"Where is the boy? You assured me that the boy would be accompanying them."

Jean Paul stood at the concession stand getting lemonade for everyone. "He was supposed to come." The Frenchman looked nervously over his shoulder then grinned at Azim as if they were having a casual conversation. " He has a cold and the First Lady made him stay home. I'm telling you this is NOT going to be a problem. The President adores his wife and daughters, getting them back will be just as important to him as it would be to get his son back."

"I can't see how that would be. Women are expendable."

"Not HERE. You've been here long enough to see the difference. Believe me Bartlet will move heaven and earth to get these girls back to him safely."

"And he will know what it means to suffer. I Azim Shareef will make him suffer as he has made my family suffer."

****

"Look Mumma, back horsie." Aislinn pointed to the horse being led into the ring.

"You like the black horse?"

Aislinn nodded. They were sitting in the bleachers, roped off from the crowd and Aislinn leaned forward over the rail with a big grin on her face. She was having the time of her life now that her mother's speech was over.

"My GOD is it HOT," Toby complained.

"Well, for heaven's sake Toby it's in the 90's and you're wearing a full suit. You ever heard of casual clothing?" Abbey was wearing a pair of white Capri's, sandals and a coral colored sleeveless blouse. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes. She was definitely more prepared for the day than Toby was.

"I'm not exactly a casual kind of guy."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"Mumma, I's tirsty."

"Here come Jean Paul and Zoey with our lemonade."

"Mom," Zoey stopped in front of Abbey and handed her a cup of lemonade. "Jean Paul's friend Marcel, you know the one on the French team."

"No, I don't know," she sipped her lemonade. "But continue on. Jean Paul has a friend on the French equestrian team."

"Yes, Marcel, and they're finished for the day so Jean Paul asked if we could give Aislinn a tour of the barn so she could meet some of the horses. Marcel said it was okay."

"Well, that was certainly very kind of you Jean Paul." Abbey eyed the young man speculatively wondering just what he was up to. She hoped that he wasn't being nice to Aislinn just so he could get into Zoey's good graces or into anything else of Zoey's for that matter.

"I know she likes the horses. No big deal, as you say here."

"It was very sweet of you." Zoey placed her arm around his waist and smiled up at him. Lately things had been pretty strained between she and Jean Paul, mostly due to his insistence that she experiment with drugs with him, but she was happy to see him making an effort with her mother and her sister.

"Well, uh, we should be going�" Jean Paul gazed toward the barns. Abbey's brow furrowed slightly. There was something about Jean Paul today, a nervousness or something that she found a bit unsettling. Whatever it was, she had the feeling that something was just a little a little "off" with him today.

"What do you say, Ash?" Abbey turned to the little girl who was still watching the ring with an enthralled look. "You want to go meet some of the horses?

"Yay!"

"Well, let's go then."

****

The man sat in the top row of the bleachers well behind the First Family. He wore his dark hair in a ponytail hidden under a Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap and dark sunglasses covered his eyes. He looked like one of many American men milling about the Olympic sports venues, but he was not American. In fact even the thought that he had to pretend to be one of these heathen pigs made him sick to his stomach. He was Hassan Al Khaleef a distant but blood member of the Qumari royal family. He was here to show the President of the United States, the man who scoffed at the old ways, who felt the Qumari way of an eye for an eye was too simplistic a solution to crime, just what kind of a deterrent that it was. The next time Josiah Bartlet spoke of an eye for eye it would be through the bitterness and pain of tears.

