Chapter 1
“The President has been shot.”
The words sliced through every distraction, cut short every conversation within earshot of a television set. Across the country, a hush fell, heads turned, all eyes fixed intent on the screen, where the grave face of the announcer delivered the shocking news.
“President Holden, in Boston today to address an economic summit at the HarvardBusiness School, has been attacked by an unknown assailant who appeared with a handgun and fired multiple shots at close range.”
The text on the screen confirmed the report.At the top, in bold yellow, “Special News Report: President shot,” a red banner across the bottom, “Assassination attempt in Boston,” a crawl starting to scroll underneath, “President Holden received multiple gunshot wounds prior to speech at Harvard Business School, unidentified shooter, seriously injured, . . . ” The network logo in the lower right corner, a rough silver oval like a penciled circle marking the critical term, “AEX-TV.”
“There is no official word yet as to the President’s condition, but he collapsed on the scene and is receiving emergency medical treatment. The assassination attempt occurred in a corridor outside the lecture hall, and apparently was not captured on film.”
The America Uncovered Exchange, or AEX, was a cable network established only two years earlier, still trying to position itself as a reliable news organization. The parent company’s flagship organ for many years was America Uncovered Weekly, a print news outlet distributed nationwide primarily on racks at checkout stands in supermarkets and drugstores. The Weekly established its reputation decades ago as a fearless herald of the exposé, breaking stories of scandal and corruption that more conventional news organizations shied away from covering. But riding the decline of the newspaper industry and beset with criticism that it had become just another vulture of celebrity gossip, the Weekly began quietly pursuing a strategy of media diversification. The online presence blossomed nicely into a family of related sites catering to an array of news appetites, but the launch of AEX-TV had been a gamble, a major investment aimed at building a mainstream presence.
“The identity of the gunman has not been disclosed, but it appears to have been an individual white male. The reasons for the attack are not immediately apparent.The shooter was himself shot in an exchange of gunfire, and has been taken into custody. His condition, like the President’s, is not presently known.”
The correspondent was a familiar face, sitting in his trim dark suit at the slick desk in the AEX-TV newsroom, bustling in the background with the determined activity of a dedicated news enterprise.Cedric Lane, for years, had been a staple on CNN, a crusty handsome face full of old-school journalistic integrity, with a deep rolling tongue to deliver serious news with resonant polish and somber gravity. When he left CNN over a programming scuffle, refusing to cede airspace to a younger anchor with a more airy demeanor and inferior reporting pedigree, the fledgling America Uncovered Exchange was quick to offer him an opportunity to head up a major new operation, with full journalistic control and a generous compensation package. To a network anxious to secure credibility and instant brand recognition, his ponderous brow and rich baritone were worth every penny.
“Again, the breaking news, President Alexander Scott Holden is the victim today of an assassination attempt in Boston, shot repeatedly by a single gunman. Both the President and the shooter went down in a rapid exchange of gunfire. The condition of both men, at this time, is not known. Stay with us at AEX-TV as we keep it here to report the information as it becomes available, on this tragic turn of events.”
. . .
Grace Livy heard the news two minutes before it was reported on the network. She was coming out of a lecture at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, for a continuing education class she was taking on basic film and video technique, when she got the call on her cell from Kenneth Weis, her sometime boss for her part-time gig with AEX-TV.
“Hel – ”
“Are you anywhere near the HarvardBusiness School right now?”
“Well, sort of, not really.”
“Get there right away – the President has just been shot.”
“What?”
She’d heard that President Holden was going to be in town, speaking at some economic event at Harvard, but it never registered it could possibly have anything to do with her. She’d served for nearly a year as AEX’s designated correspondent in Boston, covering a dozen or so stories with a Bay State angle, but it hadn’t provided the steady work she hoped to develop. So far it was a few sporting events, a sex scandal involving a zoo employee and a Hollywood actor’s DUI on the Turnpike – nothing like the President delivering a speech at a stuffy gathering of brainiac economists.
“What about Gerald?” she asked.
“He didn’t make the trip, it doesn’t matter.”
Kenneth was losing patience. Gerald Devaas was the official Washington, D.C. correspondent for AEX-TV. That, of course, was a full-time gig. She knew Kenneth had worked very hard to get Gerald his credentials for the White House Press Corps, squeezing all the legitimacy he could extract from the association with Cedric Lane. Gerald was a former ESPN personality, hired away for name recognition and a sardonic delivery, not especially noted as a Beltway insider.
“Grace, you need to be moving right now,” Kenneth spilled the words in a rush, “Get to the Harvard Business School.” His voice was pleading. “Please.”
“I’m on it, boss.” She started running. “I’ll call you when I get close.”
She sprinted south to Huntington Avenue, thinking as she ran. Not good. A cab would be hopeless, even if she could snag one quick it would be impossible to get anywhere close by driving into the site of a presidential assassination attempt.She was almost on top of the Longwood T stop on the Green Line, but no straight shot to her destination. The nearest to that would be Harvard Square on the Red Line, which would mean backtracking all the way downtown to Park just to switch trains, then circling to a stop that was still across the Charles River from the Business School, half an hour at best. She could hear Kenneth whimpering with frustration in her mind’s ear.
