ENJOY! BIG THINGS COMING UP
The explosion rocked Elizabeth as if she'd been right there.
They'd lost visual on Emma when she'd rushed out of the room.
They could still hear.
But all Elizabeth could see was the girl, there, bleeding on the table.
But she heard the explosion.
She'd heard enough bombs go off in her time to know that the intercom had been close.
She was frozen in time.
She could feel everything throughout her body.
The blood pounding through her ears.
The table pushing into her elbows.
Her hands holding up her head.
The tears threatening to rip through her eyelids.
She'd physically jumped at the sound.
Isabelle's voice cut through the pounding in her ears. "Emma?" Into the microphone that'd been ripped from Elizabeth's hand. "Emma? Can you hear me?"
Elizabeth couldn't breathe. Her chest wouldn't move. Her lungs wouldn't expand.
"Emma?"
Then Elizabeth heard Ellen, "Information from the base evacuation."
Then she heard a man's voice. Not the voice she wanted to hear.
"Agent Hirst here." He sounded breathless. "Confirmation of the bomb exploding."
"Casualties?" Gordon asked.
A pause. Then, through the warbled intercom to the Agent, he said, "Blast center appears to be about a mile and a half away." Then he answered, "No one on the base was affected."
No one on the base.
"Assessment of the blast radius?" Ellen asked.
A pause. Then. "Small. It would've been devastating to the base. But in the open air," the chaos of movement and yelling around him curled through the call, "…we need to check for radiation radius, but initial assessment is good."
"Emma?" Isabelle kept calling through the radio.
"Eyes on McCord?" Ellen ventured to ask.
A pause. Then Mike said, "We're assembling a crew once we reach the hazmat suits. We want to keep everyone safe here."
Then Isabelle, "Mike, immediate medic attention in the interrogation room, please."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Elizabeth still couldn't catch her breath.
Gordon, to the people in the room, said, "I think we send Special Forces in. We need to identify how much of the uranium was used."
"Because we could have another bomb like this" Ellen added, "if we don't make sure that was all the uranium."
Isabelle hit a button, sending the intercom in her ear to the whole room. "Emma?"
Then Elizabeth heard the voice that allowed her to breathe again.
"Mom?"
Air hit her lungs, and her hands started shaking. And she got the words out. "Emma? Are you ok? Where are you? What…"
The static on the other end felt like an entire minute, but in reality was only a moment. Weak. But there, Emma's voice said, "I can move. And walk. I just…"
Before Elizabeth could say anything, Isabelle said, "Injury assessment?" Clinical. Methodical.
Elizabeth knew what her friend was doing. This was something they were taught in the field immediately. Assessing their need – it was useful in a triage situation, where they had to get to the most injured agent.
Agent. The word connected with her daughter still made Elizabeth's blood boil at the thought.
Like a pro, Emma began, starting at her head, "Laceration across my forehead. Twisted or broken left arm."
Elizabeth drew in air sharply.
"… Cuts and bruises along my legs." Emma continued. "The truck flipped."
Elizabeth shook her head, biting her lip.
"Bruises from the airbag, I think, no broken ribs."
"Any burning?" Isabelle asked, then clarified, "How far away from the blast were you?"
Elizabeth listened. Terrified. Images of Henry with radiation poisoning in the hospital ran through her mind. How sick he had been. How close they'd been to losing him.
"No burning." Emma said, "I don't think…"
Then she stopped.
Elizabeth, still unable to form words, watched Isabelle's face.
"Emma?" Isabelle asked. "Are you…"
Then she heard Mike's voice. "Found Agent McCord."
Elizabeth fought the bile rising to her throat.
They could hear beeping. From the radiation test.
After what felt like an eternity, she heard, "No levels of radiation surrounding Agent McCord."
"How far away?" Gordon asked. "When do you start getting radiation readings?"
Another moment. And another.
Then.
"Six hundred and forty-three feet."
And Ellen took a breath, and Elizabeth looked to her.
"We'll need to do more tests." Ellen said, meeting Elizabeth's eyes. "But, from experience, I think we're safe."
Elizabeth nodded. Unable to express the relief.
Knowing she still had to be President. She still had to deal with the situation. And get her daughter home.
