Tehri Dam
WW V8 Episode 6
TEASER
(5:35pm, Friday)
He’d just stood up
and put his suit jacket on when Liz walked in and asked him for his comments on
the
He stood upright and
handed the questions to Liz. “Nothing else. Nothing.”
“You need to…”
He cut her off. “No.”
He liked Liz, he
really did. But she was ex-military and always pushed for one more thing. At
first, he liked that about her. It was his excuse to keep going. To stay late
and get one more thing done. But lately he was finding that she was a bit too
much like him. He didn’t need someone to tell him to do more; he needed someone
to tell him to do less.
She nodded slightly,
dismissing him to his evening of non-work as if she couldn’t fathom doing the
same for herself. But he’d pulled every string he knew to pull, begged everyone
he knew to beg to get this done, and he wasn’t going to feel guilty. Not this
time. He half-smiled at her and picked up the bouquet of flowers from his desk
before heading towards the door to the hallway. Bram walked in as he opened it
and Josh cut him off with a hand before he even had a chance to start.
“No,” he said,
leaving the office and heading down the hallway.
Bram stared at him
for a second and then tried to keep up. ”I’m getting questions about
He almost stopped.
Almost. There were always reasons to stay and work. Good reasons, and this was
one of them. But there were reasons to leave too, something he’d only recently
learned, and this was the biggest of those reasons. “They have two weeks to
strike a deal. We’re not getting involved.”
Bram looked down at
the flowers in Josh’s hand. “Tonight’s the night?”
“Indeed it is.”
They passed the
Roosevelt Room as Otto walked out. “Do you have flowers?” he asked.
Josh looked at the
flowers in his hand. “Damn, I knew I forgot something.”
“Shouldn’t those be
roses?” Otto asked, looking at the flowers as though they were weeds instead of
tulips and lilies.
The new girl from
Sam’s bullpen walked by and both Otto and Bram turned to ogle her as Josh
rolled his eyes. “You got reservations, right?” Bram asked distractedly.
“No.”
“No?” Otto asked, quickly spinning
back around. “I thought we decided on Inn at Little
Josh raised his
eyebrows at the ‘we’ comment as they walked through the communications bullpen.
They seemed to think this was a team effort. It was reminiscent of times past
and he almost smiled. “There’s no time for food.”
“What do you mean
there’s no…”
“Hey,” Lou said,
cutting off Otto as she walked out of her office and joined them. “Senator
Williamson just called and asked me what we’re going to do about sanitation
workers in his state.”
Josh shrugged,
refusing to slow down for any of them. Lou was the closest at keeping up; Bram
and Otto could use a workout. “I don’t know. Let ‘em sanitate?”
“I think he’s hoping…”
He shook his head and
cut her off. “They have two weeks, we’re not getting involved.”
“But we really are,
right?”
Yes, probably. He
groaned, not looking forward to it. “Not tonight. I’ve got the thing.”
“This is the 'who’s the
most whipped man' night?” she asked uninterestedly.
“’Most romantic man’
night.”
“Whatever.”
“He’s not letting her
eat,” Otto told her.
“Nice touch,” she
said to Josh.
“And he didn’t get
roses,” Bram said, nodding towards the flowers in Josh’s hand.
“Ok,” she said,
looking down at some paperwork in her hand. “I’m done pretending to care.”
“What about a
carriage?” Bram asked out of the blue. “Sam has a carriage.”
Josh shook his head.
“The secret service put the kibosh on that. Something about not wanting to run
along side it all night.”
“Those carriages go
pretty slowly,” Lou said. “They could probably walk.”
He looked at her.
“You gonna be the one to tell them that?”
“What else have you
got?” Otto asked.
Josh smiled smugly
and pulled lightly at his collar. “My boyish good looks. Donna can’t get enough
of them.”
“Donna’s deranged,”
Lou mumbled, earning a glare from Josh. She smirked and turned a corner to the
stairs, leaving Josh, Otto, and Bram alone again.
“Sam’s good looking too!”
Bram exclaimed, stopping Josh and Otto in their tracks. They looked back at him
and his eyes widened. ”I mean… Julie must think so.”
Josh started walking
again. “Listen Thing One and Thing Two; I can take it from here.”
“Sam’s going to win,”
Otto said quietly to Bram as they entered the main lobby and saw Sam there
wearing a tux and holding two dozen red roses.
“No he’s not,” Josh
almost sang.
“He has a carriage
and roses.”
“And a violinist,”
Sam said confidently as they walked up to him. Josh ignored him and pulled out
his ace in the hole. He handed the two tickets to Sam as Otto mumbled again
that they were going to lose. But Josh could see Sam’s face change into one of
resignation. He finally handed them back to Josh. “You win,” he mumbled.
“Always, Sam.
Always.” He put the tickets back into his jacket pocket and headed into the
east wing alone while Otto and Bram stared at Sam in confusion.
“What was that?”
“Plane tickets to
**********
She saw him walk into
her office as she packed her attaché case and gave her assistant Denise some
last minute instructions. “She’s in the residence with Peter and Miranda,”
Donna said to her. “Don’t bother her unless you’ve bothered me first. And don’t
bother me unless you absolutely have to.”
“If you do, you’re
going to be immediately fired, so make sure it’s good,” he said with a grin as
he walked further inside the office. Donna rolled her eyes as Denise left, but
she hadn’t been able to wipe the grin off her face all afternoon. He was taking
her out and she was excited and everybody knew it.
