ACT THREE
INT., OVAL OFFICE, TUESDAY AFTERNOON

Secretaries Vinick and Brenton, Ambassador Weldon, General McClain, Josh and President Santos made short work of the formalities and got down to business quickly.

"The entire list of countries meeting your criteria is pretty short, sir," General McClain said. "Of the countries on it, we lean towards Amiir. It's a small African nation on the Red Sea. The capitol city is also the main port city, Zaytun."

"It's a Third World country, but several years ago, we helped them stage democratic elections and the government has held and, in fact, had more elections under the supervision of UN monitors," Arnie Vinick went on. "It's predominately made up of rural villages, with Zaytun as the major population center and a couple of other good-sized regional cities. There has been some influx of Islam and Christianity, but our information seems to indicate that nothing has really taken hold amongst the majority of the population."

General McClain nodded. "And the country is small. Even if there were a problem, we feel we could assist the locals in containing any incidents."

"Amiir?" Matt asked, with a glance at Josh, a plan was already starting to form in his mind.

"Yes, sir," General McClain confirmed.

"Arnie, how soon do you think you could get a delegation together to go feel them out?" the President looked at his Secretary of State.

"Realistically, something like this takes months to set up," Vinick replied, thinking about all the details that needed to be ironed out.

"What if the trip was about something else and you approached them quietly on the side? Expedite some of the diplomatic niceties?" Josh asked. He thought he knew what Matt was thinking, but didn't want the President to be the one to bring it up. "

"I'm sorry?" Arnie repeated.

"The country has a huge problem with HPV," Matt said.

"The new vaccine was one of the First Lady's very first initiatives. What if she were to go on a goodwill fact-finding tour at the behest of an NGO? Mr. Secretary, you go along because the First Lady's never made a trip like this before. While she's visiting clinics, you make an overture to the government," said Josh.

"We need to do this as quickly as possible," Ambassador Weldon chimed in. "I got a communiqué last night that there was a pretty large demonstration outside the Embassy last night. My deputy got the
message loud and clear from the Qumaris that the press would be invited to the next one."

"That's just what we need, CNN blaring that all over the world," groaned Brenton.

"You know, Mr. President, we've got that ABA speech up in New York on Friday night," Josh mused out loud. "If we could pull this together in a hurry, we could use that speech to announce the beginnings new vision for American foreign policy: no more American assistance for nations who support or even look the other way at terrorism. We could conceivably get ahead of this story."

Matt raised his eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully. "Arnie, it's going to mean some long nights this week for your shop, but do you think you can pull it off?"

"I think so, sir. As long as we don't have to have anything more than preliminaries in place."

"Josh, have Otto rework the ABA speech, then you and Phil and the General head up to the Hill and brief the leadership. I'll take care of the hard part," Matt ordered.

CUT TO:
INT., THE EAST WING, TEN MINUTES LATER

Matt didn't relish trying to convince his wife to do something he knew she wouldn't want to do, especially as a cover for something else entirely.

Which would be her biggest problem with the whole idea, he knew, even though she'd plead the press of responsibilities here. If the trip were presented to her correctly, at the right time, in the proper context, which was the idea of saving starving orphans and that sort of thing, Matt knew Helen would be happy to go. Getting asked on Tuesday to leave on Friday for a four-day whirlwind goodwill tour of a country that until Monday Matt hadn't even heard of and he still wasn't sure they had an ambassador to?

Yeah, Matt knew why his Chief of Staff had given him a look of sympathy as he'd left the office. Josh wasn't stupid.

"Be a man, Matt," the President whispered to himself, gesturing for his Secret Service agent to lead the way into his wife's office suite.

"Mr. President!" Helen's executive assistant jumped to her feet. In the nine months she'd worked in the White House, the young woman had met the President only twice and was flustered by his presence.

He smiled. "Is Helen in?"

"Yes, sir!" she said, pointing at the closed door.

Matt had the good sense to knock before opening it.

"Come in!" Helen called.

"Hi." Matt forced a bright smile and shut the door behind him.

