by Melissa Good
“Yes, ma’am.” Paul had re-entered. “But you were right and they weren’t.” He watched the board and saw the slow relaxation of bodies into chairs around the room. “What was worse, though, at least from our side, was that when something went wrong before, you all over in ops would own it.”
Dar nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t believe in shifting blame. That’s why they paid me and Kerry the big bucks because those bucks stopped at our desks. If something got screwed up, if I rooted through it enough I could get it to come back to some decision I’d made that just hadn’t been right.”
“Even if that actually hadn’t happened.” Kerry interjected dryly. “Dar tends to the chivalric sometimes.”
Dar blushed slightly. “I wouldn’t say that. But I understood where my responsibility was.” She looked over at Paul. “And that was to take the hit for things that happened in my organization. It’s what management is for.”
Paul shook his head. “It’s what leadership is, ma’am. There’s a difference.”
“Yeah,” one of the techs said. “That’s it.”
They all stood up, a spontaneous reaction that surprised Dar and made her take a step back, her brows lifting a little as they all started applauding. “Ah c’mon.”
“That was pretty ace.” Steve had been sitting in a corner and now approached Dar. “So it should all be working now? Can I call back to the office and tell ‘em?”
“Sure.” Dar smiled as the techs all surrounded her, offering handshakes and soft congratulations. Some brought up the notes they’d worked off and started asking questions.
Kerry smiled at the reaction, folding her arms across her chest and waiting as she watched Dar sheepishly accept the accolade. “Might as well enjoy the moment,” she commented to the supervisor standing next to her. “I’m sure CNN’s not going to be clapping.”
“Do you have to talk to them, ma’am?” the supervisor said. “We could sneak you out the back door, couldn’t we? And then pretend we don’t know what they’re talking about when they ask us stuff?”
Kerry looked at him. “I’ve got six people from the government here and their limos parked outside. It’s a little hard to miss,” she said. “But thanks for the offer. I do appreciate it. Steve?” She motioned the man over. “We’ve got a problem outside.”
He reached for the phone and started to dial. “What kind of problem?”
“When you’re done there, let’s get Bridges on the line and find out what he wants us to tell the press outside.”
“Oh.” Steve grimaced. “That kind of problem”
“Mmhm.”
Chapter Fifteen
THEY WERE IN the small office that, once upon a time, Kerry had borrowed in her last visit to the office. Just a desk, a phone and a TV mounted on a wall that had never been changed since she’d left.
“Standby please, for Mr. Bridges.” A quiet, female voice emerged from the speaker phone.
“Sure.” Dar sat behind the desk, her chin resting on her fists.
Kerry was seated on the surface, a cup of water in her hands. If she stood up and looked out the small window, she knew she’d see a parking lot full of television trucks. The feeling of being under siege was undeniable. “Should I call Richard?”
“Not yet,” Dar said. “Let’s wait to see what he says.”
“Regardless of what he says, Dar, the board’s going to sue us. Shit. We’ll be lucky if they don’t end up making us shut the company down.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad, now that everything’s fixed.”
“Dar.”
“Yes?” Dar looked up at her with more than a hint of annoyance.
“Roberts?” The line opened abruptly. “You there?”
“We’re here.” Dar answered. “In the middle of a shit storm, unfortunately.” She focused on the phone instead of the woman at her side.
Briggs grunted. “Just heard from the computer people. They’re whoop-de-doing all over the place here because crap’s working again. So congratudamnlations.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Dar said. “The jacktard former board members of ILS went to the press and blew their story out. So now half the planet’s in the front parking lot wanting the rest of the story.”
“Ah.”
They waited in silence for a bit. “So what would you like us to do, since whatever we say will involve your organization.” Kerry said, after the quiet had gone on too long. “And we’re due back there for a demonstration.”
“Hold your shorts, kid.” Brigg growled. “I’m writing a memo. You’ll go with the goons I sent there and don’t say a damn thing. Just ‘no comment’ your asses out the door.”
Dar and Kerry regarded each other somberly. “Just leave?” Dar said.
“What, did I start speaking Russian? Yes,” Brigg said. “Go get the rest of those chimps and head back here. I’m including all of you in a national security memorandum. Move it, people. Goodbye!”
The line went dead. Dar leaned back and folded her arms, her face twisting into a disturbed expression. “I guess that would get us out of this for now.”
“It would.” Kerry got up off the edge of the desk and went to the window, peering outside. “We don’t say anything. We can go back there and let the government cover it all up. They seem pretty good at that sort of thing.”
“Mm.”
“After all, it’s just going to be a ‘we said, they said’ anyway, Dar. They can’t prove we touched anything, but we can’t prove we didn’t get someone else there to do it.”
“Yeah.”
Kerry heard the tone and grimaced a little. From the corner of her eye she saw the TV trucks, antennas angled up. It reminded her of the time when they’d been dependent on the technology.
Working in desperate times in service to what they considered the greater good. She leaned against the wall and watched Dar shift and steeple her long fingers, tapping the ends of them against her chin.
