Blood and State
By Anne Callanan and Kathleen E. Lehew
Part 22/22
As the bulletproof security glass exploded into the room, Bartlet instinctively flung up his hands in front of his eyes. Almost simultaneously, he felt a violent impact that knocked the air from his lungs and suddenly he was falling toward the floor, someone on top of him. Paulson... his name was Paulson...
Even as he fell, he was dimly aware of the sound of a second report - and the dark-suited figure falling with him. Bartlet heard the man grunt, felt the arms wrapped protectively around his shoulders jerk sickeningly; then the now limp body came down on him full-force as they both slammed onto the carpet behind the desk.
Bartlet managed a strangled gasp as the full, dead weight of the bodyguard landed on top of him, boring him into the hard floor and robbing his lungs of any remaining oxygen.
Colors danced before his eyes as the damaged hand, now trapped under the weight of two bodies, exploded in pain, and he tried vainly to draw in a half-sobbing breath, his chest aching for air. Through the roaring in his ears, he vaguely heard two more explosions and a strangled shout. A dull thudding noise came from the doorway, as if a body had impacted against the opposite wall.
Not again. Please, God, not again.
Bartlet tried weakly to shift under the dreadfully inert weight bearing him down, conscious of a warm, horribly familiar, wetness spattering down onto his neck and cheek. As the movement caused the pain in his hand to soar to new heights, darkness began to shutter his vision.
The last thing he was aware of, as sound retreated along with sight, was the room exploding into a maelstrom of gunfire over his head.
~ooOoo~
Time continued to fracture, each crack creating a new one that only lead to another, then another.
With each step, taking the stairs in leaps and bounds, one part of Butterfield's mind counted the shots, noting clinically the frantic, almost desperate cadence of the firing pattern. The target hadn't been hit, not yet. Paulson must have taken the President down, he hoped. He knew as well that when the shots ceased of their own accord, his failure to protect would be complete.
One more set of steps, the top and landing looming closer. Behind him, Butterfield heard his people, grimly silent and following close behind. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Vaughn, with the First Lady and Toby Ziegler on his heels.
He couldn't do anything about that now.
Balancing one thought against the other, compartmentalizing, Butterfield analyzed the sounds he'd heard. The first shot, the blowout, had been a concentrated, focused explosive round, shattering the bulletproof plexi and opening the way for more conventional ammunition. The study's newly inaugurated owner had protested the replacement, claiming plexi distorted the light coming into his study. It hadn't been something the Head of the President's security detail had been willing to discuss.
A lot of good it had done. Any mission, Any time, Any place. Spetsnaz training coupled with an almost inhuman detachment towards problem solving. No conscience and a bruised ego. They'd underestimated their opponent, badly. The Secret Service weren't the only professionals who trained for the proactive. Their flanking maneuver had in turn been outflanked by sheer audacity.
Butterfield reached the top of the stairs. Pounding down the landing towards the study, he listened as the fusillade continued. Anger fought with determination. Not over yet...
Another part of his mind listened to his transceiver, categorizing the reports and trusting his people on the grounds would stand to their training, find the shooter and stop him before he succeeded.
"No muzzle flash!"
"... angle of fire, north by north west..."
"The shooter is in the trees! Repeat, the shooter is in the trees..."
More gunfire, closer. Butterfield was able to discern the thundering recoil of the Secret Service JARs. The answering high caliber attack, distant but still recognizable, continued. He counted the repeats, adding to the sniper's running total. Eleven shots already and no sign of letting up. Nearly a half-mile distant, the assassin was remaining cool, motivated, taking his chances to the ultimate limit. He wasn't giving up yet... Any mission...
The White House Chief of security nearly cursed aloud.
The last thought, over-riding all the others, was that one voice, the one Butterfield needed to hear, was silent. Neither Paulson nor Stevens were adding to the reports. The detail was down.
The President was not secure...
Rounding the corner, more cracks in the fabric of time. The gunfire continued... twelve, thirteen, fourteen... nearly a full clip for a bolt-action sniper's rifle. The return firing of the Service JARs thickened, becoming more sure. They had their target, or at least the direction. The assassin's pattern faltered, then picked up again.
Not over yet...
