Chapter 16

The alarm's buzzing woke me from a sound, deep sleep. Did I mention I hate alarm clocks? I think I hate alarm clocks worse that I hate cheap hotels. So an alarm clock in a cheap hotel ranks right down there on the bottom of the list. The bed was warm and comfortable, if only a little crowded and I was fighting the urge to burrow down between the bodies and the blankets and go back to sleep, but work was calling me and her song was one I was fighting. I do not like disasters and for the better part of the last two weeks it seemed like I had been fighting one fire after another. The only thing worse is when it is still dark outside. And it was. I was supposed to meet Louise in the lobby at 7:30 so I had set the alarm clock for 6, time enough to get up, showered and dressed and shovel some breakfast into me before we started what I suspected would be an extraordinarily long day that would tax all of our skills. Janice had reached over and killed the alarm, and I was hoping, the clock, but such was not my luck as I was nudged repeatedly.

"OK, OK, I am awake," I said surly and with a little grump in my voice.

"Two feet on the floor mister," Janice said half-awake. How well did she know me?

"Don't want to," I said, somewhat petulantly, extracting myself from between the two of them before sliding down to the foot of the bed and standing up and walking over to the window. It was, indeed, still raining outside, the weather fitting my mood, dark and gloomy. getting a snort from Christine as she rolled over and tried to burrow deeper into the blankets. The room was noisy, even at night with people in the hallway already, rattling plumbing and heating units, thin walls. It was not conducive to a good nights sleep, even as fatigued as we had been. My body was protesting the hour, the lack of solid sleep and the fact that it still seemed to be pouring down rain outside. It fit my mood.

I managed to get through my morning routine without slitting my throat and got dressed. Janice was awake by that point. She had always been a morning person and I detected that Christine was too, although not very happy about it.

"Might as well start getting ready too," Janice said as she climbed out of bed and came over to kiss me. "We will meet you..." she let the sentence trail off, the question implied.

"In the lobby," I replied, not having a better suggestion at the moment.

"OK. Go get some food. It could be the last for a while," she said, as she walked into the bathroom.

I walked over and kissed Christine who only grumbled a little and began stretching herself. I let myself out of the room and headed down to the lobby. Breakfast was not on the menu it would seem. Instead there was bad coffee and a couple of slippery looking donuts. I skipped the donuts and did not finish the coffee. We would have to stop somewhere on the way to the airport so I could get some food into me. I agreed with Janice. I do not normally eat breakfast, but I suspected that once we got started, the day would evaporate into a flurry of activity and remembering to eat would be lost in the shuffle. I sat down in one of the chairs and scanned the headlines of the local paper while I waited for Louise to arrive.

"Good morning Gary," Louise said, waving towards the continental breakfast laid out on the buffet in the lobby. "You better grab something now. It could be a long time until lunch." I looked at her, one eyebrow raised while she turned to the breakfast bar.

"They call this breakfast?" Louise asked me a few minutes later as she walked back to where I was sitting. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and still not looking pleased. If it were possible, she looked less rested than I felt.

"Well, that is what they are calling it, but I don't think I would find anyone that would agree with them," I replied folding the paper and standing up. "Personally, I think we can find some Golden Arches on the way to the airport. Actually, I would recommend we do."

"I agree," she said, looking around the lobby. "Ready?"

"Lead on Macduff," I replied. "For today we meet our executioner." OK, so I would never be a theatrical performer, but it was going to be one of those days. Louise seemed to agree.

"Don't quit your day job, Gary," she said. "Besides, the executioner has already been and gone. I think we are the clean-up crew."

"I am afraid you might be right on that," I replied holding the door for her as we made our way out into the rain. We dodged drops, unsuccessfully, and Louise drove us out into the morning.

"Do we have a game plan for today or are you just going to try and find the office and fire everyone in sight for being idiots?" I asked as we pulled into the morning rush hour traffic.

