Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series (25 page)

"I know. But it's the truth." Dar nuzzled her hair.

Perplexed, Kerry fell silent, not really sure what to say next. Maybe, as Dar had hinted, it was time for her to change and move on to do something else. The thought made her anxious, though, and she had to admit, if only privately, that the last thing she wanted from a professional standpoint was Dar leaving the company.

Maybe they should both leave. Kerry liked that idea better. They'd talked around the idea of forming their own business for the longest time. Maybe it was really time to get off their butts and do something about it.

She put her arm over Dar's stomach and squiggled down between her and the couch, liking the view from this end better anyway. She thought for a bit about her own job, and whether or not she liked it as much as she had when she'd started.

It was okay, she finally decided. The one big problem with it was that it never really allowed a sense of completion of anything. It was always one situation after another, after another, after another. There was never really any time when she could sit back and feel satisfied with where she, and by extension the company, was.

Would that ever change? Kerry doubted it. She was about to mention her revelation to Dar, when her cell phone rang, as though punctuating her thoughts with eerie precision. With a sigh, she took the phone from Dar, and opened it. "Hello?"

"Ms. Stuart?"

"Yes?"

"This is Justin in operations, ma'am," the voice replied. "I'm sorry to bother you on the weekend, but I had note in the log about a file transfer on the financial lines?"

Kerry glanced up at Dar, who was now listening. "Yes. Is it happening again?"

"Well, I'm not sure, ma'am. I'm just seeing a lot of traffic on that line, and it's sort of unusual for a Saturday, you know?"

Dar picked up her laptop as Kerry straightened to give her room.

"Yes, I understand," Kerry said. "Okay, we'll take a look at it, Justin. Thanks for calling me. Did anyone from the bank contact you?"

The tech sounded surprised at the question. "On a Saturday? No, ma'am. They sure didn't," he said. "I've notified my boss, and he's checking it out too, but he thought maybe you'd be interested in hearing it also."

Dar switched off the program she'd been using and opened up her network systems instead. "Got that right."

"Your boss is spot on," Kerry told the tech. "Thanks for calling me, and let me know if anything changes, okay?"

"Yes ma'am, I sure will." Justin promised.

Kerry hung up and squirmed around so she could see the laptop screen. "I am getting really freaking annoyed at all this crap, Dar."

"Mm. Sorry." Dar was typing quickly. "My stupid fault." She accessed the circuit in question and reviewed it. "Damn it, he's right."

She sighed. "Same crap as before. I'm going to just cut it off."

"Don't you want to try and trace it?"

Dar's fingers hesitated. "I don't think we can risk it," she admitted. "I don't know what this is, Ker. It's too dangerous on the bank lines." She typed in another command. "I'll grab what I can, then dump the connection."

Kerry watched in silence as she completed the action, and the activity in the monitors fell to normal levels. "Why didn't Mark do that?" She asked, curiously. "Was he trying to track it down?"

Good question. Dar keyed up her messaging program and typed in a question, then hit send. She reviewed the logs of the router, checking the address sources still held in its memory. "Hmm." She frowned and reviewed them again, then copied and pasted them to her desktop. "Ker?"

"Yeah?" Kerry peered at them. The list of addresses was mostly of no interest to her, save one. "Isn't that one of ours? Is that you or maybe Mark coming in remote?"

Dar checked her laptop's configuration. "Nope not me." She probed further. "I don't think it's Mark."

"Another spoof?" Kerry leaned even closer. "But wait, that's from..."

"Inside our network." Dar completed the sentence unhappily. "Now I hope it's Mark. It's gone already." She searched, but found no trace of the offending station. Her machine beeped, and an answer came back from Mark.

I was trying to get a dump. Got a partial.

Dar typed back a question.

No, that's not me, I'm on the protected security range. Mark typed back. That's one of the pool addy's.

"Shit." Dar sighed again. She typed back.
Then we need to find out why one of those pool addresses was inside the bank router. Because it's one of the sources of that data parse.

The screen was briefly silent. That sucks.

"No kidding." Kerry felt a sick sensation in her guts. "Someone inside the company is doing this? Is that what we're looking at, Dar?"