The study door, frame and opposite wall pock-marked by bullets, came into view. Steven's body, alive or dead Butterfield couldn't tell, lay just outside. Paulson was nowhere to be seen.
Fifteen, sixteen... Time stopped.
Attempting to shove her way to the front, the First Lady cried out her husband's name. "Jed!"
Only a few short steps from his charge, Butterfield heard the panic, the abject fear and terror. Sympathy for her was there, but he couldn't afford to let her distract him. "Vaughn!" he barked over his shoulder.
It wasn't Vaughn who caught and held Abigail Bartlet, but Toby Ziegler. Ignoring her tear-filled protests, flinching outwardly as another round shattered the doorframe and impacted against the opposite wall, the Communications Director pulled her back. Vaughn joined him, adding his strength and presence to the struggle.
Abbey's shouts were nearly incoherent.
A disheveled figure joined the group. "Abbey!" Leo McGarry took her arm, trying to get her attention.
It did little good and only seemed to galvanize her efforts further. But between the three men standing between her and her husband, she stood little chance.
Butterfield tried to ignore her, but couldn't. He was too close, too involved. The ultimate trap for the fifth and last profession. Duty alone, nothing else. Never get emotionally involved. Too late, he already was.
Time stuttered, then resumed its flow. The door was only a single step away.
Wood and plaster exploded outwards as another round blasted through the room, the long range, steel jacketed bullet nearly penetrating the interior wall. Seventeen, eighteen... a new clip. Butterfield, two other agents close on his heels, reached the study entrance. With no thought for their own safety, only that of the man within, they readied to enter the inferno.
Another agent dropped down by Steven's body, dragging his colleague further from the danger zone. McGarry crabbed across the floor to give him a hand.
Then... nothing.
Silence, heavy and loaded, descended.
The gunfire had stopped.
Failure...
Outside on the grounds, the JARs and the field agents continued their attack. Gun in hand, Butterfield crossed over the threshold into the study, listening to the harsh electronic chatter over his earpiece as his eyes frantically scanned the devastation that had been wrought across the room.
"Is the shooter down?! Repeat, is the shooter down?!"
"Somebody get those floods over here!"
"The shooter is not down..."
The speaker sounded sure. Butterfield doubted it as well. Whatever else ex-First Lieutenant Dmitrii Zhidimirich Volkov was, stupid wasn't one of them. His inhuman and harsh training negated that possibility. He'd cut his losses at the first hint of anyone getting too close. Success and vengeance was one thing, but he was still human enough to want to live to enjoy it. He wasn't a martyr. Still young, the Russian wasn't quite that immortal.
But had he succeeded?
The other agents fanned out behind him, weapons at the ready. Another raced to the destroyed windows, pulling the curtains. He'd been on the phone... Butterfield focused on the desk. Moved at right angles to the bay windows soon after assuming his office - yet another argument the newly elected Commander in Chief had lost with his lead bodyguard - the heavy oak desk had taken the brunt of the attack. It was a complete write-off.
Advancing, disregarding the chance of another salvo, Butterfield angrily kicked the books that had been knocked off the shelves out of his way. More tomes covered the legs sticking out from around the desk lower left corner. Light colored dress slacks poked out from underneath the darker clad legs.
Rounding the corner, Butterfield could only see the one, Paulson, on top. Legs and arms entangled. Neither figure was moving. Blood, far too much of it, coated the back of the covering agent's head. The Senior Agent spied grayer matter coloring it as well. Grimly, his lips tightened. Another man down on his watch.
Falling to his knees and holstering his gun, Butterfield dared ask the next question.
What about the President?
Praying, he reached for Paulson's shoulders to pull him off.
~ooOoo~
... trapped... again. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Something was holding him down, heavy on his chest and denying him the chance for air. Panic accompanied terrified memory, followed close by a red haze of pain.
Silence... seconds were hazily counted. It seemed the right thing to do, the only thing he could do. No more explosions, no more fury of destruction.
Was it over? Would it ever be over?
The horrible confining weight was being rolled off him. His chest heaving, gasping for precious air, the President dared to open his eyes. For an endless moment twisted metal, spars and sharp angles blurred across his vision, paralyzing memory stealing his sight, choking him away from the air he so desperately needed.
Trapped... closed in... trapped... no way out...
