So they had to deal with her in casual clothes. Kerry spared a moment to wonder if it would put her at a serious disadvantage, then she shrugged and decided if it did, there were plenty of stores in the capital where she could remedy the situation.

No time to worry about it now at any rate. She pocketed her room key and shouldered her bag, heading for the door to the room. The conference call would wait until she was in the car, and the few moments silence as she rode the elevator gave her a space of time to think about what Dar was up to.

Besides 35,000 feet, that is. Kerry's eyes flicked around the inside of the elevator, noting the advertisements for the hotel's spa and making a mental note to investigate it after what she was sure would be a long, painful day.

She hoped Dar was getting some rest on her trip across the Atlantic. At least the private flight would be quiet, and she was sure her partner would be well taken care of by the professional crew. Maybe she'd have picked up some new magazines to read on the way.

Her PDA beeped and she jumped, grabbing at it and wondering if her clever partner had found some way to send messages from the sky. Opening it, she was profoundly disappointed to find that was not the case, and in fact, the message was doubly unwelcome since it bore the address of the National Hurricane Center on it. "Oh please."

000

WTNT44 KNHC 131458

TCDAT8

TROPICAL DEPRESSION EIGHT DISCUSSION NUMBER 4

NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042001

0900 AM EDT MON SEP 12 2001

"Just what we need." Kerry read the rest of the advisory as she exited the elevator and crossed the lobby, keeping an eye on the path with her peripheral vision in an odd, disjointed sort of way common to nerds who had to learn to communicate and walk at the same time.

She studied the coordinates, giving the doorman who opened the door for her an absent greeting as she came into the hotel's front entranceway, her brows creasing as she pictured where the storm was forming. "Shit."

"Madame?" The doorman looked at her, his head cocked to one side.

"Sorry." Kerry tucked her PDA away and glanced around, seeing no obviously waiting cars. "Just got some bad news."

The man nodded and stepped away.

Kerry rummaged in her briefcase and pulled out her cellphone earbuds. She set the case down and untangled them, trying not to be impatient as the slim cables knotted stubbornly. It required a more intense concentration than she'd anticipated, and so she was surprised when someone cleared their throat unexpectedly close to her.

"Excuse me, Ms. Stuart?"

Kerry looked up, to find a young, slim, dark haired woman standing at the curb. "Hello." She glanced at the ID clipped to the woman's crisply pressed shirt. "Nan? I don't think we've ever met."

"No, we haven't," the woman replied with a smile. "I thought I recognized you but wasn't sure."

"Well, you guessed right." Kerry held a hand out. "You my ride?"

"Yes, ma'am." The woman smiled, and returned her grip. "Sorry if I startled you. They made me park the car down the slope."

Kerry got her buds sorted out and shouldered her briefcase. "Lead on." She followed the woman down toward where the standard issue company SUV was parked. Nan was a technical supervisor at the Herndon center and Kerry had both spoken to and emailed her on countless occasions.

Laid back and competent. Kerry had formed a favorable opinion of her from their previous interaction and nothing so far had contradicted that. She had a fine boned face and a well shaped profile and a slender build that matched her relatively short stature.

"It's been frantic crazy," Nan said, after a brief silence. "I know the powers that be are really glad you're here though. We're running out of excuses and coffee for the government guys."

"I bet," Kerry said. "Their boss is meeting me out at the office. I'm sure we'll get it straightened out." She opened the passenger side door of the SUV and settled into the seat, putting her case down between her boots.

Leather boots, jeans, leather jacket. There was nothing western about any of them, but Kerry had to smile privately at just how much her taste in clothing had changed, and the look of dubious surprise on her mother's face.

She didn't look bad in it. One glance in a mirror attested to that. Dar had told her in fact that she actually looked really sexy in the clothes and Kerry was fully willing to bow to her opinion in the matter.

It was, however, probably not what her colleagues here expected.

Nan got in the driver's seat and started up the SUV. "Seat goes back if you need," she said. "I adjusted it before I left but you're taller than I expected you to be."

Huh? Kerry stopped in mid motion and turned her head, both eyebrows shooting up. "Well, that's the first time I ever heard THAT comment before," she blurted. "Excuse me?"

Nan chuckled wanly. "Beg your pardon," she said. "I know we've emailed a lot but the only pictures I've seen of you are on the intranet."

"Ahh." Kerry started chuckling. "Where I'm always standing next to Dar. Yeah. I'm surprised most people don't think I'm a circus midget." She extended her denim covered legs and crossed her ankles. "Let me get back on the conference call. Sounds like things are going to hell this morning."

She pulled her earbuds from her pocket and put one in her right ear, then dialed the conference line. "How long have the NSA people been there today?'

Nan glanced quickly at her, then back at the road. "Is that who they are?" she asked. "Wow. They wouldn't tell us. They were there when the admins opened the guest center at seven."

"Nice." Kerry exhaled, shaking her head as she typed in the conference code. "Do you know what it is they're asking for, or are they still being vague?" She heard the call connect, but she left her mic on mute for the time being, electing to listen to Nan instead.

Nan paused at a light, and waited for it to turn. "They were pretty obscure. They have some big black box with them," she said. "And they told us they wanted to put it in the center, and have our core switch hooked up to it."

Kerry eyed her. "You have got to be kidding me," she said. "Do they realize what goes through that center? What do they think they're looking for? Those are internal government systems."

