The West Wing

FIRST STRIKE

(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)

CHAPTER 3

In an absurd and horrific fashion, the entire baseball field resembled a tableau in a theater. The man globally acknowledged to be the most powerful individual on earth was the centerpiece, like always – but never before in this manner: utterly powerless, flat on his spine, unmoving, in a huge open area, alone and completely unprotected.

It was a shocking sight: the murdered President laid out as though on his bier before national television and the entire globe. The cameras, still running, still transmitting, were merciless. It was the most public assassination in U.S. history, if not world history, every second of it captured in perfect detail and exquisite agony. It was a monstrous blow to a nation's identity, and to the human hope for a peaceful existence anywhere. And what made it all the more awful? No one could even recover the body, and no one could bring down the assassins who were still present, still shooting.

The only other individuals in the same open field were five black-suited bodyguards, strewn over forty yards like discarded toys, from just past the team dugouts to just short of the mound, prostrate and making no effort to crawl away. Of those five, one had no intention of leaving, one had no strength to try… and three were beyond the attempt.

Movement could be seen in the mouth of the Grand Entrance, but no one emerged to try his luck as a target in the shooting gallery. Those individuals now included several ambulance attendants, who had responded to the emergency from outside. Already they had provided initial treatment and removal of the wounded agents who made it to cover, but they must have been deeply dismayed to learn that they couldn't go to the aid of the other casualties out there – although they certainly understood why. The sound of sporadic gunfire overhead and the corpses on the grass made clear what would happen if anyone tried.

Movement could be seen everywhere in the stands, as people tried to run for cover, blindly seeking safety in any form at all. They surged to and fro like a tide, each gunshot sending them careening in another direction. Birds, bait fish and even some of the larger mammals react in an identical manner: the individual subsumed into the group.

Scurrying among them was a small army of the finest security operatives in the world, and another battalion of local police, all engaged in the most desperate of search missions. Somewhere else among them were two hidden killers, periodically blasting their firearms at the sky and who knew what else or who else. The fixed seats offered both questionable shelter from seeking bullets and formidable barriers preventing a straight run to the exits – or to the enemies' suspected locations.

The crowds screamed in confusion, fear and pain; the radios blared with instructions and responses and calls for assistance; the sportscasters babbled with ever-increasing anxiety; the airwaves sizzled with repeated updates to this unbelievable night. And yet, for a certain few individuals – some present, some not – a peculiar pause took hold, settling over their minds like the slow fall of dust when a bloody battle was over… and lost.

These people handled this most unusual interlude to this most appalling evening with one thing in common: silence. The man physically nearest to their Commander-in-Chief rested his forehead on his right forearm, a vivid expression of his all-encompassing failure. This was far worse than the Newseum; this time he could do nothing except lie here and let his protectee die, after leading his colleagues forth to die as well. And he'd allowed his protectee to step out here in the first place.

A gray, middle-aged man stood in a dark concrete tunnel, trembling from barely-suppressed sobs, no longer resisting the bodyguard who had held him back. In fact he relied upon that grasp just to stay upright. All of the strength that he had selflessly devoted to another – a friend, a commander, an inspiration – had died out there on that killing field. Nothing in his world could really matter ever again.

A much younger man, not long out of his teens, stood nearby in that same tunnel, and in a similar mental state. He had been released from a second bodyguard's restrictive hold, but made no move to take advantage of it. He had lost more than an employer and more than a leader; he had lost a mentor and a substitute father. He just bowed his head and closed his eyes. There was nothing else to be done.

A man and a woman stood together in a small though influential office, staring at the TV yet hardly seeing it anymore. He loomed slightly behind her, his left hand gripping her left upper arm; she leaned into him, her right hand resting on top of his left hand in turn. There was little comfort possible at such a terrible time, but they seized that tiny bit with all they had, for without it they would lose their sanity. Her eyes were wet; his were blinking.

Two women stood in a simple-looking reception area, side by side, a brunette and a redhead, likewise watching the news with more dullness than interest. Later, they knew, would recommence the slow grind of national business that not even disaster could derail. It had to be done, because not doing it would be even worse than the disaster itself. The work would feel useless, and pointless, yet – in a masochistic sense – almost welcome. Anything to occupy their minds and draw their memories away from what they were witnessing now.