"I actually like that idea, I just wish we could. No, I am not sure what sort of game plan Craig has in mind. There is no question that Ethan over stepped himself on this one. The office was supposed to move, but we were still in the preliminary discussions with the leasing company and had not even gotten to the point of getting your people involved. Even I know you do not just move a bloody office full of computer gear and not tell the corporate IT people you are doing it. How bad was the damage?"

"Well, on first blush, I would say it was bad. Ripped and cut cables are hard fix. You just cannot Krazy Glue them back together again like a broken pot. Depending on how much stress was put where, you could have to replace whole segments of cable. Certainly cutting the head off of the router cable is a bad thing. Those are not cheap cables, and you cannot just run out to Radio Shack and get another one. Beyond that, there could be systems damage to the physical hardware at the interface level. If the servers were not shut down correctly the hard disks could be damaged. Data could be lost. It is not something I can really give you a good handle on until I get a chance to look at it all and see where we are at. Turn in here, please. Want anything?" Louise shook her head and I dashed inside.

"So you cannot even give me an estimate on how long it will take to get them operational?" Louise was not looking happy as she asked me that after we pulled back out into traffic.

"Louise, I cannot even tell you I can get them operational. Worst case is we are looking at a total loss of corporate data and complete system unavailability until new gear is delivered. It could be weeks before we have this office back on-line. Or it could be a simple matter of waiting for the phone company to expedite a high-speed line and plugging it in. Until I actually see it, I am only guessing."

"Did I tell you I hate it when you guess?" She was not really smiling, but she was resigned to the idea that it could be a long period of time before the office was fully operational. Something that I know she was not happy about. I was not happy either. This should not have happened. Sadly, the site administrator did not work for the IT group. The position had been outsourced before I got here by the previous group VP in a cost cutting move, so there was no one really on-site who worked for us, at least not directly.

"Louise, one thing we need to address and this incident really drives it home, is the need to make sure that while the sites are autonomous, or as autonomous as they can be, that the IT people work for IT rather than for the site lead."

"You mean they don't?" She seemed surprised.

"No, they are overhead in most of the organizations and are part of the operation budget of the site, which is why there is no IT person here. Well, there is a person on site, but he is not one of our people anymore. Actually, given the size of this site there should be at least three people here. Last I heard they were contracting with a local company to cover the break/fix while we took care of the servers on an as needed basis. Of course, the company that has the maintenance contract hired the administrator that we cut loose. It is not an ideal arrangement. We need to rework the whole IT structure I think." Wheels started spinning in my head as I tried to remember what Jerry and I had discussed on this subject a couple of times. It was really his area but we had both suffered through the frustrations of trying to get stuff done at a site and been stonewalled or flat out told to go away by the site lead because they did not have enough money or manpower available to support our needs.

"Jerry knows about this?" Louise asked, hoping the answer would be one she liked.

"Oh, he knows all about it. We both have gained several grey hairs over the issue and the problems it has introduced."

She nodded her agreement and seemed about to say something else when we pulled into the parking lot at the airport with plenty of time to spare. Louise set about finding a second car while I started looking at the ads around the airport. The hotel we were in was fine if you were only bunking overnight, but it would not support the operation I suspected we were about to enter into. By the time Louise had got the car, I had made a few calls.

"Once we get the boss," I began, "I suggest we gather our belongings and change venues."

"I was going to suggest something similar," Louise replied, "my back is killing me."

"They were not the most comfortable of beds were they?"

"No, not by a long shot. What do you have in mind?"

I told her my plan and she agreed, leaving me to make the arrangements while she went to check the status of the plane. We were outside security waiting when Craig, Patricia and Maureen arrived a little after 9:00 AM. Louise brought Craig up to speed while I wrangled the bags, carts, and keys. Louise took Craig and Patricia back to the hotel while Maureen and I rode out to the rental car lot to pick up the second car.

"So, it is bad?" Maureen asked.

