Guest Starring: Paul Newman as Senator Ed McLaren (D-MO)
Craig T. Nelson as Speaker Sam Jordan (D-TX)
"Shots fired. Repeat, shots fired!" Pete called in after guarding the President from the shots. The President was still a Marine and a few steps faster then a lot of guys his age would have been. He pulled a gun out of the back of Pete's belt and turned it on the supposed shooter, getting a tap shot off into his shoulder. The shot sent the man to the ground. "Sir, that was a very dangerous thing to do." The Agent warned.
"Sorry, Marine, instinct." Nate replied as he handed Pete the gun.
"Are you hurt, sir?" Pete asked. Nate quickly scanned himself and shook his head to state the negative.
"Gunny!" Nate heard Stacy shout and he went bounding across the Capitol steps and knelt by the side of his Chief of Staff. Ambulances were on the way, the Secret Service had called it in. Gunny had been hit twice, once in the gut and again in the chest.
"I'm hurt, boss. I'm hurt real bad." Gunny coughed.
"Hang in there, you're going to get through this." Nate took Stacy's hand put them on the wounds. "Keep pressure on them. And talk to him." Nate instructed her.
"Nate, we got problems over here!" Speaker Sam Jordan called and Nate got back to his feet and bounded across the Capitol steps toward where the Speaker and two Senior Democratic Senators were crouched next to the Vice President. Nate came over and crouched with them. "Sorry, Mr. President, I didn't mean to…"
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Sam, other things are more important right now." Nate shot tersely. The Vice President had been shot twice, too. His chest wound was far more critical then Gunny's but the other bullet had hit him in the shoulder. The President took of his tie and applied a tourniquet over the shoulder wound. "He's lost a lot of blood. Are you three okay?" Nate looked up at the Senator McLaren, Speaker Jordan and Senator Paulson.
"Aside from getting quite a start and a spike in my blood pressure, I'm okay." Senator Paulson answered.
"I think that goes for me too." Senator McLaren followed up.
"A few scrapes and bruises but I'm okay." The Speaker nodded. The ambulances pulled up and the paramedics brought up the gurneys.
"Stacy! Go with Gunny, I'll go with the Vice President!" Nate shouted and Stacy nodded. He knew that that there wasn't a force on this earth that would have kept her out of that ambulance.
"We'll see you at the Hospital." Senator McLaren motioned as he and the Speaker collected themselves. Nate piled into the ambulance with the Vice President. All he could think was that this was the fourth time in his life that somebody had shot at him, there had to be something about him that made people want to pick up a gun. That was probably a bad trait to have while being the President of the United States. He sat there, watching the unconscious Vice President of the United States lying on a gurney with two bullets in his body.
"How bad does it look?" Nate rubbed his eyes and looked up at the older paramedic.
"It's bad, sir. It's really bad." The paramedic answered. They had the ambu bag out and they were ventilating the Vice President. Nate hearkened back to the time four years earlier when he had walked into Senator Wes Grier's office and asked him to be his Vice President. He would have been better off if I'd just let him be, Nate lamented, unable to tear his eyes off the medical treatment that they were giving him. He felt like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life in that scene where he's sitting at the bar and he starts to pray. Nate closed his eyes, intertwined his fingers and began to beg the heavens for mercy.
0229 ZULU
RABB RESIDENCE
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
The news came in over the radio and Harm and Mac could barely believe their ears. They immediately began to do what any parent would do. They gathered up the kids and herded them out to the car with Tim's Secret Service detail following them all the way out there. Harm fired up the minivan – something of an oxymoron he would admit – and pulled out on to the road, headed for the beltway. "Where are we going?" Tommy asked from the backseat where he was seated next to his sister and Tim Ross. Before leaving the house, Harm had talked to Trish and Frank about taking care of Matt for a couple hours. He felt bad about it, especially since Matt was so young, but this wasn't just an emergency, it was a national emergency, exceptions had to be made.
"We're taking Tim back to see his parents." Mac told her son. The police presence on major routes in and out of the city became like a fortress. Harm's slightly erratic driving patterns aside, they were making decent time getting into the city. At every police checkpoint, one of the Secret Service Agents flashed their badge and the cops waved them through. Mac was up there reminding him of the fastest way to get to George Washington University Hospital.