A thick crowd stood in an open space before a solid wall of TV sets, as motionless as so many statues. Perhaps they found some meager consolation in the presence of similar bereaved individuals; no one tried to break the spell. Breaking it meant that they would have to live it, and the thought of such intense pain was simply unendurable. Most were still too aghast to shed any tears. That would come soon enough.

A young man in his late thirties stood alone in a roomy, well-appointed office, also watching the broadcast. He was hardly less engulfed by this blackness of the soul than all the others, though he had no one with whom to share it. Like them, he was stunned to silence and frozen to attention. One should not sit in the presence of death – and certainly not the death of a dedicated, caring, courageous leader… and of a last hope for peace in the most volatile cauldron that the human race had ever produced.

Another man of similar age stood in a hospital waiting room. Despite the organized urgency on the other side of the door behind him, and many other people elsewhere in this very large, very busy building, this small space granted solitude. Only his uneven respiration intruded upon the quivering silence. He knew firsthand the greatness, the kindness, the brilliance that had just been cruelly snuffed out like a precious candle… and he knew firsthand the torture of a tiny leaden missile to the chest. He might almost have given thanks for such a clean death this time – if not for the devastation that would surely follow.

A middle-aged woman sat rigid on a couch, not moving a hair, no longer even looking at the TV screen, dark eyes frighteningly empty. Two men and two women stood behind her in this luxurious private chamber, and more armed guards were stationed right outside – but, regardless of their presence, she was alone. Alone in a way that no one else could truly comprehend… unless one had witnessed the murder of a spouse that completed one's heart.

And through it all, the televisions and the radios continued to broadcast relentlessly, offering no solace at all to a global village that had been wounded dreadfully – perhaps fatally – and that could do nothing whatsoever about it.

Not everyone in the country, or even everyone in this stadium, considered themselves a personal Bartlet supporter… but that didn't change the fact that he had been duly elected to lead them. His office represented national unity and international respect. He was an integral part of the American psyche, and he was gone.

What eulogy could conceivably suffice for such a man, such a husband, such a friend, such a President?

"What the –" Only at the last second did Harry think to consider what the FCC might say about his choice of language on the air.

June's volume remained low. Loudness wasn't needed anyway; her words carried over the station channel just as clearly.

"Look at him."

Still prone on the turf, Ron noticed the very same thing at the very same time. He probably didn't plan to transmit his own reaction, even though his comrades needed to know. Fortunately, the sensitive mike picked it up anyway.

"Sir?"

Of all the staff and players in the ballpark, only the umpires were regularly wired into the stadium's sound system. One of them had dug into the Yankees' dugout, but not so deep that he couldn't sneak a peek now and then, and he happened to behold the exact same sight. He'd shown considerable restraint of voice thus far, regardless of the gunfire and the death and the panic, but he cut loose now with a yell that reverberated over all of Camden Yards.

"He's MOVING!"

"He" could not apply to anyone else. All eyes in the tunnel, and not a few in the stands, leaped instantly to the big screen. TV viewers had a head start.

The camera trained on the pitcher's mound all along had naturally garnered the most time on that huge display due to the colossal impact of its executive close-up – before, and after. Now, thanks to the commentators' discovery and the producer's coordination, it immortalized the view of Jed Bartlet's left arm slowly rising, in a gentle arc, hand open, as though to block the bright, hot lights from his face.

Not only was it improbable for a corpse to make such a move, and unlikely for a corpse to care, but the motion was so easy, so normal, that one just could not believe it to be the final convulsive muscle twitch before a body died completely.

Leo's jaw dropped and he stumbled forward, his wiry frame hauled along behind his spinning mind. The bodyguard nearest to him was for once even more off-balance; Leo might actually have made it out onto the field unopposed this time if his tottering legs could've borne him that far. They couldn't; he stopped at the bottom of the stairs, still gaping.

Charlie staggered sideways, banging into the stone wall and almost sliding right down to the ground. His eyes looked ready to fall out of his head; his hands shook like those of a man four times his age. He too might have managed to escape his guardian agent at last, but neither energy nor conscious thought were to be had.

