Editing In the Line of Fire (section)

==Plot==
Frank Horrigan and Al D'Andrea meet with members of a counterfeiting group at a marina. The group's leader, Mendoza, tells Horrigan that he has identified D'Andrea as an undercover agent, and forces Horrigan to prove his loyalty by putting a gun to D'Andrea's head and pulling the trigger. When the gun just clicks, Horrigan then shoots and kills Mendoza's men, identifies himself as a [[United States Secret Service]] agent, and arrests Mendoza.

Horrigan investigates a complaint from a landlady about an apartment's absent tenant, Joseph McCrawley. He finds a collage of photographs and newspaper articles on famous assassinations, a model-building magazine, and a ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' cover with the President's head, on which a gunsight-crosshairs has been drawn in red marker. When Horrigan and partner D'Andrea return with a search warrant, only one photograph remains, which shows a much younger Horrigan (with his face circled in red) standing behind [[John F. Kennedy]] in [[Dallas]] in 1963, on the day [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|Kennedy is assassinated]]. Horrigan is the only remaining active agent who was guarding the President that day, and is wracked with guilt over his failure to react quickly enough to the first shot to shield Kennedy from the subsequent fatal bullet. The guilt drove Horrigan to drink excessively, and his family left him.

Horrigan receives a phone call from McCrawley, who calls himself "Booth". He tells Horrigan that, like [[John Wilkes Booth]] and [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], he plans to kill the [[President of the United States]], who is running for reelection and is making many public appearances around the country. Horrigan, despite his age, asks to return to the [[Presidential Protective Division]], where he begins a relationship with fellow agent Lilly Raines.

McCrawley, posing as Jim Carney, opens an account with Southwest Savings Bank of Los Angeles, intending to use the account to make campaign contributions. When a bank employee named Pam seems suspicious, he follows her to her home and murders her and her roommate Sally.

Booth continues to call Horrigan as part of his "game", even though he knows that his calls are being traced. He mocks Horrigan's failure to protect Kennedy but calls him a "friend". Booth escapes Horrigan and D'Andrea after one such call from [[Lafayette Square (Washington, D.C.)|Lafayette Park]], but inadvertently leaves a palm print on a passing car. The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] matches the print, but because the person's identity is classified, the agency cannot disclose it to the Secret Service. The FBI does notify the [[Central Intelligence Agency]].

At a campaign event in [[Chicago]], Booth pops a decorative balloon. Horrigan, who is groggy with the flu, mistakes the pop for a gunshot and over-reacts. Because of the error, he is removed from the protective detail by [[White House Chief of Staff]] Harry Sargent and head of security detail Bill Watts, but retains the Booth case. Horrigan and D'Andrea follow a lead from the model-building magazine to a Phoenix home belonging to Mitch Leary; upon entering, the two agents subdue an unknown individual, revealed to be a CIA agent working with Leary's associate. The CIA reveals that Leary (actually McCrawley) is a former agency assassin who has suffered a mental breakdown and is now a "predator" seeking revenge on his former masters. Leary, who has already killed several people as he prepares for the assassination, uses his model-making skills to mould a [[Improvised firearm|zip gun]] out of [[composite material]] to evade metal detectors.

D'Andrea confides to Horrigan that he is going to retire immediately because of nightmares about the Mendoza incident, but Horrigan dissuades him from doing so. After Leary taunts Horrigan about the President facing danger in California, Horrigan and D'Andrea chase him across Washington rooftops, where Leary shoots and kills D'Andrea but saves Horrigan from falling to his death as he clings to the side of the building. Horrigan asks Raines to reassign him to the protective detail when the President visits Los Angeles, but a television crew films him mistaking a bellboy at the hotel for a security threat, and Watts and Sargent again force Horrigan to leave the detail.

Horrigan connects Leary to Pam's murder and determines that Leary, who has made several large campaign contributions, is among the guests at a campaign dinner at the hotel. He sees the President approaching Leary and jumps into the path of the assassin's bullet, saving the President's life. As the Secret Service quickly removes the President, Leary uses Horrigan—who is wearing a bulletproof vest—as a hostage to escape in the hotel's glass elevator. Horrigan uses his earpiece to tell Raines and sharpshooters where to aim; although they miss Leary, Horrigan defeats him, leaving him hanging from the edge. Though Horrigan offers to pull him up to safety, he declares that he would only save him because it's his job, and Leary ultimately commits suicide by letting go and falling to his death.

Upon returning home to Washington, and now a widely publicized hero, Horrigan announces his retirement. Horrigan shows Raines into his apartment, where an unexpected farewell message from Leary is found on Horrigan's answering machine. They play the message, in which Leary begins to commend Horrigan on his character, but Horrigan and Raines leave the apartment before the message ends. The film ends with Horrigan and Raines enjoying a romantic interlude at the [[Lincoln Memorial]], where they had previously shared a moment together.