ACT FOUR
INT. WHITE HOUSE. CHIEF OF STAFF'S OFFICE
"They just keep replaying the same footage!" Josh charged with annoyance as he ran his hand through his hair for about the hundredth time that night.
Sam and the President both nodded. The images of the riot on the television screen had become redundant. Just then they were interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Come in and bring us news." Josh yelled.
"Mr. President?" Ronna entered the room tentatively. "The Nanny is calling from the Residence. Peter woke up with a nightmare and is asking for you. Do you have the time to go upstairs for a few minutes?"
The President sighed, but didn't hesitate. "The Nanny is not telling the truth, I'm sure Peter is asking for his mother. But, yes, I will make the time."
"I wish someone would wake me from this nightmare." Josh mumbled as
"Why don't they just gas them?" Sam asked a few minutes later as he took a sip from a water bottle. "You can't tell me that the MSG doesn't have tear gas."
"Gas them now and they just go away and come back angrier. If they feel its necessary they'll probably do it during extraction."
Sam raised an eyebrow at him. "You've picked up a few things in the Sit Room."
Josh smirked humorlessly. "One or two. Plus I already asked earlier."
Sam's lips tugged skyward at that. Then they sat in silence for several long beats.
"I've been here before, Sam. I've been here and I don't like it." Josh's voice was raw.
"I know." Sam looked over at him sympathetically, but also felt a twinge of guilt at not having been there that time. He hadn't been much use to Josh in that scenario and now wanted very much to make up for it. "I know you're worried, but I don't think this is going to have the same outcome as last time. It's scary, but Donna's safe right now and she's going to be fine. They all are."
"We don't know that."
Sam swallowed hard at the truth of the statement. "Yeah."
The door opened from the Oval and the President himself entered. Sam and Josh quickly jumped up and at his summons and followed him into the Oval Office. Once inside they were greeted by General McClain and Ron Butterfield.
"Give us good news, General."
"We have Marines on the ground, the air field is secure and we have an extraction team in place. All we need to do is get the delegation from the Embassy to the airfield."
"But isn't that the tricky part?" Josh asked with composed intensity.
"It's going to take a little time to figure out the best scenario," the General replied calmly. "We won't make a move until we're sure of success."
CUT TO:
INT.
The meeting room had gotten so hot that Helen and Donna had decided to open a window to try and encourage a breeze. They figured it was safe since they didn't face the front of the Embassy. Even thought that meant they couldn't see what was happening outside, unfortunately they could still hear it. The yelling, chanting and sounds of breaking glass definitely interrupted the safe and sanctuary like feel of the Embassy. The uniformed Marine stationed outside their door was also an ever present reminder of the situation at hand.
"Doesn't sound like they're going to let up anytime soon."
"No, it doesn't." Donna agreed.
"Donna…"
"Hmmm?" Donna looked up from where she was toying with the dressing on her wrist.
Helen's look changed to concern. "Are you sure it's okay? Should we call Jeff back upstairs?"
"Oh, no, let him look after the Embassy staff and whoever else needs medical attention."
Helen could tell she was uncomfortable with the constant attention to her injury so she continued with her earlier train of thought. "The clinic we visited this morning, the one before Kamroy and the mad race for the Embassy…"
Donna pretended to ponder it for a moment. "Oh, right. Sure, I remember..."
Helen gave a small snort of laughter. It was really the first time they'd had a chance to relax all day. "Is it me, or is it odd that there were only children being treated there?"
"It's odd."
"What does a 10-year-old boy with AIDS or malnourished babies have to do with the HPV vaccination?"
"Nothing… are you upset we made that stop?"
"Not at all. It was by far the most enlightening, if not heartbreaking, of the trip, but it had nothing to do with cervical cancer."
Donna studied her for a long moment wondering if it was time to spring what she'd suspected since before they'd left
CUT TO:
INT. U.S. EMBASSY AMIIR – UPSTAIRS
Annabeth marched into the room that Arnold Vinick occupied and immediately started listing the contents of her arms. "I have hydrogen peroxide, gauze, occlusive bandages, semi-occlusive bandages, regular bandages, antibacterial ointment, and butterfly tape… among other things."
"You stop at the pharmacy?" Vinick sounded amused as he turned from his spot where he'd been looking out the window.
"Dr. Perez raided the first aid supplies. He's downstairs with the Embassy staff, but he said he'd be up in a minute. However, we can get started without him."
"Thank you, but I'm fine. It's just a few cuts and bruises."
"Bruises?" Annabeth asked keenly. "I also have ibuprofen for muscle pain."
"I don't have any muscle pain." Vinick huffed defensively, even as he moved a bit gingerly.
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't." He replied gruffly and then relented. "Look, Annabelle-"
"Annabeth."
