Hey. Mariana answered. Have you contacted Dar?

She was the one who called me and told me what was going on. Kerry typed back, aware of the chaos on the television across the room. She's fine; she's at the client site in England. Alastair's fine too.

Do you know if he got hold of the people in the NY office?

Kerry took a slow breath. No.

In her ear, she heard a soft chime. "Virtual conferencing coming online." She typed quickly. I'm going on the conference bridge, you joining? I don't really know what's going on but it's a good excuse to try the system out isn't it?

Mari's answer was wry even in written form. I'd

rather be doing shredder comparisons again.

"What the hell was the point of this?" Mike asked. "How are they going to put those fires out anyway, drag hoses up a hundred floors?"

"I guess," Angie said. "I don't think there are ladders that reach that far."

"Okay," Kerry said into her microphone. "I'm opening the bridge, this is Kerry Stuart. "

Cracklings and murmurs answered her. "Houston ops here." "Lansing." "Charlotte." "Los Angeles Earth Station."

Slowly, a map built in front of her, stretching out from one side of the screen to the other, an outline of the world with the United States in the center and circles of light that indicated all their major offices, installations, infrastructure and service centers.

"Kuala Lumpur calling in." The acknowledgements continued. "Dubai." "Sydney's on."

"Miami Ops on," Mark's voice echoed softly. "Kerry, I'm inserting the news crawler into the global desktop."

"Thanks." Kerry saw the ticker appear.

"Oh, there's the president," Angie said. "Kerry, look!"

Kerry glanced up at the television. The destruction had been replaced by their president with several aides standing in what appeared to be a schoolroom. "Where in the hell is he?"

"Florida," Mike said. "Some school."

"Great," Kerry muttered. "Like the air traffic isn't screwed up enough," she said. "Every time he visits I end up sitting at some gate for six hours."

"Kerry." Angie turned. "Maybe we'll find out what's going on."

"CNN's got the prez on," Mark commented. "See if the feed updates."

"Miami exec?"

Kerry turned back to the screen. "Kerry here."

"This is Danny Chambers, at the Joint Chief's office," a man's voice said, sounding stressed. "Ma'am, it's crazy here."

"I bet," Kerry murmured. "I'm sure everyone's upset."

"No ma'am, that's not it," Chambers said. "They think there's more out there. More hijacked planes! There are folks running up and down the hallways around here. No one knows where the planes are."

There was a moment of dead silence. Kerry stared at the blinking status lights in front of her, and then she looked over her screen to the television, where the president was talking.

"Hello? This is Sherren from the Manhattan office! Is anyone there?" A voice broke in. "Is anyone there? I can't find half our people, and there's sirens and smoke everywhere! They closed the bridges and tunnels and they're saying to evacuate Manhattan!"

Voices now burst in, startled and afraid. Kerry took a few deep breaths, and then she spoke up. "Okay, okay, people, please settle down," she said. "Let's not panic. I know it's really confusing out there, but a lot of things are getting said and we don't have all the facts."

"This is Michael Talmadge up at the air hub," a new voice spoke up. "Kerry, I have a landslide of requests for more voice and video bandwidth for the FAA and essential services. "

"You got it," Kerry said at once. "Whatever you need to link speed up there."

"This is Houston ops," another voice said. "We're getting reports of cell failures on the East Coast. The government support team here says they're seeing a lot of dropped calls."

"Everyone's using their phones," Mark said. "Can't handle it, probably what's going on in NY. I can't reach any of the staff there, only Sherren is on the VOIP conf."

"That's right," Sherren agreed immediately. "Most everyone who's here is outside, or up on the roof trying to see what's going on. Sirens are going off like crazy."

Kerry thought fast. "Mark, send an SMS blast to everyone in the New York node and tell them to evacuate north. I don't' know what's going on there either, but I think it's too dangerous where they are."

There was a blast of confused noise, overwhelming the call.

"What in the hell--" Mark said. "Kerry I got that and we're working it but half the damn--oh, crap! The secure Virginia nodes just went down!"

"Danny?" Kerry asked. "Danny, you still there?"

Silence.

"Oh wow!" Angie exclaimed. "Now they think a bomb went off in the capital!"

