XII
"So what's our position?" Jed glanced at Fitz expectantly.
The Admiral frowned. "This has the potential for a pretty big blowout if we don't tread carefully. Chad's still smarting from the Libyan incursion in the eighties, and the Libyans are still smarting from how soundly they got trounced. If we take any action, we run the risk of severely antagonising Libya."
"I'd say they're being pretty antagonistic themselves." They were supposed to be on better terms with Libya these days, but it was still a pretty prickly proposition. He glanced sideways at Leo. "How's our relationship with Chad?"
"Good, usually, which is why their refusal to acknowledge the incident is pretty worrying," his Chief of Staff supplied.
"Could it have been a spy plane?" Jed wondered.
"It's possible," spoke up one of the many other uniforms in the room. Jed could never keep their names straight, and always hesitated to call on them by rank out of residual paranoia that he'd get it wrong and utterly humiliate himself. "The plane that was brought down doesn't seem to have been attached to any legitimate air manoeuvres in the region."
"So Chad is keeping quiet to cover their own dirty laundry?" Jed guessed. Leo gave him a tiny shrug, part acknowledgement, part warning not to jump to conclusions.
Leo was right. This was too sticky a situation to go leaping in until they knew exactly what was what. He stood up. "Get me somebody on the phone who can give me a confirmation or denial," he ordered.
The others at the table scrambled to copy the move, and Fitz gave him a firm nod. "Yes, sir."
He looked to Leo. "I've got some kind of lunch arranged with the... women's group of... something. Any idea what that's about?"
The shrug he got this time was a lot more theatrical, with a hint of exasperated eye-rolling. "I have no idea, Mr. President."
Neither did he. Wow, this was going to be fun. "Okay. Thank you, gentlemen." He headed out.
Josh returned, offering an apologetic shrug. "I spoke to Nancy. The president's going to be tied up all today. The best we can get is a quarter hour tomorrow."
"That's okay." Anything that delayed that nerve-wracking encounter with his prospective new employer was okay by him. In fact- "Actually, isn't that cutting it a little too close to the State of the Union? I could always-"
"No, it's fine." Josh stood in the middle of his bullpen and looked around distractedly. "Donna? Donna! Dammit, where the hell is Donna?"
Nobody seemed unduly distressed by the Deputy Chief of Staff's agitation. In fact, his staff appeared to be completely ignoring him. Ash tentatively raised a hand. "Uh, she said she was going to be-"
"Oh. Yeah." He turned around in a complete circle, perhaps looking for somebody else to grab, and then shrugged. "Okay, come on. I have to just take... this thing to... somebody... and then I'll show you out."
"Okay." Ash was content to follow him around. The West Wing was a bewildering and fascinating hive of activity. He'd fully expected it to be packed with busy people, but, well... you tended to expect the business of government to take place in offices and meeting rooms. From what he'd seen so far, most of it actually occurred travelling down hallways at a pace that would knock you unconscious if you collided with someone head on.
"Hi, Josh!" A scruffy looking guy with a beard and a press badge gave them a friendly nod as they passed.
"Hey, Danny. What are you doing back here?"
"Delivering fish food," he said cheerfully, as if that explained everything.
"Okay."
This seemed, bewilderingly, to make perfect sense to Josh. Ash trailed awkwardly after him, wondering if he was still being escorted out or had been forgotten entirely. The Deputy Chief of Staff's attention span seemed to be... erratic, at the best of times.
Josh snagged a passing assistant. "Hey, Ginger. Have you seen Donna?"
"Yeah. She's... somewhere."
"Okay." He was silent for a beat. "Thanks for that. Listen, could you spare a moment to take Ash down to-?"
"Sorry." She shook her head. "Pie crisis."
He held up his hands hastily. "Well, hey, don't stop to talk to me. Get going!"
"Yeah." She hurried on.
Ash caught up to Josh. "Is 'pie' some kind of code for something?"
"Regrettably, no." He looked around. "Okay, there seems to be an assistant shortage, so- Oh, wait. Hi, Charlie, can you show Ashley out?"
"Sure, in a second." Charlie looked rather harassed as he jogged over to join them. "Listen, did you just see Buster run through here with a squeaky duck in his mouth?"
Josh paused. "Uh-"
"Incidentally, in not unrelated news," Charlie said dryly, "the president has just decided to name his kitten Buster."
"Ah. No."
"Great. He made a break for it when I was supposed to be moving him out of the Residence for the- I'll be back in a second."
He dashed off.
Josh stuck his hands in his pockets, and offered Ash a wry smile as they waited. "Okay, I'd like to say this isn't an average day on the job, but... yeah, pretty much."
"CJ."
"Mr. Ziegler!" She sat back in her chair, in a much happier mood despite herself since Danny had dropped by. "What can I do for you this fine January afternoon?"
He stepped in and pulled the door shut behind him. "What's happening in Lubbock County?"
She grew more sober. "The Calgary boy's still in a coma. The doctors warned this was going to be the danger zone. If he doesn't wake up soon..." The longer he stayed unconscious, the less likely he would ever wake up. Not only would it be a senseless waste of another young life, it would mean the disappearance of perhaps their last chance at finding out exactly how this tragedy had come about.
"What about the Rossiters?"
"They're still making noise about lawsuits, but it's not getting much press."
"They're getting shouted down," Toby surmised.
"Sympathy for the criminal doesn't play well in Texas, Toby," she reminded him. It didn't play well in most places, actually. Nobody wanted to hear about reeducation and scientific studies and overcrowded prisons, they just wanted to hear that the bad guys had been put away where they could never do it again.
"Assuming they were even criminals," he said darkly.
CJ met his eyes, and shrugged pointedly. "We may never know."
"And yet the girl gets lauded as a hero anyway."
"Heroine, Toby," she corrected.
"You're offering me drugs now?" He eyed her sideways.
She sat up with an explosive sigh. "Listen, Toby, I know you want to take this on, but-"
"I want you to back me on taking this to the president. Leo wants to lie low and keep it off the agenda, but we need this front and centre. We need to-"
"You want to get up there on what's likely the biggest pulpit we'll have for the next year, and take on a thirteen-year-old girl who heard somebody breaking into her house?"
"I want to get up there and take on the fact that a thirteen-year-old girl who hears somebody breaking into her house reaches for her father's gun before she reaches for a phone to call the police," he said softly.
They locked eyes. CJ dropped her gaze first.
"Toby..." She sighed, shaking her head. "You know it won't play well with Hoynes hanging over our head. We're already under fire for not showing him the door. If we come down hard against one of the major points where he disagrees with the administration's message-"
"The administration's message is that we don't think kids should shoot people! Who disagrees with that?"
"It's not gonna play that way," she told him.
"Then we'll play it another way."
CJ smiled sympathetically. "You can't, Toby. You don't get to talk guns without the second amendment baggage. You know that."
The only evidence that he'd conceded the point was the way his shoulders slumped as he continued mumbling into his beard. "Regulated. It's built right into the amendment. Regulation! A thirteen-year-old girl with a shotgun is not a well-regulated militia. The drunk guy who hangs around outside bars and starts taking potshots at people based on their sexual preference is not a well-regulated militia! Two teenage neo-Nazis with pistols who decide to start taking potshots at the president are not-"
"Toby." She cut him off gently, just a quiet reminder that he wasn't the only one who'd been there that night.
He wound down slowly, and sighed. "We should be taking this on."
"Yes, we should. But not this time, Toby. Not this time."
"Yeah." He gave her a small, tired smile. "Yeah."
He left.