Winds of Change Book Two

by Melissa Good

  “Senate Intelligence Committee wants to see this thing before we go any further with it,” he said. “Now, understand this doesn’t change anything between us and you. It’s going forward regardless.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “But we have to show these mental midgets something so they’ll shut their yaps and go mess with something else, like voting themselves a raise.”

  Dar pondered that. “When?”

  “Soon as you can.”

  She sighed. “I can mock up a prototype by next week. That soon enough?”

  There was a brief silence then Bridges chuckled. “That’ll do. Will it show them what they expect to see?”

  “Will they understand what I show them?” Dar countered. “I’ll lay out for them how it’s going to work and what the agents on the other end will see when they make a query.”

  “No Internet snooping?” Bridges said. “By the way, you nailed that with George.”

  “It’ll be rough,” Dar warned. “Just command line. But it should be enough to give them an idea.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now, a completely different subject. Your old friends are screwing things up.”

  Dar looked at her phone with a puzzled expression. “What? Are they still making waves about the contract?”

  “Hell, no. Something’s screwed up over there. Things aren’t working, according to what I hear from the Pentagon. Got a bunch of pissed off medal pushers out there yelling about it.”

  “Ah.”

  “Know anything?”

  Dar drummed her fingers. “I heard some rumors there was some kind of incident,” she answered carefully. “But I don’t know any details about it.”

  “They haven’t called you?”

  “No,” Dar said. “I don’t expect them to.”

  “Idiots.”

  She smiled in reflex. “Last thing they want is to have to call me in to fix something,” she said. “Embarrassing all the way around.”

  Bridges cleared his throat. “Might not have a choice. If you catch my drift.”

  Dar grimaced. “Don’t do that. Not good for them, and not for me.”

  “No offense, Roberts, but we don’t care if it’s good for you, or for them. It’s screwing up stuff for us,” Bridges said bluntly. “Know what I mean?”

  Dar sighed again. “Yeah.”

  “Anyway, if you grudgingly hear from them, it might be because someone here told them to get their heads out of their asses and get some real help. Or, alternatively, you might get a call from someone at that rock pile wanting you to take over the contracts.”

  “We’re not set up for that.”

  “Well then put on your big girl panties and get a move on getting set up,” he said. “This is serious stuff, Roberts. We don’t have the time, or people, to be running around doing things the hard way because their crap isn’t working. Got me?”

  “Yeah, I get it. But I hope they can straighten themselves out without my interference,” Dar said. “I don’t want to get back into that arena.”

  Bridges grunted. “My gal will set up a time next week for your cat and donkey show. Stay by the phone. Answer it if it rings. Later.”

  Dar released the line and exhaled. “Well, shit.” She half turned and looked out the window, where the sunset was splashing a deep gold light along the window. “This is going to be a huge pain in the ass.”

  “What’s that, hon?” Kerry came in with Mocha in her arms. “You ready to go home?”

  Dar told her the latest.

  “You think Bridges will actually force them to call you?” Kerry already had her messenger bag over one shoulder. “Holy crap, you think they’d make them give us those contracts? Dar we can’t handle that.”

  Dar got up and put her laptop into her backpack. “I know.” Dar slung the pack onto her back. “I’m sure they won’t end up doing that. It’s far too intrusive and probably illegal. I’m going to concentrate on doing the mock up. ILS is going to have to let their chips fall as they may.”

  She shut her desk lamp off and bumped Kerry toward the door. “C’mon. I need to chill out. Mark said there’s no sign of his buddy posting.”

  They walked down the stairs and waved at the people still left working. Mark stood in the lower hall, his helmet in his hand and he waited for them to reach the bottom.

  “Hey.” Kerry shifted Mocha to her other arm. “How’s our new guy doing?” she asked as they headed out the front door. “I think I got the HR people to stop freaking out about him.”

  “Not bad,” Mark said. “He’s still back there reading manuals.” He looked and sounded surprised. “Left field pick, boss. How’d you see any cells under all the grunge?”

