Storm Surge

by Melissa Good

  I would wear Gopher Dar on my chest any time, honey. But telling my mother that here in front of her little aides is not going to make this road trip any shorter if you catch my drift.

  "Probably not," Dar had to agree. "And you'd have to explain it anyway."

  And I'd have to explain it anyway. You know I would.

  Dar started laughing.

  Why are you up? It's four in the morning there. But if you are, after we drop Mom off, can I call you? I want to try and get through, and it would be nice to talk for a few minutes before all the crazy stuff starts up all over again. I'm sure tomorrow's going to be worse than today. I think everyone-the business people I mean-are in shock. Tomorrow it'll be--well, okay, but when will I be back up?

  Dar nodded in agreement. "Yup."

  It's so quiet here in the city. I know it's sort of late, but there's hardly a car on the street. It's almost spooky it's so quiet, and I realized just earlier how funny it was to not hear airplanes. You never think of that, but we have them all the time at home flying over head. I've been here a couple hours and not one except for fighters. So strange.

  There are lots of soldiers around. It almost feels like we're at war. Are we?

  Dar gazed thoughtfully at the message. "Good question," she said aloud. "Have we ever not been at war?"

  Anyway, we're pretty close to the townhouse now. So hopefully I'll be calling soon. Hope you're up just because you're up and not because you're doing stuff.

  Dar glanced guiltily at the laptop. Then she half shrugged and decided to look forward to talking to Kerry instead of worrying about it. She took a sip of her warm milk and logged in, waiting for the machine to present her desktop before she started the cellular card up and connected.

  It wasn't nearly as quick a connection as she was used to, of course. The cellular service provided speed more or less like a fast modem though, and it was enough for Dar to start up her VPN session and connect to the office. "Might as well clear some mail," she decided. "With any luck, everyone will have been a lot busier with everything else than sending me a lot of it."

  She took another sip of milk, licking her lips a little at the strange but not unpleasant taste. Different grass, maybe, or just a different way of processing the milk, she wasn't sure. She suspected she'd get used to it after a while.

  The computer chimed softly, and she started up her mail program. "Of course, I'm not gonna get the chance." She sighed. "Bastards."

  It wasn't logical for her to be upset, and she knew it, because given what so many others were going through her lack of a touring vacation was so petty she'd have been embarrassed to mention it to anyone other than herself.

  But she was mad. She was pissed off her life had been disrupted. She was even more pissed off that she wasn't going to get to enjoy some simple wandering with Kerry that she'd looked very much forward to. "Bastards," she repeated. "They're damn lucky it's not my finger on the nuclear button cause if it was I'd have pressed it."

  Self centered, shocking, and unworthy of even thinking it. Dar watched her inbox fill. A thought she wouldn't consider repeating to Kerry. But the venal stupidity of the act chewed at her, since the reasoning behind most of the world's ills right now was based in the unthinking animal tribal instinct that humanity had no real hope of getting rid of any time soon.

  There was no logic there. The instinct to hate what you weren't was written so deeply, Dar felt that on some level it wasn't something you could address with words or thoughts. It was a burning in the gut. A fire in the brain that resisted any attempt at change.

  It was easy for people, and she'd heard many of them in the last few hours, point at a particular group and act like those people were so alien and so isolated in their hatred. Easy, especially on a day like yesterday. But the truth was, the ravaging need to destroy what wasn't you was universal.

  Dar sighed. "So I go and say something like, yeah, I want to blow them off the face of the earth, and thereby prove out my species." She shook her head. "Asshole."

  She scanned the mail, seeing not a lot that wasn't either group sent mails or brief acknowledgements. Her brows raised in surprise. "I know I said I didn't expect much mail, but I did expect some."

  But really, there wasn't any. Dar reasoned that maybe the fact they'd all be in a huge conference call all day accounted for that. She could imagine sitting down to write some mundane note and just stopping, and clicking the close button instead.

  She minimized the mail program and called up her status screen instead waiting for it to appear and the counters to settle in and show what the latest was across the company. There was no audio, she wasn't about to trigger the voice link over the slow connection.