Grace paused at the subway entrance, reluctant to commit. Faster to run it, must be a couple miles. Alive or dead, the President would be long gone before she could possibly get there. They’d probably take him to Mass General, a direct dash from the Harvard B School on Storrow Drive, hugging the river, the largest hospital in the region, one of the most prestigious in the nation. But maybe not. Brigham and Women’s was a little closer, not such an easy drive, but it also served as the research hospital for the HarvardMedSchool. Keep it in the Harvard family. And Brigham and Women’s Hospital was just up the road off Huntington, only a couple blocks, she could be there in nothing flat.
She was racing across Longwood Avenue, dodging traffic, before she could second guess the sudden notion. If she was wrong, Kenneth would be furious, every second for him was clearly an agonizing eternity. But in that case, she’d run north to the BusinessSchool and lose only a couple minutes, no need even to mention the little detour. And if her hunch turned out to be correct, well, she’d be there in two minutes, probably even before an ambulance could get there from north of the Turnpike.She might be in a position to cover the arrival.
Already passing the southern end of the hospital complex, she turned right onto Francis Street, looking for the Emergency entrance. Seemed to be a separate brick complex on this end, trees, a ledge, the expanse of the main hospital up ahead. Finally, the front of the building fell back past a turnaround area, a flurry of activity, cars going in and out, a big blue sign saying “Ambulatory Services” and “Parking,” but no mention of “Emergency.” Can’t waste precious time going in the wrong place, the Emergency Room must be further up the road. She hardly slowed, still running hard, dodging pedestrians. Another block, a seemingly endless stretch of building, she must have made a mistake, should’ve taken the first entrance.
Slowing in doubt, she looked ahead, the brick was giving way to a glass structure beyond, where an elevated walkway crossed Francis to another glass building across the street. Is that the end of the hospital, the start of something else? Then she saw it, another blue sign, “Main Entrance,” it said, and yes, “Emergency.” With a fresh burst she closed the distance, realized the glass edifice rested on concrete pillars overhanging a paved turnaround, an ambulance was sitting there, sliding doors beyond. Heart pumping, she raced in.
Half expecting a storm of excitement surrounding a dramatic effort to save the life of the President of the United States, Grace had to adjust her flushed scramble abruptly. It was quiet inside, no one was moving fast, no sign of agitation. A corridor one direction, people walking calmly, a woman in a wheelchair being rolled out of an elevator by an elderly man in a leisurely fashion. The other way, past a legend “Emergency Services,” a reception counter, a man standing with one arm elevated, digging out an insurance card with the wrong hand, a woman behind the counter in a pale green frock, presenting him with a set of forms to sign, another hospital employee in pale green sitting behind her, keying information into a computer with an air of tedium. Scanning the waiting area, a dozen or fifteen people lounging on drab cushioned furniture, clutching various body parts but otherwise waiting, patiently or not, resigned to a status of indeterminate delay.Everyone was watching an elevated television screen, where Cedric Lane was reporting the breaking story of the shocking assassination attempt.
Damn, damn, damn. Wrong place.Story of her life. She worked hard, she had ideas, she was persistent and resourceful, but it always seemed to come back to this, can’t buy a break.Her phone chose that moment to start buzzing. Kenneth, obviously dying for an update. Not going to be happy to hear she ran hard as she could to the wrong location. Face the music, girl, she was always good at that, anyway. Then she noticed. The pale green woman sitting at the computer behind the reception counter had answered the phone, stood up, and turned, her face drained and slack. She dropped the phone in her chair, gripped the arm of the other employee and whispered furiously in her ear. The other shot her a glance of shocked disbelief, surveyed the waiting area numbly, and moved out in a daze from behind the counter. Grace picked up her call, speaking low and fast, eyes on the unfolding development.
“Kenneth, don’t say a word, I’m in the Emergency Room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, they’re about to bring in the President. The only camera I have is my iPhone, so when I call you back, be ready for a live feed. Do you understand? Say yes or no.”
“Yes.” Bless his soul, there wasn’t the slightest pause.
“Won’t be long, maybe a minute.”
The receptionist ushered the man at the counter back into the waiting area, while her co-worker headed back to the triage rooms opposite. Grace hovered near the entrance until the hospital employee stepped forward and turned to address the waiting patients, then slipped behind her gaze to the edge of the counter. A man in a blue jumpsuit and a hairnet, presumably a nurse, led a woman pressing a wad of gauze to her scalp out of a triage room, to join the waiting room crowd, while the other worker in pale green rushed farther back through the swinging doors beyond, “No Admittance, Hospital Personnel Only.”Grace, steeling her nerves, cool under pressure, glided around the counter behind the nurse and woman with the head wound, and stepped nimbly into the vacated triage room, hidden from the view of the waiting room, facing the entrance that opened perpendicular to the “No Admittance” doors.