"Annabeth, thank you for your concern but I'm not the one who was injured. I'll be fine. You should be tending to Donna or someone, anyone who is…" he motioned to the room, "not here."
"You were tackled to the ground by a couple of burly 200 pound men. You're bleeding; I can tell just by looking at you that you're in a bit of a pain. By the way you're holding your arm against your torso there, I would guess you have bruising under your ribs. So, Mr. Secretary, if you would kindly take off your pants we can get started."
CUT TO:
INT. OTTO'S OFFICE
Bram shut the door of Otto's office behind him and crossed to the chair next to the one Sierra occupied. After flopping down tiredly he spent a moment sizing her up before speaking. "You work for Pallard?"
"I do." Sierra nodded once as she crossed her arms over her chest protectively.
Bram shook his head with disbelief. "But you're the undies girl…"
"What!?" Sierra asked, suddenly terse.
Bram had the good sense to flinch at her tone. "With the
"That's how you remember me?!"
"You didn't have the
Now it was Sierra's turn to blush. "I had a pair of them, yes, but…"
"Isn't that how we met? Because you and your friends had the undies..."
Sierra put her head in her hands and ran her fingers over her scalp and back through her hair. Finally, she looked up at him.
"I went to the rally and happened to meet up with my little sister and her friends who all go to
He smiled ruefully. "All I remember is that I got the number of the undies girl…"
She rolled her eyes at that.
Bram saw her disgust, but soldiered forward. "So you gave me your number and I called you…"
"You called me about a week later when we were both back in
"Are you telling me you didn't give me your number for a date?" He shot back, equally confused.
"I gave you my number because the campaign wasn't returning calls from the Senator. I'm very low on the totem pole. Getting that meeting with you made me something of a hero in the office. And by the way the Senator ended up being very helpful to the President in those last two weeks. You needed us!"
Bram let that sink in for a moment. "So it was a business meeting…" While he was still trying to wrap his mind around it, he thoughtlessly asked, "Do you usually have sex after business meetings?"
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment mixed with anger. "Only when the guy is cute, plying me with liquor and putting moves on me that would put Casanova to shame." She turned the tables on him. "Do you see every woman you meet only as a potential sexual conquest and nothing else? Oh my God, how many women did you sleep with on the campaign trail!?"
He shook his head. "Not that many. Listen, I'm sorry… I'm really not like that."
She arched one eyebrow at him. "You aren't?"
"Well, I am a little, but I'm thinking of reforming. But I still have one question."
"Shoot."
"Why are you dressed like… that?"
CUT TO:
INT. U.S. EMBASSY AMIIR – UPSTAIRS
"Excuse me?" Arnold Vinick turned to stare at the whisper of a woman.
"Your pants, take them off."
"I don't think so."
"Sir, you've bled through the fabric so you obviously have some pretty nasty abrasions under there and with the way the pants are ripped you've probably got gravel in the wound as well. It needs to be cleaned as soon as possible. Now if you're really that modest we can wait for the doctor, but for some reason I just didn't picture the mighty Arnold Vinick as a prude."
"Do you have some sort of medical background?"
"No." Annabeth replied succinctly and continued staring him down. "But I'm not removing your spleen; I'm cleaning up cuts and scrapes. You know, usually a man has to buy me dinner before I order him to remove his pants, so hop to. It's your lucky day."
Vinick glared at her. She was trying to manipulate him, and unfortunately it was working. He threw up his hands in exasperation, before instructing, "Turn around."
With a victorious smile she turned her back to him. "I put some towels on the table; you can use one to cover up a bit."
"This is humiliating." But he complied by taking off his pants and wrapping a towel around his boxer shorts.
"Hogwash." Annabeth turned around and pointed him towards a chair so she could get a closer look at the knee. "You have very nice legs, nothing to be humiliated about. Unfortunately, this might leave a scar on your very nice legs."
Vinick rolled his neck back. "I could be in
"Would you really rather be there?" Annabeth asked, but she didn't stop her work cleaning the dried blood off of his leg.
"Than here, right now? Let's just say I'd rather be many other places than here right now."
Annabeth glanced toward the window where the rioting was still going strong outside the gates of the Embassy. "How bad is it?"
He exhaled deeply. "Honestly, it's not as bad as it seems. There's not much organization and none of them have challenged the gates of the Embassy or any of the Guard. More than anything, they're just out making noise. I was worried when we lost power and the phone lines, but apparently that's not a rare occurrence here. All of this happened too fast to give any real insurrectionists time to organize. We apparently just gave them enough notice to get some shots fired off at President Heile."
"They really don't want us here?"
"Some of them don't. But the Amiiri government does."
"Why?" Annabeth asked, really enjoying the opportunity to pick the brain of such an accomplished man.
