"Thanksgivings at my parent's house," Kerry replied. "We didn't sit at the same table though."

Bridges blinked then his brows knit. "Oh, son of a bitch. You're Roger's kid, aren't you?" He asked sounding surprised. "What in the hell are you doing here? Ah, never mind." He turned back to Dar. "We're wasting time. Here's the deal."

Kerry settled back in her seat, lacing her fingers together. She remembered Bridges, all right. A mover and shaker that even her father had respected, rude and brash to her mother, a most unwelcome guest.

Not someone she'd really wanted to get involved with.

"I imagine you know all about the damage to all that technical stuff in New York," Bridges said. "That's all your company's business."

"Not exactly," Hamilton broke in. "Just want to get that cleared up. That ain't all ours."

"That's right," Dar agreed. "We do have some customers affected there, but most of the business infrastructure there isn't ours."

"You finished talking?" Bridges asked. "Yes? Good." He leaned on his forearms again. "I don't give a damn if it was yours or Martha Stewarts to begin with. The problem is it's broke."

Dar shrugged, and nodded. "It's broken," she agreed. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Well, I'll tell you," Bridges said. "I called all those bastard phone company people into this office, and they all told me the same thing. Sure, they can fix it, but it's going to take time." He studied Dar's face intently. "They gave me all kinds of BS excuses why. Now--" He held up a hand as Dar started to speak. "I'm not an idiot. I know two goddamn buildings at least fell on top of all that stuff. Don't bother saying it."

Dar subsided, then lifted both her hands and let them drop. "Okay. So they told you it would take time to fix. It will. They're not lying about that."

"I know," the president's advisor said. "The issue is it can't."

Kerry rubbed her temples. "Mr. Bridges, that's like saying the sun can't rise tomorrow because it would be inconvenient. There's a physical truth to this. It takes time to build rooms, and run wires, and make things work."

"I know," Bridges said. "But the fact is it can't take time. I have to open the markets on Monday. That stuff has to work by Sunday so those idiot bankers can test everything. We have to do it, Ms. Roberts. I'm not being an asshole for no purpose here. If we don't restore confidence in the financial system, we stand to lose a hell of a lot more than a couple hundred stories of office space housed in ugly architecture."

There was a small silence after that. Bridges voice faded off into faint echoes. Dar tapped her thumbs together and pondered, reading through the lines and in between his gruff tones and seeing a truth there she understood.

Alastair had understood, immediately. There was a lot at stake.

"Why me?" Dar asked, after a long moment. "You had all the Telco's in here. It's their gear. It's their pipe. It's their equipment. They have to do the work. What the hell do you want from me in all this? I don't have a damn magic wand."

"Ah." Bridges pursed his lips. "Well, fair enough.

You're right. It's not your stuff. Your company has nothing to do with the whole thing, other than being a customer of those guys who were in here. But the fact of the matter is, when I squeezed their balls hard enough, what popped out of the guys from AT&T was that if I wanted this done in that amount of time, come see you."

"Me." Dar started laughing. "Oh shit. Give me a break."

Hamilton had his chin resting on one hand, and he was simply watching and listening, the faintest of twitches at the corners of his lips.

"Why is that, Ms. Roberts?" Bridges asked. "I don't really know who the hell you are, or what your company does, except that it keeps coming up in the oddest conversations around here about who knew what when and how people who work for you keep showing up in the right places with the right stuff."

"Well now," Hamilton spoke up for the first time. "What old Dar here's going to say is she's damned if she knows why, but fact is, I do," he drawled. "It's in our portfolio, matter of fact. "

"Hamilton." Dar eyed him. "Shut up."

"Dar, you know I love you more than my luggage." The lawyer chuckled. "Mr. Bridges." He turned to the advisor. "Those gentlemen from our old friends American Telegraph and Telephone told you that because they know from experience standing in front of hurricane Dar here is one way to get your shorts blown right off your body and get strangled by them." He ignored Dar's murderous look. "She just doesn't take no for an answer."

Bridges got up and went to the credenza, removing a pitcher and pouring himself a glass from it. "I see." He turned. "Is that true, Ms. Roberts?"

Dar drummed her fingers on the table. "When it suits my goals, yes," she said, finally. "I've been known to be somewhat persistent."

Kerry covered her eyes with one hand, biting the inside of her lip hard to keep from laughing. She could sense Dar peeking over at her and worked hard to regain her composure.

"All right." Bridges sat back down. "So. What's it going to cost me then? I won't waste my time appealing to your patriotism."

Dar was silent for a long moment again. "You could," she said, looking him right in the eye. "Appeal to my patriotism. What makes you think I don't have any?"

"Just a hunch," Bridges said. "You don't seem the type."

Dar's eyes narrowed a trifle. "Do the country a favor," she said. "Flush your hunches down the toilet if they're all that worthless." She got up. "Unfortunately for everyone, my patriotism doesn't count in this case. There is nothing I can do to fix what's broken. I don't own any of the infrastructure, none of those companies has any reason to do me any favors, and that union tangled century's old mess down at the tip of Manhattan is way beyond my skills to sort out in three days no matter who says yes or no. It can't be done."

Bridges leaned on his knuckles and stared at her. "Can't be done?"

"Can't be done," Dar said. "But for a price, I'll give it my best try."

The advisor sat down.

Kerry felt like she was watching a game of tennis, where the volley was getting faster and faster and the ball was a small thermonuclear device. She had no idea where Dar was going with all this, and it had been a while since she'd seen her partner in this kind of a mood.

