Brad seemed annoyed. Was it because he had already put away the Kahlua?

Annabel had worked all day long. She had had a heart-to-heart with Simon which had made her feel better about things.

Work had been slow and difficult. The incident with Dow Corning had caused a lot of meetings about security, and those meetings had taken up most of her day. In fact, she thought bemusedly, a terrorist could have planted a bomb under her desk during her normal office hours, because she had been in the conferenceroom all day.

She wanted to tell Brad this. She thought he would get a kick out of it, in his own impassive fashion. But something was bothering him. He hadn't even poured her drink, he had just set the Kahlua and Smirnov on the bar with a glass and had walked off to mop.

Brad was acting strange.

Annabel wondered if she should ask him what was bothering him. But that would have been ridiculous: like if a waiter came up to your table and you asked him if he needed anything.

She poured herself another, feeling helpless about the proportions. It was all wrong, but she drank it and stared up at the TV. It had the sound turned down. It looked like an old movie, or the news. There were flames pouring out of a building and billowing black clouds.