Richard Patterson - Balance of Power

Feeling their impasse, the conflict of love and politics, Kerry absorbed anew the consequences of whatever they chose to do, their inability—now—to consider only the personal costs of dealing with a long-ago private act.

"We'll need advice," he said at last. "We can't decide this on our own."

Once more, tears filled Lara's eyes. "I know," she answered.

FOUR

Pensive, Clayton stared at the carpet.

It was a little past one a.m. Even in an administration staffed by driven and dedicated people, the West Wing was silent, allowing Clayton to slip into the Oval Office unnoticed. At length Clayton said softly, "They'll use it."

Kerry was quiet. "When I called," he inquired at length, "what did Carlie say?"

"That you keep strange hours." Still leaning forward, Clayton peered up at him, the wisp of a smile vanishing in an instant. "She still doesn't know about you and Lara. In twenty-seven years, it's the only secret I've ever kept from her."

For eighteen of those years, Clayton had been his closest friend. Gazing at Clayton's round, familiar face, Kerry thought again that he could not have hoped for a better one. He knew how deeply—almost superstitiously—averse Clayton was to keeping anything from his wife. "Does anyone else know?"

"Only Kit."

Clayton nodded. During the campaign, when a national magazine had been close to uncovering the story, they had agreed that it was necessary to prepare Kit for the worst. "But not about Slezak?"

"Not yet." Kerry stood, hands thrust in his pockets. "I want Kit's advice on this."

Clayton puffed his cheeks, silently expelling air. "I can already tell you, Kerry. She'll say that you have to get this story out yourself."

"Maybe. But I need another point of view. I'm not going to kick this one around with our political people—let alone convene a group of wise men to cogitate on Lara's abortion as if it were the Cuban Missile Crisis. Even if I could imagine that, which I can't, can you imagine the stories if it leaked?" Kerry paused. "A few weeks ago, I might have talked to Chad. But not now."

Clayton gazed at him as though absorbing the dimensions of Kerry's solitude. "Do you want me to bring Kit in now?"

"Please. This one won't wait."

* * *

At a little past two a.m., Lara waited with Kerry in his private office, their chairs pulled close together—Lara dressed in a blouse and blue jeans, Kerry in khakis and a pullover sweater. When Kit and Clayton entered, Clayton rested a hand on Lara's shoulder. Without looking up, she covered Clayton's hand with hers. Then he joined Kit on a sofa facing the President and First Lady.

Kit's round features had assumed a sober professionalism which could not mask her worry. "Slezak's story is bullshit."

Kerry nodded. "We're all agreed on that."

"If you could implicate the SSA," Kit continued, "you'd have all sorts of choices—including moral outrage. With no one to blame, your options narrow."

"I'm afraid that's where we are. Short of tearing out Slezak's fingernails until he implicates Charles Dane."

Kit glanced at Lara, and then spoke to Kerry again. "Maybe we're so used to being afraid of this that we've forgotten what all of us know. Millions of women face this choice. To them, for you to be blackmailed over it would be grotesque, something from the J erry Springer Show. There's more sympathy out there than the SSA may think. And potentially a lot more anger."

"Sympathy?" Lara cut in. "Not from the media. I'm imagining The O'Reilly Factor amplified by a thousand right-wing talk shows. Unless I tell the truth—that Kerry never wanted an abortion—we'll be portrayed as a ruthless and ambitious couple who'd do anything to claw our way to power." Briefly, her eyes clouded. "They'll say that we've exploited the murder of my own family for cheap sympathy, but didn't hesitate to murder our own child. That we lied our way into office. That we're morally unfit to stay here. That no child in America can see us as fit role models for private conduct or public integrity."

"Even," Kit ventured quietly, "if you did tell the truth about Kerry?"

Lara glanced at her husband. "I'm more than willing to do that. But perhaps Kerry's right that they'd accuse me of trying to pin a rose on an adulterer by lying for him. And accuse him of using me to hide behind.

"But you're right about the anger. The country will become an endless echo chamber of attacks and recriminations, until Kerry and I can never go anywhere without everyone else's thought bubble being about abortion." Her voice grew husky. "I know that his marriage failed because Meg didn't want children, and that he'd have given all this up to have our child. But public life is not a place to look for sym pathy. The hard-line social conservatives will be demanding that people like Fasano prove their devotion to family values by making Kerry a moral object lesson. They'll use me to ruin his Presidency, any way they can."

Lara felt depressed, exhausted by the weight of her own guilt. Both Kit and Clayton gazed at their laps. At length, Kit said, "I grant you that abortion's an incendiary topic. Coupled with the gun issue, the right will use it to rip open the whole culture gap—'the Kilcannons don't share our values.' But it only gets as bad as you've imagined if we let the SSA control the means and timing of disclosure."

"What 'means of disclosure,' " Kerry asked, "do you suggest? Because Lara and I are not going on Barbara Walters."

"Put this in the hands of the Ne w York Times ," Kit urged him. "Or, better, the P ost : given that Lara covered you for the Times when you first became involved, they might be a little touchy about her ethics. We could grant the P ost an exclusive interview with strict ground rules—no asking Pat Robertson for his reaction; print the entire transcript verbatim . . ."

"What reason do we give for this confessional? 'We just thought that you should know'? If that were true, we'd have said so during the campaign."

"And cost yourself the election? Or the Masters nomination? You didn't owe anyone that." Kit spoke slowly, balancing entreaty with firmness. "The two of you are married now, and you've both suffered too much already. The American public is far more compassionate—and sensible—than the extremists on either side would have them be. They'll understand if someone is trying to blackmail you and that you have to divulge on principle that which, in principle, you believe too private to disclose." Pausing, Kit finished flatly, "That's the other thing, Mr. President. If you don't expose this, you're arguably complicit in your own blackmail."

"If I veto gun immunity," Kerry shot back, "I'm not giving into blackmail, am I?"

"You're not being candid, either. You need to speak to the American people without a filter. The W ashington Post aside, Barbara Walters is not such a terrible idea. If you can tell the public what you've gone through, with the appropriate references to human infallibility and your own belief in God, they'll hear you . . ."

Clayton turned to her. "The media age," he interjected, "is so permeated with bad taste that we're forgetting what good taste is. No matter how they say it, how do the President and First Lady keep their audience from cringing? How do they keep from cringing?

"We'd need an identifiable enemy to redirect the focus. An interview might work if we had enough evidence to blame the SSA. But without proof we'd only be making the SSA look like the victim of two maudlin demagogues slandering American patriots—in this case, to cover their own immorality." He turned to Kerry. "Then consider the Senate. You know how hard this fight over guns has been on swing-state Democrats. For the people who've stuck with you against their better judgment, it may not be enough to criticize your morals. They may feel the need to override your veto."