Something nearly helpless in her voice caused Cam to stop.
'I have to attend the opening of the new children's wing at the city hospital this afternoon at three. Can't this wait until after that? It's been arranged for months, and there are children who might not - be there - later.'
Cam nodded slowly. 'I'll leave for Washington right after that.'
**********
At two thirty Cam stood outside Blairs door, dressed much the same as she had been that morning. She had changed shirts, substituting a pale gray silk for the white. Blair opened her apartment door, her eyes meeting Cams.
'Will you come in with me?' Blair asked in an unusual display of vulnerability.
'Every step,' Cam said quietly.
Blair wore a simple black sheath, a string of gray pearls at her neck. Her low heels brought her to exactly Cams height. Together they were a striking couple. As Blair stepped to Cams side, Cam touched her hand softly.
'It will be all right.'
Three other agents joined them as they exited the elevator and moved toward the lobby doors. Mac had the limo waiting at the curb, the rear door open. The bright afternoon sunlight outside the large glass doors cast a blinding glare directly into their faces. Stark and Johnson exited first, followed by Cam and another agent - Blair between them. Automatically, Cam looked up, squinting into the sun, scanning the buildings across the small square. She sensed rather than saw movement flickering somewhere in the haze that silhouetted the ornate cornices along the rooftops.
Cameron Roberts' instincts were her guiding force - the one thing in her life she neither questioned nor doubted. She stepped quickly in front of Blair, pushing her backwards into the shelter of the entrance. Blair looked more confused than frightened.
Cam must have tripped, because the next thing she knew, she was kneeling on the sidewalk, trying to catch her breath. A cacophony of cries filled her head as agents screamed into their mikes.
Code red, code red. Oh fuckfuckfuck!.
'Get her inside,' Cam ordered, but her voice came out a whisper on a plume of red mist. She had her gun in her right hand, but it was very difficult to raise her arm. She turned her head with effort, her vision oddly blurred.
Blair was surrounded by secret service agents who were half carrying her back into the building. Blair appeared to be struggling, screaming something, her hand outstretched toward Cam.
Shes safe
Cams mind was quite clear, and she relaxed, accepting the strange lassitude that suffused her. She rolled slowly onto her back, opening her hand, letting her gun rest gently on the sidewalk. She stared up into the bluest sky she could ever recall, then peacefully closed her eyes as her heart stopped beating.
Someone far away screamed her name, an agonized, animal scream of pain. Then - nothing.
'We need another line here ... Hang more fluid Son of a bitch! I can't get a blood pressure ... Where the fuck is the O neg... Push the intracardiac epi again... Here we go-- crack her chest ... Anything? ... I've got a rhythm... Shit, still no pulse ... Keep up the compression ... Nothing ... Pump more blood ... Come on, come on Normal sinus rhythm... Oh, man - tell them to move it '
Cam had no memory for the trip, or the frantic 40 minutes in the emergency room before she was transported to the operating room. For the first few days, she was kept sedated in the intensive care unit, a tube in her trachea delivering oxygen, larger tubes in her chest removing blood and tissue fluids. A machine breathed for her; she could neither move nor talk. Occasionally some stimulus would penetrate her consciousness, and she would register some small sensation - sound, a light, someone touching her. Always, there would be a soft voice, murmuring words of consolation that had no meaning, but were strangely soothing. Pain was a distant thunder, rolling slowly through the landscape of her awareness, ever present.
'Hurts...'
'I know, darling, I know ... Can't you give her something, for god's sake!'
'Cameron, you're going to be all right. Hold on please. I need you to live.'
The voice was so familiar, yet the face so elusive. Once, Cam opened her eyes and was certain that the tear-stained face bending near her own was Blair's. But that couldn't be right, could it? The next time she opened her eyes, she was lucid enough to realize it was only a nurse.
Cam listened to snippets of conversation, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening to her. Unfortunately, there were huge gaps in her consciousness, destroying any sense of reality.
A man's voice, 'Let me drive you home. You need to get some rest.'
'No. Not yet. They said another 24 hours before they were sure...'
'Please, it won't help...' The man again, insistent, but gentle.