C.J. and Toby both jumped so sharply that they broke apart, stopping when almost a foot separated them, swaying like twin trees in the same high wind. Neither noticed the other; both had eyes only for the broadcast.

Debbie and Margaret clutched at each other's arms, as though convinced that they would fall over without this mutual shoring-up – or that this new information simply could not be true without the tangible presence of a fellow witness.

Exclamations of pure disbelief broke out all over Communications. Some, like Carol, extended open palms as if to beg for an instant explanation to the miraculous. Others couldn't even process what they saw; either they didn't move at all, or else they folded at the knees in an abrupt loss of strength.

Will leaned forward until both hands obtained a firm foundation on the surface of his desk; otherwise he might well have landed on all fours on his own carpet. Lamplight glinted off his eyeglasses like silver question marks.

Josh's head tilted sideways, and his limbs twitched spasmodically, for all the world like a mannequin with an incompetent puppeteer on the strings. That might not be an unsuitable comparison, either: he had no more control over his movements or his thoughts right now than he had over the events unrolling across the Atlantic.

Abbey's virtual paralysis shattered with a violent start and a harsh gasp. It looked scarily like the sudden convulsion when a patient in cardiac arrest is jolted by a defibulator's electric charge, something she herself had done many times in her medical career. It served the exact same purpose, too: to shock priceless life back into a dying shell.

All around the world, viewers who had started to mourn sprang forward with expressions of amazement and joy; viewers who had started to celebrate gave vent to amazement and disappointment; and viewers who were decidedly indifferent felt no more than amazed. That at least was one emotion shared by all in this hour.

Throughout Oriole Park, many people could not be distracted from fleeing for their lives by anything, but some did screech to a halt. Even bullets overhead had a hard time overcoming the magnetism of a return from the dead – and by their national leader, no less. They simply had to stop and see for themselves. Some sentience returned; some individual reality reawakened. For a moment even the safety that might be found in flight was forgotten.

Scattered among these crowds, the Secret Service operatives had been well trained to deal with the best and the worst, yet they could not completely sterilize their hearts. They, too, simply had to pause and confirm with their own eyes the news that transcended all hope. Plus, their lives were dedicated to his life. If he still lived against all calculable odds, then they hadn't failed him. Yet.

Somewhere else in this stadium, two wielders of lethal weapons and even more lethal intent received glaring evidence that their painstaking Grand Plan – whatever it might be – hadn't been completed just yet. The man they had shot with such precision and such public impact was refusing to die.

Stretched out on the Maryland Bluegrass, closer than anyone else to this astonishing revelation, Ron could scarcely make his brain comprehend what his eyes insisted was true. The President of the United States was alive, and turning his way.

God… what happened…

An inch at a time, Bartlet rolled over onto his right side, emitting a groan which, due to a perceptive drop in the pervading roar of primal terror, could be heard twenty yards away. Was it pure chance that he happened to roll down the mound's slight elevation rather than up it, or was his brain already back in command, figuring out the path of least resistance? Either way, he ended up facing his chief bodyguard and the Grand Entrance almost directly – meaning that they could see him, and he could see them.

Ron spotted one special detail immediately: the badge of the Presidential Seal, colorfully embroidered on the sports jacket's left breast, showed a neat black hole just off-center. The sniper had aimed for a perfect kill, and nailed it dead-on.

Except that… somehow he hadn't.

The only possible explanation was that the round had been a regular full metal jacket, the kind the vest could stop – not the tissue-shredding, armor-penetrating caliber that the Service had naturally assumed. With ammo that lethal, vest or no vest, Jed Bartlet would never move again. Instead, he was bruised and groggy and bleary-eyed and very much alive.

Who could blame anyone for jumping to such an obvious conclusion – even the finest bodyguards in the world? A direct hit from a high-powered rifle bullet to packed Kevlar right over the rib cage was certainly capable of knocking a man down and knocking him out. The victim's total immobility for several minutes gave no one any reason to believe that he was unconscious rather than dead. Besides, none of his defenders had been allowed close enough to judge his vitality for themselves.

