Storm Surge - Part 2 (12 page)

"Let's just say we have a responsibility to them, and I'd like to walk out of here with a sense of accomplishment beyond some rubber chicken," Dar replied. "Getting the job done for the markets, but leaving our own customers high and dry ain't my way of doing business."

Kerry smiled. "I want to be you when I grow up." She stood up and popped the last of her muffin into her mouth. "Well, the day's not getting any younger, so I guess I'll go get my shower and start getting ready."

"Be right there with you." Dar sat down to finish her muffin, leaning back and watching the dawn light slowly growing in the window, turning her back to the TV screen.

KERRY LEANED BACK against the driver's partition in the courtesy bus, watching the street roll by outside the window. "At least the traffic hasn't built up so much again."

"You got that right, ma'am," the driver agreed. "People are still in shock, I think. I was talking to a man who came by the bus earlier. His son worked in one of those investment offices up near the top of one of the towers, and he kept saying he was going down there to visit him real soon now."

Kerry grimaced a trifle. "It's hard to take it all in," she murmured.

"Can't imagine it myself," the driver agreed.

They were traveling east, heading toward the disaster site. Kerry eased forward and knelt, resting her arms on the front console as she started to see a dusting of ash on the streets, and the cars, and the buildings.

It was not that strange to her eyes. It resembled a light coating of snow more than anything. As they passed, she could see some shops open, some closed, some in an in-between state where the rolling garage doors were half open and people were standing outside, talking or sweeping the ash.

The bus stopped at a stoplight, and she watched one man carefully sweeping his sidewalk clean of the stuff and putting it into a tiny pile. He then knelt and pulled out a dustpan and hand brush, and whisked ash into a small plastic bag, standing when he was done and looking at it.

Would he throw it away? Save it as a memory of the horror? Or sell it on Ebay? Kerry watched him put a twist tie around the top of the bag and take it inside, ducking under the half drawn door and disappearing.

Could go any of the ways. Kerry sighed. The bus started moving forward again, and on the right hand side they passed a fire station. The big doors were wide open, and she looked inside only to find it completely empty of either trucks or people.

A prickle ran down her spine. She looked at the sign above it. "Ladder 11. Hope they're all okay."

The driver glanced at the empty station then looked at her. "Ms. Stuart, beg your pardon, but no one here's okay," he said. "No matter if they walked out of that mess or not."

True. Kerry saw the coating of ash getting thicker as they turned left on to Houston Street. "What insanity."

Dar came up behind her and looked over her shoulder. "Mess," she said succinctly. "Are we going to end up east of the site?"

The driver nodded, as he turned the big bus right. "Yeah, that's what the cops told me to do. Take the FDR around the end of the island and come up from there. Too much destruction on the west side, and besides, they've got Battery Park there wide open."

Now through the walls of the bus, they could hear sirens, though as yet all they could see was the outline of Staten Island across the water. A pensive silence fell over the bus as everyone picked a window and stared out of it.

"Mark still behind us?" Dar asked in all that quiet.

The driver glanced in his mirror. "Yeah, he's there."

Dar watched out the window at the thick plume of smoke rising from between the buildings and the debris that was starting to line the road. "Jason, break out the case of radios, please," she ordered quietly. "And the masks."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Everyone stay calm. This is going to be hard," Dar added, after another brief pause. "Stay focused, and remember that everyone here has been through a hell of a lot worse nightmare than we're about to experience."

Alastair came up behind Dar and gazed past her, his face quietly grim."Know something, Dar?"

"Wish you'd turned the White House down?"

Alastair's lips pressed into a humorless smile. Then he turned and went back to the side window, seating himself on a stool and staring outside.

Kerry slowly stepped down from the bus, the third one out after Dar and Alastair had exited to deal with the gun toting guardsmen who had flagged their convoy to a halt. She stood quietly for a moment, the wind at her back as she slowly scanned the area around them.

They had been pulled to a halt on State Street, just across from Battery Park. The roads were eerily silent covered in thick white gray dust and debris with cars and trucks parked every which way. She could look right up Broadway and see more automobiles, more dust, and windows blown out with curtains being sucked out and fluttering in the breeze.

