EPISODE 8.17 – Written by Shelley
Like Being Pecked to Death by a Duck
Teaser
Interior-Chief of Staff's Office
Wednesday afternoon, 2PM
As if she had some special sense of exactly when she was needed, or perhaps because she'd been eavesdropping at the door, Margaret appeared, steno pad in hand, before Josh had a chance to bellow for her.
"How do you do that," he asked incredulously as he loosened his tie and tossed two folders onto the pile of things on the corner of his desk that Margaret needed to file.
"It's a gift."
"It's creepy."
"I wouldn't need to do it if you'd learn to use the intercom."
"Yeah," Josh tilted his head to the side, "but we both know that's not likely."
"I live in hope," Margaret deadpanned as she picked up the files and tucked them under her arm.
"Could you please tell Sam I need to see him right away and ask Ronna to let me know as soon as the President gets back from Miranda's Christmas pageant."
"Consider it done. Anything else?"
"Yeah." Josh tapped his pencil on the desk as he thought. "I need to know if the Russian and Chinese
Ambassadors are in town and I need Arnold Vinick on the phone as soon as possible. He's speaking at a dinner in
"Anything else?"
"That should do it. Thanks."
Margaret turned to leave, still making notes on her pad as she walked, and stumbled directly into Sam who was entering from her office.
"Whoa there," he said with a bemused smile as he grabbed her elbows to steady her.
"I was just going to call you," Margaret said as she collected herself. "Josh needs to see you." She looked over her shoulder at her boss. "I guess Sam has a gift too."
"Don't you have things to do," Josh asked with mock annoyance.
Margaret smirked at him and made her way to her desk.
"What do you need?" Sam asked.
Josh removed his jacket, tossing it haphazardly across the room in the direction of the sofa, and pushed up his sleeves looking for all the world like a man whose relatively quiet day was taking a turn for the worse. "I just got a call from Watkins at State. There was an explosion in an elections office in
"What kind of explosion?" Sam was immediately concerned.
"We don't know yet. We've got people on the way to the site."
"Any chance it was just an accident," Sam asked hopefully.
"There's always a chance."
"But if it's a thing..."
"It'll be a big one," Josh sighed. "The new elections are set for January. We can't afford a setback this late in the game. Start working every contact we have. Find out if there have been any threats floating around we may have missed. Check out all the usual suspects who might have an interest in the peace process failing. If this whole thing is gonna start to unravel I don't wanna be blindsided."
"I'll get right on it," Sam said.
"It's 1am there. We're probably not gonna know anything definite till we get a chance to look at things in the daylight but let's be as prepared as we can be."
"Could be a late night," Sam pointed out.
"Looks that way. Is that a problem?"
"Not for me."
"No plans?" Josh asked. He knew Sam was still hurting from the breakup with Lauren. He and Donna had had Sam over for dinner a couple of times but Josh had no idea what his deputy was doing with the rest of his free time. Josh hoped he wasn't burying himself in work as an escape.
"Not really. You?"
"Well...actually..." Josh fiddled nervously with his paperweight, his eyes falling a picture of him and Donna at the McBain's clambake.
"What?" Sam asked, intrigued by Josh's reaction.
"If I get out of here at a decent time tonight I think I'm gonna...I mean I think I might...
"What?!"
Josh looked up at Sam and his face broke into a full dimpled smile. "Ask Donna to marry me."
"Are you serious?!" Sam asked excitedly, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree. "Congratulations, buddy!"
"I have to do it soon, Sam," Josh said earnestly. "The ring is burning a hole in my pocket."
"That's great!" Sam was truly happy for both of them. "Where are you taking her?"
"Taking her?" The look on Josh's face changed to mild panic. "I wasn't planning on taking her anywhere. I thought I'd do it at our place."
"On a random Wednesday?" Sam crinkled his nose.
"Is that bad?"
"Well, not bad necessarily bad," Sam tried to find the right words. "Just kind of...ordinary."
"And ordinary is bad." It was more of a statement than a question.
"You only get one chance to do this right, you want to make it special." Sam hesitated. "Well, YOU only get one chance, I'm taking a few practice swings."
"I'm sorry, Sam. I know this is probably the last thing you want to talk about right now."
"No, it's fine. Really. I'm just saying....doesn't Donna deserve something really special?"
"She's getting me," Josh smirked.
Sam rolled his eyes. "I mean proposal-wise."
"I guess so," Josh was trying to figure out how the plan which seemed so good this morning in the shower had managed to fall apart so fast. "I mean definitely. Yes. Absolutely."
"You know what you need? The great outdoors. The magic and wonder of nature." Sam's face brightened as inspiration struck. "I know. You need to wait till the cherry blossoms are in bloom."
"Sa-am," Josh whined, "that'll be months. I don't want to wait months."
"Wait months for what?" Matt Santos asked as he entered through the door connecting to the Oval. "Ronna said you needed to see me."
Josh scrambled to his feet but Matt waved him off.
"How was Miranda's pageant, Sir," Sam asked.
"It was absolutely beautiful. Miranda was by far the best angel, or elf, or whatever it is she was supposed to be. Though keep in mind I may be biased."
"I wish I'd been there," Sam said, secure in the knowledge he'd already dodged that particular bullet.
"Well then it's lucky for you Helen had one of her staffers record the whole thing. You just may get to see it after all. It'll be like movie night only with home videos instead." Matt's eyes twinkled. He was realistic enough to know Sam was only being polite with his comments and really had no desire to see an elementary school pageant. He just couldn't help playing with his staffers a little from time to time.
"Can't wait, Sir," Sam said with a half smile.
"So...Ronna said you needed to see me?"
"There was an explosion at an elections office in Aktobe," Josh said. "We don't have any details yet. We have people on the way but it's the middle of the night there so we may not have anything concrete till the sun comes up."