By the time that they had crossed into D.C., they had a police escort that was guiding them toward the hospital. The sight of a Chevrolet minivan being guided through D.C. by the police must have been one to remember for bystanders who happened to see it. The silence in the car wasn't effectual, it was like white noise, a day when everything just kind of slowed down and you didn't know what really happened. Harm likened it to target fixation. Speculation at the scene was rampant about who had been hit but no one could confirm anything and that was making everyone very nervous.
"Admiral, what's going on?" Tim Ross asked from the backseat.
"Nothing, we're just taking you to see your parents." Or at least your mom, Harm added silently.
"The radio said something about the President, is my dad okay?" Tim pressed, it was likely the curious nature of being young. Tim Ross had always been close to his dad, well, all the boys were close to their dad. But Jack and Brad were close to Nate in the sports kind of way whereas Tim and his father shared a similar kind of quiet intellect.
Harm didn't know how to answer the question. He couldn't lie to the kid because if he was wrong, then not only Tim but Sasha would likely be pissed at him for a while. Telling Tim the truth wouldn't likely be helpful either but he didn't know what the right thing to do was. "I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" Tim was getting kind of riled up. Luckily, the Agents that were with them intervened.
"Tim, I just talked to my superiors, your dad's okay." One of the agents put her hand on the boy's shoulder and Tim nodded.
"Sorry, Admiral." The polite and quiet young boy quickly returned.
"No problem, slugger." Harm replied with a smile. Tim Ross was a good kid. Of the three Ross triplets he was the runt of the litter. Jack and Brad were tall for their age and the popular outspoken kids, they had fair complexions and lighter brown hair. Tim was smaller, quieter, more cerebral and his skin was olive shaded, his hair darker then his brothers'.
The minivan pulled up in front of the hospital and everyone piled out toward the emergency room, well, everyone but Harm who had to go park the car. The doors slid to either side as Mac guided the kids inside. Tim saw his dad sitting there and he rushed over to him. Nate got up from the chair and caught his son, lifting him into the air. "Dad, you're covered in blood."
"It's not mine, don't worry about it, kiddo." Nate tried to smile and he almost succeeded.
"Who got hit?" Mac inquired looking really nervous.
"The Vice President…" Nate answered quickly and swallowed the knot that formed in his throat soon after. "And, uh……Gunny."
Mac felt like she'd just been whacked over the head with a bag of hammers. Gunny was invincible, or he was supposed to be. "Is he okay?" She ventured.
"I honestly don't know, Mac. He was hit in the chest and the gut, he was bleeding pretty bad." Nate nodded slowly. Mac didn't understand why it was so damn hard for men to cry, she could tell that Nate wanted to but likely wouldn't. "Thanks for having him over again." Nate flicked his son's shoulder.
"Not a problem." Mac grinned weakly. "You guys are going to have to have Sasha over one time soon."
"We'd be delighted." Nate grinned genuinely, likely for the first time all night. At that moment, Harm came rushing through the door behind them.
"Mr. President." Harm nodded. It was times like this that he hated titles. This was his friend Nate, who'd just been shot at no less but he was the President so those formalities just rolled off the tongue so easily. "Jesus, you're covered in blood."
"Not mine." Nate replied quickly. "The Vice President and Gunny were the ones who got hit."
"Jesus." Harm breathed out as they all moved into the main ER area.
"The Vice President's in worse shape then Gunny is but both of them are pretty bad." Nate informed them.
"And you took down the shooter." Nicole, unlike her husband, had actually shed a few tears.
"You did?" Harm raised his eyebrows out of surprise.
"Just instinct. I knew my security chief carried a gun in the back of his belt and when the shots were being fired, I ducked behind him, grabbed the gun and put a slug in the perp's shoulder." Nate shook his head. "The whole thing just happened so damn fast."
"Apparently, if you beat your agents off the draw." Mac added.
"Not fast enough, the guy got four shots off." Nate looked down at the cold tile floor. Nicole put a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't think like that." She whispered in his ear.
"She's right, you're alive and so are a lot of other people. That's going to mean something to a lot of people tonight." Harm reminded his friend.
"Yeah, well, right now, two of my closest friends are in surgery, so it doesn't mean a whole lot to me." Nate replied and walked over to speak with Senator McLaren and Speaker Jordan who were sitting with the Vice President's wife on the other side of the emergency room.