“She’s learned not to
pay attention to you.”
“She’ll pay attention
to me when she’s my assistant.”
“Keep dreaming,” she
said with a grin.
“You can keep her for
a while. I don’t want her until you’ve trained her to be a mini-you.”
Donna shook her head
and gestured to the flowers. “Are those for me? Or are they part of your evil
plan to lure her over to the dark side.”
He handed her the
flowers. “They’re for you. Are you ready? We’ve got places to go and sex to
have.”
“You’re pretty sure
of yourself.”
“That’s because I’m
brilliant.”
“Competitive you
mean,” she said slyly with a knowing look in his direction.
His eyes widened and
she almost laughed. “What?” he asked as innocently as possible.
“You forget that I
know everything,” she said in a sexy voice as she leaned in and kissed his jaw.
“Do Julie and I get to pick the winner?”
He pulled her closer
by her waist, letting her kiss him before responding. “Sam already
conceded.”
She looked up at him
with the look of an excited child. “That can only mean one thing,” she said,
practically jumping out of her skin.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
She put her hands on
his face. “We’re going out of town!” she shouted, kissing him quickly.
He looked at her,
both impressed and suspicious, and she almost laughed. Finally, he pulled the
plane tickets out of his jacket pocket and handed them to her. “You do know
everything.”
She took the tickets
from him and kissed him again. He pulled her closer, kissing her deeper and
eliciting a small moan from her, his tongue tangling slowly with hers. They
didn’t often get physical in the White House, but she thought a few more
seconds wouldn’t hurt and nipped at his bottom lip.
His beeper went off a
few seconds later and she expected him to pull away. He groaned, but otherwise
ignored it and kept kissing her. But when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket
a second after that, he reluctantly pulled away and smiled apologetically at
her.
She watched him pull
his cell phone out of his pocket, hoping it wouldn’t take all night. But all
hopes were dashed when she caught a glimpse of Bram running into the outer
office.
“Is Josh still here?”
he asked frantically.
Josh shook his head
lightly and looked down at the floor before looking up at her. ‘Sorry,’ he
mouthed just as Bram rushed into the office with Annabeth behind him.
Smash cut to credits
Act 1
5:45pm Friday
(3:15am, Tehri
Ten minutes. It had
only been ten minutes since the worst of the earthquakes hit in the
“8.7 in Kashmir and
“Yes, President
Kalam,” he barely heard the president saying as he tried to pay attention to
everything at once. “We’re waiting on our UN representative, but we’re willing
to help in any way possible. Are you evacuating Tehri?”
He looked over at the
president then, hoping for good news. The president looked up at him and shook
his head. Damn, they were going to wait.
He faced away towards
the wall so he wouldn’t bother anyone else’s phone call. “Have you started
assessing the dam?” he asked the director of the Tehri Hydro Development
Corporation. The man reminded him that the earthquake had just happened and
that they were moving as quickly as possible. “Yes Mr. Jhakri, I understand
that, but your company built the dam. It’s your opinion President Kalam’s
waiting for.”
“9.5 in Uttakashi,
Mussoorie, Tehri, and Dedra Dun,” he heard Sam say. “So far, that’s the hardest
hit.” He looked over at him and then caught the President’s eye. 9.5 in Tehri. They
needed to evacuate.
Josh went back to his
phone call, but could hear the president telling Ronna to get Secretary Vinick
and Nancy McNally there.
The director was
explaining something to Josh about the hour, but Josh didn’t give a shit that
it was three o’clock in the morning there. They needed to evaluate that damn
dam and tell President Kalam that it was unsafe so he’d evacuate. It was too
destructive to just hope it wouldn’t crumble.
He thought he heard
Bram ask Sam if there were any death toll numbers yet, and rolled his eyes.
Death toll numbers in ten minutes? Oh how he missed CJ being the press
secretary.
“We hope to have
planes in the air with supplies by morning,” the president said. Morning would
be too late. And supplies weren’t going to do any good if they didn’t evacuate
Tehri before the dam gave. Still, when the president looked over to Josh for
confirmation, he nodded.
“Nothing?” Sam asked
before speaking louder for the rest of them to hear. “Nothing in
He was trying to
concentrate on his own phone call, but it wasn’t until the director told him
that they couldn’t see the dam that he actually startled. “What do you mean
they can’t see it? It’s an 850 foot dam! Are they on the right river?”
He could hear the
president saying goodbye and hanging up the phone, but the director was telling
him that it was still the middle of the night and they’d lost all electricity
during the earthquakes. Suddenly, not seeing the dam made sense as did the talk
of the hour. When the sun came up it
would be easier, he assured Josh. “When will that be? Two hours? We don’t have
two hours!”
“We understand the
rush, Mr. Lyman. Believe me, no one understands it better than us.”
“They’re bringing out
helicopters?”
“Yes sir. President
Kalam has some on the way.”
He sighed. It wasn’t
their fault, but two hours could be devastating. “Ok, please let me know the
second you know anything.” He hung up and put his phone away, then joined the
others in front of President Santos’ desk.
“Nothing?” the
president asked.
He hung his head.
“They can’t see it.”
“They… can’t see the
dam…”
“It’s 3:15 in the
morning there; the sun’s not up for two more hours. They’ve lost electricity and
can’t see it well enough to check the foundation. President Kalam is sending
out helicopters.”
