way.”Wes hesitated. “I thought this was a training scenario.”
Evyn met her gaze, no trace of humor in her eyes. “Did I give you
that impression? This is as real as it gets.”
Wes adjusted her expectations and reassessed the situation. “Then
shouldn’t I ride with the president?”
Evyn opened the rear door of the SUV directly behind the limo and
gestured for Wes to climb in. “Under most circumstances, no. You’re
• 109 •
RADCLY fFE
part of the secure package now—we need you out of the kill zone. You
can’t treat Eagle if you’re dead.”
“Makes sense,” Wes muttered. She accepted the reasoning behind
safeguarding the first responder, but in light of the sim the day before,
she didn’t like it. If the vehicles were separated or the president’s
vehicle took a direct hit, she wanted to be closer than she would be in
a follow car.
Evyn must have read her displeasure, because she said, “If a threat
arises, we’ll do our jobs and you’ll stay out of the way until needed.”
“I know the protocol, Agent Daniels.”
“Then we’re all happy.” Evyn pulled out her handheld and started
flicking through screens. Conversation over.
Wes settled onto the black leather bench seat and watched out
the window as a group emerged from the White House. She caught a
fleeting glimpse of President Powell, flanked by four agents, striding
briskly toward the limo. Seconds later, they pulled away and exited
the South Grounds onto E Street. The streets had been plowed and
snowbanks lined the curbs. Somewhere in front of them, motorcycle
engines rumbled, probably a police escort clearing the way. Across
from her, Evyn texted.
Wes wondered what would happen next, and when. The thrum of
anxiety in her belly was probably something she was going to live with
indefinitely. Every trip the president took outside the White House was
akin to a military engagement. Danger was always imminent. Stress
and uncertainty didn’t bother her, as long as she knew she was prepared.
And she planned to be.
Forty minutes later, the motorcade pulled off the highway onto
a wide drive and stopped in front of a row of large stone buildings.
Car doors slammed, and Wes saw the group from the first car moving
inside. Evyn opened the door and said, “You’ll stay here with one of the
military aides. If you’re needed, he’ll inform you. I hope you brought
something to read.”
“It never occurred to me I’d need it.”
Evyn laughed. “Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to kill on this
assignment. I recommend an e-reader. Travels easily and holds up
well.”“I’ll make a note of that.”
Evyn closed the door and disappeared inside along with several
• 110 •
Oath Of hOnOr
other agents. Wes settled back to wait, watching out the window. No foot
traffic. An occasional car passed along the drive. She wasn’t sure where
they were. The uncertainty heightened all her senses. Her pulse was a
little faster than usual, and tension in the back of her neck indicated her
blood pressure was probably slightly higher than normal too—nothing
to worry about as long as the tension didn’t escalate into anxiety, which
blunted response time. A certain degree of stress augmented essential
reflexes. She felt on edge but sharp. The way she needed to be.
An hour passed before the main doors of the building opened and
Evyn walked out, followed by the president and a phalanx of agents.
A blur of motion cut across Wes’s field of vision, shouts erupted, the
loud crack of gunfire shattered the quiet. Evyn crumpled, the president
staggered, and Wes grabbed her FAT kit and bolted from the SUV
along with a sea of agents from the other cars. Agents converged on the
president, others swarmed a young man holding a pistol and dragged
him to the ground. Wes raced up the sidewalk, scanning the injured,
automatically triaging. Only those who would die without immediate
attention could be treated. Those who would die despite emergency
care and those who would survive without it were passed over.
Evyn lay on her back, eyes closed, the collar of her shirt soaked
in blood. Neck or chest wound—likely fatal without urgent treatment.
Another agent, a man she didn’t recognize, curled on his side, clutching
his abdomen. A second potential fatality. The agents with the president
pushed past her toward the vehicle she’d just vacated. The president
seemed to be moving under his own power—injury status unknown.
Without medical treatment, Evyn and the other agent would likely die.
Wes stared at Evyn—she was still breathing, but for how long?
