by Melissa Good
personal login.”
Alastair shrugged. “Well, the press doesn’t have that.”
“They will,” Ankow hissed. “Trust me, because I’ll be the one handing it to them.”
Alastair’s face went very still. “You’d do that, would you?” he asked quietly.
“I’ll do whatever I have to do to win my point,” Ankow rasped.
“Now cut the cord, damn you. Get rid of both of them.”
382 Melissa Good Alastair got up and walked to his large window, gazing out across the star laden sky over Texas. For a long time, he studied the shadows, splashes of moonlight picking up glints of steel and stone as a few clouds raced past. Finally he turned and looked at Ankow, who sat with arms folded in triumph on the edge of his large, oak desk. “That’s what you want, hmm?”
Ankow smiled. “That’s what I want. That’s what you’re going to give me.”
The CEO exhaled, then walked back over and put his hands on the back of his chair, facing the much younger man. “Well, you know, given that, there really is only one thing I can say,” he mused, in a soft voice.
“You’re right,” Ankow agreed. “So say it.” He smirked. “I want to hear it.”
Alastair leaned his weight on the back of the chair and looked right into David Ankow’s eyes. “All righty then, here you are. Kiss my ass.”
There was a moment’s stunned pause. “What?” Ankow hissed.
“Kiss my ass,” Alastair repeated. “In Texan, that means get your butt out of my office before I throw you out of it.”
Slowly, Ankow got up, staring at his adversary as though the man had grown horns. “Do you understand what you’re saying, you moron?”
“Absolutely,” Alastair told him, with a gentle smile.
“I’ll go have the damned board remove you, you—” Ankow snapped.
“Probably,” the CEO agreed. “Have fun, you little pea brained no character excuse for a gutless nosepicker.”
Ankow’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“OUT!” Alastair snapped, his voice now rising sternly. “Before I get my Winchester out of the closet and make you into a wall hanging.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” The rattled board member turned and went through the door and slammed it behind him.
With a sigh, Alastair pulled his chair out and sat down in it, smoothing his hands over the clean surface. After a moment’s reflection, he nodded, and a soft chuckle forced its way out into the silence. “You know something, Dar?” He spoke to the emptiness. “If I’da known how good that felt, I’da done it more often. You shoulda told me.”
A soft buzz startled him and he looked at his phone, where the internal line was ringing. “That was fast.” He pushed it. “Yes?”
“Mr. McLean?” a voice asked, hesitantly. “This is the switchboard. I have a young lady here who is desperately trying to get in touch with you.”
“With me?” The CEO gazed puzzled at the phone “All right. Put her through.” A click was heard. “Go ahead. This is Alastair McLean. What can I do for you?”
“Oh.” There was noise in the background, as though from an airport or—Alastair heard an echo—a hospital. “Hello…um…sorry…is this the boss of ILS?”
For the next ten minutes, perhaps. Alastair glanced at his watch. “Yes, it Eye of the Storm 383
is.”
“My name is Angela Stuart,” the voice went on, with a hiss and a ragged break. “Sorry. I just had a baby.”
Alastair blinked. “I…um…congratulations. Stuart? Are you—”
“Kerry’s my sister. Listen. Something really awful happened. I was in the hospital here in Washington and I think something blew up.”
He looked quickly at the news feed, which now featured helicopters and an overhead view of a burning building. Teach me not to leave the sound on. “Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that but…”
“Dar and Kerry were visiting me. I don’t know what happened to them.”
A lifetime of handling crises came to Alastair’s rescue. After the initial shock, he took a breath and released it. “Thank you, Ms. Stuart, for telling me. I’ll see what I can find out about it.”
“O-okay. Thanks. Sorry.” Angela coughed. “I—”
“Goodbye.” The CEO released the call and spent a moment gathering his wits. Then he punched the phone button again, dialing with hasty purpose.