“But they’re sure it
hasn’t given out?” Bram asked.
Josh, Lou, Sam and
the president all looked at him. The sharpest knife in the drawer, he was not.
“I think we would’ve heard
if people were drowning by the minute,” Lou said sarcastically.
“Right.”
“The president won’t
evacuate?” Sam asked, bringing the attention back to something plausible.
The president shook
his head. “He’s reluctant to panic people if it’s not necessary.”
“When are you
briefing?” Josh asked Bram.
“Ten minutes.”
Josh glanced at Lou,
who nodded that it would be ok, and he looked back at Bram. “Nancy McNally and
Secretary Vinick are on their way here. Once they’re here, we’re going to be
briefed by seismologists and geophysicists. Ronna has their names.” Bram nodded
and he continued. “The only thing you answer about the dam is that they’re
inspecting its stability and that both the
“And they are…”
He sighed and Lou
took over for him. “They built the dam. They’ll ultimately be the ones to tell
us if it’s safe.”
“Sam,” Josh said. “I
need you to stay in constant contact with their director, Nathpa Jhakri, and
tell me the very second you hear anything.” He’d be in the sit room and in
meetings with the UN and the Secretary of State most of the night. He’d have to
hand this off to Sam and trust him to handle it right. Thank goodness it was
Sam.
“Ok everybody.
Thanks,” the president said dismissing them.
“Thank you Mr.
President.”
Josh and the
president watched as they left through Ronna’s door. He waited until it was
just the two of them before looking back at the president.
“It’s going to give.”
“I know.”
**********
This was going to be
a thing. A huge thing. They hadn’t mentioned it, but once the damage was seen
and contained and estimated in terms of what it was going to cost, it would
become a thing. The
Lou walked into the
communications bullpen and saw her assistant, Judy, at the copier. “Find out if
any current members of the house who were around in 1971 voted in favor of
financial contributions to the Tehri Dam project.” She’d have to check
Secretary Vinick’s vote as well, but she’d do that herself when no one was
around.
Judy looked up from
the copier. “There are current house members who were around in 1971?”
“Byrd’s been in
office since 1959,” she said, walking towards her office.
“I wasn’t even alive
then,” Judy mumbled.
Lou stopped and
looked back at her. “Neither was I!”
“I wasn’t saying…”
“Get me the
information,” she grumbled with a nasty look before going into her office and
sitting down. This night was going to suck. Just an hour earlier, Josh was
leaving for the weekend and she was taking Saturday off. She could kiss that
goodbye. She checked her phone for messages. Three already and it hadn’t quite
been a half hour. She sighed and sat back, noticing Bram standing in her
doorway.
“Aren’t you briefing
in a few minutes?”
He nodded. “The thing
is…”
She hung her head.
Man she missed Donna briefing the press. “You don’t know what the Tehri Dam is.”
“It’s not that I
don’t know what the Tehri Dam is… it’s just that I don’t know anything about
the Tehri Dam.”
“Children,” she
mumbled, shaking her head. She looked up at him and thought again that she
missed Donna. “It’s the fifth largest dam in the world. It has the capabilities
to provide 270 million gallons of water a day to New Dehli and about 50 other
cities and villages for drinking and irrigation, and starting in June, it’s
also supposed to provide electricity.” He grabbed a pen off her desk and
started writing on the pad of paper he’d had in the Oval as she continued with
the basics. Just enough to get him through the briefings, she thought. “It sits
not only on two rivers in the Himalayas that I can’t pronounce, but also on the
Allah Bund fault line, which is just one of the reasons that it was highly
contested by anybody with half a brain. It wasn’t built to sustain an
earthquake greater than 7.2 on the Richter scale, and if it gives, it could
drown a half a million people in less than a day.”
Bram looked down
through the notes he’d written in the Oval Office. “The earthquake that hit
there was a 9.5.”
“Yes.”
She waited for him to
digest it and it took several seconds. But this was something she couldn’t
fault him for. This was huge. The biggest thing he’d dealt with so far. This
was going to put him directly into the fire.
“Wow,” he said
quietly.
“There’s more. The
His eyes widened. “We
gave
She nodded slightly.
“Technically Nixon did, but yeah.”
**********
Donna sat quietly
waiting for Josh in a chair next to the couch in his office. The pretense was
over; there would be no date; no trip to
He walked in from the
Oval Office and forced an ill looking smile. She watched him pull his suit
jacket off and toss it onto the couch, then walk to his desk and sit down,
putting his face in his hands. It was a look she knew well. Too well. It was
bad and there wasn’t much he could do.
“Bad?” she asked
quietly.
He nodded and ran his
hands through his hair. “9.5 in Tehri.”
Her mouth opened a
little and she closed her eyes. Not Tehri. Anywhere but Tehri. “They’re
evacuating?”
He shook his head and
looked straight ahead. “They’re waiting on reports of the dam’s stability
before they start wide-spread panic.”
“They know the dam’s
stability. It can’t withhold more than a 7.2.”
He sighed. “They’re
hoping they’re wrong about that.”
“Are they?”
He looked up at her
almost helplessly. “No.”
