Storm Surge - Part 2 (31 page)

"I can understand that," Alastair said. "But the fact is I'm not the fella who's going to fix your problem, so I don't really see what the harm is in my answering questions about our community relations group." He added, "it's not as if my being interviewed is stopping anyone from working."

"That isn't the point." The man stood. "All I am hearing about is how you're helping the government, helping the rescuers. I hate to be crass, but what about us?" He pointed at himself, then at the rest of the people who apparently were content to let him speak for them. "When do we get help?"

"Well--"

"Come on, McLean," the man said. "You've been here for days. It was all over the news. When do we get some attention? Or are you all about the publicity and kissing the governor's ass?"

Alastair looked over at Dar. "Wanna give me a hand here?"

The tableful of people turned and looked over at her.

"I could undress and pose on the table." Dar suggested. "That help any?"

Alastair had the grace to look scandalized. "Dar." He sighed, missing the sudden reactions to the name from the rest of the table. "It's not funny."

"I wasn't joking." Dar shifted and rested her weight on her elbows. "Listen," she addressed the customers, "if there was something we could do to fix everyone's issues, don't you think we would be doing it?You think we like being in this room getting yelled at?"

"But what about what you're doing for the government?" One of the other men spoke up. "Why can't you do that for us? My business is on the line between the closed zone, and they told me I wouldn't have service for months. Months!"

"Because we haven't done that much for the government," Dar replied"Who are, by the way, as much our customers as you are." She stood up and circled the table ending up next to Alastair. "Do you know how much damage was done around the area of the Towers? Do you know how much infrastructure, electrical, telecom, plumbing, you name it, was destroyed down there?"

"Of course," the man said. "I watch CNN same as you."

"Have you been down there?" Dar asked.

"They won't let us," the first man answered, frustration evident in his tone.

"Want my advice?" Dar sat down next to her boss. "Get your asses out of there. I've been in the area. Cut your losses. Find other space."

The men looked at her.

"I'm not kidding," Dar said. "If you want me to tell you I can put a satellite rig in there to get your systems up, and backhaul your traffic that way, I will. I can do that." She looked at each face in turn. "But if you want your business to survive, if you depend on walk in traffic, on people coming to you, then get out. "

"But--" the leader said, and then fell silent.

"Thousands of people died there," Alastair said quietly. "I was down in the area myself, along with Dar here--and by the way, sorry. My manners went out the window. This is our Chief Information Officer, Dar Roberts." He paused. "In case you didn't guess."

"I guessed." The man murmured.

"How are we supposed to just move?" the second man asked."Don't get me wrong, Ms. Roberts. You're not the first person who's told me that, but we've been there for twenty years! How do we leave our customers behind like that?"

"Some of them will be moving too," Dar said. "It's a matter of survival." She looked at them with some sympathy. "Come up here. I'm sure Alastair can negotiate good rates here at the center for our valued customers. Right Alastair?"

Alastair's wry look said it all. "I'd be glad to work on that, absolutely. I know they've got some vacancies here, and we've got bargaining leverage with the management." He paused. "Let me know what kind of space you're looking for, and I'll do my best."

"That's crazy. I can't afford these rents," the second man said. "I don't think I can afford you now."

A silence fell after he finished talking, and the men on the other side of the table looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Well, matter of fact,I've been leaving messages here about that subject." The spokesman said. "Haven't gotten a call back. Is Bob in the office? I'd like to talk to him."

Alastair's jaw shut with a click and his nostrils flared. "Sorry," he said, in a clipped tone. "He's not in." He folded his hands, tension showing in his knuckles.

"Oh, well--" The man didn't seem to notice. "I guess I can talk to someone else about it. We need to defer your bills. I can't afford to pay when I'm not getting paid myself. Someone filling in for him?"

Alastair let out a careful breath. "Not yet."

"Well, he should at least put an out of office message on." The man went on, "if that's not too much to ask I--" His voice finally trailed off as he caught Dar's glare. "What?"