"I guess it depends on your definition of bad," I replied. "I mean, for a moving job, it is pretty thorough. They cleaned the place to the bare walls and didn't leave a thing behind. I would call that pretty good myself. Of course, I might actually have unplugged some of the equipment before moving it rather than ripping it out or cutting the wires, but that's just me." I was already on a low boil and Maureen seemed to sense it.

"What are the options?" She asked.

"I guess it all depends on the story they tell. The equipment is missing a key cable, based on what we found on the floor, and the router will probably have to be reprogrammed, even if they have managed to get a new data line from the phone company. Janice and I would have to inspect the rest of the equipment to see what condition it is in. Technically, the whole plant could be operational, at least at the local level, but I am not going to place any money on that. More likely they are barely operational and have someone's relative doing their networking. Someone who doesn't really understand what is involved."

"From an operational standpoint, the site manager and probably every other senior person in the place is looking at a swift kick in the ass, followed by a pink slip for gross stupidity. I could see formal charges brought as well for a variety of things like malfeasance, theft of corporate property, negligence. I could go on but why bother. What really torques me is that there are probably good people at that site that are going to loose their jobs because some twit that should never have been making management decisions made an executive decision to up and move the operation without any thought to the consequences and we have to take time out of our schedules to clean up the mess." I wound down and focused on my driving as I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel.

We got out and walked into the lobby where everyone had gathered. Craig looked furious and Patricia was no happier. Janice and Christine were checking us out while I outlined the plan for Craig. We were pulling up stakes here and moving to a more central hotel between the two sites that had conference rooms and the ability for us to take over one and turn it into our war room for the duration. I had booked a week knowing we could be here longer and hoping I would be able to get out for a change of clothes this evening at least.

"At least someone in this company is thinking," Craig growled not really looking at anyone as Louise ushered him and Patricia back out to the car. Maureen stayed with me and Janice and Christine piled in the back seat. Louise indicated I should lead, which I did, pulling out of the parking lot and into traffic. It was not a long drive, but it was a work day and Atlanta is like every other city in its fair share of traffic and bottlenecks. We reached the hotel about 30 minutes later and pulled into the parking lot. At least the rain had let up, leaving the pavement wet, the air damp and chilly and the sky still a very leaden grey. It was doing nothing to lighten my mood.

We checked in. The rooms were not ready yet but the conference room was, so we migrated there with the manager in charge.

"So what will you be needing?" He was positively hovering over Craig, who was deferring to me.

"A couple of data drops with Internet access, six large tables we can write on, a dozen chairs, a couple of flip charts with markers and the name and directions to the nearest consumer electronics store," I said. "We will bug you if we need anything more." I left the statement open as I looked at Craig.

"No, that should be sufficient for now. We will work meals in as we go. Oh, better bring a couple of pitchers of water and glasses," he added.

The manager scurried away to get the things we asked for while we walked into the room. It was a ballroom technically, and big enough to host a large gathering of several hundred people. We would be crowded around a couple of tables against one wall, but it was better than trying to work out of the rooms.

"If you will excuse me," I said, "I will go and get the rest of the supplies we need. Who brought their machines with them?" Hands went up around the room and Janice set about collecting them while I headed out the door. She would call me on the way and tell me what sort of things I needed. I was hoping to get away with a quick and dirty wireless set-up and made a note that I should lay in supplies for this sort of emergency gathering. I was back into traffic and off in less than 10 minutes.

The directions were adequate. I missed the place the first time, which, for a big box store is hard to do, but it was set back from the road and not visible from the direction I was driving. My phone rang as I was pulling into the parking lot and Janice gave me the quick update. We could do wireless. Christine's machine needed a card, but the others had wireless adapters on-board. She also suggested I bring back a couple of lengths of cable in case we needed to hook up to their data connection. For what we were paying, they should be providing the cable but it made me think of getting a printer and some paper. 30 minutes later a very helpful salesperson was helping me load the printer and the rest of the equipment into the car, my credit card still smoking in my hand. At least it felt that way. I was back in the conference room less than an hour after I had left it.

