by Melissa Good
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 comme
nted. "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."
Chapter Twelve
KERRY TROTTED DOWN the steps, descending to the lower level of their office complex as the crowds were thinning out and the hallways emptying. Outside, it was already dark, and she glanced at her watch as she rounded the corner and headed for the small closet in the back of the stairs.
Time to go. "Hey guys, you back here?"
"In here." Mark's voice floated out.
Kerry ducked inside the doorway to the closet, spotting lights inside. She found Mark and Kannan there, hunkered down next to a box mounted on the wall and a panel full of blinking lights. "How's it going?"
"Not bad." Mark dusted his hands off. "Kannan's finishing the prep on the fiber box."
Kannan looked up from his work. He had a white helmet on with a light in the front, and its beam nearly pegged Kerry in the eyes before she stepped sideways to avoid it. "It is almost done, yes," he agreed. "This will be all right, I think. We left room for them to bring the cable up here, against the wall."
He indicated the path. "Then it is a simple curve into the termination box, here, where we can then connect it up to our router."
The router was on a makeshift shelf, a flash of new steel against old, blackened iron but sturdy enough to hold the square, stolidly blinking device that was already trailing wires that led to the half buried panel they'd found earlier.
"I finished making the hookup." Mark seated a punch down tool in his belt kit. "I think I blurped everyone upstairs, did you see it?"
"Dar did." Kerry's eyes twinkled a bit. "That's how she knew you had to be about done."
Mark grimaced. "She'd probably have done it without a hitch." He groused. "But man, it's dark in here."
Kerry patted his shoulder. "So, we're ready on this end? Ready for them to bring the cable up from the subway, and that's it?"
"Well." Mark sat down on a piece of jutting pipe. "I mean, in terms of connecting it, yeah, that's it. But once it's hooked up, Dar's got to figure out what to do wi
th all those different data streams. I got no clue what's going to come down that pipe and I don't think she knows either."
"Can we get a list of what it is from the Exchange?" Kerry frowned. "That can't be that hard."
"Can't figure out who to ask," Mark admitted. "I talked to a few of those guys down there and they all had different answers. Apparently the people who really knew what was up--I guess two guys anyway--aren't around anymore."
"Ah." Kerry crossed her arms. "Okay, well I'm sure she'll figure it out. But we're done on the physical side."
"Yep." Mark nodded. "Next thing that happens is the cable gets here, and Kannan connects it up to this panel." He patted the structure. "I plug it up, we get blinkies, and then Big D can figure out how to get the bits where they need to go."
Kerry exhaled silently. "What about the other end?"
Mark gathered up his tools. "I figure we can run down and do that end tomorrow. They get any further today? I know you guys were saying they were stuck down there." He edged carefully around the electrical panel which bore a new, shiny clamp with cables trailing from it toward the wall and the equally new socket the router was plugged into.
"They're working on it," Kerry said. "They know what the deadline is. We have to make sure we're ready so we're not the hold up, right?"
"Absolutely," Mark agreed. "C'mon, Kannan, pack up. I'm dying for a beer."
"That sounds good to me too," Kannan agreed. "I think I have enough of these ends to make the connections for tomorrow at the other place. Then I hope they get this done quickly. Once we are finished with this, Ms. Stuart, will we be going back to Miami?"
"Yes," Kerry answered, in a definite tone. "We have a lot to do back home getting our own house in order. I'm glad we're helping out the country here, but we're at the end of our ability to extend ourselves while our own people and customers also need help."
Kannan nodded.
"Too right." Mark tucked his gloves into his belt. "I think these guys are taking advantage of us. We're too freaking convenient. I heard those dudes down at the exchange talking about how they'd get us to do all this stuff for them and then they'd bill the feds for it."