Mayte appeared in the entrance to Dar’s office. “The news people are here.” She said. “Where do you want to speak with them? I think the conference room?”
Dar and Kerry exchanged glances. “That’ll be fine, Mayte. Let them set up in there. We’ve got to discuss something then we’ll be right down.”
Mayte nodded and disappeared.
“I’ll go keep them occupied.” Kerry said. “Are you going to offer to go fix it?”
Dar shook her head.
‘Hope we can swing that. “ Kerry patted her on the arm then headed for the door, shaking her own head as she disappeared.
“Yeah.” Dar sat down on the edge of her desk and pulled her phone out again, keying through the memory. She found the number she was looking for and hit dial, holding it to her ear as she waited. It range six times, then voice mail picked up. “Great.”
She waited for it to finish and beep. “Jacques, this is Dar. I just got a call from a mutual customer of ours, saying his services with you were down and he wasn’t able to get hold of anyone to talk about it. He’s in a big non square office building in DC. Just letting you know in case you want to do something about it. Later.”
She released the line, then studied the phone. Was there anyone else she could really call?
Anything else she could really do? Dar stood up and shoved the phone into her pocket. Was there anything she really wanted to do?
She trotted down the steps, hearing voices in the conference room and seeing shadows in the lower hall, accompanied by the smell of electronics and duct tape, with a waft of oil makeup on the fringes. She paused for a moment to riffle her hair into some kind of fluffiness, then forged ahead into the conference room. “Evening.”
There was a man there, with a thin, angular face Dar thought she sort of recognized, and two women who had over the shoulder messenger bags with pens and pads and stopwatches hanging from them on one side of the room and two men with cameras and gear on the other side.
“Ah, Ms. Roberts.” The man half waved. “You probably don’t remember me.”
“I do.” Dar produced a smile. “You interviewed me in New York.” She did remember that, in a hazy surreal kind of way that most of the events were enfolded in. “We talked about cupcakes.”
The man grinned. “We did.” He said. “So we’re a galaxy away from that moment huh? You’re not with ILS anymore.”
“Nope.” Dar took a seat at the head of the table. “Hung up my own shingle.” She indicated the building around her.
“Okay, Pete.” One of the women interrupted. “Why don’t you sit down here, and we can shoot from that angle across the table.”
“Sure.” The interviewer amiably came around the table and sat down. He was wearing a pair of jeans, and a leather jacket. “To be honest, Ms. Roberts, that interview with you got me interested in the technology biz. So now I do in depth stuff for CNN about it. Nice change.”
Kerry came over and sat down on the other side of Dar. “This has been a nice change for us too.” She said. “Getting to start everything from scratch and all that.”
The cameramen busied themselves getting a tripod arranged behind Pete’s shoulder, and settled a camera on top of it, flicking on the battery packs that powered up with a soft, faint whine. “We got sync to the truck?” One of them asked.
“Eyup.. got a signal back to base.” The other responded. “Cathy, we’re good.”
“Thanks.” The producer put her pad down, with notes. “Let me just make sure I’ve got everything accurate here, ladies, then we can get this, and let you get on your way. I know it’s late.” She glanced up at Dar and Kerry. “Thanks for hanging out and waiting for us.”
“We were glad to.” Kerry said. “I suppose you tracked us down from that picture in the paper?” She smiled briefly. “Dar enjoyed her visit to the White House.”
“Actually.” Pete cleared his throat. “We did pick that up on research, but really you popped up on my radar because I’m local here, and I was home on some vacation when my brother in law’s scatterbrained son got hired to write games and I wanted to see who’d be crazy enough to hire him.”
Dar chuckled. “Ahh. I see.” She leaned back. “He’s got good programming skills. I always look everywhere for talent. Your nephew once removed might turn out to be the Bill Gates of the family.”
“He loves this place. He was at dinner at our house a week ago talking nine to the minute about some program you did with a hamster in it.”
“That would be a gopher.” Kerry correct him. “Gopher Dar, in fact. It’s an animated program Dar writes on sometimes.”
They all chuckled “So then I ran a scan on headlines and found the picture of you with the president, and figured, hey, it’s time for me to get back in touch with Dar Roberts.” Pete concluded, with a smile. “I guess you just recently left ILS?”
“About a month or so ago yes.” Dar agreed. “After the time we spent in New York, Kerry and I decided we wanted to retire and go do our own thing.”
“Get out of the spotlight?” Pete said, his eyes twinkling. “Didn’t work out so well for you on that front I guess.”
Dar shrugged.
“Okay, we’re ready.” The blonder of the two women said. “Pete, you’re on.”
The interviewer folded his hands on the table, and paused, clearing his throat. “We’re rolling to archive, Dar, not live to the channel.”
“Now that’s a good idea.” Dar said. “Especially if you remember what I said the last time about not asking me anything you don’t want to hear the answer to.”
One of the producers pulled a phone from her pocket, and held a hand up, moving to the door and slipping outside.
“Okay. So we’re speaking here today with Dar Roberts, who is a well known business person in the technology field. “ Pete said. “Ms. Roberts, you recently left the big corporate world and opened up your own IT related business. Tell me about that.”
Kerry quietly got up and eased back, glad enough to give Dar her moment in the spotlight. She ducked outside the door and went across to the small kitchen, pausing when she almost bumped into Scott in his wheelchair. “Hello.”
“Hi.” He was removing a small container from the refrigerator. “Whats up with CNN?” He rolled out of Kerry’s way and put the container on the table, opening it up and revealing what looked like a fruit salad.
Surprising. Kerry got one of the cold ice teas and opened it. “Their technology desk saw Dar’s picture in the paper and wanted an interview.” She responded straightforwardly. “How’s it going with you? Mark says you do good work.”
“I like it.” He responded. “Its good to do stuff that’s just normal.”
Kerry sat down at the table. “I remember when I got back from New York after 9/11, it was a relief to just be able to sit down and have a boring staff meeting.”
He glanced briefly at her. “You were in there when that went down? I was in the hospital in Frankfurt.”
“No, I was at my family’s home in Michigan. But I went there the next day.” Kerry said. “The company we worked for had people in the Pentagon, and also in downtown New York.”
He ate several pieces of the fruit with a spoon, chewing it thoughtfully. “I saw pictures. That was a mess.”
“It was.” Kerry agreed. “We did some work down by the stock exchange. The destruction down there was incredible.”
“Yeah. Only thing I was glad I got half blowed up because I knew I wasn’t going to have to go back there.” He said. “We’re going to go back there and beat the shit out of them for that. Everybody knows it.”