Elizabeth stood to her feet, the anger of what had happened returning, giving her strength. With as much authority as she could muster, she said, "I want updates when we get readings on how much of the uranium was used."
"Yes Ma'am." Gordon said.
"After all the tests have been done, please get…" She couldn't refer to Emma like they'd all been referring to her. She couldn't classify her daughter as an agent. She couldn't. And she hesitated, and then said, "… get my daughter out of there."
"Yes Ma'am." Ellen said.
And Isabelle said, "We'll get her out of there as fast as possible."
Elizabeth needed out. She needed air. She needed to think.
But as she walked by Isabelle, she turned her head to the side, staring Isabelle down. Then she hissed, "When you get my daughter out of the dangerous place you put her in," Elizabeth leaned in, inches from her friend's face, "I want to see you in my office."
Isabelle nodded.
Then Elizabeth left the Situation Room. Walking. Leaving behind the chaos. Leaving behind the place she'd been so blindsided. Not by terrorists. Not by foreign agents. Not by the bomb. But by her best friend. And her daughter.
The rest of the day went by Elizabeth in a blur.
Not that it went fast. Dear Lord, Elizabeth wished it had. No. Hours seemed to claw at the carpet in her office, refusing to pass. Refusing to go by.
She met with dignitaries. She had phone calls with ambassadors. She did her job.
She took photos. She did all the things expected of her.
But if someone asked her to list what she'd done the rest of the day after the Situation Room, she couldn't have named one.
When Blake came into the office, around ten that night, and informed her that there was nothing else on her schedule, she thanked him and sent him home, rejecting his offer to stay if she needed him. She just asked him when her daughter was scheduled to arrive. He told her she was scheduled to arrive at seven in the morning. Then she let him go home.
No. She needed the quiet. She needed to lean back in her chair and attempt to file through what had happened.
Not that she didn't know what happened.
But. She allowed herself to feel what had happened.
Not just from today.
The images flashed through her mind. From that first ransom video almost ten years ago – watching her little girl read signs that her captors had given her, only to see Emma break down and call for Elizabeth. How she'd seen the bruises on her twelve-year-old's face, how it had hit in her the gut – that there was nothing she could do to help.
Nothing she could do when Elizabeth thought she was watching Emma being beheaded. The terror she'd felt, watching her daughter on the screen – crying and begging for her life. Elizabeth remembered falling to the ground, seeing all the blood, thinking that her daughter was gone. Dead. Right there. How she'd been unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to do anything but wail in utter grief.
There was nothing she could do to help when she'd seen shots being fired at her daughter and Isabelle as they'd gone in to rescue Emma. Having lost her, and then thinking they would lose her again, Elizabeth could remember how she'd clung to the new hope, afraid to let go of something she thought she'd already lost.
She'd been helpless there, watching Emma and Sterling on the hill, hearing gunshots and watching their bodies tumble down the hill. Watching.
Watching.
She'd seen it. She'd seen it all. With her eyes. Watched her daughter come so close to death more times than any mother should ever have to.
She'd buried an empty casket. She'd put the flowers on the grave. She'd begged God to take her instead. She'd fought to continue to live while thinking her daughter was not.
Every emotion, Elizabeth had felt them. Loss. Emptiness. Anger. Fear. Terror. Horror. Relief.
Henry came into the office around two in the morning. Elizabeth couldn't talk to him. She just couldn't. She knew they were fighting. She knew the anger she'd taken out on him hadn't been his fault. But she couldn't even talk about it.
She couldn't stop playing the events over and over in her mind. How many times she'd almost lost her daughter. How many times Henry had been there to comfort her. He'd always shown up for her. Always.
But right now, she couldn't even give him words. She'd asked Gordon to inform Henry what had happened. She knew her husband would be angry that she hadn't told him herself. She couldn't say words.
And despite him being there in the office, wanting to talk, Elizabeth had just ignored him until he'd left the office.
Staring off into space. Needing that space. Needing to think through what the fuck she was going to do. Needing – needing to never feel this way again.
As the sun came up behind her, reflecting through the office windows, Elizabeth knew what she'd have to do. She didn't know what would happen. She didn't know how people would react.
But she knew this – she'd never watch her daughter's life almost end in front of her ever again.