Chapter
Forty-one
ANDREW LOOKED AROUND as they rested, reviewing the battered hallway. A few minutes was all they could take—he could already see smoke clustering at the ceiling a little ways back.
What a damn mess. He glanced at Ceci, who was seated at his side resting her head on his shoulder. “How you holding up, pretty lady?”
“Well,” she replied thoughtfully. “On the one hand, here I am, in a burning building, covered in the goddess only knows what, scraped and dented like a 1960 Ford truck, and wishing like anything for a big bottle of mineral water.”
“Huh.” Andy examined a nasty looking scrape on his arm, then brushed a bit of ceiling tile off his wife’s shoulder.
“On the other hand, you’re here with me,” Ceci went on, exhaling lightly. “So I think I’m doing just fine. How about you?”
Andrew cleared his throat. “That’s a damn frilly thing to say in front of these kids, ain’t it?”
Ceci glanced at where Dar was seated, with Kerry curled up in her arms. “They’ll survive.” She watched her daughter in bemusement, remembering all too clearly a teen’s angry insistence on pristine person space. When was the last time she’d hugged Dar? Grade school, probably.
Those last few years of innocence—well, relatively—before puberty had kicked in and ended any shreds of closeness they’d clung on to.
Kerry seemed the touchy feely kind though, and apparently Dar had adjusted to that, not grudging the fair-haired woman the comfort her physical presence provided. Certainly, Kerry soaked up the affection, as Dar kept up a light rubbing on her back, collecting herself visibly with a few deep breaths.
Adjusted? Ceci covertly noted the look of weary contentment on Dar’s face as she rested her cheek against Kerry’s pale head. Maybe I should have tried a few more hugs to start with. Kerry definitely was showing her an unexpected side to her daughter—that was for sure. A warm, gently affectionate, playful facet she frankly hadn’t thought Dar possessed.
Ah well. Hindsight was a very frustrating thing, especially for a parent.
You just really never knew if you were doing the right thing, the wrong thing, or whatever, and by the time you figured it all out, it was too late.
“Guess we’d better get going,” she murmured, with an apologetic look in Eye of the Storm 385
Kerry’s direction. “You doing any better?”
Kerry nodded. “Just needed to catch my breath, I think,” she murmured, then she tilted her head up and gazed at her quiet protector.
“Thank you.”
Dar’s head cocked to one side. “For being a backrest? No problem.”
“That too.” Kerry folded her fingers around Dar’s longer ones and brushed her lips over their knuckles. “I always seem to be getting you into trouble.”
“Keeps life interesting,” Dar assured her with a faint smile, as she hauled herself to her feet and tugged Kerry up with her. “C’mon.” She kept an arm around her lover’s shoulders as they made their way down the hall, climbing over obstacles together in silence.
They’d gotten most of the way down towards the end of the building, when Andrew paused and put his hand against the wall, looking around carefully. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Ceci asked.
“Ain’t no way down from here. Stairs were up behind that part.” He pointed at a pile of wreckage. “Looks like that whole damn section fell in on top of itself.”
Dar watched the smoke fill the end of the corridor back the way they came from. “Well, let’s get to an outside room then. Must be people trying to get folks out of t
his damn place.” She took the lead, scrambled over an overturned mobile bed and turned the last corner, then stopped short.
The end of the hallway was full of huddled, frightened people, who stared at them with wild eyes. Kerry’s parents were there, against one wall, the senator caught in mid-word.
“A disgrace.” His eyes fell on them and he paused. “No one to help, no one who knows anything. You can bet something will be done about it after this.”
“If we get out of here,” a woman sitting on the floor with a young boy cradled in her arms responded. “No one even knows what happened.
It was like a bomb went off.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the senator snapped. “Probably some inferior imported gas heater blew up. This place is known for cutting corners.”
“With this amount of damage?” Dar snorted. “It’d have to be a water heater the size of the Titanic.” She started around the area, examining any possible way out. “It probably was a bomb.” She gave the senator a dark look. “Someone probably got tired of your hate policies.”
