No one liked the two am call. For one thing it was at two in the morning but for another much more important thing it was never for anything good. It took three rings before Leo McGarry was disturbed from his sleep by the two am call. As the Chief of Staff roused himself from what hadn't been a pleasant slumber anyway, he glimpsed the green glow of his digital clock which alerted him to the time and the fact that this call could not be good.
"Chief of Staff Leo McGarry answering," he greeted in a serious tone as he snatched up the receiver and sat upright.
Leo could hear rain and felt a mild annoyance at the realisation that nature had shaped his dreams. In his sleep he had been standing in the rain looking at two broken bodies, star crossed lovers soaked in blood swirling in puddles- Cadence and Robbie. It had been five years since Robbie Donovan's murder but Leo could still see the body as if it were yesterday. He had gone to the mortuary for identification. Of course he wasn't meant to view the body, the police had a photograph, they were satisfied just to show him that but he hadn't been satisfied, he had to see the body first before he alerted the family. It had been denial and desperation, he had wanted it to be a mistake, for Cadence he had wanted it all to be a terrible misunderstanding.
"Morning sir," Charlie's neutral, polite voice greeted him. "I'm sorry for the wake up sir but it's important."
"What's happened Charlie?" Leo demanded.
"Sir there are four undercover CIA agents trapped in Colombia. The Colombians know they're there and in light of recent events the President of Colombia has labelled them spies and drug pedlars. Fitzwallace says it's going to be a race against time between us and the Colombians to get the agents."
Leo sighed as he swung his legs round the bed. He wondered but didn't voice it if maybe the President of Colombia had a point. Were these part of the corrupt crew who had helped the cartels in the hopes that they would destroy each other? The whole thing was a tangled mess and the CIA and DEA heads were stonewalling on it, Leo knew it would be ages before they even got part of the truth on the matter.
"I'm on my way Charlie, wake Josh and Toby," Leo retorted with a cool calm.
He was relieved, it wasn't exactly Defcon One, no one had declared war, yet. He hurried to get washed and dressed as he wondered what decision the President would make. Jed was still in a fury with the CIA and the DEA for the mess they had caused and he had no desire to be associated with it. It was why he had, reluctantly, agreed with Leo's suggestion of posing with his Vice and reaffirming his words that it was a minority of bad agents that had sullied America's reputation and that America remained a strong and loyal ally and not one to be tossed aside over rumours. Jed had also, away from the cameras, spoken to the President of Colombia over the phone and reminded him lightly that Colombia had its share of people committing criminal activity on American soil too.
As Leo dressed his thoughts returned to Cadence. He wondered how she was and hoped she was sleeping peacefully despite the rain. When he had discovered she had no working heat he had hit the roof. Cadence hadn't had the energy to calm him so she had called Mallory instead.
Cadence was now staying at Mallory's, as a house guest or prisoner it wasn't quite clear, she was bound there until she was well, that was both Mallory and Leo's insistence even though the heating was now sorted. A few angry words to the landlord and some idle threats and Leo had gotten that problem rectified almost immediately and then scolded Cadence for not asking for his help sooner.
Cadence had offered a half-hearted complaint that the landlord would remember her now and mumbled about standing on her own two feet but Leo had countered that by pointing out that she couldn't stand right now and everyone should accept help now and then.
It wasn't long before Leo found himself standing in the Oval Office facing a weary looking Jed.
"Leo how is it I'm being screwed by my own people?" Jed, tired and fed up, abandoned politeness for bluntness.
"I don't know sir," Leo admitted. "We've been looking into it since the rumours started but the CIA and DEA are stonewalling us at every turn."
Jed glanced at Leo with a cocked head and dark eyes burning with rage. "But they want our help now," he remarked sardonically, "to rescue some agents who may or may not have been involved in this mess. Agents who may have intentionally," Jed almost roared out the word as he gestured downwards pointedly with one finger, "brought about the deaths of innocent civilians in Colombia!"
Leo nodded calmly. "It's a no win situation sir, if we are seen to be doing nothing the American people will view as a betrayal of our men, irregardless of their potential crimes, and they will face a different kind of justice there than they would here. The fact is sir, they are innocent until proven guilty and we don't leave any soldiers behind, even the ones who have done dubious deeds."
"Dubious deeds," Jed sneered at the phrase. "Alright Leo, time to meet Fitzwallace then and get it done, quickly."
The door knocked and opened inwards hastily. It was Charlie.
"Mr President," Charlie addressed his boss quietly with a serious stare, "Admiral Fitzwallace is in the Situation Room now."
Jed nodded with a solemn look. "We'll meet him now Charlie," he retorted.