No! He blinked the images away, mercilessly forcing himself to remember. That wasn't the reality, not anymore. That was a different nightmare. This was a new one. Shadowy figures danced across his vision. He tried to focus, and couldn't. It was too dark. It occurred to him that someone had pulled the curtains, blocking the light from the outside floods.
Bartlet felt hands, gentle but firm, running across his body. Head, neck, and chest, they were insistent and relentless in their search. A flash of cranky aggravation at the indignity. What the hell were they looking for?
Another unwelcome memory, this time a car speeding away from a similar scene of destruction. Oh, yeah. Had to make sure all his parts were there and intact, right?
Were they all there? He blinked. A worrisome thought, that.
The hands began to travel down his legs, others taking him by the shoulders. Aggravation turned peevish. Enough was enough...
"Okay, fellas..." he croaked.
Then someone pulled his arm out from beneath him. A flare of agony that was truly exquisite set off a barrage of fire-works that sent his vision swirling with angry color.
That did it.
"Shit!" The President surged upright, clutching at his damaged hand. His chief torturer barely managed to jerk his head back in time, saving them both from a nasty crack. Still, gritting his teeth against the pain and biting back another curse, Bartlet managed to toss the man an accusing glare.
Butterfield settled back on his heals, taking it all in stride. Relief threatened to overwhelm him. He was alive... and cussing. The later was the best indicator of presidential well-being. Sound in mind if not entirely in body.
The Security Chief could live with that, for now.
From behind the drawn curtains, something cracked, and then crashed to the floor. The gathered agents drew down on the still rustling material, eyes hard. Debris, maybe. Nobody was taking any chances.
Adrenaline still coursing through his body, Butterfield slipped his arms beneath the President's shoulders and lifted him to his feet. The man cried out at the manhandling, struggling to get his feet beneath him, protesting the ignominy as his Chief of Security bodily lifted him off the floor.
Weakly, Bartlet managed to stammer, "I thought we both agreed we weren't going to do this anymore..."
Butterfield ignored him and the distressed humor, propelling both himself and the full weight of his charge towards the shattered door and out in just a few hurried steps. The agents left in the room closed behind them like a phalanx, backing up as they followed and guns still trained on the window.
Dimly, the President noted that never once did his feet touch the floor. Ridiculously, his only thought at that point was, 'One for Leo...' The pain in his hand left little room for anything else.
Once out the door and into the hallway, Butterfield let the man find his feet, and then almost literally shoved him into the opposite wall and out of the line of fire. Bartlet's grunt as he hit, then started to collapse, was accompanied by shocked gasps from the gathered spectators. Glancing back over his shoulder, he caught the eye of one of the trailing agents, Carlyle. A question was silently asked.
Carlyle nodded grimly.
Letting out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, the White House Chief of Security and Head of the President of the United States' personal detail felt the last of the adrenaline finally burn through his system. It was over.
Jerking his head, he directed his junior down the hall. "Hit the grounds, Dale. Find out what the hell is going on out there. I want that bastard and I want him now!"
Tapping two more of the gathered agents, Carlyle took off at a run. His boss wasn't the only one taking this personally.
Watching him leave, exhaustion, both physical and mental, settled on him like a lead weight as Butterfield bent over his charge. His duty was here. The President was sheltered between his Security Chief's body and the landing wall. Bartlet was crouched on one knee, shoulder pressed against the wall, in the same pose in which he had landed when his bodyguard had practically flung him through the study door and out of the danger zone.
The reports, none of them promising, continued to pour in through his earpiece. The ground agents had found the would-be assassin's hiding place, but that was the last bit of good news.
"The shooter is on the run!"
"Spread out..."
Carlyle's voice broke in, taking control. "Eagle is secure! Repeat, Eagle is secure!"
"... where is the shooter..."
"Damn it to hell!" Butterfield angrily pulled the receiver from his ear. They weren't going to catch Volkov; he knew that beyond all doubt. The man would leave nothing, least of all his own survival, to chance. Staring down at his primary concern, he forced himself to be content with that and let Carlyle handle the rest. The President was alive.
He at least, unlike the egotistical and audacious assassin, hadn't failed. It was enough.
"Jed?"
"Jed?!"
