"Oo." Kerry muttered under her breath.

"You've got no right to say that!" Franklin stood up to him. "You didn't do anything either!"

Hamilton leaned closer. "Ya'll think we should take this opportunity to skedaddle?"'

"I dunno," Dar whispered back. "I think that's the guy who told Gerry to find me."

"That's enough," the older man said. "You folks, you IT people. Come with me." He gestured to Dar and company. "Franklin, I'd start packing. Take your hair brained schemes somewhere else."

Selecting the better part of valor, Dar led the way to the door, passing behind the older man and escaping out into the hallway with a sense of relief. Even if it was momentary, and she was about to dive from the pan into the fire.

"Absolute disaster." The older man slammed the door and turned to them. "Michael Bridges, advisor to the President," he said. "Where the hell have you people been? We expected you last night."

Dar studied him. "Long story," she said. "You want to hear it, or just get down to business?"

Bridges studied her in return. Then he snorted a little. "Let's go." He pointed down the hallway. They walked along, moving from side to side to avoid the throngs of busy people who seemed to be going in every direction possible.

"So you're a friend of Easton's, eh?" Bridges asked.

"Family friend, yes," Dar agreed. "This is my vice president of operations, Kerrison Stuart, by the way, and our senior corporate legal council, Hamilton Baird."

Bridges spared them a bare glance. "Had to bring a lawyer with you? I told Easton I only wanted you here. Bastard."

"Mamma always called me a son of a bitch, matter of fact." Hamilton smiled at him. "But thanks for the compliment."

"Meant Easton." The older man frowned at him. "Don't get all smartass with me."

"Based on the conversation in that room, I don't intend on going to the bathroom here without a lawyer." Dar interjected, suspecting their legal council was about to get downright Cajun on the man. "I've had people from the government asking me to break contracts and break laws for two days."

"Hmph." Bridges indicated a door, and shoved his way through it scattering secretaries on the other side like birds before a cat. "Move it! Get that damn conference room cleared!"

Dar paused before she entered the room, letting her eyes flick over it and noting the smoked glass panels in the ceiling. In the center of the room was a large, oval wooden conference table, with comfortable leather chairs surrounding it.

In the back of the room was a mahogany credenza, looking completely out of place against the lighter wood of the conference table, and the cream leather of the chairs. It had doors in it that were flung back to reveal a large screen television, and playing on the screen, unsurprisingly, was CNN.

Dar wondered, briefly, if most of the government didn't get their information from the same place its citizens did. "All hail Ted Turner."

"What was that?" Bridges got to the head of the table and dropped into the seat there, conspicuously larger and more comfortable looking than the rest. He was dressed in a pair of pleated slacks and had a white button down shirt on, but the sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loose enough to reveal an open top neck button. "Sit. Margerie, close the damn door."

One of the secretaries looked inside and nodded, then shut the door behind her. It blocked out most of the noise in the office, but not all of it.

"All right." Bridges leaned on his forearms. He was probably in his sixties, and had a long, lined face with thick gray eyebrows and light hazel eyes. "I'm not sure if you people know how the government works."

Kerry held her hand up. "I have some idea," she remarked, in a quiet tone. "But you know, Mr. Bridges, I don't think this situation has anything to do with how the government works," she went on. "Mr. Franklin told us the rule book got thrown out the window. Is that true?"

Bridges looked at Dar, then at Hamilton, then he studied Kerry. "Where the hell do I know you from?" He asked, instead of answering the question. "You look familiar."

"Thanksgivings at my parent's house," Kerry replied. "We didn't sit at the same table though."

Bridges blinked then his brows knit. "Oh, son of a bitch. You're Roger's kid, aren't you?" He asked sounding surprised. "What in the hell are you doing here? Ah, never mind." He turned back to Dar. "We're wasting time. Here's the deal."

Kerry settled back in her seat, lacing her fingers together. She remembered Bridges, all right. A mover and shaker that even her father had respected, rude and brash to her mother, a most unwelcome guest.

Not someone she'd really wanted to get involved with.

"I imagine you know all about the damage to all that technical stuff in New York," Bridges said. "That's all your company's business."

