Storm Surge - Part 2 (23 page)

Dar looked at her, then looked to either side at the inside of the grubby, dingy workspace. Then she held up one finger and turned back

around, careful to edge away from the copper panel.

"That meant for me, or them?" Kerry asked.

Dar turned back around, one eyebrow hiked all the way up.

"Just checking." Kerry smiled.

"Tell them to kiss my ass." Dar went back to her task.

Kerry gave her a fond look. "Alastair, she's trying to read a circuit tag in a dark room that looks like a medieval torture chamber, and not be electrocuted at the same time. Can they wait a few minutes?"

She half turned and spoke into the phone. "I don't want to rush her.She'd look really strange with curly hair." She waited. "Okay, that's what I figured. I'll call you when we're out of here. Bye."

She closed the phone. "Well."

"23T234X6RZ45R," Dar replied.

Mark scribbled on the back of his hand. "I'm pretty sure that's ours, Dar. It's the right sequence."

"Me too," Dar agreed, pulling her hand back from the box and letting the top close over it. "Glad we found it, but I have no clue in the world how we're going to get the damn cable into this room. I don't think we can cross the shopping center with it."

She backed slowly out of the gap between the iron works and the live electrical panel and joined Kerry near the sloping back of the room.Now that her eyes had grown used to the gloom, Dar looked around at the space and studied the structure.

There was an old iron chute that cut off at the edge of a newer looking wall, and she walked over to peer at it, rubbing her thumb along a set of hammered letters. "Castle Coal," she said. "I don't get it. What's a coal thing doing in the middle of a modern building?"

Mark turned around. "These are steam pipes." He pointed. "We don't really have steam upstairs, do we?"

They all looked at each other, then both Mark and Dar looked at Kerry.

"Don't ask me." Kerry held her hand up. "I assumed we had central air and heat in the building. We never used coal in Michigan. You signed the lease, Dar. Did it mention steam? Scuzzy said there were steam pipes, but sheesh."

"Hell if I remember." Dar shrugged. "Doesn't really matter I guess.Now that we found it, let's go back to the rest of the group and see about a path. We probably need the building management involved."

"Should I get them to bring a router and a fiber hub here?" Mark asked."We're gonna need to split the signal but--" He looked around. "Wonder if they've even got an outlet for power." He flashed his light around the walls and looked under a few of the boxes. "Crap."

"Can we get an electrician to--well, what am I saying? We'd have to contract Methuselah for that electrical panel. Maybe he's free." Kerry started making her way toward the entrance, scribbling herself a note."Worse comes to worse, Dar, we can run a power cable in too. This isn't going to be pretty no matter how we do it."

Mark climbed up into another section ducking under the iron supports as he peered along the underside of a large pipe. "Lemme see if I can find something here. Running cable is gonna suck."

Dar leaned her elbows on Kerry's shoulders and whispered into her ear."How could it possibly be anything but pretty if you do it?"

Aw. Kerry had to smile, despite the surroundings. "Flattery will get you anything you want, you know that?"

Dar chuckled. She felt Kerry's body lean back a little against her, and she savored the moment, nibbling on the edge of her ear . "Did you really think I was flipping you off?"

"No." Kerry tilted her head back and gave Dar a kiss on her jawbone. "I'm just glad I'm here with you and I felt like messing with you a little," she admitted. "This is so insane. What are we doing here?"

"C'mon." Dar bumped her gently. "Let's go see what other bad news awaits us." She put her hands on Kerry's shoulders and steered her toward the door. They had left it open, and the light from outside seemed an odd contrast to the dank, dark, interior of the old closet they were poking around in.

The tangle of pipes and iron bars made their progress slow, but they climbed up the steel steps and onto the platform that held the door just as Mark crawled back out from under an ancient console, his jumpsuit now liberally covered in grunge.

"Anything?" Kerry asked.

"Maybe," Mark said. "But I think the outlet's older than I am. Scary." He dusted himself off as they emerged from the room, blinking a little in the light. The building superintendant was leaning against the opposite wall, and he pushed off to come meet them as Mark pushed the door closed.

"Seen enough?" The man asked.

