84- Washington, D.C.
“My husband is going to be very, very pissed,” Catherine Quaid said to Ben Shapiro. Before he even had the opportunity to smile at that statement he was distracted by a shout from his left. He looked up and saw that at the far end of the Mall, over the heads of the hundreds of thousands of people in front of him, a cloud of what looked like dust formed soundlessly at the base of the Washington Monument.
The top of the Monument showed clearly above the dust cloud. Oddly, the top seemed to lean slightly to the left, then gradually back to the right and, inexplicably, it became lower and lower.
Just as it seemed the Monument had shrunk to half its previous height a deep rumbling reached Shapiro, feeling as if it came up from beneath him, shaking his feet, pounding his chest, increasing in volume.
Despite the distance, it was the loudest sound he’d ever heard.
In the five second interval between the rising of the dust cloud and the arrival of the booming sound, the two men standing behind Catherine Quaid reacted, one man shoving Sarah Goldberg, who was seated next to the First Lady, roughly away from her so he could step between the First Lady and the nearest people.
The other man, Joe Bergantina, leaped in front of Mrs. Quaid, firmly placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her to the floor of the platform. He held her down by kneeling over her face-down body while his head scanned from side to side, looking for threats. Both men had their handguns out.
Few people standing in the crowd on the grass reacted quickly enough to the startled expressions and raised hands of the people on the platform to turn around before the sound rumbled over them. That sound, however, set off shouts and screams from the crowd. Some people dropped to the grass, thinking that a bomb had detonated near them. A few people, especially those near the edge of the crowd, ran away, heading across nearby streets with no particular destination in mind.
Rabbi Garfinkle stood in the middle of the platform, motionless, in shock. It was obvious the day’s activities, and perhaps the entire March, had come to an end. He walked to the microphone and appealed for calm. His voice could not be heard over the shouts from the crowd.