Tropical Convergence (15 page)

Michelle took one of the cups the server offered them and indicated a small table nearby. She led the way over and sat down, waiting for Kerry to take the seat opposite her before she spoke. "Listen." She leaned on one elbow. "This is a...touchy...kind of situation, I know that."

Kerry's eyebrows twitched.

"We really didn't want this to turn into a war."

"Sure you did." Kerry cut her off, but in a remarkably mild tone. "You came in here setting the stage for us to clash."

Michelle sighed.

"Well, you did. It's not my fault," Kerry said. "I wasn't the one who tried to pay off the convention staff not to help set the place up, and I wasn't the one who sent my lackeys around trying to steal other company's employees."

Michelle eyed her. "You're not as nice as you used to be," she remarked. "Dar must be rubbing off on you."

Far from taking offense, Kerry produced a sunny grin at that. "Thank you." She sat back and sipped at her coffee, waiting for Michelle's next salvo. In the mean time, she let her eyes scan the room casually, spotting ILS's marketing team doing their thing in the aisles. Eleanor had the vice president of technology of one of their biggest clients by the lapel, and she made a point of making eye contact with Kerry as she cruised along with him. "Ah. Sorry to cut this short, but my services are required."

Michelle was nothing if not tenacious. "Okay. Can we try all this again at dinner tonight? Call me a stinkweed, but I still want to try and make this work. We can all learn from each other."

Kerry crumpled her cup and tossed it into the nearby wastepaper basket. "Thanks." She stood up and braced her hands on the table, leaning on them a little. "But no thanks. We've got plans for tonight and I promised Dar she wouldn't have to deal with any more indigestion from you guys." She straightened and turned, walking away without a backward glance.

Michelle got up and dropped the half unfinished cup into the garbage can. "Well, I think I've wasted enough time for one day," she commented to the receptacle. "Don't you?" With a snort, she followed Kerry out onto the floor.

DAR HAD TRADED her unorthodox loungewear for a pair of cutoff overalls and a polo shirt, and left her laptop behind as she investigated the hotel. She'd answered all her mail that she felt needed answering, and ditched the rest of it, losing interest in the weightlifting that had been showing on ESPN as well.

So here she was, sauntering around the lobby in her bare feet, watching the tourists mill around giving the still stormy weather evil looks. The interior of the hotel was a pristine white, and the whole décor was one of lightness and elegance.

Dar found a comfortable and mostly empty corner and selected a seat in it, leaning back against the cool fabric as she watched the world go by for a few minutes. There were families here, but she saw a lot of couples, too, walking together or sitting and talking around her.

Her own visits here in her youth had been very different. Dar propped her leg up with one ankle on her knee and rubbed the prominent bone with her thumb. They hadn't been rich. Far from it, in fact. The best her father could manage was one of the ratty little motels on the strip in Kissimmee or, memorably, the camping ground inside the park itself.

Fort Wilderness.
Dar smiled to herself. She'd loved that place. It had been full of pine scent and horses, and she had spent hours with her father swimming in the manufactured swimming hole on the side of the lake.

It had been one of the best vacations ever. Only four days, a long weekend leave before his next deployment. Yet it was one of the few times Dar could remember where they'd all been just...happy together.

They'd slept in the back of Dad's truck, under the nylon tent and sweated like pigs. It had made the lake that much sweeter.

"Excuse me."

Dar looked up to find a man standing next to her, peering down. "Yes?"

"Are you Dar Roberts?"

A prickle of surprise rippled up and down her spine. "Yes," Dar replied briefly. "Why?"

The man sat down and extended a hand, which Dar ignored until he awkwardly withdrew it. "My name is Peter Quest. You don't know me."

"You're right. I don't. What do you want?" Dar gave him a direct look.

"I'm looking to do a little business, Ms. Roberts. I was told you would be someone I could talk to," Quest replied. "I was at the trade show this morning looking for you, but they told me you weren't around."

"So you decided to walk around Disney hotels asking people at random if they were me?" Dar asked. "Nice."

The man shook his head and chuckled. "No, I had a picture of you," he admitted. "Hope you don't mind."