"We found what we were looking for, yes," Kerry said. "Now we have to find a way to get to it. Do you have a building electrician? We need some work done."

The man stared at her. "Work done? Lady you seen that room? No one does no work in there."

"They put our circuit in there. That's work." Kerry's nape hairs bristled. "Though I'm going to have a word with the management here as to why that happened."

The man held his hands up. "That's not my area," he said. "You want the electrician? I'll call him. He can tell you himself," he said. "You want to wait here? I'll have him come down." He didn't wait for Kerry to nod before he picked up his radio and started speaking into it, turning away from them and lowering his voice. Then with a glance at them, he walked away, heading for a door in the back of the hall.

"I'm going to go grab a router and see what mounting stuff we have," Mark said. "I'll come back here and wait for the electrical guy if you want to go see what's going on."

"Sounds like a plan," Dar said. "Thanks Mark."

"No prob." He trotted off toward the stairs, leaving Dar and Kerry behind.

"You want me to tell Alastair you can talk to the press now?" Kerry asked.

"No," Dar replied placidly. "That's not part of my job. That's part of his job. He's got Hamilton with him, and the entire New York office publicity machine with him, and I've got better things to do."

"All righty," Kerry said. "But honey, even though I love you more than anything on earth, you're going to be the one to tell him that, okay?"

Her partner chuckled wryly.

Dar's phone rang again. Kerry promptly handed it over to her.

Dar took it. "Hello," she answered briefly after glancing at the caller ID.
Not him
She mouthed at Kerry. "Yes, this is Dar Roberts. Who is this?" She paused, folding her free arm across her body and resting her elbow on her fist. "Okay, bu--oh, all right. Okay." She nodded. "So what's the issue?"

Kerry half listened and half watched their surroundings. There were a lot of people walking around, but they all seemed distracted, and the stores she could see had workers in the doorways, mostly standing and watching the passersby.

"So they're fighting over that? What the hell do you want me to do?" Dar asked. "What makes you think that?"

Kerry spotted their team coming out from the entrance to the subway. She waved at them, catching Scuzzy's eye and smiling as they changed direction to come over to where she and Dar were standing."Here's the rest of the gang, hon."

"I think that's a crock of bullshit," Dar said. "I'll head over there, but only because I want to see the data path. If you're still there wasting time then I'll see you, but I hope you get your head out of your ass and get working before then."

Kerry patted her partner's hip. "Easy, tiger."

Dar closed the phone abruptly and clipped it back on her pocket as the rest of the crew arrived. "Jackasses," she muttered. "Did you find a route?" She asked the gang.

"We found a lot of mad people," Shaun said. "Boy, people get pissed off when you ask dumb questions in the subway around here. They even got mad at her." He indicated Scuzzy, who nodded.

"Okay. Well, I'd like to ride from here back to where they have to drop the line into the tunnels," Dar said. "They've got some kind of hangup somewhere up there about the cable they want to talk to me about."

"What kind of trouble were they giving you, Shaun?" Kerry asked. "What were you guys asking?"

"Just where the tunnels met and stuff like that. You'd have thought we were asking for the president's fax number," Shaun said. "They're just freaking tunnels. What did they think we were going to do, set a bomb off in them?"

Everyone fell silent after he finished talking, looking at each other awkwardly as the words penetrated.

"Well, ya know--" Scuzzy murmured.

"They might have thought just that." Dar finished, quietly. "Let's go folks. We found the drop and Mark's going to work on getting our end of this set up. We might as well find out how far they've gotten before he goes to too much trouble."

"We can take the six," Scuzzy said. "I'm sure they're up past Brooklyn Bridge station already. We can walk, or take the 8th Ave up to the 53rd."

Dar eyed her. "You pick. None of the rest of us know what the hell you're talking about." She added, "But since the cable's probably going to have to come from underground, we should go the same route."

"You got it." Scuzzy turned and motioned them back the way they'd come. "Let's get a move on, people. We got trains to catch."

Chapter Ten

"ANYTHING?" DAR PEERED out the door to the subway train that was idling briefly in the station. "See anything, Scuzzy?" She glanced at her watch, uncomfortably aware of the rapid passage of time."This is nuts."