Hassan watched his victims, for he already thought of them as such, cheering for the horses and sipping their lemonade. Already the thrill of anticipation was running through his veins, for Hassan had been picked for this mission for one reason only, his complete amoral enjoyment of dealing with hostages For the other's, Azim and Habib, it was a holy war, a quest to free their cousins held in prisons in Israel and to avenge the death of Abdul. For Hassan it was the excitement and the sheer pleasure that he took in torturing his victims. Back home he was a member of the secret police, the man who was called upon as the master interrogator. He especially enjoyed toying with his victims when they were women. He loved the power of watching them cower in fear, he loved having control over their bodies, and he loved the ultimate power of sending them home to their former lives knowing that the scars of Hassan Al Khaleef would remain within them for the rest of their lives. That is if they were allowed back to their former lives at all. Having the power to watch the life drain from these women's eyes could be just as heady an experience as watching them leave, broken, battered and destroyed.

He watched the Bartlet women rise and start to head to the barn. He slowly got to his feet to follow, his heart racing with excitement. Even though he had been in this country for almost 6 months now it was still strange for him to see the American women milling about wearing as little as they pleased. On the one hand it sickened him to watch these whores parade around baring flesh and faces and yet another part of him found it strangely exciting. As he followed the President's wife and daughter he watched the sunlight catch in their fiery hair. Red hair was not common in his country and it fascinated him. Abigail and Zoey Bartlet were beautiful women; the next few days with them would not be a hardship at all.

The Bartlet women were made to pause for a few moments while their agents secured the barn. With the heavy Olympic security already in place it didn't take nearly as long as usual and they were soon allowed inside. There were a few grooms curry combing the horses but the barn was pretty much empty except for the Bartlet's and their agents.

Abbey stopped to pet the head of a lovely chestnut horse while Zoey proceeded on with Aislinn to show her the black horse that she had been admiring earlier. As Abbey stroked the horse her vision momentarily clouded. She blinked to clear her eyes but when she re-opened them everything seemed to be swimming and her limbs felt incredibly heavy. She felt a moment of panic, her doctor's mind running through her symptoms and quickly settling on the fear that she might be experiencing a stroke.

She didn't have time to react, everything happened so fast. One moment she was turning to find someplace to sit down and the next instant a bleeding secret service agent was throwing her into the stall. Confusion and then fear gripped her heart as she watched agents starting to fall all over the barn. Without the sound of heavy gunfire it took her a moment to realize just what was happening. The grooms, with silencers on their guns were taking out the agents one by one. She started to scream for her children but the weakening agent quickly covered her mouth.

"Be quiet," the man hissed. "They don't know we're in here."

Abbey looked down and saw the bullet hole in the man's chest automatically covering it with her hand to staunch the flow of blood. Everything was foggy, hazy, she felt like she was moving in slow motion. It was then that she knew. She wasn't having a stroke, she'd been drugged and they were under attack. This was the nightmare scenario that her husband had feared from the moment that he had decided to run for office. This was the fear that they had discussed and lived with for almost five years now.

"I'm sorry," Abbey lifted her hand from what she knew to be a fatal wound and started to crawl away through the straw away from the agent. Despite being a doctor her children had to come first.

"Don't go," the agent rasped. "They'll find you."

Abbey turned back to him her eyes wild with fear. "My BABIES!" she frantically mouthed to him. As she made her way to the edge of the stall she saw two of the grooms. One held Zoey, her mouth taped shut, her hands taped behind her back. She was stumbling, obviously groggy from the effects of the drugs. The other was holding Aislinn like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder. She was kicking and trying to scream for her mother but all she could get out was "Mmmmmm�.." against the duct tape.

"Where is the wife!" One of the men growled.

Oh God, Abbey thought. They were Middle Eastern. These were terrorists. Terrorists had her babies.

"We need the wife!"

"Leave her, we have to get out of here." The men started to scuffle away.

A war was raging within Abbey. She knew that she should stay behind, ID the terrorists and help the FBI to find her girls. Intellectually she knew what she should do, but in the end her mother's heart won out. She was not going to allow her daughter's to die alone. She could only hope that Toby would get help to them.

"NO!!!!" She stumbled out of the stall, her mind getting fuzzier by the moment. "Leave my babies alone. Take me. I'm the one you want. Leave them. Take me!"

