The West Wing
FIRST STRIKE
(by W.H.A.C.L.O.B.)
CHAPTER 4
He was alone, and he was brilliantly lit – the perfect target. His chest heaved from the effort to straighten, from the effort just to stand, and from the impact of a high-velocity bullet to a fibrous vest only a few centimeters thick, and from bruising to tissue and breakage to bones, and from the sudden tumble to the unyielding ground. His back was powdered by the dust of the pitcher's mound. His hair was somewhat tousled, a digression from his usual public image. His face was flushed and beaded with perspiration, due to exertion and suffering and the humid night under these huge, hot floodlights. His mouth was open, struggling for air after having it driven so savagely from his lungs, as though he actually needed to remember how to breathe all over again.
In ridiculous contrast, the open collar of his blue shirt was unmarred, his trousers retained their sharp crease, and his shoes hadn't lost their shine. His arms remained at his sides, rather than curling protectively around the thoracic pain he had to be feeling.
His expression was furious.
Time seemed to solidify and wait, for an hour or a millennium, allowing him to stand there undisturbed, unchallenged. On the contrary, he did the challenging. Only his head turned, just a few degrees – not the complete, easy rotation as when he had first gained this mound, a lifetime ago, but the similarity was unavoidable. He swept the stadium's closest bleachers once again: this time not with a smile and a wave, but with fists clenched and eyes blazing. In that snapshot of time, he dared the gunmen or anyone else to come at him face to face, if they had the guts to take him on when he knew they were there.
For viewers who were observant enough, the camera picked up that small hole in the stitched Seal, so close to his heart. The vest stopped the slug, but not the actual impact of sheer velocity. He almost certainly had a broken rib, maybe two. Still, far better such bruises or even breaks to the alternative…
There is no dignity in being slammed onto one's back in full public view. Just standing there, not making a move towards safety, defying injury and danger both, Jed Bartlet recovered every bit of that poise inherent to his nature and his status, and wrapped it around himself as though it were a mantle of his office… or a cloak of invulnerability.
Between the loss of consciousness and the lack of electronic communications, video or audio, he was more isolated than anyone else – before you even factored in the empty space separating him from safety.
High time I found out exactly what's going on.
Less than a ball's throw away, Ron stared up at this pillar of strength and anger and determination. Always before he'd had the height advantage. Now, for the first time, the presence of his protectee towered over him literally as well.
"ATTENTION, AMERICA!"
The voice trumpeted throughout Camden Yards like a clap of thunder. It seemed to come from all directions at once. The high walls of the bleaches caught the crashing echoes and threw them back into the interior. Every soul that could move jerked around, seeking the source of this totally unexpected broadcast.
It also echoed over the networks, sharp and tinny and totally unlike the sportscasters' style. Every soul tuning in felt no lesser surprise.
June made the connection first. "The PA system! But how –"
Several enormous speakers crowned the uppermost level of the stands, spread out and aimed into the field, designed to carry umpire rulings to the fans and the airwaves.
Harry leaped to the only workable explanation. "They've got one of our headsets!"
Who "they" were could not have been more obvious. The gunmen had acquired a forty-eight-thousand-strong captive audience, to say nothing of all those millions tuning in long-distance. Now, they had a statement to make… and they had planned from square one the best way to make it: using their hosts' own electronic setup to broadcast to the world.
"BE QUIET, AND LISTEN."
Even many of the frenzied spectators obeyed, their overall hubbub momentarily subsiding to a dull murmur. Nine-tenths of them at least were still stuck between rows of seats; this ballpark couldn't disgorge a capacity crowd in a hurry, much less in a panic. And now they were about to hear why this nightmare had happened… and what horror would happen next. It was enough to make anyone stop and pay attention.
Ron wasn't the only agent suddenly growling into his sleeve mike.
"NOBODY LEAVES HERE. ANYONE WHO TRIES, DIES."