"Why does he do that?" Mac asked. "He just closes right up like a clam."
"There's and old JFK quote, I think I can remember it: "Now the trumpet summons us again- not as a call bear arms, though arms we need-not as a call to battle, though embattled we are- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation". I think he feels that as President, he needs to save everyone. If he can't do that, why save anyone?" She shook her head. "It doesn't make any sense, I know, but I've been married to him for nine and a half years and I knew him for a decade before that, this is how he thinks."
"Can't be healthy." Harm replied as he took a seat in the ER. "How's Gunny, any news?"
"Nothing since they wheeled him into OR. I'm hearing what everyone else is hearing. Gunny's hurt bad but the Vice President is worse off." Nicole sat with Harm, Mac and the kids as the commotion of the ER happened around them
------------------------------------------
Charlie walked over to Stacy with a cup of coffee fresh out of the cafeteria machine. "He'll be okay." Charlie was obviously shaken. "He's done tours in Serbia, Kuwait and Afghanistan, he's tough."
"He got shot in the chest, Charlie." Stacy wiped her eyes. "I don't care how tough anyone is, getting shot in the chest is the great equalizer." She took the cup that he offered. "We were three feet from him when the bullets started flying, how can you not be scared?"
"I am scared. Like you said, we were mere feet away from him when guns started going off. This is going to be a long night; you should try to get some sleep." Charlie suggested. "We're going to be here all night."
"Yeah, well, in a few minutes I'm going to have to address the press on what happened and give them any information that we might have. I can only imagine the rampant speculation that must be going on about who's hurt and where and how severe." She ran her hand through her hair in an attempt to style it. Morley came down and sat next to them. "You were right." She told him.
"How's that?" Morley asked, sliding the canteen back into the inside pocket of his jacket.
"What the hell kind of gun culture have we created in this country if the President can't go from the White House to the Capitol Building without someone taking a shot at him?" She complained. "I'm starting to think that we should start talking to police departments to see what kind of gun control measures would help them do their job."
"I don't think this is the time to think about that, as much I'm glad I could sway another person." Morley carried something of a sombre grin. "When do you think we'll know something?"
"I don't know much about combat surgery, which is what removing a bullet is. Only a few people in this room would know anything about what that's like." Charlie looked around. "You could try the President but he's talking to Senator McLaren and Speaker Jordan. I'd suggest talking to Admiral Rabb or his wife, they both might have some experience to impart."
Morley walked over to Harm and tapped on his shoulder. "Admiral, I'm Derek Morley, the White House Director of Communications."
"I know who you are; we met a few years ago." Harm nodded. "What can I do for you?"
"I was just wondering, I don't mean to generalize because you're in the military but I was just wondering if you had any experience with how long surgery to repair bullet wounds normally takes?" Morley chanced.
"Not a lot, I imagine that if the wounds are severe enough, it could take a couple hours. From what I've heard, the Vice President's one wound was superficial but the other one was very severe, so you might get news on him before Gunny." Harm answered with a long blink.
"Thank you, Admiral." Morley nodded small and slow before heading back over to Charlie and Stacy. "He says it could be a few hours, we aren't likely to know until the early morning hours. We may have to run the White House out of here today."
"Who's the Chief of Staff with Gunny in the OR?" Stacy asked.
"No idea. I think it's up to the President on this one." Charlie leaned forward in his chair. "What the hell are we going to tell the press?"
"The truth, we can't lie to them, I think that's a felony." Morley replied. "I'm just not sure who we send out there. Whether it should be you or the President." Morley turned to Stacy.
"I think the nation needs to see the President. If we don't put him out there until morning, the stock market is going to take a massive hit, the Nikkei is already down more then a hundred points and a Frankfurt opens in a few hours." Stacy answered. "I think we have to get the President out there soon or we're going to have worldwide economic panic once Frankfurt opens."
"You know what sucks the most about this job?" Charlie sighed as he leaned back in the chair.
"No, what?" Stacy asked.
"You don't even get to act like a human being when a tragedy occurs. You have to worry about what the hell the impact is going to be on the Congress, on the country on the world." Charlie got up to walk to the cafeteria for something to eat.
-------------------------------------------
The President stood with the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House in a corner of the Emergency Room. "Any precedent for what the hell we do now?" The President asked, looking back and forth at the two experienced congressional Democratic leaders.
