The West Wing

FIRST STRIKE

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

CHAPTER 7

Through granite will and sheer rage, the President of the United States fought off the tidal wave of pain and the smothering blanket of unconsciousness. If he blacked out now, he'd stay out. His whole body was begging for seriously-needed rest, for recuperation, for relief from torments old and new, and once this need gained a toehold it probably wouldn't release him for hours. Of course, if he continued to push his limits, at some eventual point exhaustion would rise up and short-circuit his brain.

But that would come later. If he had any say in it, not now.

There was at least some dignity in just lying there motionless, quite aside from the reduction in overall suffering. An indomitable spirit, however, is its own curse.

He lifted his head, blinked at clinging grit and dancing stars, and sucked in a tremulous breath through the scorching blaze around his heart.

At least I heard it… means I'm still alive…

The smack of another bullet not so many feet beyond his outstretched fingers helped chase away the worst of the fatigue. Adrenaline will do that.

Some muffled shouting quite nearby drew his attention. The Grand Entrance was the scene of a good-sized wrestling match – and Leo and Charlie were in the thick of it, both having to be restrained from charging the field.

"STOP!"

It was weaker than his usual roar when he was really ticked, but that presidential order would not be disobeyed. It also reached the directionals quite fine, reverberating across those twelve yards, throughout the stands and over the wires. The combatants halted in equal parts compliance and surprise.

They had to wait until he got his tortured respiration back under control. Yelling around broken ribs – back or front – comes at a steep price.

"Stay put… Stay… SAFE. I'll… do this."

The mikes caught that as well.

Ron had stopped his own arduous advance, fearing that, with Bartlet down, said advance would draw unwanted attention. They were proximate enough now that a hurried shot might hit either one of them. Meanwhile, Ron's still-bleeding thigh wouldn't let him continue much longer either.

The Man was true to his word. Slowly, agonizingly, he rolled off his laboring chest and gathered his limbs under him, ready to try standing once more.

Unable to do anything else to help, his observers urged him on.

"You can see the rip in the back of his jacket where the bullet hit!" June babbled into her mike.

Harry exhaled gustily. "He's got to be wearing a vest of some kind."

"No kidding – or he wouldn't have survived the first shot, much less this one."

"Has he ever worn a vest before?" This question was only human, and those who listened and watched were just as human as those who reported the events.

"No idea."

"From my own experience with business suits, you'd never fit something that bulky underneath."

"Still, it's a pretty sensible precaution, if you ask me."

"Sure – but publicity-wise…?"

There were two critical reactions to this exchange: the public response… and the criminal response. The latter would quite possibly launch an ammunition shopping spree. The former would most likely launch a vociferous debate.

Correction: there was also a third reaction – from the White House, and all those affiliated with it. Their position was in direct opposition to the other two. Their role would be defense… physical and political.

Leo was shaking. "If two bullets hit in the exact same spot…"

Charlie most definitely did not want him to finish that thought.

Toby rumbled like a volcano about to blow. "If anyone makes a stink about him not daring to step into public without that vest, they'll answer to me."

C.J. was simmering as well. "I'll have to deal with the questions. But he has to deal with the battle scars."

Margaret's lip curled. "Every President who throws out a pitch has worn one, ever since those things were first invented."

Debbie matched her expression. "Exactly. The Service doesn't give them a choice. And this is why."

Carol knew all about spin as well. "Without that vest he'd be dead! Would everyone prefer that?"

Will folded his arms, taking the strategic angle. "Someone should mention that he's never worn a vest before, ever."

Josh tried to shake some sense into the firmly-mounted TV. "How many times has he been in the open air, even after Rosslyn? Huh?"

Abbey said nothing. The pulse pounded visibly in her throat. That vest had preserved the heart that beat in time with her own, that was more important to her than her own.

Were those compressed Kevlar layers able to continue doing so?

Agents were descending upon the section of stands behind center field. The President's brief flight had indicated that he'd been struck directly from behind, not at an angle.

It also established one other glaring fact: they had a third gunman to find! Like the other two, this was a very skilled professional, able to do the near-impossible: infiltrate the Secret Service security and hit a small moving target at over a hundred yards with very little time to aim.

How many assassins were in this cadre? How many more might there be?

The Secret Service was back to square one: they had to nail all shooters before they could do anything else… even protect their leader.

Once again, Bartlet began to lever himself to his feet. He did his best to bite back the groans that every move wrung out of him, but the mikes heard a few anyway.

