Chapter 8

The closer they got to the park, the slower the traffic got. He'd heard on the radio that the streets around the park had been blocked off five blocks in every direction. They'd have to park soon and walk the rest of the way.

Donna was crying again. She'd tried Josh about five times in the last five minutes and had called the White House. Now she was staring out the window again, tears falling down her face, holding her phone reverently in her hands and Matt wished his wife were here. He was no good with crying women, especially crying women he didn't know.

"Donna," he said lightly as he pulled onto a side street.

"Hmm…" she said distractedly, still looking out the window.

"Donna," he said a bit more sternly and she slowly turned her head and caught his eye in the rearview mirror.

"Yes?"

"We're gonna have to park here and walk the rest of the way."

"Ok," she said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"Donna, I need you to promise me you're going to stay with me when we get out of the van."

She looked at him and didn't answer.

"I mean it Donna. You have to stay with me. If I can't trust you to do that, I'm turning around and going back to the hotel."

"You can't hold me hostage in a minivan, Congressman," she spit out at him.

Yes, everything she said reminded him how much like Helen she was. "No, but Josh asked me to keep you safe and if that means not going to that park, that's what I'll do."

Donna pulled at the door and he was glad he'd thought ahead to hit the power locks. She shot him an evil glare and had the situation not been so serious, he was sure he would've laughed at her. He found himself looking forward to all of them going to dinner once this whole mess was over. He'd have Helen arrange it. "Josh is over protective."

"I have no doubts. But in this case, I agree with him. I need you promise me a few things."

"What?"

"You stay with me and Ned at all times."

She looked at him for several seconds before replying in a flat voice. "Fine."

"You stay calm and let the police do their jobs."

"Fine."

"You don't, and this is a big one Donna, you don't go into that crowd or attempt to go near that pavilion."

She looked away and out the window. "I can't promise that."

"Donna."

"I'm an adult, Congressman." She looked back at him. "You need to respect my decisions."

His only response was to pull out of the parking spot and to start driving again. He could bluff as well as she could.

"He might need me," she whispered a second later.

"He needs you to be safe. That's been his number one goal throughout this entire thing. That's why he's there, Donna. You need to respect his decisions." He stressed 'his' and suddenly found himself thinking that sometimes he needed to do the same thing. Josh was a brilliant man, and Matt tended to forget it.

She was quiet for another minute while he continued driving down the side street. "I won't go in the crowd," she said quietly.

"Or near the pavilion."

"Or near the pavilion," she repeated.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sticking his head out the door, he couldn't believe the chaos outside. The noise was even worse now than before, if that was even possible. Someone was screaming into the microphone on what was left of the stage, switching between English and Spanish, some others were cheering him on and screaming as they listened, police were yelling into bullhorns, trying to stop the fighting, and countless police and ambulance sirens were going off not far away. He heard a few gunshots and hoped it was the police firing into the air, although he couldn't help remembering that the officer who was in the pavilion had an empty gun holster on his hip, and his gun could be anywhere.

Directly in front of him stood the bulk of the crowd, still gathered around the man on the microphone, waving signs and screaming. He did notice that it was a smaller crowd than before and hoped it meant the police were making some progress. Off to either side of him were huge fights, ten or so men brutally beating on each other while others stood by watching and cheering. He saw more than one knife, watched as men kicked each other, saw a man get stabbed in the arm, all in a matter of seconds.

The good news, he thought, was that with the fighting, people were huddled and there was a bit more room to maneuver through the crowd. He willed his hands to stop shaking and took off at a quick pace to his right. He didn't run, didn't want to make a spectacle of himself. Instead, he walked quickly, ducking in and out of people, keeping his head down and trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

He'd only gone about twenty feet when out of the corner of his eye he saw two boys fighting, He stopped suddenly as the bigger of the two, who he figured still couldn't be older than ten, shoved the smaller boy against a tree, then hit him harshly in the face. The other one continued swinging, hitting anything he could reach. Josh turned to his left, went up to the boys and pulled them apart harshly. Surprised, they stopped fighting and looked at him. He let go of the smaller one, who took off running, but held onto the bigger one for a few seconds, then shoved him off in the other direction.

