Winds of Change Book Two

by Melissa Good

  Dar relaxed and smiled. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Didn’t know you guys were back.”

  Andrew Roberts sauntered into the lamplight, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. The hood was pushed back to reveal his scarred and rugged face. “Hey there, Dardar. We done just tied the boat up at that there marina down there,” he said. “We gave your other place a call and didn’t get no answer so we thought we’d try this here one.”

  He observed the men, who were all now watching him with extreme wariness. “What all’s going on here?” he asked after a moment of silence.

  “Hi, Dad,” Kerry chimed in, moving past Dar to put her arms around him. “Glad to see you. Is Mom around?”

  He returned the hug. “On her way up here. She done passed one of them little knicky shops on the way and stopped to look,” Andrew allowed. “You boys standing around here for some reason?”

  “Scott here works for us.” Kerry indicated the man in the wheelchair. “These other people are some friends of his.”

  Andrew observed them closely. “Ain’t that nice,” he said in a flat tone.

  “We’ll be going.” Joe lifted a hand and started walking off. “Night.”

  Andrew caught him by the back of his jacket and hauled him backwards. “Now.” He looked him in the eye. “Do not be here hanging around no more bothering my children,” he said clearly. “You find yourselves some other place to do nothin’.”

  Joe looked at him. “That some kind of threat?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Andrew answered, then he stopped talking and went very still.

  “Okay.” Joe held his hands up. “I got it. We’re leaving.”

  Andrew released him and stared at the rest of them until they all backed off, leaving Scott to sit there quietly in his chair watching them go.

  “Peh.” Dar’s father shook his head. “What the hell they teaching kids these days.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Dar said. “I wasn’t looking forward to soaking a sore hand tonight.” She looked down at Scott. “Sorry if we embarrassed you.”

  Scott was sitting there with an expression of mixed amusement and thoughtfulness on his face. “I’m all right,” he said. “They were just being assholes. I’m used to it.” He put his hands on his chair wheel rims. “Maybe they’ll clear out of back behind there. Easier to bunk there than the church.”

  “In the bushes, behind the office?” Kerry asked. “I thought there was an opening in there.”

  Scott nodded. “Little house back in there, in the other property, but you can’t get at it from that side. Just was a...” He shrugged. “Maybe a kid’s place? Has some bunks and stuff.”

  “Y’all living in there?” Andrew asked.

  Scott nodded again. “Sometimes. When the rest of them are someplace else.” He started around them. “Night.”

  “Night,” Dar responded.

  “Night, Scott,” Kerry echoed.

  They watched him turn up the small path that went between the buildings, then Andrew folded his arms across his chest and regarded the two of them. “Y’all gonna show me this new place?” His eyes twinkled. “S’got my name all over it?”

  Dar grinned back at him. “Sure. Glad you caught us before we left.” She started to lead the way toward the door. “We stayed late because...well, it’s a long story.”

  “Figure it can wait for your mom.”

  “Yeah, it can. I’d hate to have to go through it twice,” Kerry said. “I’m so glad to see you. I wasn’t looking forward to how that was looking to end either.” She put her hand on Dar’s back. “Not that I had any doubt in what the result was going to be, still.”

  “Jerks,” Dar muttered.

  “What’s up with them boys?” Andrew asked as they came around the corner and paused, looking at the sign and the small front porch.

  “They’re a bunch of veterans who are out of work and homeless,” Dar said. She put her hands on her hips. “Like the sign?”

  “Ah surely do,” Andrew said with immense satisfaction. “Looks better than it did in them pitchers.” He glanced at Dar. “So you done hired one of them fellers?”

  “Part of the long story. Let’s go inside and sit down.” Dar led the way to the door and opened it, then ducked inside quickly to silence the alarm. “C’mon in,” she said as she flipped on the recently doused lights.

  Kerry was the last in and then she turned as she heard light footsteps behind her. “Hey!” She waved at Ceci, who had stopped to admire the sign in her own turn.

