Storm Surge - Part 2

Chapter Eleven

"HOW'S IT GOING, Mark?" Dar released the radio button and waited. She leaned back against the wall behind the desk where Kerry was seated studiously pecking at her keyboard, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she concentrated.

Dar found the expression adorable and, despite her current aggravation, it made her smile.

"Good news," Kerry said after a moment. "They got all the circuits back up at the Pentagon, Dar. That room is fully operational now." She glanced up at her companion. "What's so funny?"

Nothing." Dar cleared her throat. "That is good news. That should give you some slack on the bandwidth in that area," she added. "I know that was stressing the back haul carrying most of that on the sat."

"It does," Kerry agreed. "I'm glad, because I told some of the customers we have riding on the sat as primary we'd maybe see some improvement after the weekend." She went back to her keyboard. "Not that it kept them from bitching at me."

"Hey boss, Mark here." Dar's radio crackled."I got the router mounted down here. Had to pay to get some guy to give me power though. They freaked out when I wanted to run a cord over the ground."

"Expense it. Whatever it was," Dar responded.

"He--uh, didn't exactly give me a receipt," Mark admitted, "and I kinda had to pay in cash, if you get my drift."

Kerry turned and peered over her shoulder again. "We're not going to pass the ethics certification this year, are we?"

Dar gave her a wry look. "Expense it anyway, Mark. We'll approve it. We need to get a pull cord run down to the tunnels. Any progress on finding a path?"

There were a few clicks on the speaker before Mark answered. "They're working on it, boss. Kannan and Shaun are down there looking for a way up. Nothing yet."

Damn. Dar tapped the mic against her chin. "Okay. Keep me in the loop."

She clipped the mic and sighed. "I feel like a complete shit head making them go through this knowing it's for nothing," she said. "Just for that, I'm going to pay them all bonuses when we get back."

"Are you going to tell them?" Kerry leaned on the chair arm and studied her partner. "I guess what I mean is, what are you going to tell them once the cable gets here? Mark's going to know when he sees it,certainly Kannan will."

Dar slid down the wall to sit on the floor, extending her legs out. "I know. I don't know what I'll tell them. I'm not going to tell anyone now.Let the damn cable get here, and then--I don't know." She scratched her ear. "I'll be honest I guess. Tell them we were working on a way around it, but it didn't work out."

Kerry got up and walked over, sitting down next to Dar and stretching her legs out alongside her partner's. "This sucks, sweetie."

"It sucks." Dar's cell phone rang. She pulled it out and answered, "Dar Roberts." She listened. "Oh, hey, Chuck. Hang on." She keyed the phone's speaker. "Go ahead, Kerry's here too."

"Hey yeah, hi, Kerry." Chuck's voice echoed. "Listen, they briefed me on what you asked, Dar. I've checked with a few people. That spec won't carry the distance. It can't."

Kerry closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I'm aware of that, Chuck," Dar said. "Problem is, that's all they got here. You know what's riding on it," she added. "I've been through the specifications with a fine tooth comb and I know it says it's impossible. I want to know what is possible, and whether all it's going to take is a lot of money, which I'm willing to cough up."

"Well, I know, Dar," Chuck answered. "I got fifteen senior engineers here in the white board room looking at this from every angle, but you know it is what it is. At most, they can tweak the modules to go a thousand, maybe twelve hundred meters. That's it."

Dar sighed. "Damn." She exhaled. "You were our best shot, Chuck.You've developed the latest set of optics everyone uses."

"I know,"Chuck agreed. "Not to toot our horn, but if we can't do this, nobody commercial can. We're the big dogs."

"That doesn't really--"

Chuck uncharacteristically cut her off. "So, what I decided to do was call in some friends of mine who work over at NASA. My brother is an engineer over at Lockheed Martin, and he's got some contacts on the team who did the Hubble. "

Kerry peered at the phone with renewed interest. "Never thought of that," she murmured. "When in doubt call a rocket scientist."

"All right," Dar answered. "Do you think they'll help?"

"I don't know," Chuck answered honestly. "It beats sitting in this room watching everyone scratch their heads and shrug their shoulders. We can't do beans with this Dar. Maybe they got some bright ideas. It's optics. If anyone can come up with some hair brained idea to make duct tape and mirrors work, it'll be those guys."

"I appreciate it, Chuck," Dar said. "We're at our wit's end here too. The nearest spool of the right stuff is 2,000 miles away and I can't get it there before Tuesday."

'"Ouch," he responded "Well, I have no idea if anything will come of it, but I didn't want to just drop it," Chuck said. "I'll let you know if we find out anything, okay?"

"Thanks," Dar responded. "Later, Chuck." She closed the phone and studied it. "That's not going to happen. We don't have the time."

"You having that cable sent?" Kerry asked.

"Yeah."