"Well, Wes lost a lot of blood, even if he lives through this, he likely won't be up to code to fulfill his role as Vice President." The Speaker said. "I've known Wes Grier for almost twenty years and it sucks, but constitutionally if the Vice President cannot fulfill his obligations, then it goes to the President to nominate a new Vice President."
"Until then, the Senate President Pro Tempore sits in the Vice President's role in the Senate and the Speaker of the House is the next in the constitutional line of succession." Senator McLaren intervened.
"We don't go out there and talk to the press until we hear something from the doctors." Nate decided.
"That's not an option, the Nikkei is sliding downward and Frankfurt will crash like a lead balloon in a couple of hours, you've go out there and tell the press exactly what happened and square the story away otherwise, they're going to plotz." Speaker Jordan advised.
"Fine, yeah, just let me talk to Secret Service about what happened at the scene. I'll make a statement and tell them what the Secret Service tells me and then I'll tell them that we'll keep them up to date on what happens after that. The doctors will brief in the morning, probably live on American Morning, the Today Show and Good Morning America before the markets open." Nate raised a hand to his chin.
"When do you think we'll here anything from the doctors?" Senator McLaren pressed.
"It takes a while for this kind of thing depending on the number of slugs, the amount of organ damage, tissue damage, and muscle damage. I've been shot a few times but I don't rightly remember how long it took them to fix me up. I was pretty good about blacking out every time, so, I don't remember how long before I was up and running again." Nate loosened up his collar.
"How many times have you been shot?" The Speaker gently shifted topics.
"Three times, four bullets. Once in Kuwait, twice in a drive-by and once in that terrorist attack on the State Department back during President Russell's first term." Nate answered. "It doesn't hurt any less no matter how many times it happens."
"Is it supposed to?" Senator McLaren mused.
"Sir, I figured you'd want an update on the situation that led to the assassination attempt." Agent Pete Simpson, the head of the President's detail walked over.
"You're damn right I do." Nate nodded.
"One gunman, a former Navy plane captain." Agent Simpson started. "We've got him in custody but there's a jurisdictional dispute."
"Between who?" Nate furrowed his brow.
"Secret Service, Capitol Police and NCIS." Pete answered. "Normally the AG would make this decision or the U.S. Attorney but…"
"To hell with the U.S. Attorney and the AG is out of the country." Nate spat. "Why does NCIS want jurisdiction? I thought you said that he was a former plane captain."
"Active reserve, he got activated a couple weeks ago to ship out to the Gulf." Pete answered. "Sir, technically you can make a decision on jurisdiction on this one."
"Well, no offence intended, Pete, but no one in the American public is going to trust Secret Service on this one. They're already going to have a hard time not blaming you for failing to protect the Vice President. I don't blame you for it; I'm just saying this is how the system works." Nate gave the agent a pat on the shoulder. "Tell your Director to co-ordinate with Director Shepherd over at NCIS. This is going to be a joint investigation with Secret Service and NCIS, NCIS on lead just so we don't get questioned about impropriety. Have Agent Gibbs and his team over at NCIS down here ready to take depositions at the first available opportunity."
"Yes, sir." The Agent nodded. Behind him, the Vice President's wife came running into the ER and over toward Nate and his cohorts. Sam Jordan wrapped her in a big hug, he'd been a friend longer then had Nate or Ed.
"How is he, Sam?" Daisy Grier asked.
"He's hurt bad." Sam Jordan nodded. "Sorry, you didn't hear anything on the way in."
"They whisked me right off the stage in Philadelphia and brought me right here, no one would tell me anything." She explained.
"I'm sorry, Daisy." Nate hung his head.
"No, Nathan, don't be. You couldn't have known, you couldn't have done anything about it." The older woman put her hand on Nate's forearm. "Just pray."
"I have to, uh, go address the press." Nate pointed away toward the door.
"Be careful, it's a circus out there." She warned as Nate drifted over toward his staff.