"I think the bullet hit just a bit off-center," June hypothesized. "Otherwise he'd have a broken vertebrate, and he wouldn't have a hope of standing."

"But now he's got to have more bruised ribs. He'll be lucky if he doesn't pass out from the shock." Admiration rose above Harry's dismal words.

"Wait – listen!" June grabbed her companion's arm, silencing him.

The directional mikes, stubborn and uncooperative, had picked up a series of executive mutters, a private articulation born of hard labor, coming together to form a solemn vow: not meant for others, yet just loud enough to carry…

"Never again… we will not surrender to terror!"

"All right!" Harry cheered. And the nation, the world, cheered with him. "Go, Mr. President!"

Bartlet didn't even notice that his words were being picked up and shared with the whole nation. He was draining the last reserves of his energy and his self-control. He dismissed the shouts from the tunnel, the fractured commotion from the stands (whether in support or in fear), the skin-crawling knowledge that a rifle was probably drawing a lethal bead on him right now, and everything else – everything save his drive to fight on.

Mother of God, help me… I've got nothing to promise, nothing to barter with…

It took him far longer than the previous two efforts, pushing with only one arm – favoring his left side, his right leg and his whole spinal column. It demanded all of his anger, all of his faith, and all of his internal fortitude. He couldn't stand quite straight anymore; the fire eating into his back prevented that. He staggered, coming within a hair of toppling back over. He struggled to force air past the inferno on both sides of his lungs. He wagged his head a bit, half-blinded by perspiration and weary to the bone.

He stood there for several seconds, too worn out to do anything more… yet he remained on his feet, ever defiant of those who thought they could break him.

The last hints of neatness and composure had vanished. Grass particles had been ground into jacket, trousers and shoes. His jacket and his shirt collar gaped open a couple more inches, as though to avoid restricting his air intake, and his hair was wild. One half of his face displayed bright red abrasions from the violent face-plant.

He was still on his own. He had to save himself; no mortal could aid him.

I'll probably be seeing you in a few more minutes anyway… just please, help… for just this little bit longer…

He took a step forward.

Harry couldn't resist cheering some more. "Wow! He's unstoppable!"

"And unbeatable!" Evidently June felt that such romantic nonsense fit here just fine.

The Man was extraordinarily resilient, yes… but all at once "unstoppable" seemed a bit of an exaggeration. He did stop, after completing that first step.

Not from fear: from melting prowess.

Then he managed another short step. And stopped again. And then, slowly, a third.

Leo reached forward, as though he could hurl his own strength through the air to the man who really needed it.

Charlie did not move, but the agent nearest to him kept a firm hold on his arm; one second of inattention on his part and the aide would be right out there.

C.J. repeatedly opened and closed her fists. "God, the pain he must be in…"

Toby pocketed his fists. "And not just physical."

Debbie rubbed her forehead as though she were in pain. "This is inhuman punishment."

Margaret pressed a hand to her neckline. "And yet he's doing it!"

Carol and her fellow support staffers crowded even closer to the TV bank.

Will adjusted his glasses as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Josh did believe it – barely. "How much can he take?"

Abbey breathed every bit as hard as her husband did, as though she could somehow share in his trial and take some of his anguish upon herself. If only she could!

Ron radioed a final command, before resuming his own hard path. "One more shot like that and he'll stay down even if it doesn't kill him! Find that sniper!"

The vest was still preventing fatal damage, as designed, but no human can shrug off multiple impacts of such merciless velocity. Fortunately, the gunmen hadn't figured this out sooner: that knocking the President down time and again would have been far more effective than just trying to scare him with near-misses. They had taken a cruel pleasure in shooting very close; their sadism would have been even better served by aiming repeatedly for the vest's euphemistic "safety zone," thereby torturing him without actually killing him – yet. He refused to bow to fear, but he would have had no chance against the trauma of repeated body slams.

What Bartlet had already endured took its relentless toll. His shoulders were rounded by the exertion to stand, much less walk. Every move required fierce concentration. Every pace was wretchedly slow, half the length it used to be, with a tangible pause in between to gather fresh energy. His route meandered from side to side, compensating for tenuous balance, which created a vaguely serpentine trail and increased the distance he had to cross; it amazed more than one observer each time he recovered and stumbled back on course. They could all hear his harsh gasps now. He had neither oxygen nor strength to spare for speech. During each of those pauses he swayed in place as though drunk…

Or dizzy.

