Balance of Power

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 back to 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.

To Kerry, she seemed stripped to her essence—her eyes were open wounds, her last defense the steely calm of a journalist familiar with death. He could not ask about her visit.

"There's a letter from Bowden," he said gently. "It's addressed to me. I wish you never had to read it. But it will be public—soon."

Briefly, Lara's eyes closed, and then she nodded. As she sat on the edge of the bed, Kerry placed the letter beside her. Without touching it, Lara read. When she had finished, she did not look up.

"Leave me," she requested with a fearful gentleness.

Heartsick, Kerry kept himself from touching her. Kneeling beside her, he still spoke softly. "There's more, I'm afraid. They're playing a video of the shooting. On Fox TV."

Her eyes did not move. "You've seen it."

"Yes." For a moment, Kerry hesitated. "So have the families of the other victims. While you were gone, I called them."

She spoke in a monotone. "And now you want us to see them."

"I should. If you can't, I'll do it alone."

"Oh, I'll go." Her mouth moved in a brief and bitter smile. "I'm the First Lady, after all." Her voice became soft again. "Just not today."

Briefly, he imagined her at the mortuary, alone with those she loved. "There's a police inspector coming, Lara. I want to find out how Bowden got the gun."

Still she did not look at him. "Does it matter?"

"It does to me." Pausing, Kerry studied her profile. "Do you want to see him?"

"Someone can tell me when he's here." When, at last, she looked at him, tears formed in her eyes. "But first I should see that film, shouldn't I."

* * *

Charles Monk took the bullet from its glassine bag and placed it on the coffee table.

The President stared at its serrated points. "This is Marie's?"

"Yes."

"On the film," Kerry said, "I heard twelve shots."

"That's right. The gun can take a forty-round magazine. This was the eleventh round. Bowden's was the twelfth."

Kerry fought back an anger so deep that it threatened his train of thought. "Did he mean to shoot her?"

Monk frowned. "We can't be sure. From the witnesses, we don't think so—seems like shouting startled him. According to the autopsy, he was legally intoxicated three times over. We don't think he was trained in gun use."

Silent, Kerry touched the sharp edges of the Eagle's Claw. "The points are made of copper," Monk explained. "Not alloy, which is softer.

"The tip is notched to split like that. Get hit in the extremities, and an Eagle's Claw will maim you. Get hit in the trunk, you're likely to die."

"And the gun?"

"A Lexington Patriot-2."

Slowly, Kerry looked up at Monk.

Though the man's face was impassive, his yellow-green eyes betrayed a deep compassion. "Tell me about the Patriot-2," Kerry demanded.

"It's not a sporting weapon." Pausing, Monk seemed to decide on candor. "You wouldn't use it for target practice unless the target's a refrigerator. What it does is what Bowden bought it for—spray a lot of bullets in split seconds."

"Where did he get it?"

It was Lara's voice, coming from behind them. Kerry looked up, startled. Awkwardly, Monk stood, straightening the creases of his pants. Lara did not extend her hand; watching her, Kerry was certain that she had viewed the film.

"Where?" she asked again.

Hesitant, Monk gazed at her in sympathy. "There's no evidence of a purchase," he answered. "Lexington claims they lost the record of whatever dealer they shipped it to, and we can't find any record of a background check. All we know right now is that he traveled to Las Vegas . . ."

"The inspector," Kerry cut in with muted anger, "found this in Bowden's room."

Lara walked over to the coffee table. Spread open was a copy of the SSA magazine; on the page, beside a notice for a gun show in Las Vegas, an advertisement described the features of the Lexington P-2. "Endangered Species," the bold print said. "Banned in California."

"Remember George Callister?" Kerry asked.