"The all mighty American dollar. Above and beyond the money we pay the government to set up shop, a military base will bring any number of ancillary businesses which would mean jobs and economic growth. President Heile knows that. So do the members of Parliament." He sighed deeply. "The problem is this trip was thrown together in just a couple of days with very little advance work… even so," Vinick's voice sounded a bit defeated. "I let the President down."
Annabeth frowned, but she didn't look up from her work. "Oh, piddle."
"Excuse me."
"I said piddle. It's like fiddle with a 'p.'"
"Thank you for clearing that up." Vinick retorted sardonically.
"What I mean is stop beating yourself up. Do we need the base?"
"Yes."
"Is this the best place for it?"
"Yes."
"Are we going to get the base?"
"Probably."
"Are we all going to get out of here alive and well?"
Vinick paused before answering with a resounding, "Yes."
"Then I'd say you're doing a bang up job."
CUT TO:
INT. OTTO'S OFFICE
Sierra watched Bram for a moment then shook her head. "Like a hooker?"
"I didn't say-"
"Mr. Seaborn… Sam, told me that you and your friend think I'm a hooker."
"Traitor," Bram huffed under his breath. "For the record, I don't think you're a hooker; just maybe some of your clothes are confusing on that point."
Sierra looked at him as if he was crazy. "I explained why I was dressed like this when we met earlier tonight. You don't remember?"
"I think I would have remembered any plausible explanation."
"I told you I was coming from the follies."
"Yes, and I thought that might be some sort of strip club or something."
Sierra's eyes went wide in embarrassment and annoyance. "The Capitol Hill Follies. Sponsored by Capital Steps. The annual fundraiser where Senate and House staffers do skits making fun of what's happened over the last year and everyone from the Hill comes to see people make asses of themselves. It makes lots of money for at-risk youth charities in D.C. We had a rehearsal tonight; I'm in a Cell Block Tango skit. You know from the musical
"Ohhhh… so you're wearing that for a skit?"
"It happens once a year, you've never heard of this?"
"This is my first year here."
"There are fliers all over town! I don't know how you could miss it." She stared at him incredulously and then gestured down. "You think I wear fishnets and a bustier on a random Monday night?"
"I thought you might if you were coming from a strip club called the Follies."
Sierra just grunted in frustration.
Bram watched her and then bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Listen, Sierra, at that time, last October, I wasn't sleeping more than three hours a night. The entire last month of the campaign is a complete blur, I barely remember anything. But I do remember being… with you that night. I do. And I remember it being great. I also remember the
With a sigh, she shook her head and then rose to her feet. "I guess that's it."
"Why don't I walk you out?"
"Okay." She tightened her coat around her and gathered her purse. Then she looked at him earnestly, "The First Lady and everyone… they're going to be okay?"
"You knew?'
"The walls aren't exactly soundproof."
"They're safe for now and they're working on extracting them soon. You know you can't talk about this until they're out..."
"I know. I would never," she replied and he believed her. As he watched her he was struck with the realization that he was actually quite sad to see her leave.
"So can I call you?" he asked impetuously as he held open the door to Otto's office for her exit.
She just glared at him coolly as she walked by.
Undeterred, Bram fell into step with her. "Maybe I could come to the show; you know the follies thing…"
"It wouldn't be charitable of me to discourage someone from buying a ticket." Her voice was very businesslike as they wound through the halls.
"I could take you for a celebratory drink afterwards."
"I don't think so."
He thought quickly. "Or as an apology for tonight and for not calling last year, I should have called. Please, let me make it up to you."
She watched him carefully, weighing all her options. Finally, she shrugged and smiled slightly before turning to leave. "The show's on Friday. If I see you there, I see you there."
After she left, Bram walked back to his office with a bit of a spring in his step for a man who hadn't slept all night.
CUT TO:
INT. U.S. EMBASSY
"Jeff, you didn't get me halfway around the world to convince me to lobby drug companies to make the HPV vaccine more accessible to women in Amiir."
The doctor's eyes went wide. "No, I did. Of course, I did."
Helen pinned him with her direct gaze.
Jeff looked slightly chagrinned. "Ma'am, with all due respect, you are one of the most powerful women in the world. You just showing up for fifteen minutes gives more attention to a problem than our organization could generate in ten years of shouting from rooftops. My organization does consider HPV a problem we can do something about. I watched a woman die recently who easily could have been saved if she'd had access to the vaccine. She should have had access to the vaccine. But as you've seen there are far worse world health issues that we're facing in
"So why push the HPV vaccine angle?"
"Because it's been your pet cause domestically and I thought maybe by using it we could lure you to think more globally."
Helen's eyes narrowed as she sat up straight. "What are you implying, Jeff?"
"Nothing," he shook his head quickly and after sizing her up he decided to retreat. "We really appreciate you coming and the work you've done over the last few days… the current unfortunate situation notwithstanding of course."
