**Don't Start Me to Talking, Etta James**

Kara was tacking some maps up in Chandler's office for his afternoon meeting with the Sheriff about the river piracy problem when she heard the outer door crash open. "I think I've figured out how they are transmitting the messages over our system!" Val announced triumphantly. She peaked her head around the corner just in time to see her frown and ask Kat, who was using Kara's computer, "Where is Kara? I need to talk with Kara!"

Her stomach rumbled. She had been preparing to go to lunch and she had to suppress an annoyed eye roll at Val's urgency. She'd already figured out that Val only came up for air if she had something important to say or do. She stepped out into the main room. "Let's chat and then all go get lunch together. Flutter needs sustenance."

Kat shrugged and went back to her typing while Val followed Kara into Tom's office. She silently prayed that whatever Val had discovered would help them stop the transmissions. It had been two more days since Mike's update, and everyday that Danny was out there with a potential enemy giving away their location, she got wound tighter and tighter by her anxiety. She shut the doors while Val set the computer she was carrying on Tom's small conference table. The plastic shell was cut open and a few extra wires were attached to the processor card underneath. "What happened to your computer?" She dropped into Chandler's desk chair and sighed in appreciation as she sank into the supple leather. She probably shouldn't sit in the CNO's chair, but these days her back got sore if she stood up for any length of time and the previous owner of the office had left a luxurious computer chair behind.

"OK, so I was thinking that whoever encrypted the messages had to be inside the defense networks but there is no record of a passkey being used to hand the message off, like you'd have if multiple networks were involved. So I tried to trace the messages back to the earliest possible instance and isolate all the people logged on at that time." Val began talking excitedly. Kara felt lost after the first mention of a passkey but she nodded along, absently patting Flutter and hoping her growling stomach wasn't too loud. "And I still couldn't find any record of the message being transferred into the system from outside so I am sure now that we have a skilled agent in the midst." Even without Val's electronic trail, Kara had figured that must be the case too.

Val grabbed a clump of her reddish dreads and tossed them over her shoulder. "So I isolated the first satellite that carried the message and made records of every user from zero to five minutes before the message was sent. There are 100's of users on the network even now!" She grinned at Kara. "But I've narrowed the list down to about 90 users who were on during the times of all the messages!"

"90?" Kara found it hard to believe there were 90 users on the defense networks, never mind on a certain satellite. "Any names on the list that might be interesting to us?"

Val shook her head. "No, it doesn't work that way. I have 90 IP addresses. A few I can rule out because of the kinds of machines they are on and a few I can ID Some are so far outside our group that they couldn't possibly have any knowledge of the president's location. But the rest, they need to be combed one by one." She patted her odd looking computer triumphantly. "That's where this baby comes in."

Kara had no doubt Val was brilliant but she was also a little unpredictable. Her voice was wary when she asked. "What does it do?" Her stomach sounded with an embarrassingly loud gurgle. "Sorry, Flutter likes to eat on a schedule."

"Flutter huh? That's way more hippie-granola than I figured you and Green for. Then again, there are far fewer cues to that kind of thing when you're in uniform." Val flipped open the screen. "Well, I reverse engineered the login process so that when anyone attempts to send a message through our servers, a whole bunch of details are recorded that should allow us to narrow down their location. This will help us pick out the IP addresses that are in and around St. Louis and then we can reverse engineer those to narrow down the location further." She paused and met Kara's eyes.

"This is illegal, isn't it?"

Val shrugged. "Well, if you wanted to go through official channels, yeah, kind of." Kara had been afraid of that. "Do you want me to stop looking?"

She wished Tom was there to make the decision so she didn't have to. But she knew what he would say. "We do the right thing, whether the powers that be are watching or not." Val winced, but she also squared her jaw with determination. "What do we have to do to make it legal?"

"I don't know." Val warbled her head. "I never bothered to worry about whether my work was legal or not."

Kara wasn't surprised. And besides, that might be what made Val such a good asset. "OK then, suppose you were at the NSA. Then what would you do?"

Val scrunched her lips to the side for a moment. "I guess we'd ask a judge for a warrant or something?"

Kara nodded. "OK, I'm hiring you as our one woman NSA. I'll set up an emergency meeting with Tom and Judge Siskin for this afternoon. We need this info. I just don't want to get either of us tossed in jail for it."