Of course the gunmen didn't want the fans evacuated; they wanted the thickest crowd possible in which to hide. At least that meant they'd been shooting over the crowd all along, rather than into it, since dead bodies or even crippled casualties would reduce the size of their living shield and also serve as landmarks to their position. Therefore, there shouldn't be any bullet injuries in the stands.
Not yet – but a truly terrified person might easily obey the irresistible instinct to run, too scared to think that doing so vastly increased his or her danger.
"WE'VE GOT YOUR PRESIDENT…"
Bartlet's head lifted higher and his brows descended further, a clear declaration of what he thought about that fact. He didn't revolve, didn't search futilely for the speaker that he knew he couldn't see. He remained near the mound, center stage, pinned by spotlights and gun sights, the only person standing on the entire field, waiting in teeth-gritted silence and enraged helplessness to learn his fate.
Everyone else – from his best friend and his body man in the tunnel, to his staff members in the West Wing, to his political affiliate in the OEOB, to his staff member in a German hospital, to his wife in their private chambers, to his fellow citizens across the country, to his fellow human beings around the world – waited just as helplessly with him.
"WE CHOSE NOT TO KILL HIM BEFORE. BUT WE CAN KILL HIM AT ANY MOMENT."
This, then, was what they had wanted all along: a live hostage instead of a dead one. A hostage they could threaten with impunity, a hostage without even the warm bodies of his own guards to shield him. So long as they kept the President on the field and the Secret Service off the field, they remained in control of the situation.
Not for one instant did anyone still believe that the vest would save its wearer from a real attempt. No armor-penetrating ammo was needed. Shots to the lower abdomen or the arteries in arms and legs would kill just as surely in the end, and a lot more slowly – serving their purpose even better.
Or… the sniper just might go for a straight-up head shot after all. He'd already pulled it off once.
"ONE WRONG MOVE, AND HE DIES NEXT."
"They're going to blackmail the United States," June whispered, her low tone a stark counterpoint to the reverberating volume right outside. She found the presence of mind from somewhere to put a hand over her mike first. Her wire channel didn't include the speakers over the stands, but she was reluctant to give the killers even this small addition to their worldwide broadcast.
Harry felt the same bleak conviction… and he, too, kept this part of their coverage to themselves. "And they're going to get clean away with –"
The camera in the commentators' booth was still turned off, but the TV and radio stations all heard the door bang open and a new presence burst inside.
"Turn off the public address," a masculine voice ordered with deceptive quietness.
The announcers froze for two hammering heartbeats at this apparition in black, sporting a gigantic assault rifle and a cold stare.
"Now!"
The truth snapped into focus: he couldn't be one of the blackmailers if he was trying to stifle the blackmail demand. Therefore, he was one of the good guys.
Besides, who argues with armament like that?
Harry reached for the console first. "Greg – kill the PA!"
The producer, in his den far below, needed no explanation.
"HERE'S THE DEAL. WE –"
Silence – as sudden and shocking as the first shrill announcement had been.
Many witnesses imagined the astonishment, and then the snarl of fury, as two men realized that they had been deprived of their freedom of speech.
Many witnesses also exhaled in relief. If the killers couldn't make their demands known, they had far less power over the lives around them.
But not no power…
"Secure the entire sound system!" Ron ordered into his transmitter. "The perps might try to take over the controls directly – or they might have some other idea for tapping into it!"
His fellow agents scrambled faster than ever. It meant spreading their numbers even thinner to include the commentators' booth and the basement control room, but there was no telling what their maddened foes would do in retaliation.
The crowd of fans hesitated, caught squarely between the compulsion to flee and the need to see what consequences would arise next.
"So that's your game, is it?"
Whatever anyone might have guessed, it could not have equaled this. The President of the United States was dealing himself into the hand.
Only the very closest individuals could actually hear him: the fallen agents who still lived, the people crammed into the mouth of the Grand Entrance and the players huddled in the dugouts. But even without the giant billboard display everyone could see him, head up and posture stiff – shouting right back at the men who were so heartless as to kill him and anyone around him.
"You think you can get your way just like this?"
