Ira Furor Brevis Est by Ecri
See Part One for Disclaimer.
The Next Day
Donna sat at her desk, knowing full well that she appeared to be busy. She was, in actuality waiting for Josh to get off the phone. Staring at the red light, she finally let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding when it winked off. Like the starting flag at a race, the light signaled Donna, who bolted from her chair and flew into Josh's office.
"Josh," she called as she entered.
Josh looked up, startled. "What?"
"You told me to tell you when Sam was in."
"He's in?"
Donna threw her hands up in exasperation. "No. I just like to come in here and remind you of things you told me to do. He just got here."
Josh looked at the clock. 6:00 AM. This was early, even for Sam. Josh stood and followed Donna out of his office when something occurred to him. "What are you doing here so early, Donna?"
"My really mean boss told me I had to be here by 5:30 this morning."
"Right. Why did I do that?"
"Because you're mean."
"We've established that."
"I thought it bore repeating."
"It didn't."
"Wait until you've heard me say it all day."
Josh hung his head, and broke off the conversation as he walked over to Sam's office. Sam wasn't there. As a matter of fact, his office was still dark. He moved to check with Toby.
There was Sam.
Josh was about to wish his coworkers a good morning, but something about their hushed voices, their postures, and the wide-eyed look on Sam's face rendered Josh's voice useless. He swallowed and entered the room. Finally able to get himself under control, he asked the obvious question.
"What's going on?"
Sam whirled as if shot, and Toby scowled in his direction.
Josh wanted to say something witty, but he couldn't think of a single word in any language, so he waited for someone to answer his initial question.
By now, Sam had relaxed somewhat. Toby waved Josh in. "Shut the door."
Josh did as he was told, in itself a remarkable moment, but Toby's order and the looks on both their faces imbued Josh with a sense of foreboding that he'd never felt before. He approached Toby and Sam cautiously and put a hand on Sam's arm. "You okay."
"I don't really know."
Josh turned to Toby, a question on his face.
Toby hands Josh a stack of photographs. Josh looked at them one at a time. They were pictures of Sam and Kevin Khan. "What is this?"
"I got those in the mail. At my apartment." Sam reached for the pile, and showed Josh the last one.
It showed an angry, wet Sam shoving Kevin.
"When did this happen?"
"Ages ago. Right after the tape went public."
"Who sent it?"
"I don't know."
"Where's the envelope?"
Sam handed it over. It had no return address, and no postage. "This was hand delivered." Josh indicated where there should have been postage and a postmark."
Sam nodded. "I know. It was stuffed under my door this morning."
"Was there a note?"
"I just asked him that when you walked in." Toby looked at Sam expectantly.
"Nothing informative, no."
"Sam."
Sam bristled at the tone, but handed a slip of paper to his boss.
Toby read it out loud. "'Enjoy the news cycle.'"
"This is bad," Josh said in a whisper.
"Ya think?" Toby stared at the Deputy Chief of Staff as if he had just started doing the can-can.
"We gotta go to Leo." Josh insisted.
"And CJ." Sam added, hoping CJ wouldn't be mad that he'd gone to Toby first. He hadn't planned it. It had been an automatic response. As soon as he'd seen the photos, all he could think about was getting to the office to tell Toby before they hit the media.
Sam checked his watch. "I'm gonna go and get CJ to postpone her briefing. Should we meet back here?"
Toby shook his head. "Get her and get to Leo's office." He turned to Josh. "Josh, call Bruno"
Sam's face fell, as he interrupted. "Bruno?"
"We have to, Sam."
"I know. I just thought maybe we'd keep it to Senior Staff at first."
"We don't know when it's gonna hit the news."
"I know." Sam nodded. "Okay. Get Bruno."
**
Margaret nodded, and waited for her boss to continue.
Leo McGarry sat at his desk, looking up at his secretary. "Then, get Harrison on the phone. I promised him a call about the healthcare bill."
"Leo?" Toby leaned a hand on the doorframe.
"Yeah, Toby?" Leo glanced up at Toby, his mood changing instantly, not because of Toby's expression, which was always a bit dour, but because the man emanated a sense of impending doom. "What?" He urged, hoping that, whatever it was, Toby was somehow already exaggerating.
"We need to speak to you."
