XVIII
Sam wandered into his boss's office. "Toby, I've got those notes you wanted on-"
He broke off, and let the upraised papers drop down against his thigh as he registered the fact that Toby was ignoring him and staring into the distance. He was rolling something absently around the desktop with a metallic sound; as he looked up at his deputy he stopped it with his fingers, and Sam saw that it wasn't a coin as he'd first thought, but his wedding ring.
Toby focused his gaze, coming down from whatever thoughts he'd been lost in. " Sam."
Sam ignored his original purpose, and leaned back against the doorframe.
"Toby, what's going on?"
"Any number of things are going on," his boss answered brusquely. "The president is presiding over a budget meeting with a severe cold and a marginally less severe hangover. Josh is hassling the staff of minor-league Congresswomen for reasons best known to himself. CJ is attempting to convince several members of the press that comments made by the Swedish Ambassador last night were not actually extremely offensive, which is likely to be a challenge, because they were."
"Are things with you and Andy all right?" Sam probed. Toby shot him a dark look.
"Which part of the preceding sounded like 'this is a good time to ask me about my private life'?" he wondered rhetorically.
Sam looked pointedly at the wedding ring trapped under his fingers. Toby followed his gaze, and briefly snapped it up into the air before catching it and tucking it away into his pocket.
"It's fine," he said shortly. "We're just... coming to some decisions."
Sam raised his eyebrows at that, but Toby showed no inclination to say any more. After a moment he handed over the notes he'd brought, and they got back down to business.
"Charlie." He gave his aide and son-in-law as much of a smile as he could muster. He still felt decidedly blocked up and stuffy, and it made all his facial muscles ache. The faint traces of a hangover didn't help any, either.
Damn medication. Tipsy after two glasses of champagne! He knew he should never have let them coerce him into taking those pills.
Charlie nodded at him, all business. Too businesslike. Ever since Ron Butterfield had given him the lowdown on the latest threatening letters, he'd been going through his duties in a stiffly mechanical manner, with none of his usual good humour or moments of subtle impertinence.
He was angry. And Lord knew Jed didn't blame him for that, but it couldn't be good for him to keep it all tightly locked down like that.
"How long until my next meeting?" he asked, seeking a non-confrontational way in.
"Four and a half minutes, Mr. President," Charlie answered promptly.
Not much of a window for a heart to heart talk, but he gave it a shot anyway. He sat back in his chair and took a sip from his water glass. "How're you doing, Charlie?" he asked gently.
"I'm fine, Mr. President," he said stiffly.
With most people, that would be an open invitation to roar at them to cut the crap, but he doubted that would work with Charlie. He kept his emotional cards close to his chest.
"And Zoey?" he asked instead.
"She's pretty tired these days, sir."
"That happens," he nodded. "She's like her mother, you've got to watch her, she's gonna think she can be playing football and lifting pianos right up until the day the baby's born."
"Yes, sir." It was like talking to an unfailingly polite brick wall.
"Have you two talked any more about what the baby's going to be called?"
He shook his head. "We haven't had the chance to talk too much lately, Mr. President, it's been some pretty late nights."
"Yes it has," he nodded. "But you should always make time for your family, Charlie. You're gonna be a dad in a couple of months, and believe when I say everything else is about to see a sharp shift in priorities. That baby's going to be the most important thing in your life from here on in, and that's never going to go away. A man never stops looking out for his kids."
"Yes, sir."
Jed mentally grimaced in frustration. The only way he could think to more openly invite Charlie to talk to him about the threatening letters would be to say 'Charlie, talk to me about the threatening letters'. He was more than halfway considering doing that when Charlie stood up.
"Sir, you'd better get going."
"Yeah." He pushed himself slowly up out of the chair, and sighed. Wheedling some sort of emotional response out of Charlie would have to wait. Government called.
Josh sat with his feet up on his desk, contemplating. "Wells, McGann, and Bridges," he mused aloud. "Wells, McGann... and Bridges."