Louise was briefing Craig and Maureen while Christine and Patricia were taking notes. Janice and I started setting up the network. In less than 15 minutes we had an operational war room and Janice started laying out machines while I unpacked and set up the printer.

"Gary, what's your take on this?" Craig asked while I was pulling tape off of the printer.

"You don't want to know," I replied, truthfully.

"Maureen already gave me the digested version," he said. "I cannot say I disagree with you either. What, if anything, can we salvage?"

"From the site? I honestly don't know. Until we can get in and look at the equipment it could be a complete loss, although I am not expecting it to be that bad."

"Estimates?"

"Craig, sitting here, I don't honestly know."

The room went silent for a moment as everyone looked at each other.

"So why are we sitting here?" Craig said, standing up.

We headed out to the cars and were on the road. It took about 45 minutes to get to the new office site. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was starting to peek out. The parking lot was not that full, which surprised me a little, even though it was coming up on the lunch hour. Craig led the parade into the building that was thankfully open this time. I brought up the rear. Louise was behind Craig. I was feeling sorry for the receptionist.

"Can I help you sir?" She was a little bit of a thing, made smaller by the hulking desk she sat behind. Probably hired for her looks than for what was between her ears. She struck me as a real Georgia peach in all the negative senses of the term. Louise was looking less and less amused and I had spent all day yesterday with her and I did not think she could get any less amused. Craig actually smiled, so I followed suit.

"I am here to see John Weems. I do not have an appointment," he said.

"Mr. Weems no longer works here," she said, her southern accent cutting through the tension.

Craig turned to look at Louise, who looked as confused as Craig was. We all sort of did a quick look at each other as well as around the room. The logo behind her was ours. The letterhead was ours. We were in the right place.

"How about Allan Jack," I said. Allan was supposed to be the network administrator, but it was a long shot that he would be here.

"Let me see if I can find him," she said. "Your name please?"

"Gary Preston," I said, moving up to the counter.

She nodded and a punched a number into the console. We could hear her talking to someone for a moment and then hung up.

"If you will have a seat, he will be right with you," she said and then promptly ignored us. I tried not to laugh and herded the owner and head of the company away from the desk. He was looking slightly bemused. Louise was trying not to laugh and Maureen and Christine were smiling. Patricia had a funny look on her face and I could not quite figure out what she was thinking.

A few minutes later, Allan walked into the lobby. I had met him a couple of times before but I do not know if he remembered me. He was a little stunned to see the crowd around me.

"Allan," I said, walking up and shaking his hand. "We need to talk."

"Gary, good to see you again." He seemed shocked. Well, I could understand that. I expected there would be a lot of people looking that way by the time we were finished.

"Allan, I don't know if you have met Craig Kelly," I said, indicating Craig. "And this is Louise Hampton," I continued, point out Louise. "I think you need to escort us to your conference room," I suggested.

"I think you might be right," he said. "This way please, sir," he said to Craig.

We walked through the doors and down a hall to a small conference room. We took up most of the room. I closed the door behind us and indicated that Allan should take a seat.

"So," I began, trying to sound casual, "want to tell me what hell is going on?" So much for the laid back approach.

"Gary, I wish I knew," he began, holding up his hand to forestall any response. "Three weeks ago everyone was told that the office would be shut down for three weeks while it was renovated. OK, that did not really surprise anyone because people had all been complaining about the working conditions. The place was a dump."

"We know, we saw it," I said.

"I came in on Monday, thinking everything was going to be normal. Instead I found a moving crew hauling out everything that was not nailed down. I got scooped up and brought over here to make sure we could get things moved in correctly. Gary, it was a mess. Gear was piled in the corner and I was here until late Monday. No data lines, no order. Half the PCs seem to be damaged in someway. I was almost sick when I finally found the router. I still have not found the CSU/DSU." He was pale. There is no question things were not good. And they were just about to get worse.

