And he issued only one warning. “If you ever speak to him again, I'm going to throw your ass out on the street where you belong. Do you understand?” She nodded silently, fighting back tears, and terrified at the prospect. “I'm not going to put up with that bullshit. You humiliated me last night. You never took your eyes off him, and you looked like a bitch in heat while you did it.” She wanted to argue with him and defend herself, but she didn't dare. She just nodded, and drove with him in silence to the office. The only sensible thing to do after that was to call Bill and tell him she couldn't see or talk to him anymore. And she knew she should. But he was the lifeline she was holding on to, the thin thread between her and the abyss she was so terrified to fall into. And she didn't know what it was, or why, but she knew she had a special bond to him, and no matter how much Jack threatened her, she couldn't give up her contact with Bill, whatever the cost, or the risk. She knew that what she was doing was dangerous, but no matter how sternly she told herself that, what she knew most of all was that she couldn't stop now.
Chapter 17
MADDY WAS STILL IN DISGRACE with Jack, and calling Bill very cautiously every day from her office, when she heard a shout one afternoon from the newsroom. She was talking to Bill at the time, and she listened for a second to the noise outside, and then told him something must have happened.
“I'll call you back,” she said, and hung up, and hurried outside her office to see what the fuss was. Everyone was crowding around a monitor, and at first she couldn't see what they were watching. But within seconds, someone moved aside, and she could hear and see the bulletin that had interrupted all broadcasts on every network. President Armstrong had been shot, and was being rushed by helicopter to Bethesda Naval Hospital in critical condition.
“Oh my God … oh my God …” Maddy whispered … all she could think of as she watched was the First Lady.
“Get your coat!” the producer shouted at her. “We have a helicopter for you at National.” A cameraman was already standing by and someone handed her her handbag and her coat, and she ran into the elevator without stopping to talk to anyone. The same bulletin had announced that the First Lady was with him. And as soon as Maddy got in the car that was waiting to take her to National, she called the office back on her cell phone. The producer had been standing by, waiting to hear from her.
“How did it happen?” she asked quickly.
“They don't know yet. Some guy just came out of a crowd at him and shot him. One of the Secret Service guys took a hit, but no one's dead yet.” Yet. That was the key word here.
“Is he going to make it?” She had her eyes closed as she listened.
“We don't know that yet either. It doesn't look good. There's blood all over the place on what they're showing now. They just showed it all in slow motion. He was shaking hands as he left some perfectly innocuous group, and a guy who looks like Father Knows Best just let him have it. They got him. He's in custody now, but they haven't released his name yet.”
“Shit.”
“Stay in touch. Get everything you can. Doctors, nurses, Secret Service. The First Lady, if they let you see her.” He knew they were friends, and no relationships were sacred in this business. She knew they expected her to fully exploit every possible opportunity, no matter how tasteless. “We've got a crew going out to meet you by car, if you need a break. But I want you on this one.”
“I know. I know.”
“And stay off your phone, in case we have to call you.”
“I'll be in touch.” She turned the radio on in the car, but it was all the same thing for the next five minutes, and hesitating for only a fraction of an instant, she called Bill, to let him know where she was going. “I can't stay on long,” she explained rapidly. “I have to keep the line clear. Have you heard?”
“I just heard it on the radio. My God, I can't believe it.” It was like Kennedy all over again, except it was worse. This wasn't just politics or history. She knew them.
“I'm on my way to Bethesda now. I'll call you.”
“Be careful.” There was no need for her to be. She was in no danger. But he said it anyway, and after they hung up, he stared out the window into his garden, thinking about her.
For the next five hours, Maddy's life was completely crazy. There was an area roped off for the press at the hospital, and coffee stations for them outside. The press secretary came to talk to them every half hour. And they were all trying to corner every possible member of hospital personnel they could. But for the moment, there was no news, and no story.
The President had been in surgery since noon, and at seven o'clock, he hadn't come out yet. The bullet had pierced his lung, and damaged his kidney and spleen. There was a lot of reconstructive work to do. Miraculously, it hadn't touched his heart, but he had had massive internal bleeding. And no one had seen the First Lady. She was waiting for him in the recovery room, watching the surgery on closed circuit TV. And there was nothing more to say, until he got out of surgery and they evaluated how he was doing. The doctors estimated that he would be there until midnight. And so would Maddy
There were over a hundred photographers in the lobby on couches, on chairs, sitting on their camera bags, some sprawled on the floor in corners. There were a sea of Styrofoam cups all around, bags of fast food, and a cluster of reporters stood outside, smoking. It looked like a war zone.
Maddy and the cameraman she'd been assigned had stationed themselves in a corner of the room, and they were talking quietly to a group of reporters they knew, from other networks and major newspapers.
She had done a piece for the five o'clock news, standing outside the hospital, and at seven they shot her in an area they'd been assigned inside the lobby. Elliott Noble was back at the station doing a solo, and communicating with her regularly. She did another piece for the eleven o'clock news, but there wasn't much to say, except what they'd been told. The doctors attending the President were guardedly hopeful.
It was nearly midnight when Jack called her on her cell phone. “Can't you get anything more interesting than that, Mad? Christ, we're all running the same boring stuff. Have you tried to see the First Lady?”
“She's waiting outside the OR for him, Jack. No one but the Secret Service and the hospital staff has been in to see her.”
“Then put a white gown on, for chrissake.” He was always pushing her to get more and do better.
“I don't think anyone knows anything more than we do. It's in God's hands at this point.” There was no way to know yet if he'd survive it. Jim Armstrong wasn't a young man, and amazingly he'd been shot once before. But that time the bullet had only grazed him.
“I assume you're going to stay there tonight,” Jack said pointedly. It was more a directive than a question, but she'd been planning to do that.
“I want to be here if anything happens. They're calling a press conference when he gets out of surgery. They promised us one of the surgeons.”
“Call me if anything big breaks. I'm going home now.” He was still at the office, most of the staff was still there. It had been an endless day and it looked like it was going to be a long night. But the days ahead would be worse, if the President didn't recover. Maddy only hoped for the First Lady's sake that he'd make it. There was nothing any of them could do now but pray. It was in the hands of the gods and the surgeons.