My Presidential Motorcade, Part 2

Riding in the one of the two press Suburbans in the Presidential motorcade, I was flanked on my left by a man in his fifties with glasses, balding and of little consequence to this story or to the world in general (ooo, ‘moted!). On my right was a fat man, nearly bursting out of his suit, who was busying himself with the interior of a newspaper. In the row of seats in front of me, there sat two nondescript newspaper men and a vaguely European-looking photographer with dreamy, wavy blonde hair, a five o’clock shadow and an accent that I couldn’t place, certainly it was a sexy one, though. These three seemed to know each other and spent the trip recounting war stories from their decidedly un-war-like profession.
Exerpts:
“…I had to wait forty five minutes for the return call to do the interview. [Scoffs] I was like, ‘Hello? Washington Post here…’”
(in the sexy accent) “Then the shutter jammed and as I went for the spare camera I had slung ‘cross my back, but the bird had already flown away and the Prime Minister had already brushed it off.”
“…didn’t you used to know Sebastian Bach?”
And while these men shared their stories, our motorcade sped through the shut down streets of Washington DC, on our way to the Pakistan Embassy.

That was the reason for the trip, to visit the embassy. At the time this was taking place in late 2005, Pakistan had just suffered an enormous earthquake. As a sign of support and fraternity, President Bush elected to take a trip across Washington to the embassy to sign an official book of condolences and pose of a photo op with some of the Pakistani officials who work at the embassy. And while this may seen like a hollow and meaningless gesture (which it is, to be sure), the amount of effort that goes into undertaking an operation like ferrying the President across town surely has to count for something, because it would have been immeasurably easier for him to just make a phone call or send a fax.

Our motorcade was fifteen cars long, three or four limousines in the front, carrying the President and his aides and whoever other administration people, and eleven or twelve specially designed Suburbans following, occupied by many, many Secret Service agents and the press. And that number fifteen is not counting the six motorcycles that ride up front or the ambulance that pulls up the rear.

And that’s just the actual motorcade, itself.

In addition to all of that, the Washington DC police also close down the route on which the motorcade will be driving, and they have officers posted every so often working crowd control as the motorcade speeds past. Because, keep in mind, the motorcade driving by makes quite a scene, and the people on the street, often because they are tipped off by the conspicuous closing of the street, mill around, waiting to see the President drive by and wave. And let me tell you, those people are very indiscriminant about whom exactly they wave to in the motorcade. They would get just as excited if the President waved back to them or a radio intern. To this I can attest.

So we flew along through streets normally clogged with traffic in the middle of the day that were for these precious, Presidential minutes, free and clear and frankly quite pleasurable to travel through. Our Secret Service driver drove our Suburban unsettlingly close to biological weapons lab in front of us, but because no one else seemed to mind, I tried to rationalize a sense of security. But I didn’t have long because we arrived at our destination in less than ten minutes.

The Pakistan embassy was a large building that sat at the end of a cul-de-sac. Our motorcade parked down the right side of the street, with the limousines in the front being closest to the building and our orientation to the embassy being quite a ways down the block.

Now, the President waits for nobody, so as soon, and I mean the instant, that we came to a stop, the sliding door of the Suburban rocketed open and we all hustled out into the sunlight and began running to catch up to the President. And we were running. I didn’t have a problem with it, and neither did the sexy European, but the others, including my very fat seatmate, were wheezing and sucking and choking during our entire sprint. But as we approached the center of the cul-de-sac, very near our destination of the embassy, a female Secret Service agent stepped directly in front of us, held her hand in front of her, indicated that we needed to stop, and put her other had up to her ear, listening to her ear piece.

We screeched to a halt and were suddenly waiting, stopped dead by this woman in sunglasses. The fat man was displeased, obviously miffed that his exertion in running had been for nothing.

Just as he had timed his gasps for breath well enough to open his mouth to speak, we all heard screeching tires behind us. Down the block, making a left hand turn onto the residential street we were standing in the middle of, another Suburban was coming back down onto four wheels and was headed right for us at a very fast speed. We all quickly shuffled to the right side of the street, near the other cars in the motorcade as the new Suburban blew past us and hopped up into the driveway of the embassy.

In one fluid motion, the Suburban came to a stop and all of its doors opened at the same time, including the back tailgate. From within emerged nine Secret Service agents, all dressed in SWAT gear: flack vests, fingerless gloves, hand guns and knives strapped to either thigh, enormous semi-automatic rifles in their hands, double ear pieces and sunglasses. One agent even popped out of the back, as if he had been crouched in the back of the Suburban the entire ride, just waiting to make the baddest entrance possible.

Needless to say, I was confused and scared. What were those guys doing here? As they exited their vehicle they all paused for an action movie instant to gather their surroundings, before running one after another into the embassy, just seconds behind the President.