In the end, it took three weeks to sort the mess out. The systems were pretty much a write-off, the organizational structure in shambles and Craig was seriously thinking about closing the office all together, but the amount of work we had would have meant we needed an office somewhere, so, with Louise at the helm and Janice, Allan and myself pitching in where we could, we managed to get a functioning office back up and running to the point that I could head home.

The cab dropped me at home a little after five on Friday afternoon. The house was sort of empty if you consider the two members of the Firm camped in my living room and no sign of Fay or Ellen empty.

"You must be Gary," the female member of the pair said as I came through the door. "I am Ann Dawson and this is Bill Thomas," she said indicating her partner.

"Hi. Where's Fay?" I was not really up to dealing with them and put my case down at the foot of the stairs and walked into the kitchen in search of a drink.

"I believe she said she was going to pick up Ellen," Ann said from the living room.

There was no beer in the refrigerator but there was an open bottle of merlot so I killed the bottle pouring myself a glass. I did not even think to offer the lawyers a drink. If they were here and Fay was out, they knew were the refrigerator was as well as I did.

"If you have a moment, I have some questions for you," Ann said.

I walked back into the living room and flopped down into the couch near her. She looked more than a little put out. In fact, she looked like a soccer mom in the most republican sense of the word. Her suit was severe, her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she had on sensible shoes. She was maybe forty years old and I did not find her the least bit attractive.

"Ask away," I said, taking a sip of my wine. "But make it quick. I have had a very long couple of weeks and I am not putting up with any stupid lawyer games." Yes, I was tired and cranky.

"Oh, no games sir. We just have a couple of simple questions. What sort of compensation did you want?"

"Compensation? For what?" I was confused.

"From the suit, sir."

"From the suit? Ann, I did mention that I was tired and that I have had a very long couple of weeks? Can you be more precise? I haven't been keeping up I am afraid."

"The harassment suit, sir," she said like I was a child. "What sort of compensation do you wish to receive?"

Fay and Ellen came through the door at that moment.

"Hi daddy, you're home!"

"Hi yourself. Do I get a hug?" And with that, she threw herself at me, arms around my neck as Fay stepped up and rescued the wine glass from my hand as I hugged my daughter back and kissed her cheek.

"OK, go and clean up that mess of a room," Fay said after a couple of minutes before kissing me quickly as Ellen scrambled out of my lap.

I took my glass back saying, "Ms. Dawson, before we discuss compensation, shouldn't we win the case first?"

We did win dear, about three hours ago," Fay said, filling in the blanks. "Well, actually they withdrew the suit. Now we are going after them."

"What's the plan?" I asked her, ignoring the other two for the moment.

"Why don't we get some dinner and I will bring you up to speed," she said. To the others, she said, "I will see you on Monday."

They got the message and began the process of cleaning up and getting out of my house.

I took my bag upstairs and began the process of unpacking it before coming downstairs to help Ellen with her homework while Fay had gone to get pizza for dinner.

"So, what is up?" I asked several hours later, after we had put Ellen to bed and were snuggled on the couch in the family room.

"Gonzalez overplayed his hand, not that it was a very strong one to begin with, but he found out that Rhonda had violated several corporate policies where you are concerned and, in fact, was discriminating against you."

"Maureen?"

"Yup, she helped, but there were others that we contacted and there were some notes in the files. It was actually well documented and straight forward once we connected the dots."

"So you are counter suing?"

"That was the thought, unless you want us to go after the company."

"Actually, I am concerned that a countersuit might rebound and hit the company sideways and that is not something I would like. As far as I am concerned, the issue is closed or at least it should be. But you are the lawyer in the family."

She smiled at that and snuggled down closer against me. "Alright, I can see your concern and we will research the issues before we start anything that might bounce back. And there is nothing wrong with your legal skills my dear. In fact they are sometimes superior to my own."