"Not a damn thing." Scuzzy scratched her chin, as she hopped quickly back into the train. "Where the hell are these guys? I thought for sure they'd be at least halfway up to the place by now."

"You and me both." Dar ran her fingers through her hair. "I don't get it. They were all fired up to get this done after that meeting."

"Maybe they got a problem."Scuzzy looked apologetic. "Them guys ain't bad, mostly. They were pretty spooked after that guy got in trouble. My uncle said all of 'em were talking about it. Nobody wants that sorta trouble, you know?"

"Mm." Dar gripped the bars of the train rocking back and forth against them as though her body motion could make the car move with it. She went to the door again and looked out, squinting into the darkness as she peered into the tunnel. "Damn it."

They were in the first car of the train right behind the conductor's booth Kerry was sitting in one of the seats with her cell phone pressed to her ear and her free hand cupped over the other side of her head.

Dar glanced at her, then stepped back as the doors started to close."Ker? We're moving again."

"I feel it," Kerry muttered. "Okay, folks, I'm going to lose you again. I'll call you back." She closed the phone as the train rattled forward plunging from the fluorescent light of the station into the darkness of the tunnels again.

Dar sat down next to her and put a hand on her knee. "If this is driving you nuts, you can take off at the next station. Go back to the office and deal with Lansing there." She studied the frustrated expression on Kerry's face, watching the pale lashes flicker a little. "Okay?"

Kerry rested her elbows on her knees her phone clasped in her hands. "No," she said, after a moment. "I want to stay here."

"Sure?" Dar gave her kneecap a little scratch.

"Yeah. I 'm just saying the same thing over and over again. It's probably a good thing I keep having to get off the line before I start screaming."

"Ah." Dar leaned back extending her long legs across the floor of the car. She regarded the interior, then shook her head a trifle. "I can't believe I'm in one of these things and it's not freaking me out," she remarked."Last time I nearly chucked my guts up."

Kerry straightened up and sat back. "Relative levels of things to freak out about?" She suggested. "I know it would take a hell of a lot to freak me out right now, that's for sure."

Dar spread her arm out along the back of the seat behind Kerry, waiting until she felt the tense back relax against her touch. "So what's Lansing's problem? Can I help?" She rubbed the bottom of her thumb across the top of her partner's shoulder. "Someone I can yell at for you?"

A grudging smile appeared on Kerry's face. "Backups are taking too long. They're still pretty saturated across the northern links and they're running into issues finishing the drive mirroring."

"Are you kidding me?" Dar peered at her. "They're bitching about that?"

"It's causing problems with their autonomic scripts." Kerry tilted her head back to rest on Dar's arm. "Their production jobs aren't kicking off on time and it's throwing everyone off. I understand how frustrated they are, but damn it, Dar, its not like we're hanging out having Daquiris here."

Dar reflected on that. "I could use a Daquiri right now," she said. "Tell them to split the backup into two segments, and run them on alternate nights until we get a little more clear and I can spend some time working the metrics. We'll take the risk."

"I suggested that." Kerry watched Dar's profile. "That's what we were arguing about. When I call them back I'll tell them you said so,and that should end that conversation."

"You make me sound like such a pirate captain."

"Here's the next station." Scuzzy stood up. "They got to be here.This is the freaking last stop on this here train. It's Brooklyn Bridge!"

"Hold that thought." Kerry stood up as they pulled into the station and clipped her phone to her belt as Dar joined her and they both went to the door and peered out. The station was relatively quiet and, as they stepped out onto the platform, the rest of the passengers exited and headed for the stairwells further down.

Scuzzy had bounced out ahead of them, and she was near the very end of the platform, her head poked out into the tunnel as she shaded her eyes. "Okay, so here we are. Where the hell are these guys?"

Dar studied the tracks, not seeing any indication of new cable running through that would hint at the teams passing. "Kerry, get your buddy on the phone and find out where the hell these people are," she said, going over to the cracked Plexiglas covering a subway map and studying it. "If this is Brooklyn Bridge, we're almost back to where we started yesterday. What the hell have they been doing?"