Most snipers shooting over any appreciable distance would not attempt a head shot. The human cranium is astonishingly resilient, and people have survived glancing blows even from close range. Almost always, a head shot that doesn't kill on the spot permits a total or near-total recovery, with scarcely an inch of difference between those two options. The sure method is to go for center mass: the trunk. It's a larger target and a much softer one, and if the bullet doesn't kill the trauma often does. That was the only reason Ron had not insisted upon a helmet for the President as well.

The vest was a perfectly logical precaution for the most influential and the most at-risk person in the world. Most professional assassins would figure that out, and take appropriate steps to make sure of the kill. Armor-piercing bullets were regrettably simple to obtain on the open market. Why hadn't the sniper used one after all?

Either because he wasn't a professional – which was unbelievable given his demonstrated skill – or because he didn't want to kill the President.

Why in God's name not? What other purpose could lie behind such an attack?

Conclusion: the President was more valuable alive. And trapped.

Now that everyone knew Bartlet was alive, rather than assuming he wasn't, two opposite reactions were guaranteed and immediate. Agents boiled out of the Grand Entrance, more desperate than ever to protect him since he wasn't beyond needing that protection after all. Just maybe one of them could cross those forty yards before the killers recovered. All they required was one man draping his own body over their leader, and they could ensure his ongoing safety while they hunted the enemy down.

Answering gunfire exploded at almost the same instant. Having apparently counted on their target's remarkable imperviousness to bullets from the start, the shooters had accomplished the near-impossible and isolated him from all aid. There would be no point in allowing his rescue now.

The result of both reactions was just as certain and just as swift. Bullets ripped into earth and smashed into stone. Men braked short, tumbled to the ground or ducked back under cover. It was a horribly one-sided contest: blood versus bullets. Ron watched more of his comrades fall, and raged that they still couldn't secure their protectee – just as their protectee had proven to all of them that he wasn't dead yet.

The thunder of war resumed had its predictable effect on the crowds as well: with fresh shrieks and renewed flight. Barely suppressed, the newly born animal surged once again to the fore and took control. Sentience, so vaunted and arrogantly treasured, became so much chaff before the winds of panic.

It also gained another witness: the one person who had been oblivious to all of this from the start… until now. No one who had ever heard gunfire firsthand, much less been hit by it himself, could fail to recognize that heart-stopping sound. It wiped away all confusion, answered all questions, crystallized all thought.

No – not again –

Electrified by the roiling tension in the air, the din and fury of the crowd, and by memories of another May night four years ago, Bartlet lurched to his knees. His right arm took root in the dirt to brace his weight; his left arm pressed against his chest as though to guard damaged ribs – which was probably the case. He breathed hard, his features were strained, and his eyes squinted against both the bright lights he couldn't help but see and the speeding missiles he knew he wouldn't see. It was a most natural response – not by a strategist, but by a previous victim of ballistic violence.

Six feet away lay one of the bodyguards he knew personally – obviously past all help. Beyond that lay his chief bodyguard, bleeding visibly into the green lawn. Beyond that lay one more groaning protector and two more motionless ones.

Up until this moment, all he had known for sure was that he'd been hit by something, hard. Waking up in the midst of such chaos was disorienting, to say the least. Now understanding dawned – as much as there could be, considering what he'd missed thus far. The camera caught the vivid change to his expression: from confusion, fear and physical anguish to comprehension, anger and emotional anguish.

He was alive – and he was exposed to the greatest danger, with no protection at all. Surrounded by dreadful evidence of what happened to those who tried to run.

Everywhere in the White House complex – from Toby's office to the Oval Office reception area to the Communications bullpen to the Residence – and in a chamber in the OEOB, and in a certain German hospital, people started to live again themselves. They lived for sheer relief and supreme joy, because their leader lived after they were all so sure he didn't… and they lived for agonizing suspense and clutching terror, because their leader's renewed existence still hung in a very tenuous balance.

For the observers in the stadium's Grand Entrance, those same reasons to live were felt even more acutely, because here they were close enough to actually help him – if only they could.

Leo tried. Agents and gunshots be damned; he cared only to stand by his oldest and dearest friend. This time he fought his way up the half-dozen steps and right to the corridor mouth –

"NO!"