She took a deep
breath. He’d been doing so well, so very well at not letting this job eat away
at him. But the look in his eyes was haunting. He could handle just about
anything, she was sure of it, but he couldn’t handle being helpless. “Josh…”
He stood up and
slammed his hands down on his desk, startling her. “Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I’ve
told them to evacuate? They aren’t…” He stopped abruptly and looked up at the
ceiling. He took a deep breath, then another. “They’re waiting on the experts.”
The room went silent
after that and she sat there for another second before standing up quietly and
walking around the desk to him. She put her hand lightly and tentatively on his
back and wondered if he even knew she was in the room.
“500 thousand
people,” he practically whispered.
She nodded even
though he continued staring up at the light. She continued rubbing his back
lightly for a moment, the muscles under his shirt tight and knotted. “I can
pull some numbers, find some expert opinions while we…”
“Ronna’s working on
it,” he said in a gravelly voice, looking down at her.
His dismissal of her
left her taken aback and she paused. “How about I go pick us up some dinner?”
“No,” he said,
shaking his head. “You should… I don’t know.”
“I can stay; I don’t
mind.”
“I’m probably going
to be all night,” he said in an already exhausted voice. “Go to
“Really?” she asked
skeptically.
He sighed and rubbed his
hand over his face. “Or you could spend the weekend shopping.”
“I don’t want to
spend the weekend alone in
“I’m sorry, I…”
She cut him off. “It
wasn’t meant as a guilt trip.”
He started to
respond, but stopped when Liz walked into his office. “Secretary Vinick’s here;
he’s in the Oval. The president would like you.”
He nodded slightly.
“Yeah, thanks.”
He looked at Donna
again, then walked to the couch and picked up his jacket, putting it on as he
walked towards the door.
“Sam’s stuck here
too. Why don’t you call Julie? Go to dinner?” She nodded uncommittedly and he
opened the door, looking at her another second and telling her he’d try to call
later. Then he walked into the Oval Office.
She watched him go
and stood looking at the doorway. She’d offered to stay and he’d turned her
down. He’d never done that before, not once that she could remember. He’d never
not wanted her there.
She heard a sound and
turned around to see Liz organizing his desk. “Sorry, I’ll…” she trailed off and
moved to the door to the hallway, getting out of the woman’s way. She looked
inside once more before turning slowly and walking slowly down the hallway as
the West Wing moved frantically around her.
Act 2
7:00pm Friday
(4:30am, Tehri
It was 7:00; an hour
and a half in and he still felt like they didn’t know anything. The sun hadn’t
come up in northern
“The earthquake
stretched from Kashmir to western
They already knew
that. He needed something new; something he could work with. “Do we have any
word on casualties yet?” he asked. Everyone else had been down there ten
minutes longer than he had. Surely they knew something.
“It’s slow going
until dawn,” Josh reminded him, as if he needed reminded again that it was
dark. “A hospital with 1200 patients was destroyed in
“This was one
earthquake?” Secretary Vinick asked the seismologist.
“Actually, no. It was
probably three, the second two caused by the moving plates of the first.”
Secretary Vinick nodded and the professor continued. “These areas were the
hardest hit,” he said, using the pointer to circle the area west of
“What do we know
about the damage to the dam?” the president asked.
“They’ve had
helicopters circling it for the last thirty minutes. They’ve found several
leaks.”
“How big?” Secretary
Vinick asked.
Dr. Craig H. Jones,
the chief engineer and designer of the dam, moved forward then and used the
remote to change the picture on the screen to a close up of the dam. Dr. Brune
handed him the laser pointer and Dr. Jones pointed to an area near the top
center of the dam.
“They found a leak in
this area approximately 50 feet long by 30 feet wide,” the man said, looking at
the screen and not the president.
“50 by 30 and we call
that a leak?” the president asked loudly.
“Yes Sir.” He moved
the pointer lower and to the left. “There’s another here. It’s almost a hundred
feet long and 20 feet wide.”
He was tempted to
tell the man to stop calling massive holes leaks, but Nancy McNally stopped him
by asking another question. “And what do you think they’re going to find when
the sun comes up?”
Dr. Jones looked at
Dr. Brune for a second before looking back at
He didn’t bother
asking if those would be real leaks; he simply sighed. “Ok, what’s the best
case scenario here?”
“The best case
scenario is that the leaks stay confined and don’t spread, and that the water
currently being leaked can be held by the Bhagirathi and Bhinangana rivers.”
“If that’s the case,
can the dam be repaired?” Secretary Vinick asked.
He hesitated before
answering. “Possibly.”
Dr. Kathryn Gregory,
a geophysict, stepped forward then, speaking calmly and looking directly at
Secretary Vinick. “But it could permanently lose function. If there have been
any significant landslides into the reservoirs, the water will be contaminated
with sediments and unusable.”
The president looked
down at the table. That was the best case scenario? A four billion dollar dam
that was unusable? “Ok, what’s the worst case scenario?”
She turned to him.
“An aftershock could destroy the dam immediately. If that happens, there won’t
be time to finish evacuating.”
“What’s the
estimation of destruction if that happens?”
Dr. Brune took the
remote and switched to a screen of northern
The room went silent
for a moment. Hours; hundreds of miles completely submerged in hours. He shook
his head and looked down at the table.
“They’re evacuating
now,” Josh said. “Are they going east and west?”
“We helped them put
evacuation plans into place when we had troops stationed there in the 80s,”
“Ok,” Secretary
Vinick said. “That’s our best and worst case scenario. What’s actually going to
happen?”