"Hey – the President's saying something!" Harry exclaimed. Disregarding his own advice to his colleague earlier, he pressed his face against the booth glass.
June did a double-take. "Who's he talking to? The shooters? He can't seriously think they'll hear him!"
"By now he's probably too mad to care."
Bartlet looked exactly that mad: his brows had lowered into one ominous line and his eyes were steel-hard.
"Don't antagonize them!" Ron commanded. Almost certainly the assassins couldn't hear this executive speech, but they'd guess that this speech was aimed at them and in no way complimentary.
The Man didn't even glance his way. Only his head moved, rotating slowly to face the third of the stands arrayed before him. "You think we'd just roll over and give up?"
Leo ground his jaws. "Shut up, shut up…"
Charlie said nothing, as an aide should, but his whole attitude endorsed the opinion.
C.J. waved both arms. "What's he saying? It's so unnatural not to hear him!"
Toby rolled his eyes. "And of course he can't sit back and be quiet."
Debbie shook her head worriedly. "He's going to get himself killed in one more minute."
Margaret had no possible rejoinder to that.
Carol whipped around to face the bullpen at large. "Anybody here read lips?"
Will knew about speeches, and when not to make them. "Not now, sir, not now!"
Josh just stared at the extraordinary sight of his ultra-eloquent leader deprived of volume.
Abbey closed her eyes in a brief yet familiar exasperation; this was just so like him. But there remained a minor issue of the current crisis to consider… "Jed, please –"
"If only we knew what he was saying!" June lamented.
Her wish seemed to trigger something; Harry positively jumped. "Wait a sec – the directional microphones!"
June's face lit up at this inspiration. "Right on!" She pounced on the media console. "Greg! Get every directional in the park aimed at the President! But keep the headsets offline!"
The producer leaped to comply. None of them asked whether this was an idea that the Secret Service would likely permit. For once they weren't driven by the insatiable demand for news coverage of every angle – but by sheer human interest. Their Commander-in-Chief was out there alone, waging the battle of his life for his life. Of course they wanted to follow along.
Their Commander-in-Chief was just getting warmed up. "You think we'd negotiate with the likes of you?"
This time he did get a reaction. A grassy tuft suddenly kicked itself into the air right in front of him, as though some giant lying under the sod had spit a chunk of dirt out from between its teeth. The instantaneous explosion of gunpowder erased all doubt as to the actual cause.
He flinched sharply. So would anyone else. In fact, so did a lot of people nowhere near him – in pure empathy to the close shave and the murderous warning. The crowd gasped…
… and then they subsided. Waiting to see what he would do in return
Straightening, Bartlet cast a grim eye over his more immediate surroundings. Ron glared back – fiercely trying to dissuade him from whatever move he was planning to make. The only other living agent around was too badly hit to pay attention to anything else.
The President couldn't see the face of the bodyguard lying six short feet away, but he could see the sickening crimson stain on the beautiful green lawn, right under the head, silently screaming its proof of extraordinary expertise.
He was easy prey. If his enemies did decide to kill him, he could do absolutely nothing to prevent it.
If they thought that threat would make him yield, they didn't know him at all.
"FINE!"
To the amazement of just about everyone, this time his voice boomed from the jumbo speakers and rang out over the entire stadium. And the media stations.
"Yeah!" said Harry.
"We did it!" said June.
"What in the world –" said more than one agent, and more than one spectator in the stands, and more than one broadcast subscriber.
Jed Bartlet also noticed the unheralded, thousand-times amplification of his own words. Before, he'd been blowing off steam, knowing his assailants couldn't hear him, wishing that they could. Now he hesitated for just an instant, reassessing what he really wanted to say. This time he would be heard. Now he could make his point in spades.
"You want our answer to your demands, whatever they are? HERE IT IS."
Everyone fastened on him, more completely even than normal for just being who he was. What did he intend to do?
He turned from the stands to the field. To the bodies on the grass, to the small white spot of home plate, and to the dark maw of the Grand Entrance beyond.
Firmed his features. Drew a slow, deep breath.
And made his choice.