The hospital personnel in the waiting room, pale green and blue, were announcing to the waiting patients that they had to move temporarily across the hall to the Admissions Department. The plan, predictably, precipitated loud groans of disbelief and some vocal resistance, quickly escalating to shouted insistence by the hospital authorities.The employees did not explain their instructions, but evidently felt the pressure to clear the room immediately, describing it to the annoyance of their audience as an “emergency.” The patients moved off with sore feelings, herded by the workers with nervous eyes. Grace dialed Kenneth on her iPhone, hit the FaceTime option. He appeared instantly, staring up intently on the touchscreen, eyes watering with misery, mouth pursed stubbornly shut.
“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered. “They’ve cleared the Emergency Room, it’ll be any second now.”
A hush fell on the scene, beyond the quiet of a vacated room, a sucking sensation as though the very air suddenly realized something important was about to happen. Then a distant squeal pitched higher and resolved into approaching sirens, vehicles screeched to a halt outside, and a burst of action exploded through the hospital entrance. A tight crowd of suits and uniforms dispersed in a pounding wave inside, establishing a perimeter, calling out status checks to each other. They held back the onlookers across the corridor in the Admissions Department, covered the elevators, conducted a rapid search of the waiting area, looked behind the reception counter. An EMT jogged forward with three men in suits, pointing to the swinging doors that said “No Admittance, Hospital Personnel Only.”
One second to react, Grace dropped down on a chair, grabbed a bloodstained washcloth left behind by the gauze woman, and pressed the iPhone against the side of her head under it. When the Secret Service agent reached the entrance to the triage room a moment later, she gave him her best look of dizzy blond confusion. He started, lip twitching with frustration, grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her up, began to say “You need to . . .
” But it was already too late to escort her back to the Admissions Department with the others. Another crowd was already blasting through the entrance, suits, EMTs, doctors, all buzzing around a stretcher being wheeled at a run directly towards them. The agent couldn’t pull her out of the triage room without blocking the way, so he held her there in the doorway as the frenetic ensemble rushed past.
Timing it perfectly, she flipped the face of her phone out and down as the stretcher went by. One, two, three, a clear steady shot of the figure lying motionless at the center of the chaos. The faces around the stretcher were strained and animated, intent on their tasks, watching the path ahead, their flaring eyes returning always to their charge, fearful of any change for the worse. The heavy frame strapped securely to the white surface had lost its characteristic vigor, no longer an imposing presence radiating authority, instead now a formless mass of gray flesh half-covered by a bloodstained sheet. The blunt shoulders and chest were crisscrossed with bandages, holding soaked red dressings in place around the ribs, under the collarbone, and, held in place by three pressing hands, a massive tangled cloth directly over the breastbone drenched with blood. The face floating past, so familiar in profile, was joltingly vacant, no color in the rolling cheeks, no sparkle in the half-lidded eyes, no strength to turn the pasty lips in any expression of pain or emotion.One, two, three, then he was gone, crashing through the swinging doors with his wake of attendants.
Realizing her window of liberty was about to close, Grace turned the phone on herself at arm’s length and began speaking rapidly.
“For AEX-TV, this is Grace Livy reporting from Boston. Sir, what can you tell us about the President’s condi -- ?”
The agent whirled with an angry scowl, snatched the iPhone from her hand with an invisible strike before she could turn it in his direction to get his comments. He tapped the connection off without exposing his face to the camera, and snarled at her, suppressing an urge to smack her in the face. Without a word, he handed her off to an arriving police officer and moved through the swinging doors, slipping her phone in his pocket.
“Hey,” she called, “I’ll want that back!”
He ignored her. The policeman pulled her, none too gently, past the reception counter, through the waiting area, and across to the crowd being held back beyond. A third wave of humanity was starting to rush through the hospital entrance: the press had arrived, reporters, cameramen, correspondents.The authorities cordoned off the entire Emergency Department, and were directing the media into a milling posture in the corridor.
For the first time all day, Grace smiled.
. . .
“The President, once again, received at least three gunshot wounds to the chest, and was rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, clinging to life. He has been in surgery now for close to two hours, and an anxious nation awaits word on his fate, hoping for the best but fearing the worst.”
Cedric Lane delivered the maudlin lines with solemn conviction, and somehow elevated the moment to meet the consequence and mood of the day’s events.
“From the White House, Gerald Devaas reports on the impact of the assassination attempt on those closest to President Holden.Gerald?”
Shift to a ruddy face, scrubbed of its usual smirk, outside holding a microphone, with the White House looming in the background over his left shoulder.
“The mood here, Cedric, is grim.”
In the Brigham and Women’s cafeteria, Grace snorted and rolled her eyes at Manny Roscowicz, her trusty camera operator, sound man and hair/makeup stylist. Manny gave a dour shrug, what-do-you-expect-from-Gerald? They were watching the AEX coverage on Manny’s laptop, at a small table to themselves. His phone buzzed again, Kenneth calling for Grace for the fiftieth time.
“Anything?” without salutation or preamble.