Free Storm Surge - Part 2 by Melissa Good

and plenty of signage pointing to trains and subways in three different directions.
    "Got that right," Andrew agreed as they headed up another hall. He glanced to one side and then paused. "Goin' to get me a hot dog. You want one?" He indicated a shop to one side.
    Alastair looked past him to a cluttered gathering of fast food marquees, all crammed into one low ceilinged space. "Why, sure," he said. "Been a long time since lunch."
    Andrew went inside and set his box down on a table near the hot dog counter. He removed his wallet from his back pocket and advanced on the woman behind the counter, turning his head as he stopped. "You want one with all them things on it?"
    Alastair set his bag down on the box and pondered the menu. "Chili dog," he said. "Might as well hold up my end of the Texas stereotype."
    "Gimme two of them there things, and some taters, and a couple of cokes," Andrew addressed the woman.
    The woman studied him. "You want two chili dogs, French fries,and two sodas?" She hazarded a guess.
    "Yeap."
    "No problem." The woman turned to take care of the order, leaving Andrew to loiter in front of the desk. Near the back a man was starting to clean up, putting chairs up on tables to sweep under them, carefully avoiding the two tables of guardsmen finishing up their dinner.
    Andrew briefly pondered bringing some dogs back for Dar and Kerry, but figured they'd be stone cold before they got out there, and a mess to boot. He turned and leaned against the counter, folding his arms over his chest.
    Alastair took a seat and rested his elbows on his knees. Having a chili dog in a train station didn't even seem odd after the last few days. He could barely even remember how the morning had started and he found he was mostly looking forward to some kind of success before the night ended.
    He suspected there would be one. Dar generally created success, which was one of the reasons he trusted her the way he did. He also suspected she was probably waiting on their return, but he figured a five minute stop for hot dogs probably wouldn't skew the pitch one way or the other.
    His cell phone was off. He intended it to remain that way until they were back at the port, when there was some chance he could actually report on whatever status whatever politician on the other end was asking for.
    Right now, tired as he was, he gained a glimmer of understanding of the undisguised sigh of exasperation that Dar sometimes uttered when she was being hounded for something. Sometimes, you could do what you could do, when you could do it.
    "Here." Andrew handed him a cardboard box, which had a hot dog and a paper dish of fries in it with a little plastic pseudo fork poked in them."Figure that is good as any till we finish up." He took a seat at the table and bit into his dog.
    Alastair followed suit tilting his head a bit as he realized the guardsmen were watching them. He wondered if they looked particularly suspicious or something. He glanced at both himself and Andrew, then at their burdens, which he'd shifted carefully to the floor so they could eat on the table.
    Hm. Two guys, in a train station, with a brown box and a brown bag full of electrical parts, and one of the guys was wearing combat boots and a face full of scars. He watched the guardsmen in his peripheral vision as they all started looking their way and whispering.
    Andrew shifted a little, so that he was facing Alastair and could see over his shoulder. His eyebrows hiked up a little.
    Alastair took another bite of his hot dog"Not bad," he commented, wiping his lips on a napkin and hoping the guard would find some other thing to interest them.
    "S'allright," Andrew agreed. "Two things I always did like t'eat round here is hot dogs and pizza pie. Had liberty here once and mah whole SEAL team went and got us ten of them big pies and we nearly got ourselves sick to death with it. Still like it though."
    Alastair chuckled. "Have to say when I was in the Army, the most interesting place