Protect and Defend (76 page)

The car stopped with a sickening crunch. Kyle did not; hurtling toward the windshield, she wished her seatbelt were fastened. And then knew nothing.

As reported to Chad Palmer by the police, the facts were stark. Their daughter was dead; it seemed she had been drinking.

Only in the morning did her grieving father enter Kyle’s apartment. The rug was covered with green shards of glass; on the table was a coffee mug half-filled with wine. Her message light was blinking.

Numb, Chad pushed the button.

Before the last message—the haunting sound of his own voice, telling Kyle he loved her—were messages from three reporters, mentioning Eric’s name and her abortion. And he knew for sure that whoever wished to destroy him had murdered Kyle Palmer.

I
T WAS A
day when Washington stopped.

For Kerry Kilcannon, it had begun the night before, when Lara Costello called to tell him what NBC News had just pulled off the wire. As hours passed, the sequence of events began to emerge, and the media’s role in the death of Kyle Palmer became bitterly clear.

Kerry could not sleep. When Lara arrived, drawn by the pain she had heard in his voice, he quietly outlined his role in the events which now had led to tragedy: Clayton’s exposure of Caroline Masters, and of Chad’s efforts to protect her; his own awareness of Kyle’s abortion, the revelation of which—shortly thereafter—had precipitated her death. Gravely, Lara listened.

“You don’t know where it came from,” she finally said. “And part of you is afraid to know.”

Kerry found it difficult to say this. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “I’m no longer sure of anything.”

They sat together in his study, silent in the wake of his admission. It was difficult to articulate, even to Lara, the emotions at war inside him: grief for Chad, Allie, and a young woman for whom, Kerry had always sensed, her father felt such deep concern; an empathetic horror of what it must be to lose a child; a deep, immutable anger toward whoever had used her in their pitiless design; the fear that those responsible had acted in his name.

“That’s a lot to live with,” she said at last.

Perhaps she was simply responding to his confession; perhaps, to his breach with Clayton, the wounds which must remain. “I have to find out,” he told her. “No matter who gets hurt.”

From her expression, Lara knew he did not say this lightly. “And you think it may hurt
us?
” she asked.

Kerry nodded. “What was done to Kyle,” he answered simply, “could be done to us. And if I pursue this, it might well.”

“Then it will.”

The equanimity in Lara’s voice, Kerry realized, reflected an outrage of her own. And, more than that, her understanding of what Kerry must do to restore his moral balance, as well as her desire to heal, at last, the lingering breach between them. “I don’t want you living with this,” she said gently. “Not alone, at any rate.”

Even in his sadness for the Palmers, Kerry noted the moment, for its implications were both subtle and profound: Lara no longer wished to stand outside his presidency, wary of its consequences. When he briefly smiled at her, mostly with his eyes, she came to sit beside him.

That Kerry was capable of an anger which could give the most jaded politician pause was well known to his enemies. But what they could not comprehend was how completely Kerry, the adult, had subordinated the childhood rage implanted by an abusive father—an ordeal known only to Lara and Clayton—to a cold assessment of its uses. Kerry was a practical politician and, even at this terrible hour, the resolve to make Caroline Masters the next Chief Justice never left him. Though he did not yet know how, his intuition told him that this ambition was conjoined with the death of Kyle Palmer.

But the immediate connection was obvious. When Lara left, he awakened Chuck Hampton. Kerry allowed the Minority Leader a moment to express his own shocked humanity, and then implored him to ensure—by any and all means necessary—that Macdonald Gage would postpone the Masters vote, adjourning the Senate out of deference to a grieving colleague.

Hanging up, Kerry removed a postmarked manila envelope from his drawer. Then he shaved, put on a suit and, after walking the shadowy West Wing at a little past 4:00 a.m., called Clayton to the Oval Office. As Kerry had instructed
Kit Pace, printouts of every article regarding Kyle Palmer’s abortion were spread out on his desk.

Awaiting Clayton, he studied them, from Charlie Trask’s first bulletin to the crescendo which so quickly followed. For half a day, the story had run through the media like a fever: it had taken roughly nine hours, Kerry calculated, to consume Kyle Palmer. In the margins of the “Trask Report,” Kerry began making notes.

