Chapter Fourteen
When Josh got back to the office and told Toby what had happened, Toby waited until he thought Judy would have gone and then went to see Sam. He returned an hour later and told CJ that Sam would email her a statement. Two days passed before CJ received it and when she did she went straight to Toby's office, picking up Josh on the way.
She stood by the door and watched Toby reading it. Josh sat on the edge of the sofa waiting for someone to tell him what was going on. Toby tapped his pen on the table as he read. It was a steady rhythm until he got to the end and then he struck it twice and threw it across the room. He scrubbed at his beard and let out a hollow laugh that made Josh stand up and shout, "Will one of you tell me what is going on?"
CJ ignored him and moved closer to the desk. "We can't put that out."
"You think?" Toby snapped. He turned to Josh and handed him the email. While Josh read, Toby summarised it for him. "Sam is grateful to the nurses, doctors, trauma team and staff at GW hospital. He's grateful to John Delaney. He's grateful to the police who escorted him and John to the hospital."
"What's wrong with that?" Josh asked, confused. "Oh," he skimmed the next page of the text, "he's grateful to everyone who helped him after he was found. If I keep reading this I'm not going to find any mention of the secret service, FBI or White House staff, am I?"
"No, but wait you haven't read the best bit yet. Sam says that he is-"
"Whoa, hold on, Toby, let me just read it for myself."
Toby snatched the paper from Josh, skimmed it and then gave it back, his finger indicating where Josh should read. He stared at CJ as Josh read silently.
"What is he thinking?" Josh asked incredulously and he read from the paper, "I will always view my time at the White House with pride and feel privileged to have been involved in the administration in which I served." Josh collapsed back against the sofa and threw the paper beside him. "Maybe he just confused his tenses…he hasn't written for a while, he's rusty…maybe he's just a little rusty."
"Is this going to be a long-term denial thing or are you going to be over it soon?" Toby asked.
"I'm pretty much over it," Josh said and sighed as he picked up Sam's email again. "He doesn't even say President Bartlet, he just calls it the administration. No…" Josh shook his head, "I'm going back into denial. This is probably just a rash decision that he's made…rashly. Anyway, Leo told Sam to let him know before he made any final decisions, and he would have told us if he'd heard anything."
The three of them looked up as Ginger tapped on the door. "Leo wants to see you all right away."
They walked to Leo's office in silence which was broken by Leo's voice which, although quiet, was nonetheless commanding. "Sam's resigned."
CJ, Toby and Josh stood in front of his desk. They didn't speak and so Leo continued, "I told him to talk to me before he made any decisions but he obviously thought he would skip the whole talking to me thing and just make his decision."
"You haven't accepted it though right?" Josh asked and at Toby's moan he explained, "I'm on the brink of denial, humour me."
"At the moment I don't have anything to accept. He hasn't put anything in writing he just phoned and-"
"He has," Toby cleared his throat and raised his voice, "he has put something in writing." He handed Leo Sam's email.
Leo read it and then sat down. "You're not going to release-"
"No!" CJ and Toby replied together.
"Sam's statement was meant to put an end to all the rumours not add weight to them," CJ added.
"Yeah, well, bin-it," Leo decided. "We asked him, he did it, we decided we don't need it after all. End of story."
"That's it? That's all we're going to do?" Toby could see Josh was about to rant at Leo and he decided to let him. "Sam as good as said that he is not coming back to work and we're not going to do anything about that?" He lowered his voice. "Not to mention the fact that he seems to have forgotten the name of the President."
"Have you finished?" Leo asked as he leant forward placing his hands on the desk. "All I've said is that we won't issue the statement. The content of it we'll deal with later." He straightened and glanced at the closed door to the Oval Office. "Whatever Sam decides to do he's in no state to do anything about it yet, so we've got time on our side. The President knows nothing about this and it's going to stay that way." Leo moved on to a discussion about attempts being made to block a Bill and made it clear that for the moment the subject was closed.
Sam wasn't aware that CJ hadn't released the statement. He had been asked to write one and so that is what he had done. He hadn't intended on making any revelations. He hadn't left Ron out of his list of people to thank or neglected to name President Bartlet, intentionally. He had talked about the White House in the past tense on purpose though. As far as he was concerned the White House was in the past for him. He had tried to imagine himself standing in the Oval Office, listening to Bartlet and Leo but whenever he did he ended up picturing himself asking them why they didn't save him. He knew that Josh had told him that they wanted him back. Josh had been very clear about that. Sam didn't want them to want their friend back; he wanted them to need him back professionally. He wasn't kidnapped because of his stance on the drug problem in Colombia it was because he had been the administration's poster boy for it. Sam knew that part of the reason Leo had picked him to work on the statement was because of his relationship with the media. Now he found himself wondering if that was the only reason. The more Sam thought like this, the more examples he could find of how his role in the administration had been lessened over the past few months. Of course they didn't bother to rescue him, Sam reasoned, they obviously didn't view his loss to the administration as one worth bothering with.