Ignoring her instincts, ignoring all her training, she ran for the SUV
with the president inside and jumped into the back. The doors slammed
shut, tires screeched, and they jolted forward. The president was supine
on the rear seat, and the duty nurse already had an oxygen mask on his
face. Bracing one arm against the side of the speeding vehicle, Wes
dragged the FAT kit closer. “Status?”
“GSW to the leg,” Thompson, the nurse, replied.
“You,” Wes said to the closest agent, pulling gauze from the field
trauma kit, “hold this over the wound, press hard.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
• 111 •
RADCLY fFE
“Get us to the nearest trauma center.” She didn’t wait for an
answer. After grabbing a stethoscope, she pushed closer and slid a hand
behind the president’s back to check for any wounds she couldn’t see.
Nothing else. The leg wound was the only injury, but in that area, if he
didn’t bleed out, he could lose his leg. She found an intravenous pack
in the kit and tossed it to another agent. “Hold this up.”
“Got it.”
She quickly connected intravenous tubing to the bag, opened the
line and let the fluid run down, and clamped it off. With scissors, she cut
the president’s coat and shirt sleeve up to the level of his shoulder and
wrapped a tourniquet around his arm. As she unwrapped a large-bore
intravenous catheter, an agent gripped her wrist.
“I think you can hold up there, Doc.” He grinned. “Dave here is
afraid of needles and we wouldn’t want him to faint on us.”
Thompson removed the O2 mask, and the agent playing the
president grinned at her. He could pass for Andrew Powell at a distance,
but this close, she could see he was younger and a little heavier. “How
are you feeling, Mr. President?”
“I’m doing great, Doc. So are you.” The presidential double pushed
up on the seat and swatted at the man holding the compression dressing
on his groin. “Let up there, will you? My toes are falling asleep.”
The agent holding the gauze laughed, said something into his
microphone, and the vehicle slowed. “Nice work, Doc. We’d be arriving
at the trauma center about now with the president stabilized.”
“What about the two we left behind?” Wes asked, thinking of
Evyn and the blood running down her throat. Everything in her rebelled
against leaving a dying patient in the field.
His grin faded. “They’re not your concern.”
“Understood.” Methodically, Wes packed up her kit, the image of
Evyn bleeding to death on the sidewalk burning in her mind. The next
time she had to leave her behind might not be an exercise. She wasn’t
sure how to square that with her conscience, or her ethics, or her heart.
v
“Nice job, Doc.” Vince, the agent who had assisted Wes during
the resuscitation of the “president,” veered off toward the ready room,
leaving Wes alone.
• 112 •
Oath Of hOnOr
“Thanks,” Wes called after him. She headed for the locker room
to store her gear. After the exercise had ended, their SUV had turned
around and followed the limo back to DC. She hadn’t seen Evyn since
she’d left her on the sidewalk, but if Evyn wanted her for anything else,
she’d no doubt find her.
The locker room was empty, except for a navy blue polo shirt and
khakis folded neatly on a bench in the center of the room. The shower
ran in the adjoining room. Those clothes were most likely Evyn’s. She’d
seen a few other female agents in the halls, and they’d all been dressed
the way Evyn usually was—in jackets and pants. She wanted Evyn’s
take on the morning’s scenario, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of
the day with the mental image of Evyn bleeding out on the street. She
knew it was all a fabrication, but on some instinctual, primitive level,
she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling she’d let her die.
Wes leaned against the lockers and reran the incident again.
She’d been doing that all the way back in the SUV while the agents
relaxed, cracked jokes, and gossiped. Someone had speculated on
where Evyn had spent the night of the storm, noting she’d turned up for
work wearing her emergency change of clothes and they hadn’t had an
emergency. Wes tried to tune out the good-natured griping about some
people having all the luck. If Evyn had spent the night with someone,
it was no business of hers. She blocked the chatter the way she did the
constant hum of voices during a trauma alert and concentrated on what
she had done earlier, and why. She still wasn’t happy with the choice
she’d made, despite knowing she’d made the only choice open to her.
