Protect and Defend (6 page)

Placing her glass on the black marble kitchen island, Sarah leaned forward on her stool, arms folded: as Caroline no doubt intended, her advice had sobered Sarah. “Let me ask you this,” Sarah said at last. “Under the case law, what are the odds of winning?”

Caroline shook her head, demurring. “There’s a chance, however slim, that this case will wind up in the Court of Appeals, with me on the panel. Even if there weren’t, I shouldn’t be giving legal advice to prospective litigants.”

For the first time, Sarah felt frustrated. There were twenty-one active judges on the appellate court, with three assigned at random to any given case, making Caroline’s chances of drawing an appeal one in seven. But Caroline’s code, Sarah knew, did not admit exceptions.

Caroline seemed to read her disappointment. “I wish I could be more helpful,” she observed gently. “But judges are the opposite of politicians: we’re real people who pretend not to be. I’ll very much want to know what you decide.”

Turning, Caroline returned to the matter of the orange sauce. Beside her, on television, the Chief Justice of the United States was collapsing in slow motion. As if by instinct, Caroline glanced over at the screen.

“Incredible,” Sarah remarked. “What was he like?”

“A superior intellect, of course.” On the screen, Senator Palmer rushed to the fallen man’s aid; watching, Caroline added, “Also rigid, narrow-minded, and as self-serious as a judge in a Marx Brothers comedy. And he made no secret that he despised Kerry Kilcannon. His death must have come as a crushing disappointment—especially to him.”

The mordant summary was so like Caroline—a woman who disdained false sentiment—that Sarah found herself smiling. But Caroline was not. Still watching the television, she observed, “This could change the whole Court. Depending on what the President does.”

“Because the Court’s so divided?”

“Partly. But a new Chief Justice can be much more than just another vote.” Caroline’s voice assumed the tone of rumination. “Every first-year law student knows that
Brown v. Board of Education
ended legalized segregation in the public schools. But few learn that the first hearing left the Court sharply divided, with Chief Justice Vinson strongly in favor of
maintaining
segregation.

“Before the result could be announced, Vinson died of a heart attack. Earl Warren took his place. The case was reargued, and Warren went to work, using all his skills of consensus-building and persuasion. The result was the unanimous opinion which, some would say, launched the civil rights movement and forced us to confront the issue of race.

“Of course, as bitter as that was, the abortion issues
you’re
raising are nearly as divisive, and public life is infinitely more vicious. I don’t envy Kilcannon the problem.”

“Do you know him?”

“The President? Not personally. My loss, clearly.”

Elliptical as it was, this was the closest Caroline had come to admitting the ambition Sarah believed she held. Emboldened, Sarah observed, “But you
do
know Ellen Penn.”

“Yes. And I already owe the new Vice President my
current
job.” Turning, Caroline fixed Sarah with an enigmatic gaze. “Please, Sarah, don’t even
think about
it.”

After a moment, Sarah smiled. “I’ll censor my thoughts, Caroline. But a girl can dream, can’t she?”

A
T A LITTLE
past one-thirty in the morning, Kerry Kilcannon and Lara Costello entered the President’s darkened sitting room. Before this moment, she had never been upstairs.

Elsewhere in the White House, Kerry had informed her, were fifty or so people—staff, the Secret Service—who knew where they were. “So now you’ve seen it,” Kerry said. “My new home. The crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system.”

Smiling, Lara looked around her, sharing his sense of awe and strangeness. The room was carefully appointed in antiques. At one side was a small plaque left by Jacqueline Kennedy, saying:
This room was occupied by John Fitzgerald Kennedy during the two years, ten months, and two days he was President of the United States. January 20, 1961–November 22, 1963
.

The glossy magazines compared her to Jackie. And it was all so unreal. Lara was no aristocrat: her father, an alcoholic Irishman, had abandoned his family when Lara was eight; her Latina mother had supported Lara and her sisters by cleaning other people’s homes; until two years before, when NBC had lured her from the
New York Times
, it had been a struggle to help her mother and pay off her sisters’ student loans. And she and Kerry were not married.

