Balance of Power

SEVEN

Landing, Kerry was struck by the jagged brown rocks of the mountain range beyond the city, outlined against a thin blue desert sky. The vista had a shimmering quality, enhancing Kerry's sense that Las Vegas was surreal, perhaps dropped from the moon by some impresario of excess, Walt Disney on acid. Kerry's motorcade streamed down the strip, past a sequence of enormous hotels which, together, comprised a time-bending theme park: an ersatz Paris, Venice, New York City, the Rome of the Caesars, Luxor, and Camelot, punctuated by a space needle. Kerry felt a bemused admiration for the ambition and inventiveness of man, unconstrained by the limits of either money or good taste. The unusual number of billboards advertising tort lawyers reminded Kerry of Robert Lenihan.

Turning from the window, he steeled himself for the task ahead.

Two hours before, an advance team, unannounced and unobtrusive, had circulated through the gun show, reporting back on what they had seen. Only then did Kerry make his final decision. Kit had not alerted the press until they landed. Avid, they followed in two buses, although Kit had designated only one pool camera and three reporters to accompany the President inside the convention hall. As his limousine pulled up to the glass doors of the sprawling tan complex, Kerry's Secret Service detail spread out amidst the startled, loitering smokers.

For a last moment, Kerry remained inside, frozen by the risk and volatility of what he was about to do. Exiting the car, he imagined John Bowden's arrival at another show just weeks ago and, despite the searing heat, felt chill.

A phalanx of Secret Service agents surrounded him. Startled, a beefy smoker wearing a T-shirt with an Iron Cross above the slogan "NO FEAR" uttered a one-word obscenity as Kerry and his protectors pushed inside.

The cavernous hall had a steel web of lights and catwalks high above hundreds of tables marked by placards offering armaments of every kind. The people crowding the tables remained unaware of Kerry's arrival. At first glance, they were white, most of them male, and their appearance evoked an urban liberal's overheated fantasy of a gun show— caps, T-shirts, beards, ponytails, tattoos and sloping bellies—reminding him of the bitter cultural divisions in the country which he governed. He would find few Kilcannon voters here.

"This way, Mr. President," Peter Lake directed.

With the Secret Service detail as outriders, the alien cluster headed for Kerry's objective. Beneath a sign proclaiming "No SSA, No Gun Shows," two grim-faced men and a petite, pretty woman glared at him in anger and surprise.

"Gun-grabber," one of the men called out. Tempted to confront them, Kerry hewed to the mission he had come for.

The stir of people noticing him rose to a din of protest. Moving down a corridor between two rows of tables, Kerry looked from side to side, feeling tension pass through him like a current from the hate-filled faces, the weaponry all around them—sniper rifles, handguns, swords, knives, bayonets, plastic guns designed to slip through magnetometers. One booth sold hand grenades; another hawked "pre-banned AK-47s" and forty-round magazines; another offered freeze-dried survival rations and gas masks beneath the warning, "You Can't Fight If You Can't Breathe." A plethora of American flag decals competed with bumper stickers, one of which portrayed a black man anally penetrating another. "Save Our Military" it admonished, "Just Say No."

"Patriotic," Kit observed.

A crowd had massed around them. Behind a woman with two kids in a stroller, her mouth spitting venom he could not quite hear, Kerry spotted his objective in the dead center of the hall: a sign proclaiming "Eagle's Claw Ammo."

Imagining Bowden drawn by the words, Kerry felt his nerves twitch.

As the press of bodies slowly parted for the wedge of his security detail, Kerry moved forward. A bearded man stood behind a table displaying armor-piercing bullets; high-capacity magazines; and a row of black metal guns labeled, "Lexington P-2—The Patriot's Weapon of Choice." Beside him was a life-size cardboard image of Kerry and Lara with concentric circles imprinted on their chests.

Secret Service agents encircled the table. The Minicam followed Kerry toward its proprietor and his wares. "Go back to Washington," someone shouted, his rasp audible in the growing silence.

Stopping at the table, the President examined a forty-round clip; boxes of Eagle's Claw bullets; bumper stickers which read, "Kilcannon— American Traitor," and "Lara—Traitor Bitch"; a tape on a portable television demonstrating how to convert the P-2 to automatic fire. As Kerry watched, the converted handgun vaporized a pile of watermelons into a spew of pink juice. Get it while you can, the narrator urged, and a grainy photograph of Kerry replaced the slaughtered melons.

At last, Kerry turned to the seller.

The rictus of a smile twitched on the man's face—agitated, hostile and sickly. Silent, Kerry scooped up a box of Eagle's Claw bullets in the palm of his hand.

He waited until the man's gaze was drawn to the box. With a soft underhand flip, Kerry tossed it in his face.

Startled, the man caught the box inches from his eyes. "Lucky," Kerry told him. "You had time."

The man's eyes flickered toward the camera. Kerry took a Lexington P-2 and pressed it into his other hand. "Three hours ago you sold a friend of mine two boxes of Eagle's Claw bullets, a forty-round clip, and a Lexington P-2—exactly what John Bowden bought. And you never asked his name, or anything about him."

The man would not—or could not—respond. Stepping behind the table, Kit Pace lifted the cutout of the President and First Lady and laid it across the pile of bullets. "But it seems you know who I am," Kerry said. "How much do you want for us?"

Still the man did not speak. Reaching into his pocket, Kerry pulled out his wallet and placed some twenties on the table. "Tell me if you think it's not enough."

Mute, the seller stared at the green bills. Then Kerry tucked the cardboard cutout under his arm, and turned away.

* * *

At home, Frank Fasano watched the last few minutes, telephone propped to his ear. "Guerrilla theater," Dane was saying. "Most people will see this stunt for what it is—a President and his thugs, bullying Americans who believe in the Second Amendment for cheap political gain."

But the SSA president sounded unsettled. On CNN, Kilcannon departed through the rows of weaponry, Lara's cardboard face still visible beneath his arm. Fasano had the sense of a conflict slipping out of control.

"What most people will remember," he answered, "is a man standing up for his wife and her murdered family. What's the antidote to that?"

Dane was silent. "Trust me," he answered with a renewed calm that Fasano found unnerving. "There is one."

* * *

In the limousine, Kerry gazed out the window. Softly, he said, "He could have been the seller."

The ATF would question him, of course. But Kerry might never know.

"You did enough," Kit answered. "At least for one day."