  Instead, she studied the lists of employees, checking first the one from the Pentagon area, and then the one from New York.

  Each person's name had a red, a green, or a yellow tag next to it. Green meant they'd been heard from, and were okay. Yellow meant they'd been heard from, but were having problems. Red--

  Dar exhaled slowly, her eyes running over all those little red dots. A dozen in Washington, and three times that in New York. She studied the names, her stomach dropping when she saw Bob's name still stubbornly crimson.

  They hadn't exactly gotten along. She hadn't exactly enjoyed his company. But he was an old friend of Alastair's and now, his proud enthusiasm about his city caused a pang in her chest as she remembered very clearly not wanting to hear a second of it.

  She'd argued with him just the other day, over parking spaces at the office there. He wanted to spend money for covered parking.

  Native Floridian Dar had thought that was crazy. Bob had gotten frustrated, and almost hung up, but then had gotten lucky in the form of Kerry's arriving and explaining to her tropical lover trying to get your door open in an ice storm.

  Saved by the Midwest. Bob had almost seemed embarrassed, but they'd ended up splitting the cost and now, she was glad.

  She was glad they'd ended the meeting not screaming at each other.

  Her PDA flashed. Dar was glad enough to push aside the laptop and pull the smaller device over, opening it up to find another message from Kerry.

  Streets full of soldiers, Dar. They blocked off most of the streets. I don't think we're going to be able to get close to the townhouse I'm not sure what's going on.

  Dar sat up straight in alarm, feeling a surge of adrenaline hit her.

  Something about a car bomb. Crap.

  Dar reached over and grabbed her cell phone, hitting the speed dial button. Instead of a fast busy, the call went through and she heard it ring twice before it was answered. "Hey."

  "Hey." Kerry cleared her throat.

  Dar could hear Kerry's mother in the background, and a male voice, lower and official sounding. "Listen, you want me to call up the hotel and make reservations for the whole lot of you? Kerry, you are not going anywhere near a damn car bomb."

  There was a moment of silence. "Yes, I would like you to do that. A lot."

  Dar yanked the laptop over and rattled in the travel website. She stopped on hearing noises in the background on the phone. "Were those gunshots?"

  "I don't know."

  The website responded, and she typed in the information. "Hell, your suite's got three rooms you could probably cram everyone in there if you had to."

  Kerry cleared her throat again, this time with a completely different inflection.

  Dar scanned the response. "They have two rooms available," she said. "I'm grabbing them. Must be last minute cancels because they weren't there earlier."

  "Okay, let me get things organized on this end." Kerry sounded resigned. "Wish me luck. Thanks sweetie. I'll call you back in a minute."

  "You'd better." Dar clicked the reserve button. "And get away from those damn sounds!"

  "MA'AM, I DO understand, but I can't let you go any further. It's dangerous. They have the road blocked off, and they called the bomb squad," the soldier said. "No telling when they'll get here. They've b
een all over the city tonight. People are real nervous."

  Senator Stuart folded her hands in exasperation, turning to look at her aides. "This is ridiculous," she said. "I understand security, but what are we supposed to do, sleep here in the car?"

  "Senator, please," the most senior of the aides, a middle age man with a bearded face said. "Let me arrange an alternative. I'm sure there's a hotel in the area we can go to. I have your overnight bag in the trunk."

  "That's a good idea ma'am," the soldier added, respectfully. "Though you might need to call around, I hear it's pretty busy."

  Cynthia sat back, distress apparent on her face. "Well, my goodness."

  "Mother." Kerry leaned forward and touched her knee. "My hotel had two rooms left. I had them held."

  Her Mother glanced around at the four aides. "I certainly do appreciate it, however--"

  "My suite's got three rooms," Kerry accurately intercepted her concern. "You're more than welcome to share it with me." From the corner of her eye she saw the aides relax, their shoulders dropping and veiled looks of gratitude being nudged in her direction.

