Alastair set his bag down on the box and pondered the menu. "Chili dog," he said. "Might as well hold up my end of the Texas stereotype."
"Gimme two of them there things, and some taters, and a couple of cokes," Andrew addressed the woman.
The woman studied him. "You want two chili dogs, French fries,and two sodas?" She hazarded a guess.
"Yeap."
"No problem." The woman turned to take care of the order, leaving Andrew to loiter in front of the desk. Near the back a man was starting to clean up, putting chairs up on tables to sweep under them, carefully avoiding the two tables of guardsmen finishing up their dinner.
Andrew briefly pondered bringing some dogs back for Dar and Kerry, but figured they'd be stone cold before they got out there, and a mess to boot. He turned and leaned against the counter, folding his arms over his chest.
Alastair took a seat and rested his elbows on his knees. Having a chili dog in a train station didn't even seem odd after the last few days. He could barely even remember how the morning had started and he found he was mostly looking forward to some kind of success before the night ended.
He suspected there would be one. Dar generally created success, which was one of the reasons he trusted her the way he did. He also suspected she was probably waiting on their return, but he figured a five minute stop for hot dogs probably wouldn't skew the pitch one way or the other.
His cell phone was off. He intended it to remain that way until they were back at the port, when there was some chance he could actually report on whatever status whatever politician on the other end was asking for.
Right now, tired as he was, he gained a glimmer of understanding of the undisguised sigh of exasperation that Dar sometimes uttered when she was being hounded for something. Sometimes, you could do what you could do, when you could do it.
"Here." Andrew handed him a cardboard box, which had a hot dog and a paper dish of fries in it with a little plastic pseudo fork poked in them."Figure that is good as any till we finish up." He took a seat at the table and bit into his dog.
Alastair followed suit tilting his head a bit as he realized the guardsmen were watching them. He wondered if they looked particularly suspicious or something. He glanced at both himself and Andrew, then at their burdens, which he'd shifted carefully to the floor so they could eat on the table.
Hm. Two guys, in a train station, with a brown box and a brown bag full of electrical parts, and one of the guys was wearing combat boots and a face full of scars. He watched the guardsmen in his peripheral vision as they all started looking their way and whispering.
Andrew shifted a little, so that he was facing Alastair and could see over his shoulder. His eyebrows hiked up a little.
Alastair took another bite of his hot dog"Not bad," he commented, wiping his lips on a napkin and hoping the guard would find some other thing to interest them.
"S'allright," Andrew agreed. "Two things I always did like t'eat round here is hot dogs and pizza pie. Had liberty here once and mah whole SEAL team went and got us ten of them big pies and we nearly got ourselves sick to death with it. Still like it though."
Alastair chuckled. "Have to say when I was in the Army, the most interesting place we ended up having liberty in was Fargo, North Dakota. Those people know how to party, I'll say that." He thought the conversation had died down over at the other table, but didn't want to be obvious and look.
"Army, huh?" Andrew gave him a wry grin.
"I'm from Texas. It's a family tradition," Alastair admitted."Granddaddy was in, Daddy was in, I did the ROTC rounds in college--I kept it to one hitch, though. After that I decided I liked climbing the corporate ladder better than the one in the obstacle course." He finished off the last bite of his hot dog and poked among the wedge cut fries, selecting one with the little fork let and tasting it. "What made you pick the Navy?"
"Didn't like hiking around with them big old packs," Andrew said. "And ah figured at the least I'd learn me to swim in the Navy. Don't do that much in Alabama." He paused, studying a fry. "Wanted to see something but dirt roads and candy assed rednecks."
Alastair glanced casually over at the guardsmen, who were now studiously looking in another direction. "I got to see a little bit of Korea," he mused. "Then I got posted in Italy and Belgium. That wasn't so bad. "
Andrew stood and took his cardboard tray over to the trash and disposed of it. He glanced at the guardsmen as he finished. "Lo there, you all."
"Hello." The one nearest him nodded respectfully. "Something you need from us?"
"Nope." Andrew shook his head. "Hope you all have a good night now." He returned to the table and picked the box up while Alastair disposed of his tray and came back to join him. They exited the food stop and headed across the concourse toward the exit.
"You know, I don't think I ever heard you mention what you did in the Navy before," Alastair commented, giving his taller companion a sideways look.
Andrew chuckled a bit. "Didn't want them fellers asking me what all was in these here boxes cause I don't have not one jack clue what it is," he admitted. "Figgured if I started flapping my jaw about what I done they'd mind themselves."
"And they did." Alastair clapped him on the back. "Good decision. Because frankly, though I paid for them, and I can pronounce the names, damned if I know what this stuff is either." They got to the escalator and rode it up, passing from the claustrophobic concourse into the street that was quieter than they expected, in a city that now seemed exhausted in a strange kind of way.
"Taxi!" Alastair waved one down. "Let's see what your kids have gotten us into." He handed his bag to the driver, who set it in the trunk along with Andrew's box. "And if we're very lucky, it's beer time."
"Won't be luck."
"Not with your kid, no. You're right. It sure won't"
"OKAY, HANG ON." Kerry wriggled under the pipe again and got her eyeball to where she could see up it, poking her slim flashlight into the space and turning it on. "See that?"
"Got it." Dar's voice came down tinnily. "Get your face out of the way in case something comes shooting out of this damn pipe."
"Yes, Grandma." Kerry edged over so she could keep the light in place, but removed most of her head from the danger zone.
She could hear Dar maneuvering the pipe into place overhead, and just as she reached up to scratch her nose, a big clump of pipe crud came tumbling down landing near her ear. She could hear a soft curse, and in the tone, she sensed her partner's frustration both with the tedious project and the cramps she was still suffering from.
Dar wasn't usually that unlucky. Kerry suspected it was the stress of the situation that was tying her up in knots and making her monthly cycle worse than usual, and she herself had the same thing to look forward to any minute now.
"Okay, I'm heating up the iron," Dar called down.
"Go for it, babe." Kerry tapped lightly on the pipe with her flashlight. She was tired, and hungry, and the worst part of it was knowing that even when they finished this crazy jury rig, all they could do was pull the cable into place.
They still had to wait for the fiber terminator to come in, and finish the connection so they could get it working.
Kerry's nose twitched, as she smelled the odd scent of heating metal. She peeked up the pipe and saw a hint of motion in her flashlight's glare, now outlining the blockage that was preventing the cable from passing.
Sure enough, the light reflected off dusty white plastic, a zip tie wrapped around the cables already in the pipe, its end extending across and bending against the far pipe wall. Kerry could just see the tip of the soldering iron approaching the tie and she had to smile again at the ingenuity of her partner.