Balance of Power

EIGHT

That night, Frank and Bernadette Fasano attended a party at Cal Carlston's imposing home in Observatory Heights.

In her seventh month of pregnancy, Bernadette's feet were swollen, and the prospect of politically centered chitchat struck her as less entrancing than normal. But it was her firm belief that husband and wife should not lead separate lives, and a point of pride that—consistent with the demands of motherhood—she was there to support her husband whenever the occasion merited. This was one such evening: Carlston, a lobbyist whom the defense and pharmaceutical industries had made wealthy beyond Bernadette's imaginings, was throwing a dinner for Republican governors salted with conservative intellectuals, members of Congress, major donors, and other party luminaries—an event her manwho-would-be-President had felt it unwise to miss. So she had hastily fed the children, pulled her most soignee late-maternity dress from the closet, and sallied forth with Frank, a cheerful advertisement for their still-blossoming nuclear family.

On arrival, they idled in a line of cars waiting to be valet parked. Frank turned to her and promised, "We'll make it an early night."

Bernadette's smile mingled skepticism with fondness. "That was easier to believe when you were less important. I can always find someplace to sit."

Leaning over, Frank kissed her still-smiling lips. "I'm incredibly important," he told her, "but you and our baby are precious."

* * *

Frank had meant it, of course. He felt so lucky in Bernadette that sometimes he pitied those politicians, like Kerry Kilcannon, whose spouses had their own agendas. But one of Frank's weaknesses was to count on the elasticity of his wife's good nature. And so, it was well past the time he had meant to leave—after hours of hearty handshakes, kisses on cheeks, confabs with governors whose support he deeply wanted, and calculated candor with columnists—when Senator Macdonald Gage pulled him aside.

Glancing around Cal Carlston's massive drawing room, Fasano saw Bernadette settled on the couch, listening in apparent fascination to the ever-courtly Kelsey Landon. Briefly, Fasano wondered whether Landon and Gage were functioning as a tag team, and then turned his full attention on Mac Gage.

"A grand coalition," Gage remarked. "That's what you sold the SSA?"

"Of course. It won't work any other way."

"Then this will surely be the lobbyists' Olympics." As he lowered his voice, Gage's smile turned shrewd. "Does the SSA understand you're using them to break the power of the trial lawyers?"

"Someone needs to," Fasano answered coolly. "Starting with the tobacco litigation, we've been watching the greatest transfer of wealth since they passed the federal income tax—this time from our corporate donor base into the pockets of the plaintiffs' lawyers like Bob Lenihan. Which means to the most liberal element of the Democratic party.

"The trial lawyers put more cash into Kilcannon's campaign than anyone else. If we can cut down their recoveries against our corporate supporters, we can stop them from funding the Democrats—at least in such large amounts." Fasano glanced around them. "That'll make it easier to beat Kilcannon when he runs for reelection. Charles Dane can hardly object to that."

Gage's look of shrewdness deepened. "Leave it to you, Frank, to turn a problem into an opportunity. Still, the stakes are huge. It's a shame you can't put a little more time between this and the Costello shootings."

"Tell that to the SSA." With this, Fasano dropped all pretense that Gage would not be reporting back to Dane. "My next move is to recruit some high-tech companies who'll help me pick up swing Democrats. And techies don't want to be lumped with gun makers. If the SSA doesn't keep quiet and play by my rules, they'll screw this whole thing up."

Gage squared his shoulders. "Just be straight with Dane about what you're doing, and keep your coalition in line. Once he figures this out, Kilcannon will try to split the SSA from the others. You can't let that happen."

At the corner of his vision, Fasano caught a senator and two governors glancing at them surreptitiously. Moving closer, Fasano spoke in an undertone. "I don't intend to. That's why I'm making trial lawyers the issue.

"That'll help us get by with this. Look at Columbine—even with the liberal media pushing gun control, nothing happened. In the end, people will blame Bowden, not Lexington or the SSA. But only if we play it right."

As if to signal the room that he and Fasano remained in private conference, Gage bowed his head slightly in a pose of confidentiality, though his eyes remained fixed on Fasano. "Kilcannon thinks he can hang our activists—evangelicals, the pro-life folks, and the SSA—like a millstone around our neck. But in a time when under half of eligible Americans vote for President, and some of those for a third-party candidate, less than a quarter of the adult population can make you President. Which means the activists will count for a whole lot more.

"If all goes well, you'll have the conservative activists providing the troops for a Presidential campaign financed by the corporate interests who'll love you for tort reform. And the activists hate Kilcannon so much they'll let you soften your pitch a little, pick up some votes in the middle." Gage summoned his most amiable smile. "If you can pass tort reform, Frank, and stave off Kilcannon's gun control bill, you're halfway to becoming President."

Gage, Fasano knew, understood that he already had made precisely this calculation. But if the purpose of this make-believe was to convey messages to and from the SSA, it was now Fasano's turn.

"If," Fasano answered. "The sequence is important.

"We need to stall Kilcannon's gun bill. For that, the SSA's going to have to tolerate our alternative bill—something that seems to address how Bowden got his gun. Then we can say that both parties want to protect women and children, but that the Senate needs to work through how best to do it . . ."

"Which," Gage interrupted, "allows you to put the tort reform bill ahead of gun control on the Senate agenda."

Fasano nodded. "Of course. Except that the gun immunity provision won't even be in our bill, at least until it's voted out of Palmer's committee."

Gage's look of good humor evaporated. "Palmer," he said tersely, "is Palmer."

"Exactly. A war hero, a senator of unimpeachable integrity openly hated by the SSA, and—some would say—still a leading contender for the Republican nomination. If I can get Palmer behind gun immunity, we'll have the inside track on people like Kate Jarman and Cassie Rollins."

Gage's expression turned opaque. To Gage, Fasano guessed, the last

remark was an implicit insult: Gage's failure to control Chad Palmer had cost him the job Fasano now held and, with it, his own aspirations to be President. "So," Gage said softly, "you can get Palmer, Kilcannon's great friend, to do all that for you."

Fasano did not waver. "Look around you," he said with equal quiet. "Chad isn't here. Since Kyle died, he's half of who he was. All he has left except Allie is his career. He needs for it to mean something."

This implied rebuke—expressing the father and husband in Fasano, not the politician—made Gage look briefly away. When he spoke again, his voice contained an edge. "And you think you can offer him that."

"Not exactly. But if the SSA gets out of the way, I can make Chad an offer he knows I intend to be meaningless, and let him try to outwit me."

Gage's eyes became narrow and tight. "And what would that be?"

Fasano's own stare was hard. "What you would never give him, Mac. The thing he wants most, besides for his daughter to be alive. Not just a law, but a place in American history. I know you'll want to help me."