When Clayton appeared, Kerry took a moment to look up.

“
Did you
do this?” he asked.

Clayton required no explanation. He sat, his own face implacable. “No. And I don’t know who did.” Pausing, he asked, “What do you take me for?”

Kerry could receive this as a simple declaration of core decency, or a more pragmatic statement that, while exposing Caroline Masters carried clear risks and benefits, exposing Kyle Palmer was more distasteful, the potential rewards less clear. Or both.

“Chad Palmer,” Kerry said, “could have been President.”

“But you are.” Clayton’s voice remained quiet. “You reminded me of that, quite recently. I haven’t forgotten.”

Habits die hard. The chief habit of Kerry’s adulthood had been to trust Clayton Slade. It was painful to step outside this, to watch Clayton with detachment.

“Whoever did this,” the President told him, “I’m roasting on a spit. You can help me, or not.”

In another man, Clayton might have taken this for bluster. But the two had met as prosecutors; both knew what a prosecutor could do, and how the power to investigate could engender fear and uncover truth. What it took was a relentless will; a chess player’s guile; a field general’s breadth of vision. All of which, Clayton years ago had learned, Kerry Kilcannon possessed. Nor would mercy give him pause—Kerry had a long memory, and there were acts he did not forgive. For him, retribution should come in this world, not the next.

In a voice without emotion, Clayton said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Call the director of the FBI. I want them to get a subpoena and search Charlie Trask’s office for any piece of paper with Kyle Palmer’s name on it …”

“The press,” Clayton interjected, “will scream bloody murder.”

“Let them. I want Trask’s files, and I want him scared. I want them to interview the boyfriend, learn how whoever did this found him, and who he talked to. I also want them to interview Kyle’s doctor.” Kerry’s voice softened. “If the director wants to know why, tell him to call me. By the time he does—
if he
does—I want Adam Shaw here with a plausible list of every conceivable federal crime committed by the person who leaked this story, and anyone who conspired with him. Starting with how a consent form supposed to be confidential wound up in an envelope mailed to Katherine Jones.” Pausing, Kerry picked up the envelope he had secreted in his desk. “This envelope, to be precise.”

Though he was silent, Clayton’s eyes seemed to widen, as if he were slowly comprehending the dimensions of what Kerry had withheld from him. “Jones gave the form to
you?
”

“And I gave it to Chad. But kept this. I want it fingerprinted.” Kerry tossed the envelope in Clayton’s lap. “I’m not up on the latest technology, but I imagine by now some bright crime technician has figured out how to lift prints off paper. And our database of fingerprints should have a wide universe of suspects. Including all former and current federal employees.”

The irony of this last remark was not lost on Clayton. He stared at the envelope in his hands.

“If they only find your prints on that,” Kerry said evenly, “but not on whatever they get from Trask, you may be in the clear.”

Speechless, Clayton stared at him. “Tell the director,” Kerry ordered, “that I want the fingerprint results by tomorrow. In case Trask hasn’t revealed his source by then.”

There was one call Kerry did not mention—the call he made himself, to Henry Nielsen.

“I was wondering,” Kerry began, “how you feel about yourself this morning.”

Nielsen, Kerry guessed, had been awake, though it was not yet six o’clock. But it took some moments to register that the President indeed was calling, and to absorb the import of his question.

“In candor,” Nielsen said quietly, “not too great.”

Kerry did not push this. “From your article, it’s clear you didn’t find the consent form under a cabbage leaf. Someone gave it to you.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

Kerry heard an audible sigh. “I can’t tell you, Mr. President. You know that. As a matter of First Amendment principle, we can’t reveal sources.”

“Yes.” The President’s tone was flat. “Your principles. I’d forgotten.” Kerry paused. “I assume that whoever it was gave this to
you
, in person.”

“Yes.” Nielsen struck a firmer tone. “No one else was there. No one saw us. No one on my staff’s involved.”

“I’m not looking for martyrs,” the President answered softly. “The document will do for now. Specifically, the original of whatever this person gave you.”