"We?" Leo looked over Toby's shoulder, and was about to tell Toby he was alone, when he saw Sam approach with CJ in tow and Josh and Bruno close behind. "Come in." He gestured the crowd inside. As Margaret turned to leave, he called to her. "Hold my calls, Margaret."
The redhead nodded, and swung the door closed behind her.
Leo stood. "What happened?"
Sam stepped forward and handed a stack of photos to Leo. "I got these in the mail."
Leo looked at them, his anger mounting. "Sam! What the hell happened? When were these taken?"
"Back when the tapes first went public
"I knew you met with Kevin again afterwards, but I didn't know there was art!"
"I didn't either," Sam admitted.
"You met with Khan a second time?" Bruno over-pronounced each word, emphasizing each as he tended to do when he was angry.
"I went to see him to ask him why."
"We don't care why! What difference could that make?"
"Settle down, Bruno." Leo handed the photos to CJ, who went through them quickly, pausing briefly at one, and then handed them to Bruno.
Bruno looked through them. "Who sent these?"
"I'm not entirely sure." Sam handed the note to Leo.
Leo read it out loud. "Damn it, Sam!"
"Throw gasoline on the fire, why don't you, Seaborn?" Bruno ranted for several minutes, as Sam felt his world crumble again. How had this happened? He wasn't an idiot, yet he kept screwing up.
"What difference, Sam? Would his reasoning suddenly make it all better?"
Sam felt his anger flare. He took a step toward Bruno. "Listen, Gianelli"
Josh's head snapped up to stare wide-eyed at his friend. This was a rare tone for Sam. This was his bust-you-like-a-piƱata tone.
"I went to see him. Right now, that's all you need to know."
Bruno took a step forward as well, until he and Sam were nearly nose to nose. "You listen, Seaborn! All I need to know is, can you be trusted to do as you're told?' It doesn't look like you can. It's bad enough that you caused this fiasco with the tape, but now, you compound the problem! Are you an idiot?"
Josh threw himself into the fray wanting nothing more than to prove to Sam that he was a good friend. "Bruno, shut up! The important thing now is to deal with this, not to analyze why Sam did it. After all, what difference does it make? Would his reasoning suddenly make it better?"
Bruno seethed at hearing his own words thrown in his face, but he did drop it.
"Just for the record, Sam, did he give you a reason?" Leo was more interested in drawing Sam's attention away from Bruno than in an answer to the question.
Sam nodded. "Retaliation for the open mike. I tried to tell him it was a mistake, but he didn't believe me."
CJ glanced at Leo. Until that moment she hadn't been sure if he knew. He seemed startled when he realized that she knew, too. She knew they'd be talking about it later.
"A lot of papers reported that you were there." CJ reminded him, gently.
"I wasn't."
"I know."
"That's not the thing that bothered me." He leaned forward as if confiding a dark secret. "He thinks it wasn't a mistake. He's sure the President did it on purpose. He probably thinks it was my idea."
CJ swallowed her initial response. She or Leo would have to tell the President what Sam had just told them, but before she could give it much thought, they were drawn back into what could only be described as the battle the rest of the staff had started.
Bruno was waving one of the pictures under Sam's nose, and while he, Sam and Toby were shouting. Somehow, Sam managed to look angry and worried at the same time.
"People, People!" Leo's voice cut through the cacophony, but the combatants continued to glare at each other. "Bruno, what's your spin?"
"This picture isn't that clear. It was raining. He can deny its him."
Leo didn't have to look at Sam. He felt the man bristle at the suggestion. He forced himself to look anyway, cutting the younger man off when he inhaled sharply in preparation of assailing Bruno with whatever words a speechwriter would feel compelled to use when feeling righteously indignant. "Sam, is it you?"
"Yes."
"That takes care of that."
Bruno stopped glaring at Toby and Sam, and started glaring at Leo. "You can't be serious."
"Oh, I can be." Leo was firm. "We won't deny anything. If they come up with better pictures somewhere down the line, he'd just have to say, Oh, you know what, I guess that was me after all.' We are not gonna go there."
Bruno turned away for just a moment. "What do you intend to do?"
Leo turned his attention to Sam. "Can you be charged with anything here?"
Sam had hoped no one would think of that. "Officially, only Kevin Khan can charge me."
"With what?" Josh seemed perplexed.
"Assault." Sam spoke matter-of-factly, as if he wasn't even discussing himself.