Dr. Jones looked at him.
“The dam will break a little at a time, releasing more water as it does. Those
same cities will be submerged within the next several days.”
“I disagree with that
analysis,” Dr. Gregory said. Everyone in the room looked at her, somewhat
surprised, and
“What do you think will happen?”
“I think we’ll have
aftershocks for the next several hours and I think one of them will wipe out
the dam.”
**********
Donna and Julie sat
on stools at the bar, both holding wine and listening to the jazz music playing
softly from the other end of the room. Donna looked around the small restaurant
at low lighting, burning candles, and a fireplace. She’d never been there, but
Sam’s destination for the night had been well chosen.
The hostess came and
showed them to their table, a small round table near the fire place with a
white linen cloth and gorgeous china dishes. In the center of the table sat a
huge bouquet of roses with a card she knew was addressed to Julie.
“Wow,” Julie said,
smelling the flowers. “I wonder what else he had planned.”
Donna sat down,
wishing she could find the excitement in the night instead of brooding about
Josh sending her away. “I have it under good authority that you were getting a
horse-drawn carriage.”
Julie raised her
eyebrows and smiled as she sat down. “They need to have this contest again.”
“Maybe next time
we’ll end up with them instead of each other,” Donna said, forcing a chuckle.
Julie took a drink of
her wine. “When Sam called, he said he’d probably be all night.”
She nodded, thinking
of a hundred other nights they’d spent together at the White House. “They’ll
spend most of the night on the phone assessing damage and casualties, then
they’ll work on aid and support with the UN and other countries.
“We’re still getting
used to these.”
“All nighters?” Donna
asked. Julie nodded and Donna smiled sympathetically. “It gets easier.”
Julie paused and
nodded slightly. “You didn’t have to stay?”
She shook her head.
“The First Lady’s office isn’t involved in things like this. I offered to help
with some research, but…” she trailed off as their server brought them menus.
“But?”
“Huh?” she said,
looking over at Julie. “Sorry. They had it under control. Josh didn’t…” she
paused and looked down at her menu. “He didn’t need me there.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Yeah,” she replied
miserably.
**********
Amy walked towards
the exit as she shrugged her attaché case over her shoulder and buttoned a
button on her jacket. She was completely out of the loop on the whole
earthquake thing, which she reasoned was fair since it had nothing to do with
legislation, but she hated that important things were going on and she was left
out. That had never been the case before. She’d never been mid level on the
totem pole. But tonight people were rushing around, assistants even, and she
was going home.
“Amy, good. You’re
not busy.”
She stopped and
turned to look at Sam. “No, not at all in fact,” she deadpanned. “What’s
happening?”
“They’re evacuating
and hoping the dam doesn’t give,” he said distractedly as he looked through
some papers she hadn’t been privy to.
“Do you want me to
make some phone calls?” she asked hopefully. “Try to get some aid moving?”
Sam started walking and
she followed him. “No, we’ve got it under control.”
Josh had told her the
same thing twenty minutes earlier as he all but ran to the Sit Room. It felt
then as if she wasn’t trusted to help. Surprisingly, it felt the same way when
Sam said it. “Right.”
“But I do want you to
start drafting some legislation for emergency relief funds,” he said as they
walked into the communications bullpen. “Get with Ainsley Hayes about the
language and coordinate with Secretary Vinick.”
She smiled. Finally.
“How much?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether or not the
dam holds.”
“Are we including
money to re-build?”
He stopped suddenly
and looked at her. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you think
someone’s going to ask if we’re in favor of rebuilding a dam that has the
capabilities of killing so many people?”
He groaned. “I’m sure of it, in fact.”
“We need an answer.”
“Yeah.”
Act 3
11:30pm Friday
(9:00am, Tehri
Bram walked to the
pressroom door and paused. He really, really didn’t want to do this. They’d been
like caged animals at his first briefing directly after the earthquake. Now,
almost six hours later, he knew little more than he had then; they were going
to eat him alive. He took a deep breath and walked into the pressroom.
They immediately
started yelling his name while making their way to seats. In an attempt to look
confident, he smiled at a gorgeous reporter in the front row, then made his way
to the podium. “I’ve got a lot of updates so be quiet and maybe this won’t be
painful,” he said, attempting to mirror CJ Cregg. He’d been studying tapes of
her briefings at Josh’s command. He looked down at the papers on the podium and
started. “Chitkal reported an aftershock twenty minutes ago measuring 2.5 on
the Richter scale. No major damages have been reported from the aftershock, but
they are reporting 875 dead so far from the original earthquake.”
They started shouting
his name again and he ignored them. “In Kashmir, the
He stopped for a
breath and the shouting started up again.
“I’m not listening,”
he said, pausing for the room to quiet down. It eventually did and he
continued. “The main damage in Simla was in the market or downtown area. Again,
because of the hour, they aren’t expecting many casualties in the area.
However, a twelve mile stretch of highway was destroyed, and so far they’ve
found 46 dead there. A small village in the hills outside of town called Jutogh
has basically slid down the mountain. Approximately 200 families lived in the
village. All are presumed dead at this time.”
“What about Tehri?”
someone asked.
“New Tehri, also a
hillside village, has had severe damage as well, but numbers aren’t available
yet,” he said, shuffling through papers.
“Bram,” Katie said.
“What about the dam?”
