Chapter Six: The Great Escape

                                    

                                          
"You're certainly smooth, I'll give you that," the President said to me, and I could sense his smile without seeing it. With my back to him, I made short work of the ropes binding his hands and, once he was free, he returned the favor. When I was done, he offered the knife to me again, and I took it gratefully. I knew his gun, although still small, was larger and more damaging than my own. It was best that he kept hold of that one while I retained my own along with a second weapon. I watched as he withdrew his weapon from the confines of his suit and it clicked.
                          
"What's the plan, Sir?" I inquired, curious to discover if he had one himself or not. He looked down at me with raised eyebrows and I detected what might have been a smirk.
                          
"The windows on the southern wall. If we can get through them, we'll be able to make it at least halfway back to the motorcade before they discover we are gone."
                          
"That's assuming the motorcade remains where we left it," I proclaimed with a shake of my head. "If they killed our agents at the meeting so readily, I think it's probably best to assume those who remained with the motorcade are also dead. It would make an escape too simple."
                          
"Castro has never been known to possess good planning skills," Kennedy commented in a near-whisper as we made our way towards the guarded doorway and worked to barricade and tie it closed using the ropes that had previously been tied around us.
                          
"Evidently your planning skills leave a lot to be desired as well, Sir," I shot back, referencing our current predicament. "Utilizing an untrained woman half your age as a stand-in for your late wife in the hopes of an accidental death to Castro..." I shook my head again and finished tying the knot I believed would keep the door closed long enough to give us time to flee. Although a part of me intended the statement a jest, it was impossible to hide the shadow of honesty behind my words. In my research before I had made the jump back to 1962, I had learned that Kennedy's foreign policies were quite similar to our President in 2016. The biggest difference between them lay in the fact that Kennedy's advisors were much less experienced and were still living in the Age of Innocence. Because they believed an "accidental" assassination would suffice, so too did John Kennedy.
                          
As I turned and started toward the window, I felt a hand on my shoulder stop me.
                          
"What would have been your approach, then, Miss Miller?" he snapped at me, still in a loud whisper as I shrugged his grasp away and continued on my way. He followed behind me, still speaking. "What would your preferred method of dispatching a Cuban dictator have been?"
                          
I said nothing and pulled at the bottom of the window, struggling until he helped me. With a resounding clank, the window snapped up and we glanced at each other in unease.
                          
"Someone will have heard that!" he cried, and then promptly began to hurry me through the opening. I landed on the grass outside and glanced around, my gun raised, as Kennedy clamored through as well. Once outside, we took a brief few seconds to close the window lest we give them any indications as to where we had exited. "Let's double back to the motorcade," he instructed in a loud whisper. "We can check if it's there before we make a run for it."
                          
I glanced at him worriedly.
                          
"Can you run, Sir?" I asked finally, and the strange look he gave me told me he didn't understand why I had inquired. "Your back. Can you run for it if you need to?" He opened his mouth with a knitting of his brows and I stopped him with a shake of my head before he could speak. "Don't ask me how I know, just know that I do, and that I need to know what to expect from you."
                          
He relented.
                          
"I will regret doing so, but in a matter of life and death, yes, I can run."
                          
I gave a single nod of acknowledgement and then we moved swiftly toward the hedgerows which stood about 30 yards away. I chanced a glance behind me and back through the windows and saw that the door had not yet been breached, though I could see there was an attempt being made to force it open. I guessed we had at least another thirty seconds before they made it through.
                          
Once we made it into the gap between the thick hedgerows, my breathing began to steady and my senses kicked into high gear. The last time I had been in this sort of situation, I had known what was going to happen down to the minute. This time, as I followed the 35th President of the United States, I was overcome by a state of unease I hadn't felt before. This time, I was living in the moment. If I slipped up, it was entirely possible the President could die here on foreign soil, which I was certain would make for a much worse future than I had intended.
                          
Abruptly, a hand clamped onto my shoulder and I was jerked to a halt. Kennedy and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching and holding our breath as a pair of guards passed by our section of the hedge and towards the motorcade just barely visible through the leaves. I strained to see more details, and then promptly wished I hadn't done so. The sight of a pile of bodies dressed in black suits made me want to vomit, but I resisted the urge.
                          
"Can you hot-wire a car?" Kennedy asked me then, and I realized he had turned me to face him with his gun still in hand. "Miss Morris, can you do it?"
                          
Blinking and returning myself to reality, I nodded.
                          
"As soon as we see an opening, we break for the last vehicle in the line," instructed the President, and I realized as I listened to him that the history books had been right. Kennedy was a fearsome leader, and although he exercised caution, I sensed he would be more than willing to fight should the need arise. "We go together, back-to-back to reduce our blind spots. You will fire at will. Do not distinguish between Castro's men and ours, if there are any left. Our priority is to get both of us to the car alive and uninjured. Do you understand me, Miss Morris?"
                          
I nodded and readied my gun, shifting into position with my back against the President's and waiting for the call to go ahead.
                          
A minute or two passed, and then it came.
                          
We burst out from between the hedgerows and dashed toward the black car. Shouts followed us and soon after so did bullets. We ducked and continued our hurried shuffle toward our checkpoint. I saw a guard raise his weapon and ready his finger on the trigger.
                          
I was the faster, and he fell like a stone, dead before he hit the ground.
                          
When we reached the car, Kennedy jerked open the driver's door and practically shoved me inside, shouting at me to get to work while he covered. I tossed my gun onto the passenger seat and swiftly went after the wires under the dash. It was much easier with 1964-tech, and within seconds the car's engine had sputtered to life. As the President unceremoniously shoved me across the console and into the passenger seat, two stray bullets pierced through the windshield of the Cadillac.
                          
Kennedy wheeled the car around and sped toward the iron gates which were attempting to close us in. He floored it, and the car smashed through the narrow opening, one front wheel leaving the ground as it happened. Our traction regained on the stones outside the gate, I felt the full power of the engine suck me back against the leather seat once more.
                          
"The airport isn't far," issued the man in the seat next to me, his breathing heavy and he coughed once or twice. "We'll make it, climb on board and we'll be safely in the air in no time."
                          
Nodding, I rubbed at my abdomen, sore from our exertions.
                          
True to the President's words, we swerved into the airport not five minutes later and drove through a chain link fence onto a runway. Air Force One was moving under its own power toward us from another runway, evidently having just landed. It seemed a call for help had been placed by a friend of the President, and the aircraft had been moved for easier access. When the great machine stopped, Kennedy and I practically leapt from the vehicle and clamored up the retractable steps into the airplane. The door and the steps were pulled shut behind us by a flight attendant. Kennedy turned to look at me as we tried to catch our breath. I winced and rubbed subconsciously at my midsection again, the feeling of the stitched muscle having grown more intense.
                          
"Miss Morris!"
                          
The voice that emanated from John Kennedy was of a shocking volume and oddly panicky.
                          
I looked at him in question. My head swam in sudden fatigue. Inexplicably, my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor of the aisle. I continued my struggle to breathe. My panic attacks had never been quite this severe. Why couldn't I breathe right?
                          
I felt John Kennedy's hand fall to the precise point on lower side where the stitch resonated, and at his touch I screamed in pain. His next words chilled me to the bone, and I realized what the problem was, and why I couldn't breathe.
                          
"You're hit."