Dar set her feet on to the floor and leaned forward. "I do mind," she spoke softly. "So you better explain why you're stalking me before I kick your ass right out that door into the rain, buddy."

Quest eased back away from her. "I beg your pardon, Ms. Roberts. I'm making a big mess of this, and I'm sorry. I really meant no harm. I just wanted to talk to you." He licked his lips. "I've got a business proposal I think you might be interested in."

Dar was on the verge of booting him anyway, when Alastair's words echoed into her memory. New business. "Okay," she replied instead, relaxing again into her chair. "I'm listening." Her head cocked slightly, and she pinned the man with a sharp stare. "Start talking."

"Um..." Quest visibly gathered up his scattered wits, confused by her change of attitude.

'Well?" Dar inquired.

The man held up one hand, and then took a breath. "Okay," he said. "Tell me. How do you feel about cruise ships?"

Dar's eyebrows knit fiercely. "Cruise ships?"

"Yeah." The man went on more confidently, producing a big smile. "Cruise ships."

"Well." Dar paused to think. "I'm an IT professional. Why would I think anything about cruise ships? We don't have anything to do with them."

"Ah." Quest rested his elbows on his knees. "Well, that's where I think I can change your mind then. We want you to have a lot to do with them."

Dar studied him. "Okay. Go on," she said. "I'm listening."

KERRY COULD FEEL a headache building, and she subtly put her hand behind her neck and rubbed it as she listened to Eleanor's smooth pitch. Their booth was now crowded with interested onlookers, most peering at the network monitor screens prominently displayed at each corner. They were showing a real time display of their systems, mirrored from the big monitor Mark had in the operations center down in Miami.

Out of long habit, she found herself keeping an eye on them, also, because the colorful, bouncing screen represented things wholly her responsibility. At work, she had a twin of that screen mounted on a flat panel display in her office and she knew every graph like it was written across the back of her hand.

"Ms. Stuart?"

Kerry turned, vainly trying to keep her nostrils from flaring as she recognized Shari's voice. "Yes?"

The husky woman leaned on the edge of the booth. "I'll make this short and sweet." She kept her voice low. "Michelle's a decent sort, and she really has an idea that your company and ours can help each other."

Kerry simply waited in silence.

"Leave me out of it," Shari continued, after it was evident she wasn't going to get an answer. "I know Dar has a problem with me."

"You're wrong. She doesn't have a problem with you," Kerry interrupted.

Shari rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. She doesn't have a problem, but it's not really likely that we're going to start being pals any time soon, how's that?" She gave Kerry a sarcastic look. "She never did have a handle on dealing with people. It's nice to know nothing's changed."

The burn of anger didn't surprise Kerry this time. It almost felt good, in a way, because she knew the emotion was based squarely in the love she felt for Dar. "You know what?" Kerry finally spoke. "I guess you're still the same asshole you were back then too. She doesn't have a problem, but that doesn't really matter to me because I have a problem with you. So do me a favor and go find someone else to hover over. Okay?"

Shari fell silent and looked at her for a second before she straightened and took a step back. "O...kay." She lifted both hands and dropped them. "Nice to have the air cleared."

"It will be, as soon as you leave." Kerry felt slightly abashed at letting her temper get the better of her. "Excuse me." She moved over to where Eleanor was bidding her latest victim farewell. "El?"

"Hm?" Eleanor turned. "Oh, hey Kerry. You ready to go get some lunch? My snappy patter's wilted."

The thought of lunch made her slightly sick to her stomach. She was shaking inside that much. "Actually, I was going to tell you I'm heading back to the hotel to pick up Dar. I'll get something there." Kerry looked around. "We've got a nice crowd going. I figured it was time for the ubergeek to show up."

Eleanor smiled knowingly. "Go on." She nudged Kerry. "See you after lunch."

Kerry signaled to Mark that she was leaving, getting a thumbs up from him as he stood guard over the locked switch box. Feeling that everything was relatively well in hand, she turned and started to work her way out of the room.