Abigail Bartlet and Leo McGarry's voices blended together in a frantic chorus. Butterfield spared the three frantic civilians behind him a brief glance, and then reluctantly shifted his body slightly to give them a better view of the focus of all their concern. By rights, none of them should be here, but he wasn't heartless - or suicidal - enough to tell them that right now. The immediate danger was over and he could understand only too well their desperate need to see for themselves. It was the exact same emotion that had impelled him over the threshold and into the battle zone.
"I'm all right... all right." Bartlet's tones were flat and lacking in their usual resonance. His features were gray, with a cold sweat glimmering on his cheeks and forehead, and his eyes were fixed and staring. His good hand trembled as he used it to cradle the other, now encased in blood-dappled dressings, against his chest.
Shock, Butterfield privately diagnosed. Hardly unexpected. Those moments in that fire-torn room would have tried the nerves of a combat veteran. His own nerves were so tightly drawn that he almost fancied he could hear them humming, and the last of the adrenaline rush was still roaring in his ears.
"Are you sure?" Abbey crouched down beside him, eyes widening in horror at the blood coating the side of his head and neck. She ran her fingers lightly through his hair, barely able to refrain from sobbing in relief as she failed to detect any injury to account for the effluence.
She could literally feel McGarry's breath on her ear as he leaned in behind her, anxiously scanning his friend. Toby Ziegler was an awkwardly hovering shadow to his rear.
"Yeah." Bartlet's voice gained in strength, and he pressed his shoulder further into the wall, using the leverage to awkwardly hitch himself to his feet. Swaying slightly, he was still able to wordlessly indicate his objection to the several hands outstretched and grasping in support.
Wisely, they retreated and gave him some space.
The President looked up at the one man who had not withdrawn. "Ron? What's the situation?"
"Not good, Mr. President." Butterfield's jaw was so rigid it was a miracle he could get the words out. "The firing has ceased and our people are moving in on that location. Hopefully, we will be able to apprehend the shooter..." - it was an easy lie, but one he knew the man needed to hear - "Still, our security perimeter was breached and your phone line tapped into. I guess we should be grateful for the latter because it at least gave us a brief warning, but by any criteria this was a security disaster. Clearly, we grossly underestimated the nature of our opponent..."
McGarry shifted uncomfortably at the rage trembling in the bodyguard's tones, and the barely veiled rebuke. Beside him, he felt Abbey stiffen at those words. Ziegler, he knew, was casting his own accusations into the mix as he moved in next to him.
"... and we've paid for that," Butterfield finished on a snarl.
"Yeah." The President tilted his head back against the wall wearily. "I'm sorry, Ron. I guess the plan was a little too successful?"
He was sorry? Butterfield kept his voice carefully flat. "We deliberately set out to provoke a reaction, sir. We got one."
"Be careful what you wish for, huh?" The very faintest hint of color was starting to seep back into the President's cheeks and his eyes were sharpening. He frowned, trying painfully to piece together the fragmented recollections of those last, frantic moments.
The memory of a sound stirred and he glanced quickly around the landing, finally taking in the huddle of agents crouching a few yards away, a pair of dark clad legs projecting from the mass. "Damn it! What happened?"
"Take it easy, Mr. President." McGarry attempted to steady his friend as he pushed away from the wall. "Stevens is going to be okay. He's lost a lot of blood and a fair sized chunk out of his arm, but he'll be all right."
A quick glance at his worried wife and her nod served to confirm that declaration.
"Thank God." Bartlet drew in a shaky breath and ran his hand through his hair. Puzzled at the stickiness, he stared bemused at his red-stained fingers. "What..."
"It's okay, Jed." Abbey spoke swiftly, reassuringly. "You weren't hit. No injuries. Well, no new ones anyway," she amended wryly, finding some of his odd humor as she attempted to gently draw her husband's damaged hand away from his chest. She frowned at the fresh spots leaking onto the outer surface of the wrappings.
"Then whose..." Bartlet's eyes suddenly went wide in realization. "Oh, dear Lord!"
He suddenly lunged forward, almost knocking Abbey off balance as he jerked his hand out of her grasp. She clutched at Ziegler for support even as McGarry moved forward to intercept Bartlet.
But it was Butterfield who halted the President's unsteady charge towards his study, bracing an arm as inflexible as an iron bar across the shorter man's chest.
"Mr. President, you cannot go in there!"