In an instant one of the men grabbed her harshly yanking her arms behind her back until she fell to her knees. She wanted to fight, to stop what was happening but her mind was so unclear, her limbs so weak and heavy. The man at her back was muttering something in Arabic as he slammed her facedown into the ground and began twisting duct tape around her wrists. Abbey struggled weakly, lifting her head in time to see them loading Zoey and Aislinn into a horse trailer.

"No! Leave them!"

"You don't call the shots now." Hassan hissed. Abbey cried out as he yanked her wrists pulling her shoulders nearly out of their sockets. "We'll be taking you ALL."

"You ungodly bastard!" Abbey spat as he yanked her to her feet. "They're just kids."

"You're not a kid, are you?" He squeezed Abbey's jaw harshly, his face just inches from hers. She could smell his fetid breath, his sweat.

"Hassan! Toy with her later. Let's go."

"Look what I found."

Abbey turned and her heart sank. A third man came dragging Toby toward the trailer.

"Who's the man?" Hassan asked as he shoved Abbey up the ramp into the trailer.

"Toby Ziegler, he works for the President."

Abbey froze as she heard the familiar French accent. Oh God, no, she thought. Not Jean Paul. But, it certainly made sense. He was the one who had gotten the lemonade and she'd bet anything that he had drugged it. Her eyes caught Zoey's, saw the moment the horror of what the girl had heard registered in their drugged depths. Abbey's heart broke for Zoey as tears filled the girl's eyes. The painful tears of a young woman who had been betrayed by the man she loved. Her arms ached to find their way around her daughter, to hold her close and comfort her.

"STOP!"

Abbey's eyes snapped to the back of the trailer watching the man who held Aislinn grab her ponytail and yank it hard to keep her from kicking at him again. At the sight of her mother hope had filled Aislinn and she had started to squirm frantically against the man who held her trying to get to her Abbey. Abbey saw the terror and the pain in her daughter's eyes as the man continued to pull on her ponytail and she knew that if she'd had a way, any way, she would have killed the bastard for hurting her.

"Please, stop!" She cried; noticing that her words were getting more slurred. " Please, you're hurting my little girl."

"Perhaps you should have taught her some MANNERS," the man gave another yank on Aislinn's hair for good measure. Aislinn screamed against the duct tape.

"Please," tears streamed down Abbey's cheeks and clogged her throat. "Can't you see you're scaring her? You've got us where you want us, please just let me hold her."

"You won't be holding anything."

Abbey felt the sharp prick of a needle in her arm and within a few seconds she knew nothing more.

****

Chuckling softly, Leo opened the door to leave the situation room and nearly bumped right into Ron Butterfield. The head of the President's secret service protection looked as worried as Leo had ever seen him. His eyes were frantic and he was out of breath.

"Ron?" Leo frowned. His first thought was of Jed. That something had happened to the President.

"We have a situation." It was obvious that these words were not easy for Ron to get out. " We're up at black, and procedurally, the Chief of Staff is told before...

"What happened?"

"The First Lady, Zoey, and Aislinn are missing."

"What do you mean they're missing? How can they be missing? They're at the Olympics." Leo could not comprehend what Ron was saying to him.

"The last information that we had was of them entering a barn."

"Well, they couldn't have just disappeared." Leo watched Ron swallow tightly, saw the panic fill the man's eyes and it was then that he knew. The Bartlet girls had not just wandered off; this was a full-fledged situation.

"No, they didn't disappear. I have five dead agents on the scene and another in critical condition. They've been kidnapped."

Horror filled Leo's eyes and his limbs weakened. His first thought was that this was going to kill Jed. Oh, God, Jed. He had to tell his best friend that his family had been taken.

"The President." Ron urged him. "We have to tell him. NOW. It's imperative we get a plan in action."

