Protect and Defend (80 page)

“Then we both need to win, don’t we.”

With this, Gage hung up.

Swiftly, he began to calculate. With Palmer’s defection, the vote stood—as near as Gage could tell in the confusion—at forty-eight to forty-eight, with the four undecideds frozen by Palmer’s speech. But he felt the support for a filibuster eroding beneath him: a new hesitance here; a refusal to commit there; a plea for time to think, or to let emotions subside; a comment that, whatever the merits, the condition of the fetus
deprived Gage of the ideological passion needed to refuse Caroline Masters a vote by the full Senate. Palmer had filed a petition to close debate.

Still, there were countless factors which might swing a final vote toward Gage: sincere conviction; pressures from constituents and interest groups; the promise of campaign funds; fear of a primary challenge from the right; dislike for the President; the favors or punishments Gage had at his disposal. But he sensed that, for once, his colleagues feared Kilcannon almost as much as they did Gage himself: not only for the President’s ruthlessness, but also for his resourcefulness. They did not want to be standing too close to Gage if Kilcannon proved that Kyle Palmer’s death involved him.

The problem was, they
believed
Palmer—not that Gage had imagined she would die, but that Gage knew what Taylor had planned. And Kyle Palmer’s death made too many of them squeamish. As Gage discovered when he called Clare MacIntire.

“I had
nothing
to do with this,” he insisted. “This is guilt by association.”

“I’m sure it is, Mac. But we have to be careful what we’re associated
with
.”

“Abortion? Promiscuity? A president who thinks the FBI’s his personal Gestapo?”

“Dead girls,” Clare answered flatly. “There are sentimentalists who think that puts the rest in a certain perspective. So have a care.” Clare paused. “I still don’t know how I’ll vote. With all this static, I’m trying to stick to the merits.”

“Within our party,” Gage rejoined, “the merits are pretty clear.”

“They were,” Clare said thoughtfully.

“Then give me a little more time,” Gage urged. “Let Paul stall this, until emotions simmer down.”

Clare hesitated. “I’ll think about it, Mac. That much, I promise. But nothing more.”

Putting down the telephone, Gage could only hope the pressure campaign organized by the Christian Commitment and its allies—faxes, calls, and mail from Clare’s prominent supporters in Kansas—would force her into line.

He punched another button, and dialed Spencer James.

*  *  *

At ten o’clock, as Kerry watched on C-SPAN, the Senate debate resumed. For several hours, the speeches continued, one senator after another recapitulating his past position. Yet beneath the surface, there was change.

“The filibuster’s evaporating,” Chuck Hampton called to say. “I think we’ll get our vote.”

Shortly before two, Gage pulled Harshman into the cloakroom. “The support for a filibuster’s slipping away,” Gage said, “I can feel it. If we lose big there, it could hurt us on the final vote.”

To Gage’s surprise and irritation, Harshman regarded him with something close to contempt. “Chad Palmer,” he retorted, “isn’t the only senator with principles. I have mine.”

By four o’clock, as Kerry watched, all but the four undecideds and Kate Jarman had spoken to the merits of the Masters nomination. Kerry’s vote count stood forty-eight to forty-eight when Spencer James yielded to Harshman.

“
It is time
,” Harshman declared, “
to take a deep breath, to sort out reason from emotions. It is time, in candor, to remember that we are grieving for Kyle Palmer, not Caroline Masters
.” His voice rose in contempt. “
It is time to distinguish between an inadvertent tragedy—for which, I am assured, no one here bears responsibility—and a deliberate abuse of power by a president who would intimidate the Senate and its leaders and place us on the road to a police state …
”

“Let’s have him audited,” the President said dryly. “I want to know how much he gives to charity.”

The mild joke defused, if only for a moment, the tension in the conference room. Around him, Clayton, Kit, and Adam Shaw smiled but continued to watch.

“I wonder what Palmer’s thinking,” Clayton murmured.

Watching Harshman, Chad wavered between anger and fatigue. The night before, sleepless, he had held his grieving wife; now he must listen to this petty, narrow man flaunt his poverty of spirit.

“Only debate,” Harshman said sternly, “
extended
debate, and the reflection which it allows us, is worthy of this great
deliberative body. This
independent
body, no matter what the President might think.

