The gunman stopped, not ten feet in front of Gordon. He was fumbling with something. There was a sound like the tearing of paper. Then a snapping sound.
A brilliant flare seared the darkness with bright light, leaving an orange spot on Gordon’s eyelids as his eyes shut involuntarily. When he opened them, the man was looking down at him — the flare in one hand, the machine pistol in the other. The light from below his chin cast long shadows up his face, forming dark crevasses in the creases of flesh around his smiling mouth.
‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, carefully placing the flare on the ground in front of him and rising to near full height just under the sloping ceiling of their world. ‘Behold, Senator Davis, ze end of your vorld.’
He raised the gun with both hands. A swastika was carved sloppily onto his knuckles.
The stunning booms of automatic weapons in the cave-like environs threw Gordon into shock. His whole body clenched in a grip of fear so great that he could feel nothing. He opened his eyes to see the blond man lying on the ground next to the flare. Gordon stared at him, waiting for him to move. More shots rang out — these in a series of single but still rapid booms. His pursuer — his tormentor — jerked with each plug of a bullet. Sprays flew from his lifeless corpse in time with booms and flashes. Gordon watched black blood fill a small depression beside his body.
Gordon’s throat was pinched so tight with terror that he gagged, unable to draw a breath. Three men in dark suits appeared, stubby Uzis barely larger than a pistol held extended in two hands. They fanned out, combat style, ready. One crawled up to the coughing Gordon.
‘Are you hit, sir?’ the tense man asked. Gordon managed to shake his head, but then turned and vomited into the dust beside him. Gordon felt hands poke and press his body, lifting his jacket and patting him down as if for a weapon. ‘He’s good,’ Gordon heard. He watched smoke from the man’s gun barrel rise in the dying light from the flare. ‘Are there any more of them down here?’ Gordon’s savior asked. Gordon was transfixed by the darkening, reddish hue. The man’s hand shook Gordon’s arm gently. ‘Sir? Can you answer me?’
‘No,’ Gordon croaked, wiping his mouth and twisting his way through the dust toward open space. Toward the air that he suddenly craved. ‘I mean, no, there aren’t any more. Just… that one.’ He coughed on the choking stench of gunsmoke.
The three men each produced a small flashlight. The one next to Gordon pulled the lapel of his suit to his lips. ‘Big Top, Big Top, this is Red Leader,’ he said. ‘The package is secure. I say again. The package is secure.’ Gordon’s head was still swimming as he looked up at the man. A wire ran into an earphone like a hearing aid. The man’s pinstriped suit was immaculate. He wore a pin, an American flag, on his lapel — the universal badge of the Secret Service.
‘Copy that,’ he said, then motioned toward one of the other two agents. ‘Skinner. You go.’ The agent took off for the tunnel without further instructions. He too had an earphone. The third agent turned the body of the terrorist onto his back.
It was then that Gordon’s pounding heart and paralyzed mind calmed just enough to admit the ‘background’ sounds from above. The flare burned itself out, leaving only the two agents’ flashlights to light their world in narrow beams. They discussed the body. ‘That one got him,’ one said — the harsh white glow from his flashlight pointing under the dead man’s overcoat.
‘Jesus,’ the other said. ‘Look at that. Must be ten mags sewn in there.’
Gordon’s mind drifted off, away from the dark world filled with the acrid smell of smoke.
‘Oh, God!’ a woman wailed. ‘Why?’ The words were barely audible over the ringing in Gordon’s ears. But the woman’s cries rose in tone and anguish above the shouts of pain and despair of others in the gym above. Tearful, shattered sounds. There were families in the gym, nothing but families. Like Gordon’s family.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, rising to his knees.
The agents and their flashlights turned his way. ‘You’d better stay here, sir.’
‘I’m sorry, but I’ve got to…’
‘Somebody is checking, sir. On your family.’
They didn’t know. They had to check. Alive or dead. Gordon sank back down into the dirt. Alive or dead. The weight that held him there was heavier than the steel and concrete above his head.
Sounds of commotion. Sirens. ‘I need a doctor!’ someone yelled.
The two agents both grew still, listening. Something was coming over their earphones. Gordon was focused so completely on the agent nearest him that the sensation was almost physical. ‘Red Leader copies.’
Gordon gasped for air. ‘What?’ he asked — tears filling his eyes. Which way was his life headed?
‘They’re all right,’ the man said, then lifted his lapel again in the dim light and said, ‘Copy that. We’re coming out.’
‘You mean, my wife and daughters… I have two… they’re all safe?’
‘Yes, sir. They weren’t harmed. We’ve got them under our protection.’ The two Secret Service agents stood. One helped Gordon to his feet, saying ‘Watch your head,’ just as Gordon smashed it into the stands above. He was so drained, so exhausted, that he stumbled along in their grasp.
The two agents held onto Gordon’s elbows as if he were an invalid, solicitous of every beam overhead and sweeping the cobwebs from his path with their Uzis.
Gordon stopped and turned to the head agent. ‘Were they after me?’ Gordon asked. He could see in the growing light from the tunnel the nodding head of the agent. ‘Why? Why me?’
The man stared at Gordon for a moment as the other agent looked on. ‘You don’t know?’ he asked quietly, almost whispering. Gordon shook his head. The agent explained. ‘Some kid phoned in a tip about an assassination attempt to the Bethesda police. They contacted the Secret Service. The Deputy Director called the RNC and the kid’s story checked out. You were lucky, sir. Very lucky. We’d just rotated off duty at Camp David and were heading back to D.C. We were on the Beltway about six miles from here when we got the call.’
‘What… what story? What was the kid’s story that you checked out?’
There was a pause. The man considered not answering, Gordon guessed. The two agents exchanged glances. ‘Senator Davis, sir, you’re about to become the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States.’
Gordon’s head swam on hearing the words. Vice President, he thought. The two agents grabbed his elbows and ushered him on like a prisoner. Through the dizziness, the sirens, the shouting — the news somehow managed to sink in. Gordon once again halted the men, this time on the very edge of darkness which he knew would cloak the look on his face. Vice President of the United States, he thought, holding onto a steel girder. The first African-American nominee for Vice President in American history.
Thomas Marshall — President of the United States — awoke in a sweat to thoughts of war. In the confused moment before alertness came, he felt a sickening guilt over the awful tragedy of it all. In his nightmare there had unfolded a relentless march of errors.
There was a shout from outside his window. He opened his eyes, fully conscious now in a room lit only by the light from the digital alarm clock. Not yet eleven thirty. He and the First Lady had only just fallen asleep.
Marshall thought he heard another shout, and he propped himself up on his elbows. He’d had briefing after briefing on the student sit-ins at Beijing University. Several had come on the golf course as the Chinese government threatened force. His muscles were sore from the thirty-six holes he’d gotten in that day. The Camp David relaxation was just part of the ritual. Disappear during the Republican Convention. Let them have their day in the sun before kicking their butts up and down the campaign trail.