Kerry felt her heart finally starting to settle back down in her chest. She felt a trembling weakness in her legs and she leaned against Dar for support as much as in comfort. "He didn't even know who you are. He didn't even care," she said. "Jesus."
"Asshole," Dar said, quietly.
"You all right?" Kerry murmured, leaning close to her.
Dar didn't answer for a moment, then she exhaled. "Well," she said, "at least my cramps are gone." She glanced down at Kerry. "I just saw red."
Kerry bumped her shoulder with her head. Then she looked down at the techs. "Kannan, I'm sorry. I know what it's like to be judged on something you don't have control over." She knelt next to him. "Is there something we can do to help with that? We might as well get started, since I think we're stuck here for a little while."
The techs were willing to be distracted. Kannan pulled his bag over and took out a tool kit and set it on the ground, then removed a handful of bits and pieces from the paper bag. "Not too much light here." He looked up at the orange lamps.
"I have a flashlight." Shaun paused removing it from his pack. "Want me to hold it?"
"I will." Dar held her hand out for it. "Let's get done what we can. Then the beer is on me."
The techs smiled timidly at her and started to get to work. Dar turned the light on and focused it on the sidewalk with its odd scattering of technical debris, glad of a chance to stand still, the sense of thrumming anger only slowly fading from her awareness.
Kerry's shoulder was pressed against her knee. Dar slowly turned her head and stared past her father's form, at the soldiers who were staring back at them.
Assholes.
KERRY PUT HER hands on her hips as they listened to the guard commander, casting a glance behind her where the three techs were now seated in a ring of bright white light from the headlamps of four guard vehicles.
"Listen, I know how damned crazy this all is," Dar said. "But you people need to think before you start wailing away on folks you don't even know did anything."
"Ms. Roberts, I understand what you're saying," the guard commander replied. "But to be honest, there's no time to think right now. Just react. I know you know what I mean."
Dar sighed. Andrew sighed. Alastair grunted and shook his head.
"I'm really sorry we--no, I didn't leave notes for Josh there about you people being inside," the commander went on. "I got called out on a bomb threat, and three men were arrested with parts in a backpack, a lot like what your guys there looked like."
They turned to look at the three techs who were working contentedly on the sidewalk. "I mean, what the hell were they supposed to think with all that? What is it? Do we know? We're not mechanics," the guard commander asked, plaintively.
"Commander, we understand," Alastair spoke up. "You're trying to get a job done; we're trying to get a job done. We're on the same side, y'know."
"The guys that did that," the guard commander pointed in the general direction of the disaster site, "lived among us. Tell me how we can trust anyone?" He let his hand drop. "I can't. I know you're all right because the mayor's office said so, but those people come walking up here with backpacks and a wild story, and one of them looking like one of those guys who did that, what can you expect?"
Dar exhaled. "Kannan's from India," she said. "It's not even the same continent. Are you telling me anyone who doesn't look like Kerry here is eligible to get shot now?"
The guard commander lifted his hands and let them fall. "I don't know. You hear the news. People are getting shot and beat up all over because everyone's so angry they want to lash out. Me too. Us too. Maybe I would shoot someone like him if I had a doubt, if I thought maybe something else was going to happen. Yeah," he answered, honestly. "I would."
"Wow," Kerry murmured.
"You asked," the commander said. "But anyway, if you say he's okay and these guys are okay, then I have to go with that because the mayor says you are okay. But you could be lying."
"We're not," Alastair said. "These people are employees of ours. They have government clearances." He shifted his gaze to Dar slightly,and caught the equally slight nod of her head. "We all do. That's how the mayor knows we're all right.
The commander shrugged. "I don't have that information when people are walking toward me. I'm not saying it's right; I'm not saying people aren't going to get hurt in this who are innocent; I'm just telling you what the truth is. We don't know, and we can't afford to risk erring on the side of caution anymore."
They were all briefly silent. "Gotta wonder why the heck we're here trying to help then," Alastair said. "Because these people's lives are worth a hell of a lot more than making sure the mayor has a phone and a connection to the internet."
The guard commander now looked a little embarrassed. "Anyhow. I'm sorry this happened, Mr. McLean. I've talked to Josh, and I made sure everyone in this area knows you people are here. Maybe they can get some badges or something. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is right now."
Shaun had gotten up and now he cautiously approached the group. "Ms. Stuart?"
Kerry turned toward him. "Hey. You guys finished prepping?"
He nodded. "We're done, and we've got the gear packed up."
"Okay." Dar ran her fingers through her hair. "Dad, you want to take Kannan back into the ship where the other guys are waiting and let him get that fiber done, and we'll go up the ramp to prep the office side. That work for everyone?"
"We'll send a couple guys in with you just in case anyone else's gotten in there," the commander said. "No more screw-ups on this end tonight."
They walked back over to where the techs were packing up and getting their bags together. With a faintly anxious look, Kannan followed Andrew toward the gates, as the rest of them trooped on toward the ramp leading up to the new offices.
"He going to be okay, ma'am?" Shaun asked Kerry. "He's kind of freaked out about everything." He shifted his pack on his back. "I would be too, I guess."
"He's in good hands," Kerry told him, feeling a little freaked out herself. "Dar's father is a retired Navy Seal. They're not going to mess with him. Let's get this done and get the heck out of here. It's been way too long a day."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Wonder if they'd deliver pizza to this damn emergency office," Kerry said. "Or I'm going to have to call that damn bus to come down here before I pass out."
"Ma'am?"
A PALE SLICE of moonlight peeked through the clouds, illuminating the peeling iron and concrete of the pier with grudging nobility.
"Can I speak to the governor, please?" Alastair leaned against the railing, his back to the city. "Alastair McLean here, from ILS."
In front of him, the tarmac of the port's driveway stretched out to either side separating him from the front of the pier that was dusty concrete and steel. The glass doors were spidered with cracks and partially plywooded sections.
Behind the doors he could see Dar, her arms crossed over her chest talking to two men in blue coveralls. At a desk just inside the door, Kerry was perched, likewise talking to two men in guard uniform.
It was near midnight. He was exhausted. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to get on a plane to Houston and leave all the messy, uncomfortable, gritty details of it all to Dar, and he was almost too tired to be ashamed of himself for that.
"McLean? That you?"
"It is, Governor," Alastair said. "Just wanted to tell you, we got your emergency office up. My people are making the last connections and bringing up systems now."
"Yeah? About time," the governor said. "You people took long enough."
Alastair exhaled. "Well, you know, sometimes these things take time," he said. "As you may realize, it's not that easy to get things done in the city right now."