The Hearing (36 page)

“Samantha!”

S
amantha arranged herself in the leather chair, clasped her hands in her lap, looked up at the fourteen senators facing her,
and smiled. She was surrounded by a forest of TV cameras and still photographers.

It was eight days since the explosion. She and Gus and Michelle had moved back to the rented house in Virginia. Carl was dead.
The man who’d put the bomb in the Mercedes—Samantha couldn’t even pronounce his name, Ag-something—he was dead. Gus was bruises
and cuts and scratches from head to foot. Michelle had been in the street, two blocks from the Mercedes, against a curb, pushed
up next to another woman, Helen someone. It was a miracle,
as if the blast had washed right over them. Emotionally, Michelle was a wreck. Once she found out Gus and Samantha were safe,
she went hysterical over Carl. All she could talk about was Esther and their two children. As for Samantha herself, with bruises
everywhere, she looked as if she’d spent an hour in a washing machine on spin-dry.

But she was here. Phil Rothman sat beside her at the witness table, and behind her the front row of spectators was filled
with family and friends. Gus and Michelle were there, small bandages covering face cuts. They had agreed to let Samantha testify.

Michelle’s father, Bob, who had flown to Washington with his wife and sons the first day of the car bomb, sat next to her—crew-cut,
white-socks, friendly but powerful, a bear in a blazer. Her mother, next in line, tiny hand smothered in her husband’s paw,
was beautiful, the clear eyes and angled features whispering dignity. Beside her were Michelle’s two younger brothers, in
their late twenties now, ranchers, brown and weathered. Carl’s widow, Esther, was there with the children, Paul and Ali. Next
to them, an arm resting lightly along the back of Esther’s chair, was Helen Bondell. Gus’s mother, recovering from her husband’s
suicide (and making no bones about what she regarded as Gus’s role in provoking it), was at a friend’s home in Palm Beach.
Gus had telephoned Larry Young in London and assured him that except for minor cuts and bruises Samantha was unharmed. Larry
didn’t say anything about a trip to the States to pick her up, and Gus didn’t think it was a good time to raise the subject.
From Doreen came nothing but silence, a blessing that seemed—correctly, as it turned out—too good to be true.

A man moved the microphone closer to Samantha’s
lips. She touched it and it let out a loud hum. The man moved it back and asked her not to touch it. She said, “I’m sorry.”

She wriggled in the chair, trying to avoid a lump that was sticking her in the back, and in the process leaned close to the
microphone. She pulled back, as from a snake’s head, and said, “Sorry.”

She took a deep breath and smiled again. She felt she was making too much trouble.

Several of the senators looked at her and smiled. The chairman was Eric Taeger, old and white-haired, his harsh impatience
already evident in the way he pushed the papers around on his desk. Mr. Rothman had told her, “Answer his questions, but don’t
be frightened. Two minutes after this starts, he’s going to be more scared of you than you are of him.”

Senator Taeger looked at her and said, “We’re glad to have you with us, Miss Young, and we hope that despite everything you’ve
been through you won’t find this too difficult.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said. “I’m fine.”

He looked to the side. “Would you swear the witness, please?”

Taeger had not wanted Samantha to give sworn testimony (“She’s too young to know what it means, and too young to be tried
for perjury if she lies”), but Gus’s supporters on the committee had insisted, knowing sworn testimony would have greater
impact.

Someone offered her a Bible, and she put her hand on it.

“That’s a nice Bible,” she said.

“Do you solemnly swear …”

She said, “I do,” and took her hand back. “I feel like I just got married.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

Taeger said, “Can we adjust the microphone, please? We’re having trouble hearing the witness. Thank you.”

Philip Rothman was exhausted. In the eight days since the bomb went off, he’d led a twenty-four-hour-a-day war to get the
Judiciary Committee to resume the hearing quickly and allow Samantha’s testimony. The White House and its congressional allies
had pleaded fairness: Gus had been smeared by horrifying accusations made against his daughter—that she had been raised in
a whorehouse, actually worked there. Surely Judge Parham and Samantha deserved the right to explain, to give the other side.
The news media, foreseeing the drama, added its voice to demands that she be allowed to testify.

Rothman knew—and the ferocity of the opposition’s resistance made it clear that they knew too—that if Samantha took the stand
while public sympathy for her was still high, and if the committee vote and the floor vote came before the emotional response
to her appearance had had time to cool, Gus’s seat on the Supreme Court was assured. How could the opposition stand against
the innocent candor of a bright, pretty thirteen-year-old girl who had just escaped from a drug trafficker’s car bomb?

During the last two days, opposition to her testimony had abruptly declined, as Rothman had guessed it would. A week ago,
the day after the explosion, Rothman had spoken with Samantha’s doctor. She was not seriously injured, but she was exhausted.
“Emotionally, she’s been through a war.
She’ll need a lot of rest. She’s on the edge. Anything more, you could have a breakdown.”

Four days after that conversation, Rothman had walked into the office of Peter Rexroth, the White House intelligence coordinator.

“Peter, I need a little favor. Confidential, to say the least.”

“It all is.” Rexroth was a former CIA officer.

“How long would it take to get me a voice distortion device and a non-pub phone number?”