Val turned the laptop back around again. "I kind of prefer to be an independent contractor." She met Kara's astonished gaze with a level stare. "Beyond the food and shelter I'm already getting, what else does this job offer include"

Alisha was right, Val was difficult just for the sake of being a pain in the ass. "Someday you'll get health care and retirement benefits, if you don't quit or get fired first.

Val pursed her lips, considering. "Alright, throw in back pay and you've got a deal. Oh, and I get to pick my own title."

Kara nodded. It wasn't like they had any other hacking experts hanging around. "Fine, I'll get an admin from the ship to draw up a contract. But in the meantime, can we get back to work?"

Val grinned, clearly pleased with herself. "Nothing I can do on that front until the judge grants the warrant. Actually, does this mean I should turn off this tracking devices I put on Alisha's gear then too?"

"What?" Kara thought for sure she'd heard her wrong. "You lojacked Lieutenant Granderson?"

Val wiggled her eyebrows. "I didn't want to worry about her. Worry makes you get wrinkles and go gray early." Yeah, didn't she know it! Kara fought the urge to run a finger over the lines at the corners of her own eyes. "I can tell you where they are, at least where she is, if you want to know."

Kara bit her lip. She did want to know. She desperately wanted to know how things had gone since Chicago. "What did you track? If it's her cell, that's probably illegal too." Please don't be her phone, please not her phone, she silently prayed.

"Ok, then let's say I put one on the portable comm kit she and Mason were using." Val looked inordinately pleased with herself. "When I was doing work to amplify the signal I just slipped it in there. Someone would really have to know what they were looking for to find it."

"Well,,,," curiosity got the best of her. "I suppose since that makes it tracking government equipment, it is ok. What do you know about their whereabouts since they left Chicago?"

"OK, last night and early this morning they were in Ann Arbor." Val grinned as she typed something into her computer. But then her grin turned to a frown. "But the radio hasn't moved in several pings." She typed furiously. "What the heck?"

"Do you think they found your device and removed it? Mason is trained in counter espionage techniques." Kara's heart beat was thudding in alarm but she refused to let herself be trapped into thinking the worst.

Val's brow knit in confusion. "I'm getting a more detailed…I don't..what would they be doing in the Detroit River? Shouldn't it be covered in ice?" She spun the computer around to face Kara. "That blue dot is the tracker. It's as accurate as a GPS so that location is definitely underwater."

The screen showed an orange-yellow outline of a map with a series of blue dots flagged with dates and times. Kara could see the path north from St. Louis to Chicago and then east toward Detroit. But the last several dots had all been in the same place. "I know why they were there." Kara didn't elaborate, even though she figured Val could hack her notes and find out what was really going on if she wanted to. "But they should have only been there for about an hour. Can you tall how long it has been?"

"Ah.." Val's fingers flew over the keys and the map was replaced by a table of data. "It only pings once every 90 minutes so it looks like they have been stationary somewhere between three hours to four and a half. Next ping isn't for over an hour."

Kara's stomach flip flopped. 3 or 4 hours as sitting ducks in a tunnel in a city where they had not been able to scout any kind of advance contact was not good. "I need to inform Tom right away."

Val slapped the laptop shut. "So there's a good reason for them to be in the middle of the river? Maybe they left the radio in the car during whatever it is they were doing?" At Kara's skeptical eyebrow she dropped the optimistic routine and opted for practical instead. "OK, you make your phone calls. But after this we need to go get lunch. I can hear that baby growling for food from the other side of the desk. Besides, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't help distract you in your time of anxiety."

After Kara had filled in Tom and Judge Siskin they agreed to meet that afternoon. "Have Val come too." Tom instructed. "Who knows what kind of insight she'll have. As for the radio, until they contact us, we have to assume everything is going fine."

When Kara ducked her head and sighed he surprised her by pulling her into a quick hug. "Danny, Wolf, Tex, Burk..those guys know what they are doing. With Granderson, Cruz, Miller, and Mason there they have an all star team. They might have lost the radio, but I highly doubt they have lost the mission."

Back in her office Kara told Kat and Val, "I really don't know if I can eat now. I'm too worried about what might have gone wrong."