  “Well, hello yourself,” Ceci said and waved back. “What a trip across the gulf stream.” She caught up to Kerry and scooted inside the door. “How are you?”

  Kerry gave her a quick hug. “Where do I start?”

  “Uh oh.”

  “So many things have happened since the last time we saw you...holy cow,” Kerry said. They followed Dar and Andrew inside, Dar giving a running commentary of their space. “We were late here tonight because we were pretty sure Dar was going to get a call from the people running ILS now.”

  “Oh?” Ceci seemed surprised. “Are they different people from the ones that were doing that before we left?”

  “Oh yeah. Most of the company, at least our part of it, quit,” Kerry said. “Anyway, they did something to screw things up there and we started hearing about it in public earlier on.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. The CNN crew that was here had to go run and find out about it.” Kerry cleared her throat. “Where was I?”

  “CNN?”

  “They were interviewing Dar.” Kerry pinched the bridge of her nose. “And we knew things were going south because Gerry Easton called from the Pentagon saying they were having problems. So we figured they’d finally cave in and call Dar, but they didn’t.”

  Ceci whistled softly under her breath.

  “So I guess maybe they sorted things out,” Kerry said. “I’m glad if they did, because I don’t want to have to deal with that when we go to Washington tomorrow.”

  “Washington?”

  “Dar has to go explain advanced heuristics to Congress.”

  Ceci stopped and burst into slightly hysterical laughter, falling back against the wall and holding her stomach.

  “Yeah, I know.” Kerry smiled and waited. “I’m going to bring a camcorder,” she said. “So we don’t want the government all of a sudden to stop in the middle of it and ask us to fix what is not our computer problem.”

  Ceci let her laughter peter off. “You’re probably screwed in that case.”

  Kerry sighed.

  “There isn’t a problem on the planet that doesn’t end up on your platter, kid.” Ceci patted her arm. “C’mon. Let’s go finish the tour and find a beer.”

  THEY ENDED UP at a café a short walk down the road, seated outside as Kerry ran through the whole catalog of recent events.

  Dar contented herself with her spiked coffee, listening to Kerry and watching the expressions on her parents’ faces react.

  “They did what?” Ceci leaned forward. “You mean this guy deliberately screwed everything up?”

  Kerry lifted her hand off the table and turned it palm up, then put it back down. “Depends what you consider deliberate. Like Dar said to someone, the fact that they did something was deliberate but she doesn’t think the intent was to screw everything up.”

  “Had me some Navy jobs like that,” Andrew said.

  “Unintended consequences,” Ceci said. “Frankly, I think you two should go hike the Himalayas for a couple months and stay as far away from this thing as you can.”

  Andrew nodded.

  “We think so, too,” Kerry said. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do but because we’ve got customers in common, and not just the guys down the street kind of customers, it’s tough.”

  “Gov’mint.”

  Dar gave her father a wry grin at the dour comment. “Maybe we

  should start our vacation early,” she said. “I don’t reall...” She paused as her
cell phone range. She fished it out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. “Mark.”

  “This could be good, or bad,” Kerry said. She watched Dar answer the phone. “Hopefully, it’s good.”

  Dar sat listening, her elbow propped against the table, brows twitching a little.

  The other three fell silent, watching her and waiting.

  “Okay, so, David Willerson’s called you?” Dar said after a long while. “What does he want you to do?” She paused again. “Oh. He wanted you to call me. What a little smarmy chickenshit.”

  Kerry sighed.

  “That doesn’t sound promising,” Ceci said.

  “He said what?” Dar’s voice rose.

  “Uh oh.” Kerry pulled out her Handspring “Let me get a note off to our lawyer.”

  “Rich Edgerton?” Ceci asked.

  Kerry nodded.

  “He must be having the time of his life. He once said going into investment management was almost as boring as being a library card sorter.”

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” A new voice interrupted them. “I do believe I know you people.”

  Kerry looked up in surprise. “Hi, Hamilton.” She indicated a seat. “Join us. I’m sure you want front row center at this circus.”

