Josh hung the phone up and sprang to his feet.

“They let one go,” he said as Sam walked back in the room, his fingers threaded through the handles of four refilled coffee mugs.

Sam stopped short. “One what?”

“A hostage,” Josh said, bouncing in place a little. “A guy who works at the bank. They let him go just over half an hour ago, after finally making their demands. The guy’s OK, just pretty shaken. The police have been interviewing him.”

Sam nearly let all four coffee mugs go crashing to the floor. “That was Linden?”

“Yeah,” Josh confirmed. CJ took two of the mugs from Sam, handing one to Josh.

“What were their demands?” Sam asked.

“Linden won’t go into detail,” Josh spat angrily as he set the mug down on his desk without taking a sip. “But he said that from the nature of the demands, it looks like they never intended for this to become a hostage situation. Looks like it’s a simple heist gone bad.”

“What else?” Toby asked as he took the last extra mug from Sam.

“The guy said there are seven people left inside the bank, all employees except one,” Josh looked down at Toby, who had settled back on the sideboard by the TV.  “The other one is a woman...matching Donna’s description.”

They were all still for a moment. They’d been proceeding under the assumption that Donna was in the bank, but somehow this news made it seem that much more...serious.

CJ broke the silence first. “Is everyone inside the bank OK?”

“Yeah, as far as the guy could tell,” Josh said, his voice getting a little stronger. “One of the tellers was a little hysterical, but other than that, you know, everyone was doing as well as could be expected.”

“What about the robbers?” Sam asked, his jaw set.

“Three of them, with semi-automatic weapons,” Josh said, almost completely managing to hide his shudder at the thought of Donna trapped in a room with a gun.

“What’s next?” Leo asked from the doorway.

All four of his subordinates jumped and turned toward the door, only to see Leo accompanied by Ron Butterfield.

“Uh...they’re still negotiating with the guy,” Josh said as he took in Ron’s rigid form. “But Linden won’t let me in on the details of the negotiations or their demands.”

Seeing all eyes on Ron, Leo took the initiative to bring him into the conversation.

“I took the liberty of making Ron aware of the situation. I thought he might be able to offer us a better perspective on the tactical aspect of the situation.”

Ron stepped forward, into the glow provided in the office by Josh’s desk lamp.

“It’s a good sign that they’ve let a hostage go,” Ron said, looking directly at Josh. “It means they’re willing to trade them to get what they want, and it means that they probably aren’t in this just to kill some civilians and bring attention to a cause.”

“Yeah,” Josh said distractedly.

Toby leaned forward and cleared his throat. “Ron, how long can we expect this situation to go on?”

Ron pivoted to look back at Toby.

“There’s no way to predict that, unfortunately,” he said. “If Josh’s guy at MPDC thinks it’s a heist gone bad, then we’re looking at a group who was not prepared for a standoff. They won’t have provisions or enough manpower or firepower to keep this going ‘round the clock, so it’s not the kind of thing that would be likely to last for days. My guess, and this is just a guess, is that we’ll see the end of this within the next several hours or early tomorrow.”

“What kind of things could they be asking for in there?” CJ asked.

“Most of the time, in situations like this, they’ve gotten in over their heads and they just want out of it,” Ron said. “They usually ask for some variation of a way out.”

“It’d be a lot easier to get out of it if you didn’t do a damn illegal thing in the first place,” Sam quipped indignantly. “It always amazes me how these idiots do something like this, get caught, and then expect a judge to sign a piece of paper that says it’s perfectly alright. Like there’s a judge who would do that, who’s even necessarily empowered to do that, depending on the circumstances.”

“Well, Sam, if you’re holding hostages, it seems to me you can expect people to do a lot of things for you they wouldn’t normally do,” Toby said softly.

“Josh?” Leo broke the flow of the conversation, and everyone looked back at Josh, who’d been sort of staring off into space for several minutes. He distractedly glanced at Leo, then resumed his previous position. He was trying to get a handle on something, trying to piece together a puzzle in his head.

“There was a...” he began, deep in thought. “I don’t know, it was....there was a thing Linden mentioned the guy from the bank said.”

“The robber?” Leo asked.

“The hostage,” Josh said. “Something about when they were trying to confirm Donna’s identity. He works there, so he knew the names of all the employees and then said there was another woman, a customer, he assumed. He didn’t know because he’d been in the back when the whole thing started.”

The group just looked at him expectantly.

“The police asked him if he knew her name and he said no, but that...something about the ringleader had asked her name at some point, and I don’t know, she didn’t answer for some reason, so he just got her ID out of her purse and read her name. The guy from the bank couldn’t remember the name, but he said it was...unusual.”

“Donnatella,” CJ breathed.

Josh nodded, but Leo could tell that wasn’t where he was going with this. “You said you’d pretty much confirmed it was her by the description.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Yeah, but...”

His eyes went wide and he jumped out of his chair. “Oh, God! He saw her ID. Which ID? Her driver’s license or her White House ID?” He looked at Ron, panic-stricken. “If he saw her White House ID, then this a whole different thing. If they think they can get what they want by using her as a, some kind of a —”

“I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, Josh,” Ron said firmly. “If it had been a White House ID, the hostage probably would have remembered that detail. Not to mention that if the assailant told the police he had a White House employee in there, the Secret Service would have been contacted, which we haven’t.”

