"I'm not late am I?"

Bill and his staff were among the last to filter into the Situation Room for the meeting. He noticed AJ had yet to show up. Good, at least he beat the president here. 

"Even with a police escort, traffic from here to Foggy Bottom was a nightmare."

Foggy Bottom was new. He'd worked there a long time ago, but now he was the man in charge. [i]Acting[/i] Secretary of State while Arnie Prescott dealt with... well, whatever it was he was dealing with. They all reacted to the news about the probe in different ways. After learning the truth, Bill had spent the weekend in his study reading pulpy detective novels to keep his mind occupied. Prescott had take a deep plunge into a shallow liquor bottle. He was still taking his laps when his family had him sent to rehab. That came on the heels of Raymond Rose's resignation. So in an effort to make it seem like the government wasn't falling apart, he was just on leave while Bill filled in as Sec. State.

He found his seat halfway down the conference table, facing General Edwards across the table, and sagged a bit as he sat down. Being NSA was already a full-time job. SecState on top of it, in the middle of the greatest crisis in human history, meant he was working sixteen to twenty hour days. Coordinating things with other nations, dealing with crises that were popping up all over the globe. A thousand fires to be put out every week. But he knew he wasn't the only one working insanely long hours. Everyone in this room were all dealing with a new normal, a post-probe world where every single facet of modern life was being effect. All of them except the Postmaster General. That son of a bitch still left the office at five o'clock every day.

"I just got off the phone with the Kremlin before heading over," Bill announced. "They think it would be in the best interest of world stability that the US and Russia take over communication with the probe. They want us to push the Swedes out of the way so the two of us can get in the driver's seat. We had a pool going on over at State on how long it would take them to pull that stunt. I was off by a week."