  Dar looked up and smiled. “Never guess who just showed up here,” she said into the phone. “Hamilton Baird.”

  Hamilton took the chair, raising his finger at the waitress and pointing to the beer mug in front of Kerry. “I just dropped by your new place and was told I might find you here by a man in a wheelchair on your front porch. Never is boring around you ladies. I will say that.”

  “They collect personalities,” Ceci remarked, in a dry tone.

  “Mark, we’re at the café down the road from the office. C’mon over.” Dar said. “Bye.” She disconnected the call. “Smarmy little jacktard said he ‘found’ Mark’s number on a sticky note.” She took a sip of her Irish coffee. “Said he was willing to pay him to contact me and get some technical information.”

  “Million dollars a word, maestro.” Hamilton smiled. “Want me to negotiate that for you?”

  Dar sat back and hiked one knee up. “Hello, Hamilton,” she said. “What brings you to Miami?”

  “You,” Hamilton said. “I’m now representing a consortium of ILS investors who want to stage an unfriendly takeover since they’ve seen their shares plummet in the last month.”

  The waitress arrived and put a cold mug down in front of Hamilton. “You folks like anything else?” she asked. “We’ve got a bar snack platter special tonight.”

  “Sure,” Kerry said. “Bring enough for everyone.”

  The waitress smiled at her and vanished.

  “I want no part of it, Hamilton,” Dar said. “Not that I don’t sympathize with the investors. I do.”

  “Hear me out, maestro.” He leaned back and took a sip of his beer. “These are the smart people who tossed money at ILS, not the dumb people. I would not be bothering with the dumb people. I had enough to do with them when I was still drawing a paycheck.”

  Andrew chuckled under his breath.

  “Why do I get the feeling there isn’t enough liquor in that bar to cover this,” Ceci said.

  Dar sighed again. “Let’s wait for Mark to get here,” she said. “It’ll hold another ten minutes.” She caught the waitress’s eye and pointed at her mug, now empty. “If I have enough of these I can use it as an excuse not to put my hands on a keyboard.”

  “Darlin’, even drunk off your ass you’re more competent than those idiots in there right now,” Hamilton drawled. “I just got off the phone with Jacques on the way here. He’s ready to do whatever.”

  “Whatever?” Kerry eyed him.

  “Whatever. As in, whatever it takes to get the wolves’ teeth out of his buttocks,” Hamilton clarified. “Where they are verily implanted.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ceci said after a moment. “They’re the ones who decided they wanted to get rid of these kids here. So why now is everyone losing their minds and wanting action? They did it.”

  “Yes, they did,” Hamilton said. “And they were told what fools they were. But that, for some reason, does not spur in them a desire to get down on their knees and apologize to the world and God for it.”

  Dar pondered that in silence for a moment. “Doesn’t spur in me a desire to help them regardless of the scheme you’re going to pitch me.”

  “Now Dar—”

  “I’m not kidding, Hamilton,” Dar said. “My first advice would be—put everything back the way it was before you broke it. There were safeguards in place that stored copies of everything so that could be done. This person, this moron they hired, deliberately circumvented and deleted them. They should be arresting him.”

  Ceci nodded. “What she said.”

  Hamilton steepled his long fingers together and tapped his lips with the tips of them. “You sure about that, maestro?”

  “Am I sure? I’m sure that when I left there was a configuration repository to save a device’s configuration every time a change was made, yes,” Dar said. “And I’m sure that the operations directives for infrastructure had that requirement in writing.”

  “It did,” Kerry confirmed.

  “So if that fella said there wasn’t no record of how things were set

  up before he got there, he’s not telling the truth?”

  “No,” Dar and Kerry answered at the same time. “He’s lying,” Kerry added.

  Hamilton made a little face. “I don’t suppose you kept a copy of that stuff somewhere?”

  Dar took a breath to respond.

  “Like your head?” Hamilton gently interrupted her.

