Protect and Defend (61 page)

Taylor sipped his tea. “You need Palmer,” he said tersely.

“What we need,” Gage rejoined, “is to widen what’s at stake beyond abortion, finesse Kilcannon by giving people broader reasons to believe that Masters is unfit. Using Sarah Dash could open up the Tierney case into an ethics issue— that Masters never should have heard the appeal, that this woman’s been seen at her apartment.” As he spoke, Gage felt distaste overcome him. “Who knows what they did in there? Talk about the case in bed?

“Point is that we’ll never know, which makes it wrong. Which makes it about
ethics
. And we don’t want an unethical judge—maybe a lesbian unethical judge—replacing Roger Bannon.”

Taylor’s narrowed eyes conveyed suppressed impatience. “Like I said,” he repeated, “you need Palmer.”

Briefly, Gage considered the lobbyist’s meaning. “What
Palmer
says,” Gage told him, “is that we should force a vote. Take her down before Kilcannon can rally opinion, or the baby turns out to have no brain. As of now, the polls are with us.”

Listening, Taylor’s expression was cynical. In a flat tone, he said, “And you think Palmer’s right.”

“No. A quick vote would look too arbitrary, a rush to judgment. I’ve told Chad that. And I don’t have fifty-one votes committed yet …”

Taylor grunted. “You’ve
got forty-one
, don’t you?”

This, Gage sensed, was less a suggestion than a test, intended to make him confront his paucity of choices. But Taylor’s only interest was in money and results; for Gage, who wished to be President, pursuit of his aims required a
certain elegance. “A filibuster,” Gage answered coldly. “That’s a fine idea, Mace—use forty-one out of a hundred senators to deny Judge Caroline Masters the courtesy of a vote. That would make me the dark practitioner of hardball politics, who reduced a matter of principle to a cheap parliamentary trick. All to shaft a woman.

“Kilcannon would like that almost as much as winning. Next election, he’d jam it up my ass. I don’t owe
that
to anyone, and anyone who wants it is a fool.”

Taylor’s lips formed a faint smile which did not touch his eyes. “Then you need more hearings. You need a flat-out inquisition into this lady’s life, using Dash and ethics as a reason.

“Harshman can’t wait to do it, the whole nine yards—drugs, sex in college, lesbian lovers. To him, she’s an ethically challenged, antifamily baby-killer, who corrupted the legal process because her lover gives good pillow talk.” Pausing, Taylor sipped his tea, mouth pursed, eyes distant. “You can keep your distance, Mac. Then if Harshman sells
that
scenario—or any part of it—you just step in, the statesman, and save the country from Kilcannon. But first,” Taylor finished softly, “you need Chad Palmer.”

The insistence of this mantra had begun to make Gage edgy. “And Palmer doesn’t want hearings,” he reiterated.

Taylor shrugged. “What was the name of that movie—
Dead Man Walking?
That’s what I see whenever our heroic friend starts posturing: a dead man. Dead, and he doesn’t know it.”

Gage stared at him. “I don’t want to use that,” he said bluntly. “No matter what I think of Palmer. And it might come back to haunt us.”

Staring back, Taylor’s eyes were devoid of feeling. “Then make him Harshman’s love slave, any way you can. That way he can live a little longer.”

“I don’t like her decision,” Chad Palmer said, “but I don’t like crawling all over her life, either.” Reaching across his desk, he handed Macdonald Gage a printout from an Internet gossip column by a marginal journalist named Charlie Trask. “Have you seen this, Mac? Without quite saying so, it implies that she and Dash are lovers.”

Gage did not pick up the paper, or take his eyes off Chad. Calmly, he answered, “Maybe they are.”

Palmer felt the tug of worry: the reason he doubted this— his knowledge of Caroline’s daughter—could arouse the enmity of the forces opposed to Masters. “And probably they’re not,” he answered. “Not that this sleazemonger knows, or cares. Which is why Trask is the conduit of choice for trash like this.”

Gage’s silence signaled his irritation. “You don’t think it matters if our Chief Justice is a lesbian?”

Chad weighed his response with care. “For us to ask the question,” he replied, “is to answer it. There’ve been too many of these personal smears—the public doesn’t like it, good people wind up hurt, and it makes politics a snakepit for the rest of us.” Pointing at the printout, he asked, “Any notion where this comes from, by the way?”