"Assault?" CJ and Josh both said it at the same time and spared a glance for each other before glaring at Sam as if demanding he take back what he'd said.
Sam only nodded. "Technically, it was assault. He'd look fairly foolish charging me, though. I mean, there was nothing to it. He wasn't injured. The thing is"
"What? What thing? What's the thing?" Josh demanded.
"He doesn't need to charge me with anything. He can laugh it off and still present this picture as evidence that I'm volatile or dangerousor just that I'm conspiring. He doesn't even have to be the one who releases the pictures. He can claim ignorance as far as how they got to the press, and insist that he never had any intention of sharing this with the public. He's barely involved." Sam shrugged. "He's sowing seeds.unless he intended all along to press charges. Or mix this up with the tape and get me on conspiracy and assault."
Josh ignored the colorful metaphor and turned his attention to Leo, sure that his friend and mentor could somehow fix this. "We won't let it get that far, right?"
Leo stared at Josh for a moment before allowing his frustration and annoyance to cross his features. "Oh, and how do you expect we're gonna do that? Hire someone to break his kneecaps?"
"Do we know someone who will break his kneecaps?"
"Josh!"
Josh held up his hands to Leo in a gesture of surrender.
Toby stepped forward. "I think the only thing we can assume is that this is going to make it to the media soon. Even if we find out who has it, we can't trust that they will be the only ones who have it."
"What are you saying? That we just wait?" Josh stared at Toby as if the man had grown a second head that had promptly begun to sing the score to Oklahoma.
"There's little else we can do other than devise the exit strategy."
Josh whirled to face Bruno, who had spoken softly from the back of the room. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Leo, sensing Josh's deteriorating mood, took a step forward. "Calm down."
"What? NO! Not until he explains himself!"
Bruno addressed himself to Leo. "I mean we should start to distance the President from Sam and come up with an exit strategy. If we can do that before this goes public, we can keep damage to a minimum."
Josh brow furrowed in a furious glare, and, opening his mouth to shout at Bruno, was amazed to hear a voice other than his own.
"We won't be doing that."
Those who were not standing found their feet as they each echoed Sam's greeting. "Mr. President."
"Good Morning, Mr. President."
"Mr. President."
"Mr. President."
"Mr. President."
Only Bruno remained silent. Only Bruno held Bartlet's undivided attention. The other staffers, sensing a confrontation about to take place, parted before Bartlet as the Red Sea had before Moses.
"No exit strategies. No distancing. It's not going to happen."
"It's worth consideration." Bruno insisted.
Bartlet shook his head. "No. It really isn't."
Sam cleared his throat and took a few steps toward his President. "Sir, if we can't find any other way to spin this, it might be for the best."
Bartlet turned to Sam. "No, Sam. It wouldn't be for the best. It might be expedient, but it wouldn't be best." He continued to stare at Sam as a small hint of a smile graced his features. Without turning from Sam, he called his orders. "CJ, find out who has this."
"Yes, Sir."
"Toby, Josh, find out who sent this."
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Leo, Bruno, Sam, go back to work. We'll be meeting about this later today."
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Thank you, Mr. President.
**
Hours Later
Oval Office
Jed Bartlet stared at his long time friend as if willing Leo to have an answer. When it was more than apparent that he didn't have anything to say, the President decided he had to break the silence. "It's been hours, Leo. Why don't we know something, yet?"
Leo shrugged. "I can't answer that. Josh's theory is that whoever sent this didn't send it to the media yet because they're trying to scare us into doing something stupid."
"Are we?"
"Are we what?"
"Going to do something stupid."
"I hadn't planned on it, Mr. President."
"Yeah, but apparently I did."
"What?" Leo was lost.
"The open mike. That's what started this."
"Mr. President"
"No. I'm just saying. I've got to fix this, and it can't be at Sam's expense."
Leo's eyes narrowed. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking we need to clear this up or you and I won't have the privilege of voting for Sam Seaborn for President."
Leo stared at the President, surprise evident on his face. "You're grooming him."
Jed shrugged. "Not very well, I'm afraid. We have to refocus. The MS took too much out of himout of us. I won't have this hanging over his head."
"I'm not sure what we can do, Mr. President."
"Check in with everyone. I'll want to meet about this soon."
Leo nodded, taking a last look at a thoughtful Josiah Bartlet as he left the Oval Office.
TBC