Turning again, he continued walking quickly. He looked up when he saw two police officers in a group of men, one of them handcuffing someone while the other held on to the two others, who were already handcuffed. He'd just started towards them when he felt something hit his leg and he fell to the ground.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mike heard Toby saying something on his cell phone and knew he was talking to Donna Moss, who by all accounts was away from the scene. But there was something about the way Toby was looking at him as he finished the call, something about the way he had asked about Josh. Something had happened. He didn't know what, and he didn't know why Donna Moss and Toby Ziegler knew it before him, but he know that something had happened. "Hold on a sec, Jeff," he said to the agent in charge at the scene who he'd been talking to.

He put his hand over the receive and made eye contact with Toby, who simply and quietly said, "Josh isn't answering his cell phone. Something's happened to him."

"Maybe…"

"Something's happened," Toby said, cutting him off and shaking his head.

Mike looked at him. Toby had the luxury of going off suspicions, but Mike had to know the facts. Still, Toby and Donna knew Josh well. Mike knew him pretty well himself, had never known him to not answer a call from Donna. He put the phone back up to his ear. "Someone needs to get Lyman out of there now."

"We're working on it," Jeff yelled into the phone. "There are fights everywhere here. Guns, knives… they've got some guy on stage telling people to fight. Telling them to show us what it's like in Cuba. What they live with there. It's… I've never seen anything like it."

He could barely hear Jeff over the noise, and he could only imagine how much louder it was there. "What about the pavilion?"

"I'll see what I can find out," he yelled. "Hold on."

Mike turned back to Toby. "He's checking on the pavilion now. He…" Jeff was talking into the phone again and Mike turned his attention back to him. "What'd you find out?" he asked loudly.

"The door's open. We can't see anything inside, we're too far away, but the door to the pavilion was closed a few minutes ago and it's open now."

"Shit," he sighed. "You've got to find him, Jeff. He could be recognized in that crowd, and if they recognize him, they'll kill him."

"Yeah!" He heard Jeff screaming to someone in the background for a minute and then he was back on the line. "I'm sending three men in now! I'll call you back when I know something!"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

She watched out the window as he circled the block again and parked in the same spot he'd been in a minute before. She looked at her cell phone. About 50 minutes since the whole thing started, eight since he'd stopped answering his phone. She tried him one more time while the congressman parallel parked on the small house-lined street. His voicemail picked up again, this time without ringing, and she left him another message to call her immediately.

When she stepped out of the van, Ned and the congressman were standing right next to her door, all but daring her to run from them. She simply looked at them and started quickly walking towards the park, towards the noise, and they followed.

She tried not to dwell on the noise. It wasn't bad yet, but they were still several blocks from the park. Instead, she told herself over and over that he promised to have dinner with her that night. He had to be ok, because if he wasn't, they couldn't have dinner and that would mean he'd lied. And Josh didn't lie to her.

"Chicken Fighter," the Congressman said, "how long have you and Josh been together?"

"Eight years," she said distractedly. This would be the first time they'd eaten together since breakfast the morning she quit. He wouldn't cancel on her this time, like he had lunch all those times. He'd promised, and Josh never broke promises to her.

"Then you must know the assistant," Ned said as they walked.

"The assistant?" she asked, coming out of her reverie.

The congressman chuckled. "The one Ned will never be," he said.

"You're Josh's assistant?" she asked him with more than a little shock in her voice. She might have quit, but she wasn't completely prepared to be replaced.

"I'm the campaign assistant. I'm all we can afford."

She nodded. "We're going to have a talk later about you taking better care of him. The next time he wants to stay behind someplace, you drag his ass to the van."

He smiled. "So you did know her."

"Yeah, I knew her."

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

He felt a blow to his stomach and rolled onto his side to try to get up. He saw brown work boots just as the second kick hit him. It was harder and knocked the wind out of him and he tucked himself into a ball as the third kick hit him in the leg. There was another blow, this time to his back and he covered his face and his forehead with his hands. There was one more kick to his back and then he could feel someone breathing on his neck.

He kept his arms around his head and tried to catch his breath as the man stooped over him and pulled him up by his collar until he was standing. Slowly and carefully, he brought his arms down just a little and opened his eyes. The man then leaned in close to him and screamed, "What you do to my son?"

Josh's eyes went huge. "He… he was getting hurt. I was trying to help," he yelled over the noise. He didn't know which of the two boys this man was talking about, but it didn't matter, neither one was safe.

The man used Josh's shirt that was fisted in his hand to choke him, punching him in the face and then the stomach. Josh heard voices over the crowd just as he fell to the ground again. "Stay the hell away from my son," the man yelled, kicking him once more in the stomach before running off.