Tropical Convergence (47 page)

Kerry put her hands all the way in her pockets and stared after them. "Jesus." She turned and headed back to the crew, pausing when her cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller id, disappointed it wasn't Dar. "Kerry Stuart."

"Hello, Ms. Stuart? This is Nelson Argos."

Oh crap. "Mr. Argos, I don't really have the time to talk right now, I'm in the middle of something."

"Oh, I'm sure you are. I just got off the phone with a couple of your biggest customers and they want to know where that famous bulletproof service is. So do I."

"You can call them back and ask them in five minutes. Until then kiss my ass." Kerry hung up the phone as she got back to the truck, dropping to her knees beside the generators. Her phone rang again, but she ignored it this time, as she braced her hands on the load balancer. "We ready?"

"Just about." Mark had a loop of cable over his arm, and he was feeding it out as he walked toward the open door. "Give me a minute."

Kerry's phone buzzed, then buzzed again. She left it in its holster, as a damp breeze blew in and the first patter of rain dropped on the top of the tent.

"Okay, we're done." One of the techs came out, with a roll of duct tape. "You want to check it out, ma'am?"

"I trust you." Kerry didn't feel like getting up, her stomach in a roiling, churning mess. The phone rang again.

Again.

"Boss, we ready? I'm gonna plug it in!" Mark called back. "Cross your fingers!"

The phone buzzed again. Kerry pulled it off her hip and threw it against the wall. It bounced onto the ground, and sat there rocking, a small puddle growing around it. "GO ON," she called back.

The techs watched her in wide-eyed silence.

Kerry ignored them, focusing on the load gauges as she listened to the phone rattle and buzz, and jump against the pavement. As she watched, the needles quivered, then vibrated, then finally jumped a little, moving from zero up to twenty percent.

"Ms. Stuart, do you want us to fetch your phone?"

"No." Kerry leaned on the balancer, taking a bit of weight off her knees since the broken pavement was cutting into them even through her denim. "C'mon."

"Coming up!" Mark hollered back. "I got blinkies!"

The rain started coming down harder, the mist starting to come in the sides of the tent. The techs rushed to secure them, blocking the rain, as Kerry pushed herself to her feet and made her way inside.

Mark was standing in front of the rack, which was not cool, but not as stifling as it had been. There was a hum in the darkness, and red and green lights reflecting against his profile.

Kerry came up next to him. They watched in silence as the LED's moved from a testing pattern to something else.

"That's traffic," Mark finally said into the quiet.

"Yes, it is," Kerry agreed. "You think it worked?"

Mark opened his phone and watched the display. "We'll know in about a minute."

IT WAS DARK in the hotel room. Dar was lying curled up on her side on the bed, her laptop open in front of her and her cell phone resting near her hand.

But the screensaver whirled unmolested, and the cell screen was dark. Dar merely lay there and watched the hypnotic pattern, waiting through what seemed to be the longest night of her life.

It was very quiet, and after a while she lifted her hand and let it drop on the keyboard, bringing the screen to life and exposing the network map she'd placed there. The lines leading into Miami were still mostly dark, and she felt a moment of intense shame as she hoped they stayed that way.

Not for Kerry's sake. For her own, because if they didn't come up, the phone would ring, soon, and she'd grab her bag and head for the airport and home.

Home.

But as she watched, there was a flicker in the lines, a slow ripple that went from red, to yellow, to green as she blinked and sat up, leaning forward to stare at it. The lights steadied and held, pulsing a healthy color that reflected brightly against the dark background.

She did it. A burst of pride drove aside the gloom, and despite it all, Dar found herself smiling. Unless the power came back but... She checked a gauge. No, the office was still on generator. She released a held breath into a whirlpool of mixed emotions. "Good girl."

The phone rang. Dar looked at the caller id for a long moment before she answered it, cradling the phone next to her ear. "Hey."

A long, long, long sigh. "It worked." Kerry sounded lightheaded with relief. "Oh, my god, Dar. It worked. It worked. We're up."

Shoving aside her own ridiculous disappointment, Dar determined herself to rise to the occasion. "I knew you'd do it," she said. "Tell me how it went."