"You two, with me." Nate pointed to Charlie and Stacy who followed him toward the front door. Secret Service, not willing to let him out of their sight, closed in a tight perimeter around him as he approached the door. The Press saw him coming and the photos began going off. Nate looked around as he walked through the door and cleared his throat. "Earlier tonight, on my way to sign S1105 in the Senate as I promised, shots were fired on the steps of the Capitol Building as you are well aware. Six shots were fired in the exchange." He began to choke up slightly. "Two shots hit Vice President Grier who is currently in surgery for his wounds and another two shots hit my Chief of Staff, Victor Galindez." Nate's eyes watery, a few tears ready to spill but hadn't. "Two shots were fired in response, hitting the assailant in either shoulder, he was apprehended by the Secret Service soon after. In a few hours, the hospital administration will have Dr. Hamilton, the Chief of Thoracic surgery, deliver a press conference on the injuries suffered tonight." Nate cleared his throat again. "I'll take a few questions now."
"Mr. President, you're shirt is covered with blood, are you sure you're okay, sir?" The reporter from MSNBC chimed in.
"Yes, I had my physician check me out. The blood is from attempting to provide some first aid in dealing with the initial attempt. I guess some of the things you learn in the Marines just never leave you." The President remarked before pointing to another reporter.
"Sir, in your lay opinion, could you evaluate the seriousness of the injuries suffered by the Vice President and your Chief of Staff?" The reporter from Fox News inquired.
"I'm not going to speculate on that." Nate answered and pointed to the reporter from ZNN. "I will answer that I'm not going to speculate into an ongoing investigation or about any ongoing medical procedures to which I'm not involved at the moment." Nate felt ad tug on his sleeve by Charlie which told him that they had to re-enter the hospital. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, that's all." They turned and headed back into the hospital. There was a man in scrubs standing out there waiting to address the gathered crowd.
"Mr. President." The doctor nodded and shook Nate's hand. "I just finished operating on Mr. Galindez."
"How is Gunny?" Stacy jumped in. The surgeon grinned at the colloquial nickname.
"The Gunny is going to live. He needed a small bowel resection from the bullet he took to his gut. The bullet in his chest collapsed a lung. We got a chest tube in and the lung re-expanded. However, I should caution that he lost a lot of blood and at this point, we can't assess whether the collapsed lung cut off any oxygen supply to his brain." The doctor paused. "Now, it could be nothing. He's in a coma right now, but there's a good likelihood that he will come out of it. He got something of a nasty concussion from hitting the steps of the Capitol so hard after being shot."
There were general nods of approval around the room. "When can I…we, go visit him, doctor?" Stacy jumped in again.
"In a few minutes, the nurses are moving him into a private room for observation, you'll be able to visit him. Please keep it to one or two people at a time though, in case of an emergency and we need to work on him." The doctor advised and the group nodded. He headed off toward the hospital administration wing and the group settled back in.
"Well, at least we know Gunny's okay." Harm stated as he sunk down into his chair.
"Yeah, but the Vice President's not out of the woods yet." Nate sunk into a chair opposite him. There were a few moments of heavy silence between the two men.
"Hey, Nate you remember that time we glued Mike Bradley to his chair at work?" Harm momentarily forgave his lapse in decorum. The President chuckled.
"I think that was the funniest thing I've ever seen." Nate laughed. "We had to call in the maintenance crew to cut him out of a fifty dollar desk chair."
"I've never seen a man cry over a suit before." Harm was laughing too.
"You laugh, it was Italian silk." Nate added and the two of them continued to laugh for a few more seconds. "Thanks, Harm." Nate nodded at him and got up out of the chair. The boys were curled up with their mom on a couch in the hospital administrator's office. Nate walked up to the dark room and tapped on the door. "Hey." He nodded at his wife who was watching ZNN. They were playing the assassination attempt on a continuous loop. "You shouldn't watch that."
"How can I not? I almost lost you today." She sobbed quietly. "It took nine years for us to end up together. It doesn't seem fair that we'd lose you after only ten more." She stood up and walked over to give her husband a hug. He kissed the top of her head.
"Honey, it's a fact of my life that I've had to accept. People seem to like shooting at me." He tried to add a little levity but she smacked his chest.
"This is not funny, Nathan." She lectured. "You have children now, don't you think about them before you do things like this?"
"Only every other second." He retorted. "Every other second when I'm not thinking about you." He wrapped her tightly in his arms and kissed her cheek. She decided against lecturing him any more. The two of them walked over to the couch and Nate woke up Harry and told him to push over so that the he and Nicole could sit down side by side and be surrounded by their kids. "I count seven." Nate said looking around.