Jessica looked at her watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Most of the passengers she recognised from the plane had long since left the terminal. She suddenly remembered her cell phone was off and pulled it from her bag. She waited impatiently for the phone to beep at her and she quickly dialled the voicemail. She knew something was wrong. Sam would never arrange to meet her and then just not arrive. She told the female automated voice to get on with it and listened as the sound of Sam's shaky voice started. "Mom, sorry…I can't meet you. I've sent the cab without me…sorry…he said he'd make a sign with your name…I'm sorry, Mom…err if you can't see him phone me back."
Jessica hadn't been looking for a stranger holding a sign with her name on, she had been looking for Sam. She turned slowly around and immediately saw a man holding a coffee in one hand and a sign that had 'Jessica Mepham' scribbled on it. Since her divorce she had reverted to her maiden name but it still came as a surprise to see it in print. She walked over to him quickly and followed him to the cab.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't looking out for you. My son was supposed to be coming in the taxi to meet me."
"Yeah, that's what I thought but when I got to his place and buzzed for him he told me to come on alone."
"Well, no harm done, it's just a good job that I switched my cell phone on," Jessica answered light heartedly, but her thoughts were far from light hearted.
Sam closed his eyes and brought his knees closer to his chest. He had been sitting on the floor next to his bed for the last hour. He had been waiting for the cab to arrive when the fear had begun to take hold. He had tried to resist it, tried to conquer it but it had been too much.
He had left the apartment only once since being out of hospital and that had been a nightmare. He had put on his coat as if the action would make him go down to the cab when it arrived. It had only resulted in making him too hot. The longer he waited the more real the fear became until by the time the driver had buzzed for him, he was only capable of choking out that he should go on to the airport without him. He had thrown up before thinking to phone his mother. Then he had crawled onto his bed. He could only bear five minutes of it before sliding out and sitting huddled on the floor. He felt safe on the floor, with his back to the wall. He could see over the bed and be ready for them when they came.
Jessica had a key. She didn't even bother to ring before letting herself in.
"Sam, honey, what's wrong? Why didn't you meet me?" She dropped her bags in the hallway and peering into the empty kitchen and bathroom, headed straight for Sam's room. She didn't see him at first, huddled beside the bed. "Hi, Mom, sorry I didn't come to the airport."
The disparity between the normality of his words and his shaken appearance worried Jessica more than if he'd mumbled nonsense at her. She quickly walked over to his side, pulling the throw that he had pulled off the bed, out of the way. She felt his forehead and pulled his head back towards her when he drew away from her touch. He was pale and shaking but Jessica knew instinctively that Sam wasn't physically ill, "Calm down, Sam," she ordered. "Close your eyes and just try to calm down." She rubbed Sam's arm soothingly and tried not to feel hurt when he refused to accept any more attempts to comfort him than that. Eventually he stopped shaking and exhaustion replaced the tension that had held him rigid against the wall. He stared at the foot of the bed and Jessica didn't try to make him look at her. "Get some sleep. I'll wake you later and fix us something to eat."
Sam replied by slowly climbing back into bed. He pulled the covers over him and turned to face the wall. Jessica thought of him staring at the window in the hospital. His expression was the same and it made Jessica's stomach lurch to realise that all this time later, his sense of fear was too.
"It's not good news," Ron said as he followed Toby into his office. He shut the door behind him, muting the hum of noise from the Communications Bullpen.
"There was a raid last night in a place that the Colombian police have been watching for a while. It was the best chance we had of finding Incul."
"They didn't find him," Toby said wearily.
"It was always going to be a long-shot," Ron reminded him.
"And this was from that man that was caught in the first raid?"
"Yes, he'll get his deal- he led them to another sizable haul. He was clear though that if Incul wasn't there, then he was as good as gone. The network in Colombia for hiding members of cartels is incredible. But we know who they are now and Incul and Javier remain priority targets."
Toby hung up the coat that he had been standing holding and perched on the edge of his desk. "It would have made a big difference to Sam if they'd been found."
"It would have made a big difference to me!" Ron answered.
Toby looked at Ron and wondered how deeply the failure to rescue Sam was affecting him. Ron recovered quickly from letting his professional demeanour slip. He straightened to his full height and told Toby he would keep him updated.
