“Dear God.” An angry voice spoke from behind them. They turned to see Roger Stuart, one hand resting on the shattered doorway. “One more thing for you to carry on your conscience, you little… I hope you rot in Hell!” He advanced towards Kerry, oblivious of the others. “I should—

”

“Stop.” Dar’s voice was sharp and sudden, as she stiffened to her full height.

“You shut up you—”

“One…more…step.” Amazing how forceful that low voice could get.

“One…more…word…and I’ll wrap that girder around your head.” A rage ran through Dar, bringing welcome energy, and she let it. “Leave her alone.”

“You ruined her,” the man snarled. “You twisted her mind, you perverted little–”


Eye of the Storm 381

“Hey.” Andrew stepped between them, putting his hands on his hips. “You watch yer mouth with my daughter.”

“Your…” The senator shook his head. “You must be real proud of her, mister.”

Dar stirred.

“Damn straight,” Andy replied mildly.

Roger Stuart stared at them, then at the room. He pointed at Kerry.

“If something happened to your sister, it’s your fault. You’d better hope it didn’t.” Then he turned and left, his hand firmly around his wife’s arm.

Kerry leaned against the door frame and lifted a shaking hand to her face. “He’s right,” she whispered. “They’d have been home in Michigan.”

Andrew tugged on a bit of Kerry’s hair. “Kumquat, ye’re wrong about that. We don’t got the time to be stewing in ourselves here. Takes energy we’re gonna need for better things.”

It was just too much. Kerry gazed at the wreckage of her sister’s room, then gave in and just buried herself in Dar’s arms, too tired to even cry.

“I think we all need to sit down and rest a minute,” Ceci said firmly.

“The fire’s not in this area yet, and we’re all about to drop. Let’s go over there and just regroup.” Tired nods agreed and they settled in the corner of the wreckage, Dar with Kerry cradled in her arms, listening to the chaos in the darkness around them.

“THAT’S IT, McLEAN.” Ankow entered and closed the door behind him. “You’ve run out of bullshit. Now do it. You can’t deny what this is going to look like when it hits the papers tomorrow morning.”

A pool of light from the desk lamp spilled over Alastair’s desk, lighting the folded hands on its surface but throwing the CEO’s face into shadow. “I really don’t think—”

“No.” Ankow slapped the desk. “The board agrees with me and you know it. We can’t afford this, no matter what smokescreen you want to put up around your favorite little bitch. Stuart’s kid released the information. Where do you think she got it from? You think it was just coincidence she got hold of it after she started working for ILS?”

Alastair sighed. “We have no evidence—”

“Yes, we do.” Ankow dumped a folder onto his desk. “There it is. In all its glory, the entire information request with every little, disgusting detail.” He opened the folder top and pointed. “Run under Dar Roberts’

personal login.”

Alastair shrugged. “Well, the press doesn’t have that.”

“They will,” Ankow hissed. “Trust me, because I’ll be the one handing it to them.”

Alastair’s face went very still. “You’d do that, would you?” he asked quietly.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do to win my point,” Ankow rasped.

“Now cut the cord, damn you. Get rid of both of them.”


382 Melissa Good Alastair got up and walked to his large window, gazing out across the star laden sky over Texas. For a long time, he studied the shadows, splashes of moonlight picking up glints of steel and stone as a few clouds raced past. Finally he turned and looked at Ankow, who sat with arms folded in triumph on the edge of his large, oak desk. “That’s what you want, hmm?”

Ankow smiled. “That’s what I want. That’s what you’re going to give me.”

The CEO exhaled, then walked back over and put his hands on the back of his chair, facing the much younger man. “Well, you know, given that, there really is only one thing I can say,” he mused, in a soft voice.

“You’re right,” Ankow agreed. “So say it.” He smirked. “I want to hear it.”

Alastair leaned his weight on the back of the chair and looked right into David Ankow’s eyes. “All righty then, here you are. Kiss my ass.”

There was a moment’s stunned pause. “What?” Ankow hissed.

“Kiss my ass,” Alastair repeated. “In Texan, that means get your butt out of my office before I throw you out of it.”

Slowly, Ankow got up, staring at his adversary as though the man had grown horns. “Do you understand what you’re saying, you moron?”

“Absolutely,” Alastair told him, with a gentle smile.

“I’ll go have the damned board remove you, you—” Ankow snapped.

“Probably,” the CEO agreed. “Have fun, you little pea brained no character excuse for a gutless nosepicker.”

Ankow’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“OUT!” Alastair snapped, his voice now rising sternly. “Before I get my Winchester out of the closet and make you into a wall hanging.”

“You’ve lost your mind.” The rattled board member turned and went through the door and slammed it behind him.

With a sigh, Alastair pulled his chair out and sat down in it, smoothing his hands over the clean surface. After a moment’s reflection, he nodded, and a soft chuckle forced its way out into the silence. “You know something, Dar?” He spoke to the emptiness. “If I’da known how good that felt, I’da done it more often. You shoulda told me.”

A soft buzz startled him and he looked at his phone, where the internal line was ringing. “That was fast.” He pushed it. “Yes?”

“Mr. McLean?” a voice asked, hesitantly. “This is the switchboard. I have a young lady here who is desperately trying to get in touch with you.”

“With me?” The CEO gazed puzzled at the phone “All right. Put her through.” A click was heard. “Go ahead. This is Alastair McLean. What can I do for you?”

“Oh.” There was noise in the background, as though from an airport or—Alastair heard an echo—a hospital. “Hello…um…sorry…is this the boss of ILS?”