Jed and Leo followed Charlie out of the room and headed for the Situation Room with the familiar escort of Secret Service agents. They moved as a regiment, men marching to potential war.
It was a destination Jed despised. There was never a call to be in the Situation Room for anything good and he had found himself heading there entirely too many times for his liking. How many near disasters had there been in his short term? How many actual disasters? How many lives were spared and ended as the result of conversations in there? Words could be so powerful, deadly even.
Jed cooled his temper as he prepared to enter the room. A word spoken in anger could mean a life. He could not be the President who cost lives based on personal feelings. In this room he had to always be the President and never the man, it was always professional and never personal.
Jed stepped in and the military personnel rose to their feet instinctively. Jed waved them down to their seats again accordingly. He appreciated the show of respect but when it was from men with greater military experience than he had or could ever hope to have then he had to admit, if only internally, that they were his betters really.
Jed and Leo took their seats and let Admiral Fitzwallace carry out his briefing.
Admiral Percy Fitzwallace acted as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who sat in the room looking solemn. He was a serious man, always honest and always clear with his opinions even when they clashed with the President's.
"Mr President, the CIA have informed us of four undercover agents in Colombia," Admiral Fitzwallace informed him as he stared across the table to him directly. "They are on the outskirts of Cali, too far south for a border crossing into Panama. The Colombians know they are there, they haven't got their exact location but they are getting close."
"So what are you proposing?" Jed queried.
"An aerial rescue sir," this retort came from the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He looked unhappy about it.
"How risky is that?" Jed demanded. He wondered if the Air Force Chief was unhappy for the same reasons he was because there was that niggling feeling that these agents didn't deserve soldiers' lives to be at risk for their own. "The Colombians will see us in their air space and consider it an act of hostility surely."
"We can send one helicopter," Fitzwallace explained, "along the coast. They're too far south for a border crossing but if they can head west they can get to the coast for a lift."
"Why not a naval rescue then?" Jed asked.
Fitzwallace shook his head. "That would take more time and draw suspicions faster. One small chopper is all we can afford to risk, it can't look military sir or it looks like war."
"Alright, has anyone gotten in contact with these agents to inform them of this plan?" Jed demanded.
Fitzwallace nodded. "We have radio contact but it's brief, it could be traced."
"Why have the CIA allowed us contact?" Jed queried with a hint of a sneer.
"Because they need the military's help," Leo answered quietly. He sat at the President's right hand, calm and stoic as he usually was until he felt his opinion needed to be heard.
Jed nodded sombrely and stood up. "Alright gentlemen get it done but Leo I want the CIA Director in here immediately. These are his men and this is his mess. They cannot create this kind of a fallout and expect us to clean it up without giving us answers and an explanation!"
Leo stood up as well. "Yes sir, I'll get him on the phone now."
The President led the way out with Leo close on his heels. He paused momentarily in the corridor and glanced back to Leo with a warmer expression.
"Now that we have the unpleasant business of war temporarily out of the way, how's Cady?" Jed quipped.
Leo was only a little surprised by Jed's casual dismissal of something so major as war. It was Jed's way of coping with major situations, by making light of them, only in private of course to those who would never misinterpret or deliberately portray his sense of humour as callousness.
"Well Mal had to lock her study to stop her trying to do work," Leo admitted.
Jed raised his eyebrows slightly at this. "She was trying to do work?"
Leo nodded. "With a fever over a hundred and the doctor saying if her fluid levels don't increase she needs to go a drip but she's trying to get on Mal's computer to do work because she's been forbidden access to her own laptop."
Leo sighed. He hadn't told Jed much about Cadence's sickness, a flu was all he had said, no mention of Robbie Donovan.
Jed looked impressed and he nodded. "She's wasted on John, wasted," he lamented. "We should've hired her Leo."
Leo attempted a faint smile and failed, his mind was still on Robbie.
"Leo what is it?" Jed pried. "Are you worried she'll get worse?"
Leo shook his head quickly. "No sir, something else but it can wait."
Jed considered pushing the issue but he knew he would only be doing it for the distraction. He nodded and pointed at Leo sternly. "Alright but I won't forget," he vowed.
Leo gave the smile this time. "Yes sir, I'll go make that call now."
"It's four a.m," Josh lamented as he pushed his hands through his messy curls.
At two a.m he had been fast asleep, at half two confused and still half-dreaming as he took Charlie's call. By three a.m he had been wide awake, hyper at the thought of war and churning out potential speeches and press releases with Sam and Toby whilst complaining that C.J wasn't suffering loss of sleep. Now it was four a.m and nothing had really happened since three and he was slowly down from the monotony.
