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Sam had never been in the situation room before. Toby and CJ were the ones to take briefings on weapons and whatnot when preparing to tell the public what had happened, relaying the information to Sam after the fact because he had other things to take care of while Toby and CJ were briefed and it wasn�t like time was a luxury that any of them could afford in situations that required both Situation Room briefings and public address�. He�d always assumed that it looked like a regular conference room, fully secure but overall unappealing to the eye. It probably had been, at one time. The White House reinvented itself with each presidency, each administration running itself differently from the last, and, presumably, decorating the building differently. Not that the Situation Room was all that decorated. It was more like a high-tech haven that Sam was sure would be like a wet dream to people who could do more than work Word and computer solitaire on their laptops.
�This isn�t a protest,� Army two-star General Earl Weisseman said, repeating the point he had made half an hour earlier and had continued to utter whenever he didn�t like the things that other people were saying. Sam really wanted to tell him to shut up, but he knew that wouldn�t do any good so he kept his mouth shut and tried to block the General out until he started saying something other than �this isn�t a protest�.
�We don�t know what it is, Earl, that�s the problem,� Nancy McNally said firmly as she had every other time Weisseman had intoned his repetitive contribution to the meeting. �We have no intel on this. No group is staking claim. No demands have been made. We don�t even know if anyone is still alive in the embassy. We can�t rule anything out until we have some information.�
�We can probably rule out that they want to invite us to a tea party,� Marine three-star General James Grace commented. The majority of the room rolled their eyes and groaned.
�Fine, but ruling out the tea party idea doesn�t get us any closer to developing a counterattack,� one of the civilian advisors whose name Sam hadn�t caught pointed out.
The room was silent for a moment before Sam spoke up. �There can�t be a counterattack. You don�t attack during a hostage situation. You negotiate, you find a peaceful solution, but you don�t engage until you absolutely have to. We can�t make the first move here. We look like we�re going to attack and they set off the bombs. They�re not afraid to die. They�re suicide bombers. They think this is what they were born to do, what their god wants them to do,� Sam said. �We make a move and they take out the hostages, themselves, and anyone else they can because that is what they do. I�m not taking a plan of attack to the President and anyone with half a brain-cell won�t either until we�ve exhausted every other avenue.� It was rare that he found himself getting so forceful�the last time he had felt the need to bash some heads in was the whole thing with Ainsley Hayes and the dead flowers that Joyce and Brookline sent her; they had had crossed the line and deserved the full force of Sam Seaborn�s anger�but he felt the situation warranted it and he didn�t plan on having any regrets.