And would make it again.
“You planning on taking a shower?” Evyn walked in with a white
towel wrapped around her torso, covering her to mid-thigh. She pointed
to a closet. “In there.”
“No, I’m fine. I wasn’t out there long enough to work up a
sweat.”
“I wish I had.” Evyn opened a locker across from the pile of
clothes on the bench and stowed a bath kit on the top shelf. “I froze my
ass off lying on that sidewalk, and it was wet.”
“And of course, there was the blood.”
“Since it wasn’t real, it wasn’t even warm.” Evyn glanced at Wes
over her bare shoulder, loosened the towel, and let it drop to the floor.
“You sound a little pissed.”
• 113 •
RADCLY fFE
Wes jerked her gaze up to Evyn’s face, but not before she’d taken
in the entire naked panorama of Evyn’s back and backside. Smooth
skin, toned muscles, all blending into inviting tanned curves. “Not
exactly pissed. Just not sure of the point.”
“I thought the point was obvious—GSW is still the most likely
form of assault on POTUS.” Evyn slid black panties from an open
nylon bag inside the locker and pulled them on. They were cut high on
the sides, accentuating the expanse of honed thigh from hip to knee.
“And do you really think if I’d been briefed beforehand, I
would have reacted any differently?” Wes shook her head. “I’m sure
you practice that scenario regularly—knowing what is coming—and
without the benefit of simulated blood.”
“You’re right—we do. Dozens of times, for months, before we
ever ride in a vehicle on PPD.” Evyn grasped the khakis, pulled them
on, and slipped the polo shirt over her naked chest. “You haven’t.”
Wes watched. Evyn didn’t seem to mind, and pretending she
wasn’t watching would only make her interest even more apparent.
Evyn was beautiful and looking at a beautiful woman came naturally.
Pretending she didn’t want to would be unnatural, and she wasn’t any
good at pretending. That’s what bothered her about the morning. She
had done the right thing and her instincts screamed otherwise. “Had it
been real, you would have died out there.”
“This is where I say something like, ‘That’s my job. You shouldn’t
worry about it.’” Evyn regarded her across the small room. “Do you
believe that?”
“Yes, and I respect your bravery.”
Evyn waved her off with a snort and tucked her shirt into her
pants. She zipped and buttoned and sat down to fish socks and shoes
out of her locker. “It’s not a matter of bravery, it’s a matter of training.
When you’ve done it enough times, you don’t think about it. Isn’t that
the way it is for you?”
Wes moved down the row of lockers, wanting to see Evyn’s face as
they talked. “Yes, that’s exactly how it is for me. Only my training says
I don’t leave a seriously injured patient in the field when my attention
could make the difference between life and death.”
“You see,” Evyn said lightly, “that’s the whole point. Your training
might get in the way, and we can’t let that happen, can we?”
“You’re purposely being obtuse.”
• 114 •
Oath Of hOnOr
Evyn grinned. “Is that painful? It sounds painful.”
Wes smothered a laugh. Evyn was very, very good at deflecting the
conversation from topics that touched on the personal. “Any emergency
physician could have handled that situation this morning. And any ER
doc—”
“But that is the point, isn’t it, Dr. Masters?” Evyn stood, zipped
her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “You aren’t just any doctor
anymore, you are the First Doctor. Your training isn’t going to prepare
you for what you need to do, because you are not going to deal with
mass casualties as long as you are the First Doctor. You’re going to
deal with one patient. No matter what else happens, you only have one
patient.”
Wes swallowed back a snarl. Cool reason was the only way to get
through a head as hard as Evyn’s. “Let’s just say, theoretically, that my
primary patient sustains a superficial wound to the shoulder. He could
easily be transported safely to a level one trauma center and receive
simple field care en route. All of you are trained in CPR and emergency
medical management, right?”
Evyn nodded. “That’s true. But what happens if on the way, he
develops a drug reaction, or a second wound is discovered, a more
serious one. That happened with Reagan after Hinckley’s assassination