Yet here she was at the White House, wearing a stunning Gianfranco Ferre gown, in the President’s private quarters.

Hands in his pockets, Kerry stood at the window, watching a light snow fall on the grounds below. Lara touched his elbow. “Hard to believe, isn’t it.”

Kerry did not answer, and did not need to. He had traveled a path even longer than Lara’s: an abusive father; a difficult
childhood; his adult self-image as the smaller, less gifted brother of James Kilcannon—a freshly minted Irish-American prince who, until his assassination, had been a senator from New Jersey. At thirty, his brother’s accidental successor, Kerry was forced to find his own way. Few, then, had imagined him as President; Kerry never had.

Lara took his hand, watching his face in profile. Lean and fine-featured, every aspect of it was dear to her now, especially the eyes—their green-flecked blue irises were larger than most, giving a sense of deep intuition, of secrets withheld.

“How long,” she asked, “before I turn into a pumpkin?”

“Oh, Clayton’s commissioned a poll on that. In California, you get to sleep here. But sixty-eight percent of Alabamans want you to leave right now.”

“California made you President,” Lara retorted. “The citizens of Alabama didn’t even want you sleeping here alone.”

Kerry’s smile was rueful. “True enough. But we’ve learned about the problems, and long ago.”

With their reluctant acquiescence, Clayton Slade had designed rules for the President and his lover: Lara and Kerry must be engaged; she could not preside at White House dinner parties or otherwise presume to act as First Lady; though she had strongly held political views, anything she felt must be said to Kerry in private. And rule number one— Lara could not sleep over. Tonight, of all nights, the White House staff would be careful to log her out.

To others, their reasons might seem obvious. The White House held a special place in the American mind, and the President remained a figure of awe. It would not do, in these merciless times, for Kerry and Lara to seem arrogant or cavalier: from the
Post
to the slick women’s magazines, the press was avid for details of their relationship. And if the forces who despised Kerry could find no other way to tarnish him, Lara would do nicely.

This was more than enough. But there was also a deeper reason, dating back several years, a secret which made the rules compulsory: that Lara, then a
New York Times
reporter, had fallen in love with a senator trapped in an emotionless, childless marriage. Kerry was prepared to leave his wife for Lara; loving him, she did not wish to harm his chance of becoming
President. When she had become pregnant, Lara, against his wishes, had arranged an abortion and accepted a posting abroad.

Two years of separation—punctuated by Kerry’s divorce— had followed, and then, still deeply in love, they came together again. For several months preceding Kerry’s election, the media and his political enemies had dogged their present and investigated their past. Though pro-choice as a matter of public policy, Kerry was, like Lara, Roman Catholic: that Kerry had pled with her to keep the child made his feelings about abortion more conflicted, their private history—potentially fatal to his candidacy—more painful and ambiguous. By concealing their affair and her abortion, Lara had freed him to become President, and committed them to do nothing to inspire further inquiry, or to hurt each other still more.

So tonight they had an hour or so. Not enough time to resolve what divided them: his desire to have children as soon as possible; her lingering unease about life as First Lady and the threat posed by their past; their resulting inability to agree on the White House wedding Kerry’s media consultant was so desperate for. Just time enough to make love.

“Do you ever miss how we were?” she asked. “Before?”

He cocked his head, a characteristic gesture. “The privacy, you mean.”

“Yes. All we cared about was each other. And not getting caught.”

Kerry shook his head. “The world of an affair is like that. But we both know better than to call it real life.”

Lara touched his face. “And this will be?” she asked gently.

“It’s become
my
real life. Only it’s like no one else’s.” His smile, Lara saw, masked worry. “You’re not bailing out
already
, are you? I can see the headlines: ‘President Sworn In, Shafted.’”

She returned his smile. “No,” she answered. “I don’t want anyone else. And I always believed you should be President.”

“So marry me.”

Lightly, Lara kissed him. “Do you think,” she inquired, “I could see the bedroom first?”

Afterward, he held her, warm and silent in the dark.

His stillness, so familiar to her, was one of deep thought.
As if to acknowledge this, Kerry said quietly, “I was thinking about all I have to do now. About Roger Bannon, really.”