  “Just a hunch,” Dar said. “His fast pass come through all right? Since we left him in that room?”

  “Oh, yeah sure,” Mark said. “Just waiting for his military records to come back, but his civilian stuff’s okay, what there is of it. He went into

  the Army at like eighteen.” Mark tossed his helmet up and caught it. “Know what he told me? Said he was digging in that garbage container for manuals and crap, thought we would toss them with the boxes.”

  “You think that’s true?” Kerry asked.

  Mark shrugged. “He’s in there reading manuals. He said he knew we were a tech company when he saw the deliveries.”

  “Well, that could be true enough,” Kerry admitted. “But I told Carlos to keep an eye on things because I don’t want him bothering people.”

  “Yeah, he told me,” Mark said. “My other guys are going in and talking to him, too. I told them to give him some room, but make sure he knew the rules.”

  Mark’s cycle was parked next to Dar’s truck, and Kerry’s SUV was right behind that. They stood a moment and watched the sun go down as the cool breeze rustled the leaves over their head.

  “Pretty night,” Mark commented.

  Kerry got Mocha into her SUV and tossed her messenger bag in after him. “It is,” she said. She turned around and leaned on the car door. “Mark, the problems at our old place are starting to affect customers we have in common.”

  Mark paused, taking a seat on his bike sideways and regarding her. “Yeah?”

  Dar opened her truck door and hopped up onto the seat. “Yeah. Apparently the Pentagon isn’t happy with whatever’s going on.”

  “Wow.” Mark put his helmet on his lap and rested his arms on it. “I tried to call Pete twice but he’s not answering his personal cell. Maybe because it’s me. Didn’t want to get in any deeper.”

  Dar sighed. “Wonder if I should call Alastair.”

  “I’m kind of surprised he hasn’t called you,” Kerry said. “Unless, like we suspect, he wants to keep you as far out of it as he can.”

  Dar exhaled. “Damn it, I don’t want to get in the middle of this. At first it was just dumbass on their part. Now it’s getting serious.”

  “Crazy they haven’t gotten it fixed yet,” Mark said. “I just can’t figure out what the hell they did, you know? If the repositories tanked we had hard copy of the configs in the files. Even if they restored a thirty day out copy, it would bring everything back.”

  “Unless he’s determined to make it work his way,” Kerry said. “The new guy, I mean.”

  They all stood there thoughtfully for a minute or two. Then Dar cleared her throat. “It won’t work any other way,” she said. “The metrics...they’re all balanced based on the mesh of those routing protocols.”

  Mark and Kerry stared at her.

  “Convergence, hop count—it’s all predicated on using the protocol metrics I designed.” Dar folded her arms. “It’s in the architectural diagrams and overview.”

  “And that thing you put in,” Kerry said. “When we were getting hacked.”

  Dar nodded. “It’s a crude kind of artificial intelligence. Something like what I’m going to use for Bridges.”

  “Shit. I should tell Pete that,” Mark said. “They probably have no clue what all that is. Hell,
I had no real clue of what all that was.”

  “I documented it,” Dar said.

  “Sure, big D,” Mark said. “You put all the words in there but how many people could understand them if they read them? You’re like a little rocket scientist y’know?”

  “That’s all proprietary,” Kerry said, “and you’re probably the only one who can fix it, aren’t you?”

  Dar spread her hands out. “They’re ILS’s patents.” she said. “They have all the paperwork on it.”

  “Yes, hon, but it’s your name on those patents. I saw them. Actually, I kept a copy of them so you could look back at them sometime and chuckle.”

  “I’m not chuckling now,” Dar responded dourly.

  “Me either.” Kerry sighed. “You know, that’s probably what happened. That jackass decided he wanted to put his stamp on the system and wanted your stuff taken out.” She gave Mark a shrewd look. “You think?”

  Mark scrunched his face up. “Crap.”

  “We’re not going to solve it here in the parking lot,” Dar said. “Let’s go home, Ker. Maybe I’ll get a brainwave on the ferry.” She slid around in the seat and closed the door. “Maybe I will give Alastair a call. I’m surprised he hasn’t given me one. Maybe he walked out and doesn’t know what’s going on.”