"He�he's having lunch with his little boy." Leo's eyes met Ron's and he could see just how much the agent was dreading having to do this. Leo turned from Ron and began making his way numbly toward the residence. Pictures flashed through his mind as his pace quickened. Abbey the first time he ever saw her, getting off that bus in Boston with Jed, so young and so heartbreakingly lovely and full of life. Abbey doubled over with labor pains at the Capitol Building. Jed and Abbey standing in front of throngs of well wishers on the hospital stairs, their newborn son and daughter in their arms. Zoey breezing through the White House and teasing her father on the day of her graduation. Abbey and Jed curled up on the hammock in Jackson Hole. Nicholas coming toddling out wearing just his diaper and Aislinn blowing her father a kiss as she left the White House. The more the pictures flashed the tighter hold the pain had on his heart. As he hit hallway to the Residence he began to run, as if he could outrun the pictures and the fear.

****

"Okay, here's a big piece. Where do you think it goes?" Jed sat at the tiny toddler table in the kid's nursery doing a puzzle with Nicholas. They had just finished a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soap. Comfort food at its best.

Nicholas took the piece from his father and with deep concentration placed it where he thought it might go. When it didn't fit properly he tried to pound it in with his little fist.

"Uh, son, it doesn't work that way," Jed chuckled, closing his hand over Nicky's fist to stop him. "If it doesn't fit you have to try to find another place to put it. Look at it really well and see where you think it might go."

Not one to give in to frustration like his sister might, Nicholas took the piece and tried the only other available spot, grinning broadly at Jed when it fit.

"Well, what do you know. You found it. Give me five!" Jed stuck his hand out palm up and Nicholas slapped him five.

"All done," Nicholas told him as he placed the final piece in it's spot.

"Yup, you did a fine job, slugger. What did you make?"

"States!"

"UNITED States." Jed leaned over to run a Kleenex over the boy's runny nose.

"UiITED States," Nicky parroted his father trying to squirm from him.

"Blow," Jed instructed. Nicholas blew into the tissue and Jed wadded it up and got to his feet to throw it away.

"Story?" Nicholas asked.

Jed glanced at his watch. He had about 15 minutes before he had to leave. "I can read you a story, but first you have to take your medicine."

"Water."

"Yes, yes, I know you want water with it."

Jed measured out the liquid cough medicine and returned to his son. Nicholas grimaced as his father poured the liquid down his throat, spilling a bit down his chin in the process and he immediately reached for the glass of water. Jed let him take a few swallows and had just gotten to his feet to return the glass to the bathroom when the door to the nursery burst open.

Jed knew right away from the urgent look on Leo's pale drawn face that something was horribly wrong. He saw Ron Butterfield glance anxiously from him to where Nicholas sat in front of him playing with his puzzle pieces seemingly unconcerned by the interruption. Jed gazed down at the boy, then moved forward to find out what was wrong, Nicky's glass still in his hand. He had no way of knowing that in just a few seconds his entire world was going to blow up in his face. That in just a few seconds life as Jed Bartlet knew it would be over.

"What's wrong. You two look like you've seen a ghost." Jed tried to joke. Leo wasn't smiling.

"It's�it's the girls."

"MY girls?" Jed's throat began to tighten.

"I don't know how to tell you this, Jed." Tears filled Leo's eyes and he took a deep breath. "Abbey, Zoey and Aislinn were kidnapped from the Olympics. They're gone."

"No�" the word was barely audible as Nicky's glass of water dropped from Jed's numb fingers and he felt his knees start to give way. He stopped breathing completely and felt his chest constrict with a pain so intense he wondered if this was what it was like to die of a heart attack.

In one instant Leo watched his friend age 20 years, watched every bit of life seep from Jeds's eyes and lines of pain slash at his boyish face. The look on that now ashen gray face was dead, completely devoid of any spark that had been the essence of Jed Bartlet. Leo had known that it would be this way. He had known exactly what Jed's reaction would be to losing his family this way and in the back of his mind he had already begun to wonder if this news might very well kill him.

TBC...