“Thanks for waiting
like I asked Katie,” he said sarcastically even though he knew that was what
they were all waiting for. He sighed. “The dam is still standing, although
leaks found before dawn are getting bigger. The government is evacuating the
areas to the south of the dam as quickly as possible.”
Every hand in the
room shot up as they called out his name again. He looked around. “Jeff.”
“Are they trying to
repair the damage to the dam or are they considering it gone at this point?”
“It’s too unstable to
work on repairs right now. Simla, Pathankot, and now Chitkal have all had
aftershocks. They’ll assess the situation once the seismic activity in the area
has stopped.” He paused and looked around the room. “Melissa.”
“Do you know how many
people they’ve evacuated so far?”
“No, but they’ve been
evacuating for four hours, and they’re using every possible method, including
airplanes, buses, cars and semi-trucks. Brock.”
“Locals are reporting
that the government isn’t allowing the evacuation of sixteen orphanages in the
region. Two weeks ago, the government reported that they have an all-time high
percentage of children in the system and a budget that can’t support them. Are
they using this as a way to solve their problem?”
The room went silent,
everyone looking over to Brock and then to Bram. Orphanages? He shuffled
through papers again, but he knew they didn’t hold any information concerning
orphanages. “I’m sorry, what…”
Brock cut him off. “Bram,
is the Indian government planning on letting the children in those orphanages
die because they can’t afford to raise them?”
“I… no, I mean…” He
shook his head, still shuffling through papers that were of no help to him. How
the hell had Brock gotten information he hadn’t? Lou’s advice stuck in his ear.
Never answer a question you don’t have the answer to. “No, I haven’t heard
anything of the sort,” he said honestly.
“Is the president
aware this is happening?”
He officially hated
Brock. “Are you even aware this is happening?”
“Is this
administration willing to provide support and aid to a country that’s letting
over 3,000 children drown to save money?”
Oh hell.
**********
Josh and Lou stood in
front of his desk, waiting for him to get off the phone with his suddenly irate
wife. Not that he could blame her; he was furious as well. Orphanages not being
evacuated? What kind of sick, twisted people would decide not to evacuate
orphanages?
“I don’t think it is,
no…” he said into the phone while looking up at Josh. Josh looked serious but
put together.
“No, I’m not sure,” he said to Helen. “We’re
going to… we’re going to find out.”
“They’re kids, Matt.”
“I know.”
“Kids. They need
protected. Those bastards…”
“Sweetheart,” he said
in what he hoped was a calming voice. “I know.”
“I know you do,” she
said sighing. “I just… they’re kids.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll let me know
when you find something out.”
“Of course.”
“Alright. Try to come
up and eat something too, it’s almost midnight.”
“I will.”
“Kay.”
He hung up the phone
and then looked up at Josh again. “Is it true?” he asked in a stern voice, no
longer the picture of calm he tried to portray to his wife.
“We don’t know yet,
sir.”
“Well we’re about to
find out.” He turned towards the door and yelled. “Ronna!”
“You can’t, sir,” Lou
said.
“Watch me.”
Ronna opened the door
and walked part way inside. “Yes sir?”
“Get President Kalam
on the phone.”
“Yes sir,” she said
nodding.
“Mr. President,” Josh
said, stopping Ronna before she left. “That’s a call you can’t make.
“Why the hell not?”
he asked angrily.
“Because if you ask
him and he confirms it, we can’t send aid,” Lou said.
He looked up at her.
“That’s fine, because if he confirms it, I’m not going to.”
“We have to sir,”
Josh said calmly.
The president looked
at him aghast. “You want me to send money to a country that’s killing their
orphans?”
“Hundreds of
thousands of people have been affected by this earthquake,” he answered. “We
have to help.”
“We don’t even know
if it’s true, sir,” Lou said. “They’re trying to evacuate a half a million
people. I’m sure they’re moving as fast as they can.”
“Then the president
can tell me that. I want to know what’s going on with those orphanages!”
“You can’t call the
president of
“If it’s true, he’ll
lie anyway,” Lou added.
He looked at both of
them. They were right, of course, but this was different. This wasn’t political.
These were kids. “If they think we’ll refuse them aid,” he said more calmly,
“it might make them evacuate.”
“If we make that
threat we have to follow through with it,” Josh said.
He closed his eyes
and sat back in his chair, taking a deep breath before looking at them again.
“They’re trapping children in orphanages that are about to be destroyed.”
“We don’t know that
sir,” Lou said again.
He ignored her and
turned to Josh. There had to be something they could do. “I want to know what’s
happening over there.”
Josh nodded. “I have
a call in to the ambassador, sir. Let me talk to him. I can make the threat
without making it. This is a question you can’t ask.”
He didn’t understand
that, really. Why Josh could do things he couldn’t. They were protecting him,
of course, but sometimes he didn’t want protected. Sometimes he wanted to make
the call and make himself very, very clear.
“You make it clear to them that those orphanages are to be evacuated,”
he finally said.
Josh nodded. “Yes
sir.”
**********
She wasn’t sure how
she ended up there. She’d been watching CNN coverage of the earthquakes;
pictures of entire villages destroyed, bodies lined up with sheets over them,
families crying and holding each other, the dam leaking huge amounts of water…
commentary about the evacuation, the orphanage speculation, the US involvement
in building the dam… And then she was walking down the hallway and into
Miranda’s room.