Val linked her their arms and tugged her toward the office door. "I'm sorry I told you about it then. But I insist that you come to the mess. You need to keep up your strength."

Kat stood and handed Kara's coat across the desk. "I could keep an eye out for a larger winter coat for you, if you'd like." She told Kara. "I'm taking the younger kids to get more clothes this afternoon."

Kara sighed as she tugged her regulation wool coat around her belly, knowing it wouldn't button anymore. "I suppose so. We've got at least six more weeks of winter and this one isn't going to cut it much longer."

A plume of musty air hit Kara in a wave as Val swung her gray tweed coat around her. "Holy crap your coat reeks. Are you high right now? Like did you just have a meeting with me, about potential national security threats while high?" Kat giggled behind her hand and Val's raised brows were completely unrepentant.

"Yeah, so? Weed calms me down. In my line of work, it's easy to get a little too high strung. I just had a few hits before I came in."

Kat held the door as they filed outside. "Hey can I get some of that? I think I know someone else who…"

"No!" Kara and Val replied in unison.

Kat tipped her head to the side. "Oh, so it's ok for her but not for me?"

Kara shook her head. "She's an adult so even if I don't understand or approve, it's her decision. You however are a minor and I have the greatest respect for your father so I will not be encouraging you to do anything illegal."

"You did give her a glass of wine at the wedding." Val pointed out, a half disguised smile tilting her lips.

Kara frowned. "Did I? It was just for the toast, good luck and all that." She waved a hand to dismiss it as an exceptional circumstance.

"But seriously kid," Val turned to face her more fully. "You'll have to find another source. I am almost out and despite the free market trading going on everyday now, I have yet to find a reliable supply. St. Louis is too far north and I think the supply routes from the west and south have been too deeply interrupted by this MCF group."

The women collected lunch items from the counter and took a table near the windows. Kara had a very sensible salad, bare chicken breast, and bowl of canned peaches. Val had a plate of fries smothered in gravy, a bag of fritos, and a plate piled with deserts. Kat had the chicken with fries and about a quarter cup of dressing to dip with. "You gotta eat more than that Kara. Live a little. Have some cake." Val pushed the dessert plate piled high with a slice of cake and several cookies across the dining table.

"Ha, I already feel the size of a house and I still have almost five months to go. I'll have this chicken salad now and when I'm hungry again in two hours I'll have a snack. As you heard earlier, Flutter lets me know when I need to eat. What you can't tell is that my stomach is about half the size it used to be." She began to cut her chicken. "So distract me ladies. Anything new in the gossip wire?"

She listened with half an ear as Kat and Val chattered about the news that had arrived earlier that week that Duluth Minnesota had achieved a 60% survival rate by imposing a strict quarantine very early. "Oh course, everyone is forgetting to count the thousands of people that left the area to look for family elsewhere and then died." Val pointed out, waving a fry on her fork as she talked.

"How do you know that?" Kat asked.

"Well, there are 12,473 cell phones with a Duluth area code that were used there the week before the quarantine went into effect that have since been used outside of the quarantine area. So I am guessing they let people out, but not in. Although most of those numbers went dark within 10 days of leaving the city." Val shrugged, oblivious to the other women's open mouthed stares as she chewed the fry. "Mmmm seriously Kara, at least have a few fries."

Kat put down her fork. "No seriously, how do you know that kind of thing? I want to learn to do what you do. It is so cool that you can just type some stuff and find out all that information."

"Seriously?" Val winked at Kara. "Can the NSA hire an intern?"

"No way!" Kara snitched a fry from Val's plate. "She's underage and I promised her father I'd keep an eye on her."

Kat snorted. "I don't need a babysitter. Half the time I am the babysitter you know."

Val wrinkled her nose. "Why are you doing that anyways? I hate babysitting." She shuddered in mock horror. "I'm not sure I could take it…unless you have the hots for one of them. Please tell me it's not the tall one with the red hair."

Kat laughed. "I don't have the hots for anyone. Why, are you jealous? While you're a bit older than us, you're pretty cute and Colin is a total pig so he'd probably go for you." Kara noticed her eyes darted over to the group of kids in their usual spot by the soda machines. Just then, the young man in question, Colin, was balancing a stack of oreo cookies on his nose to the great delight of the younger set.

