[20:30 October 18 2002]
"Why is it that everything always seems to happen on the same day? Are there not three-hundred and sixty some other days in the year on which some things could decide to happen?" Brickhill declared loudly, striding into the room and immediately shedding his suit jacket and loosening his tie. "I hope you'll forgive me if I take off my jacket 'cause I'm pretty sure we're going to be here for a damn long time."
"Why are you even wearing a jacket?" McKenna asked. "It's eight-thirty at night." McKenna's grey flannel slacks and knitted sweater were carefully casual, as relaxed as his dress ever was.
"None of your damn business," he growled back, dropping into his chair. "All you need to know is that I'm here. The NDP have a campaign for election going on and there hasn't even been a call yet. There's going to be a speech starting any minute that's going to give us a new Opposition Leader. There's a Presidential debate going on across the border somewhere. And the Qumaris have decided that there's not enough crap hitting the fan right now."
"Thank you for your expert opinion," Monaghan broke in, stepping briskly into the room. She too was dressed rather casually, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. "Morceau won't be here tonight, sir," she said, turning to address the prime minister. "He and his fiancée eloped this afternoon and he'll be out of contact until tomorrow morning. They've gone tenting and he's out of cell range."
"What a time for a wedding," Brickhill snorted.
"You're so romantic that it's a wonder you never married," McKenna noted, pushing the sleeves of his sweater up and rolling his eyes. "We're pretty sure that the Israelis didn't take down Shareef's plane, right?"
"They didn't take down the plane," Monaghan answered firmly, "but they did order air strikes against two Bahji military bases inside Qumar."
"This night just keeps getting better and better." Brickhill unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and started rolling up his sleeves.
"You can't tell me that you didn't know that?" McKenna asked in disbelief. "You didn't get married this afternoon too, did you?"
"Very funny," he answered, not a hint of mirth in his voice. "My niece is in town. I had to do things with her. And she's alone in my apartment right now, probably watching the Alliance speech. Can we get back to the thing?"
"Needless to say," Monaghan continued, ignoring the exchange between the two older men, "the Qumaris aren't real happy about the air strikes. And considering that they weren't very happy in the first place, it's not a good situation."
"How does this message from our UN ambassador fit in?" McKenna inquired, fishing a piece of paper out of the folder that had been lying in front of him.
"The Qumari ambassador flew to DC tonight. It was apparently an unplanned trip. I'm guessing that President Bartlet had something that they wanted to say to him, some demand or another to make," Monaghan explained.
"The Americans took down the plane, right?"
"So far as we can tell," she answered. "Of course, they're not admitting anything, even to us. But based on the denials they're issuing combined with what intelligence we've managed to gather, it's a pretty strong case. It's circumstantial for the most part, but there isn't really anyone else who would have done it."
"Israel sanctions covert assassinations of terrorists," Brickhill pointed out. "And there are other countries that aren't so particular about taking out their enemies."
"Shareef helped finance Bahji cells," McKenna added in. "They're sure that it wasn't Israel?"
"You've both read the same briefings I have," Monaghan replied. "Nearly every country in the world has some reason to want to get back at the Qumaris for some reason or another. But we all know that Israel didn't do it. It's just a Qumari excuse and I'm sure that the White House has been receiving demands from the sultan that we haven't heard about."
"I know that," McKenna replied. "I just wanted to make sure that you hadn't fallen for their load of bull."
"Sir," she deadpanned, "I didn't just fall off the turnip truck."
"You've been hanging out with Cohen," McKenna answered, laughing a little. "That's a prairie expression if I ever heard one." Then he abruptly switched back to the matter at hand. "What are the Americans going to demand?"
"The USS Austin stopped a Qumari ship on the well-founded suspicion that it was carrying weapons," Monaghan said. "I would imagine that the demands have something to do with that."
"And unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to," Brickhill declared. "We don't have many forces in the area. We can't deploy fast enough. There's no UN peacekeeping mission."
"But we've got ambassadors who are going to earn every red cent of their pay," McKenna retorted. "We're going to get on the phone with our ambassador to the UN, to Israel and Qumar, to the US. The Americans might not contact us as a go between, but we know that they don't maintain formal diplomatic relations with Qumar, even if they do have their UN ambassador at their beck and call."
"Our UN ambassador is already talking with our American one. They're following things as best they can and making it as clear as possible to everyone that we're ready should a diplomatic solution need to be hammered out through an intermediate." Monaghan sighed. "Our ambassador to Qumar probably doesn't get much sleep anymore."
"You know that it's daytime over there, or did you miss that lesson in school?" Brickhill shot out sarcastically. Monaghan shot a glare over at him. He didn't appear to be intimidated by the diminutive red-head, but he didn't say anything further. He knew that her relative youth was a bit of a touchy subject. Most of the time it came up in questions of her capability to carry out her responsibilities or in her lack of experience. The members of the opposition parties especially like to use it.
"It was a general comment, Bill," McKenna spoke up in her defence, even though he didn't really need to defend her.
Brickhill sighed. It was as close to an apology as he was going to give. "Are we going to hash out some kind of a statement or are we free to go and watch whatever nitwit the Alliance has chosen to lead it?"
"The Canadian government strongly condemns political assassinations of all types but wishes to make known that it is willing to act as an intermediate agent in peace talks between the Israelis and the Qumaris," McKenna spun.
Monaghan shook her head. "We've got to come out with a strong position on the thing without accusing anyone. 'We extend our condolences to the people of Israel for the untimely loss of Ben Yossef and wish them to know that the people of Canada grieve along with them for the loss of a man so devoted to preserving the peace of the world. We stand by the ideals that he advanced. Whenever the people of the world need an intercessor, the Canadian people will be ready to act for peace. One attack does not warrant another. It is in that manner that the world will again descend into a war that will destroy the world.' Or something like that. We don't point the finger, but we make it clear that we have one."
"Why aren't you writing speeches for me?" McKenna asked idly.
"I got elected first," she answered flippantly. "We should give our ambassadors some time before we make any statements; any deal people might come to could be covert. We don't want to sound too strong when we don't have a clear idea of what Bartlet's saying to the Qumaris."
"Yeah." He stood from his chair to go. "Remember, you both owe me money if it's Schoff."
"My bet's on Meadley," Brickhill answered, shrugging his suit jacket back on over his rolled up sleeves. "Which leaves you the short straw with Walsh," he directed that comment at Monaghan.
"He was ahead in September," she answered. "And I don't think the numbers would swing that wildly without anything happening. Schoff picked up eight percentage points over a weekend that everyone took off."
"I'll up the readiness level of the Forces before I leave," McKenna said as they walked out of the room. "Just in case."