“The hostage said he got Donna’s wallet out of her bag and looked at the ID anyway,” Leo said, grasping at straws in an attempt to be helpful. “There’s a reason we recommend that you don’t carry your White House ID in your wallet. So that if it’s lost or stolen, there’s not a White House badge floating around out there with someone who also has your driver’s license, credit cards and other personal information. It was probably her license, Josh.”

“Donna wears her White House ID around her neck most of the time, anyway,” CJ said gently. “Which means she probably just drops it in her pocket when she goes off-campus.”

Josh didn’t argue, but he looked far from convinced.

“The Secret Service would have been contacted, Josh,” Ron said again. “There’s no reason to believe that they think she’s anything more than a typical customer at this point.”

Josh swallowed hard and nodded. “Ahkay.”

“OK,” Ron responded. “I’ll be here if there’s anything I can help you with.” He turned and headed for the door.

“But you’ll let me know if the Secret Service is con —”

“Yeah,” Ron stated. “I’ll let you know. In fact, it’s procedure that I let Leo know immediately.” He walked back toward the Northwest Lobby, and Leo followed.

The remaining four sat there in total silence while their coffee got cold. Josh was growing more and more agitated by the second.

“It took him half an hour to call after the release of the hostage,” he said to Sam. “Half an hour after the RELEASE. That’s not even considering what time the police got his demands or arranged for the release.”

“Linden’s a good guy, Josh,” Sam chided. “He can’t call you every time someone sneezes down there, and I’m sure he’s got more than a few things on his plate right now.”

Josh didn’t respond. He just leaned forward, forearms on his knees, hands clasped, jaw clenched.

“That was the longest hour of my life,” he said finally, voice shaking with a combination of rage and fear. “And I could have known something half an hour sooner.”

Sam snapped before he thought about what he was saying. It hadn’t been the easiest hour he’d ever had to sit through, either. “Well, why don’t you go down there and kick Linden’s ass, Josh, for not keeping you more in the loop.”

“Sam,” CJ said softly. Sam bowed his head and tried to regain his composure.

Josh was looking at him with a strange expression on his face. He flew out of the chair and out the side door of his office before anyone really knew what was happening.

“Josh!” Sam started after him, but Toby was out the door first and CJ was hot on Sam’s heels.

“Josh,” Toby said as he followed him through the bullpen at a near dead run. “You can’t go down there.”

“That’s exactly what I should do, it’s what I should’ve done as soon as I found out, Toby,” Josh said, not looking back.

“You can’t, Josh,” Sam called.

“Sure, I can,” Josh said. “I know exactly where it is.”

“No,” Sam said.

“I’m not going down there to kick Linden’s ass, Sam,” Josh said exasperatedly. “But if I’m down there, I’ll know what’s going on that much sooner, and when all this is over, I’ll be right there. I’ll be right there for Donna when she gets out of that place.”

“You’ll be right underfoot, Josh,” CJ said as they all tore into the communications bullpen.

“I won’t,” he said, still not looking back. “I’ll stay out of the way, I’ll even...Karim’s restaurant is right across the street, I can hang back there even, if I can’t get too close to the —”

He was cut short by Toby, who had finally caught up with him. Without warning or a word, Toby grabbed him from behind by the shoulders, spun him around, and pushed him against the wall in front of Ginger’s desk.

Male egos starting flaring then, and Josh shoved back, only to be met with a second push from Toby, this time joined by Sam. Each pinned one of his shoulders to the wall. Josh struggled to get out of their collective grasp for a moment, but Toby just gripped his arm harder.

“Listen to me,” he said, his face inches from Josh’s. “I know you’re worried; we all are. I know you’re scared for her; we all are, Josh. But if you go down there, the only thing you’re going to do is slow down their progress. And every second you slow them down is another second that Donna has to stay in that situation when the police could be working it out for her. You’re gonna be the reason that she has to stay in there longer? That’s what you’re telling me?”

Josh looked at Toby for a second, eyes wide, mouth hanging open slightly.

“The only thing you have the power to do right now is make it worse,” Toby said matter-of-factly.

Josh closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Toby and Sam felt his muscles go slack. They stopped holding him to the wall with such force, but both kept their hands on him.

“I just feel like I’m not doing anything,” he said finally, barely above a whisper.

“You’re doing all you can do,” Toby said softly. “You’re keeping track of the situation, you’re keeping her in your thoughts. So we’re gonna go back to your office, and, you know, do some more of that.”

Josh looked at him dubiously.

“I need to get out of here anyway,” CJ said, looking around the deserted communications work area as she leaned against a desk. “Before I smother in all the testosterone.”

The three men laughed quietly, sadly.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said before,” Sam said guiltily.

Josh looked at him, a grin playing on the corners of his mouth. “That’ll teach you to give me any ideas.”

“Yeah.”

Josh looked at the bank of clocks on the wall. 9:46. “Okay, it’s time for some more coffee,” Josh said, as he wearily pushed himself away from the wall and slowly led the way back to his office.

“Yeah, I’m cutting you off from the bar, by the way, and switching you to decaf,” Toby said as he fell in behind him.

“Ahkay,” Josh responded, hands shoved in his pockets as he shuffled back toward the operations bullpen.