"Our sales team was in the towers during the attack." Dar reached over and put a hand on Alastair's shoulder. "Bob was there. He didn't make it."

The spokesman stared at them in shocked silence.

"I'm sorry," the woman next to him said. "We didn't know that."

"We're also missing some people." Dar responded quietly. "So if you're wondering, that's why we're here. We don't really give a rat's ass about the governor."

Alastair lifted his clasped hands and rested his head against them.

"Well hell," the spokesman muttered, after a pause. "Why didn't you say something? For Pete's sake people. Now I feel like a prize jackass."

Dar half shrugged. "You have a right to be here, asking us what you are asking us. You're our customers."

"Yeah, but..." The man exhaled. "Sorry. We're just so frustrated."

"So are we." Dar picked up the desk phone and dialed a number.

"This is Dar. Is Nan out there? Send her to the small conference room, please."

Now everyone looked uncomfortable, trying not to stare at Alastair's silent figure.

The door opened and Nan stuck her head in. "Ms. Roberts? You asked for --" She stopped, her eyes flicking from the customers to their CEO. "Is something wrong?"

"Could you please take these people to one of the reception areas? They need to discuss space requirements, maybe relocating to this area. See if Kerry can talk to them, get some details."

"Yes, ma'am." Nan responded instantly, opening the door the entire way. "Could you come with me please?"

The customers scrambled to their feet and headed quickly to the door."Thanks. We'll work it out," the spokesman muttered. They followed Nan out the door and she closed it behind them, leaving Dar and Alastair alone.

It was quiet for a few minutes. The air conditioning cycled on and off, and very far away, a siren was heard. Finally Alastair dropped his hands to the table and looked sideways at Dar, appearing as tired and as human as she'd ever seen him. "Sorry about that. "

"Don't be." Dar studied his face. "Kerry and I both lost it last night." She glanced away. "It's too damn much to keep dealing with."

Alastair sighed. "I want to do the right thing by everyone, but damned if I know what the right thing is right now." He tapped his thumbs on the desk. "That was a good idea, telling them to find other space by the way."

"They haven't been down there." Dar leaned back in her chair. "Or they'd have thought of it themselves."

A knock came at the door. Alastair sat back and hitched one knee up. "C'mon in."

The door opened, and the secretary poked her head in. "Sir, there's someone here to see you." She looked apologetic. "He's very insistent."

"Jesus." Alastair looked plaintively at the ceiling. "Sure. Bring him in. Dar, stick around, will ya?"

Dar merely kept her place, letting that be her answer as the door opened again and a tall man in dark khakis and a leather jacket entered. He crossed to the table and set down a briefcase leaning on the surface and looking right at Alastair.

Dar herself could have been a coffee machine in the corner for all the attention he gave her.

"McLean? My name is Jason Green. I work for the Department of Defense. I'm going to cut to the chase. Your people have been stonewalling me, and it's going to stop, right now. I want a list of your people in our facilities and I want it now."

"Why?" Alastair asked.

"What?"

"Why?" He repeated. "I know Hamilton's talked to you. You all have the information you need in your own systems. Why do you want mine?"

"You don't really need to know that," Green said.

'Sure I do." Alastair remained calm. "They're my employees, and I have a responsibility under the law to protect their information and their privacy."

"You don't get it do you?" Green sat down. "McLean, I'm not your enemy. I don't honestly want to be here jerking you around. You don't have a choice. You have no recourse. You can't ask me what I want this for because I've been given the authority to do whatever I need to do in order to get what I think is important."

"Regardless of the law?" Alastair asked.

"Law doesn't mean anything. You ever heard of martial law? We're in it. They just haven't announced it to the press." Green told him. "I could throw you in jail as a suspected terrorist and you'd spend years in some hole without contact with your family or anyone else. So do you and me a favor and just give me the damn list."

Alastair steepled his fingers and tapped the edges of his thumbs against his lips as he studied the man. Then he turned and glanced at Dar. "What do you think?"

Green turned, as though noticing Dar for the first time. His eyebrows rose.