She could smell burning rubber, diesel oil, and the strong scent of the water. Fireboats and barges were churning offshore and a ferry was passing by, its decks packed with uniformed figures.

Small groups of police, firemen, and other workers were clustered around. Some were sitting in the grass of the park; a few resting against trees facing away from the city and toward the water.

Mark came up next to her, his arms folded over his chest as he stood and looked around. "Man."

"Yeah." Kerry half turned, as a car with a siren blaring turned the corner and headed up Broadway, the sound echoing between the buildings and then fading.

"We going all the way up there?"

"Depends." Kerry leaned forward slightly to watch Dar and Alastair with the guard. Dar's body posture was still relaxed, so it didn't look like the situation was getting confrontational. "Let's see where they'll let us go. I told our telecom friends we'd be trying to get over here before we left the Rock."

"It's like a ghost town down here," Mark commented grimacing."That was tacky bad. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." Kerry walked across the street and into the park, carefully skirting around a pair of firemen sitting in the grass.

One of them looked up at her as she passed. "Hey," he called out. "Where'd you come from?"

Kerry stopped and went over to him, kneeling down in the grass and letting her hands rest on one knee. "That bus over there." She indicated the waiting caravan. "What about you?"

"Me?" The fireman looked exhausted, and his face was coated with the gray dust outlining red rimmed eyes. "I'm from Connecticut. What's the bus for?"

"It's our company bus. We're going to try and help get communications back up and running down here," Kerry readily explained.

The fireman snorted. "Good luck." He picked up his radio lying beside him and let it drop. "Hear more static than talk on these things."

"All these tall buildings," Kerry agreed.

"Ker?"

Kerry turned to see Dar motioning her over. "Well, time to go back to work. Nice talking to you."

"Same here." The fireman nodded.

Kerry got up and crossed the grass glancing both ways in reflex before she crossed the road. The dust under her boots felt like a light, powdery sand. She joined Dar and Alastair who had moved closer to the bus. "We set?"

"Not quite," Dar said. "They're trying to move heavy construction rigs in--cranes, whatever--we can't pull the trucks down yet. They told us to park them up here until we can move closer."

"Nice fellah," Alastair commented. "Thought we were going to have a dust up again, but this guy seemed like good folk."

"Okay," Kerry said. "So we walk up from here? Is that what you're saying? I know John and the telcom folks are up nearer the site."

"We walk." Dar turned and faced the bus, lifting her hand and waving. "We should pull the sat and power trucks up on that side street there. Get them out of the way." She stared at the bus as Andrew appeared from behind it and headed her way.

Alastair put his hands in his pockets and regarded the scene. "I have a feeling this is the most pleasantness we're going to see today," he said giving Kerry a sideways look. "Shall we go get our togs? This stuff looks nasty." He kicked a bit of the dust with his boot.

"Sounds like a good idea." Kerry turned and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Everyone get your overalls and masks! Sync up radios!"

A swarm of activity started around the bus as the driver got out and popped open the underneath storage and techs started to drag big cases out and open them. Kerry joined Dar near the door to the bus waiting their turn to pick up equipment.

"Dad's getting the trucks parked," Dar said. "You ready for this?"

"Dar." Kerry leaned briefly against her. "How in the hell could anyone be ready for this? I've already got a knot in my gut that has nothing to do with having my period."

Dar looked around and grunted.

"Ma'am, I think this one will fit you." One of the techs approached Kerry with a coverall and handed it and a mask to her. "We didn't have many this small."

"Thanks." Kerry smiled wryly. "I think."

Dar eased past him and rummaged through the bin on her own, removing a set of the clothing. "On the other hand, I have to fight the wolves for mine." She came back to where Kerry was standing, leaning back against the bus and starting to pull the coveralls on. "Someone get the tool belts out! " she added in a loud yell.