Kerry felt her breathing getting faster. She could see on her network grid that there were flashing yellow and red lines now where she was used to seeing sedate greens and blues, and they were centered around the three nodes they had that ringed the Pentagon military complex.

"Yeah look! What? Oh...crap!" Mike half stood. "I think--did it go off at the White House? Is that what they said?"

"Pentagon," Kerry corrected him. "I think something happened there." She keyed her mic back on. "Okay, Mark, get those SMS messages out to New York, and also to anyone in the area of DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Tell everyone to get the hell out of there and get under cover."

"Kerry," Mari's voice broke in. "They're telling us to evacuate here."

"There?" Kerry leaned closer to the screen. "Why?"

"Oh my god! They just said another plane is heading here!" Sherren screamed. "Oh my god!"

"They think--they're afraid there are more targets," Mari blurted out. "We're a tall building, in the glide path--the building management just called. They got a call from Metro Dade and they told them to get out. They're evacuating a lot of the buildings behind us."

Too many inputs. "Sherren, why don't you go ahead and log off, go home, and then either text us or login from there if you can, okay?" Kerry suggested. "Mark, did you get those texts off?"

"Done, boss."

"Okay, I'm getting out of this office," Sherren said. "How do I text? Oh, no, wait, I see here in my phone, it's the first address, right? At least I can use this for something! I can't get a line to anyone!"

"Kerry, I just heard from one of our techs. A plane plowed into the Pentagon," Mark said. "He's texting me like a crazy person. The damn thing came in almost at ground level and smacked into one side. He says it's on fire there, and walls are about to come down."

"Okay." Kerry considered. "Houston Ops, are you there?"

"Here, ma'am."

"Can you take all the monitoring from Miami ops?"

"We're setting up consoles now."

"Mari, go ahead and tell everyone to leave the building," Kerry said. "I honestly don't think Miami's a target, but who the hell knows, and it's better not to take a chance."

"You got it."

"Mark, see if the tech can find Danny," Kerry said. "Get a text blast out and see if we can get a count of people out there."

"Working it."

"This is Sufir in Dubai," a voice very quietly broke in. "I know there is not much that we can do, but we are all thinking about all of you there and wishing with all our hearts the danger stops quickly."

"Miami Financial," Duks' voice broke in. "Houston, please stand by we're syncing the accounting systems."

"Standing by," the Houston Ops tech said.

Kerry looked up at the television, aware that her sister and brother were half listening to it, and half to her as pictures continued to roll along the screen, more smoke, more screaming people, more destruction.

Where would it end?

What if it didn't?

"COFFEE?"

Dar glanced up from her screen to find a server there, standing with a tray of steaming cups. "Thank you." She accepted one, and set it down, nodding as the server placed a small dish with four sugar cubes next to it, and a container of cream.

Alastair was still sitting next to her, one hand cupped over his ear, the other pressed against his cell phone. The television was on and Hans, John, and Francois were seated at the nearby desks watching the screen with expressions of bewildered disbelief.

"All right, thanks." Alastair closed his phone and turned back to Dar. "So where are we?" He picked up a set of ear buds connected to the second jack on Dar's laptop and inserted one in his ear. "Kerry's doing a hell of a job."

Dar nodded.

"Never seen her work before. Very impressive."

Dar nodded again.

"Dar?"

She looked up at him. "Sorry," she murmured. "Aside from all our people, I'm worried about my friend Gerry Easton."

Alastair's face tensed. "Ah. That's right. He works at the Pentagon, doesn't he?" He studied the screen. "What a goddamned mess."

Dar reached over to drop three of the cubes into her coffee cup, stirring the liquid with the provided spoon before she added cream to it. "So many damn people unaccounted for."

Alastair sighed. "What do we have down in that area?"

"Mostly commercial," Dar said. "Closest net node is near Penn Station." She leaned closer to the screen, listening as voices now echoed again.

"Hello? Hello? This is Sherren again."

Kerry's voice answered. "Sherren? Did you get out of the office? Where are you?"

"I did, but you can't get anywhere," Sherren said. "I'm near Central Park though, at a Starbucks."