They were perched on her desktop at the moment, and she leaned back in her leather chair, flexing her hands as she pondered her next course of action. The hacker wasn't that effective, and she didn't really think he was any danger, but it was the persistence behind the effort that had caught her eye.
It was almost a robotic sequence. A probe on each port, using each service, over and over and over again. Was it mechanical, or some idiot sitting there typing the same thing over and over? Dar leaned toward it being a script, but someone was behind the script, and she wanted to know what they were up to.
She probed the inbound connection cautiously, capturing some packets and examining them with a knowledgeable eye. The originating IP was spoofed, that she was pretty sure of. Last time she checked, Wal-Mart wasn't a spawning ground of insurgency, though she did appreciate the ghoulish humor.
Chino pattered in, jumping up and placing her paws squarely on the chair arm, licking Dar's arm with enthusiasm. "Hey Chi." She greeted the animal with an affectionate grin. "What are you up to? You want to help me watch this loser?"
"Growf." The Lab inched forward, nuzzling Dar's neck as she wagged her tail.
Dar put her arm around the dog and scratched her around the neck, typing one handed on her keyboard. "So what do you think, Chi? You like it here?" She asked. "Want to live here all the time?"
"Growf!"
"Sounded like yes to me." Dar drummed her fingers on the keys, watching the persistent signal hammering on her virtual front doorstep. "Look at that guy, would you? Just spewing over and over and over again. What in the hell's he trying to do?"
Chino decided Dar's ear would be tasty, and she licked it, making her owner emit a muffled chuckle.
Her mail chimed, and Dar spared an eye for it, clicking over to her inbox and reviewing the newly arrived message. It was from Mariana, and she opened it curiously.
Dar -- Heard you were playing hooky today. What's up? Mari.
Well, now wasn't that refreshingly straightforward. Dar hit reply and typed a response.
Why? Everyone freaking out? If you want to know thetruth, I got bitten by a barracuda last night and didn't feellike lying about it all day long to everyone who saw me.
D
"What do you think, Chino? Everyone freaking?" Dar gave the dog a kiss on the top of her head.
"Freaking about what?" Kerry responded, entering Dar's office and putting a cup of gently steaming, milky tea down on the desk. She had a pair of shorts and a sports bra on, along with a mostly relaxed expression.
"The budgets? I told you that you scared them all last week." "Nah, us." Dar picked up the cup and sipped it. "Thanks. How's the ship coming?" Kerry perched on the edge of Dar's custom built, cherry wood desk
-- twin to the one in her own office next door. "Not good." She admitted. "I just talked to John, and he's having a very tough time, Dar. He's only about half done."
Dar grimaced.
Kerry hesitated. "Any suggestions?" She asked. "I've spoken to the people on the ship, and there's not much they can do, they tell me. Everyone's fighting for space and time there. We're all under the gun." She played with one of Chino's silky ears. "Apparently all the ships are. Someone lit a fire under them on Friday, and the schedules have all been pushed up."
"Yeah?" Dar frowned. "You know, we didn't hear from Dad last night. I wonder if he saw any of that."
"I wonder what happened with him that the reporter knew about him." Kerry added, both eyebrows hiking up. "I wonder why he didn't call."
Dar reached over and picked up the cabin phone, hitting one of the speed dial buttons. It rang several times, but there was no answer and it switched over to voice mail. "Huh." She waited for the beep. "Hi Dad. Gimme a call when you get a chance. Thanks."
"Try mom?"
"Ehm." Dar dialed another number, the slip phone at her parent's boat. It rang several times too, and again, went to a polite, mechanical voice mail. "What the heck's going on up there?" She frowned, waiting again. "Hey mom, it's Dar." She paused. "Boy that was redundant. Anyway, give us a call when you get back. Thanks."
She put the phone back down and looked at Chino, who had decided her half standing, half lolling position on Dar's shoulder was the pinnacle of comfort. "Anyway, so they're behind? Can he put more guys on the job?"