Kerry picked a spot against the bus next to her and got her first boot into the leg opening of the thick, dark green garment. The fabric was tightly woven and tough, and it reminded her a bit of a military flight suit.

Not tremendously attractive, even with the company logo bold on the chest and across her back. She snapped the wrists closed that thankfully were, in fact, her length, and bent to unlace her boots tucking the legs into them and lacing them back up again.

She stood up and examined the mask Dar had handed her, a full face unit with lavender filter cartridges poking out both sides of the bottom. She fitted it to her face and found it relatively comfortable.

"Not bad." She removed it and let it hang around her neck, as Dar handed her a smaller, mouth only mask. "What's that for?"

"Wind's right," Dar said. "I figure we can leave these big ones off until we're pretty close, but it doesn't pay to take chances. You see that stuff? Ten bucks it's full of silica particulate." She pointed at the dust in the streets.

"Powdered glass?" Kerry remembered the fireman and his red rimmed eyes. "Ouch."

"Not to mention asbestos." Alastair had come up next to them, clad in his own green outfit. "Nasty stuff."

Andrew circled the bus from the other side already draped in a tool belt and bearing a pack on his back. He had a mask gripped in one big hand, and to all appearances absolutely knew what to do with it. "You gals." He addressed Dar and Kerry seriously. "Keep them damn masks on. Hear?"

Dar had just finished clipping a utility belt around her, and fastening her radio to it. "Got it," she said. "You too." She adjusted the radio and clipped the transmitter to her lapel. "Check." She keyed it. "Check. Mark?"

"Here." Mark's voice crackled back. "I did a radio scan. We're clear on this frequency. Most of the rest of them are using lower band. I've got the base repeater up and going."

"Run radio checks with everyone." Dar looped her credentials around her neck and settled them under her collar. "Then let's meet up near the head of that street there." She pointed.

"Broadway," Kerry supplied.

Dar looked at her. "Really?"

Kerry nodded. "It's where it starts. Kind of like where US 1 begins in Key West."

"Huh," Dar muttered. "Okay, we'll go try and find your Telco folks and see what we can do in that area, then we can come back and see what's left of our technical office down here. It's just south of the Exchange."

"Sounds like a plan," Alastair said. "I told the gals to see what they could offer those poor guys out there after they get set up." He indicated the firemen. "Can't be easy."

They started toward the edge of the park, as Mark's voice crackled and echoed doing his checks. The guardsmen glanced at them and waved as they went by. They paused at the end of the park for the entire group to gather.

Dar gazed down the street and acknowledged the sense of nervous dread in her guts. This was something past her experience.

Something past all of their experience, save maybe her father. She looked at him as he came up to stand next to her, pale eyes flicking back and forth as he watched everything around them. "Dad?"

He focused on her. "Yeap?"

"Glad you're here."

Andrew reached out and clasped her shoulder, but didn't say anything in response.

"We all here?" Dar asked, assuming the leadership role. "Everyone geared up and got radios? Listen up." She turned to face them. "Stay together. No one goes wandering around anywhere. This is a dangerous place"

Everyone sobered and regarded her seriously.

"I don't know what we're going to have to do. If it's something I think is too dangerous, we're not going to do it. Everyone understand me? No one is risking their lives for someone's stock options."

Everyone nodded. Even Alastair.

"We're not heroes." Dar pointed past them. "Those guys over there? They're heroes. They went into those damn buildings while they were falling around them to try and get people out. A lot of them are missing. We're not here for that. "

One of the techs raised his hand. "Ms Roberts?"

"What?" Dar put her hands on her hips.

"We get the point," the tech said. "And that's really cool. But we all saw you on television hanging out of a ten story window putting kids in a basket." He looked past her. "So can we go see how we can help out?"

Kerry scratched her nose to give her an excuse to muffle the smile on her face.

Dar sighed. "Let's go." She turned and started up the street, with her little army behind her, walking carefully around lumps in the road that could have been anything.

KERRY DECIDED AFTER a few minutes of quiet walking that the settling of dust over everything reminded her not so much of snow, but of the underwater landscape she and Dar so often explored together.