"I – don't – believe – this." To the acute aggravation of all the radio listeners, Harry's incredulity would not let him be more articulate. Fortunately, June managed to find more descriptive words.
"He's walking!"
He was indeed: one deliberate stride at a time. Leaving the mound and the center-point of this vicious drama, if not the spotlight. Moving closer to the protection of Secret Service guns and solid stone walls. Stepping out across this bullet-pocked, blood-soaked lawn… fully aware that his own blood could all too easily water it as well in one more second.
Thanks to battered and perhaps broken ribs, he probably couldn't run if he tried. He certainly couldn't run faster than his enemies could shoot. On the other hand, if he didn't get under cover soon, he'd be dead anyway; denied their demands, the gunmen had every reason to vent their frustration on him. This slow, measured march declared his complete understanding of the danger, and his refusal to submit to it. They could still kill him – or maim him – but they could not cow him. He'd rather be shot down for rejecting their ultimatum than be used as barter to achieve their ruthless goals.
I'll live AND die MY way. I won't let them take everything from me.
His stride was hardly relaxed and carefree; every muscle must have been either bruised or tensed. Any instant now he'd learn just what these unidentified guerillas thought about his bold rejection of everything they stood for. And they were guaranteed to express themselves with violence.
He accepted that. If the price for neutralizing their threat to his country was his life… then so be it.
I… WE will not kneel.
His best friend, his body man, his senior staffers, his support staffers, his former staffer, his absent staffer, his wife… every last one of them was struck dumb by pure astonishment. He'd made many independent moves before in his political career, not a few of them qualifying as rash, but this had to take the cake.
Some of the spectators in the stands actually cheered their President on, yelling at him to run, to get to safety – balanced between terror that he could still die right in front of them and pride at his determination to defy all the odds stacked against him. The viewers at home probably felt no different; this was happening live on national TV. They were there with him as well.
Ron snarled audibly and started to push himself up, prepared to express his view of this insanity with all the vehemence of which he was capable –
The gunmen did it for him, and with even more impact. The automatic weapon shattered the oh-so-brief mood of triumph, letting loose one sustained discharge of its lethal machine-gun fire. Bullets lashed out in a long straight line, sending geysers of earth and grass skyward every foot of the way. They began at roughly the midpoint between third and home, far enough away that everyone could and did follow along, and laid down their rattling, murderous track straight for first – right across Bartlet's path. He braked, guarding his face from the bombardment of dirt and turf and the sheet of flame that screamed past less than twenty feet in front of him.
A nation of hearts leaped into corresponding throats. Many observers yanked away, unable to bear the sight they fully expected: their President torn apart as though by a buzz saw and crumpling to the ground to stay.
"He's all right!" June cried joyously, unashamed to share that joy with the world – but then she stopped in chilling realization. "For the moment, at least…"
"They shot wide," Harry gloomily informed both her and their anxious listeners. "It was just a warning."
"Just?"
Ron peered up from under shielding arms; that barrage had passed not much more than twenty feet from him as well. His protectee still stood, blessedly unhurt. The shots hadn't come thatclose, really; the gunman was counting on the power of fear. The whine of hot lead anywhere nearby more than sufficed to induce paralysis. The sheer volume of fully-automatic fire usually did the rest: just one of those swarming slugs could kill, and several of them could strike in lightning succession, literally tearing a person apart. With rounds blasting so fast on such a visible track, a marksman can redirect his aim and drag it onto even a moving target…
The senior agent darted a look towards the stands near the third base line, where the shooter had to be. He didn't need to radio out; every other operative would have concluded the same thing and rushed to surround that area before their quarry could slip back into the crowds.
Bartlet followed his chief bodyguard's vision, and gave a short nod, making the same deduction. He shook out his sleeves and ran a hand through his hair, as though in protest of the pelting trash tossed his way. Then he faced forward again, his attention returning to the route laid still out before him. It looked more endless and more perilous than ever.
On the big screen, everyone saw his eyes narrow definitively.
No quarter – from them OR from me.