"Honestly, Dar, I don't think it'd help." Kerry said. "It's space they don't have. He's trying to put our cabling in the same place the electricians are running new wiring, and the air conditioning people are putting in new ducting."
"Huh. Yeah. I remember doing a favor for one of my dad's skippers." Dar said. "Wanted cable run from the bridge to his cabin so he could monitor everything from there. Damn guy had me doing it the same time they were replacing the comms. What a mess."
Kerry repressed a smile. "My little cable monkey." She glanced at Dar's screen. "What's all that about?"
"Ah." Dar put her keyboard down and shifted, lifting one leg off the desk and sliding it around Kerry to trap her. "Some jackass hacker not worth five cents." She scoffed. "Idiot's just beating his head against our outer firewall."
Kerry looked at the monitor window. "Why?"
"No clue." Dar laced her fingers behind her head and leaned back. "Just to annoy me, probably."
"Or distract you." Kerry murmured. "It's almost like whatever that is, is just trying to draw attention to itself."
Dar sat up and looked at the screen, and then she looked at Kerry. "A diversion?"
"Do I need to get out of your way?" Kerry hazarded. "But yeah, it seems like that to me. Someone hammering on the front door screaming obscenities at you."
Shit. Dar's mind raced. She's right.
Kerry gently slipped from between Dar's long legs, and removed Chino from her perch. "Well, let me..."
Dar reached out and put a hand on her wrist. "Tell John to reverse his usual route. Have him pull the cable from the jack end. That'll clear the closets, and when he's done there and ready to do the core installs, the other guys'll be out of his way."
Kerry opened her mouth, then shut it again. A rueful grin appeared. "Should we switch projects?" She pondered. "Maybe some fresh eyes do help."
"Maybe." Dar had to agree. "G'wan. Maybe we can alternate. I'm going to go chase down your idea--though why the hell it didn't occur to me before I can't begin to figure out."
"Ditto." Kerry turned to leave. "How's the foot?"
"Hurts." Dar grunted, as she pulled her keyboard back onto her lap. "Maybe I'll go spear fishing later and get that little bastard."
Kerry paused briefly in the doorway to watch her partner, then she ducked through and swung around into her own office where a cup of tea already awaited her. She sat down behind her desk and picked up her cell phone, glancing at her screen as she keyed in John's number.
More mail. She clicked on it as she waited for her contractor to answer, running her eyes over the new arrivals.
"Hello?"
"Hi, John." Kerry scanned a note from the marketing department. "Listen, Dar had a good idea."
"We could use one." The wiring man grunted.
Kerry told him the plan. "Anyway, it can't hurt, and it'll get you out of the middle of that mess for a while. What do you think?" She clicked on her next mail.
Hey Ker -- Listen; remember when all those weird rumors were going around about you and Dar? I thought it was just randomchatter, but I had a potty encounter today and I'm not sure!
"Yeah, it's worth a try." John said. "All right, I'll pull my guys out. At least they got some new foreman on the loading dock, and I'm finally getting all my stuff. "
"Yeah?" Kerry was completely distracted by Colleen's mail.
"Yeah, here's a coincidence--his name's Roberts, just like Dar's." John chuckled. "Maybe it's in the name. Anyway, I'll give you a call back later."
"Okay."
I was in the necessary doing the necessary when I heardsomeone come in. She did a stall check, but I was I in theend one and she missed me. Then she m
ade a call to someone and I heard her talking about trying to mess the company up!
This girlie said she'd started telling everyone you twohad a big fight this weekend out here, and she was going todo worse! Well, let me tell you I came out of that necessarylike the Queen Mary!
"Oh, my god." Kerry murmured.
She ran out--I tried to follow after her, but I got caughtup at the door by two of those bloody secretaries trying toget out their bra straps while talking about some television program. I didn't recognize her, but it was right outside Marketing.
So--watch your back, my friend! I'll try to find the little bugger again.
C
Kerry forwarded the mail to Dar, then after a moment, hit reply.