Even the rain outside didn't deter her. She cleared the door and stepped out into it, almost welcoming the wash of warm water that plastered the hair on her head and quickly dampened her clothes. She reached the Lexus and triggered the door lock, opening the driver's side and sliding inside with a sense of relief.

It smelled like leather tinged with the faint hint of Dar's usual perfume, and Kerry sat there for a minute breathing it in.

She took a moment to remember the first time she'd ridden in this car, in a rain not unlike the one she'd just escaped from, but with little other similarity.

It had been one of the most miserable nights of her life, and one of the most wonderful. Kerry leaned back in the comfortable seat and ran her fingers through her wet hair, pushing it back off her forehead. "You know what?" she mused. "A navy sweatshirt sure would feel good right about now."

With a sigh, Kerry shook a few droplets of water off her hands and started the car up, shifting smoothly into reverse and backing out of the parking spot she'd chosen. If she couldn't have a navy sweatshirt, at least she knew where to find the next best thing.

"NO." DAR SLUNG her leg over one chair arm, leaning on the other. "I'm not interested."

Peter Quest looked puzzled. "You're not?" he asked. "I don't understand. You're a services company, we're looking for someone to come in and install, maintain, and run networks on all our ships. What's the problem?"

"I'm not in the business of being part of a circus," Dar replied. "Why don't you just throw open the business for bids? Plenty of companies around who'd be willing to tender. Why sneak around making secret deals to have people come in?"

Quest looked around carefully, and then lowered his voice. "It's really complicated." He said. "Listen, can we go somewhere more private...like the bar?"

Dar's eyebrow lifted. "No," she said. "My partner's going to come back through here looking for me and damned if she'd look there," she told Quest. "So talk, or take a hike."

The man exhaled. "You're a difficult person, Ms. Roberts."

Dar shrugged. "So I've been told. But then, you came looking for me, not the other way around."

"Okay, here's the deal," Quest went on. "My company, American Visions, intends on being the first American cruise line in decades," he said. "We've gotten hold of four ships, and we're having them rebuilt to US specifications in New Zealand."

New Zealand again? Dar almost let herself get sidetracked. "Yeah?"

"But it's all hush hush. If we can bring them into the States by January, we can grab a big segment of the homeland cruise market. If those four make it, we have eight more waiting overseas to join the fleet."

Dar looked at him. "Hush hush?" she repeated. "They're cruise ships. What do they weigh...seventy, eighty thousand tons? How the hell do you hide them?"

Quest looked around again. "We're not revealing who owns them," he said. "And they'll get their final paint in San Diego. Anyway, seventy percent of the refurb stuff needs to be US, and that includes the technical infrastructure."

"And?"

"And if we throw open bids, chances are people we don't want to find out about this are going to find out, because they'll send spies in to figure out what we're up to."

Dar braced her chin on her fist. "So what if I'm a spy?" she asked.

"Your company has no connection with the business," he answered readily. "Neither do the other three American companies we asked to compete for the contract...and I've got some friends in the government who tell me you can keep your mouth shut."

Dar shook her head. "Still not interested," she said. "I don't know that we want to get involved in this. It sounds irregular."

"Well..." Quest replied. "It really isn't, it's just business. I have to get some government paperwork straightened out and that's why it has to be kept quiet. You understand? It's political."

Dar frowned. "We have a lot of government contracts," she said. "I don't think we want to be a part of it." She paused. "Who else are you asking? Maybe I can give you some names to talk to."

Quest gazed at her, biting the inside of his lip. Finally he leaned forward a little. "Advanced Tech, KDC, and Telegenics."

"Ah." Dar's expression didn't change, but a dark sparkle lit in her eyes. "Interesting choices."

"Telegenics talks a good game. They've been wooing my director over another contract, so..." Quest shrugged. "Anyway, since you're not interested, let me stop wasting your time." He straightened up in his seat, and half turned, pausing as one of the figures walking across the lobby caught his eye. "Sure must be raining outside."

Dar watched the object of his attention, an unconscious smile appearing on her face. Even drenched, Kerry had her head held high, and despite the rain dampened clothes she had an innate grace as she approached that attracted more eyes than Quest's. "Mm."