She picked up a
stuffed bear, Miranda’s favorite, and placed it carefully into her arms. The
little girl shifted but didn’t wake up, and Helen sat on the edge of her bed
and pushed a little hair out of her face. Children just like her; young,
innocent, helpless… did they even know what was happening?
She stood up to
leave, and saw Matt standing in the doorway watching them. She smiled slightly
and walked up to him.
“Isn’t she perfect?”
he whispered, looking at Miranda.
Helen turned around
and looked at her, nodding slightly. “Yes.” Children just like her…
Matt sighed and pulled
her in front of him so they could both watch their youngest sleep. He rested
his chin top of her head and it was silent for several long moments. He
squeezed her tighter and she took his hand and led him out of the room, letting
the secret service agent close Miranda’s door. Still silent, the two of them
walked down a hallway.
“I wasn’t expecting
you up here for a while,” she said quietly as they walked.
“Josh sent me away so
he could threaten the Indian ambassador without me around.”
“Why?”
He paused and softly
smiled. “Politics.”
**********
Quiet. It was the
first quiet moment he’d had all night. He sat in his office reading through the
latest casualty numbers. 7600 dead and it was no where close to done. He put
the paper down and rubbed his eyes. He hated feeling this helpless. He hated
looking at numbers and knowing that each one represented a person. A husband, a
wife, a child… He looked over at a picture sitting on his desk, then leaned
over and picked it up. It was of Donna and him in
There was a knock on
the door and he looked up as Liz walked into his office, closing the door
behind her.
“Ambassador Sen is
here.”
He put the picture down.
“Thanks. Send him in.”
She nodded and left,
returning a few seconds later with Ambassador Sen. Josh stood up and shook the
young ambassador’s hand.
“Thank you for coming
in so late, Ambassador.”
The man nodded
slightly. “I was up.”
“Yeah…” Josh gestured
to chair. “Please, have a seat.”
The ambassador sat
down, followed by Josh. He looked at his desk and moved the sandwich out of the
way. ”Sorry, it’s the first time I’ve had a chance… “
Ambassador Sen
smiled. “My wife sent dinner to my office two hours ago. I would’ve forgotten
otherwise.”
Josh smiled back and
gestured to the sandwich. “My girlfriend.”
“We’re really quite
useless without them,” the ambassador replied, chuckling.
Josh looked at the
sandwich for a second, a ghost of a smile on his own face, then looked back up
at the ambassador. “ Sir…”
“I’ve heard the
rumors, Mr. Lyman,” he said before Josh had a chance to finish. “Let me assure
you… they’re untrue.”
He’d been expecting
that answer, true or not. Still, he had a point to make. “Ambassador, the
president is very concerned about this.”
“The president has a
family. Of course he’s concerned.”
“Sending emergency
relief aid to a country that would sacrifice children like that isn’t something
he’s likely to do”.
“Do you have
children, Mr. Lyman?” the man asked quietly.
Josh paused, then
shook his head. “No.”
“I do,” he replied
proudly. “Three daughters and a son. My oldest is twelve, my youngest four. If
that were happening in my country, the Tehri dam would be the least of my
worries tonight.”
“Have the orphanages
been evacuated?”
“Eight have been.
They’ve started in the northern regions, but they are evacuating orphanages,
hospitals, elderly care facilities and jails as quickly as possible. Our
citizens do matter to us, Mr. Lyman.”
“They matter to us
too, sir. That’s the reason for our concern.”
“I appreciate that.
Please assure the president for me that we’re doing the very best we can and
that we deeply appreciate the aid the
Josh stood up. “Thank
you for coming in, Ambassador. Try and get some sleep tonight.”
The ambassador stood
and shook Josh’s outstretched hand. “I think sleep is for another night.” Josh
nodded and the man started to leave, stopping just before opening the door. He
looked back at Josh. “If the dam gives, Mr. Lyman, a lot of people will die.
Some of those people will be children.”
Josh nodded and
watched as the ambassador left, closing the door quietly behind himself.
Act 4
2:00am Saturday
(11:30am, Tehri
Sam felt like he was
going to drop as he walked into the communications bullpen. He could see lights
coming from Lou’s office, but the rest of the bullpen was dark. He’d sent most
of his staff home between midnight and one; she must’ve done the same.
He walked to her door
and saw her lying on the couch with her eyes closed. Bram sat in a visitors’
chair, and both looked as tired as he felt.
“The Indian
ambassador called,” he said, walking into the office. “Two more orphanages have
been evacuated.
“Open the briefing
with that,” Lou said to Bram without bothering to open her eyes. “Don’t give
them anything to ask.”
“Alright,” Bram
answered tiredly.
Sam sat on the arm of
the couch. “With any luck, the worst of it’s over. The Tehri Hydro Development
Corporation is starting repairs to the dam in the next few hours.”
“Bram needs to know
how that’s going to happen,” Lou said, eyes still closed.
He looked at her and then
at Bram. “They’re going to take huge pieces of stone and… well stone… and put
them into the reservoir side to block the leaks. I think.”
“Thanks for the
technical terms, Sam,” Lou said sarcastically.
He ignored her and
turned to Bram. “You’ve got the UN and US aid information?”
Bram nodded. “And
I’ve got an update on casualties. I was going to call a full lid after that.”
“That’s fine.”
Lou lifted her head
and opened her eyes, giving Sam a look.