Col --
We stayed down here to concentrate on our projects andnot be distracted by jerks! Dar got bit by a fish and neitherof us felt like driving back yesterday. Maybe we'll stay downhere for a week. I got more done already this morning than Idid the last half of last week.
Can you get a description of this person? We had a security breach...
Kerry paused, and backspaced.
We had a problem this weekend and we narrowed it down to Marketing, but they were all in, so we couldn?t pin it down.Maybe it was the same person. Let me know.
K
"Damn it, damn it." Kerry drummed her fingers on the keyboard, then she made a decision and forwarded the message again, this time to Mariana, along with a request to forward the personnel files of anyone who was in the building over the weekend.
It meant a lot of work, and a lot of crosschecking. Kerry took a sip of her tea, the smooth cherry taste of the green tea leaves soothing her. "But I will find you." She promised the tale teller. "I will find you, and baby, I will make sure you regret ever putting one step into that marble lobby."
She took another sip. "That, I promise.
DAR SAT THERE, arms folded, hands tucked under her armpits and stared at the network overview she had up on her screen. The picture showed their entire infrastructure, routers and switches winking a reassuring green at her as she tried to figure out where to look next.
Kerry's remark about a distraction had rung bells with her, but if it was, then what was it distracting her from? Everything else looked normal.
She turned her eyes to a different window, running results from her new program. Every ten seconds, the system reported back to her from each router she had it installed in, a constant running monitor of the traffic it was seeing.
It was rough, and the monitor only a command line, but Dar couldn't help but feel a sting of pride as she watched it go. She knew it had a long way to run before it could be really used in production, but eventually--with a properly written front end and a ton more robustness--this would be a killer app for them to put on the market.
Even now, with just the barest of kernels running, it was bringing back scraps of information from what it was seeing out there that gave Dar insight into what was going on around them.
It was exciting, in a visceral way to her. But she was also frustrated right now because there was a piece missing here, and she couldn't find it. The hacker was still hammering at the front gates, but Dar had scanned each of the border routers, and she could find no other stealthy attempts anywhere on the outside of the network.
Was it just coincidence then? Kerry's suggestion had made bedrock sense when she'd heard it, but... Dar unfolded one arm and gave her trackball a spin, her brows knit together. She rocked forward and braced her elbow on the desk, leaning her head against it as she got closer to the screen.
A message box appeared, nearly startling her half to death. She glanced to one side, then straightened and pulled the keyboard back over to answer Mariana's hail.
Hey.
Mari answered quickly.
You got bitten by a BARRACUDA?
Dar's somewhat ghoulish humor surfaced.
Family reunion. What can I tell you?
She could almost hear the laughter on the other end of the connection, and had to smile herself.
You got kicked out of the barracuda family when you married Kerry, my friend, and you know it!
Eh, that was the truth. Yeah, well, I was chasing a Frisbee at the time. At least I didn't get nipped by a goldfish for it. Her eyes flicked to the monitor, taking in a few minutes of reports and not seeing anything remarkable.
Damn it. She turned her attention back to the instant message box. So is everyone freaking out?
There was a hesitation before Mari answered. Just a little surprise at our level, but I heard talk going around, so Ithought I'd better ask. Now that Kerry's sent me the scoop,and the possible culprit, I'll get on it and see what I canfind out.
Huh? Dar felt suddenly lost. "Hey, Ker?" She called out. "C'mere."
"Hang on." Her partner replied from the next room. "I'm reconciling a purchase order."
Dar reread the message, then just shrugged. Okay. Have fun. She ventured, figuring it was a safe answer and that she could get clarification from Kerry later. We may be down here for a few days.I'm getting more done without people barging in my officeevery five minutes.
Mari's response surprised her a little. Dar, take whatever time you need, okay? Let me handle the crap in the office.
"What's up, sweetie." Kerry ambled in and put her arms around Dar, giving her a quick hug. "More problems?"
Dar scrolled back up in her message box and pointed. "What is she talking about?" She asked, just as the screen underneath, her monitor, began to spit out lines in black on white letters, instead of white on black. "Whoops...hold it."
