Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [40]
The sight line between Hinckley and the president was now clear. Hinckley’s third shot sailed over Reagan’s head.
Positioned at the limousine’s rear door, Agent Tim McCarthy whirled to face the gunfire. He assumed a blocking stance and spread his arms, becoming an extension of the armored door. As the president and Jerry Parr vanished behind the agent’s body, Hinckley’s fourth shot hit McCarthy in the chest, spinning him to the ground.
The fifth bullet slapped the bulletproof window of the backward-opening limousine door as Reagan and Parr flashed behind it.
The sixth shot cracked across the driveway.
It was 2:27 p.m. Just 1.7 seconds had elapsed since Hinckley’s first shot, and now three men lay wounded.
* * *
SITTING AT THE Lincoln’s wheel, Drew Unrue couldn’t believe what was happening. He heard gunfire through the open door and watched his friend Tim McCarthy fall; then Jerry Parr and the president landed in a heap on the floor between the limousine’s front and rear seats. He saw agents and police officers draw their guns as spectators scattered. Unrue wanted to slam his foot on the accelerator and speed away from the hotel, but the limousine’s backward-opening rear door hadn’t been closed and might shear off if it hit an obstacle. An age seemed to pass before Ray Shaddick finally shut the door. Unrue’s foot was already moving for the gas pedal when Parr screamed, “Let’s get out of here! Haul ass!”
Unrue aimed the heavy limousine for T Street and with his right hand flipped the switch that activated the car’s lights and siren. As he peeled away, he replayed the sight of Tim McCarthy falling to the sidewalk near his rear right wheel. God, don’t let me run over Timmy, prayed Unrue. I hope I don’t run over Timmy.
* * *
AGENT DENNIS MCCARTHY—no relation to Tim McCarthy—had been scouring the crowd of reporters and spectators behind the rope line, looking for trouble, as the president walked through the VIP doors. Then he heard what he thought were firecrackers—until he saw bodies falling and spectators ducking and people running for their lives.
But where was the gun? Suddenly he saw it: a black pistol in the hands of a man who was crouching between a photographer and the wall and inching toward the president as he fired. Desperate, the agent hurled himself at the pistol. I have got to get to it, his mind screamed. I have got to get to it and stop it.
As he slammed into the attacker and they fell to the ground, the gunman kept pulling the trigger. Despite the screaming and tussling and commotion, McCarthy could clearly hear the hammer click, click, clicking against the revolver’s now-spent cylinder.
Sergeant Herbert Granger was facing the president when he heard the first cracks of gunfire. Whipping around, he spotted a blond man in a combat crouch. The gunman was holding a small revolver with both hands and firing at the president, tracking his target from right to left. Granger lunged toward the shooter, but his body felt strangely sluggish, as if he were moving through syrup. He heard screams and his own grunting, but they echoed in his ears like an audiotape being played on its slowest setting. He was puzzled by the gunman’s blank and emotionless expression; then he watched as an elderly man in a yellow sweater raised his arms and slammed them down on the neck of the assailant. “Kill the son of a bitch!” the old man yelled. “I’ll kill you!” Meanwhile, another man was throwing wild punches at the shooter.
Granger’s vision narrowed. It seemed to take forever to reach the gunman, but he arrived at almost the same moment as Dennis McCarthy. Then a flurry of agents and officers crashed into them, propelling McCarthy, Granger, and the gunman into the stone wall with such force that the sergeant’s Timex watch shattered.
At the bottom of the pile, Dennis McCarthy handcuffed the attacker, who offered no resistance.