The thinly veiled accusation produced an expressionless stare. “No,” Gage answered. “But now that it’s out there, our constituents will damned well expect your committee to investigate. Don’t you think it’s funny that Dash visited her apartment, alone?”

The rumor had Mace Taylor’s fingerprints on it, Chad guessed with disgust, ferreted out by investigators who were financed by his clients. But Chad also took it as a warning: their intrusions on Masters’s privacy were intended to compel further intrusions by Chad’s committee and, should he anger Gage and Taylor by objecting, Chad might face intrusions of his own. “You and I are alone right now,” he retorted. “With the door closed. Do you suppose people will say we’re in love?”

There was a glint in Gage’s eyes. “That would be a slander on your family, Chad. On Allie, and on Kyle. Masters has no family.”

Chad felt his anxiety sharpen—first about Kyle, and then about Brett Allen. “That doesn’t make her gay, Mac. Nor does having women friends.”

“Suppose she was lesbian back in college,” Gage rejoined. “That would put her ‘friendship’ with Dash in a very different light.” His gaze was vigilant, as though searching Chad’s face for clues. “Chief Justice is not just a legal position; it’s a
moral one. Our constituents expect a justice—or a senator— to exemplify those values …”

“By conducting a witch hunt.”

“It’s not a witch hunt.” Gage’s voice rose, the sign of tension. “It’s an inquiry about ethics. Even if we can’t prove they’re lovers, Dash was Masters’s law clerk.”

How, Chad wondered, could he hope to fend off hearings. “That was over three years ago …”

“It’s part of a pattern,” Gage snapped. “Employee, friend, maybe more. And you want us to act like ostriches.”

Chad reined in his temper. “Five judges on the en banc panel,” he said evenly, “voted with Caroline Masters. They’re not all part of some homosexual cabal—they’re simply wrong.

“
That’s
our argument: the opinion is wrong, and speaks for itself. Let the full Senate have an up and down vote, without hearings and innuendo. We can beat her on the merits.”

I’m giving you fair warning
, Gage thought with mounting anger.
Get yourself out of the way
.

“Chad,” he said with exaggerated gentleness, “you’re a proud man. You have your own notion of integrity, and I admire that. But do not fuck with this.”

For the first time, Chad hesitated. “You’ve got my vote,” he answered, “and I’ll speak against her on the floor. No one will be able to fault me—or you.”

“But they will, Chad. They will. They’ll fault us both. The pro-life forces hate Masters on abortion, the groups who give us money to watch out for them hate her on campaign finance reform, and the folks who worry about moral decline wonder who and what she is.” Gage’s voice remained quiet. “For them, what we do here is defining—the Court is hanging in the balance—on both issues, and on countless others. It’s defining for us, as well. Put the future of the Court aside, and there’s still one more question to be answered: Does Kilcannon run the Senate, or do we?

“If you help him protect this woman, you’re disloyal. I’ve counted votes, Chad: if you side with the Democrats, you may keep me from getting the fifty-one votes I need to recommit Masters to your committee for more hearings. But I’ll make you do it, in front of God and everyone—including
our supporters. They won’t forgive you. And that could be the end of you in presidential politics.”

The baldness of this threat induced in Palmer a surprised and contemplative stare. “If we make this a public burning,” Chad finally answered, “it could do that to us both. Remember Anita Hill? Suppose we come up dry, and turn Masters into Joan of Arc …”

“Not if you handle it right,” Gage interrupted. “You’re not presiding over a kangaroo court, but a serious inquiry into the moral and ethical fitness of a judge …”

“
‘Serious’?
” Palmer shot back. “Paul Harshman’s ready to wave a bloody shirt. And we’re probably days away from an abortion. What does Harshman say if the fetus turns out as hopeless as most doctors think it will be? What will the American people say? And what will Kilcannon say about us
then?
” Pausing, Palmer leaned forward. “This could blow up on us all, Mac. Including the Republicans on my committee, and any senator you convince to vote for recommitment. For everyone’s sake, leave this lesbian stuff alone.”

Gage fought to stifle his own doubts, show Palmer a calm resolve. “And if I don’t? Are you prepared to oppose me?”

Palmer’s gaze was veiled now. Gage was fascinated by the sense that he was watching a man unwittingly endanger his career and the future of his family; the moment induced contempt for Palmer’s hypocrisy, and a measure of pity. Then Palmer looked up at him with his customary directness. “If
you’re
prepared to risk losing, Mac. So I suggest we both take a day to search our souls …”

Palmer’s intercom buzzed.