Of all the people present in Oriole Park, Charlie put these pieces together first. "Leo… could those be – symptoms?"

"Oh, hell." The Chief of Staff actually paled a bit further. "An attack on top of everything else?" As though his friend's constitution hadn't been compromised enough for one night! He whirled on the nearest agent that didn't have an arm-hold on him. "Achilles Alert!"

The President had once said that stress was a prime candidate to trigger an MS relapse. Well, tonight should qualify as stressful. The agent at once radioed out to initiate the private medical protocol that had been in effect since the start of the Bartlet administration, for just such a public relapse as this.

On the field, Ron heard this transmission as well – and it jolted him to a halt. Incredibly, none of them had given that potential health glitch a single thought before now.

On camera, those blue eyes remained fastened on the presidential goal. Hunched, limping, sweating, panting, Jed Bartlet slowly walked forward, willing muscles rendered stiff and unnatural from fear and the screaming instinct for self-preservation to still obey himHewas totally focused on just moving forward and ending this. Nothing else mattered.

The field wall near third base SPLANGED with as much of a concussion as a cannonball, or so it seemed; the omnipresent cameras caught his violent shudder. Instinct won out over purpose and he stopped. Fear lent wings to imagination – he could swear he'd felt the wind of the bullet's passage. The thudding of his heart seemed to pound through every vein, strumming his nerves to fever pitch and sending fresh darts of pain to ribs and leg. Swallowing dryly, he closed his eyes against the hot glare of the floodlights.

The desire to live, to do whatever might lengthen life for even a few more precious seconds is a potent thing, a natural force born and bred in all creatures great and small. Despair is also normal; for a moment his head fell forward, and that human emotion rose in a white-hot flood that briefly drowned out pain, heat, vision and sound.

Determination and will are also part of being alive. Courage is what drives it.

Nobody who watched, or listened to the passion of the broadcasters as they described what happened next, could fail to recognize that courage when his head slowly rose again. They knew he was scared, and rightly so. Yet the President straightened his shoulders as best he could and slowly, hesitantly, stepped forward yet again. Through the fear, through the danger.

Only a fool has no fear. Real bravery is to confront the fear, in all its intensity, and to conquer it.

Still heard it… it's okay…

"He's moving at a snail's pace!" June moaned, watching and reporting as this last battle took place below.

Harry almost did the same. "And at least one of the shooters is still at large! They could kill him at any second!"

"They'll try, too! Surely they'd rather see him dead than let him get away!"

"Which means the last few seconds will be the most dangerous of all! Just before he's out of their sights!"

"And there's nothing anyone can do about –"

The door to the booth swung open.

Once again the man in black with the ferocious assault rifle confronted them.

Both commentators froze. What had they done wrong this time?

"We need your help."

In eerie unison, June and Harry performed one slow blink. Okay, they hadn't expected that.

"Turn your cameras on the stands. Maybe we can spot the sniper from here."

"Yeah!" Harry obeyed at once. "Greg! Now hear this…"

The image that hit the networks, the TV channels and the Jumbotron display over the outfield did not change: the President advancing one heartbreakingly slow step at a time. Every other camera, though, took up the task of panning the stadium sections, and all hands that could be spared followed multiple monitors in the producer's office and in the announcers' booth, peering for the first clue. A gun barrel… spectators scattering from one spot… anything.

The agents didn't want the news to get around that some members of the crowd had brought down the second gunman themselves; that might incite others to try, and no one wanted a supply of dead heroes. And yet, despite their silence on the matter, a current of empowering enthusiasm circulated in subtle ripples among those who had taken part in that citizens' arrest. The positive reaction of a few started to influence others. If they did it once, they could do it again!

That fervor began to spread outward, slowly replacing the panic that had created one beast and begetting another in its place. The mob, the herd, fragmented once again, creating new pockets of secondary identity within the whole – pockets of lesser panic.

A cornered animal, beaten and bruised, pushed to its uttermost limits, will finally realize that flight is not the only avenue of safety. There comes a time when to turn on the attacker, to face the hunter, is the only choice survival allows.

They certainly had incentive. They, too, were trapped in this ballpark – almost as securely as the President himself. They were being threatened and attacked, not only directly, but also symbolically in the form of their elected representative. They were witnesses to the unthinkable, a vital factor in the total equation. The entire world was watching this insane drama play out – a drama that had bloomed to involve everyone. Everyone had been united and fused together, as only disaster can do. Therefore everyone should be willing to take a hand and contribute to a happy ending: to survive and continue.

