"Well." Kerry eyed the reporter. "They could also want to talk to me about a lot of other things. But that's fine." She put her hands on her denim clad hips. "I'm up for it if they want to." She took a deep breath, feeling the finely knit wool of her sweater tighten around her body.

"That is another lovely sweater," Cynthia remarked. "Just lovely. What are those designs--are they animals?"

"Beavers." Kerry's lips twitched as she muffled a grin. "Dar gave it to me."

"Ah," her mother said. "Is she a supporter of wildlife?"

"Yes," her daughter answered. "She loves wildlife. And beavers."

Her mother merely nodded, and then turned and walked down the narrow aisle to where the reporter was waiting. The television light went on immediately and the aides closed in on either side, blocking Kerry's view.

Which was fine. She sat back down in her seat and picked up her magazine, glancing at her watch again. "Should have kidnapped Angie and drove." She shook her head and started reading.


Chapter Twelve

DAR WOKE UP in complete darkness disoriented and not entirely sure of where she was. The smells and sounds were wrong for home, and she remembered light pouring in her window from the street in her London hotel.

Here, just darkness, and lots of quiet.

After a second of confusion, she remembered, and her tensed body relaxed back onto the goose down topper on the bed's mattress.

Sir Melthon's estate was set back from the road and surrounded by hedges and land, and thick gates. Far enough from the city sounds to be silent, much like it was in her condo back in Miami.

But no ocean sounds. If she concentrated, she could hear crickets though.

"Sheesh." Dar rolled over and lifted up her watch, pressing the side button and checking the digital display. "Ngh." She set it back down. "Four in the morning." She counted back, then reached over and picked up her PDA to check for messages.

Sure enough. Dar clicked contentedly and opened it.

Made it. Slept most of the way. Mother won't hear of my getting a cab this late so she's sending me in the car to the hotel once we drop her off at the townhouse. Lesser of two evils. I will end up being on the local late news in Michigan though. There was a press bunch that cornered us at the airport. Interview wasn't bad. They were too busy with all the disaster news to ask me stupid questions about my sex life. Mom likes my sweater by the way. She thinks you have good taste if a rather odd fixation on small mammals. Love you. K.

Dar started laughing, the motion waking her up enough to make going back to sleep immediately out of the question. The tone of Kerry's note was a little resigned, but amused, so she figured things weren't going along too badly.

She sat up and crossed her legs up under her and leaning her elbows on her knees as she removed her stylus and started an answer.

Hey Ker--

I've commissioned a knitted pullover for you with the Gopher from my program in poses guaranteed to get you thrown out of Wal-Mart. Tell her that. Glad you made it okay. Hope everything is calm in the city. Mother or no mother I'd have rather you go directly to the border and not stay near anything white and colonnaded just in case. I know that sounds callous and obnoxious but I am sometimes.

Dar could almost hear Kerry's objection to that, but it was true, and she knew it.

Send me a note when you get to the hotel. I have no doubt the Mandarin Oriental will have a room ready for you, but I'd sleep better if I knew you were in it.

DD.

Dar clicked send and lay back down, letting the PDA rest on her chest. Aside from the early waking, she'd slept pretty well, the quiet and comfort of the room allowing her to get more rest than she'd really expected to.

She wasn't really tired. She didn't want to spend hours lying in bed staring at the ceiling either. After a moment more of it, she sat up and swung her feet off the bed, reaching over to turn the lamp on. A soft, golden light filled the room and she took a moment to stand and shake her body out before she walked over to retrieve her laptop.

It was quiet enough that the zipper of the case sounded loud, and she glanced around a trifle guiltily, though she knew full well the sound wouldn't penetrate the walls.

At least she hoped it wouldn't. She removed the machine and its cable from the case and took it back with her to the bed, laying it down and then returning to the sideboard where there was a tray resting with cups and several bottles.

Reviewing her options, she poured a cup of still warm milk out of a very efficient thermal carafe and brought it back to the bed with her. She set it on the bedside table and sat down, opening the lid of the machine and pressing the power button.

Her PDA was blinking.

Dar smiled and opened it, bending her head slightly to read the message.

I would wear Gopher Dar on my chest any time, honey. But telling my mother that here in front of her little aides is not going to make this road trip any shorter if you catch my drift.

"Probably not," Dar had to agree. "And you'd have to explain it anyway."

And I'd have to explain it anyway. You know I would.

Dar started laughing.

Why are you up? It's four in the morning there. But if you are, after we drop Mom off, can I call you? I want to try and get through, and it would be nice to talk for a few minutes before all the crazy stuff starts up all over again. I'm sure tomorrow's going to be worse than today. I think everyone-the business people I mean-are in shock. Tomorrow it'll be--well, okay, but when will I be back up?

Dar nodded in agreement. "Yup."

It's so quiet here in the city. I know it's sort of late, but there's hardly a car on the street. It's almost spooky it's so quiet, and I realized just earlier how funny it was to not hear airplanes. You never think of that, but we have them all the time at home flying over head. I've been here a couple hours and not one except for fighters. So strange.

There are lots of soldiers around. It almost feels like we're at war. Are we?