Kerry slid in behind Dar and watched over her shoulder as she typed rapidly. She could see where Dar was going in the system, but she was hitting keys so fast Kerry couldn't read quickly enough to get a sense of what she was doing once she got there.
And then, just as quickly as she'd started, she stopped, fingertips resting lightly on the keys. The monitor appeared normal again. "What was that?" Kerry asked.
"Good question." Dar murmured. "For a minute, it looked like something..." Her brow creased and she leaned forward a little. "Maybe the damn program just stumbled. God knows, there's a lot of rough code in there."
Kerry put her hands on Dar?s shoulders. She could felt he tension beneath her fingers, and out of habit she started a gentle massage.
"What did it seem to be reporting?" She asked. "Was it an attack, or--"
Dar propped her head up on one hand and used the other to scroll the mouse. "No, not...well, it looks like it thought its libraries were being accessed. But that's just a dud error. There's nothing touching them."
"Mm." Kerry knocked a little of the rust off her own programming memories. "Sort of like...someone was also using them? Or...something opened the files?"
"Yeah." Dar agreed readily. "But nothing's accessing them. Nothing we have even knows the program's there."
"Hmm." Kerry kept up her massage. "False reading?"
"Must be."
They both studied the screen in silence for a few minutes. Then Kerry cleared her throat. "Colleen overheard some slimy nitball in the bathroom talking to someone on a cell about screwing us over."
Dar straightened and turned her head to look up at Kerry. "What?"
"Mm." Kerry nodded. "Spreading rumors. So I have Mari sending me all the personnel files of the scumbags in marketing."
One of Dar's eyebrows quirked. "Why not just get the one who did it?"
"Colleen didn't recognize her, and she lost her outside in the hallway." Kerry informed her regretfully. "Anyway...so that's what's going on. Can I go finish my paperwork now?"
Dar tilted her head and kissed the back of Kerry's hand, still resting on her shoulder. "Sure," she said. "Sorry I dragged you over here."
Kerry returned the kiss and planted one on the top of Dar's head. "No problem." She gave Dar a last hug, then turned and made her way out of the office, leaving behind a faint scent of apricot.
Dar sighed and refocused h
er attention on the screen. The alert was now well and over and no trace was left of the disturbance that had sent her monitor off the scale. She was satisfied with the possibility that it had been a false alarm, but something niggled at the back of her mind anyway.
She went over the log in the router that had triggered the alarm. No attacks had been detected from the outside, and she confirmed again that no unusual traffic had been seen. The only thing in the logs themselves was a--
Huh. Dar cocked her head. TFTP requests weren't uncommon. They had servers that routinely copied the configurations and logs of the devices for safekeeping, but Dar knew something about that which made this one log entry catch her eye.
She checked her watch. It was seventeen minutes past eleven. She'd written that little collection program way back in the days when she'd supervised the ops center. One of her own peculiarities, generated by her years growing up on a military base, dictated that her timed requests always went off on even fractions of the hour.
Eleven, eleven ten, twenty, thirty, but this request was seventeen minutes after the hour.
So Dar examined the entry, and found it coming from one of the administrative servers. Cracking her knuckles, she called up a terminal program and accessed the server, her eyes narrowing slightly as she started her hunt.
Chapter Eleven
ANDY WALKED ACROSS the pier and up the gangway into his new ship. This one was just as threadbare and full of rusty bolts as the other one, but he felt much more affectionate toward it in any case, and gave the side a pat as he walked inside.
The hold was full of boxes, as the last one had been. He noticed one difference, however. On one side of the storage area several pallets were set, neatly laden with boxes of assorted sizes, shrink wrapped, and tagged with invoices. They seemed to be behind a bunch of boxes, though, almost half hidden.
The orderliness of the stack appealed to him. Andrew walked over and scanned the shipping invoices with a knowledgeable eye, catching sight of a familiar company name on the top. "Huh." He studied the paper, noting the 'K. Stuart' referenced on one side. "I do believe I know that little kumquat."
Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series Page 30
