"Uh …" Anna started while, on the street in front of us, Aunt Abby and Macey were walking by. "Red backpack," Anna answered. "Lady in the blue bandanna. The man in the yellow T-shirt, and…" She trailed off.
"Anyone?" Mr. Solomon asked.
"The guy with the long red beard," I found myself saying. I wasn't sure when I'd even seen him, but as soon as I said the words I knew they were true.
"Why?" Mr. Solomon questioned.
"The static," I said. "Two and a half minutes ago there was a burst of static on the Secret Service frequency. He flinched."
Somewhere in the crowd of bodies, I could have sworn I felt Joe Solomon smile.
I used to wonder if Secret Service Agents ever got tired of hearing the same speeches from the same people a dozen times a day every day until someone either has to give a speech that says they won or give a speech that says they lost. But after that day I started wondering if the security team even heard the speeches at all.
"Beta team, protesters stay in Level Two. I repeat, protesters stay in Level Two," one of the anonymous voices said.
"Charlie team, we have unusual movement in a window in the City National Bank building," another voice said, and in a flash, all the blinds on the fourth floor of the building across the street were pulled down.
And then … a voice I recognized. "Peacock is stage- ready and moving."
"Aunt Abby," I whispered to Bex.
"Peacock?" she whispered back.
Onstage, The Senator was sweeping out his hand and saying, "Family. I don't have to tell the Buckeye state how much family means to me."
The crowd cheered wildly for a few minutes, but when Macey replaced her father at the microphone, a hush fell so completely over the Ohio swing voters that I could have sworn someone or something had turned the volume down.
"It's great being here today." Macey looked out over the crowd. She looked lost for a moment—dazed. But then I could have sworn her gaze fell on Bex and me. A new light seemed to fill her eyes as she looked at us and added, "With my family." At this point Senator McHenry put his arm around his wife, and I couldn't help thinking about Clipboard Lady's direction of "spontaneous hugging."
"And there's something I want to say," Macey went on, even stronger now. "There's nothing we can't do if we stick together. There's nothing we can't overcome if we try. I learned that from the people who love me. The people who know…the real me." This time I knew Macey was looking straight at us.
Beside me, I heard Bex whisper, "That's our girl."
"Ms. Baxter." Mr. Solomon's voice brought us back to the moment, to the mission. "There's a man thirty feet behind you in a denim jacket. Get his fingerprints without his knowledge." With a wink, Bex was gone.
There were more speeches, more cheering, but eventually Macey walked down the steps on the left side of the stage and through a gap in the bleachers that led to a secure area behind the stands. As soon as she disappeared, I heard my aunt's voice saying, "Peacock is secure and holding in the yellow tent," and I took my first deep breath since Sunday night.
The crowd was staring at the stage while Governor Winters said, "Our opponents have had four years to talk the talk, but now it's time to walk the walk!" People clapped. People laughed. It was like he was a puppet master and two thousand people jumped every time he pulled the strings.
But I didn't clap. I didn't laugh. I just kept hearing Mr. Solomon's voice—not in my ear—in my head. I remembered something he'd said in the helicopter. "Protection is ten
percent protocol and ninety percent instinct."
And just then my instincts were telling me to turn around. Maybe it was the way the buildings lined the grassy lawn, maybe it was the crowd of people that passed by me, but something made me think about last semester and Washington, D.C. So while The Senator and Governor Winters stood with their hands locked together above their heads, and the band started playing, I turned and watched the crowd clapping and dancing. The candidates pushed toward the barriers, and the crowd rushed closer, but one guy slipped away.
Farther from the bulletproof banner.
Farther from everything.
Except the bleachers and the yellow tent that stood behind them.
Another banner hung from the side of the bleachers, advertising www.winters-mchenry.com, and I watched it blow in the breeze, a corner flapping free, banging against the aluminum posts, but no one noticed the sound. No one saw the gap. No civilian would have appreciated that sliver of access, and what it meant. But the guy in the cap walked toward the banner. He slipped through the tiny crack, and that's when I knew he was a pavement artist.
I knew he was like me.
"No," I felt myself scream; but with the band and the crowd and the chatter of agents securing the rope lines, the word was lost. And he was gone.
I followed, pushing through the gap myself, but all I could see was litter and the tangled wires and rods of the metal stands.