Balance of Power

Dr. Larry Walters, expert witness for Mary Costello

Dr. David Roper, expert witness for Mary Costello

The Media

Cathie Civitch of NBC, interviewer

Taylor Yarborough of ABC, interviewer

Carole Tisone, San Francisco Chronicle reporter

The Lobbyists

Tony Calvo of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Mary Bryant of the National Association of Manufacturers

John Metrillo of the National Federation of Independent Businesses

The President's Family

Michael Kilcannon, Kerry's father

Mary Kilcannon, Kerry's mother

James J. Kilcannon, Kerry's brother and predecessor as Senator from New Jersey, assassinated while seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination

Others

Elise Hampton, wife of Senator Chuck Hampton

Allie Palmer, wife of Senator Chad Palmer

John Halloran, District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco

Marcia Harding, Chief of Halloran's Domestic Violence Unit

Caroline Masters, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Anna Chen, Lara's bridesmaid

Nakesha Hunt, Lara's bridesmaid

Linda Mendez, Lara's bridesmaid

The Reverend Bob Christy, Head of the Christian Commitment

Warren Colby, former United States Senator from Maine and predecessor to Senator Cassie Rollins

Leslie Shoop, Chief of Staff to Senator Rollins

Lance Jarrett, President and CEO of Silicon Valley's largest chip maker

Rep. Thomas Jencks, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

The Prime Minister of England

The Prime Minister of Israel

The President of the Palestine Liberation Organization

Mahmoud Al Anwar, terrorist and leader of Al Qaeda

PART ONE

THE

WEDDING

JULY 4–LABOR DAY WEEKEND

ONE

Feeling the gun against the nape of her neck, Joan Bowden froze.

    Her consciousness narrowed to the weapon she could not see: her vision barely registered the cramped living room, the images on her television—the President and his fiancée, opening the Fourth of July gala beneath the towering obelisk of the Washington Monument. She could feel John's rage through the cold metal on her skin, smell the liquor on his breath.

    "Why?" she whispered.

    "You wanted him."

    He spoke in a dull, emphatic monotone. Who? she wanted to ask. But she was too afraid; with a panic akin to madness, she mentally scanned the faces from the company cookout they had attended hours before. Perhaps Gary—they had talked for a time.

    Desperate, she answered, "I don't want anyone."

    She felt his hand twitch. "You don't want me. You have contempt for me."

    Abruptly, his tone had changed to a higher pitch, paranoid and accusatory, the prelude to the near hysteria which issued from some unfathomable recess of his brain. Two nights before, she had awakened, drenched with sweat, from the nightmare of her own death.

    Who would care for Marie?

    Moments before, their daughter had sat at the kitchen table, a portrait of dark-haired intensity as she whispered to the doll for whom she daily set a place. Afraid to move, Joan strained to see the kitchen from the corner of her eye. John's remaining discipline was to wait until Marie had vanished; lately their daughter seemed to have developed a preternatural sense of impending violence which warned her to take flight. A silent minuet of abuse, binding daughter to father.

    Marie and her doll were gone.

    "Please," Joan begged.

    The cords of her neck throbbed with tension. The next moment

could be fateful: she had learned that protest enraged him, passivity insulted him.

    Slowly, the barrel traced a line to the base of her neck, then pulled away.

    Joan's head bowed. Her body shivered with a spasm of escaping breath.

    She heard him move from behind the chair, felt him staring down at her. Fearful not to look at him, she forced herself to meet his gaze.

    With an open palm, he slapped her.

    Her head snapped back, skull ringing. She felt blood trickling from her lower lip.

    John placed the gun to her mouth.

    Her husband. The joyful face from her wedding album, now darkeyed and implacable, the 49ers T-shirt betraying the paunch on his toothin frame.

    Smiling grimly, John Bowden pulled the trigger.

    Recoiling, Joan cried out at the hollow metallic click. The sounds seemed to work a chemical change in him—a psychic wound which widened his eyes. His mouth opened, as if to speak; then he turned, staggering, and reeled toward their bedroom.

    Slumping forward, Joan covered her face.

    Soon he would pass out. She would be safe then; in the morning, before he left, she would endure his silence, the aftershock of his brutality and shame.

    At least Marie knew only the silence.

    Queasy, Joan stumbled to the bathroom in the darkened hallway, a painful throbbing in her jaw. She stared in the mirror at her drawn face, not quite believing the woman she had become. Blood trickled from her swollen lip.

    She dabbed with tissue until it stopped. For another moment Joan stared at herself. Then, quietly, she walked to her daughter's bedroom.

    Marie's door was closed. With painstaking care, her mother turned the knob, opening a crack to peer through.