“Shut up.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“Dar.” Kerry looked from face to face, closing her eyes when she didn’t see the one face she was looking for. The end of the building was open and had large windows and there were perhaps a dozen people there, some injured, some patients, and some, about a half dozen, children.
Then she realized the room was full of colorful furniture and toys, and guessed they were in the pediatrics area. Two of the children were in 386 Melissa Good wheelchairs and they looked scared. Kerry smiled at the closest one and tried not to think of her sister.
Surely, Angie had gotten out. Maybe she’d been on her way to the delivery room. Maybe she was on the other side of the damage and already outside.
Maybe Kerry was already an aunt again.
Maybe it was a little boy. She stopped, and fought the tears down. I am not going to give up on you, Angie. I know you made it.
“Does anyone actually know what happened?” Dar finally asked, as Andrew went to the window and peered out.
“Hell if I know,” one man answered, holding a dirty piece of cloth to a cut on his face. A little girl clung to him, evidently his daughter. The child was pale and wearing a hospital jumper and she looked frightened and uncomfortable. “One minute we were watching the television, the next…the whole place blew apart.”
Dar glanced behind her. “We should block off that hallway.”
“Are you crazy?” A woman seated against the wall objected. “That’s the only way they have of getting to us. We’re in a cul de sac.”
“It’s also the only way the fire has to get to us,” Dar replied. “And it’s gonna get here before help does.”
A murmur of fear greeted her words. Against the far wall, Kerry’s parents simply turned their heads and ignored her existence. Over near the entrance, a small kitchenette had been mostly spared and readily plundered. There was a five gallon bottle of water sitting on the counter half empty and Kerry went for it, aware of being desperately thirsty all of a sudden.
A dull explosion threw her against the wall and she grabbed on, as debris fell all around her. After a few tense moments, though, the creaking stopped and they all coughed in the film of plaster dust fogging the room. Part of the drop ceiling collapsed, throwing broken tiles everywhere, and the already stuffy air seemed to thicken around them.
Then with a halfhearted flicker, the faint emergency lighting went out, and they were in darkness, broken only by the city lights coming in from the windows that ringed them.
Kerry stopped with her hand on the counter. Meager though it had been, the light had served to at least give them some idea of what was happening. Now anything could come out of the dark. She jumped as she felt a touch on her back and gasped.
“Easy.” Dar’s voice tickled her ears. “Let me get that for you.” The dark haired woman rummaged in the scattering of debris near the lop-sided refrigerator and retrieved a cup, then lifted the bottle carefully and poured some water into it.
Kerry gulped the liquid gratefully, draining the cup, then stared at it in the gloomy half light. “Could you…”
“Sure.” Dar poured her another cupful, then she took a deep breath.
“I don’t think blocking the hall is gonna help.”
“Prob’ly not,” Andrew, standing next to her invisibly, agreed.
Eye of the Storm 387
“Think we need to get that there winder open.” He glanced at the dimly seen profiles against the glass. “Dar, let’s you an me go check that out.
Cec, keep by here, all right?”
“All right.” Cecilia leaned against the counter next to Kerry and exhaled, as she turned her head. “Mind if I steal a sip of that?”
Kerry offered her the cup. “Least I could do after getting you into this.”
“Kerry?” Ceci gave her a sideways look, taking a sip of the water. “If you don’t cut out the blame game, I’m going to be forced to get maternal on you and that could get ugly.”
Kerry blinked at her, then smiled against her will. “Sorry. I babble when I’m nervous.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “My brain’s running on empty right now.” She was achingly aware of her parents watching from across the room.
“I can tell. You know what Dar does when she’s antsy?”
“Pulls things apart,” Kerry responded, with a wan grin. “Paper clips especially. She shapes them into little figurines.”
Ceci chuckled. “I’m glad some things didn’t change. I used to keep a collection of the damn things.”
Kerry studied her for a moment. “I bet you still have them,” she stated unexpectedly. “Don’t you?”