"Oh my soul, he's going on!" Harry's pitch climbed the scale, gathering a bit of feedback from his mike as counterpoint.
June had abandoned her composure as well. "I've never seen anything so brave in my entire life!"
It was either brave or reckless or stubborn or suicidal, depending upon the person asked. It had required a lot of nerve to step forward the first time; it required even more nerve to start again after giving ground to a threat like that. The next attempt might all too likely not stop at a scare, especially since scaring didn't appear to work. Despite all of this, the President squared up, set his jaw, tipped his head forward and glowered from under dark brows in a gesture his friends and family recognized as single-minded Bartlet purpose… and silently resumed his calculated advance. Towards safety, and life, the preservation of his office, and the stability of the nation.
Ron spoke into his mike without taking his eyes off The Man walking his way. "Find those killers before this escalates even more!" He didn't have to postulate what an escalation would likely involve.
"Run!" Charlie shouted, completely forgetting his place in the hierarchy and responding only to his instincts. He had lost his mother to violence already…
"No, don't run!" Leo countered, shifting from one foot to the other, on the verge of apoplexy. His military experience knew the hopelessness of racing bullets.
"What is he trying to prove?" C.J. demanded frenetically to no one in particular.
"Demons and better angels," Toby grumbled by way of a curt diagnosis.
"The man has a death wish," Debbie muttered, affection warring with terror.
"Oh, he just has to make it!" Margaret wailed, unable to conceive of any other alternative.
"They'll never let him off the field," Will pronounced with quiet, awful certainty.
"Come on, come on," Josh whispered to the unimpressed TV set.
Unknowing, Abbey encapsulated all of these thoughts into one concise verdict. "You precious fool."
The Secret Service in the Grand Entrance still couldn't risk rushing the pitch. If they tried, they'd be cut down exactly as before – or else the killers would go straight for Bartlet instead. It was a chance the agents dared not take so long as he remained alive. While their priority would always be the President himself, even over nailing the perpetrators, they had to reach him first, and that they simply couldn't do under these conditions. They needed to take down both enemy forces first.
June looked harder at the scene below. "What in the world – he's changing course!"
Harry shared her confusion. "Yes, he's swinging wide! It looks like – like he doesn't want to get too close to the bodies on the field. But why? How can that matter now?"
Ron knew exactly what Bartlet had in mind: the hope that any shot meant for him wouldn't hit his already wounded bodyguards instead. He preferred to increase the distance he had to travel and the risk he had to run rather than have any more lives lost to his account. The chief of security still lay prone, on an almost direct line between the Grand Entrance and the mound. The President was getting nearer – but that swerve had maintained a few extra yards between them. Ron's best hope to secure his protectee at last, himself, required very close quarters.
Suddenly, the fact that he wasn't quite so close presented one glaring advantage. The machine gun opened up again, chattering furiously away with no compunction for whatever had the misfortune to enter its line of fire. A short, concentrated burst sliced up the ground barely six yards from the uncooperative executive hostage, and directly in front. Bartlet checked, closing his eyes and ducking the airborne particles. Ron was showered even more heavily. Witnesses cringed. Fresh shouting broke out on all sides.
Slowly, the President lowered his deflecting arm and re-evaluated his situation. If he stayed still, he wouldn't be shot at any more – but he'd lose the battle. If he persevered, he might win the moral point, but he wouldn't live to tell about it. Of course, when everything boiled down to the finale, he had little chance of survival anyway. What made more sense: delaying and hoping for a long-shot rescue that might not succeed… or accepting the inevitable and facing it on his terms, which would make a rescue moot?
For a moment he smiled. For a moment, he shrugged.
"Alea jacta est." Caesar was right on the money.
He collected himself and, his features locked down, took another step forward. No slower, no faster… just set on his goal. Even though that warning had been hideously close, even though he still had a long distance to cover, even though any subsequent attempt to deter him had only one way to go – up.