Sam woke to the smell of omelettes and the sound of muted voices. He rubbed at his face and rolled onto his back. He could hear his mother talking. The smell of food was tempting him to get up and go to the kitchen but he didn't want Jessica to know he was awake in case the visitor was someone he didn't want to see. A door closed and the voices stopped. A few moments later the door to his room opened.
"Good, you're awake. I've made you an omelette," she walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open causing Sam to pull the covers back over his head. "Don't you want to know who I was just talking to?"
Sam stayed under the comforter. "Not really."
"It was Josh," she continued as if she hadn't heard him, "he wanted to talk to you. He seemed quite upset about something. I told him you were asleep. He's going to call again tonight."
"You can tell him I'm asleep then as well."
"I can't tell what you're saying. Get out from under there. I'm not having a conversation with your bedcover."
Sam reluctantly peeped out from beneath his cloth cocoon. "I said you can tell Josh I'm asleep tonight as well."
"I'll do no such thing! Your friends want to help you."
"I don't need any help."
"Poppycockle!" Jessica cried. Sam knew this as the word she used when others would use 'bullshit'.
"It's not poppycockle. I'm doing fine. I don't need-"
"I come here and find you quivering on the floor, you can't leave the house, you spend half the night shouting the place down and the other half pacing around your bedroom, you're not eating, you look worse than you did when you had pneumonia and you refuse to talk to anyone about what has happened!" Jessica stared at Sam, daring him to look away or deny what she had said.
"You want me to talk about it? Fine, let's talk about it." He flung the bed covers aside and walked over to Jessica. "What do you want to talk about? Shall I tell you about how they beat me every night? Maybe you want to hear about how I forced myself to eat the crap they fed me and then threw it up and how every time I put food in my mouth now I can taste vomit? I could tell you what it felt like to have my hand broken, describe the pain or the sound of the gun breaking my bones. Or what it's like to have a stupid fucking hand that won't work, that I can't use anymore. I can't even write my fucking name!"
The only sound was of the radio playing quietly in the kitchen. Sam was breathing hard and staring at Jessica. She stared back at him. Shocked by his rage and sickened by his words, she could only stare at her son. The radio presenter joked with his guest and their laughter was incongruous with the disturbing atmosphere of the bedroom. Jessica forced herself to move towards Sam. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and ignored the fact that he refused to look at her. "Yes, that's exactly what I want to hear. You can shout it at me if you want just so long as you start talking about what happened. Start admitting that something has happened to you." She pulled him into a hug and didn't let go even though Sam's arms remained at his side.
When Josh came back later on, he didn't talk to Sam about his statement. He was instantly aware of the strained atmosphere and only stayed long enough to drink a cup of coffee. Jessica kept up a flow of chit-chat while Sam sat on the sofa ignoring her and Josh. While she was seeing Josh out, Sam got up and went back to bed.
Josh drove around for a while. He turned up the volume of the radio and opened the window. The cool air blew into the car and ruffled his hair. It didn't do anything to help clear his mind though. Every time Josh saw Sam he seemed to be getting more distant from him. He looked worse as well, thinner and paler. Josh also noticed that Sam had adopted the habit of hiding his hand. He would stand with it behind his back or shoved in his pocket. He was quieter too. Josh had accepted that Sam wasn't ready to talk about what had happened, but now he seemed reluctant to talk about anything.
Josh pulled up to the sidewalk and cut the engine. He leant forward and rested his arms on the steering wheel. He thought about what had happened to him after Rosslyn and tried to imagine how Sam must be feeling. He closed his eyes and tried to think of a way to help Sam but all he could see was the man with the directions and the drug being blown into Sam's face. He leant back and rubbed his hand over his face then took a deep breath as he opened the door and stepped out of the car. He walked slowly towards a low wall that ran parallel with the sidewalk and shifted positions until he was standing where he had been the day Sam was taken. He turned around and stared at the Colombian Embassy. It was dark now but it had been sunny then. It had been sunny when Sam had walked down the steps towards him and called his name. Josh remembered seeing him and waving in his direction, too involved with his discussion with Toby to pay any more attention.
Josh walked slowly towards the spot where Sam had been standing. He took slow, careful steps and stood as near to the spot as he could remember being when Toby had grabbed him and forced him to stand still. A couple walked towards him, the man said something and the woman burst into laughter. Josh looked up, startled by the noise which had dragged him back to the present. He waited until the sidewalk was once again deserted. He took a deep breath and unconsciously held it as he ran towards the place where Sam had been. As he ran he played out the sequence of events in his head; the other man grabbing Sam, the van pulling up, the guns being drawn. Once there, he breathed out a huge sigh. He had always thought that he had been too far away to help Sam; he had just needed to make sure. He turned and walked back to his car. He didn't look back.