Val and Kara exchanged a glance. "You know he's not my type, right?" Kat glanced back to Val with a furrow between her brows?

"Well he is a bit young for you. What about Cruz? He's a nice guy and I hear he's single. Or Wolf, if you like them a bit older?"

Kara and Val laughed in unison. Was she ever so young, Kara wondered. "Slowdown there Cher. I don't need a matchmaker. I already have my eye on someone more my age AND type."

"Ohhh, do tell!" Kat leaned in. "Who is he? Is he from the Navy or someone here in St. Louis?"

"Nope, you two have already learned enough about me for one day." Val refused, although she was trying to hide a smile. "Unless you want to trade secrets that is? Why don't you have a boyfriend..or girlfriend?"

Kat yawned. "My last boyfriend was a dud. I'm not interested in a new one. Besides, I have too much to do already." Kara noticed her eyes shot to the table of kids again.

Val frowned. "Those kids can take care of themselves. Seriously Kara, can't you see the poor girl is too overworked. Make her my intern and I'll make sure she gets enough down time."

Kara was about to protest again when Kat beat her to it. "I feel bad for them. You forget that only a month ago I thought I was an orphan. I'm 17 and it was still super scary for me. So I know those little kids need all the support they can get. Heck, I hadn't seen my dad for 3 years before he found me in Memphis so it's still kind of weird to think of him as the person in charge of me. I hardly know him."

"Your Dad's primary mission, the whole time we were on the ship, was to get back to Mississippi and find you, you know. He loves you very deeply." Kara thought about sharing her history with Kat, but when she looked up and saw Val's downcast eyes she thought better of it. For all her bluster and confidence, remembering the family she left to go out on that oil platform must be painful for her too.

"Oh, I know it. I am so glad he found me and brought me here." Kat stole a cookie from Val's stack. "I would love to learn more about what you do. My mo..ain priority is helping those kids right now, so it will have to wait." Kara was sure she was about to say something about her mother but she cut herself off. "Besides, I'm not that overworked. If you really want to help though, come shopping with me today."

Val wrinkled her nose. "Shopping?"

Kat nodded. "Yeah, I heard the mall is opening as an indoor trading post in the afternoons. I'm taking the girls with me." She looked toward Kara and explained. "The other day I found out that Ray is doing 3 loads of laundry every night after they all go to bed just to keep them all in clean clothes. That's why I'm going shopping today. If they each had another winter outfit, there would be a chance for the kids to do their own laundry during the day."

Val snorted and reached for a cookie. "I'll stick to my computers. I was an only child so I don't know much about kids. I have a hard time keeping a houseplant alive, never mind something that needs to be fed on a regular schedule."

This Kara understood. "Me either. I was the youngest and I never babysat or anything. But they seem to love you Kat. You know you're going to be on the top of my babysitter list." Well that wasn't quite true. "Actually, Alisha is the top. She's wanted a baby for a long time. But you're right after her." Val's eyes went wide when she mentioned Alisha liking babies. Maybe Wolf's suspicions about the pair were right.

Kat giggled as she gathered up her tray. "Another only child here so I don't know too much either. Ray told me to just try to keep them busy so they don't have a chance to make trouble. I know zero about babies, but I'd love to babysit for you and Danny anytime." She stood and shoved her hands in the sleeves of her old jacket. "I see the pack heading out so I better go."

Kara watched as she swiftly crossed the room toward the train of rowdy kids waiting to deposit their trays. She seemed so calm about the fact that it had been barely a month since she reunited with her father and he'd already left her behind for a mission. She hoped that one day Flutter would be able to handle the lifestyle he or she was being born into just as well.

Val interrupted her mussing. "You know, taking on that much responsibility and having all those kids constantly needing her is going to ruin her youth. That boy's too. The one in charge, what's his name?" She nodded toward where Ray stood waiting at the doors.

Kara watched as Kat blended seamlessly with the gaggle surrounding Ray. "That's Ray." Kat was beaming at a little boy with over sized glasses while a chattering preteen girl was tugging her by the arm toward the door. "And who knows? Maybe a big busy family is exactly what she needs right now. Like she said, she's almost an orphan herself."