The older woman pursed her lips, then glanced down at the counter they were leaning on. “You caught me. Yes, I do,” she agreed softly.
“Along with a couple pairs of tiny shoes and a first grader’s efforts at spelling.”
Kerry absorbed that, her gaze unconsciously drifting over to her parents. “I had to do all of my own saving.” Her voice was low and quiet.
After a moment of pensive silence, she turned her head towards Ceci.
“Mrs. Roberts, you can get maternal on me any time you want.”
Incredible. Cecilia drew a breath in. Someone who thinks I’m parenting material. I must be getting ancient as the hills for that to happen. “Well then,”
she answered reflectively, “you’d better stop calling me Mrs. Roberts.” In the gloom, she could just barely see Kerry smile.
Incredible.
The children were starting to cry, frightened to an even higher state by the darkness. Dar and Andy made their way across the crowded floor, pressing up against the glass windows as they reached them and looked down.
“Jesus.” Dar’s eyes widened, at the huge collection of lights, emergency equipment, and people swarming about below. “Guess they are working on getting people out.” She watched as a fireman tugged a wrapped form out a window two stories beneath them. They were on the seventh floor, almost near the top of the building, and from what she could see whatever had happened had ripped out almost half of the side of the structure.
Andy pushed his hands against the glass. “Ain’t gonna be easy.” He shook his head. “Thing’s made not to break. But them folks down there 388 Melissa Good ain’t gonna know we’re here less we tell ’em.” He lifted his sledge hammer and paused, looking for a place to start. “Damn lousy time fer you to lose that cell phone of yours.”
“Mmph,” Dar muttered, annoyed at herself for that very fact. “Came off my belt.” Kerry had left hers charging in the room and she wasn’t really sure what kind of reception she could expect inside the chaotic wreckage anyway. She cleared a space for her father to work, then realized there were some living obstacles there in the half light. “You’d better move back,” Dar told the watching Stuarts coldly.
“Go to Hell,” Roger Stuart answered, then jerked as he was suddenly face to face with
a sledge hammer head and a pair of icy cold eyes behind it.
“You will move your carcass out of mah way, sir,” Andrew rasped.
“Because I have about run out of my patience with you.” He poked the senator with the hammer handle. “Now take this little lady of yours and go back of there fore I throw you head over buttocks.”
“Do you know who the hell I am?” the senator growled.
“A right jackass. Now move.” Andrew poked him again.
“Listen here, you stupid hick.” Stuart stood up, then stopped speaking as he was lifted and pushed against the wall, the hammer handle cutting off his wind. “Jesus,” he rasped.
“That would be Commander Hick to you, useless excuse fer a gov’ment paycheck.” Andy released him, then gave him a shove, sending him sprawling into a pile of roof tiling. “Waste of mah good tax dollars, that’s for damn sure.”
“Just wait until we get out of here,” Kerry’s father threatened. “I’ll slap lawsuits on the lot of you.”
Andrew turned his attention back to the window. “Jackass.” Kerry’s mother hurried to her husband’s side and knelt by him, brushing the pieces of plaster off his stained and burned jacket. “Those who can, do, those who can’t become lawyers. Those who ain’t got no use at all, run fer gov’ment.”
Dar almost laughed at the look on the senator’s face, but she was too tired. Instead, she forced her attention on the glass. “Dad,” she ran a hand over the surface, “try here, near the frame.”
“Not in the middle?” Andrew drawled, cocking his head at her in question.
“No. I think its designed to flex there. It’ll be more rigid, and have a higher tendency to shatter here, at the edge.”
Andy gave her a look. “All right.” He lifted the hammer and faced the glass, concentrating on it carefully. “Make sure everybody’s staying back. This stuff’s gonna fly.”
Dar took a quick look around, ignoring the glares. “Everyone cover up. We’re going to break this window.” People scrambled to get out of the way and the frightened children were gathered into the corner.
