A Frightened Peace

By Anne Callanan and Kathleen E. Lehew

Part 4/12

McGarry went limp with relief and he saw a huge, uncharacteristic grin split the face of the taciturn security chief. He could feel a similar smile cracking the tense muscles of his own face. "Yeah, Mr. President. I'm here. How are you doin'?"

An explosive snort of shaky amusement rewarded him.  "Leo, would you really like to know what I think of that question right now?"

"Normally, I think you'd know my answer, Mr. President. But right now, I'd welcome a lecture on the inappropriateness of my semantic choices."

"You would?" 

McGarry almost grinned at the surprise of the involuntary response. "Yes, sir. Because a lecture right now would reassure me that you've got the whole breathing thing back under control."

He was rewarded with a hoarse laugh, more a cough but still filled with sarcastic humor. Even the crack of thunder, now nearly overhead, failed to still his joy at the sound. Things just might work out.

McGarry gave the man a moment to catch his breath, listening to the breathing in question and waiting for it to calm further.  Careful not to set off another panic attack, he inquired gently, "Mr. President?  You okay now?"

A few more deep breaths, then "Yeah…yeah, Leo.  I'm okay."

"Good." He exchanged a relieved glance with Butterfield before asking, "What can you tell us about your situation?"

McGarry could hear the President struggling to control his incipient panic. Never more than at this moment, he marveled at the man's self control.

"Well, I can't really move…my right leg hurts…and there's something pressing down on my chest and head." A creak of metal and a muffled grunt as Bartlett shifted as best he could under the weight pinning him down. "Feels like it might be a seat or something."

"Okay."  McGarry actually felt himself relax just a bit. It wasn't much, but things were looking up. Gesturing to Butterfield, he started once again to shift the rest of the wreckage and to work on clearing the gap.

"Leo?"

At the hesitant, still slightly breathless call, McGarry paused again. "Yes, Mr. President?"

"You, ah…you couldn't hurry, could you?  Only, I'm not sure how long I can stay on top of …you know?"

McGarry softened his voice sympathetically.  "I know, sir. You're doing fine. If it starts to get too much, call out to us, talk to us.  We're coming.  We'll be with you real soon."

"Thanks, Leo".  A pause, then the voice returned with a definite quaver in it.  "Ron?"

"Yes, Mr. President?"  Butterfield leaned towards the voice. 

"Are the pilots alright?"

Butterfield sat back on his heels and glanced at the Chief of Staff. He watched him struggle for a moment with the decision and hesitate, then grimly nod his assent for the agent to answer the question honestly. Equally grim, knowing full well how the truth would affect the man trapped under the wreckage, he leaned forward again and answered, "I'm very sorry, Mr. President.  I'm afraid that they didn't make it."

"The Marines?"

"No, sir."

There was a short silence.  "You and Leo alright?"

Butterfield almost smiled, although his hand strayed to his side and a slightly guilty look shadowed his eyes. "Yes, Mr. President. Nothing some aspirin and a new suit wouldn't cure."

"I'm glad to hear that, Ron.  Keep an eye on Leo, won't you?  He's not very good at taking care of himself."

McGarry shot a look of long suffering exasperation at the pile.

"I will, sir." This time the agent did smile, if only a little.

"Ron?"  Slightly more hesitantly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Agent Sandler …" Bartlet's voice tailed off momentarily, "I'm sorry."

Butterfield's eyes closed.  "So am I, sir."

McGarry had no problems following that bit of dialog and what it meant. Upset, he spoke impulsively.  "Are you certain, sir?  I mean, you're not really in a good position to judge."  Almost immediately, he kicked himself.  Not again.

"I'm pretty sure, Leo." Bartlet's voice shook slightly. A long pause, then, "I can just feel his head when I stretch down my hand, and it's …" the words seem to catch in his throat.

The words may have remained unspoken, but not the terrible meaning. Exchanging a horror-stricken look with Butterfield, McGarry could hear the President's breathing starting to stress again. "God, I'm sorry!" Redoubling his efforts to shift the twisted metal blocking the way, he said, "Mr. President, please listen. Concentrate on my voice.  Concentrate on breathing slowly.  We're nearly there."

The two men intensified their efforts, McGarry all the time keeping up a flow of inconsequential conversation, demanding responses from his trapped friend. Finally, he watched as, with a grunt that was both triumph and pain, Butterfield managed to haul loose a sizeable remnant of storage locker that had been blocking the gap.  Dropping to his knees, McGarry wriggled under the overhang into the small space thus provided.

Butterfield passed him the flashlight and he quickly examined his surroundings.  He was relieved to find that here, near where the bulkhead folded towards the cabin wall, it was possible to stand almost upright. The area around him was a jumbled mass of cabin fittings and structural materials. The space narrowed sharply as he played the torch further along, creating an eerie, cone-like effect. However, at this point the mass did not rise to meet the metal wall curving above, leading him to hope that it would indeed be possible for them to free the trapped man themselves.