Rexroth opened a drawer in his desk, withdrew a disk of transparent plastic resembling an orthodontic retainer, and handed
it to Rothman. “The number will take about ten minutes. What’s the listing?”

“Warren Gier. His home.”

Senator Taeger put his forearms on the desk, leaned toward Samantha, and gave her the most unsuccessful smile she had ever
seen, warm and sympathetic as a knife edge.

Then he dropped the smile—Samantha thought she could hear it hit the floor—and said, “Well, young lady, you’ve had quite a
stressful adventure, and we don’t want to add to your distress here. Some of us, however, do have one or two questions you
could help us with.”

“Okay.” She nodded, smiling.

“Before we get to your recent relationship with Judge Parham—”

“He’s my father.”

“—we’d like to get a little of your background. You were born and brought up in Milwaukee by a Mrs. Doreen Young, is that
correct?”

“I was adopted by the Youngs.”

“Why were you adopted?”

“They wanted a child.”

A tiny ripple of laughter rolled gently through the hearing room.

“I mean, how did you come to be adopted?”

“My mother couldn’t keep me, so she put me up for adoption.”

“And why couldn’t she keep you?”

“I think … Well … You could ask my mother. She’s right here. She’d know.”

Another ripple. Along the row of committee members, half smiled and half did not.

“You never saw your real mother until—”

“My biological mother. My legal mother was Mrs. Young.”

“Thank you for correcting me. You anticipated my question. You never saw your biological mother until a few weeks ago, is
that correct?”

“I saw her for the first time nine weeks and two days ago, at eleven-thirty in the morning, at the airport in Nice, France.”

“You have a good recollection of it.”

“Yes, sir. It was the most important day of my life. My father was there too. Judge Parham.”

Rothman had his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, his eyes fixed on Taeger. Things were not going well for the chairman.
Things rarely went well for seventy-six-year-old men jousting with thirteen-year-old girls. Guile is never a match for innocence.

Gus was glowing, literally. He could feel the blood warming his face. Samantha was so beautiful. Michelle and she had spent
half of yesterday shopping, picking out a dress “suitable for the Judiciary Committee.” They’d picked something dark blue
with a white collar, simple but elegant, youthful but dignified. Gus had never seen anyone so beautiful as Samantha at this
moment, so natural, so relaxed. Could you believe it? She was having
fun
.

Taeger said, “You’ve been following the various media reports about your situation?”

“Well, we weren’t allowed to use the TV in the limousine, and then afterwards I was in the hospital for a couple of days.”

“And they found that everything’s okay?”

“Oh, yes. I’m very healthy.”

“Good. Before you were in the limousine, did you follow the media reports?”

“A little. I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well, did you read or hear that when your mother told your father she was pregnant that he urged her to have an abortion?”

Rothman was on his feet.

“Mr. Chairman—”

“Please sit down, Mr. Rothman. These are necessary questions. I would remind you that it was not I who insisted that Miss
Young testify. If you want her to testify, then you will have to allow us to ask questions.”

“Appropriate questions.”

“If I feel I need your assistance in determining what is appropriate, I will call on you. Meanwhile, please sit down.”

Rothman sat. Nothing so far had surprised him. Taeger’s questions had been anticipated. Rothman’s job was to exploit the questions
as best he could and let the simplicity of Samantha’s answers win points for Gus. Later, when Taeger really got down to the
dirt, Rothman’s payoff would come.

“Miss Young, did you hear the question?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you answer, please?”

“I heard that on the TV.”

“That …”

“That my father had wanted my mother to end the pregnancy.”

“How did that make you feel?”

Rothman was up.

“Mr. Chairman, may I remind you, sir, that you are talking to the thirteen-year-old daughter of a nominee for the Supreme
Court? It’s difficult to see how the intent of this hearing is furthered by humiliating, hurtful, and unnecessary questions.”

“Sit down, Mr. Rothman.”

Rothman lowered himself slowly into the chair.

“Can you answer the question please, Miss Young?”

“How did it make me feel? It didn’t make me feel at all. I mean, I don’t even know if it’s true. I know my mother and father
love me. I know that, for sure. And anyway, I wasn’t aborted, was I? I mean—here I am.”

That drew a couple of claps from the spectator section.

Taeger said, “I would ask the spectators to please remain silent. If there are further disturbances I will have the room cleared.”
Looking at Samantha, he said, “Do you think
your father wanted to have you aborted, as appears to be the case from various documents that—”

“Mr. Chairman—” Rothman was up again, allowing his anger to appear suppressed beneath a tone of supplication. “We have had
no testimony regarding these so-called documents. They are nothing but media hearsay and—”

“Mr. Rothman, I am trying to be as patient as possible, but you cannot be allowed to continue to disrupt this committee’s
questions. Please sit down.”

Rothman did as he was told.

“Miss Young, do you think your father wanted to have you aborted, as appears to be the case from various documents that have
been disclosed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you seen the documents?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you heard of them?”

“Yes, sir.”

Taeger shuffled some papers, found the one he was looking for, and adjusted his glasses.

Rothman stood. “Mr. Chairman, if you are going to read from documents produced by the news media, I have to—”

“Mr. Rothman,
please
—I have read from nothing.”

“You are about to.”