"Hang on, let me sit down." Kerry was almost out of breath. There was the sound of a car door shutting, then a brief rumble of an engine starting. "Oh god. Sorry. Had to get the AC on in here. I'm dying in this goddamned heat."

Dar closed her eyes and just drank in the voice. "Must be like hell."

"Oh, honey...where do I start." Kerry sighed. "Shit, I have such a headache."

Dar's fingers twitched in pure reflex, a testament to her natural inclination to answer the comment with a gentle knead of Kerry's neck. "You take anything?"

Another sigh. "I want to eat first. Otherwise it gets me sick."

"You haven't had dinner?" Dar checked the clock.

"I didn't have lunch," Kerry admitted. "Just some of my bars. Anyway...they fought me tooth and nail, Dar. No way did they want me to do this, because everyone's up their butts wanting favors and screaming at them."

"I'm sure they were." Dar said. "Where are you now?"

"Outside the central office. Mark and the guys are cleaning up. We're leaving two techs here to keep filling the gas tanks."

Dar opened her PDA and tapped out a message, hitting send quickly. "Good idea."

"Thanks," Kerry said. "We kept running into obstacles, but everything worked out. I got the generators hooked up together, and we were just going to start the power..."

"Hooked them up together?"

"Yeah. I got a gizmo, a thing that let me connect all of them. A load balancer. You know...I mean, you must know because you told me to get a bunch of generators, but I didn't think about how to make them work together and I guess you assumed we'd know so..."

Dar's eyes widened. "Shit." She exhaled. "I didn't even think of that, Ker. I just figured you might need more than one in case our stuff was on more than one switch."

Kerry was silent for a little bit. "Oh," she finally said. "Wow. Well, no...I got this thing to make them all work together, so we didn't have to take the lines down to refill the gas or anything like that."

"Go on."

"So then I had to figure out how to keep the switch cool." Kerry said. "I put some air conditioning duct from the switch out the door to the truck we rented...it had AC in the back."

Dar rested her chin on her fist, a genuine smile appearing on her face. "Uh huh."

Kerry cleared her throat. "So it was going great. Then the reporters showed up." She let out an aggravated breath. "Dar, they treated us like a bunch of squirmy hooligans. Like I was cheating or something to get what I wanted."

"Sweetheart, you were," Dar told her. "But it's okay. It's what you get paid for."

"That's what I told her," Kerry said. "She went away, but I think she's coming back. Anyway, I got it all going, and plugged the switch in, and we all sort of just held our breath."

"And it worked."

"It worked."

"Kerry?"

"Mm?"

"Outstanding job. You went over and above, and I really appreciate that. Well done. Very well done," Dar said, meaning every word.

Kerry exhaled, and there was a soft sound as though she'd let her head rest against the glass window. "Thanks, boss," she replied simply.

They were both quiet for a little while. Then Dar shifted the phone from one ear to the other. "I'm damn proud of you."

A faint sniffle traveled down the cellular link. "Even though it meant you didn't get to come riding to the rescue?" Kerry asked, making a wan joke.

"Yeah."

Kerry made a small sound of contentment, but then she sighed again. "Know something?"

"What?"

"I was just thinking about something you once said to me. About how you felt when you got promoted, that time? And how you just went back home and it was like..."

"It ended up not meaning much, yeah," Dar said. "What brought that up?"

"Uuugh. Because I just was sitting here thinking that after all this, after this crappy, disgusting, horrible day--all I have to go home to is a dark, hot house and an empty bed."

Dar was caught speechless.

"I want a hug," Kerry uttered. "I want you."

Dar swallowed, hearing a note in Kerry's voice she knew meant her partner was very close to tears. "Ker."

A pause. "Sorry," Kerry whispered huskily. "I'm just on overload right now. The stupid guy from CNN called me in the middle of this and I told him off. My phone wouldn't stop ringing."

"I love you," Dar said the only thing she reasonably expected to make her partner feel better. "I wish I was in that car right next to you right now."

Kerry was quiet for a minute, then she exhaled. "I want to be jazzed about what I just did, but you know, Dar...I don't know. I hope it was worth it."

"It was," Dar said, in a positive tone. "I'm sure everyone back at the office is cheering your name right now."