"We told them that," Nan agreed. "They think they can see traffic coming in from the outside to them. They say they're looking for terrorist hackers," she continued. "They seem to be convinced that the whole attack thing isn't over and they'll be making an attempt at our systems next."

Kerry folded her arms over her chest, her brows contracting. "What in the hell do they think connecting something to our core switch is going to do to stop that?" she asked, in a puzzled tone.

Nan shrugged. "It's the government. You know how they are. Someone tells them to do something and whether or not it makes sense goes out the window. I talked to their lead tech guy," she confided. "He told me we have to do it, or else we'll get in really big trouble."

Hm. Kerry pulled out her PDA and glanced at the next to last message, one from Dar.

Sweetheart.

I'm about to get on this damn plane. I talked to Gerry, and something's up but not something he wants to talk about over the phone, and not to anyone but me. Sounds screwy. He doesn't know anything about what's going on where you are, but says not to automatically say no to anything because everyone's flying blind and there's a lot of knee jerking going on.

Nothing goes in our facility. Feel comfortable about saying that to them, because hon, it's locked under my login and though you know it, you've got a perfectly good reason not to. Let them wait for me and Alastair. We're legally responsible for the contracts anyway.

Love you. Wish I could fly right to DC to be with you. Hang tight.

DD

"Wish you could too," Kerry muttered under her breath. "We can talk to them, and try to find out specifically what they're looking for," she told Nan. "If I can't convince them they're barking up the wrong tree, then we just have to tell them to wait until Dar lands."

Nan nodded. "They said the systems were all locked," she said. "It's making the network guys nervous," she added. "Like I said, they'll all be glad to see you. No one minds making decisions but man, when you've got the dark side of the government camped on the doorstep it's freak city time."

"Yeah." Kerry rested her head against the back of the seat, listening with one ear to the chatter on the call. "Freak city? We're living on Freak Planet right now." She shifted and drew one knee up a little, resting her hand on it as she cupped the other over her ear. "That's for damn sure."

Nan leaned back in her seat, watching Kerry from the corner of her eye.

"What?" Kerry caught the look.

The dark haired woman appeared to be suppressing a smile. "You're really not what I expected," she explained.

"In a good way or a bad way?" Kerry asked, wryly.

"Oh. Good way," Nan said. "Definitely."

Now what, Kerry wondered, did that actually mean? "Well, glad to hear it." She clicked her mic on. "Scuse me a minute--Miami ops, this is Miami exec back on. What was that about a power outage?"

Nan drove on in silence, passing quickly through unusually empty streets, for once the lack of traffic causing no one any cheer.

DAR LEAFED THROUGH her magazine, reading the technical articles then amusing herself by viewing the ads that luridly bracketed them.

"Whatcha reading?" Alastair asked.

Dar held up the front page.

Her boss rolled his eyes. "Jesus, lady." He folded his hands across his stomach. "Don't you ever go off duty?"

"I like technology," Dar protested mildly. "Shit, Alastair, what do you think you pay me for? My typing skills?" She had one leg slung over the arm of the chair and now she leaned on her knee a little. "This stuff changes every damn second. You have to keep up."

Alastair chuckled. "I don't have to keep up. That's why I have you." He put his hands behind his head and stretched. "Wasn't bad dinner, eh?"'

"Very good, matter of fact," Dar agreed. "Sure beats chicken Florentine or three cheese pasta, which would have been our choices otherwise." She put the magazine down and got up to wander to the back of the cabin and stretch her legs.

There was an open space there, enough for her to stand and extend her arms. She did so, and twisted her body back and forth to loosen up the stiff muscles in her back.

"Now what are you doing?" Alastair asked.

"Jumping jacks," Dar replied. "Wanna join me?"

Her boss leaned on his chair arm and craned around to watch her. "My last jumping jack was in basic training when I was eighteen years old, way before you were born," he informed her. "My idea of strenuous exercise is letting the caddy drive the cart on the golf course."

"Ugh." Dar tested the luggage rack's strength, then she gripped them and let her body drop back, tensing her shoulders as they took her weight. "I can't handle golf," she said. "I don't have the patience for it. I end up hunting for grasshoppers and losing track of what hole I'm on."

Alastair snickered. "Y'know, I can picture that," he said. "You do sports though, don't you? I thought I remember seeing some pictures of you winning some karate tournament or something, and Bea said you were all joining a softball league down there."

Dar lowered herself to the ground and decided on a few pushups. "I do sports," she conceded. "I've been doing martial arts since I was a kid." She settled into a smooth rhythm, glad for the distraction. "Lets me let off some steam." She paused, her body held up off the floor and peered up at Alastair. "You saw pictures?"

"Sure," Alastair said. "Kerry's quite a photographer." He watched Dar as she merely looked at him, remaining in place. "How long can you stay like that?"

"Long as I have to." Dar pressed herself up into a handstand and felt her back relax as gravity inverted. "I'd forgotten she put that in the department news blurb." She crossed her ankles and pondered the matter. "They wanted me to continue in that circuit, but I figured I'd quit while I was ahead and not push my luck."

"Mm." Her boss got up and sat on his chair arm to better watch her, extending his legs across the aisle. "Yeah, I'd rather you didn't risk getting kicked in the head," he said. "You get into enough damned situations as it is."