down her face.

Watching the memory flood the girl’s eyes, Sarah envisioned her waking from a dream state.

“When did this happen?” Sarah asked.

“Three weeks ago.” Abruptly, the girl stood, as though propelled by anguish. “I’m all alone. My parents are
making
me have this baby, and there’s no one else to help me.”

“I
T
’
S A SHAME
about Roger Bannon,” Macdonald Gage said, passing Chad Palmer a glass of single malt scotch. “For the best of reasons, he stayed too long.”

The two men were alone in the Majority Leader’s commodious office, a suite of walnut and leather reminiscent to Chad of a men’s club. As always, Chad marked Mac Gage’s seamless courtesy: Gage never forgot that Glenlivet was Chad’s scotch of choice, or that he liked precisely two shots served over ice in a cocktail glass. These were the kinds of small attentions, combined with an unflagging grasp of detail and a shrewd knowledge of what motivated ninety-nine other men and women, that had made Macdonald Gage the master of the Senate.

“He was dead by the time I reached him,” Chad remarked. “Absolutely nothing for it.”

Gage grimaced in commiseration, then raised his drink. “To Roger,” he said. “He surely served our country well.”

Idly, Chad reflected that Mac Gage had carefully polished his public persona to be unctuous and predictable—a series of homilies as unrevealing as his conventional gray suit and striped tie were uninteresting. In some part of Gage’s mind,
Chad once had conjectured, the world must be a vast, interminable Rotary meeting. But experience had taught him that Gage’s manner was intended to lull others into forgetting his unremitting desire to stay one jump ahead.

To Gage, Chad knew, he, too, was somewhat of an enigma, a man to be watched and studied. In looks and manner they were opposites: Gage had the smooth, prosperous look of a provincial worthy in middle age; at forty-nine, Chad was lean, fit, and given to the spontaneous and irreverent. It amused him to know that Gage had nicknamed him in private “Robert Redford,” as much for the adoration of the media as for Chad’s blond-haired good looks, and that Kerry Kilcannon, with more affection, had labeled him “Harry Hotspur,” after the headstrong warrior of Shakespeare’s
Henry IV
. Both perceptions, the two men might be surprised to know, suited Chad’s purposes just fine.

“To Roger,” Chad responded. “And to the new president.”

As he expected, the remark induced, from Gage, a frown which he banished at once.

“Our new president,” Gage answered, “has a problem. As do we.”

So much for Roger Bannon. But then Gage hadn’t asked Chad here so urgently, on such a day, to polish the late Chief Justice’s eulogy. “I know
our
problem,” Chad responded. “We just lost an election. What’s Kerry’s?”

“That he won by only a few thousand votes, and that
we
control the Senate.” Gage sipped his drink. “Our constituent groups, including Christian conservatives, are expecting us to keep Kilcannon in check. The nomination of a new Chief Justice is our chance to lay down a marker.”

Chad tasted the rich peaty burn of good scotch. “That depends,” he answered, “on who Kerry picks.”

“He’s got his own constituencies to please. He won’t be sending us anyone we like.” Gage fixed his eyes on Chad’s. “First Kilcannon has to go through
you
. You’re the Chairman of Judiciary. You investigate his nominees. You hold the hearings. You decide whether to make things easy for him.”

Chad shrugged. “I don’t intend to give Kerry a pass. But I’m not going to run a witch hunt either, badgering the nominee to confess that he believes in the theory of evolution—no
matter what some of these people want. It’s time we noticed that they’re one reason we keep losing.”

“If
that
were true,” Gage retorted, “we could never have passed the Protection of Life Act. Even a Democratic president was forced to sign it.” He jabbed a finger for emphasis. “Without Roger Bannon, the whole Court’s in the balance. Our obligation is simple—no judicial activists; no liberals on crime; no red hots for abortion.” He spread his arms. “You’re the first line of defense, Chad. For all we know, Kilcannon pops out a nominee tomorrow. Our people will be looking for us to read from the same page.”