That shout, faint yet clear, did not come from behind him, but from in front. It came from the pitcher's mound. It was enough to startle Leo to a halt.

Still braced like a tripod, Bartlet raised his left hand like a traffic cop, palm out. "Don't come out here, any of you!"

Everyone in the tunnel entrance heard his voice, even over the clamor of the stands. They also heard him grunt from the effort to bellow around what had to be more than one badly injured rib at the least. But he refused to let that prevent him from preventing others from dying here tonight. He did not want anyone else to be hit in a well-established futile attempt to reach him.

Leo looked like he was prepared to brave the guns, the bullets, and the wrath of his President altogether, but by then the remaining agents reached him and hauled him back. No sooner had they dissolved into the protective shadows of the tunnel than a new shape emerged: younger, darker and no less dedicated.

Fortunately Bartlet saw him in time as well. He glared at his body man with all of his strength, and shook his head in the clearest possible meaning.

Charlie hesitated, just as torn between obedience and loyalty. Then, slowly, he nodded in solemn assent. He did not retreat all the way down the stairs – and unlike the Chief of Staff, no one felt the need to get a personal aide out of sight. He stayed right there, as close as was permitted, ready to do whatever he could the instant he could.

This time, when Bartlet again shook his head, the gesture contained a large dose of ruefulness. He well knew the high quality of his people, had seen them channel it many times.

Never expected to have to tell them NOT to use it…

When one thinks about it, a President's job in its purest essence is to serve the people of his country. Never mind the possible cost to himself, in political enemies or in physical enemies. He has to protect them – from anything he can, any way he can.

Surely no one had ever seen such a poignant example of service as this… nor at such a personal risk.

The only living person even more proximate to the President and also in a condition to think clearly, Ron witnessed all of this with no small wonder. Said wonder spiked dramatically as the President proceeded to stand.

"Stay down!" Even though it was almost subsumed by the sound of a new fusillade of shots erupting across the stands, and the inevitable accompanying screams, no one could mistake the explosive urgency of Ron's tone. The Special Agent in Charge of White House Security – which meant executive security as well – was one of very few people authorized to issue a direct order to his own supreme commander, and he didn't hesitate to do so when the need arose. Nor did he hesitate to discard formality and deference in a life-threatening situation.

In defiance of all regulations and common sense, Bartlet paid his most experienced bodyguard no attention at all. He ignored the shouted pleas from several directions for him not to run such a ludicrous risk, he ignored the pain that squeezed his chest like an iron fist, he ignored the lethal danger hovering on all sides and breathing right down his neck. No one, not bloodthirsty assassins nor concerned friends nor even Ron Butterfield, could deter him when his mind was set.

Ron struggled to rise himself, struggled to ignore the devouring pain in his leg. If he could just cross those twenty yards and tackle The Man before –

In lightning succession, three CRACKS and three WHIPS rang out, tallying perfectly with three clumps of sod ripped apart about halfway up the pitch. Ron subsided before that sniper fire edged any closer to the mound, and the man crouched on it.

Bartlet froze in place, naturally enough. For one second.

"Hold still!" Ron yelled at him. "Or else one of those near-misses won't!"

Few others could hear him, but everyone got the idea just fine. Many in the crowd let out a collective moan of fear that they were about to see their President die all over again.

I never did like being ordered around. Or threatened, for that matter.

Many times past their President had followed his heart and done the exact opposite of what was expected of him, or what was prudent. Why should this be any different? Slowly, he pushed up from the bullet-torn grass with one hand. Weakly, he swayed, and then achieved some balance. Resolutely, he drew himself upright.

"He's really alive!" In the commentators' booth, June beamed at Harry, who beamed back in equal gigantic delight.

Leo leaned forward as far as the restraining arms would allow.

Charlie gripped the edge of the tunnel's doorless jamb.

Toby exhaled explosively, releasing both air and pain. C.J. nodded her voiceless, wholehearted agreement.

"He's alive?" Debbie couldn't yet overcome her pervading bemusement. Margaret felt the very same way.

Carol led the cheer in Communications: "He's alive!"

Will could only whisper one word: "Unbelievable."

Josh couldn't even make that much sound.

Abbey could, and did. It came out like a prayer. "Alive…"

TBC…