“Sorry,” he replied
sheepishly.
She looked at him and
then to Bram. “That’s fine.”
Sam’s phone started
ringing and he took it off his belt while talking to Bram. “How many deaths so
far?”
“8800.”
He nodded, looking at
the caller id. “I just talked with him,” he mumbled.
“Who’s calling a two
o’clock in the morning?”
“The Tehri Hydro
Development Corporation,” he answered as he stood up and flipped his cell phone
open. “Mr. Jhakri?” he asked with a hopeful voice.
“Mr. Seaborn,” the
man said solemnly. “You asked me to call you if there were any changes. I
thought you should know that the dam just collapsed.”
No. No, not that. He
closed his eyes and dropped his head. The worst. The absolute worst thing that
could’ve happened. He shook his head and stood quietly digesting the information
before speaking again. “When?” he asked quietly.
“About two minutes
ago.”
**********
Bram stood in the
press room, which was quiet for the first time all night as he relayed the
latest facts. “An aftershock in the Utter Pradish state of
*
Josh sat in his
darkened office staring almost blindly at the television in the corner, the light
from the screen flickering across his face. The coverage of the dam collapse
was only on CNN, but would be everywhere within the next few minutes. The
television was muted, but he watched as huge amounts of water poured through
what was once the Tehri Dam. ‘Tehri Dam Collapses’ scrolled across the bottom
of the screen as a reminder of what he was powerless to stop.
*
“Other deaths from
the original earthquake that hit India eight and a half hours ago are estimated
at nine thousand, four hundred, but that number is likely to raise to anywhere
from twenty-five to thirty-thousand,” Bram said with as much compassion and as
little emotion as he could muster. “The
*
It was raining.
Raining hard, but this was their assignment, and in the military, you didn’t
question your assignment. Even if you did, you didn’t question this one. Not
something this urgent. You simply stood in the rain and loaded the boxes of
food, medical supplies, and clothing onto the airplane as quickly as possible.
*
”India’s president, Avul Kalam, issued a statement that
*
Matt walked slowly
down a hallway in the residence. He passed Miranda’s room, then went back to it
and waited as the secret serviceman opened it for him. He looked sadly at
Helen, still wearing her suit from the day, sleeping on top of the covers on
Miranda’s bed, holding Miranda from behind. Smiling slightly at the two of
them, he watched for a few seconds before walking across the hall to Peter’s
room. That guard opened the door for him and he went inside and walked to the
bed. He looked at him for a second and leaned down and kissed his forehead,
then walked to the other side of the bed, toed off his shoes and lay down.
**********
Save for a small
light on in the corner of the living room, it was dark when Josh walked quietly
into his apartment. He dropped his book bag by the door and took off his jacket,
tossing it onto the couch as he made his way through the living room and into
the bedroom. CNN was on the television, but muted, so Donna must’ve tried
waiting up for him. He looked over at the bed; she was lying on her side,
facing away from him. He hoped she’d gotten some sleep. He sat down on the edge
of the bed and took off his shoes and socks, then stood up and took off his
pants and shirt before crawling into bed in his t-shirt and boxers. He lay on
his back for a few seconds, trying to let the day go. It was something he was
working on this time around; leaving work at work. He took a few deep breaths,
then rolled onto his side and put his arm around her. She made it easier to do.
“What time is it?”
she whispered in a groggy, soft voice.
“3:30,” he said
quietly back.
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah,” he said,
leaning down and kissing her shoulder lightly. “How was dinner with Julie?”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t
get away.”
“You don’t have to
apologize for work emergencies.”
He smiled slightly at
that, thankful that she understood, probably more than anyone, what his work
meant to him. “At least I didn’t beg you to stay.”
“No,” she said,
pausing and taking a deep breath. “You certainly didn’t do that.”
“And I only almost
called you twice,” he said through a yawn.
She turned her head
and looked at him, confused. “You did?”
“Liz is good,” he
said with a small smile. “But she’s never going to be you.”
She turned back
around, smiling at the wall where he couldn’t see her. “I spoke with Mrs. Santos
earlier. She wants to look at the treatment of children in foreign orphanages.”
He nodded slightly,
still holding her closely. “They were both upset.”
“Yeah.”
“The Indian
ambassador said… he kind of implied…” he trailed off. He’d been thinking about it
since the man had left his office. ‘The
president has a family. Of course he’s concerned.’ As if Josh wasn’t
concerned, couldn’t possibly be, because he didn’t have a family. As if he
couldn’t imagine his own children trapped there.
“What?”
He paused.
“Nothing."
Donna sighed and
snuggled deeper into Josh’s arms, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She
was almost asleep when he spoke again.
“Do you want
children?”
She stiffened and her
eyes popped open. The room was deafly quiet and she lay still for a long moment
before rolling onto her back and looking at him with questioning eyes.
“You know,” he said,
with the hint of a shrug. “Some day.”
She could feel her
heart pounding. “Do you?”
He looked at her for
several seconds before barely whispering, “Yes.”
She kept watching
him, looking for something in his eyes; not knowing what it was. “I do too.”
“Mine?” he asked
timidly.
She smiled softly and
shook her head no. “Ours.”
His eyes widened a
little bit and he just watched her. This amazing woman who was going to be the
mother of his children. After a few seconds, he nodded slightly and leaned
down, kissing her slowly.
Screen goes black