  Her mother though, still hesitated.

  "I mean," Kerry could feel the irony right down to her toes, "we are related."

  That seemed to snap the Senator out of her reverie. "Of course we are," Cynthia said, briskly. "Of course, and that's a perfect solution. Thank you so very much, Kerry." She motioned to the window separating them from the driver. "Please tell him to drive on to..." She glanced at her daughter.

  "Mandarin Oriental." Kerry supplied. "It's on the edge of town."

  Her mother's eyes blinked. "Yes, it is," she agreed, in a mild tone. "Lovely hotel. I attended a banquet there just last month."

  "Mandarin Oriental," one of the aides told the driver. "Let's get out of here."

  The car turned, and headed away from the blockaded area and every one settled back in their seats as they moved through the almost deserted city.

  "Well," Cynthia said, after a moment. "That was unexpected." She folded her hands in her lap. "I'm glad you had the forethought to call the hotel, Kerry. That was very proactive of you."

  "I've been called that before." Kerry decided her boss wouldn't mind her taking credit for her quick thinking just this once. "I'm glad they had the space. It's been a really long day," she said. "I'm looking forward to just getting some rest."

  The aides nodded. "You're right there, Ms. Stuart," the senior aide said. "It certainly has been a rough time today."

  Kerry realized it was the first time the aide had addressed her directly. "This is one of those things where I think you'll remember where you were when it happened," she remarked. "I know I will."

  The other aides nodded.

  Cynthia pursed her lips for a moment. "I do honestly think I'm very glad I was at home when I did hear," she said. "And that all my children were there also. You do worry about your family at times such as this, and we had so much going on."

  Surprisingly, Kerry found herself in agreement. "I'm glad too," she said. "I'm glad you weren't in Washington, and I'm glad I didn't have to chase around looking for Mike and Angie to make sure they were okay, and that Mike wasn't off in New York on some promotion or other."

  "Absolutely," her mother murmured. "Do you still have people unaccounted for?"

  Kerry nodded. "But we hope it's just because so much communication structure is not working," she said, quietly. "Maybe we'll hear from them tomorrow."

  A pensive silence fell. Kerry let her head rest against the window. Her eyes burned, and she checked her watch, seeing the hands pointing almost to midnight.

  It had been a very long day. The time she'd spent doing crunches in the early morning light now seemed to be from a different time.

  A different lifetime.

  She glanced out the window seeing a blast of flashing lights. A line of police cars blazed past, heading in the opposite direction in an eerie, siren-less silence. She studied the buildings going past, most with darkened windows, some with entryways blocked by large, solid looking vehicles.

  Under siege?

  Kerry supposed that's what it must feel like. No one really knew if there would be more attacks, and if there were, what form they might take. Car bombs? Maybe. Human bombs? Happens in the Middle East every day.

  "Crazy." One of the aides was also watching out the window. "What the hell's wrong with these people?"

  "Well," Senator Stuart spoke up. "I would guess that they-whomever they are-probably are saying much the same about us, wherever they might be," she said. "There's just too much intolerance in the world. That's the real problem."

  "Senator, these people are crazy. People who fly airplanes into buildings aren't intolerant, they're nuts," one of the younger aides said. "That's not human."

  "They were celebrating over there. Did you see that on CNN?" the young woman aide said. "There were people over there cheering when they saw bodies dropping from the tower to their deaths."

  Senator Stuart laced her fingers together. "Now, why would they do that?" she asked. "What kind of hatred can they have that makes them celebrate such a horrible thing?"

  "I don't think I want to know why," the woman aide said. "There's no way to understand that. We should just send our own planes over there and get them back."

  "Make them stop cheering," the young male aide agreed. "They're just animals."

  Cynthia frowned. "I'm sure we will do something as a response." She sighed. "And yet, what will that bring in the long run? More disasters." She shook her head. "I fear though, you are correct. We have no common reference."

  Kerry tilted her head to one side and poked her finger in her ear, wiggling it vigorously.

  "Something wrong?" her mother asked.