"Not exactly," Hamilton broke in. "Just want to get that cleared up. That ain't all ours."

"That's right," Dar agreed. "We do have some customers affected there, but most of the business infrastructure there isn't ours."

"You finished talking?" Bridges asked. "Yes? Good." He leaned on his forearms again. "I don't give a damn if it was yours or Martha Stewarts to begin with. The problem is it's broke."

Dar shrugged, and nodded. "It's broken," she agreed. "What does that have to do with us?"

"Well, I'll tell you," Bridges said. "I called all those bastard phone company people into this office, and they all told me the same thing. Sure, they can fix it, but it's going to take time." He studied Dar's face intently. "They gave me all kinds of BS excuses why. Now--" He held up a hand as Dar started to speak. "I'm not an idiot. I know two goddamn buildings at least fell on top of all that stuff. Don't bother saying it."

Dar subsided, then lifted both her hands and let them drop. "Okay. So they told you it would take time to fix. It will. They're not lying about that."

"I know," the president's advisor said. "The issue is it can't."

Kerry rubbed her temples. "Mr. Bridges, that's like saying the sun can't rise tomorrow because it would be inconvenient. There's a physical truth to this. It takes time to build rooms, and run wires, and make things work."

"I know," Bridges said. "But the fact is it can't take time. I have to open the markets on Monday. That stuff has to work by Sunday so those idiot bankers can test everything. We have to do it, Ms. Roberts. I'm not being an asshole for no purpose here. If we don't restore confidence in the financial system, we stand to lose a hell of a lot more than a couple hundred stories of office space housed in ugly architecture."

There was a small silence after that. Bridges voice faded off into faint echoes. Dar tapped her thumbs together and pondered, reading through the lines and in between his gruff tones and seeing a truth there she understood.

Alastair had understood, immediately. There was a lot at stake.

"Why me?" Dar asked, after a long moment. "You had all the Telco's in here. It's their gear. It's their pipe. It's their equipment. They have to do the work. What the hell do you want from me in all this? I don't have a damn magic wand."

"Ah." Bridges pursed his lips. "Well, fair enough.

You're right. It's not your stuff. Your company has nothing to do with the whole thing, other than being a customer of those guys who were in here. But the fact of the matter is, when I squeezed their balls hard enough, what popped out of the guys from AT&T was that if I wanted this done in that amount of time, come see you."

"Me." Dar started laughing. "Oh shit. Give me a break."

Hamilton had his chin resting on one hand, and he was simply watching and listening, the faintest of twitches at the corners of his lips.

"Why is that, Ms. Roberts?" Bridges asked. "I don't really know who the hell you are, or what your company does, except that it keeps coming up in the oddest conversations around here about who knew what when and how people who work for you keep showing up in the right places with the right stuff."

"Well now," Hamilton spoke up for the first time. "What old Dar here's going to say is she's damned if she knows why, but fact is, I do," he drawled. "It's in our portfolio, matter of fact. "

"Hamilton." Dar eyed him. "Shut up."

"Dar, you know I love you more than my luggage." The lawyer chuckled. "Mr. Bridges." He turned to the advisor. "Those gentlemen from our old friends American Telegraph and Telephone told you that because they know from experience standing in front of hurricane Dar here is one way to get your shorts blown right off your body and get strangled by them." He ignored Dar's murderous look. "She just doesn't take no for an answer."

Bridges got up and went to the credenza, removing a pitcher and pouring himself a glass from it. "I see." He turned. "Is that true, Ms. Roberts?"

Dar drummed her fingers on the table. "When it suits my goals, yes," she said, finally. "I've been known to be somewhat persistent."

Kerry covered her eyes with one hand, biting the inside of her lip hard to keep from laughing. She could sense Dar peeking over at her and worked hard to regain her composure.

"All right." Bridges sat back down. "So. What's it going to cost me then? I won't waste my time appealing to your patriotism."

Dar was silent for a long moment again. "You could," she said, looking him right in the eye. "Appeal to my patriotism. What makes you think I don't have any?"

"Just a hunch," Bridges said. "You don't seem the type."