"Maybe."

Well, ulterior motives didn't usually show up on the security checks. Kerry thought back over the recent new hires in their division. "Dar, we haven't hired anyone for three months. Are you saying someone might have been here for that long, just lying low?"

"Doubt it." Dar put a series of controls in place. "If it's a pool, it might not be from IT." She debated a moment, then exhaled. "I'm going to put my program in all the border routers."

Kerry winced. "Is it ready?"

"No. But it's better than nothing." Dar called up the utility and started transferring it from her laptop to the remote devices. "Worst it will do is crash the whole net."

"Dar..."

"I know, hon, but we've got very few options." Dar replied gently. "I'll take responsibility for it."

"That's not my issue." Kerry protested. "It's just really hard to fathom having to explain to a zillion customers that they're down because you crashed us."

Dar chuckled without humor. "I'll take the calls if it happens." She finished transferring the program to the first router, then activated it. "I built the network, I can wreck it, I guess."

Kerry hid her face in Dar's shirt. "Can you program it to scream if it crashes? At least we'll get warning--"

"Hopefully..." Dar finished her work. "Okay, it's in the number one pair." She monitored the devices with some anxiety, despite the confidence she had in her own skills. You just never did know when something you never anticipated would interact with a program, and send everything all to hell. "I think it's okay."

Kerry peeked at the screen. The gauges were steady, but with the same odd flutter she'd seen the last time Dar's program had run. "Can you dump the warnings here?"

Dar drummed her fingers. "Yeah, I better. Ops has nothing set up to receive them." She keyed in the programming change carefully. "Okay...let me get that on the rest of them."

Dar!

"Whoops...should'a warned him." Dar glanced at the message.
Sorry. I'm putting my new code in.

Hey, that address was from inside the office! The server issued it at 2pm. I'm calling security to find out who's in.

Kerry reached across Dar's forearms to type on the keyboard.
I want to see that list! KS

Dar glanced at her, a grin twitching at her lips. "Should I get the mallet?"

"This is not funny." Kerry growled. "Dar, if someone inside the office is responsible for that, we need to call the police."

"I know." Dar answered. "Let's just find out what's really going on before we jump to conclusions though." She typed further. "Not that there's any legitimate reason for anyone in our office to be in that router, but I do like to have the facts."

"Grr."

"Then we can whack 'em."

Kerry put her head down on Dar's shoulder to wait, watching the screen with impatient eyes. Someone inside. Her eyes narrowed. Didn't that just suck?

ANDREW PUT DOWN the crowbar he'd just been using, and lifted the cover off the crate in front of him. The hold of the ship was thick with workers despite it being a weekend, and he was careful to prop the cover up against the bulkhead out of the way.

It was hot in the hold, and he had to pause to wipe the sweat off his brow. He was glad he'd picked a tank top to wear to work. The sky was becoming overcast and the breeze had dropped, promising rain later but doing nothing to dispel the mugginess.

He hadn't expected to be called in today. The supervisor had been a touch mad at him for running off the previous day, and Andy had half expected the man to punish him by giving him a few days off without any pay.

That would have been just fine, from his view. There was a nice big ocean right out there waiting for them to be driving over it. Sitting at the helm of their boat was a sight nicer than unpacking boxes inside an old metal sauna box.

But the super had gotten a call, and everyone'd been told to come in the next day. So here he was. A quick look over the side of the ship had confirmed that the ship was still leaking oil, and he was pondering what do about it after Ceci had nearly scared most of the fish out of the harbor when she'd heard about it.

Sometimes, he did forget his wife was one of them environmental types. Andrew scratched his jaw, then shook his head, scattering a few droplets of sweat over the box. Ah well. He'd figure something out.

With a low, melodious whistle, he picked up a shipping invoice and then peered inside the crate, glancing at the sheet for confirmation. The box was alleged to contain boxes for cash registers, and as he pulled aside a thick wad of cardboard stuffing, the corner of stacked gray boxes were revealed. "Yeap."

A yell outside the ship made him look up, and he heard the sound of air brakes releasing and catching just outside. "Now what?" He muttered, going to the hatchway and looking out.