"What's going on?" Helen asked, instantly wary. Matt had never come up to her office before.

"A man can't come visit his wife at work?" Matt tried to sound innocent, but Helen only gave him a look that called him on it. "Can we sit?"

Helen led her husband to a small grouping of comfortable chairs in the corner of her office and waited until he was settled. "What's up?"

Matt sighed. Honesty, he decided, was the best policy. "I've got two intersecting problems and I need your help with both of them. One's relatively minor and one's a national security issue."

"You need my help with a national security issue?" Helen couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice.

"Jeff Perez called me on Monday," Matt began his explanation. "You know that NGO he works with? Well, he'd just gotten back from a trip and wanted our help in working with the drug companies to start offering their HPV vaccine to impoverished African nations, either at a deep discount or for free."

Helen lifted her eyebrow, asking him to continue.

"Many of those countries have limited access to OB/GYN care. If women pick up HPV…"

"They're going to get cervical cancer," Helen finished, nodding her head in understanding. "So what does the HPV vaccine have to do with national security?"

"The government of Qumar delivered a diplomatic note to our ambassador demanding termination of the agreement we have to use their ports as a regional military base, and so the State Department and the Pentagon have come up with a shortlist of countries that could serve as suitable replacements for the base in Qumar. One of those countries is Amiir, which is a small African nation on the Red Sea. It also happens to be the country Jeff Perez called me about on Monday."

Helen was sure she wasn't going to like where this was going. There were things going on in her family that she needed to keep an eye on and the rumblings coming out of the West Wing said something big was in the works. Leave it to Matt to try to involve her in whatever was going on. "What are you volunteering me for?"

"It's not something entirely out of left field. Think of it as a continuation of work you've already started," Matt said.

"You know Peter and Miranda just started back to school this week and you know perfectly well that I'm always home for them the first couple of weeks in case there are any problems. What are we talking about here?" Helen asked.

"We're talking about a trip to Africa this weekend."

"Africa! This weekend!" Helen exclaimed.

"Yes, the timing is bad, I admit that, but I'm asking you to do this because it's important."

"Are you saying my priorities aren't important? I barely committed to going to Hamilton on Friday to oversee one of my own projects because the kids were just back to school, Matthew. What happens close to home is a big deal, too. Peter still has that cough, his teacher's already worried about it and sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in this building who cares!"

"I'm not saying Peter and Miranda aren't important, Helen, and I'm not saying the volunteer project in Hamilton isn't important. What I'm saying is that in one week, the Qumaris are going to publicly announce they're kicking us out of their port, and if we can't make it look like we went out and made new friends on our own terms we're going to look weak, and if we look weak it emboldens terrorists to take potshots at us and then we're not talking about Peter having a cold anymore. We're talking about phone calls I have to make to parents because their teenagers were killed in car bombings while they were on school trips to Madrid or London or Paris. Or because a bunch of guys in a rubber boat blew up a Navy destroyer. I'm asking you to help me not have to do that by giving Arnie Vinick some cover. You just need to go on a four day trip to Amiir and tour the countryside, their villages, medical facilities; talk to doctors, women, children, missionaries, whoever. And you can help out Jeff Perez in the process by calling for help for women in a poor country who really need a voice."

"I'll think about it." Helen replied.

"Thank you," Matt said.

CUT TO:
INT., JOSH'S OFFICE, EARLY EVENING

"How are things looking for the trip?" Matt asked, wandering into Josh's office unannounced.

Josh was sitting at his desk, reading the same paragraph in the State Department background memo over and over again. "It's a real crap shoot," he replied honestly. "We've never invested much time, energy or interest in these people and all of a sudden we show up on their doorstep with our hat in our hands? I mean, granted, we did put boots on the ground in support of their first democratic election, but a fledging democracy is one thing if it's left alone. It's another story altogether if there's any kind of pressure exerted on it, and our presence would do just that. There is a Muslim identity in the larger cities. State and CIA don't know how radical it is…"

"You don't think this is the right country?" Matt asked.

