Situation Room: Khundu Numbers and Interagency Blowup
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo inquires about military developments in Korea and terrorist threats in Spain, establishing the global security context.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Not present; referenced with pragmatic respect for her workarounds and logistical role.
Nancy is invoked by Leo as the operational workaround who sometimes prints classified materials to expedite distribution; she is noted as being out of the country when Hutchinson claims the leak was a raid.
- • Facilitate timely movement of critical documents to leadership (inferred).
- • Bypass red tape to make sure decision-makers have needed information (inferred).
- • Speed sometimes requires informal processes to get sensitive material to principals.
- • Operational pragmatism can override formal distribution channels when time-sensitive.
Hostile and cornered — defensive posture that hardens into provocation, revealing both institutional protectiveness and exasperation.
Hutchinson deflects and minimizes: he reframes the conversation as diplomatic, points to supplying bordering countries militarily, normalizes high casualties with a Gettysburg analogy, denies immediate responsibility for lost documents, and exits angrily when pressed.
- • Limit Pentagon exposure and protect institutional prerogatives over classified assessments.
- • Frame the crisis in military/operational terms to avoid a political/genocidal label that would force intervention.
- • Military losses, even large ones, are not equivalent to genocide; the Pentagon's metrics and judgments should control the narrative.
- • Control over classified estimates belongs to the Department of Defense and should not be bypassed or leaked.
Concerned and operationally burdened (implied) — his prospective choice to send troops creates the moral pressure behind Leo's demand for facts.
The President is referenced as the ultimate decision-maker Leo intends to brief; his need for accurate casualty estimates drives Leo's confrontation and frames the moral urgency of the exchange.
- • Receive accurate, actionable intelligence to decide whether to commit U.S. forces (inferred).
- • Preserve both moral authority and political viability in foreign crises (inferred).
- • Leaders must be given straight facts to weigh human cost and policy (inferred).
- • The President is entitled to and will act on clear military estimates rather than press-driven narratives (inferred).
Righteously furious — controlled anger that snaps into an exasperated physical gesture; urgency underpins his moral indignation.
Leo leads and then dominates the exchange: he corrals Hutchinson after the briefing, demands clarity on Khundu, announces the forced-depletion figure (150), accuses the Pentagon of leaking inflated numbers, and ends the scene by violently throwing papers and knocking over a glass in frustration.
- • Extract accurate military estimates for the President so policy decisions are informed.
- • Expose and stop Pentagon obfuscation or leaking that distorts public understanding and political risk.
- • The President has a right and need to know accurate casualty estimates before deciding on intervention.
- • Leaks that inflate casualties are politically and morally dangerous and must be called out.
Neutral, businesslike — focused on delivering crisply sourced intelligence to senior staff.
Director 2nd provides the factual beat that frames part of the briefing: reports potential Basque terrorist plots in Spain and notes DCI liaison with Guradi Civil, anchoring the rapid, multi-theater nature of the Situation Room sweep before the Khundu confrontation.
- • Relay current regional intelligence to principals accurately and efficiently.
- • Ensure appropriate interagency liaisons (e.g., DCI to Guradi Civil) are noted for follow-up.
- • Timely dissemination of raw intelligence is essential for decision-making.
- • Interagency coordination (DCI, Guardia Civil) matters to contain regional threats.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Forced Depletion Report is the evidentiary hinge: Leo invokes it as proof that realistic U.S. casualty estimates are far lower (150) than the inflated figures in the press. It functions as proof that contradicts the Pentagon's public posture and exposes a leak that reshapes political calculus.
The Next Generation Predator is invoked by Director 1st at the very start to establish the Situation Room's rapid global scan. It functions narratively to contrast distant technical operations (drone testing) with the intimate moral crisis about Khundu that follows, underlining competing priorities.
A glass of water sits on the Situation Room table; at the emotional peak, Leo throws papers and accidentally knocks it over. The spill is a small physical punctuation marking his loss of composure and the scene's emotional climax.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Republic of Equatorial Khundu is the crisis focal point; it is the moral and operational subject of the confrontation — possible mass slaughter, potential genocide, and the site for contemplated U.S. intervention.
Belarus is invoked as the other party in the Lithuania border dispute and occupies a similar peripheral slot in the briefing, contributing to the sense of many competing global pressures.
Camp Red Cloud is named as the physical site for Predator field tests; its mention situates the briefing's technical, kinetic side and underscores how remote operations are part of the same global awareness the Situation Room manages.
Uijongbu City is cited as the regional anchor for the Predator tests; its invocation underlines the transnational sweep of the Situation Room’s concerns and the multiplicity of simultaneous crises.
Spain is mentioned as the site of potential Basque terrorist activity; it functions as one example of near-term security concerns juxtaposed against the more morally charged Khundu crisis.
Lithuania is named as one side of a border dispute with Belarus during the Situation Room's rapid updates, serving as background pressure among the list of global issues.
Gettysburg is cited by Hutchinson as a historical analogy to minimize labeling mass casualties as genocide, serving rhetorically to reframe moral outrage as normal wartime attrition.
Europe is the regional frame for several intelligence flashes; invocation emphasizes the Situation Room’s global sweep before the conversation narrows to Khundu.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) is referenced by Director 2nd as liaising with Guardia Civil on Basque matters; while not central to Khundu, the DCI's presence illustrates interagency liaison procedures appearing across the briefing.
Central Command is the military organization Leo asks about; Hutchinson cites its posture (supplying bordering countries) and implicitly shields operational metrics under DoD control, making it central to debates over troop commitments and casualty estimates.
The State Department is referenced as pursuing diplomatic overtures in Khundu; Leo distinguishes State's public diplomacy from the Pentagon's operational estimates, underscoring competing interagency narratives.
The Wall Street Journal figures as the media vector that published inflated casualty figures on day two, catalyzing Leo's accusation that Pentagon leaks distorted public understanding and political risk.
The Arkutu-directed mob is referenced by Hutchinson as an object of U.N. overtures and diplomatic attention in Khundu; its brutality is the background cause of the slaughter being discussed.
Guradi Civil is mentioned as a foreign liaison partner in Spain; its invocation shows active international cooperation on other threats being discussed during the same sweep that precedes Khundu's moral crisis.
The Intelligence Community is invoked as the source of raw reports about Khundu that are not yet public. Its presence undergirds Leo's claim that credible but suppressed intelligence is driving the President's decision calculus.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo's confrontation with Hutchinson about Pentagon leaks leads to Jack Reese's reassignment."
"Leo's confrontation with Hutchinson about Pentagon leaks leads to Jack Reese's reassignment."
"Leo's confrontation with Hutchinson about Pentagon leaks leads to Jack Reese's reassignment."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"LEO: That's not what I mean. We're getting INTEL that isn't making it onto CNN, but that's a matter of a couple of hours. Truly horrible accounts of mass slaughtering..."
"HUTCHINSON: Lee lost 10,000 at Gettysberg, didn't make it genocide."
"LEO: A] The guy is the President. B] He's been leading one for 3 years, 51 weeks and three days. How much more training would you like him to have? And C] It's not a thousand. We saw a forced depletion report, it's 150."