Helen eyed him skeptically for a moment as a light went on in her head. "You're telling me I need to get off my duff and do more."
"I would never say that, Ma'am."
"How long have we known each other, Jeff?"
"A long time."
"So, think of me as your old friend Helen and say what's on your mind."
"Helen," He took a deep breath before leaning forward, "You will kick yourself later if you squander this opportunity. You have the power to solve problems… so do it."
Helen looked slightly taken aback. "This is just our first year. I've… we had…" Helen stuttered, before continuing. "We tackled the controversial HPV vaccination approval. After
"All great things… but there are children dying. Here. Lots of place. Everyday. It's time to do something about that."
Helen felt like she'd been sucker punched, but perhaps not in a bad way. She was silent, gathering her thoughts, when Donna stuck her head in the door.
"We're leaving. An extraction team is here and they're taking us to the air field."
CUT TO:
INT. AIR FORCE PASSENGER JET
INT. WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF'S OFFICE
Josh looked down at his phone. He didn't recognize the caller ID, but he picked it up immediately. "Hello?"
"Josh." Just hearing him say 'hello' made her voice quaver a bit.
Relief swept over Josh like a wave crashing around him. "Donna! Thank God. Are you okay? Where are you?"
She swallowed hard to get rid of the lump that was forming in the middle of her throat. "I'm fine. I'm on the plane. We're headed home."
At those words, Josh squeezed his eyes shut. A second later he looked up at Sam. "It's Donna, she's okay. She's on the plane home."
Sam put his hand over his heart and then smiled at Josh. "Give her my love."
Josh managed a smile back as Sam left the room, but as soon as he was alone he leaned over his desk, his head pressed between his forearms, the hand that wasn't holding the phone grabbing a fistful of hair on the back of his head. He cleared his throat before saying, "Are you sure you're really okay?"
Donna looked at her wrapped wrist, which was still throbbing. Not wanting to worry him anymore than he already was, she omitted her injury. "Yeah, I'm okay. It was… like an adventure."
"An adventure?" Josh almost choked on the word. "Please don't tell me you've turned into a thrill seeker."
Donna emitted a choked sound of her own that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "It was scary, but I never felt like we were ever in too much danger."
"How was the trip to the air field?" Josh had once again been on pins and needles since he'd gotten word that they'd left the Embassy.
She glanced down at her wrist again. "Much less eventful than the ride to the Embassy."
"The pictures we were seeing, it looked pretty bad."
"I'm sure it looked scarier than it was."
"It was damn scary to watch. Donna, I don't remember the last time I was so worried…" Josh stopped because truthfully he'd been remembering all night. "Actually, I do. I was hoping to never have to go through that again."
"I know." Donna smoothed the fabric of her pants over her thigh as she looked out the window of the Air Force passenger jet that was taking them back to D.C. "Josh…"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'm cursed?"
"What?"
"Do you think that I'm cursed?"
"I think you should never leave again." His voice was low and emphatic. After a moment, he softened his tone and continued. "But I definitely don't think you're cursed."
"Really? Because I'm not having much luck with diplomatic missions out of the country."
Josh wanted to agree with her. Tell her anything that would have her believe the trips were cursed so she would never leave again. But he didn't. "I think you're brave and you've had some bad luck. That's all, just bad luck. Although, talking to you right now I'm feeling rather lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Lucky that everyone is okay and that you're on a plane on your way home."
"Everyone's okay. I think Arnold Vinick got kind of banged up, which is not surprising since he was right there when the shots were fired. But other than that, everyone is okay. I heard President Heile is going to be fine. Vinick thinks they might even try and hold another Parliament session later in the week to give approval for the base. So the trip wasn't a total bust--"
"You know you're the most important thing to me, right?" Josh interrupted with the non-sequitor. After a second he took a ragged breath and continued. "I'm happy about all the other stuff. But I… I want to make certain you know that. It's just that when something like this happens… and you're waiting, you wonder if the other person knows…"
Donna's heart melted at the emotion in his voice and her face crumpled. "Oh Josh, I knew. I know," she amended with a sniff as she pressed her eyes together to stop the hot tears that threatened. A moment later she asked tentatively, "Did you know?"
Josh's face contorted with emotion a bit as he remembered the fear. But he also remembered that this time he'd been able to worry about her without it raising questions and eyebrows and even red flags in his own mind. This time the fear had been tempered ever-so-slightly by the fact that he knew his own mind and his own heart and he knew Donna's. "Yeah, I knew."
"Good, because you should never wonder about that. Ever." She cleared her throat and hastily wiped a tear from her cheek. "What we were talking about earlier…"
"When?"
"When we were… interrupted, you brought up the possibility of us getting a bigger place. I just want you to know that was a good conversation. A really good conversation and… uh… we should finish it… soon."
Josh pressed his eyes shut. "We will, Donna. We definitely will."