"I think this is the best of the lot, but that's not saying much," Josh hedged. "Sir, I understand we have to do something to not look weak and I know you're trying to help out an old friend, but I don't know how wise it is to cover a serious diplomatic mission with a slapped together, feel-good trip by the First Lady."

"She hasn't said yes yet," the President pointed out.

"She'll come around, sir," his Chief of Staff replied confidently.

"How do you know that for sure?"

"Because, sir, you asked her to do something important for the country and you're the President of the United States. It doesn't matter whether she sees you every night in your underwear. You asked, and she'll do it."

"I don't think it works that way with wives, Josh."

"It does if you don't abuse it, sir."

"Well, I'm going to call it a day early and head upstairs. Maybe try and make peace. You might as well head out, too. You and Donna ought to enjoy one night before she heads off to the wilds of Africa," Matt said.

"Thank you, sir." Josh waited until the President left before he called over to the East Wing to make sure Donna had already left for the day. Confident she had, he grabbed his suit jacket and quickly made the rounds.

CONTINUOUS: INT. WEST WING HALLWAYS

Lou had finally corralled Lester and Otto into the Roosevelt Room and, over pizza, was demanding they have a topic for Friday's ABA speech before anyone went home. Josh was half-tempted to let them off the hook, knowing the subject would change tomorrow and Friday's speech would announce the termination of America's port agreement with Qumar, but the process of coming together as a cohesive team wasn't finished yet in the Communications Department and the trio could use the exercise in futility.

"I'm heading out," Josh said, stopping at Sam's office. Ginger was gone and so was most of the staff. It was just shy of six o'clock, so while Sam showed every sign of imitating Josh's workaholic tendencies, he didn't seem to be expecting the staff to work the same hours. Sam looked up, giving Josh a good look at the fatigue in his face. "You should do the same. Spend a quiet evening with Lauren. The President is spending the night watching the kids."

"I've got a stack of reports to get through before tomorrow," Sam said, gesturing at the tower of binders on his desk.

"Sam, I promise you, none of that stuff will matter after the staff meeting tomorrow. I'm telling you to go home and get a good night's sleep."

"There's something going on?" Sam might be mentally and emotionally exhausted, but he was still quick on the pickup.

Josh nodded. "And there's nothing to be done about it until tomorrow. So get some sleep and be fresh tomorrow."

"Did you send Communications home?" Sam asked as he gathered his things.

"Leave the work here tonight, dude," Josh admonished when Sam started stuffing reports into his briefcase. "And no, I thought they needed the time together more than they needed the sleep."

"Good call," Sam said.

The two men walked together into the West Wing foyer and then parted ways, as Sam turned towards the parking lot and Josh kept going to the front gate.

CONTINUOUS: EXT. EN ROUTE TO JOSH & DONNA'S APT.

"Rodney, it's not a problem if we walk home tonight, is it?" Josh asked.

"No, sir, we can use the exercise," the Secret Service agent answered. He whispered into his radio, quietly summoning a couple of extra agents for his principal's jaunt through the evening streets of the nation's capitol.

"Do you have a wife, Rodney?" Josh asked, for the first time in nine months taking a personal interest in the agents who protected him. He was sorting out a lot of thoughts [in his head] on this short walk, trying to figure out what he was going to say to Donna when he got home, because she was certainly going to ask what he thought of the President's plan.

"A girlfriend, sir," the young man asked.

"What does she think of your career?"

"She's not particularly fond of it," Rodney admitted.

"Yeah," Josh sighed. "I'd imagine she's not. She should be proud of you, though."

"Sir?"

"Anybody who would voluntarily take a bullet for someone else?" Josh shook his head. "That's a very special person and while you're not on the Presidential detail right now, that doesn't mean you won't be someday. I mean, you can't start at the top, right?"

"Yes, sir," Rodney replied. "But, sir, if the President asked me to take a bullet, I would. Because he's the President."

Josh stopped at the stairs to his building, realizing that the young agent had given him the answer he already knew. "You're a good man, Rodney. Thank you."