She remembered Dar working for hours, testing cables, providing leadership to their team and refusing to stop until they’d found the right ones, putting them in the right place. The only credit they’d received was the heartfelt thanks of the men they were helping. But it was the right thing to do.
Just like today, fixing the screw-up was the right thing to do. Kerry knew it the moment they’d headed to Herndon, the moment she’d seen the security guard’s relief, the moment she’d seen that board clear and calm and seen the faces of the techs who’d done it.
It was right. It felt good. She watched the motion as Dar drew in a breath and her shoulders straightened up. It wouldn’t have made sense to do anything else, no matter what the consequences eventually were.
Dar instinctively understood that.
Kerry saw the contention coming in the tension in Dar’s back as she prepared to stand up and argue about something Kerry knew she wasn’t going to win at.
Shouldn’t win at. Sometimes consequences didn’t matter. If they ended up out of business, ran out of town, living on the boat...shoot. How bad would that be?
She smiled and felt a sense of odd acceptance flow through her. “So are you going to give the interview, or you want me to?” She broke the silence and savored every word as she watched Dar’s whole body relax and her shoulders jerk in a faint, silent laugh.
Dar turned around in the chair, meeting Kerry’s eyes with a smile in return.
“We’ve been trying to walk away from this from the start, hon. That was wrong,” Kerry said. “I was wrong in wanting you to stay clear. This was ours and we need to own it until it’s done.”
“No matter what happens.”
“No matter what happens,” Kerry echoed, feeling a sense of relief that almost made her sleepy.
Dar extended one hand. “C’mere. Let’s go to hell together.” She got up and as Kerry came over she wrapped her arms around her. She let her head rest against Kerry’s. “I could no more walk away from this than I could walk away from you.”
Kerry leaned against her and let it go. “Wherever we go from this, I’m right there with ya,” she said. “So let’s go get on camera.”
Dar shouldered her messenger bag and took Kerry’s hand in hers, heading for the door and what waited beyond.
“SO WHAT ARE we doing?” Steve asked as a pod of reporters filed into the ops center. “My office said we were supposed to be going back to The White House.”
“We will,” Kerry said. “We just need to do this short interview to wrap things up, then we can head back. “
“Okay,” Steve said amiably. “I called back there and everything’s running great. That sure was something to watch.” He leaned back against the console. “Have to say, those guys are kinda okay. I’m glad now we’re gonna hire them.”
“They’re okay,” Kerry said. “Be right back.” She left Steve by the wall and headed across the room to where Dar was standing with a reporter from CNN and one from The Washington Post. Two photographers were a few steps back taking pictures and the camera crew was setting up to shoot the supervisor’s desk where Dar had taken up residence.
The techs were watching covertly. Paul and the two supervisors were around the far raised desk, content to watch the action as they stood under the big monitor board with its newly placid twilight shades.
There was a faint scent of garlic and cheese in the room and Kerry’s stomach rumbled as she recognized the smell of fresh pizza nearby. She detoured over to the far desk and climbed up the tiers, returning the smiles as she approached. “Hi there.”
“Ms. Stuart.” Paul had a cup of coffee clasped between his hands. “This is the first time I haven’t had my guts in knots for weeks.”
“What he said,” one of the supervisors said. “Look. My phone’s quiet.” He pointed at it. “No calls, no calls waiting, no notepad full of names and numbers for me to call back with excuses. God bless you guys.”
Kerry smiled. “It was a team effort. And speaking of team efforts, do I smell a team pizza somewhere?”
Paul chuckled. “Yup...in the break room, c’mon.” He motioned her toward a side door. “I had it brought in. Wasn’t sure what we were going to end up with this afternoon. Thought I’d have to have the guys on the desk without a break.”
Kerry followed him into a back room where a refrigerator and coffee machine held pride of place, along with several tables, one of which was covered with pizza boxes. “Ah. Score.”
Paul handed her a plate and took one for himself. “Feels like twenty pounds off my shoulders. It’s been so bad.”
“I know it must have been,” Kerry said, pleased to have a whole veggie pizza to herself. She bit into a piece and chewed it. “I wish the whole thing hadn’t happened.”
“Yeah, me too,” he answered. “I don’t know if I want to work for the government,” he added. “My parents met at Woodstock. I don’t think they’d forgive me for working for the Repugs.”
Kerry swallowed reflectively, “I’m a Republican,” she said. “I’m not sure it matters when you do what we do and I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between working for the government or working for ILS.”
“You’re a Republican?”
Kerry nodded. “Dar’s agnostic. She doesn’t much like either party.” She picked up another plate and plunked a piece of meat covered pizza on it. “And Paul, nothing says you have to work for the government. I’m sure there’s a spot for you in ILS if you want to stay with them. They’ve lost enough staff over the last month.”
“Yeah I know.”
Kerry saluted him with her snack, then picked up the plate and headed out the door with it. She dodged a few cameramen as she made her way over to where Dar was settled behind the desk.