“We are senators, not servants. We represent our people. And our people do not want us—in a matter so vital to our future and our very moral character—to be rushed to judgment by fear,
or
sorrow,
or
pity.

“We are senators, and the Senate, in its own good time, must work its will.”

Shooting Chad a brief look of challenge, Harshman sat to applause from the opponents of Caroline Masters who still crowded the Senate gallery. As Ellen Penn gaveled for silence, Chad caught Kate Jarman’s eye, and nodded.

The Vice President, awaiting this, said at once, “The Chair recognizes the Junior Senator from Vermont.”

Kate Jarman stood. “There is much I could say,” she told her colleagues. “But I will not. I yield to Senator Palmer.”

Slowly, Chad rose, gaze sweeping his colleagues and resting last on Harshman, then Gage, the Majority Leader expressionless save for narrowed eyes.

“Indeed,” Chad began, “we
are
senators. And most of us are worthy of the name.

“The Majority Leader assures us that the actions of Mason Taylor are a mystery to him. Senator Harshman tells us that this nomination should not be decided on sentiments like grief or shame or anger. I suggest another: self-respect.

“
That
sentiment may not be important to all one hundred of us. But among the great majority, I suspect there will be considerable aversion to hiding behind a filibuster.” Pausing, Chad spoke softly. “It is time. Enough has been said, and far too much has been done. We should do what our constituents sent us to do—vote.”

With this, Ellen Penn called—as scheduled—for a vote on Chad’s petition to close debate.

He sat, foreseeing the outcome. He had made some calls of his own.

“Nice,” the President said to Chuck Hampton. “What’s the count?”

On the other end, Hampton’s voice was muffled; Kerry imagined him in the cloakroom, hunkered in the corner. “To sustain a filibuster? I don’t think they’ve got more than thirty.
The only problem is
that
may be their way of having it
both
ways. As far as I know, we’ve got only forty-eight to actually confirm.”

The President thought briefly. “Get me Kate Jarman,” he said.

On C-SPAN, the vote to close debate proceeded.

“
Mr. Harshman
.”

“
No
.”

“
Mr. Izzo
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
Mr. Jones
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
Ms. MacIntire
.”

“
Yes
.”

As the total vote reached fifty, the tally on the screen stood at twenty-nine yes’s, twenty-one no’s. The President experienced a flash of doubt—out of the next fifty votes, he needed thirty-one yes’s to reach sixty and close debate.

And then came a string of yes’s.

“
Mr. Nehlen
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
Mr. Palmer
.”

Chad, smiling slightly, said, “
Yes
.”

The sixty-first “yes,” when it came, belonged to an undecided moderate, Cassie Rollins.

“All right,” Clayton murmured.

Waiting for Kate Jarman, the President continued to watch. The last vote, giving Chad’s motion a total of seventy-one, belonged to Leo Weller.

“I overpaid for
that
one,” Kerry observed. “Imagine all those cows, roaming our national parklands.”

The telephone rang.

“Hello, Kate,” the President said.

“Good afternoon,” she answered. “Are you calling to make a decent woman of me, Mr. President?”

Kerry laughed. “I live in hope, Kate. One decent woman deserves another.”

In San Francisco, Caroline Masters watched in her penthouse, with Blair Montgomery.

“Thank God for Senator Palmer,” Blair said.

But Caroline did not answer—she was too tense. And it was hard to be grateful for what had brought Chad Palmer to this moment.

“Stuck at forty-eight votes to confirm,” she murmured. “After all of this.”

Kerry put down the telephone. “Kate’s waiting,” he told Clayton. “Get me to Clare MacIntire.”

On the screen, Ellen Penn announced, “
The pending business is the nomination of Judge Caroline Clark Masters to be Chief Justice. The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to this nomination? The aye’s and nay’s have been ordered, and the clerk will call the roll
.”

“
Mr. Allen
.”

“
No
.”

“
Mr. Azoff
.”

“
Yes
.”

“
Ms. Baltry
.”

“
Yes
.”

Inexorably, the fateful count proceeded, and then the telephone rang.

