"True." Dar sighed. "Ah well, there's always Cuban coffee."

Alastair eyed her. "I heard about that the last time I was in the office here. What exactly is it?"

Dar settled back in her chair. "Strong espresso coffee, essentially, not that different from Italian but when they make it right, they take a pyrex mixing cup, put a half pound of sugar in it, and a half cup of the coffee then they whip it in to a froth, before they put the rest of the coffee in, mix it, and there you go."

Her boss's eyebrows knitted. "Are you telling me it's coffee and sugar one to one? Half and half?"

Dar nodded.

"And you actually drink that?"

Dar nodded again. "I like it," she said. "You can also mix hot milk with it, and then it's café con leche."

Alastair covered his eyes with one hand. "When was the last time you had your blood pressure checked?"

"One ten over sixty six." she replied, her eyes twinkling a little.

"Disgusting."

Dar chuckled. "Stress does more to you than coffee,"she said. "Best thing I did for my health in the last couple of years was get an assistant." She held up a hand as Alastair started to laugh. "Ah ah--not a joke. Aside from everything else."

"I told you for years to get an assistant. "Alastair shook his finger at her.

"I couldn't," Dar said, swallowing a few times as the air pressure started to increase. "Everyone I interviewed either drove me crazy, or was out to knife me in the back. Do you know how many of them were brought in by other people inside the company?"

Alastair sighed. "Yeah, I'm glad those days are behind us," he admitted. "But you're not going to BS me and tell me the only reason you hired Kerry was her business skills."

Dar was silent for a few minutes. Then she turned and regarded Alastair. "The only reason I hired her as my assistant was her business skills," she said. "I wasn't about to screw either of us over by putting her in a spot where she'd end up looking like a jackass."

"Really?"

"Really," Dar said. "Oh, I won't say I wouldn't have brought her in to some other position. I liked her. I knew we were attracted to each other. I knew there wasn't much else she could do in that pissant little company she was in."

"Uh huh."

"But she had brains, and the guts to stand up to me. I could tell by how she kept changing her game depending on what I threw at her that she'd be able to step in and handle us at an executive level in ops." Dar rested her elbows on her chair arms and laced her fingers together. "And I was right."

"You sure were," Alastair agreed cheerfully. "She does a damn fine job. If that wasn't true, your ass would still be back in London on the conference call because I wouldn't have risked having you in the air with me for this whole time."

Dar nodded. "Yep."

"And it was a good opportunity for her. I'm sure she appreciated that," he went on. "Seems like she has ambition. I'm not surprised she jumped at the offer."

All very true. Dar acknowledged. "I'm just glad she did." She rubbed the edge of her thumb against the cool band of her ring. She swallowed again, and leaned over to pull the shade up. The Hornet was no longer visible outside, but the ground was, and she smiled as she recognized the very familiar outlines of the Everglades passing under the wings. "Landing from the west."

"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?"