Dar gazed thoughtfully at the message. "Good question," she said aloud. "Have we ever not been at war?"

Anyway, we're pretty close to the townhouse now. So hopefully I'll be calling soon. Hope you're up just because you're up and not because you're doing stuff.

Dar glanced guiltily at the laptop. Then she half shrugged and decided to look forward to talking to Kerry instead of worrying about it. She took a sip of her warm milk and logged in, waiting for the machine to present her desktop before she started the cellular card up and connected.

It wasn't nearly as quick a connection as she was used to, of course. The cellular service provided speed more or less like a fast modem though, and it was enough for Dar to start up her VPN session and connect to the office. "Might as well clear some mail," she decided. "With any luck, everyone will have been a lot busier with everything else than sending me a lot of it."

She took another sip of milk, licking her lips a little at the strange but not unpleasant taste. Different grass, maybe, or just a different way of processing the milk, she wasn't sure. She suspected she'd get used to it after a while.

The computer chimed softly, and she started up her mail program. "Of course, I'm not gonna get the chance." She sighed. "Bastards."

It wasn't logical for her to be upset, and she knew it, because given what so many others were going through her lack of a touring vacation was so petty she'd have been embarrassed to mention it to anyone other than herself.

But she was mad. She was pissed off her life had been disrupted. She was even more pissed off that she wasn't going to get to enjoy some simple wandering with Kerry that she'd looked very much forward to. "Bastards," she repeated. "They're damn lucky it's not my finger on the nuclear button cause if it was I'd have pressed it."

Self centered, shocking, and unworthy of even thinking it. Dar watched her inbox fill. A thought she wouldn't consider repeating to Kerry. But the venal stupidity of the act chewed at her, since the reasoning behind most of the world's ills right now was based in the unthinking animal tribal instinct that humanity had no real hope of getting rid of any time soon.

There was no logic there. The instinct to hate what you weren't was written so deeply, Dar felt that on some level it wasn't something you could address with words or thoughts. It was a burning in the gut. A fire in the brain that resisted any attempt at change.

It was easy for people, and she'd heard many of them in the last few hours, point at a particular group and act like those people were so alien and so isolated in their hatred. Easy, especially on a day like yesterday. But the truth was, the ravaging need to destroy what wasn't you was universal.

Dar sighed. "So I go and say something like, yeah, I want to blow them off the face of the earth, and thereby prove out my species." She shook her head. "Asshole."

She scanned the mail, seeing not a lot that wasn't either group sent mails or brief acknowledgements. Her brows raised in surprise. "I know I said I didn't expect much mail, but I did expect some."

But really, there wasn't any. Dar reasoned that maybe the fact they'd all be in a huge conference call all day accounted for that. She could imagine sitting down to write some mundane note and just stopping, and clicking the close button instead.

She minimized the mail program and called up her status screen instead waiting for it to appear and the counters to settle in and show what the latest was across the company. There was no audio, she wasn't about to trigger the voice link over the slow connection.

Instead, she studied the lists of employees, checking first the one from the Pentagon area, and then the one from New York.

Each person's name had a red, a green, or a yellow tag next to it. Green meant they'd been heard from, and were okay. Yellow meant they'd been heard from, but were having problems. Red--

Dar exhaled slowly, her eyes running over all those little red dots. A dozen in Washington, and three times that in New York. She studied the names, her stomach dropping when she saw Bob's name still stubbornly crimson.

They hadn't exactly gotten along. She hadn't exactly enjoyed his company. But he was an old friend of Alastair's and now, his proud enthusiasm about his city caused a pang in her chest as she remembered very clearly not wanting to hear a second of it.

She'd argued with him just the other day, over parking spaces at the office there. He wanted to spend money for covered parking.

Native Floridian Dar had thought that was crazy. Bob had gotten frustrated, and almost hung up, but then had gotten lucky in the form of Kerry's arriving and explaining to her tropical lover trying to get your door open in an ice storm.

Saved by the Midwest. Bob had almost seemed embarrassed, but they'd ended up splitting the cost and now, she was glad.

She was glad they'd ended the meeting not screaming at each other.

Her PDA flashed. Dar was glad enough to push aside the laptop and pull the smaller device over, opening it up to find another message from Kerry.

Streets full of soldiers, Dar. They blocked off most of the streets. I don't think we're going to be able to get close to the townhouse I'm not sure what's going on.

Dar sat up straight in alarm, feeling a surge of adrenaline hit her.

Something about a car bomb. Crap.

Dar reached over and grabbed her cell phone, hitting the speed dial button. Instead of a fast busy, the call went through and she heard it ring twice before it was answered. "Hey."

"Hey." Kerry cleared her throat.

Dar could hear Kerry's mother in the background, and a male voice, lower and official sounding. "Listen, you want me to call up the hotel and make reservations for the whole lot of you? Kerry, you are not going anywhere near a damn car bomb."

There was a moment of silence. "Yes, I would like you to do that. A lot."

Dar yanked the laptop over and rattled in the travel website. She stopped on hearing noises in the background on the phone. "Were those gunshots?"

"I don't know."

The website responded, and she typed in the information. "Hell, your suite's got three rooms you could probably cram everyone in there if you had to."