"How can you tell?" Alastair lifted his own shade and peered out. "What in the hell is that?"
"The River of Grass," Dar said. "The Florida Everglades," she added. "In reality, one whomping big ass swamp."
"Ah."
The steward poked his head into the cabin. "We're about to land. Please stay in your seats until we do, and try to keep your seat belts fastened. It's not a lot of fun bouncing off the inside walls if we have to stop short."
Dar obediently clicked her seatbelt in place and tugged it snug. She was already looking forward to feeling the ground hit their tires. She flipped open her PDA, tapping it open to a new message and writing it as she heard the landing gear extend, and felt the distinctive motion as the plane moved from a nose down, to a nose up posture for landing.
"Ever wanted to learn to fly, Dar?" Alastair asked, suddenly. "One of these things?"
"No." Dar shook her head. "I'll stick to boats, thanks. You?"
"Have my pilot's license."
Dar stopped what she was doing and looked over at her boss, in real surprise. "You do?"
Alastair nodded. "Bunch of fellas and I went in on two of the little single engine putterbouts," he said. "It's a nice way to spend a Sunday, when you get tired of golf." He fastened his seat belt and folded his hands, letting them rest on one knee. "I buzzed the country club last time I flew and scared two ladies right into the lake. I'm living in fear they'll find out it was me."
Dar started laughing.
"All those years in the boardroom sure came in handy when the wife came telling me all about it." Her boss chuckled, glancing out the window as they approached the landing strip. "Well, here we go."
The plane slowed, its wings drifting to one side and the other as the edges slid down to cup the air. Outside the windows, clouds were replaced by buildings and trees, flashing by as they settled down through the atmosphere and lined up with the runway.
A shocking sound made both of them jump, and look, but it was only the Hornets breaking off and roaring past, their engines sounding like a brass thunder that rattled the interior of the cabin and made Dar's ears itch.
"Thanks for stopping by, fellas," Alastair remarked. "Good to see my tax dollars at work."
Dar finished her message and hit send, waiting until the wheels of the plane touched down with a thump and a bounce before she activated the PDA's comm link. Then she picked up her phone and opened it, dialing the first speed dial number on the list.
Home. She could almost feel the humidity and the smell of rain tinged hot air already.
KERRY BLINKED IN the thick dusty air, sucking in breath through a white mask that covered her mouth and nose. In front of her was a door hanging off its hinges, and half a wall. Past that was a mass of concrete and metal, fused into unrecognizable lumps with a scattering of cables drooping out of it.
"Shit," Mark exhaled, directing the beam of his flashlight into the wreckage.
"Well, that's a total loss," Kerry concluded. She folded her arms over her chest. "Someone just needs to confirm the inventory list for that room so I can have legal claim it against our insurance."
"I don't have nearly enough crap to replace this," Mark said. "There were at least ten racks of gear in there."
"It was just a fluke," another masked man said on her left side. "You see this corridor is pretty okay."
Kerry looked around. "I see." The hallway was broad and mostly silent, only a few ceiling panels and bits of concrete knocked out near where they were, and then nothing but long expanses of carpet and concrete walls further off. "So we were duplicating this on the other side, Danny, with a link between them?" She glanced at the man on her left.
"Yes, ma'am," Danny nodded. His arm was in a sling, but it was encased in a thick compression bandage rather than a cast. He was a fairly short man, with a gymnast's build and thick curly brown hair. "But there's nothing in it yet. Not even racks.
"Do we have runs in there from the distribution closets?" Mark asked. "They were really doing duplex? Not just runs from half to this room and half to that one with a crossover?"
Danny shook his head solemnly. "Runs from each distribution to each core room," he said "Ms. Roberts told them to, and you know whatever Ms. Roberts says--"
"Yes we know," Kerry and Mark said at the same time. "God bless Dar's forethought again." Kerry went on, with a sigh. "All right. Let's go over to the new room and get a list started." She turned and waited for Mark to precede her with his flashlight. "I'm not going to be able to count the favors I'm going to have to call in on this one, and we're nowhere near Manhattan yet."
"No shit." Mark shook his head. "I can start having everyone get their spare stuff ready to ship, but I heard from the office today they won't even let FedEx or UPS pick up."
Kerry thought about that. "Well, how do you make sure all those brown packages aren't bombs?"
"They want to blow up FedEx trucks?" Mark's brows knitted.
"Maybe they want to blow up FedEx trucks delivering last minute bouquets to Pro Player Stadium."
"Oh," Mark said. "Yeah."
Yeah. Kerry tried not to think about Dar, flying over the Atlantic in a potentially enticing to terrorist plane since it was coming so close to the U.S. She was sure the company had chartered the plane from someplace reputable, but after yesterday, anything could happen.
She didn't want anything to happen. "Just get down, and have a margarita," she muttered under her breath.
"Ma'am?" Danny leaned toward her. "Did you say something?"
"No, just clearing my throat." There was no power, and the smell of crushed concrete and burning debris brought back surprisingly strong memories of the hospital collapse. "How's the roll call doing, Danny?" Kerry asked to get her mind off that.
"We're still down three, ma'am," Danny said. "Ken Burrows, our lead punch down guy, his assistant Charlie, and Lee Chan, our WAN specialist." He wiped the dust out of his eyes with his free hand. "They were all in the section that took the hit, we think."
Kerry involuntarily glanced behind her, at the crushed room. Then she turned her head and looked resolutely ahead, picking her way carefully through the fallen ceiling debris. "And you said five people are in the hospital?"
"Yes, ma'am," Danny said. "We logged them in yellow, though. The other four we were missing turned up last night. Said they were helping people get out all day and didn't get a chance to get online," he explained. "It was really crazy here yesterday."
They moved through inner hallways, mostly empty, the air still and almost stale. Kerry felt sweat gathering under her shirt and she fought the urge to pull the mask off her face as she followed the group along one wall.
Everyone was pretty quiet. The masks muffled speech and the lack of power and air conditioning let them hear creaks and pops in the walls around them. Kerry felt anxious, and she walked a little faster even though they'd been told several times the building was safe.
Inside, it was hard to picture the destruction she'd faced on the outside of the building. The walls of the structure looked very much like some huge giant had taken a hatchet and whacked the top side of one of the five sections, cutting right through the concrete and exposing inner offices as it collapsed inward.
Chillingly bizarre. At the edge, you could see file cabinets. Chairs. The beige inevitability of computer monitors.
It felt so unreal. Just as it had when she'd been in the hospital collapse, the familiar turned strange and frightening, making her want to get past it, get out, and feel cool, fresh air again. She heard voices ahead, and she looked up and past Mark's shoulders to see a cluster of men in work clothes ahead at the junction of two hallways.