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Josh jumped, caught completely off-guard by his assistant. �Seriously, bells, all around your neck,� Josh announced.
�Do I look like a tiny reindeer?� Donna asked. Frowning at the look that crossed Josh�s face, Donna continued. �Don�t answer that. What�s going on and how can I help?�
�Get these people in,� Josh said, thrusting a few pages into her hand. �Also make sure Carol is ready to page the press. We won�t have time to leak this. It�s going to be dirty and fast and I can�t even begin to tell you how many kinds of bad this whole situation is.�
Donna nodded. �Phone calls and Carol. Anything else?�
�Food. Pizza or Chinese,� Josh said as he searched for a briefing booklet he had lost in the piles of papers on his desk.
�Already done. Next?�
�Uh, yeah. Try to track down Margaret. Leo needs some file and he says that she hid it for or from him, he�d not sure which but whichever it is he needs it, like, four hours ago,� Josh said, wondering, not for the first time, if the assistants at the White House were all as diabolically evil as Donna was when it came to their filing systems. Josh knew for a fact that Margaret had a system of her own, and even Ginger and Bonnie had different systems from each other and they were both Toby�s assistants. It was a plot, he was sure of it. But, all evidence to the contrary, Josh Lyman was not a stupid man, so he had never voiced such thoughts around any of the co-conspirators.
�Okay,� Donna said. �Josh, what�s going on?�
Josh sighed heavily. He hated being the one to tell Donna things like this, mostly because he hated to see her face do the thing it did when she looked like he had just killed her hamster, but she would be able to be ten times more effective if she was in the loop and he needed Donna to be at her usual effectiveness level. �There are an unknown number of terrorists who have taken over our embassy in Tel Aviv. They�ve got over a hundred hostages, including��
�The Vice President,� Donna finished for him. Josh nodded. �Do you know if the networks have this? I mean, it�s been going on all day but I haven�t heard anything and I was watching the news for most of the day.�
�No. Thankfully. There�s been a total media blackout in the region for the past two days. I honestly couldn�t tell you why, nor do I care because right now I have to figure out a way to convince the President that he�s going to have to start thinking about people to replace the Vice President without sounding like I think Hoynes and the other hundred hostages aren�t coming out of that building alive,� Josh said. He gathered up some files and turned to leave. �Sam�s here?�
�Yeah.�
�And the kid?�
�Meredith is with Zoey in the Residence,� Donna said.