For the next ten minutes, perhaps. Alastair glanced at his watch. “Yes, it Eye of the Storm 383

is.”

“My name is Angela Stuart,” the voice went on, with a hiss and a ragged break. “Sorry. I just had a baby.”

Alastair blinked. “I…um…congratulations. Stuart? Are you—”

“Kerry’s my sister. Listen. Something really awful happened. I was in the hospital here in Washington and I think something blew up.”

He looked quickly at the news feed, which now featured helicopters and an overhead view of a burning building. Teach me not to leave the sound on. “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that but…”

“Dar and Kerry were visiting me. I don’t know what happened to them.”

A lifetime of handling crises came to Alastair’s rescue. After the initial shock, he took a breath and released it. “Thank you, Ms. Stuart, for telling me. I’ll see what I can find out about it.”

“O-okay. Thanks. Sorry.” Angela coughed. “I—”

“Goodbye.” The CEO released the call and spent a moment gathering his wits. Then he punched the phone button again, dialing with hasty purpose.


Chapter

Forty-one

ANDREW LOOKED AROUND as they rested, reviewing the battered hallway. A few minutes was all they could take—he could already see smoke clustering at the ceiling a little ways back.

What a damn mess. He glanced at Ceci, who was seated at his side resting her head on his shoulder. “How you holding up, pretty lady?”

“Well,” she replied thoughtfully. “On the one hand, here I am, in a burning building, covered in the goddess only knows what, scraped and dented like a 1960 Ford truck, and wishing like anything for a big bottle of mineral water.”

“Huh.” Andy examined a nasty looking scrape on his arm, then brushed a bit of ceiling tile off his wife’s shoulder.

“On the other hand, you’re here with me,” Ceci went on, exhaling lightly. “So I think I’m doing just fine. How about you?”

Andrew cleared his throat. “That’s a damn frilly thing to say in front of these kids, ain’t it?”

Ceci glanced at where Dar was seated, with Kerry curled up in her arms. “They’ll survive.” She watched her daughter in bemusement, remembering all too clearly a teen’s angry insistence on pristine person space. When was the last time she’d hugged Dar? Grade school, probably.

Those last few years of innocence—well, relatively—before puberty had kicked in and ended any shreds of closeness they’d clung on to.

Kerry seemed the touchy feely kind though, and apparently Dar had adjusted to that, not grudging the fair-haired woman the comfort her physical presence provided. Certainly, Kerry soaked up the affection, as Dar kept up a light rubbing on her back, collecting herself visibly with a few deep breaths.

Adjusted? Ceci covertly noted the look of weary contentment on Dar’s face as she rested her cheek against Kerry’s pale head. Maybe I should have tried a few more hugs to start with. Kerry definitely was showing her an unexpected side to her daughter—that was for sure. A warm, gently affectionate, playful facet she frankly hadn’t thought Dar possessed.

Ah well. Hindsight was a very frustrating thing, especially for a parent.

You just really never knew if you were doing the right thing, the wrong thing, or whatever, and by the time you figured it all out, it was too late.

“Guess we’d better get going,” she murmured, with an apologetic look in Eye of the Storm 385

Kerry’s direction. “You doing any better?”

Kerry nodded. “Just needed to catch my breath, I think,” she murmured, then she tilted her head up and gazed at her quiet protector.

“Thank you.”

Dar’s head cocked to one side. “For being a backrest? No problem.”

“That too.” Kerry folded her fingers around Dar’s longer ones and brushed her lips over their knuckles. “I always seem to be getting you into trouble.”

“Keeps life interesting,” Dar assured her with a faint smile, as she hauled herself to her feet and tugged Kerry up with her. “C’mon.” She kept an arm around her lover’s shoulders as they made their way down the hall, climbing over obstacles together in silence.

They’d gotten most of the way down towards the end of the building, when Andrew paused and put his hand against the wall, looking around carefully. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Ceci asked.

“Ain’t no way down from here. Stairs were up behind that part.” He pointed at a pile of wreckage. “Looks like that whole damn section fell in on top of itself.”

Dar watched the smoke fill the end of the corridor back the way they came from. “Well, let’s get to an outside room then. Must be people trying to get folks out of this damn place.” She took the lead, scrambled over an overturned mobile bed and turned the last corner, then stopped short.

The end of the hallway was full of huddled, frightened people, who stared at them with wild eyes. Kerry’s parents were there, against one wall, the senator caught in mid-word.

“A disgrace.” His eyes fell on them and he paused. “No one to help, no one who knows anything. You can bet something will be done about it after this.”

“If we get out of here,” a woman sitting on the floor with a young boy cradled in her arms responded. “No one even knows what happened.

It was like a bomb went off.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the senator snapped. “Probably some inferior imported gas heater blew up. This place is known for cutting corners.”

“With this amount of damage?” Dar snorted. “It’d have to be a water heater the size of the Titanic.” She started around the area, examining any possible way out. “It probably was a bomb.” She gave the senator a dark look. “Someone probably got tired of your hate policies.”

“Shut up.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Dar.” Kerry looked from face to face, closing her eyes when she didn’t see the one face she was looking for. The end of the building was open and had large windows and there were perhaps a dozen people there, some injured, some patients, and some, about a half dozen, children.

Then she realized the room was full of colorful furniture and toys, and guessed they were in the pediatrics area. Two of the children were in 386 Melissa Good wheelchairs and they looked scared. Kerry smiled at the closest one and tried not to think of her sister.