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“Do we have a football here? Do we?” Haig asked.

“Right there,” Allen said, smacking the suitcase at his feet.

“Al, don’t elevate it,” interjected Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. “Be careful!”

“Absolutely,” Haig said. “Absolutely. That’s why I toned down the message going out,” he said, referring to the cable sent to foreign governments.

A moment later, prompted by a question from another official, Weinberger explained that he wanted the military to be ready for potential action but was not planning on taking the more drastic step of raising the country’s official alert posture, which was indicated by its defense condition (DEFCON) levels. The U.S. military was currently at DEFCON 5, which signified that the world was at peace. DEFCON 1, on the other hand, would mean that the United States expected an imminent attack. The only time the military had even approached that level was during the Cuban missile crisis. But it soon became clear that Weinberger was confused about DEFCON levels; when asked about whether his proposed alerts would equate to DEFCON 3 or 4, he said, “No, no. It’s a matter of being ready for some later call. It’s probably DEFCON 2.”

Haig was shocked: the defense secretary had referred to one of the highest alert levels instead of one of the lowest. Did he really not even understand DEFCON levels? Weinberger’s only previous experience in the military was as an intelligence officer in World War II, and from the start Haig had had doubts about giving someone with so little national security experience such a critical job.

Apparently hoping to put an end to the talk of alerts once and for all, Haig said, “Yeah, I think the important thing, fellows, is that these things always generate a lot of dope stories, and everybody is running around telling everybody everything that they can get out of their gut, and I think it’s goddamn important that none of that happens. That the president, uh, as long as he is conscious and can function…”

Allen stared at Haig in disbelief—he had told the secretary of state not ten minutes earlier that Reagan was on the operating table.

“Well,” Allen said, “just let me point out to you that the president is not now conscious.”

“No, of course not,” Haig replied.

* * *

DOCTORS GIORDANO, GENS, and Price watched saline solution drain from the catheter into a small plastic container. The liquid was crystal clear. The belly tap seemed to confirm that Reagan did not have an abdominal injury, but to be certain they sent the fluid to the laboratory for testing. Now Giordano pulled out the tube, stitched together the various layers of tissue, and allowed Gens to suture the skin. As Gens tied up the small incision with nylon thread, the young doctor was struck—for the first time—by the magnitude of the occasion. He was closing the abdominal incision of the president of the United States.

Gens lifted his head and surveyed the crowded operating room. He’d never seen such a congested OR: it was filled with doctors, nurses, technicians, and at least half a dozen Secret Service agents. Yet except for a cough or two and the beeping of the heart monitor and the whoosh of the respirator, it was quiet and still, almost peaceful.

“Does anybody know what’s going on out there?” Gens asked.

The medical team was so focused on their patient that no one had thought to find out what was happening outside the hospital—whether other people had been wounded or killed, whether assassins had targeted others in the capital, whether the world was at war. They knew nothing. And if the Secret Service agents knew, they didn’t respond to Gens’s query.

About half an hour after the belly tap procedure began, Gens sewed up the final bit of skin; then he extracted the chest tube so Aaron and his team could begin their surgery. After pulling out the tube, Gens checked the Pleur-evac container, which had filled with 325 milliliters of fluid in the past hour or so—a significant amount of additional blood and further evidence that the chest tube had not stanched the hemorrhaging.