William Bernhardt - Capitol Conspiracy

Pop! Pop! Pop pop pop!

Even from the side of the stage, Ben could see a war was taking place. Four more Secret Service agents crouched on the sides of the stage, weapons out, pointed above the heads of the crowd. He knew the problem. They couldn’t find the target.

“Nest One!” the agent standing in front of him shouted. “Where is Nest One? Come in, Nest One!”

Ten more agents came out of nowhere and formed a protective perimeter. The four circling the president moved backward as quickly as possible.

Agent Gatwick raced by, shouting, “Cadillac One. Now!”

The agent in charge of herding Ben’s group nodded and steered Ben, Mike, and Tidwell in the same general direction that the president was moving.

“Cadillac One?” Ben whispered under his breath.

He heard Mike grunt a reply, talking as he moved. “Right now, it’s probably the safest place in the city.”

Before they reached the steps at the rear of the stage, Ben saw three more Secret Service agents drop to the ground. The two men moving his entourage forward continued to plow ahead as if oblivious to the death and carnage.

Outside the stage, the crowd had advanced from panicked to frenzied. The police tried to restrain them, without success. People were climbing walls, splashing through the reflecting pool, climbing the Survivor Tree-anything to get out of the line of fire. Parents were torn between trying to keep their children covered and trying to move them as quickly as possible. Terror had seized the assemblage. The screams were heartrending. A woman near the front was holding a small child in her arms. The child was not moving.

“How can it happen again?” the woman wailed, her voice a piercing, aching cry that cut through the turmoil like a knife. “How can it happen here again?”

The raised platform that had served as a stage began to buckle. Too many people were pressing up against it, trying to escape. Ben just prayed no one had crawled beneath it. The metal supports creaked and groaned and then it all came tumbling down, buckling under the collective pressure of hundreds of desperate people.

As he approached the parked motorcade, Ben for the first time heard shots echoing far above them from different locations. Federal snipers, he guessed, or hoped, and only prayed they would find their target. Was he out of range yet? A Secret Service agent standing next to the rear door of Cadillac One suddenly dropped to the ground, horrifically answering Ben’s question.

And then he heard the shriek. In the days to come, Ben would try to explain how he knew it had come from the first lady. Was there something unique about her voice? He could never answer their questions convincingly. But he knew. He knew it with unshakable certainty.

It took his own injury to snap Ben out of his trance. All at once, he felt a stinging sensation race across his cheek, as if someone had tried to strike a match on the side of his face.

I’ve been shot! Ben thought, lightly touching the side of his cheek. Blood trickled onto his hand. His entire body began to tremble.

Dear God. I’ve been shot!

Four Secret Service agents positioned themselves around the car, guns drawn and at the ready. On a signal, the two men in front began firing, laying down a blanket of cover fire as the president’s four remaining bodyguards literally shoved him into the backseat of the car. No one was more surprised than Ben when his protectors pushed him in behind the president. Mike and Senator Tidwell were the next to enter the bulletproof sanctuary of the automobile.

“Does anyone know what’s going on?” he heard a Secret Service agent outside the car cry out. “What happened to Nest One? Why wasn’t Juliet where she was supposed to be?”

Agent Gatwick ran up to the car, shoved the doors closed, and slapped the windshield. “Go!”

“What about Emily?” President Blake shouted back at him.

Gatwick simply shook his head and pointed at the driver. “Go!”

The driver, who had never left the car, nodded.

“Go!” Gatwick shouted again.

The driver held up his hands helplessly. The panicked crowd blocked his path. There was nowhere he could go without mowing down a dozen people.

“Damnation!” President Blake swore. His face was scraped and his mouth was bleeding, but he seemed essentially intact. There was a wildness in his eyes that Ben suspected could come only from realizing that someone, perhaps many people, had tried very hard to kill him. And he wasn’t in the clear yet. What a change-ten minutes ago Ben had been stammering in the presence of this man; now he had been thrown practically on top of him and barely noticed. “At least we’re safe in here. Bastards can’t hurt us as long as we stay inside.”

Mike nodded. His ears were starting to recover from the constant sound of bullets whizzing by much too close to his face. Thank God they’d made it here. This had to be the safest place in the city right now.

So why didn’t he feel relieved?

It was a comfort knowing that Cadillac One was bulletproof, but in truth that was not being tested because the bullets weren’t coming this way. Why not?

There were ony two possible explanations. Either the president was not the primary target…

Or the sniper had him exactly where he wanted him.

Mike whispered into Ben’s ear. “Do you see that?”

“What?”

Mike was staring out the window. “It’s a reflection. On the chrome of that officer’s motorcycle. And it’s…changing.” His eyes widened. “We have to get out of this car.”

“Are you insane?” President Blake said. “There’s a killer out there! Maybe a whole terrorist cell!”

“You don’t understand,” Mike said insistently. “There’s a bomb. We have to get out of this car.”

The president protested, but Mike didn’t wait to hear any more. He lunged forward, grabbing the door handle and flinging it open.

The Secret Service men outside had their attention trained away from the car on the potential assailants, so they were taken by surprise when the rear door suddenly burst open. Mike grabbed Ben by the coat lapels and tossed him out of the car.

“What the-”

Mike didn’t hesitate a second. He hoisted the president up and out. Several agents immediately formed a protective perimeter around him.

And Gatwick and the rest of the agents had their guns trained on Mike.

“Stand down! What do you think you’re doing?”

“There’s a bomb in this car,” Mike answered, not moving. “It could blow any second.”

Gatwick stared at him. “On Cadillac One?”

“I tell you, there’s a bomb! I saw the clock. We only have seconds-”

Agent Colbert, who had done time with a bomb squad unit, ran to the far side of the limo. “My God, he’s right. Get Samson out of here.”

Two agents grabbed the president and carried him away much as Ben had seen the first lady carried earlier.

“Go!” Mike shouted as he tried to clamber out of the car. Tidwell had the opposite door open and was making his escape in the other direction.

Ben suspected there would be no personal escort for him, so he didn’t wait for help. He scrambled to his feet and ran.

The force of the explosion knocked Ben to the ground, chin first into the pavement. The sonic boom shattered his ears. Car parts flew all around him, like a hideous metallic rainfall.

Cadillac One had become a fireball.

In the midst of the thick, billowing smoke, Ben pulled himself to his feet, his face bleeding in a dozen places, his eyes watering from the fumes. He knew he had been shot at least once, maybe more. He wasn’t sure the president had moved far enough quickly enough to be protected from the explosion. But none of that was uppermost in his mind.