A faint, odd smell tickled McGarry's nose and his memory. It was barely there, shifting and fading as he moved his head. He couldn't place it and felt somewhere deep down that he should.

A weak, broken cough issued from beneath the wreckage.

"Mr. President?"  Heart in his throat, McGarry angled the light and peered in the direction the voice had seemed to come from.

"Here…I'm here!"  Bartlet's voice sounded muffled, hope fighting with the panic riding just below the surface.  A section of the pile shifted slightly, as if the man beneath had heaved upwards with all his strength.

McGarry abandoned caution and advanced the necessary step or two hastily.  Behind him he heard Butterfield grunt as he squeezed his long frame into the gap they had created.  Taking a deep breath and eyeing the twisted debris in front of him, the President's Chief of Staff noted grimly that he and the secret service agent had their jobs cut out for them. This was not going to be easy.

Nearly laughing at the thought, McGarry choked it back. As if anything he'd done or contemplated in the White House these last three years could be considered easy. It all amounted to a warped game of mission impossible and somehow he'd always managed to find a way to win. Grimly, he set himself the task of figuring a way out of this one.

Losing was not an option.

As if the elements were laughing at him, a peel of thunder rolled almost directly overhead. Looking up, he listened as the rain beating down on the outer bulkhead increased its tempo, starting to come down in sheets.

Anxiety and fear for his friend cooled his thoughts, though he found it impossible to steady his erratic pulse. Playing the light along the wreckage, he noted that several rather heavy sections of metal, including the remains of yet another locker lay on top of and almost entirely concealing what did indeed appear to be one of the helicopter's passenger seats.

McGarry's lips tightened. Somewhere beneath that chaos was his friend. He called out, "Mr. President?"

"Yes!"

The tense lines of his face relaxed and McGarry felt the knot in his stomach release. Bartlet's voice now seemed to rise from directly beneath the remains of the seat. Kneeling down, he put his hand on the back of the seat, willing the man trapped beneath to feel his presence. He called again, "Mr. President…"

"Leo?" Bartlet's voice was deceptively calm, a faint tremor of mocking humor covering the thread of panic still fighting for dominance. "I warn you; the next words you utter had better not be 'are you there?'  Could you please see about getting me out of here?  Now?"

Swallowing hard, McGarry found his voice and replied thickly and with pride, "You know our staff motto, sir.  We serve at the pleasure of the President.  Be right with you." He glanced up and exchanged a determined look with the waiting agent. Giving the man a curt nod, he said, "Ron?  Can you squeeze in here beside me; I'm going to need a hand."

Butterfield eased alongside McGarry and the two of them once again began to slowly and methodically lift away metal fragments, awkwardly moving the pieces behind them and to one side.

Gingerly handling the jagged edges, McGarry was conscious of a sense of profound gratitude that Bartlet had been shielded by the padding of the chair.  If not, he might well have been cut to ribbons.

Eventually, they had cleared enough to be able to get a good grip on the leather back of the upended seat.  Satisfied at their progress, McGarry paused and called out hopefully,  "Mr. President?"

"Yeah?"  The note of stress had returned to Bartlet's voice.  With the prospect of freedom so close to hand, he was having a hard time trying to control his emotions and desist from attempting to fight his way through the last of the barrier separating him from his rescuers.

"We've reached the seat you say is weighing down on you.  We're about to attempt to lift it off."

"Good.  Fine.  Whatever.  Just get it off me, Leo. It feels like forever since I've been able to take a deep breath."

"That's not such an unusual feeling for you, surely?" McGarry couldn't help but smile as he said that.

The somewhat peevish response from the President of the United States didn't disappoint him in the least.

"Leo, if this is your way of bringing up Toby's criticism of my delivery of that speech to the DC Law Society last month, that was not my fault!  You know Sam loves long sentences.  He calls it imagery."

"I think Toby called it 'forgetting to inhale', sir."

A brief grunt, somewhat resembling what McGarry might have called a laugh, issued from the granite-faced agent trying to get a good grip on the back of the passenger seat. A quick glance reassured the Chief of Staff that no, the laws of the universe had not been suspended and Butterfield was as stoically reserved as ever.

"Leo."  The mild humor had leached from the President's voice again.

"Yes, sir?" McGarry turned his attention back to the job at hand.

"I want you to know that I appreciate the distraction and all, but I really need you to get me out of here.  Please?"

"We're just maneuvering for a good angle," McGarry spoke reassuringly.  "We don't want to jolt you when we lift it away, or have anything else fall down on top of you." He looked across at Butterfield, who nodded, and gripped his side of the seat firmly.  "Ready?"

Making sure his own grip was secure, Butterfield nodded again.

"Now!"

The two men heaved at the seat.  For a brief, terrible moment, it stuck awkwardly in place, and then it abruptly yielded to their frantic tugging.  They swiftly manhandled it to one side and then waited to see if their actions had caused a dangerous shift in the remaining wreckage. The sound of their heavy breathing, the constant drip of water, were the only things to be heard.

To be continued…