"Yes, but I don't practice them anymore while you do every day." I emphasized my point by leaning down to kiss her slowly and lovingly.

"Mmm ... Tell you what. I will give you that point councilor if you will let me thoroughly examine your briefs."

I smiled at her and we headed upstairs to bed. I should mention that the examination was quite extensive, even though I was not wearing any briefs.

I woke up slowly, feeling lips on the skin of my neck and shoulder. They were little fleeting kisses making their way over my chest while a hand slowly stroked the inside of my thigh from knee to groin and back again. The hand started to gently play with my balls while the tongue was flicking at my rapidly hardening nipple, causing my cock to swell from its current flaccid state. A moan escaped my lips as the hand that was playing with my balls moved along the length of my cock, almost willing it harder by encouraging more blood to fill it.

Fay began to gently stroke my cock and sucked hard on my nipple, drawing another moan from deep inside me. She must have had me hard enough because without further ado, she threw back the sheets and impaled herself on my organ, taking it inside her in one smooth wet motion, causing us both to moan and sigh with desire. The feeling was wonderful and she lay down on top of me, kissed me, and started slowly moving her hips, grinding her clit against my pubic bone in long slow strokes that were a tease for both of us but no less exciting. Slowly she began to increase the speed of her stroke, wrapping her legs around mine and pounding her hips harder against mine. I could feel her clenching my cock with her soft pussy which sent waves of pleasure through me as her breathing became rapid just before her climax took her. Mine followed a second later, filling her with my own offering, spurred on by the rhythmic clenching of her muscles. She collapsed on top of me, her head to one side as she tried to catch her breath, my hand gently caressing her back and sides as I felt myself shrink and fall out of her with a little plop.

"Good morning darling," I said to her.

"Mmm, good morning yourself. I really missed you!" she replied as she moved up and around to kiss me, which I was more than happy to let her do.

We kissed for several minutes, enjoying each other's company before she pushed herself off of me, saying, "come on, and get dressed. I promised we would take Ellen shopping for some new CDs and she needs some new pants and shirts as well."

"Is she growing again?" I asked with a smile. Kids tend to grow like weeds and without any warning either.

"Yes, again," she said with a laugh, rolling off of me and heading for the bathroom. I had to laugh and lay in bed stretching while Fay showered.

The rest of the weekend passed quietly. We found Ellen some pants and some new tops and Fay and I also picked up a few things that we needed. It was a nice, quiet, normal weekend and I needed it to recover from the previous weeks. I had no doubt that Jason would now be able to get the remaining issues in Atlanta squared away and start putting his own stamp on the department, which would allow me to start building my own organization. That was going to be a real challenge and I was looking forward to it, even though I still had a few things to do for the department. I spent part of Sunday reading through configurations and working out how a new email server would fit into the overall scheme of things. I also wanted to run a couple of changes past Pete and Steve that might give us a little more breathing room if something like this happened again, although with Louise running the show now and some better monitoring we should be able to prevent it from ever happening again.

Sometime during the afternoon, the phone rang and Fay had a quick conversation with someone before hanging up again. She went back to doing laundry and I continued working on my configurations.

Shortly before dinner, the doorbell rang and I found Luci and her boys standing on the porch.

"Well, this is a pleasant surprise," I said as the boys ran past me looking for Ellen. Luci just smiled, stepped inside and while I closed the door, she put her bag down at the foot of the stairs and then flowed into my arms as I turned around to face her, our mouths seeking each other like lost lovers, or in this case, lovers who have been apart for a while. Sure it had only been a couple of weeks but it had been a very long couple of weeks and it seemed like we were trying to make up for all that last time in one kiss. Our tongues rolled around each other at first, our hands gently touching each other. Then with more energy and passion, our kiss pulled us closer together, our hands holding onto each other, little moans and sighs escaping our mouths.