Toby, grumpy even without the lack of sleep, was ready to go mad as he waited for something to happen. He was trying to take advantage of the brief moment of peace to get their ducks in a row for every potential outcome but Josh kept ruining it.
"Riveting Josh, truly," Toby snapped sardonically as he glared across the room at him. Toby clapped his hands together and resumed pacing about the room as he had been for the past ten minutes. "Maybe you can read the calendar next and tell us the date!"
"Well now it's technically the twenty-third and a Tuesday," Josh retorted as he stared back at Toby with bright eyes that were starting to redden from fatigue.
Sam, quiet on the couch in the office they lingered in, raised a finger to make a point. "There's no technically Josh," he said as he glanced up at his friend, "it is actually Tuesday."
Toby gave a dramatic groan. "Would you two quit, we have much more important things to consider that the time and the date and the day! That's why we're here damn it!"
Josh gave Toby a calm stare that bore a twinkle of mocking to it. "Toby what can we do? We've analysed all the information we have, we need to wait until the President finishes talking to Director Wolfe," he alluded to the CIA director.
"If ever there was a good name for someone," Sam murmured sardonically. "Think of the jokes the press will make with that," he added pointedly.
"They've already made a few," Josh reminded him. He gave a small grin as he started waving his hand up and down. "There was a good one yesterday with a sketch of Colombia as a pig and the Big Bad Wolf blowing down things with bombs."
"Josh," Toby scorned him with a withering look to match his tone. "Really? You want to give credit to our press mocking the Colombians by depicting them as a pig? As if we aren't in enough bother with them?"
Josh gave Toby a defensive look. "Come on now Toby, it's not like we knew about the CIA, you know Hoynes might have inadvertently helped us by looking ignorant in that interview," he murmured.
"Vice President Hoynes," Sam corrected him quietly as he lounged back in the couch slightly.
His dark blue stare fell on the cluttered coffee table in front of him. He found a certain irony in the fact that it had, for once, been used for purpose and was littered with polystyrene cups of half-drunk coffee. It was the cheap, thick kind, the only sort one could feasibly get in the twilight hours before dawn without trekking far for it or forking out too much for it. Sam, as the last arrival, had brought it in with him. Sure there was the closed canteen downstairs which staff could access even without catering staff to make up a hot beverage or snatch something from the fridge but since Sam had been passing a stall on his way he had opted for the fresher option, even if it was cheap and a little bitter.
Josh shot Sam a childish glance of irritation, which was missed by the Deputy Communications Director.
Their impatient desire for information continued for another hour. During that time there were a couple of brief phone calls exchanged between Toby and Charlie, and Josh and Leo. Josh also moved the conversation towards Sam's love life out of simple boredom.
"So Sam," he mused, "since we have nothing better to talk about right now, which is mind boggling given the country could well be announcing a war in a matter of hours, tell us, how are you and Mallory? Did you patch things up on your date with her and the devil?"
"The devil?" Toby repeated with a look of puzzlement.
Sam, whose cheeks had turned a faint pink, pushed his glasses up and glanced over at Toby. "He means Cady," he said. "She brought Zoey as a date, who brought Gina for protection and they all ganged up on me," he murmured with a pensive look.
Josh's eyes widened at this and a gleeful smile emerged on his face. "So how did that turn out?"
"Apparently I have to apologise, with gestures," Sam retorted as he glanced at the floor and continued to blush, "showy, grand gestures was mentioned. I was given films to watch for example by Zoey. Cady suggested some movie called Rascal but Mal said it was about a raccoon and not to watch it."
"It is and it's not romantic," Toby retorted, "but romantic movies are trash, don't give into trash Sam."
"Says the single-" Josh hesitated as Toby gave him yet another glower.
"You're single too Josh," Toby said sharply.
"So no advice from either of you," Sam murmured.
"Don't associate with call girls still stands," Toby scorned him.
The phone rang from the desk behind Toby and he turned and quickly snatched it up. "Hello."
"It's Leo Toby," Leo said sombrely. "We've made contact in Colombia, it looks like we have a chance at getting them out cleanly, we'll know soon."
"Alright."
"You, Sam and Josh come to my office," he ordered, "we won't be doing a press release until it's done and even then we might not."
"Right Leo, we're on our way."
The phone clicked off and Toby hung it up. He looked at Josh and Sam with a serious stare. "Leo wants us in his office," he explained.
Josh stared past Toby to the light of dawn seeping in through the cracks in the blinds. It was red. He pointed towards it. "Isn't there a saying about that? Red sky in the morning..."
Toby glanced over his shoulder to it. "Shepherd's warning," he concluded grimly.