Balance of Power

FIVE

The next morning, when Kerry returned to the Oval Office, he brought with him a copy of the SSA Defender magazine.

The cover featured a caricature of President Kerry Kilcannon sipping champagne in white tie and tails, captioned in bold letters, "Has this man ever been to a gun show?" The article inside praised gun shows as a place for "American families to enjoy the sporting traditions central to our way of life." Kerry flipped to a page he had marked with a paper clip, a calendar of gun-related events.

Underlined in red was a gun show in Las Vegas. He placed it next to a typed itinerary for the next two days, built around a speech in San Francisco. Then he picked up the telephone and called Kit Pace. "I want to change tomorrow's schedule," he told her.

* * *

Bernadette Fasano was one week from her due date and her husband—who despised cell phones, but was committed to being present for the delivery of each of their children—had stuffed a phone in his pocket before he left home. It was still there when, at noon, he ate a sandwich with Charles Dane in the SSA's conference room.

Dane pressed the start button on a VCR. "What you're about to see," he said in an orotund impression of a television reporter, "is just one of the many important pro bono services of America's trial lawyers."

On the screen appeared photographs of Henry Serrano, David Walsh, and Laura Blanchard, the other victims in the Costello shootings. Scrolling beneath them were the words of Lexington's advertisement in the SSA magazine. Their faces faded to black, and a quiet voice asked, "Just who is the 'endangered species'? "

"Is this from Lenihan's group?" Fasano inquired.

"Yup. They've started running ads in major media markets. We're compiling their greatest hits."

The next spot focused on Felice Serrano, holding a photograph of her late husband playing a board game with their children. I pray that every member of Congress will remember George before they vote against gun safety . . .

"Shameless," Dane remarked. "She may be mouthing the words, but I can hear Robert Lenihan speaking to a San Francisco jury."

Abruptly, Felice was succeeded by the faces of several children under ten, appearing with their ages above the words "killed by classmates." These, the voice-over explained, are some of the eighty children killed every week by guns. But Senator Fasano thinks that safety locks to save their lives threaten our freedom. What's more important than the freedom to grow up?

Despite his hard-earned thickness of skin, Fasano realized that he felt defensive. When Dane gratuitously observed, "They're making you the target," Fasano considered responding, And it's you who put the bull'seye on my forehead.

He was restrained by the images of a former press secretary and his wife, who had become gun safety activists after the husband's wounding by a would-be assassin. The husband had suffered a grave cerebral injury; in clear but halting speech, he said, I'm all for hunting and sport shooting. All I want is to make our country safer. Nodding, his wife looked into the camera, That's why we were so offended when Senator Paul Harshman told the SSA convention that "next to Kerry Kilcannon," my husband was the "leading enemy" of gun owners in America.

"Do me a favor," Fasano remarked. "Quit inviting Paul to speak. It's like giving gasoline and matches to a pyromaniac . . ."

He was cut off by a metallic beep—his cell phone. "Bernadette," he murmured. As Dane hit the stop button, Fasano turned away. "Sweetheart?" he answered softly.

"I'm sorry," Bernadette's voice was wan but wry, "but if I'm any judge of these things, our newest product in development is about to go on-line."

Through his anxiety, Fasano felt himself smile: their sixth child in nine years qualified Bernadette as an expert. "Will he or she hang on until I get there?"

"I'll tell 'her' to," Bernadette said, hoping aloud for a daughter. "But this one time I want your promise to 'be home soon' to be more than aspirational."

"Promise," Fasano said, and hung up.

"Another Fasano on the way?" Dane inquired amiably.

"My wife's never wrong. Got to run."

Dane nodded toward the screen. "Too bad. You're missing the best one—a knife in Leo Weller's back."

Fasano reached for his briefcase. "Why am I not surprised? But I'm afraid it'll have to keep."

"Don't let all this worry you," Dane told him. "We're ready to respond to this garbage. We promised to protect you and your people, and we will—big-time."

He was supposed to feel grateful and beholden, Fasano knew. Nodding, he headed for the glass door.

"Good luck," Dane said. "I guess you don't know what flavor this one is?"

"We never ask." Briefly, Fasano paused in the doorway. "When you're in my business, Charles, you treasure the few surprises which are nice ones."

* * *

A day later, after the President's noontime speech on corporate responsibility to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Kit Pace surprised the traveling media contingent by announcing an unscheduled three-hour stopover in Las Vegas. She explained this only as "personal time"; to repeated inquiries, she intimated that Kerry would be meeting with unspecified supporters. "I doubt he'll be playing the slots," she observed, "but I'm sure the press pool will catch him if he does." All of which, Kerry was certain, would suggest to the ever-alert White House press corps that something surprising was up—the precise reaction he had hoped for.