Yes, there is safety in numbers. Yes, a crowd is only as good as its lowest common denominator. Sometimes, though, that safety helps individual minds find the strength to act. Sometimes that low denominator can be the best of "us" in the end. And when these things do happen, the group identity become stronger.

A crowd this big was bound to splinter a bit, and panic a lot, particularly without clear direction. Still, they were not without any direction at all. The last man standing on the baseball field undisputedly supplied some of that.

The office of the Presidency has a mystique and charisma regardless of who occupies it. Its current incumbent had been justly elected to lead – but even more so, he was leading, in every respect of the word. He was setting an example that could not be ignored or belittled.

This was as immediate as life can get – survival at its most terrible. The people were not really changing their mental references… just refining them in the forge of total fear.

The nation had watched one of its Presidents die in 1963. It had seen another dodge the same fate by mere inches in 1981. It had come appallingly close to losing this President in exactly the same fashion in 2000. Its people did not deserve to have such a horror repeated here tonight – and they didn't have to permit it. Suddenly, quite a few individuals in the throng saw themselves as an extension of the Secret Service. The people were rising up together to fight for their leader, their home! The new, compelling wave of patriotism and simple decent humanity spread forth, just as The Man had said mere heartbeats ago: "NEVER AGAIN!"

That wave faced its first challenge almost at once: a fresh volley of shots – individual trigger pulls, but three in quick succession. One hit the dirt near the Yankees' dugout. One rebounded off the fence above home plate, directly in front of the seating row reserved for the guest of honor.

The third one rocketed down the Grand Entrance, actually plucking the shoulder of Bartlet's jacket as it passed. He instinctively yanked his head sideways at the sensation of the very air parting right beside his ear. That shot entered the concrete tunnel at an angle and caromed wildly from wall to wall inside, missing Charlie by a margin far too narrow for comfort.

There were still some people in the crowd who felt either safe enough or fatalistic enough to observe rather than flee – enough to create a collective groan at these horribly close calls. They were almost a mass organism by now, drained by unremitting tension, watching as that lone individual drew the hunter in for a final strike.

Ron reached the only possible conclusion: the most horrendous of all. "They're going for a killing shot!"

The third gunman had given up on stopping the President alive.

He did not appear to be quite as expert a marksman as the other sniper, or this would have ended here and now. But that wouldn't stop him from trying again. Bartlet was staggering even more than before; by this stage of the game he was dazed and uncomprehending as well as exhausted. Fortunately, that stagger made him a slightly more difficult target. This time the sound of shooting did not make him hesitate; no more, that is, than the prolonged pause he already took between each pace. He had reached the point where all of these sounds, no matter how loud or sharp or urgent, no longer held much power over him. He was too dog-tired even to think.

He still had eight endless yards to go.

This third shooter's lesser skill at the much harder head shot granted an extra smidgeon of time – but no more. If he kept slinging multiple shots like the previous cluster, one of them had to hit soon.

A person can walk on a leg that's been shot, so long as the femoral artery and the bone itself are intact. Also, adrenaline and endorphins are unbelievably potent chemicals, especially when mixed with will power. After all, the strongest painkillers in existence are produced by the human body. Ron banished all thought of pain and infirmity and scrambled to his feet.

The gunman's attempt to bracket his shots, in the hope that one of them would land on target, was his undoing. He had stayed in the same place too long. Turning to go in search of a new ambush-point, he suddenly found himself cornered. Not, he realized in his first taste of the same terror he and his compatriots had been handing out all this time, by the deadly efficient agents of the Secret Service – but by no less than twenty ball fans. None of them armed; all of them angry. Angry at him.

For those watching and listening, reality seemed to twist and slow down. Exhausted almost beyond endurance and showing it to the world, the President pushed himself wearily closer to that shadowed entrance. His respiration was fast and rasping, strained by agony, half-strangling him. Leo leaned forward on the threshold, gesturing dramatically, his lips moving, but the crowd's constant clamor drowned any words of encouragement.

Or words of warning – nobody could be sure.

Ron gathered all the rage and frustrated helplessness of this entire evening and used the force of that fury to launch a low, desperate charge. He knew that his protectee's luck was about to run out for good; he had to get him out of the line of fire now. He closed the last few yards by flinging himself forward, rugby style.