"I'm glad he took the initiative without you having to ask." She reached over and patted Dar's leg. "Come with me to get some lunch? It's getting pretty late and we got up pretty early."

Dar sighed.

"Hon, you're doing the best you can," Kerry said, gently. "You engaged the right people, they brought in the right people, and if this doesn't happen, it won't be because we didn't try." She leaned close and captured Dar's eyes. "We can only do what we can do."

"Yeah, I know." Dar picked up Kerry's hand and brought it to her lips, kissing the knuckles. Then she turned it palm up and kissed that."We have to keep going and see where it takes us." She got up and hauled Kerry up with her pausing to kiss her palm again as they stood.

"Keep doing that and I'll tell you where it's going to take us. Right back to our hotel room, that's where." She slapped her partner on the butt and nudged her toward the door. "Scoot."

Instead of scooting, Dar turned and let Kerry's forward momentum bring them together. She wrapped both arms around her and tilted her head, kissing her on the lips.

Far from protesting, Kerry returned the hug and kiss with enthusiasm. They parted a little after a minute, and she looked up into Dar's eyes, enjoying the frank passion she saw there. "What were we about to do?"

"Go back to the hotel," Dar promptly supplied. "You mentioned something about lunch."

"Hm."

"They have room service."

"Heck with that." Kerry smiled. "We can stop for a hot dog on the way back." She stretched up and stole another kiss, then she firmly took Dar's hands and started leading her toward the door. "C'mon. I need a break. Chances are we're going to end up in some dusty wiring room tonight."

"Hm." Dar sighed regretfully. "Unfortunately I think Alastair scheduled a board conference call. We may only have time to get that hot dog."

"Grr." Kerry thumped her head against Dar's shoulder. "Why can't the board watch CNN?"

"Easy, hon." Dar scrubbed the back of her neck and gave her a hug."We'll take a break after that. Let's skip the group dinner tonight and chill, okay?"

Kerry kept her head resting against her partner. "I've wanted to do that for days," she admitted. "I know it's anti--social, but my nerves are getting rubbed raw in all this."

Dar leaned against her and kept up her gentle rubbing along Kerry's spine. "We're going home Monday," she said, after a long moment. "I sent Maria a note to make our reservations."

Kerry shifted her head and looked up. "Good," she replied. "That's the best news I've heard all week. I was going to ask you later if we could."

Dar smiled briefly. "So there's a light ahead in our tunnel, Ker.We'll do what we can until then, so hang in there."

"Hanging." Kerry wrapped her arms around Dar and hugged her tightly. Then she let go, and pointed to the door. "So now that my libido is going to be thwarted, I'll settle for lunch. Lead on, Magellan."

Dar did, opening the door and heading out into the hallway.

They, almost literally, bumped into Alastair as the doors to the lift opened."Ah." Dar stepped back out of the way. "You see our friends off?"

"I did,"Alastair said. "Not bad folks, really. I thought that went pretty well. Didn't you?"

Dar nodded. "Far as that sort of thing goes, yeah." She agreed. "Seemed pretty innocuous. I'm willing to bet they were glad to get a soft story for a change after what they've been covering the last few days."

"You got it." Alastair agreed. "Dar, I set the conference call for forty-five minutes. Can I buy you ladies lunch?"

"Absolutely." Dar indicated the door. "We were just heading out for that ourselves. I need to let you in on some technical issues that have cropped up."

"Uh oh."

"I'll translate." Kerry promised. "I've also got some major customer complaints you probably should know about."

Alastair sighed, as he punched the button for the lobby. "Fair trade. The FBI is after us again."

"Great."

"WHY DID I let you talk me into this?" Alastair studied the sushi menu wryly. "Don't tell me you don't eat hamburgers, Dar."

"I do," she replied. "I love cheesburgers. I also love sushi. Relax,Alastair. It's good for you."

"I even got my mother to go to a sushi restaurant." Kerry added, "She liked it."

"Your mother isn't from Texas." Alastair grumbled. "They have anything barbeque here?"

"Barbeque eel."

Alastair looked up over his glasses at Dar, as stern an expression on his face as Kerry had ever seen.

"I got Dar's father to try it and he liked it." Kerry informed him."Honest."

"Is that why he turned down going to lunch with us?" Alastair asked, dryly. "I was wondering about that."

Dar chuckled. "He doesn't really like sushi. He eats it to humor Kerry." She explained. "But here, Alastair, just order the beef teriyaki. You'll be fine, unless you're allergic to soy sauce."

"Hm? Ah. I see." Her boss looked moderately pacified. "Well, that looks all right. At least I know what it is."

"Does he really?" Kerry inquired, peering at her partner. "Do that to humor me?"

"Sure." Dar went back to the menu. "Just like you tried sushi to humor me back in the day." She studied her choices. "That worked out a little better though."