  Dar exhaled. “The only old copy of configs I had I already turned over to one of the guys who was trying to help, but they never let him use it. They fired him.”

  “Moron upon moron upon idiot.” Hamilton sighed. “Okay, cut to the chase, Dar. If you had to, could you go in there and go into those things and make them right?”

  They paused as the waitress returned with a big, round platter full of exceptionally unhealthy things. She put it down in the middle of the table and handed around long handled forks and napkins. “Go for it, folks.”

  “Thanks,” Andrew said. “Get me another of these?” He held up his mug and the waitress scooted off.

  Then all eyes went back to Dar.

  After a moment she shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “I designed it. It would take me a while to undo whatever it is they did, but I could.”

  “What’s your price?”

  Dar shook her head. “Hamilton, I won’t do it. Not can’t, won’t.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “Dar, these men are literally willing to give you whatever in the world you want to save their shorts. How many times do you get that kind of opportunity?”

  “What I seen, every other month,” Andrew said. “They done got her saving some damn thing or other thing cause some dumbass made some bad choice.”

  “Hamilton, I appreciate that,” Dar said. “There’s just nothing I want that they could give me.” She glanced briefly at Kerry. “I’ve got everything I need pretty much right here at this table.”

  Her parents smiled. Kerry smiled. Hamilton looked wryly exasperated.

  “There’s nothing and no one left there for me to even feel like I’d want to do it to make their lives better,” Dar said. “Even Jacques, whom I like and respect, was ready to throw me down the river a few times. Hell.” She half shrugged. “Even you and Alastair were. I had no friends there.”

  Hamilton’s face shifted into a quiet, serious expression. “That’s not one hundred percent true, Dar. But I get it.”

  “Ah remember being in that big old place,” Andrew said. “Listening to them fellas want to fire her that last time. She’s right. Ain’t no one was on her side in that place.”

  “I remember when I started working there,” Kerry chimed in.

  “How many times people there tr
ied to throw Dar under the bus. I remember hearing what they said. I remember seeing what they did. ILS didn’t deserve her.”

  Dar looked from one to the other. “Sometimes I was driving the bus,” she said.

  “No, Dar, that’s not true. Every time you made a decision, no matter who got hurt or in the way, it was the right decision for the company. For all of us,” Kerry said firmly. “You don’t owe anyone there, especially the stockholders, a goddamned thing.”

  The sound of a motorbike ended the conversation briefly as Mark arrived, parking his bike in the front of the café and stashing his helmet before joining them. “Hey.” He sat down next to Kerry, who handed him a fork and a napkin. “Um...thanks.”

  “No, darlin’, you don’t owe them anything,” Hamilton said. “You produced value for the company for a good long time. That’s not the issue here. No one’s saying you should do this. No one’s saying you have an obligation.”

  Mark retrieved a mozzarella stick. “That guy says he’s going to tell everyone you broke in and sabotaged the company unless you make things work.” He chewed thoughtfully, watching Dar’s face. “I told him to fuck off on your behalf.”

  Hamilton sighed and covered his eyes.

  “That’s why I’m not going to do anything,” Dar said. “Because if I do, no matter what anyone says, or does, or infers, everyone on the planet will believe I screwed it up.”

  “Glad I sent that note to Richard,” Kerry muttered. “If that asshole ever comes near us he better hope I’m not driving Dar’s truck because I will—so help me god—run him over with it.”

  “I told Jacques he needed to fire those guys,” Dar said.

  “They have contracts,” Hamilton responded. “Very expensive ones to buy out. It will be, as you don’t need me to tell you, a publicity nightmare.”

  Dar lifted her hands up. “CNN took off to go cover the Interbank outage. I’m surprised they haven’t called me back for commentary on it.”

  Her cell phone rang and she glanced at it then held it up before holding it to her ear. “Hello, Dar Roberts.”

  Ceci scooped up a bit of ranch dressing with a celery stick and munched on it. “This is one big fat mess.”