"Hey, Ron. What can I do for you today?" Leo McGarry asked the Secret Service chief.
"Good afternoon, Leo". Ron stayed standing, speaking in a typically controlled tone. "I've been advised of a potential situation".
This caught Leo's attention and he looked up from the papers he had been sifting through on his desk.
"It concerns one of the students who is due to be attending an event this afternoon – the Presidential Classroom" Ron continued.
"Presidential classroom? That's Josh's thing. Unless it's a major security issue, take it up with him".
"I don't think that's a good idea, Leo".
"Why not? Don't tell me one of them is a Lyman groupie – the Lemon thing. I really don't know what they see in him".
"No, Leo, its nothing like that"
"Sure?"
"Definitely"
"Then what is it? I thought these were all gifted kids"
"One of them is an 18-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts named Katharine Dean".
"So far she sounds like the world's least likely terrorist. Go on".
"According to our records and various other sources including the FBI, Katharine Dean is Josh Lyman's daughter".
This definitely got Leo's attention. After a moment of stunned silence, he began to chuckle. Ron, however remained stony-faced.
"This is a joke, right?" Leo asked. It was clear from his tone that he didn't fully believe it was, especially given the Secret Service head's lack of a track record for practical jokes.
"No, sir".
"This is serious?"
"Yes"
"OK". Leo paused a moment, took off his glasses, rubbed his glasses and sighed. "This is definitely a thing. OK, let me think about this for a minute".
Leo sank back in his chair and offered one to Ron who declined and remained standing. His head was full of questions. Normally, a revelation of such a personal nature would have been more of an annoyance that he would rather avoid getting embroiled in, but this was different. This was Josh, who seemed to stumble from one crisis to another. Leo had always felt protective of him, partly down to guilt and partly because he saw so much of himself in the younger man.
He broke the silence by asking the one question that was shouting loudest in his head. "Does Josh know?"
"About which part in particular?"
"Any of it. All of it."
"As far as we can tell, he is not aware that she exists at all". That was a huge weight off Leo's mind. This was shock enough, but finding out that Josh had lied to him or covered something like this up would have been another matter entirely.
"Before we go any further, you're sure about this? I mean how detailed is your information? This has gotta be from, what 17 or 18 years ago".
"Miss Dean has just turned 18. We know that her mother was in Josh's Harvard graduating class, getting a suma cum laude. We know she dated Josh senior year, and that the girl was born the following October, five months after they last saw each other. The father on the birth certificate is listed as Joshua Lyman".
"Is it all circumstantial, or do you have it verified?"
"We used a number of methods at our disposal to verify the fact".
"I'm assuming I don't want to know what those methods were?" Ron his remained silent, shifting weight slightly.
"OK, lets discuss why his is a security issue, then".
"The concern is that she is has West Wing visitor credentials and Josh is listed as the staffer responsible".
"So you think she knows who her father is?"
"Yes. She requested a copy of her original birth certificate at 9:05am on her 18th birthday".
"Sounds like she was determined to find out who her parents are. So you think she could cause trouble?"
"On paper, she is no a high security risk, but emotive scenes such as this do have the potential to escalate".
"Yeh". Leo sighed again. "OK, thanks Ron. Could you leave the file with me?"
"Sure, Leo. Inform the desk agents in plenty of time if you want her credentials pulled".
"Yeh. Thanks again, Ron".
Once alone, Leo took a moment to curse whatever twist of fate put him right in the middle of this. And this wasn't something small. This was information that was going to change Josh's life forever. Poor kid; he could never seem to catch a break. But that was no reason to keep information from him. He had a right to know his daughter. Just as she had a right to know her father.
Reluctantly, he retrieved the file Ron left. As uncomfortable as this might be, there was a reason Ron wanted him to read it. He folded back the cover and started reading.
It was mostly basic biographical information – born Amherst, MA. on October 23rd 1985; by Linda and Norman Dean, a part-time bank clerk and an auto mechanic from Worcester; attended Oak Green Elementary School, Thomas Jefferson Junior High and West Worcester High School; current GPA of 3.8…
Leo skimmed the pages, picking out the most salient details. He discovered that the girl's mother, Louise Madison, emigrated to Paris shortly after the adoption, and died of cancer in six years later. Now that it was mentioned, Leo had a vague recollection of Noah mentioning Josh going to a funeral in France around that time.
Despite the impersonal nature of the secret service's distilled and sterilized information, Leo still got the sense that this was a special kid. Since 12, she has been an active letter writer for Amnesty, fighting worldwide human rights abuses. While visiting relatives in Texas last summer she was pictured at the front of several anti-capital punishment protests. Last fall, she delivered Bartlet for America flyers to nearly 10,000 homes at the same time as masterminding a successful high school class president campaign for a classmate.
When he finished, Leo closed the file. Now it was time to figure out a strategy.