"Whooho." Dar laughed. "Score!" She lifted her hand and Alastair smacked it with his own, surprising the crew.
"How you get your affairs in order after that isn't my concern," the commander said. "But it's a nice long drive to Texas. So have a great day."
"Well. How do you like that?" Alastair chuckled. "First time I had someone's sand up their ass work to my favor. "If that's what your decision is, Commander, then we'll have to take it," he said, mildly. "It sure is a long drive from there to Texas."
The radio clicked off with a snitty hiss, and Alastair handed the mic back to the navigator. "Well, gentlemen, after all that crap in a hand basket I think we ended up winning that round."
"You didn't want to go to Texas?" the co pilot half turned. "I don't get it."
"Well," Dar said. "Houston is where our main offices are, and where Alastair here lives," she said. "On the other hand, Miami is where our main operations center is, and where I live, and we both need to end up in Washington and New York so this guy just did us a big favor trying to screw us over."
"Yep." Alastair nodded. "Be sorry not to see the wife and the kids, but this cuts what, two days travel for you?" He nodded. "That cloud sure had a silver lining. Maybe by the time we sort things out we can get a flight up from your friend the General."
"Otherwise I'll go pick up my truck at the airport and we can drive," Dar said. "But that gives us a lot more options. You can even stay in the Miami office and run things if you want, while I head up."
Alastair nodded. "So, sirs, please do what the nice men want and land us in Miami." He chuckled. "Bea's gonna kill me after all the arrangements she had to make."
The pilot nodded in relief. "You got it," he said. "Get us out of the air faster, we don't have to fly around a storm, and if we're all still grounded I get a layover on South Beach. Doesn't get any better than that." He looked at his co pilot. "You up for that Jon?"
The co pilot shook his head and laughed. "I'm up for that," he said. "Man, I thought this was really going to end up like crap." He looked back at Alastair. "You sure have brass ones, sir."
The older man chuckled. "Live as long as I have, you learn to figure out how much you can poke the stick at the bear, if you get my drift. Once that fellah knew who we--" He indicated Dar and himself, "were, I figured he knew better than to be serious about shooting us down."
"I don't know. He sounded pretty aggressive," the co pilot said. "We've heard from other pilots that the attitude is they've got carte blanche to do whatever they want in the name of national security."
"Someone still has to be accountable," Dar said.
"Do they?" the co pilot asked. "I sure hope they do. I've been on the wrong side of an INS officer in a bad mood. Almost cost me a paid flight."
The pilot half turned in his seat and addressed the navigator. "Egar, you okay with us landing there? I forgot to ask you."
The tall, slim man nodded. "I have family in Miami," he said. "I am very happy we're going there. It's good." He smiled. "I achieved my pilot's license at that airport. It's very nice."
Alastair stood up and waited for Dar to clear out of the way so he could exit the cockpit. "What a relief. No offense to your boating skills, Paladar, but I'm no yachtsman." He slapped Dar on the shoulder as they retreated back down the aisle to the passenger compartment. "Besides, fella was probably right. We'd have to end up buying the damn boat and then what? Be tough to explain a motor yacht on our inventory list."
Dar chuckled. "We could have auctioned it off." She was, however relieved. Much as she would have stepped up to sail an unfamiliar craft across what were sometimes very treacherous waters, she was damned glad she wasn't going to have that particular bluff called.
Silver lining. Absolutely. "We lucked out."
"Sure did," her boss agreed. "Well, sometimes we have to, y'know?" he added, as they resumed their seats. "Wish it hadn't gotten so nasty, though. I know the fella has a lot of issues he's contending with but my god."
Dar pushed her seat back. "They teach you to do that," she said. "Be a bastard, I mean. You try to overwhelm whoever your opponent is with loud, aggressive talk to knock them off balance and put them on the defensive."
"They teach you that in the military?" Alastair asked, in a quizzical tone. "I thought you never went through that."
"They teach you that in most of the negotiating and ninja management classes these days," Dar informed him dryly. "But a friend of ours, who's a cop in Miami, says taking the offensive when you're confronting someone is a well used tactic of theirs too."
"You use that, yourself," her boss commented.
"Sometimes," Dar admitted. "If someone knows you're going to be an asshole, they usually do what you want, faster. Like our vendors. They know if they don't do what I'm asking, I'll just keep going up their ladder and get louder and louder until they do."
"Like what I just did to that fellah."
Dar nodded. "That's why they like dealing with Kerry better." Her eyes twinkled a little. "She's got the best of both worlds. She gets to be nice, and they like her, and she's got me in her back pocket to threaten them with."
Alastair laughed. "Well, all in all, I guess I can forgive that guy. I know he must be dealing with a thousand different problems. I was just his most annoying one that minute." He folded his hands over his stomach. "He must be laughing his head off thinking about how he showed us though."
Dar suspected he was. Probably cursing about them, and telling everyone around him how he showed these damn jerks who was boss. Dar couldn't really blame him either, since they had asked for special treatment, and had threatened him with going up the chain, and in fact, were the jerky pain in the asses he actually considered them to be.
However, it had gotten them what they wanted, in a rather classic case of the end justifying the means. Dar checked her watch. So they'd end up in a few hours in Miami. Awesome. "I'll send him a note telling him how much he helped us out after this is all over," she said. "My body's so screwed up I can't figure out whether to take you out to breakfast or dinner when we get there though."
"Well, it'll be different than burritos in Mexico City." Alastair put his hands behind his head. "Wasn't looking forward to all that, or the drive to Houston."
Dar smiled at the ceiling, relaxing for the first time since she'd woken up. She was already looking forward to landing, her mind flipping ahead to the messages she'd need to send, and more importantly, how happy she knew Kerry would be to hear from her. "I'll have someone go to MIA and bring my car down." She decided. "Figure it'll take a while for them to get through the paperwork once we land."
"Take me a few minutes to call Bea and get everything squared away anyway," her boss said. "It's going to feel good to be back home."
Dar exhaled. "Sure is," she said. "Sure damn is."
KERRY SETTLED HER ear buds in and peered at her laptop screen. "Okay, Mark, did we get inventory availability from the vendors yet? I know you've got everything we had with you, but from what they're telling me here we lost the whole WAN room."
"They got," Mark said. "But they can't get it to us faster than a truck. The distributor's in California."
Kerry looked down at the pad on the desk. "Well, tell them to start driving," she said. "By my count here, rebuilding that will take most of the inventory on your truck, and we're not even started yet."
"Will do."
"Miami exec, this is the Air Hub."
Kerry blinked. "Go ahead Air Hub."
"We're hearing rumors that they might let some flights up tomorrow, ma'am," the voice answered. "Sorry we can't be more specific. It's pretty quiet here."
"Miami, hello? This is Sherren in New York. We've got good news! Six people just showed up here. I'm logging them in now!"