Various terrorist organizations had been quick to disclaim the incident. The Black Hand had even gone so far as to condemn the action. A MedFac poll, taken half an hour after Kennedy's abrasive statement, expressed the general attitude: Gratton was sunk ... if Lever lived.
Kennedy had accused no one. He had stood there, red-eyed, genuinely moved by what had happened, and denounced violence as a political means. Eloquently, he had outlined what had happened to these young men who had only stood up for what they believed in. The disinheriting, the double-dealing, the embargoes by the old men. And now this. He phrased it cleverly, so that no one could accuse him of making too direct a link between the attack and the old men who were out to stop them, but the mere fact of juxtaposition gave his words a power that forced his listeners to consider whether this act had come from the same hands that had shaped the rest of it.
Charles Lever's writ against Kennedy was served an hour later. The floating cameras, following him all the while now, caught the moment and broadcast it, along with Kennedy's sad, regretful smile and his few words. "Tell Mr. Lever I'm sorry he's more concerned for his own political hide than for his son's life."
Those channels that hadn't had a camera there bought tapes and showed them repeatedly throughout the remainder of the night and for the whole of the next day. But by then they had fresher material to work on.
Security, conscious of how sensitive the matter was, had put two Special Services units onto the case and results were already coming in. Representative Hartmann had been taken in to Security Headquarters in Washington for questioning, and three men from his political entourage—all ex-Security—had been making statements all afternoon. Hartmann had smiled at the cameras gathered overhead, but the smile had been sickly—the smile of a man who knows the trap has been sprung. News soon leaked out that they had taken him from an off-planet shuttle in Denver.
After Kennedy's response to the writ, Charles Lever had locked his doors against the media. At the Cutler Institute, they refused to comment on the situation. Meanwhile, a southern network had followed up the Bryn Kustow connection and was showing an hour documentary on the dead man's life, together with an interview with his grieving mother. His father had shut himself away and was refusing to comment.
At eight thirty, three hours after he had come out of the operating theater, Michael Lever opened his eyes. Emily was seated at the bedside, leaning over him. On the far side of the room, Kennedy, Fisher, and Parker sat on hospital chairs, waiting. Overhead, a single camera captured the moment for later transmission.
At first there was nothing in Michael's face, only a vague disorientation. Then, as memory came back, he began to sob. Emily leaned closer, whispering words of comfort and holding his hand tightly. Behind her, the three men were standing now, tears streaming down their faces. The camera's second lens caught this also.
After a moment Kennedy came across and stood beside Emily, looking down into Michael's heavily bandaged face. He wiped his eyes and cheeks with a surgical rag, then moved back slightly, giving the camera a better view.
Michael shuddered. "Who did it, Joe? Do they know who did it?"
Kennedy shook his head. "Not yet." He said nothing about Hart-mann. Nothing about his father's writ.
Michael closed his eyes and swallowed. When he opened them again they were moist with tears. "I feel numb, Joe. From the waist down."
Kennedy glanced at Emily, then looked away. From above it seemed as if Kennedy were finding it hard to say what he had to. He turned his head to the side, his shoulders giving a tiny shudder; then he faced Michael again, bracing himself. "They say that there's nothing they can do about that, Michael. Fragments of the device passed through your chest and lodged in the base of your spine. You're paralyzed, Michael. From the waist down."
Michael's face was blank a moment, then he nodded. It was clear he was still in shock.
"They say you were lucky," Kennedy went on. "You'd be dead if you'd been alone."
Again Michael nodded, but this time a flicker of pain crossed his face. "I loved him . . ." he said softly, his voice ending in a tiny sound that tore at the listener like a barb. Then he turned his face aside. A single tear traced its way down his cheek, the camera lens switching to close-focus to follow its progress.
Bryn Kustow had taken the full brunt of the explosion. It had, quite literally, torn him apart. But his body had shielded Michael from the blast. Even so, the explosion had broken both of Michael's legs, cracked his skull, and caused extensive internal injuries. Fragments of hot metal as well as bone from Kustow's right arm had lodged in Michael's flesh, severing blood vessels, musculature, and nerves. His most serious injury, however, was his damaged spine. It was not impossible that he would walk again—bioprosthetics could cure almost anything but death itself these days—but it would be some while before he would be on his feet. And the election was only three days away.
One enterprising channel, having shown a diagram of the relative positions of Kustow and Lever, gave their viewers a full hologrammic reconstruction of the explosion. Billions watched as computer simulations looking remarkably like the two short-haired and handsome young men were blown apart by the explosion. Then, moments later, it showed it once again, varying the viewpoint and slowing the action.
Another channel, deploring the taste and, maybe, regretful that they had not had the idea first, set up a fund to pay for Michael Lever's bioprosthetic treatment, taking the opportunity to comment on the fact that, by rights, a certain Charles Lever should be footing the bill. They, too, found themselves served with a writ within the hour.
Hartmann was charged with conspiracy to murder on the morning of the election, but by then the damage had been done. Gratton had pulled out the night before. When the polls closed, Michael Lever had been elected almost unopposed, collecting ninety-seven percent of the votes cast. More significantly, the New American Party, buoyed up by the sympathy vote, had won no less than twenty-six of the thirty seats they had been contesting.
The cameras were allowed briefly into Michael Lever's hospital room to get his reaction. From his bed he smiled dourly up at the cluster of floats and made a short speech of thanks. Then, clearly tired, he lay back with the help of a nurse and, even as the cameras watched, he closed his eyes and slept. It was left to Representative Joseph Kennedy to read the prepared speech on Lever's behalf.
A thousand li northeast of where Michael Lever lay sleeping, Charles Lever stood in a darkened room, watching the image of his son. It had been a bad week, not least in the markets. But now, looking at his son lying there, so vulnerable, so badly hurt, the old man softened. "I didn't mean . . ." he said, in a whisper. At least, he hadn't wanted to push things quite this far.
He reached out to touch and trace the image on the big screen, his fingers following the strong line of Michael's cheek, just as once he'd touched the sleeping child.
Things change, he thought, turning away. And maybe there was a reason for that. A lesson in it. He shivered and stood there, facing away from the screen, then turned back, hearing the commentator mention his name.
". . . whose silence has been taken by many to be, perhaps, more meaningful than any words he could have offered."
He felt that same tightening in his chest, the anger coming back. None of them had the guts, the balls, to come out openly and say it. But the innuendo was clear enough. Lever spat out his disgust and took a step toward the screen. As he did so, the image changed and in place of his son's sleeping face was his own: a hard, uncompromising face; the face of an old man. He breathed in sharply, as if stung, then stormed across the room to the comset. Grunting with anger, he tapped out the code for his lawyer. Then, while he waited for the connection, he turned to listen to the commentary again.