He glanced at his phone in irritation, then picked it up. “I’m with Mac Gage,” he said.

Palmer’s caller seemed undeterred. As Gage watched, his rival’s face turned pensive. “How many days?” Palmer asked. After another pause, he put down the phone, his expression grave.

“Justice Kelly,” he told Gage, “has entered a stay in the Tierney case, barring an abortion until—but only until—the full court decides whether to hear Martin Tierney’s petition. And whether to grant a further stay, barring an abortion, until the petition can be heard on the merits.”

Gage felt a rush of satisfaction. “That stretches things out, doesn’t it. And highlights the stakes for the Court.”

“And for us,” Palmer answered. “It also gives us our day to reflect.”

“A stay of our own?” Gage’s smile was grim. “All right, Chad. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

Clayton Slade hurried into the Oval Office. “If it’s about Justice Kelly,” he told the President, “I’ve heard.”

Kerry shook his head. “Chad Palmer called. He’s getting worried. He thinks Gage will call a vote on recommitment to Chad’s committee, and maybe win. Which means open-ended hearings.”

Clayton looked unsurprised. “What’s the pretext—a seminar on the horrors of late-term abortions, with color photos of the end result?”

Kerry winced. “Partly,” he answered. “But our friends have found a new tack—Caroline’s ethics. Specifically, her relationship to Sarah Dash.”

Clayton grunted in disgust. “I could have told her that. In fact, I tried to.”

Kerry smiled without humor. “But did you tell her she’s a lesbian? Ironic, isn’t it.”

“
That’s
their angle?”

“Oh, they’ll start with a simple ‘friendship.’ But what they’re trying to float is a lesbian affair.”

Clayton sat heavily. “
That
,” he said at length, “could be a problem.”

“M
R
. P
RESIDENT
,” Frank Lenzner told Kerry the next morning, “there’s a sensitive matter we need to raise with you. No one here wants to take you by surprise.”

From his tone of voice, the editor of the
New York Times
was as reluctant as his words implied. Kerry was silent: ever since Lara’s abortion, some subconscious part of him had awaited such a call. The fact that it came from Lenzner, and outside normal channels, confirmed that this was not a standard inquiry.

“What is this about?” Kerry asked.

“It concerns Judge Masters.” Another silence afforded Kerry a moment to experience both relief and apprehension. “Most of the reporting has been done by Julia Adams. Can we include her?”

Was it the lesbian rumors, Kerry wondered; for the two days since the Internet report, they had spread just below the surface of mainstream journalism. “Of course,” he answered.

Kerry heard a click as Adams picked up a second line. “Good morning, Mr. President,” she said briskly. “Thank you for speaking to me.”

“I’m delighted. I think.”

Adams did not respond to this. With a trace of nervousness, she said, “We believe, and are about to print, that Caroline Masters has a daughter.”

For Kerry, a split second of surprise was followed by rapid calculation. “Based on what?”

“A confidential source. This person told us that the FBI had uncovered ‘rumors’ that, when Masters was just out of college, she gave birth to a child on Martha’s Vineyard.”

Adams was fencing with him; her opening seemed to
assume that Kerry was not surprised. “You don’t print rumors, Julia.”

“We found the nurse within an hour,” Adams replied bluntly. “An hour or so later we found records confirming that Masters was a patient at the Martha’s Vineyard hospital. The date coincides with the birth of her sister’s supposed daughter, Brett Allen. According to our source, she’s actually
Masters’s
daughter.”

That
assertion, Kerry knew, was not in the FBI notes which Palmer had suppressed—the principal reason, along with Palmer’s intervention, that the FBI had not known to match the rumor to the timing of Brett Allen’s birth. “Why,” Kerry asked, “does the
Times
think this story—even if true—is news?”

“Any number of reasons.” Now Adams’s tone matched her persona; tensile and aggressive, she was among the most thorough of the Washington press corps. “Arguably, Judge Masters misled Congress.
And
you.”

Kerry stood. He had little time to choose his course, but long experience in politics, and his own preferences, told him he should not dissemble. “Okay,” he said evenly, “let’s go off the record. What I’m about to tell you, you can’t use, unless and until I say you can. Agreed?”