  "Sorry." Kerry gave her head a shake. "Thought I felt my brains leaking out there for a minute." She laced her fingers together in her lap. "Lack of tolerance and understanding is not unique to the people who drove those planes," she said. "I think it's something that's part of human nature, to not like, and fear things we don't really have a handle on."

  Her mother's eyes narrowed slightly, but Kerry managed to retain a mild expression. "But still, there's no excuse for what those people did. There would be no excuse for us if we did it. Violence isn't the answer."

  The senator nodded immediately. "Exactly what I meant."

  "Especially not in this circumstance," Kerry went on. "Let's say we do send planes over and drop bombs. Then what? We don't know where the people who planned this are, so we drop a bomb and kill a couple thousand innocent people. How does that help? How does that make us any better than they are?"

  "Well--" the woman aide said.

  "So they just send more people to do more horrible things, and we send more bombs. What's the point? That doesn't get you anywhere." Kerry sighed. "My mother's right. We have no common frame of reference with this group of people who have been a civilization for twenty centuries at least. More than our country has even existed. They might as well be ET."

  Cynthia looked a bit overwhelmed by the agreement. "Yes," she said, after a pause. "My point exactly."

  Silence fell as they drove on past another block of police cars.

  "That was a really good movie," the young male aide ventured. "ET, I mean."

  It almost made Kerry giggle. She leaned against the arm of the limo door and rested her head against the glass again and hoped the hotel wasn't that far off. The conversation was veering toward the positively dangerous.

  THE HOTEL LOBBY was definitely quiet. Kerry had her bag over her shoulder, and she headed for the reception desk where two receptionists were standing, backs turned to her, watching CNN on the television.

  One of the aides hurried to catch up to her. "Listen, Ms. Stuart..."

  "Hm?" Kerry turned her head and regarded him. He was a medium sort of person. Medium height, medium coloring, medium shade of brown hair. The only thing that stood out was a set of beautiful, long, well maintained eyelashes that loo
ked very much like they were fake.

  She hoped they weren't. "Yes?"

  "Thanks for getting the rooms," the man said. "I wasn't looking forward to sleeping in the car."

  Kerry's brows creased a little. "Don't you have an apartment here?" she asked. "You don't sleep in the townhouse garage, do you?"

  The man chuckled. "No, there's a staffer's apartment building but it's right across the street from the Senator's place. We live there."

  "Ah." Kerry removed her wallet as she approached the desk. "Good evening folks."

  The two receptionists spun around. "Oh." The one on the left hurried forward. "Sorry about that. We were just--"

  "We know." Kerry held a hand up. "It's okay. I have a reservation. Actually there are probably three of them under the name of either Stuart or Roberts."

  The aide looked at her, his brows knitting over his outstanding eyelashes.

  "My married name," Kerry was unable to resist, adding a smile as the man jerked a little. "I never know how Dar's going to book it."

  "Yes, we do have them, Ms. Stuart," the receptionist interrupted. "I have two deluxe rooms with two beds, and the Presidential Suite." He glanced behind her. "Is there luggage we can take care of for you?"

  "No." Kerry handed over her corporate card. "I have my overnight, and the rest of our party wasn't expecting to need a hotel. Do you have a sundry kit available for them?"

  "Of course," the man said, instantly, handing back her card. "This is prepaid, ma'am."

  Kerry rolled her eyes. "Of course it is." She chuckled under her breath. "Okay, we need two keys for each room, please." She tapped the card on the desk. "And could I get a pot of hot tea sent up to the suite? My head's pounding."

  "Absolutely." The receptionist scribbled something on a pad. "Any particular type? We have a selection."

  "Green Jasmine?" Kerry asked, hopefully. "With honey?"

  "Not a problem."

  "Do we want to mention--" The aide glanced behind them, into the depths of the spacious lobby where the Senator and the other aides waited

  "Probably not," Kerry said. "No sense advertising, even if my mother's not really a hot potato on the international scene like my father was." She caught the receptionist's furtive glance, and smiled.