"Hm." Then there was a rustle, and the sound of the car window opening. "Hang on, sweetie." The sound of wind rushed in. "Hey, Mark...oh...oh, yeah, um...that would be great...yeah. Thanks! How...oh, that smells great. Thank you."

Dar smiled faintly at her distorted reflection in the laptop screen. She waited for the sound of the outside to vanish as Kerry rolled up the window again, and heard the rustling of paper bags on the other side of the line.

"Did you have something to do with this, Paladar?" Kerry's voice sounded more normal.

"Me?" Dar inquired. "I'm sitting here in New York. What makes you think I had anything to do with having your dinner delivered?"

A very soft, knowing chuckle answered her. "The fact that my Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich has no lettuce, and extra cheese on it, the frosty is large, and the baked potato has no bacon bits. Mark maybe could guess number two, but the other ones had your little fingerprints alllll over them."

Dar flexed her hand in front of her eyes, studying her fingerprints. Then she let her arm drop to the bed again. "Least I could do," she conceded. "Since I'm not there to do it myself."

"Wish you were." Kerry's voice was muffled as she chewed. "I can admit that now, since this crappy thing is over."

"Wish I was too," Dar echoed softly.

Kerry swallowed, and cleared her throat a little. "Are you okay?" she asked, in a gentle voice. "You sound really down."

Was she? Dar stared at the screen, with its winking green lights. "Yeah, I'm all right," she answered, after a brief pause. "Worried about you all night, that's all."

"Mm."

"Least I have good news for the international board call in half an hour." Dar made an effort to inject some normality into her tone.

"Call? I didn't know you had one," Kerry said.

"Yeah, I forgot too. Alastair reminded me," Dar admitted. "It's on my schedule...woulda binged me anyway. Give me something to do now that the crisis is over."

Kerry seemed to absorb this in silence for a few heartbeats, chewing on her chicken sandwich in a thoughtfulness almost tangible through the phone. "Want some of my frosty?"

Dar chuckled.

"Want me to get on a plane and come to New York?" Kerry asked. "Not for business. Just to keep you company and get my hug?"

"You really have to ask?" Dar responded wistfully. "You know I'd love it. But you've got that damn bid, Ker. This won't take me more than a day or so to straighten out. Then I'll be back and you'll get your hug."

"Mm," Kerry grunted unhappily. "Hell with them," she said. "Oh, crap. I was right. Here come those damn reporters again."

"Ouch."

"You think they'll just stay there filming me if I eat my dinner inside the truck and refuse to open the door?"

Dar smiled. "Worth a try, sweetheart," she said. "Guess I can go order room service now too."

"Bad Dar."

"Bad Kerry," Dar responded promptly. "Two of a kind."

Kerry laughed suddenly, a light, joyful sound that made Dar's tense neck muscles relax in an instant. "Oh, what a compliment that is. Okay, love of my life...let me let you go get dinner, and I'll try not to strangle these reporters. Call you later?"

"Sure," Dar agreed. "I'll let you know what the board had to say about my genius VP Ops."

"Love you."

"Love you too. Later." Dar closed the phone, feeling better than she had all night.

Good enough to make her get up and go to the desk, sitting down and flipping open the room service menu with renewed interest.

KERRY TOOK HER time finishing her dinner. She hated wolfing her food, and the cool air and warm leather settled her body down into something approaching comfort. The reporter was hovering outside, and she realized quickly after he'd arrived that it wasn't the local woman she'd first spoken to.

Instead, she recognized the Tech TV reporter who'd been retained by Michelle and Shari and, frankly, Kerry was in a mood to keep him waiting well into the next century if the occasion called for it.

Her techs were sitting in the back of the rental truck munching their own dinners, with a hastily rigged light dangling over their heads plugged into her gizmo along with the power to the telecom gear.

Kerry eased the seat back a notch and propped her knee up against the door, picking up a square of neatly cut potato skin and taking a bite of it. It tasted of sour cream and cheese and love, a little salty and a touch sweet, this fast food manifestation of Dar's care for her.

Totally insignificant in substance, and yet that quiet thoughtfulness meant everything to her. Between that, and the words of praise Dar had showered over her, Kerry found herself well able to push aside the aggravations of the day, and watch the anxious pacing of the Tech TV reporter with a sense of contented amusement.