It was almost like watching a stranger. Dar was focused, and her eyes were like chips of crystal, with no emotion at all in them.

"What's your price?" Bridges asked, in a sardonic tone. "Maybe I'll try to pay it if you're only going to try and do what I'm asking."

"Get the NSA off my ass," Dar said, ticking one finger off. "Give my people clearance to get into the city." She ticked a second finger off. "Give me some kind of leverage to get through the politics. I'll give it my best shot. You get whatever you get out of it. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't."

The advisor rested his forearms on the table again and gazed at her, with a slightly puzzled look. "What's in it for you, then?" he asked. "What do you get out of it?"

Dar managed the faintest of smiles. "Service to my country," she answered, in a quiet tone. "It's the right thing to do, no matter how impossible it is."

"You really don't think it's possible," Bridges mused. "Everyone agrees with that, even the president. He wanted me to find some way to fake it." He looked up to find three sets of eyes staring at him in disbelief, and he shrugged in response. "Ms. Stuart will tell you just how much of the government is smoke and mirrors, I'm sure."

Kerry cleared her throat gently. "That's true," she said. "But we aren't smoke and mirrors. If Dar commits us to this, we'll go at it a hundred percent."

Bridges nodded. "Cheap enough price," he said. "All right, Ms. Roberts, do we have a deal? "

"I guess we do." Dar looked at Hamilton, who burst into laughter.

That seemed to strike Bridges funny too, and he chuckled. "Now I understand what Easton told me." He stood up. "Get out of here, people. I have an unending pile of crap to put on a potter's wheel and make into china."

They were glad enough to escape, slipping out the door and evading the flock of secretaries, emerging into the hallway where the pace hadn't slowed a bit.

Hamilton steered them over to a corner out of the flow and they all took a minute to catch their breaths.

"That," Kerry finally said, "was seriously freaky."

"Got us out of the way of the spooks," Hamilton commented. "And Dar, no jokes here, darling. That was some good shuck and jive in that room. couldn't have negotiated a better deal."

Dar exhaled, and shook her head. "Let's get out of here," she said. "I don't know what the hell I just got us into, but I sure don't want to spend any more time in this place. Let's go somewhere and scratch together a plan."

Kerry spotted Franklin heading down the hall in their direction. She grabbed Dar's arm. "Great idea. C'mon He hadn't had a chance to talk to Bridges yet."

They did, heading around a corner, and down a hall, hoping they ended up somehow at an outside door without getting into any more trouble.


Chapter Twenty-Two

"OKAY." KERRY LED the way through the visitor's entrance to their offices. "Dar, I'm going to have to sign you in." She could feel her partner silently snickering. "Do you know what a pile of paperwork that's going to be?"

"Sorry," Dar said, with not a lot of sincerity. "Hey, if they won't let me in, we can go work out of the nerd bus. Dad's there and I hear the foods pretty good."

"Dar." Kerry eyed the receptionist as they approached. "How about we get you a loaner laptop and just push your image down to it? I'm sure we've got one in this place that can handle it."

"Bet they don't."

"Good morning, Ms. Stuart." The receptionist greeted her with a smile. "A lot of people were asking after you inside. I'm sure they'll be glad to see you."

Kerry set her briefcase down and removed her sunglasses. "Yeah, it's been that kind of morning," she agreed. "I need to sign in a corporate employee that doesn't have a badge with them."

The woman glanced past Kerry at the tall, lanky figure behind her. "That's no problem, ma'am, I just need to see some ID and I can process that for you."

"She doesn't have that either," Kerry said. "And we haven't installed integrated biometrics here yet, have we? Everyone needs a card." She took the visitor form that had been held out to her and passed it back. "Fill this out, hon."

Dar took the form with its clipboard and started obediently scribbling. "What's my purpose for visiting? Anarchy and general disruption of the business?"

The receptionist frowned. "If you mean the government handprint thing, no ma'am. But I can't issue a visitor pass without seeing some identification."

"You're just going to have to take my word for who this is," Kerry told her. "I'll authorize it--no wait." She turned and glanced at her partner. "I'm the requester, I can't also authorize. Shoot. I think you have to authorize it since you're my up chain."

Dar chuckled and kept writing.

The receptionist caught the clue. "Oh," she said. "Sorry, Ms. Roberts. We weren't expecting you."

"No one ever is." Dar produced a reasonably sexy grin. "I'm the Spanish Inquisition of ILS." She handed back the clipboard and the pen. "There you go."

The receptionist took it and studied the paper then pulled out a visitor pass and punched in the programming for it. "One of the people from the NSA was here yesterday looking for you, Ms. Stuart, after you left."

"I know. We found them." Kerry said, leaning against the counter as she watched Dar wander around the lobby examining it. "I think we got that all sorted out. Hopefully they won't be bothering us again."

"Okay, here you go ma'am." The receptionist handed over the visitor badge. "Should I let them know you're here?"

"And spoil my fun?" Dar took the badge from her and winked. "Nah."

"Thanks." Kerry smiled at the woman and led her troublemaking spouse toward the inner door. "We can use that office they assigned to me. It's big enough to party in." She scanned the door open and held it as Dar went past her. "So what's the plan?"

"What's the plan? " Dar sighed, as they walked down the hallway side by side. "I wish I knew what the plan was. I need to sit down and think for a few minutes and try to figure out where the hell to start."