It made no sense! He knew the what, he'd pieced together the how, but the all- important why remained elusive.
Selena McGann had been part of the group that had helped pull together the deal. She'd spent months working with them to carefully shepherd this bill to the point where it was now... and then she'd sabotaged it at the eleventh hour.
Sabotaged it incredibly unsubtly, too. One little behind the scenes double- cross, and they'd have been sitting there as their work was shot down wondering what the hell happened, but instead she'd chosen to leak the details to the media through her old college mate Wells. Bridges and his guys had moved countermeasures into play double quick, but their team had been also been alerted by the media coverage and scrambled to pull the deal off the table before it imploded.
Leaving them all right back where they'd been several months ago, with neither side gaining an appreciable advantage.
What the hell was she playing at?
"Wells and McGann." That was easy to work out; Wells was small fry, she'd been a convenient route to a media leak without McGann being seen to get her hands dirty. " McGann and Bridges."
That was where the money was. That was the million dollar question. The only one who'd made any gain here was Bridges - and even he'd only gained a stalemate, not a victory.
But he knew McGann hated Joe Bridges, there was personal bad blood there. He was fairly sure it could be traced back to his complete assassination of the technology bill a year ago. Nobody was entirely sure how Bridges had accomplished it, but Hoynes had been pissed as hell to see his pet project go down in flames. Of course, that had been in the dark days surrounding the messy battle for reelection, when it seemed like every other piece of legislation they introduced was hacked to pieces.
McGann was still pissed at Joe Bridges for killing her big bill a year ago. Why would she deliberately blow open a secret deal that would have been one in the eye for him?
Josh spun round in his chair, physical circles to match the ones his thoughts were making. Donna came in with some paperwork, and eyed him disdainfully.
"If you get motion sickness again, it's on your own head," she warned. He skidded to a stop and blinked up at her.
"I had food-poisoning that day!" he insisted defensively.
Donna expertly neatened his desktop as she rolled her eyes at him. "You made yourself dizzy spinning round in your chair, and then you threw up in your trashcan. It was a real red-letter day for the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, I've got to tell you."
"It was the chicken in white wine sauce!"
She gave him a look. "You ate chicken in white wine sauce, and then you came back to your office and spun round on your chair for half an hour, and you wonder why you threw up?"
"It helps me think," he defended.
"I thought standing with your back against the wall did that?"
He gave her a baleful look. "Somebody kept hitting me with the door."
She refused to look contrite. "See, and most people, after the first time, would think about moving to a different wall."
"I like that wall," he insisted, probably more petulantly than he wanted to sound. "And I like spinning in my chair. Being in motion helps me think."
"Great! So go to the gym."
"I don't want to go to the gym," he objected.
Donna was using her worried face on him, damn her. "Josh, you don't exercise enough."
This was a favoured theme of not just Donna but the Surgeon General, the First Lady, and any other physician types he came into contact with. He had a theory it was a plot of some kind. It had been three and a half years since Rosslyn, he exercised as much as he thought he needed to, and his health was doing just fine, thank you. Clearly this whole 'you should have a proper exercise regimen' thing was all a big con.
"I exercise!" he insisted.
"When?"
"When... you're not looking at me," he finished a little lamely. She was still giving him the face. "I can go to the gym another time, Donna, right now I need to think."
"And spin in circles in your chair?"
"And spin in circles in my chair," he agreed. He made a brief circle to prove it, and then leaned back over the headrest to look up at her. "Can you order me up a burger and fries?"
"No, but I can get you a plain salad."
He sat up, and turned around to eye her suspiciously. "This is revenge for not going to the gym?"
"This is a pre-emptive defence for if you're going to keep spinning in that chair all day. And give me your trashcan, I'd better empty it before you have lunch."
Josh let out a world-weary, put-upon sigh, the effect of which was somewhat muted by the fact that Donna had already left. He leaned back in his chair, and went back to his interrupted thoughts.
McGann and Bridges. Bridges and McGann.
After a while, he started to spin again.