Bartlet placed one more stumbling foot before the other. No energy remained to spend on trying to understand –

The camera panned forward again: Leo twisting forcefully in the grip of his agent, breaking free, lunging forward onto the field.

– he sensed rather than heard what the cameras and the reporters had already given to the world: the sudden rush of movement behind him –

Frantic, knowing he was about to lose everything, the assassin leveled his weapon in a rush and yanked the trigger one more time.

Ron plowed into the President from behind and hurled him towards the shelter of the staircase. Forget about bruises and broken ribs; they would heal. The next gunshot might not.

– a strong pair of arms clamped around his burning chest and a rapidly moving shoulder rammed his bullet-scored back –

CRA –

– and the inside of his brain exploded in a crimson light that turned swiftly black, granting him time for only one despairing thought –

I never heard it.

At the very same instant that the senior agent impacted with his protectee, he felt Bartlet spasm in his arms. The head snapped forward. Something warm and damp splattered his own face.

The camera caught it perfectly: the blazing red halo blossoming from The Man's skull – exactly like the horror depicted in the Zapruder film forty-two years ago.

Leo dashed onto the green, with splendid timing to meet these two soaring bodies full-on and get mown down. His boss and best friend was propelled into his embrace. He landed underneath, hard, yet still doing everything he could to cushion Bartlet's fall. However, he'd forgotten that Bartlet came with an attachment: a very solid, very fast-moving chief of security. Leo's head and spine whammed against the earth.

Ron rolled off double-quick, speared by an icicle of total horror. In a flashing microsecond he realized that, because of his own handicapped locomotion, because he had throw himself into that tackle so hard, because he had tackled his protectee so low – the shot he just heard went over his head. It had missed him entirely –

The President would have been a few critical inches taller at that instant –

The President had convulsed at the report –

The President's head had –

Gasping, Leo found himself flat on his back on the lawn, with a heavy, unidentified weight handicapping his every effort to draw air. It took a moment to clear his vision – and then he instantly wished he could blot out the sight forever. Jed Bartlet's body rested across his chest, utterly still. Jed Bartlet's face pressed into his shoulder, eyes closed. Jed Bartlet's blood stained his suit, scarlet and fresh.

Charlie stood right over both of them, petrified, too stunned to make a sound.

This horrific scene detonated only a yard or two short of the Grand Entrance. In full public view. Agents from the tunnel closed in at once to form a protective circle, guns out – but not before the cameras, the fans, all of them saw what so many of them had tried so earnestly to prevent: an unmoving world leader with unnatural burgundy all across the top of his head.

"NO!" June's shriek split the skies.

"He can't be, he can't be, he can't be…" Harry's repeated disbelief underlined his colleague's reaction: soft, unchanging, inescapable.

C.J. wrenched away from the sight. Toby caught and held her.

Debbie and Margaret grabbed for each other's arms, their breath rushing out in tandem.

Carol and all two dozen of her companions went stock-still in an instant.

Will grunted loudly, as if someone had punched him full in the stomach.

Josh reeled backwards, as though he could physically retreat from the truth.

Abbey's voice rang throughout the Residence: one sustained note of wordless denial.

The Family lost its patriarch.

The nation lost its duly elected representative.

The world lost a major component of its human conscience.

The crowd at Camden Yards didn't hear any vocal announcement – not even the piercing lament from the commentators' booth, which wasn't channeled through the speakers – but they had no need for it. The picture was real-time and magnified on the big screen for all to see. An ear-splitting howl billowed upwards on all sides, higher and stronger than anything the crowd had produced to date. This was not triumphant glee, nor terrified alarm. This was grief.

Leo eased himself out from underneath the limp deadweight that was Jed Bartlet. Every muscle trembling, he cradled the bloody head as it lolled into his lap, and stared down at the still, expressionless face. His expression was inconsolable.

Then, in the slow motion of a nightmare, he looked sideways… and met the desolate gaze of Ron Butterfield.

Ron's elevated eyebrows asked a single question.

Leo couldn't do it.

Ron could.

He crawled the last foot and a half over. For the first time showing fear at what he would find, he reached for the most obvious place to know: the throat. Searched for the pulse of his protectee – his President.

The man he had offered his own life to protect. The man he had failed.

He struggled to quell the tremor of his hand, to gain an accurate reading…

Then the fingers dropped away, scratching at the ground as Ron finally allowed himself to fall.

TBC…