Ron knew it as well. Their enemies wanted a live hostage rather than a dead one, but they'd settle for a dead trophy rather than an escaped one. They couldn't let this challenge to their dictatorial authority go unpunished any more than the President could allow them to challenge his democratic authority.
The wielder of the machine gun must have lost all patience at this inexplicable obstinacy on the part of his target to reject common sense. He unleashed another barrage: at the sky, as low overhead as he dared. He didn't want to accidentally kill their hostage. One does not use automatic weapons for long-distance precision firing. He'd done great in thinning out bodyguards, but now…
Bartlet flinched at each drumbeat of sound. No matter how hard he braced himself, he couldn't help it. The extreme tension level didn't insulate him against that flinching, but rather heightened it all the more. He could hear the awful whizz of blistering steel jackets just passing his ears, or so it seemed. He knew that they were still missing him, but not by how much, or whether they were about to stop missing. What human could be immune to fear in such a scenario? Again he hesitated, weighing perseverance versus prudence. Each time he stopped made it harder to start again.
Who can say where courage comes from – the heart, the mind or the soul?The most powerful man in the world cast his lot with freedom, and set forth again.
The impulse to throw dignity to the four winds, to ignore the stabbing pains in his chest, to run with all his strength and the desire to live that was in him, surged upwards from the core of his being like bubbling lava. Probably one fact alone restrained that urge to break: changing his pace now might carry him right into a bullet that was supposed to just miss.
"We've got to help him!" June insisted. "But how?"
Harry brightened. "Hey – how about if we turn off the stadium lights? Then the gunmen can't see him!"
"Might work; the Secret Service will have night-vision for sure."
"But then, these killers probably thought of that too…"
"Plus, blackness would make the panic in the stands ten times worse."
"Damn."
The shooter had not only lost his patience, he'd abandoned his wariness. He had forgotten to reposition himself between assaults. A blacker-than-night shadow poised on the very roof of the commentators' booth zeroed in at last, waiting for that gun barrel to lift one more inch…
Only those people with a lot of experience in the sound of gunfire could tell that one shot at the end of the last automatic discharge wasn't that weapon's final word, but had come from a totally different kind of gun. The killer might've had the skill, but he didn't have the chance. He just let his long piece of ordnance fall to the ground and sank limply into the vacant seat behind him, for all the world like a sports fan who had managed to fall asleep during the show. At long last, he'd been evicted from the game.
"One shooter down." That simple report over the Secret Service channel packed more relief and grim satisfaction than words could readily convey.
However, just because one shooter had been eliminated did not mean that the President was safe – not by a long shot. Literally.
"Sir, get over here!"
Without breaking stride, Bartlet turned his head and met Ron's gaze. People who know each other well can often say volumes in a single glance. Those famous blue eyes sharpened, evaluating his chief bodyguard's condition: the rumpled attire, the grass fragments, the still-spreading stain across his thigh, the damp face, the twinges of pain. Even so, the logical conclusion was that if Ron could still get mad, he couldn't be too critically hurt. Besides, Bartlet had no possible way to help him. His priority was to get to safety; that would free up the Secret Service to nail the gunmen and get medical aid to the wounded.
Then one eyebrow flared, a refusal to obey in the whimsical confidence that for once Ron couldn't actually make him toe that security regulations line. Besides, compliance would escalate Ron's own risk.
And he's paid out more than enough already tonight. They all have.
Meanwhile, it dawned on a few minds present that there hadn't been a move from the other half of this assassination team in several seconds –
As if in answer to the thought, a single shot screamed through the hot summer night.
This one didn't miss.
The thunderbolt jarred the President's entire body, wrenched an explosive gasp from his lips and slammed him forward onto his knees. He flung out both hands and barely avoided falling flat on his face.
In the tunnel, in the West Wing, in the OEOB, in Germany, in the Residence – and throughout the still-packed bleachers of Camden Yards, and throughout the United States – people jerked sharply as though they felt that shock themselves, and their hearts constricted at the horrific sight of their national leader falling to the ground.
"He's down!" June cried. "The President's been hit!"
A nation cried as one: "NO!"
TBC…