"Ron, I remember!" Bartlet tried ineffectually to push aside the restraining arm. "Paulson! He got me down, just as the window exploded. This blood, it's got to be his!"
"It is, sir." Butterfield's grim tones were not lost on the others.
Ziegler bowed his head and briefly tightened his supporting arm around Abbey, who raised a hand to her mouth in grief. McGarry squeezed his eyes shut in anguish. Only Bartlet, still caught up in the noise and chaos of his memories, missed that unmistakable tone.
"Then we've got to get in there! He needs help. Damn it, Ron! This is my house! I won't have people left lying hurt and unattended here because of me. I won't!" He thrust again against the confining arm.
Ron Butterfield's temper, frayed by tension and dread, finally snapped. There was no noise, no histrionics, but those present on the landing felt the change in the atmosphere prickle all over their skins like an electric charge. The security chief moved inexorably forward. He didn't push, made no physical contact whatever, but somehow the President found his shoulders once again bumping against the landing wall as his protector loomed over him, white-faced and furious.
"Paulson is dead, sir." Butterfield managed to practically spit the words, yet somehow still sound respectful. As the President's face suddenly paled again, he softened his tone regretfully. The man hadn't deserved that, not after what he'd been through. "There's absolutely nothing you or anyone else can do for him now. And there is no way I am allowing you back into that room right now!"
"Are you sure, Ron?" McGarry couldn't help himself; even as he spoke the memories of the last time he had asked such a question, scrabbling in the wreckage of Marine One, swept back over him.
He almost flinched as the Security Chief turned a positively incendiary glare upon him. It was a measure of how badly this night's events had thrown Butterfield that he had shown even that flash of temper to the President. Now, McGarry had conveniently provided him with a new target on which to direct his ire.
"Oh, I'm sure, Leo." Butterfield was practically grinding his teeth as he spoke. "Just as sure as I am that if we had sounded the alarm even a second later, you would be calling Hoynes right now. This whole thing has been a shambles, and more fool me for ever agreeing to it."
A small cry of anguish escaped Abbey's lips at the mention of the Vice President's name, the whys of that aborted call hitting her full force.
Ziegler swung around and took a couple of swift steps; as if by putting distance between himself and the tableau in front of him he could make it all go away.
Only the President remained silent.
"Ron..." The Chief of Staff tried again.
"No, no!" The bodyguard swung around to face him. "Don't tell me it's all right, or that you'll take full responsibility. The lives of everyone here is my responsibility. But we've got that reaction you wanted - drawn the enemy at last. Tell me, Leo, just what do you think we've won from this encounter? Because I sure as hell can't see anything on our side of the scorecard!"
"Ron!" Ziegler shouted a warning.
"What?!" Butterfield whirled furiously to face the Communications Director, only to find the man staring past him with an alarmed expression on his face, just as he heard the First Lady cry out, "Jed!"
He whipped around to see the President, eyes half closed and face dead-white sliding slowly sideways down the wall. Feeling a sudden surge of dismay, and remorse for not having broken the news about Paulson more gently, Butterfield managed to grab the man's arm and slow his progress, sinking down with him until he and his protectee were both sitting on the floor.
"I'm fine," Bartlet murmured vaguely, as his companions once again dropped down beside him. "If nobody minds terribly, I'm just... going to sit here quietly for a bit." He was barely aware of Abbey taking his hand, and McGarry and Ziegler gently easing him back into a sitting position as he started to slump further.
It would be so easy to let it all go right now, let the oblivion take him. So easy...
But he couldn't. He owed too much to the dead. Resolved, strangely certain, he straightened and asked softly, "Ron?"
"Sir?"
"He's going to get away, isn't he?"
Butterfield leaned back against the wall next to his charge and let the exhaustion take him. He nodded wearily, "Yes, sir."
"You can't know that, Ron," McGarry protested hotly. All this, only to see the object of the exercise slip through their fingers? He couldn't accept that. "Not for sure."
Drilling the Chief of Staff with one last glare of frustrated and accusing anger, Butterfield growled, "I know it, Mr. McGarry." Falling back on the formal, he denied McGarry and himself any absolution for the failure. "Bank on it. How's that for an exercise in futility?"
McGarry could only stand there and stare.