  Kerry got in her SUV with Mocha, who was scrambling all over putting tongue prints on everything.

  “Is it okay for me to tell Pete about that custom stuff?” Mark asked as he straddled his bike. “I’ll text him.”

  “Sure.” Dar started the engine. “But if they really did take all that out, it probably won’t help.”

  “Ugh.” Kerry put the SUV in reverse and started backing out of her spot. She caught motion in the corner of her eye and turned to see a group of figures watching them. “Double ugh.” She glanced forward at Dar’s pickup and realized she saw them, too.

  Mocha sat down on the passenger seat. “Yap.”

  “Yap,” Kerry repeated and shook her head. “Not going to be a good night, Mocha. I can just feel it.”

  Chapter Nine

  DAR WATCHED THE screen refresh on her computer as she pondered again what to do. There’d been no answer on Alastair’s cell and her message hadn’t been returned yet. Mark didn’t get a response from his buddy either, so she was left to drum her fingers on the desk and listen to Kerry’s stir frying from the kitchen nearby.

  She got up and circled the desk, going out into the living room and passing the big, new, double-sized dog bed with its snoozing occupants. “Ker?”

  “Yes?” Kerry half turned, briefly shifting her attention from her wok to Dar. “Nothing yet?”

  Dar shook her head and joined Kerry, peering over her shoulder at the stove. “Yum.”

  “Well, maybe they did figure it out.” Kerry went back to stir frying. “I sure hope so.”

  “Mm.” Dar moved her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. “Me too.” She went to the cupboard and removed a pair of plates, setting them down on the counter. “What I don’t want is them turning this around and blaming their screw-up on my design.”

  Kerry glanced at her, then back at the stove. “Could they do that?”

  Dar added two glasses to the plates. “It’s unconventional,” she admitted, “but that was the whole point. I wanted to make something that set us apart from the rest of the pack.”

  “Hon, you did document all that,” Kerry said. She added a pile of cooked rice noodles into the wok and tossed them with the rest of the ingredients. “It was part of the sales portfolio. I think if they want to bitch about it, they also have to go back and discount all the money they made selling your design.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Dar got a bottle of sparkling cranberry apple juice from the refrigerator and poured both glasses full. “But it can make for some really bad press right when I’m up on Capitol Hill showing off another unconventional design.”

  Kerry sorted the stir fry out and divided it across both plates. “We’ve survived bad press. We survived your vice president of global operations being exposed as your lover who threw her father to the wolves. On national television.”

  Dar paused, then chuckled wryly. “Good point.”

  “C’mon, Dixiecup.” Kerry picked up the plates and carried them into the dining area. “Just let it roll.”

  Dar put the glasses down and took her seat on the short end of the table, while Kerry took the chair to her right. “Not much choice in the matter. Ball’s in their court.” She picked up her chopsticks and maneuvered them into the stir fry, which seemed to have shrimp and scallops in it, along with sauce covered vegetables of some kind.

  Baby corns and bamboo shoots, Dar decided, munching on them. They both tasted more or less the same with the sweet and spicy sauce on them. “This is good.”

  Kerry smiled. “I’m glad you like it. I threw some different things in this time. They had fresh scallops at the market.”

  “Yum.”

  “Yap.”

  Dar looked down to find Mocha standing on his hind legs, his front paws scrabbling at her leg. “Excuse me, buddy. You got dinner already.” She tapped him on the top of his little dome shaped skull. “Get down.”

  Chino came over, tail wagging. “Neither of you get any of this,” Dar said. “You’ll be sick all over the tiles.”

  “How about a walk down the beach after dinner?” Kerry suggested. “It’s nice out.”

  “Sure.”

  And so they did, getting Mocha’s little puppy harness on him, but letting Chino free as they walked across the garden and out the back gate.