“So, Ms. Roberts, we do appreciate you sitting down and talking to us, especially after that press release from the former board of ILS,” the reporter said. “I know you understand that I have to address the allegations they made.”
“Sure.” Dar glanced up as Kerry approached, her eyes lighting up a little at the sight of the plate she was carrying. “Whatcha got?”
“Pizza.” Kerry put it down. “Take five minutes and scarf it. You know what that tastes like cold.”
The door opened and two more journalists came in, joining them up on the dais. They were carrying microphones and had backpacks secured to their backs with gear inside. “Okay, we ready?” One of them asked, his microphone flag declaring him from USA Today. His companion had a local television station patch on his jacket.
Dar had wolfed down several bites and set her plate aside. She wiped her lips with the napkin Kerry handed her. “Ready,” she said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes. Start talking.”
“Start rolling,” the CNN reporter said. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“All right. Dan Gartersberg here at the ILS facility in Herndon, Virginia,” he said, facing the camera. “Earlier today, ousted board members of ILS issued a press release accusing former employees of engineering a malicious attack on their systems, causing widespread
outages across the US and internationally, even affecting our armed services.”
Dar waited for the camera to turn to her. She folded her hands on the desk and took a deep breath.
“We were tipped off that those ex-employees were, in fact, here in this facility and we’ve come here to ask them what their response is to these allegations and an explanation of what, actually, is going on.” He turned smoothly and stepped back and the camera focused on Dar. “This is Dar Roberts, one of the accused. Ms. Roberts, what do you have to say about these allegations?”
Dar smiled at the camera. “A lot,” she said. “But we don’t have all day so I’ll just say they’re untrue and we can move on to your next question.”
Dan Gartersberg nodded. “Very well then. Tell us about this supposed attack then.” He looked around and the camera panned with him. “Here at this headquarters it seems very quiet.”
The camera swung back. “Sure,” Dar said. “Let me lay out the data points for you. I’ll start with who I am, then move into why ILS got itself into this situation, who was responsible for it, and why I stepped in here today to make things right.”
He smiled, off camera, and gave Dar a thumbs up. The print reporters were scribbling furiously, one whispering into a voice recorder.
“So let’s get started.”
THE RIDE BACK to the White House was very quiet. The two Marshals were playing cards in the back section and Steve was riding with them in the front, the two accountants busy studying papers spread out on their laps.
Kerry and Dar were sitting next to each other, lost in their own thoughts. The interview lasted a half hour and at the end of it they’d found it hard to tell if the reporters bought the story or not.
They’d ruined the story, Kerry realized, by having fixed it before the press arrived. It would have been so much more satisfying to them to have found things in chaos. Sweating men and red alerts going off were much better television than calm monitors and relaxed techs munching pizza.
Oh well.
They both had their phones turned off. Kerry had quickly sent a message to Richard Edgerton, though, and one to Maria. Now she wondered if they would even be let inside the executive building, much less get to demonstrate anything. “Hey, Dar?”
“Hm?”
“Anything you want to see here? As in tourist stuff?”
Dar pondered that as they pulled into The White House parking lot.
“The Air and Space Museum?”
Kerry smiled. “Just won ten bucks off myself.”
They got out of the car and filed through the gate, the guards giving them respectful nods as they went into the building. Steve led them to the presentation room, then ducked out and left them without further word.
Kerry put her hands on the back of a chair. “Should I turn my phone back on? I’m pretty sure that low thrumming sound you hear is shit hitting the fan.”
“Sure.” Dar pulled her o
wn out and switched it on. It had just synced up when the door slammed open and Bridges stormed in. “That didn’t take long.”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Bridges said. “What in the hell did you think you were doing? I told you to come straight back here! Do you have any idea what kind of chaos you caused by opening your yap to the press when I told you not to!”
“I decided otherwise,” Dar responded, flatly.
“Oh you did, did you? Well take your decisions and get the hell out of here. Contract’s scratched,” Bridges said, visibly fuming. “Forget it. With that publicity there’s no way you’re going to do anything at all for this government.”
“Okay.” Dar picked up her bag. “C’mon, Ker. Glad we could fix everything and then get fucked up the ass as usual from some two bit moron with no sense.” She indicated the door. “Let’s go have dinner and go home.”
He was between her and the door and she walked right at him, expecting him to move to one side. When he didn’t she stopped and looked him right in the eye, her head level with his. “You said to get out. Mind moving your ass so I can?”
One of his gray eyebrows cocked upward. “Did you really just call me a two bit moron, Roberts?”
“Yes. Move,” Dar said. “I’ve got things to do.”
Kerry came around the other side of the table and stood watching them. “Yeah, no win scenario,” she said. “We weren’t going to walk out of there and not defend our reputations.”
Bridges swung around on her. “Reputations?” He looked from her to Dar. “You two are idiots. You have no idea what business you’re into.”
“No, we do,” Dar said. “I completely understand why you wanted us to just come back here. I’m just telling you I wasn’t going to let that go unchallenged. That’s my ego. My problem. Now get out of my way so I can get started on hiring lawyers for the crap that got shot my way for solving your problem.”