An eighteen wheel truck was parked outside, its driver arguing with one of the guards. Andrew glanced inside, watching the crew around him gathering around the coffee pot for a break. He stepped out onto the gangway instead, and crossed over to the road to listen in.

The trucker was a big, tall, man wearing cowboy boots, a big buckle belt, and with a hat to match, as much a stereotype as Andrew had seen recently round these here parts. Feller even had highway patrol sunglasses on.

"Listen, buddy." The trucker pointed past the guard. "There ain't no gate down there big enough to pull this rig in. I just need to go over there, so get outta my way, okay?"

The guard shook his head. "Sorry, buster. My boss said no one goes through here to that pier, period."

"What's the big deal? It's just a damn road."

"Not to that pier. They don't want anyone going through this pier or to that pier for deliveries. Forget it. So just take off."

"This stuff's got a rush delivery!"

The guard, a young man in his mid-twenties, smirked. "Rush? I don't care. My base said no one, and that means no one. Guess they're just out of luck," he said.

No deliveries to Dar's boat, huh? Andrew ambled closer, leaning against a stone post near the truck. "Now, that don't make much sense." He drawled. "Feller's just looking to pull on through."

The guard looked at him. "Shut up, old man. Get back in there to work. No one asked your opinion."

No one, least of all Andrew, expected what happened next. The trucker, standing within arm's reach of the guard, dropped his clipboard and lashed out, slugging the man across the face with one gloved fist, and sending him sprawling to the ground. "Know what I hate worse than a pissass little punk?" The man growled. "It's a pissass little punk disrespecting people."

Andrew snorted, covering his mouth with one hand.

The trucker stomped back toward his rig, grabbing his clipboard on the way, shaking his head and muttering as he walked. "Ain't got the balls to stop me going where I want to go, that's for damn sure."

The guard got to his feet, and wiped a bit of mixed blood and spit from his face, then removed the baton from the ring on his belt and took off after the trucker. "Son of a..."

"Wall, now." Andrew shoved away from the stone pylon and intercepted the guard in two long strides, catching him by the arm and swinging him around. "Son, don't be a jackass."

"Let the fuck go of me!" The guard squalled, lashing at Andrew with the baton. "I'll kick your ass!"

"Boy, don't you do that." Andrew warned, reacting out of instincts honed during many years of experience.

The trucker turned, to see his erstwhile attacker being bent into a pretzel as Andrew put him in a restraint hold and lifted him off his feet. He put his hands on his hips and just watched, as the uniformed man was shaken like a rat, bits of his guard accoutrements bouncing off the pavement and rolling under the truck.

"Ah told you, don't be a jackass." Andy told him firmly. "That there feller's just going to drive that truck over you and make you flatter than a pancake."

"Let go of me!" The man struggled to no avail.

Andrew walked over to the waterside with him, and held him threateningly over the edge of the pier. "Ya like salt?" He inquired. "No? Then just shut your mouth up." He looked over at the trucker, who had climbed inside his rig and started the engine. "Now, don't you be speeding on this here dock, young feller." He cautioned the driver, getting a grin in return.

The trucker honked his air horn in appreciation, giving Andrew a big thumbs up as he drove past the ship toward the next pier.

Andy waited for the truck to clear their space, and then he released the guard giving him a healthy shove across the dock to prevent any errant stupidity.

The guard caught his balance, and turned, starting back toward Andrew with an angry expression on his face. "You are in so much trouble, old man."

"Ah am not in any trouble, son." Andrew merely sat down on the pylon and waited for him, relaxed and calm. He made eye contact with the guard and held it steadily as the man advanced on him, years of facing danger lending a sheen of ice to his composure. "But surely you will be." He added, in a soft tone. "If you keep on keeping on."

The guard slowed as he approached, and then halted uncertainly. Then he backed off, sticking his baton back into his belt. "I'm not going to bother with you."

Andrew smiled.

"I'll just get my boss to get your ass fired." The guard gathered the shreds of his dignity and stalked off toward the small guard house, leaving Andrew in peace on the side of the dock.