Balance of Power

A Ballantine Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 2003 by Richard North Patterson

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of

Canada Limited, Toronto.

Balance of Power is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are a product of the

author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Patterson, Richard North. Balance of power / Richard North Patterson.—1st ed.

p. cm. eISBN 0-345-46988-7

1. Firearms—Law and legislation—Fiction. 2. Firearms industry and trade—Fiction. 3. Presidents' spouses—Fiction. 4. Washington (D.C.)— Fiction. 5. Gun control—Fiction. 6. Presidents—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3566.A8242B35 2003 813'.54—dc21

2003051848

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