On the floor, Chad watched the votes fall out, governed by a range of factors from the noble to the crass, the magisterial to the parochial. The first undecided, George Felton, gave him a brief glance of apology, and then looked away.

“No.”

Hands folded in front of his belly, Gage nodded in satisfaction. Briefly, Chad shut his eyes.

“Mr. Izzo.”

“No.”

All Gage needed, Chad realized, was one more vote, and Ellen Penn could not break a tie. From the chair, Ellen gazed down at Kate Jarman.

“Ms. Jarman.”

Kate remained sitting, with an inward expression, as though pretending to ignore the tension. To the astonishment of the galleries, she remained silent until the roll call moved on.

Having postponed her vote, she briefly closed her eyes.

Amidst a collective expulsion of breath, the vote proceeded on, the yes’s and no’s falling into line again.

“Ms. MacIntire,” the clerk called out.

Tense, Gage watched her. One more “no” and it was done.

Hands folded in front of her, Clare MacIntire hesitated, her small dark person the focus of a vast silence.

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“Yes,” Adam Shaw said under his breath; Kit Pace pumped her fist in the air.

“What did you give her?” Clayton asked the President. “The heavens and earth?”

“Nothing. It seems she despises Gage.”

Once more, the vote resumed its inexorable path toward the last undecided, Cassie Rollins. Chad faced her, raising his eyebrows.

This morning, they had met alone.

“I’ll miss you,” Cassie said. “I wish you weren’t going.”

It touched him. “You understand, Cassie.”

She nodded. “I do. We all do.” Then, to his surprise, she smiled a little. “You want my vote, of course. Problem is, what can you do for me once you’re gone?”

Chad did not answer. “You know Gage did it, Cassie.”

“I don’t know that for sure. But I know we should do better.” She smiled again. “Consider this a going-away present …”

“Ms. Rollins?” the clerk called.

Cassie stood, tall and blond, looking like the former tennis star she was. “
Yes
,” she called out, and smiled at Chad Palmer.

Quickly, Gage rose and walked toward Kate Jarman’s desk. Kate sat, arms folded, as the roll call ground on toward its inevitable conclusion, save for Kate—fifty no’s, forty-nine yes’s.

When Gage reached her side, she did not appear to notice him. Touching her shoulder, he whispered, “Kate?”

She looked up at him, eyes cold. “You lose,” she said.

*  *  *

Chad watched the roll call reach its end.

Kate Jarman stood. “Madam President?”

Ellen Penn nodded. “The Chair recognizes the Junior Senator from Vermont.”

Now Kate Jarman was the focus of an awesome silence. “On the roll call just concluded,” Kate asked, “how am I recorded?”

“You are not recorded.”

As had Cassie Rollins, Kate Jarman turned to Chad. “I now wish to vote
yes
.”

A deep murmur rose from the gallery. On the floor, senators turned to one another, absorbing what had happened. Only Macdonald Gage was still.

But Chad no longer saw him. Instead he recalled his daughter on their last evening together, filled with hope as she showed her mother and father her portfolio …

The Vice President cracked her ivory gavel, returning him to the present.

“The Chair,” she said with barely concealed emotion, “votes yes.”

Conscious of a moment passing into history, the Vice President paused.

“On this vote,” she announced, “the aye’s are fifty-one, the nay’s are fifty, and the Senate does advise and consent to the nomination of Caroline Clark Masters.”

Caroline bent forward, hands covering her eyes. She felt Blair Montgomery’s arm around her shoulder.

“You made it,” he said. “Was there ever a doubt?”

Whooping, laughing, all speaking at once, the others clustered around the President.

As Kerry stood, Kit embraced him, then Adam Shaw, seized by a sense of moment, solemnly shook his hand. “You just changed the Court, Mr. President.”

Kerry smiled. “As I remember, that was the original idea.”

He turned to Clayton. Tentative, Clayton touched his shoulder. “Congratulations, Mr. President. You did it.”

Others, the President knew, would be waiting in the Oval Office, and he should call the new Chief Justice at once. But
he paused for Clayton—for all that had happened, his friend. Softly, he said, “
We
did it, pal. It just took sorting out.”

For the first time in weeks, Clayton’s guard slipped, and his eyes misted. Quickly, he became stoic. “How should we react?” he asked.