On the flight from San Francisco, Kerry placed a congratulatory call to the Majority Leader on the birth of his fifth son. "Come up with a name?" Kerry asked.

"Francis Xavier Fasano, Junior." Kerry heard the smile in Fasano's voice. "After five boys, Bernadette's a broken woman, and we'd about run out of names. So I was able to sneak 'Frank Junior' by her."

It would be a nice anecdote for the media and home-state audiences; to Kerry's trained ear, it already had a certain practiced sound. But beneath this he heard Fasano's joy and pride—even in an obligatory conversation with an adversary who, Kerry well knew, Fasano personally disliked. Feeling a moment's envy, Kerry rued the absence of children in his life, and then, sadly, thought of Marie. "Lara has a will of steel," he told Fasano, "and I'm sure we'll stop well short of six. I doubt the world will ever see Kerry junior."

"For some of us," Fasano said dryly, "Kerry senior is more than enough to handle." But this was the closest they got to politics. Kerry passed over his own family concerns, including today's source of anxiety and anger—Lara's deposition. Hanging up, he wondered how it was going.

In search of distraction, Kerry went to his private quarters with Kit, to review the television ads prepared by the Trial Lawyers for Justice.

Of the first five, his favorite showed a retired Army general—a veteran of Vietnam—dressed in hunting gear and holding a Lexington P-2. When I was in Vietnam, the general said brusquely, I needed this kind of gun. But I sure don't need it for hunting deer. All it's good for is hunting people . . .

"Who don't have a sporting chance," Kerry added softly. "We have to separate the hunters from the crazies. This one does."

"That's not bad," Kit agreed. "But check out the next one."

Abruptly, the war hero was replaced by pictures of a picturesque frontier town. This, the narrator began, is Libby, Montana.

It's a place where folks work hard, and don't ask for anything more than a fair shake. But now many of its people are dying from asbestosis, and their families are facing an uphill battle against asbestos companies who are using big donations, deceptive ads, and high-priced lobbyists to persuade our elected representatives in Washington to protect them . . .

"Didn't take Lenihan long," Kerry remarked.

The bucolic scene was replaced by somber faces. First, a gentle, greyhaired woman said, They killed my husband, and now my four boys are dying, too. Then came a man with sad eyes and hollow cheeks, They lied to us, he explained. We knew it was dusty, but we didn't know it was deadly.

To Kerry, the testament of real people packed a raw power no artifice could match. Three members of my family died, a pretty young woman told the camera. My brother Hank, my Uncle Lee, and my cousin Alex. We'd be held accountable if it was us who did this . . .

"Not," Kit interrupted, "if you've given Leo Weller a hundred thousand or so."

As if on cue, Weller's face appeared. Now Senator Leo Weller, the young woman's voice continued, is sponsoring legislation to keep us from holding the company responsible.

With a jarring abruptness, Weller was replaced by a dying man breathing through a respirator. I'd like an apology from Leo Weller, he said in a labored wheeze. But he wouldn't even meet with us. I want to know before I die what makes an asbestos company's profits more important than my life . . .

"Seems fair enough," observed Kit. "Wonder what Weller would tell him."

The first woman reappeared, her words more piercing for the plainspoken flatness of her speech. The asbestos industry is spending millions of dollars pushing legislation they wrote, sponsored by Senator Weller, to protect them from the people they poisoned. They call it the Civil Justice Reform Act. We hope you'll call Senator Weller and ask him why he won't stand up for us.

Against a black background, the telephone number of Weller's Washington office appeared in white. Softly, the woman finished, Please help us, and then the screen went dark.

It was a moment before Kerry spoke. "Know what the media buy is?"

"Two million," Kit answered. "In Montana, that's enough to run it every night, on every station, for the next three weeks. Lenihan's people have already taken this to CNN and Nightline, and they're both looking at doing stories."

Kerry looked up at her. "A couple of weeks of this and Leo may be a tad more flexible on tort reform." He briefly shook his head. "It's exactly what I wanted them to do—put their money on the screen. It's also what Chad Palmer and I spent half our careers complaining about— except now the trial lawyers are almost as powerful as the corporations, and they're both at least as powerful as the parties they're trying to buy. All that's changed is that we've all become a little worse, and the system a little worse off."

Kit did not answer. Kerry realized that the plane had slowed; glancing out the window, he saw the mirage which was Las Vegas.

"Do you really want to do this?" Kit asked. "You've got no idea in the world what will happen."

Kerry smiled faintly. "Just stand back from me a little. With any luck, they'll miss you."