This, too, was familiar. Death haunted him, and its randomness was a living presence in his mind. This was more, Lara was certain, than the dark and light of the Irish—it was the legacy of James Kilcannon.

“What about Bannon?” she asked. “That he didn’t want you here?”

“That he should have retired before he wore himself out. And that his death was so pointless. Because I
am
here, and the last thing I’ll do is put another Roger Bannon on the Court.”

“Who
will
you appoint, Kerry? Any ideas?”

“None of my own. But Ellen Penn was whispering in my ear.”

“So
that
,” Lara replied, “is why she cut in when we were dancing. I wondered why she’d run the risk.”

The remark, as Lara intended, lightened his mood. “It’s the new political dilemma,” he agreed. “Presidents dancing with vice presidents. Do I lead? Does she follow? Does that make me a chauvinist, and Ellen too vice presidential? She finally decided the hell with it.”

Lara’s reporter’s reflexes might be rusty, but her political sense was still acute. “She must want you to appoint a woman.”

She felt Kerry smile at her prescience. “Not just any woman,” he amended. “A very particular woman.”

“C
AROLINE
M
ASTERS
,” Ellen Penn urged Kerry, “is perfect.”

She sat beside Clayton in the Oval Office, facing Kerry’s desk. If nothing else, Kerry reflected, this meeting would reveal how well his Vice President and Chief of Staff might coexist. In looks and manner they were opposites—Ellen small, bright-eyed, and intense; Clayton bulky, calm, and practical— and their relations were, at best, edgy. Clayton had not favored her selection: intensely loyal to Kerry, he saw Ellen as far too independent, a Roman candle of feminist enthusiasms. Even worse, Kerry suspected with some amusement, Clayton worried that her passions might skew Kerry’s judgment: one of his earthbound friend’s postinaugural missions was to save Kerry from his own worst impulses.

Part of this, Kerry knew, was born of a friendship so intimate that they could read the other’s thoughts. Years ago, Clayton had schooled Kerry in trial tactics; Kerry was godfather to Clayton’s twin daughters; Clayton had managed each of Kerry’s campaigns—two for the Senate, one for President. Only Clayton knew the truth about Kerry and Lara.

But, Kerry cautioned himself, Clayton’s motives were neither simple nor selfless. It was clear he wanted to become the first black Attorney General; after that, Kerry surmised, Clayton aspired to his own spot on the Court. These ambitions depended on Kerry’s own success: a failed nomination, brokered by Ellen Penn, would not serve Clayton’s interests.

Watching Clayton at the corner of his eye, Kerry spoke to Ellen. “I remember the Carelli case,” he said of Caroline Masters. “She handled it well. But ‘perfect’?”

“Perfect,” Ellen repeated. “You owe California; you owe women. And there’s never been a woman Chief before.

“
This
is the woman. She’s young, telegenic, and articulate. She’s a great witness for herself—four years ago, when she was nominated for the Court of Appeals, she breezed through the Judiciary Committee on a unanimous vote. Chad Palmer and Macdonald Gage
both
voted to confirm her. What are they going to say
now
—that a woman shouldn’t be Chief Justice?

“They’d hardly dare. The Republicans’ stand on abortion has repelled women by the truckload. That’s why we won, and they lost.” Ellen snapped forward in her chair, as if impelled by the force of her own argument. “Chad Palmer knows that, and he also wants your job. Gage wants it, too. You could use a Masters nomination to divide them.”

“Why the rush?” Clayton interjected. “This is the most important appointment a president can make.”

Ellen did not turn to him. “The Court’s deadlocked,” she said to Kerry. “That argues for a new Chief ASAP, and creates more pressure on Gage and Palmer to get out of the way. And with Caroline, they’ve got no weapons. The FBI and Justice vetted her for the appellate court and came up without a negative—no controversial political associations, no drug use, no personal problems of any kind.

“But she’s got one more big advantage, at least in the current environment.” Turning at last to Clayton, she granted him a smile of benign sweetness. “She has no record on abortion: no articles, cases, or public statements. There’s nothing Gage can pin on her.”