"I don't like the sound of that," Matt replied uneasily. "We're too close to have this all fall apart now. Any reaction from Russia or China yet?"
"Not so far. We're getting a location on their Ambassadors so we can pull them in if needed. I think maybe you should make a few pre-emptive phone calls just to try to keep everyone calm till we find out exactly what's going on."
"Good idea."
"I'm gonna get Secretary Vinick working the phones too," Josh added. "As soon as he gets off the dais in London."
"How did that go," Matt asked. "I know he wasn't looking forward to two days of meetings with Humphries capped off by a rubber chicken dinner."
"We haven't heard anything yet but I'll ask him when he calls in."
"Good. I'll get Ronna to place those calls." Matt took a few steps back towards the Oval then turned to face Josh again. "You never answered my question. What don't you want to wait months for?"
"To propose to Donna," Sam offered helpfully. "He's thinking about doing it tonight. Over dinner. At home. Their home." Sam shook his head in disbelief.
"Really?" Matt asked incredulously. "You don't think you need a little...more?"
"Like what?" Josh's asked almost desperately. "I've been trying to figure this out for weeks and it's
starting to make me crazy."
"Women like grand gestures," Matt said assuredly. "They like pomp and circumstance."
"Really? Because Sam thinks they like cherry blossoms."
"Turn on the TV!" Lou demanded as she barreled into Josh's office with Lester right behind her. It took her a few seconds to register that the President was standing there as well. "I'm sorry, Sir."
"Don't worry about it," Matt smiled at her somewhat frazzled demeanor.
"What's up," Josh asked as he grabbed the remote and flipped to CNN. He turned the sound up and heard the anchor talking about Arnold Vinick's London speech.
"What was wrong with the speech?" Matt asked, eyes suddenly glued to the TV.
"Nothing," Lou huffed. "It was what he said afterward, when he forgot his mic was hot."
"What did he say?" Sam asked, almost afraid to hear her answer.
"Listen for yourself," Lou said as the piece of tape she had seen just minutes earlier in her office began to run yet again.
"Humphries wouldn't know an original idea if it bit him on the nose, the crotchety old coot." Arnold's
voice rang out, every syllable enunciated with perfect clarity.
"He called the British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State....??" Matt could barely conceal his smile.
"A crotchety old coot. Yes." Lou said. "We need to get him on the phone."
"He's calling in as soon as he gets off the dais," Josh said as he watched the words play again right in
front of his eyes. "How did this get on the air so fast?"
"One of the military channels was carrying it live," Lester shrugged. "How do you want me to handle this at the 3pm briefing?"
"Tell them the President has no comment till he talks to Secretary Vinick," Josh said. "Besides, we have bigger things to worry about. Get with Sam about an explosion at an elections office in Kazakhstan. We don't have many details and we don't want anyone panicking before we do."
"Got it," Lester said.
"Hey, Lou, you're a girl," the President said, his mind snapping back to what they had been discussing
when Lou and Lester arrived.
Lou arched an eyebrow. "Yes, I am."
"If you were getting proposed to, would you want a little nature or some good old fashioned pomp and circumstance?"
"Is this still about Josh?" Lou snorted then turned to smirk at the Chief of Staff. "You haven't managed to pop the question yet? Haven't you had the ring for like...months?"
"It's been three weeks," Josh said defensively.
"You've waited this long. You might as well wait another few days and do a Christmas Eve proposal," Lou shrugged.
"Isn't that a little cliché-d?" Sam asked skeptically.
"Definitely." The President nodded in agreement.
"Why did you ask me if you didn't want to hear my opinion?" Lou huffed. "A little champagne, some chocolate covered strawberries..."
"Donna's allergic to strawberries," Margaret said as she breezed into the now crowded office. "Ron Butterfield is here to see you."
"We'll all clear out..." Sam started.
"Actually it's probably better if you all stay." Ron said from the doorway. "You'll all need to hear this. Mr. President, an unidentified white powder was discovered twenty minutes ago at the post office sub-station that handles White House mail. We've locked the building down and we're testing the powder now. Preliminary results are negative for anthrax but it'll take several hours to get a handle on what the substance actually is. We need to confiscate all unopened mail, as well as any opened mail received within the last 48 hours, for testing."
"Do you think.." Matt began worriedly.
"Just a precaution," Ron replied calmly. "We'll bring in some air monitors and run some swab tests. We have no reason to believe the White House has been contaminated but we have to follow procedure."
Just as Lester was about to ask if the press had the 'suspicious white powder' story yet the Breaking News logo appeared on the screen. "We have another piece of breaking news coming in to the CNN newsroom. A suspicious white powder...."
"I think that's my cue to get back to work," Matt said as he headed for the Oval. "I haven't looked at the mail Ronna left on my desk this morning yet, Ron, so if you'd like to start with that..."
"Yes, Sir," Ron said as he followed Matt into the Oval, closing the door behind him.
"Lester," Josh said, "tell them we'll get them information as fast as we can. Everybody else.....back to work. Except Lou. I need you to stay for a minute."
"If this is another proposal question so help me..."
"It's not," Josh said, as the others filtered out. "What's the status on the State of the Union speech?"
"Otto and I are working on it. It's a little slow going right now but we should have something on paper for you to look at by the end of the week."
"Great. And can you help Lester out, make sure has everything he needs for the afternoon briefing? They're gonna be relentless with three things breaking at once."
"I'm on it."
"If we're lucky, we won't have anything else go wrong today."
Just as the sentence was out of his moth the unmistakable sound of electrical equipment powering down filled the air. Josh's TV and computer went black as his desk lamp extinguished.
"MARGARET!!"
SMASH CUT TO TITLES