"It did." Kerry agreed. "I love sushi." Her eyes flicked up to Dar's profile. "Not as much as I love you, of course, but still..." She watched the pink blush color her ears and smiled. "And really, Alastair, California rolls are pretty innocuous. Rice, crab stick, some cucumber and a little seaweed."

"Seaweed?"

"Seaweed." Dar set her menu down. "So..." She leaned back in her chair. "Here's the mess we're in." She paused as a young waitress stopped at the table, her eyebrows lifting slightly and a pad in her hand. "Everyone ready?"

"Yup." Kerry put her menu down. "Dragon roll for me, please, and some miso soup."

The waitress looked at Dar. "Same for me, and a glass of ice tea, please."

"Of course." The girl turned to Alastair. "Sir?"

Alastair took his glasses off and handed her the menu. "I'll have the same." He announced. "What the hell. You only live once." He settled back in his chair. "And I'll have a glass of wine with that, if you don't mind."

"Certainly sir." The waitress took their menus and disappeared.

Dar folded her arms and exhaled. She felt as tired as Kerry and Alastair looked. They could have stayed at the office and had lunch there, but the noise and the constant questions had driven all of them out into the streets in search of a few minutes peace.

"So,"Alastair said, "you were saying?"

Dar wished she wasn't saying. "We have a problem. Verizon sent over the wrong type of fiber optics cable. They didn't realize it until they'd already rolled it part of the way out, and there's none of the right type anywhere near here."

Alastair folded his hands on the table. "I see."

"Aside from that, the path from the subway up to our office is problematical, and we don't know if we can bring the cable from the other subway to the one near the office," Kerry added. "But that's all pretty minor. The cable type isn't."

"Won't work?"Alastair asked. "Or is it just tough to make work?"

"Won't work," Dar said. "Not without optics that don't exist yet." She cleared her throat a little. "I've asked our networking vendor to look into it, but the design cycle for those things is around two years."

Alastair checked his watch, then looked at her. "Doesn't sound good. What's our plan B?"

"We have no plan B." Dar's voice remained quite steady. "If this doesn't work, it doesn't work. I won't have the right cable in until Wednesday, maybe Tuesday night. It weighs half a ton."

"I see." Her boss digested this. "Well. That sure sounds like a problem." He twiddled his thumbs, pondering the news.

Dar waited, watching his face. She'd known Alastair long enough to predict most of his responses, but the situation they were in was so extraordinary she found herself unable to imagine what he was thinking, much less what he would say.

She'd gotten used to the idea that they were screwed. At this point,she really wanted to get it all over with.

"Okay," Alastair finally said. "If it happens, it does. If not, I'll deal with it." He smiled as the waitress brought back tall, fragrant glasses of ice tea. "Thank you, that looks great." He took a sip. "I wish I could work up a froth over it ladies, but to be completely honest with you, I'm pretty much out of arm waving."

"Me too," Dar agreed. "I can't even get mad at the jackass from Verizon. He was scared enough to be wetting his pants. He just wanted out of that room."

"I think he thought he was doing the right thing," Kerry murmured.

"Probably did,"Alastair said. "I take it we're going to keep trying,right? I mean, we're not going to walk away from this, are we?" He cocked his head and regarded his table mates."I'm not going to say anything to the government people, of course. Let them think whatever they want."

Dar hesitated.

"We'll keep going." Kerry spoke up. "Because you never know until it's over, that it's over. I've learned that the hard way over the past couple of years."

Alastair nodded. "Is there anything more we can do? Anyone I can call and take my frustration out on?"

Dar shook her head. "Me." She added, after a pause, "Since I'm the one who didn't check to make sure they were using the right damn cable"

"You can't idiot proof the world, Dar." Alastair dismissed her admission with a gesture. "Fella who brought the stuff over to his own people to run should have known." He added, "I know we're trying to help out here, but hellfire."

Kerry smiled warmly at him, aware of the vaguely sheepish expression on her beloved partner's face. "We expect everyone else to be as good as we are. We get bit with that sometimes," she remarked. "You get used to people performing at a certain level which our people do,but not everyone else does."

"Exactly," Alastair said. "So Dar, don't be silly. It's not your fault." He peered around, pausing to watch the sushi chef behind the bar."That's the cook?"

"That's the sushi chef," Kerry said. "We usually sit near the bar at the sushi place near our office down south and watch him work. It's like food art."

"Interesting culture." Alastair commented. "Been to Japan a few times, to our regional office there. They're always wanting me to send Dar over to visit them for some reason."

"Some miso soup?" The waitress was back, with three steaming bowls. She set them down with spoons then smiled and vanished again."

Kerry settled in to enjoy her soup, her eyes drifting idly past their table at the small crowd around them. It was late for lunch, and the restaurant was only a quarter full, most of the tables with one or two occupants either engrossed in their papers or staring off into the distance as they waited for their meals.