"What?" Nicole looked confused.
"There are seven kids in this room. Don't we just have six?" Nate looked at his wife with a chuckle. She pointed over to the chair where Tim and Sasha Rabb had fallen asleep. "Harm's not going to approve of that." Nate laughed.
"I learned something from watching the footage over and over again." Nicole indicated the TV. "Gunny intentionally got between Stacy and the shooter."
------------------------------------------
Mac decided to take a walk down to see Gunny some time around 0300. She looked through the window into the room to see the figure of the familiar Marine sprawled face up on a bed in a blue polka dot hospital gown and baby blue hospital sheets covering him from the waist down. He was breathing through the help of a respirator, like a precaution because of the collapsed lung. Next to the bed, hunched over and holding his hand was a familiar blonde form. Mac opened the door a crack and tapped on it. "Mind if I come in?" She asked.
"No." Stacy's voice was soft. "Come on in." She wiped her eyes and turned to face Mac.
"I didn't mean to pry, I just wanted to come by and see how he was doing." Mac stood at the foot of his bed.
"No, it's okay. I mean, it must look kind of odd, I've been in here since the doctor told use we could go see him." Stacy tried to chuckle nervously. Mac went to say something but Stacy kept going. "He's just such a good guy, you know?"
"Yeah." Mac nodded. It had been Gunny who had looked out for her on the Guadalcanal after the falling out with Brumby, he was a stand up kind of guy. "Were the two of you close?" There was a loaded question if ever one was asked.
"You work with someone for twelve hours a day or more and you're naturally going to be close to them, I think." Stacy answered, trying to remain noncommittal. "I think Gunny was the first one who didn't see me as just some opportunistic cold hearted bitch feminist."
"That's a pretty harsh indictment of yourself." Mac commented.
"And one shared by half of official Washington until I became the White House Press Secretary." Stacy jibed. "But not Gunny, he was just such a damn nice guy and he gave everyone a fair shake."
"He sure does." Mac grinned. "So, the two of you are close?"
"As close as any two people who work in the White House can be." Stacy knew that answer spoke volumes without saying anything really. She smiled nervously. "It just doesn't seem right that this kind of thing would happen to him."
"It doesn't seem right that this kind of thing would happen at all." Mac replied.
"Yeah, you're right." Stacy nodded. "Yet it does, everyday here in D.C. They can't protect kids walking three blocks from the Capitol from becoming gunshot victims, how can they expect to protect anyone?"
"I don't know." Mac nodded, unsure where the young Press Secretary was going with this. She was likely just lashing out, being that close to something like that would rattle anyone. Mac tried to fight the investigator in her that begged to ask the next question, but Gunny was like her brother and she had a natural protective streak about him. Just how close were the two of you? The words ached to be asked, but Mac was resolved that it was really none of her business.
"Hey, they've got news about the Vice President." Charlie poked his head in the door. Mac and Stacy nodded and left the room. Stacy was reluctant to let go of Gunny's hand or leave him so quickly but she knew that she had to. The crowds in the ER foyer had gathered around Dr. Hamilton who had come out of the OR in his scrubs to talk to them. Mac, Charlie and Stacy came walking down the hallway to join everyone.
"There's no easy way to say this," Dr. Hamilton began, "but at 0324 am, Vice President Wesley Grier died in the Operating Room. The bullet which had struck him in the chest earlier yesterday evening had damaged the heart wall and the aorta. In spite of five hours work by our surgeons to repair the damage and graft on new sections of artery, the damage was too extensive and the Vice President succumbed to his injuries." The Doctor hung his head.
Daisy Grier broke down almost immediately. She was comforted by Senator McLaren and Speaker Jordan, the two men in the room who had known her husband best. The sense that the giant elephant in the room had suddenly left was lost on no one. Nate gave a deep breath and walked up to the doctor. "Thanks, doc. You're going to want to get some rest, you're going to have to explain the medical aspects to a gaggle of reporters around 0700 tomorrow." The doctor nodded at the President and headed off.
"Dear God," Charlie muttered to Morley. "300 days out from the next Presidential election and the sitting Democrat has no Vice President. It's going to be a free for all."
"Kind of an inappropriate time to think of that, don't you think?" Morley asked.
"If you think every Washington columnist hasn't already, you're crazy." Charlie quipped.