"So what did we get?" Ziegler demanded, the question as much for Butterfield as it was for a shaken McGarry.
Regarding the bloodied form of her husband, Abbey knew the answer to that one, the only one that mattered to her. She reached out, cupping his face in her hand. That the blood covering his face wasn't his did little to assuage the turmoil in her soul. It was still blood.
Wearied nearly beyond all endurance, Bartlet took her hand and squeezed gently. He found strength in that simple gesture. Somehow, he managed a weak smile and was relieved when some of the haunted shadows left her eyes.
But not all of them. Those same shadows in his own eyes, he said with just a touch of sarcasm, "Anybody got an answer for me?"
Nobody did.
Not quite. Butterfield shifted, remembering the challenge that had been issued earlier that day. Turning his determined gaze towards the President, he said, "We have a name, sir."
A short, bitter laugh was Bartlet's response. "That's all?" He shook his head, then winced at the pain the sudden movement caused.
Abbey held his hand tighter. It helped.
"And a face," Butterfield added. "It'll be all over the FBI's top ten and VICAP by morning. He's on our ground, sir. He can't run forever."
"Is a name enough for the dead, Ron?"
"It has to be."
The President sighed heavily, a burning spark beginning to grow. It has to be. Empty words and at this moment, he sincerely doubted it. The dead deserved more than that. "Give me the name."
Butterfield looked up at McGarry and silently gave the answer to that question to him. Let him be the one to finish it. The agent was done with games.
Leo McGarry dropped down to one knee next to his President and oldest friend. The line between the two was never more blurred than it was at this moment. Regarding Jed's bloody face, guilt tore at him. A simple name was a poor return for what his arrogant miscalculation had put the man through.
"Dmitrii Zhidimirich Volkov." The name was as dry as dust on McGarry's lips.
The President simply sat there, his silence as condemning as any angry outburst.
Ziegler shuffled uneasily and exchanged a worried glance with Abbey.
Butterfield waited patiently.
'Condemning who?' That was what McGarry wanted to know, wanted to ask. Neither the thought nor the possible answer offered him any absolution.
"So the enemy has a face and a name," the President finally said, refusing to repeat that name, steel hardening the rich timbre of his voice. The revelation, however much it had been demanded, brought little satisfaction. "The dead want more." 'My dead,' he added silently to himself. Too many faces flickered across his memory. 'My responsibility.'
The spark fanned into an all-consuming flame.
There would be retribution. Bartlet's lips drew back from his lips in a humorless, predatory smile. He felt his wife flinch, a tiny, almost whispered gasp as she caught the expression. Even Leo and Toby drew back, shocked.
At this moment, Bartlet didn't care. He offered them no explanation. Right now, a cold, burning rage surged through him. For once, he didn't try to fight it. He welcomed it. His dead demanded it.
Only Ron seemed to understand. "War without any hint of morality, sir." He bared his teeth in a copy of his Commander in Chief's. "Welcome to the twenty-first century."
"There is no morality in war. Find him," was all Bartlet could manage through his fury. "The bastard wants a war; let's give it to him."
Through the red haze coloring his sight, Bartlet saw the wide-eyed fright in his wife's eyes. Some, but not all, of the rage cooled and he drew her to him, holding her close and finding some small part of his center once again. She was trembling, and the sudden and unwelcome realization hit him that her fear was not exclusively for what had almost happened, but what she had seen in him.
He had frightened her.
Closing his eyes, Bartlet let his cheek rest against the top of her head. "The twenty-first century can go screw itself, Ron," he said softly, letting his hand slowly travel the length of his wife's rigid back, attempting to reassure her and himself.
He couldn't quite let go of the rage though, and finished in a hard, cold voice that had everyone in earshot straightening. "I want it over and done with, by whatever means necessary."
In the shelter of his arm, Abbey went still.
McGarry dropped his head.
For a long moment, Butterfield said nothing. Refusing to meet anyone's eyes, his attention focused entirely on the man who had just issued the order. Would that order still stand when emotions cooled? He had no way of knowing.
Finally, he nodded. "Yes, sir."
Toby Ziegler turned away, grief written clear across his features. What ifs and maybes were buried under a sudden, inexplicable sense of loss. It would be war, the likes of which none of them had ever contemplated.
God help them all.
The End