"Is this tofu?" Alastair asked.

"Yes." Dar lifted her bowl and sipped directly from it, cradling it in both hands. "I'm not fond of it."

He studied the white block, and then bit into it gingerly, chewing and swallowing with a noncommittal expression on his face. "Hmph. Doesn't taste like anything."

"That's why I don't like it," Dar said.

Kerry let the conversation flow past her. She watched three men enter, and look around, then motion at the hostess. They were heavyset,and all had dark hair and irritated expressions. They pointed at a table, and walked over to it, sitting down as the waitress hurried over with menus.

"Gimme a pitcher of coke," one said. "Then get lost. "

Kerry's lip twitched. The waitress didn't seem fazed, though. She brought back a pitcher and three glasses, put them on the table, and walked away without a word. Was it the men being rude? Or was it something typical for New York that the woman was well used to?

"Ker?"

Kerry started, and turned her head. "Sorry. Just thinking." She scooped up a spoonful of mushrooms and tofu and munched them contentedly. Tofu didn't taste like much, it was true, but she liked the texture and the contrast between the silky blocks and the other vegetables in the soup.

"So anyway," Alastair lowered his voice, "after I got off the phone with the guy at the FBI main office, another fella called me and asked for something else, wanted to know if we had any telephone records from our customers."

"Telephone?" Dar's brows knit. "Did it not occur to them to call the telephone company for that?"

"Hell if I know. That's what I asked him. They were looking for something else though, they said something about narrowing the focus."

"But why our customers?"

"Maybe they asked the phone company, and they got what they asked for," Dar said. "And it was a trillion one line entries in tapes delivered in a big box on their doorstep. There's such a thing as too much data."

The waitress appeared with three plates. She set them down and smiled. "Please enjoy."

"Thanks, we will." Kerry glanced around, as the woman left. "Don't they need to have court orders for this kind of thing, Alastair? What's the legal part of this?"

Alastair was studying his sushi roll. "Now, what in the hell am I supposed to do with this?" He asked. "As for the legal stuff, I tossed that over to Ham. I'm not about to cough anything up without a subpoena, but y'know, he heard rumblings that someone told them they didn't need one."

"What?"

"Chopsticks." Dar held them up. "Put them in your hands like this." She demonstrated, watching him try to imitate her. "Or pick the damn things up with your fingers. We don't care."

"Dar." Kerry remonstrated her. "It's not that hard--here--do it this way."

Alastair bemusedly studied her fingers. "That's what Ham said they said." He continued the conversation as he tried to make the sticks come together. "That they didn't need any court order, they had orders from high up to get what they needed, however they had to."

"Wow."

"Scared Ham." Having achieved dubious success, Alastair applied the chopsticks to the sushi roll. "Not much does."

"So what does that mean for us?" Dar asked, fiddling with her own implements. "Is he saying we should--what is he saying?"

"Y'know, Dar..." Alastair studied the bit of sushi. "Now what?" He looked at Kerry.

"Dunk it like this." Kerry motioned with her own piece of sushi, dipping it into the little bowl of soy sauce near her plate. "Then you eat it."

"Then I eat it," he mused. "Ham said he was going to call a friend of his in the government, try to feel them out, see what the real deal is," Alastair said. He dunked the piece gingerly and then popped it into his mouth, chewing resolutely.

Kerry exhaled. "That doesn't sound good." She put her sushi in her mouth and chewed it, glancing past Alastair's shoulder at the table of men behind them. They had their heads bent together, and as she watched, they looked up and over at them, then quickly looked away as they saw her attention.

Hm.

Alastair finished chewing, swallowed, then took a sip of his tea and sat back, looking reflectively at the plate.

"Not good?" Dar hazarded a guess.

"If we can't rely on the law--what the hell does that mean?" Kerry asked. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Well," Alastair said. "That was completely unlike anything I expected." He picked up his chopsticks again. "I like it. Good stuff." He picked up another piece. "Kerry, don't worry yet. I'll let you know when it's time."

"Can't do much about it anyway." Dar plowed through her lunch. "So let's talk about something else. When they let people back down into the tip of the island, they're going to need communications. How do we handle that?"

Kerry was chewing as she eyed her partner.

"How about those Padres?" Alastair blinked mildly. "You like baseball, Dar?"

Dar looked from one to the other, then shook her head and went back to her sushi. "I feel like I'm having lunch with a table full of abstract art."

Kerry swallowed hastily and smothered a laugh.

Alastair paused in the act of wrangling another piece of his sushi. "Not gonna ask." He concluded. "And none of you say a word to my wife about me having this. She'll think I've joined a cult."

"Cult." Dar mused. "That mean you're going to get a tattoo?"

Alastair stopped chewing and looked at her.

"Just asking."