  It was a nice night. Dar looped the leash over her wrist and slowed her pace, gazing out at the dark Atlantic ahead of them. There were lights on the horizon—a cargo ship, maybe—and the sky overhead was brilliant with stars. They strolled along the beach front in companionable silence, only the snuffling of the dogs and the soft hiss of the waves to be heard.

  After a while Kerry cleared her throat. “So, you saw those guys in the lot before we left?”

  “Yeah,” Dar said. “I don’t think they made any trouble or we’d have heard.”

  “Mm.”

  “They’re so angry,” Kerry said in a thoughtful tone. “Isn’t there anything the government can do for them?”

  Dar exhaled and walked along for a few paces. “The problem is they don’t like to showcase the fact that people who go into the military can come back in pieces. Either physically, or in their heads. Screws up recruitment.”

  Kerry peered at her in astonishment.

  “They want their funding to go to great new weapons and sexy hardware,” Dar continued. “Not paying medical bills. That’s why it’s so hard to get them to admit to being responsible for things like PTSD. It’s also why they don’t like to admit stuff like that happens, because watching a soldier break down in tears and not be able to shoot is embarrassing to them and bad for morale.”

  “That’s—”

  “Crappy. Sure,” Dar said. “But it’s universal. Look at New York. All those people, those workers and first responders having health issues and absolutely no one wants to say it’s because they were down there breathing asbestos and ground glass for months.”

  Kerry thought about that for a few steps. “Your dad was so insistent we wear those masks.”

  “He knows.”

  Kerry sighed. “Humanity sucks sometimes.”

  “I think they could and probably are doing some things to help those guys,” Dar said. “But I think maybe it’s not what they want to have done for them. Or not what they expect,” she clarified. “I think they want what they see everyone else has, a home, a car, a job. But there’s no way to get them from where they are to there.” Long speech, for Dar. “So they come from having this job—I mean, the military is like a job, right? You get paid and you’re valued for what you’re doing. They feed you and house you, then you come back here and...” She lifted a hand and let it fall. “It doesn’t translate.”

  �
��Wow,” Kerry said. “I never thought about that.”

  “I saw that when I was growing up,” Dar admitted. “Me, I always had skills. I knew that. I had a technical aptitude and I was smart. For me, coming back wouldn’t have been that much of a problem. I could find a job.”

  “You started working when you were what...fourteen?” Kerry said. “So I get that. I was talking to my mother once about you and going into the Navy. She was puzzled as to why you wanted to, since you were so smart.” She looped her arm with Dar’s. “But maybe these guys didn’t have any other options but either go into the military, or flip burgers?”

  “Maybe,” Dar said. “But if you’re skilled like I am, the military can be a good career. It’s not a dead end, not for everyone.”

  “Like Gerry.”

  “Like Gerry. Or even my dad.”

  Dar’s Handspring rang and she fished it out of her pocket. “Hey,” she said after glancing at the caller ID. “What’s up, Mark.”

  “I’m here at Dave and Buster’s with Pete,” Mark said. “I ducked outside to call you so the noise wouldn’t kill the reception.”

  “If you’re at Dave and Busters, is he celebrating? Everything squared away?”

  Mark sighed. “I wish. What a fucking mess. So, he met me here because he was afraid to even text me. The maniac over there told everyone if anyone leaked what went on they’d be fired and then arrested.”

  “Not really possible on being arrested,” Dar said.

  “No, I know, but you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Anyway, so, of the two hundred people in ops IT, a hundred and fifty quit.”

  Dar’s eyes popped wide open. “What?”

  “That’s who’s here at Dave and Busters. They all just walked out,” Mark said. “It’s like old home week here. They saw me and went nuts.”

  “Holy shit.” Dar covered her eyes, then glanced at Kerry. “Most of the IT department at ILS Miami walked out.”

  Kerry sucked in an audible breath. “Jesus!”

  “Not only that,” Mark said. “The dipshit told everyone that this whole mess was your fault.”

  “That was expected,” Dar said.

  “That’s why people walked out,” Mark said, a smile evident in his voice. “My whole old gang just said fuck you and wrapped their creds around David Willerson’s neck and left.”