Nielsen hesitated, sounding less certain. “As a First Amendment matter, that document may also be confidential.”

The President stood. “I doubt that. The person you’re protecting is a blackmailer who caused a death. Kyle Palmer paid too dearly for your principles.” Once more, Kerry paused. “I’m willing to grant you absolution. This morning the FBI will come to your office, subpoena in hand. Give them the original, then have your lawyers file whatever motion they care to. All I want is a day or so.”

In the silence, Kerry imagined Nielsen trying to reconcile the demands of his profession with remorse at where they had led, the dawning awareness of what purpose the original might serve. “A day or so,” he finally answered. “Under protest, of course.”

Only then, the process started, did the President face the melancholy task of calling Chad and Allie Palmer.

He found a woman who could not stop crying, a man nearly inarticulate with grief and anguish. Kerry could not tell him that he knew what they were feeling, only that he was deeply sorry, and would do whatever he could. What that might be, or whether it would matter to them, he could not yet know.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, on the morning of Kyle Palmer’s funeral, Kerry awaited a call from the director of the FBI.

The day itself was gloomy, with a dismal and persistent rain seeping from dark skies. Out of deference to Senator Palmer, the Senate was closed, the debate on the Masters nomination scheduled to commence on the following day. The vote count seemed frozen: all forty-five Democrats were in favor, forty-eight Republicans—including Chad Palmer—were opposed, with the last seven uncommitted. Of the forty-eight opponents, in Kerry’s estimate forty or forty-one would support a filibuster—a crucial difference, as forty-one votes were necessary to prevent the Masters nomination from reaching the Senate floor.

Feverishly, Kerry had worked the phones to keep the seven Republicans from committing to Gage, and to chip away at the support for a filibuster. But no one dared approach Chad Palmer; no one knew how, or whether, Kyle’s death might affect his vote. Just as no one outside the White House was certain what Kerry intended by the subpoena to the
Internet Frontier
, or the FBI’s seizure of Charlie Trask’s files.

There had, of course, been the predictable protests. The
New York Times
had denounced these actions as “chilling” and “a raid on the First Amendment.” The White House had greeted the protest with stony silence; on the President’s instructions, Kit Pace gave the press corps a clipped response—that this was a “criminal matter” on which she could not comment. This remark, along with the death of Kyle Palmer, seemed to impose an unusual and uneasy quiet on the members of the Senate. And hanging over all of this was the latest
Gallup poll: forty-nine percent now supported the Masters nomination, and thirty-seven were opposed. The fact that this reflected a swing toward Caroline Masters among suburban women, a crucial voting bloc, seemed to stall Macdonald Gage’s pursuit of the last three senators needed to defeat her.

Kerry was gazing out his window, thinking of Chad Palmer and the battle to come, when his telephone rang.

The director of the FBI, Hal Bailey, was a career federal prosecutor who had made his reputation bringing organized-crime cases in New York City. Though Kerry’s impression of him was favorable, he had not yet indicated whether Bailey could keep his job, the pinnacle of his career, and Bailey’s term would soon expire. This, the President knew very well, had now become useful. In his bland, professional way, Bailey seemed prepared to please.

“I’m sorry it took two days,” the director told Kerry. “But the fingerprint base is extremely large.”

“You were able to get prints?”

“A number of them, including yours—the sheer volume most of the problem. To extract the prints we used a chemical called ninhydrin, which is extremely reliable. From there it was a matter of determining whether the same set of prints recurred on your envelope, Trask’s documents, and those we got from the
Internet Frontier
.” He paused, voice lowering in what sounded like discomfort. “The prints offer the only definitive evidence, Mr. President. Whoever gave the boyfriend cash also gave him a false name, and the kid doesn’t seem to know or care who sent this guy. As for the doctor, it appears that someone got into her office, copied the consent form, and left. She didn’t even know it had happened.”

For Kerry, this confirmed his fears—the persons responsible for Kyle Palmer’s death had been thoroughly professional. “But you were able to match up prints.”

“Yes.” The reluctance in Bailey’s voice returned. “One set appeared on every document.”