Dar rested her hands on her knee. "I think if my father was here,he'd kill this guy." She remarked. "That's what I think."

"Who in the hell are you?" Green asked.

Dar ignored him pulling her laptop over. "But I'm not going to sit here and watch you get dragged off to some gulag on account of a database, Alastair." She opened the laptop. "I'll parse a file for them. They won't know what the hell to do with it. They won't be able to read the format, their program will spit out a pile of crap when it tries to ingest it and there's no information in there they don't already have, but what the hell." She rapidly logged in to the machine. "I'll give it to him and he can go weenie waggle somewhere else."

"Hmph." Alastair grunted. "Well, if you think that's a good idea--"

"Do you have something to put the file on?" Dar looked up at the man."Or do you want me to pour raw packets down your goddamned underwear?"

Green stared at her. "What?"

"Did you bring a portable hard drive?" Dar asked. "Or did you bring a truck to haul off the five hundred pounds of paper it'll take me to print out eighty thousand records?"

"W--"

"You came here and asked for something." Dar enunciated the words. "Do you have any idea in hell what it is you're even asking for?"

Green turned to Alastair. "I don't appreciate being spoken to in that way, McLean."

Alastair regarded him for a moment. "Too damned bad," he said."Answer the woman if you want your list. If not, hit the road. We're busy people."

The man sat back in his seat bracing his hands on the table. "Did you not listen to a word I said?"

"We did. We just don't care," Dar said bluntly. "All we've heard from you people since this whole damn thing happened is pointless demands and threats. You have no idea on the planet what to do with what you're asking for, and your people can't use the data I give you.

But what the hell. To get you out of here I'll go ahead and produce it,but you've got to cough up something to put it on or carry it away with, and do it fast."

"I'm sure you have something--" Green blurted, half standing."You can't expect me to--"

"No, I don't," Dar said. "We don't allow portable storage devices in our facilities. It's a security issue." She rattled some keys. "And these databases are protected by encryption, so I hope what you've got can handle it, not to mention interpret the structure. "

Green leaned on the table. "You're interfering with National Security." He spoke the words emphasizing the capital letters.

"I'm just telling you the truth." Dar stood up, stretching to her full height. "You want us to break the law? You threaten us with jail? You stand here and talk nothing but utter bullshit, you waste of my taxpayer dollars." She put her hands on her hips. "Who the hell do you work for?"

"Listen, lady."

Dar circled the table with surprising speed. "You listen, jackass." She let her voice lift as she closed in on her target, missing the widening of Alastair's eyes behind her. "Get your boss on the phone. I want to talk to him and tell him what a complete idiot he has working for him."

The man stood up. "You want to speak to my boss? All right. I'll arrange for that." He stepped back from the table and pushed the chair into place. "Don't go far." He turned and walked to the door, leaving and closing it with surprising gentleness.

Alastair rested his chin on his hand, his elbow propped on the table. "I think we just got ourselves in trouble, Paladar."

"You care?"

"Not really." Her boss shrugged. "Let me warn Ham. He's about ready to disown us anyhow. With any luck maybe I can get them to throw us all out of the city and we can take everyone out of here." He stood up and picked up the phone. "I'll warn the board they may need to post our bail too. That should start their morning off right."

Dar smiled briefly. "Let me go talk to my people. Call me if you need me." She headed for the door, as Alastair raised a hand and waggled it at her in farewell.

Not a good morning, at all.

"SEE, HERE'S THE deal." Mark was sitting on the floor with a thick loop of rope over his shoulder. "We figured we'd track back, and get a rope down to where those guys have to bring the cable so we can haul it when they get here."

"Like a giant pull string." Kerry was crouched next to him, a flashlight held in one hand.

"Yeah." Mark nodded. "Problem is we're kinda stuck getting out off this freaking room." He looked around the old, small space. "I don't know what the hell we're gonna do."

Kerry backed out of the room and looked across the floor toward the entrance to the subway. The space was filled with people crossing back and forth. "Well, with enough arm twisting we can run it across the floor I guess."