Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series

by Good, Melissa

  "I bet they did." Rodriguez got up and walked around the small office, stretching her arms over her head. "Did that really tick you off?"

  "Getting recruited? We laughed," Kerry replied. "But to us, it was one more indication of the fact that Telegenics was coming after us in a very personal way, and neither of us really caught on to why until we left that night and saw Michelle and Shari coming into the building."

  The reporter turned. "You didn't know before then they were part of it?" She sounded incredulous.

  "No, we didn't." Kerry answered honestly. "Ms. Rodriguez..."

  "Elecia."

  Kerry smiled. "Elecia, we have a lot of competitors. We do business analysis on them, sure, but we don't go hunting for people who might be holding a grudge in their offices." She glanced past the woman toward the door, where Dar's head was now peering around the corner. "Hey." She bit her tongue on the 'sweetie'.

  "John needs to meet with you." Dar said. "Sorry to interrupt."

  "Any way I can chat with you for a few minutes while that's going on, Ms. Roberts?" The reporter interrupted smoothly. "I think we're at a logical holding point here."

  Kerry got up, relinquishing her chair to her partner with a flourish. "Be my guest. Let me go see what John's...well, I won't say problem because I know what his problem is, but what he wants." She eased past Dar's body, stuck in the doorway, and gave her a pat on the side as she squeezed by.

  Dar hesitated briefly, then limped into the room and took Kerry's chair, rubbing her thumbs on the arms still warm with her body heat. "Well?"

  Elecia sat back down at the desk and studied her for a moment. "Thanks for taking the time to talk, Ms. Roberts."

  Dar nodded briefly at her and waited.

  "Anyone ever tell you that you two are real opposites?"

  "It's been mentioned once or twice." Dar allowed.

  "Okay." The reporter gathered her notes. "Kerry was just telling me that after first declining to participate in Mr. Quest's bid, you changed your mind."

  "Right."

  The reporter waited, but nothing more was apparently forthcoming. "You have a history with the two gals from Telegenics, don't you?"

  Dar half shrugged. "Yes," she agreed. "Michelle was the IT director of a company I worked a contract negotiation for a year or so back, and I've known Shari for many years."

  "That sounds so civilized," Rodriguez said. "And yet, from what those gals say, this bid had been anything but. What's your take on that?"

  Dar steepled her fingers and rested the edges of them against her lips. She was very aware that this article would end up being a high profile one in the Herald. Granted, the Miami Herald was not the Washington Post, nor was it the New York Times, but in its own way it was a respected dispenser of local news, and she knew whatever the article ended up being, it would be seen by the board of directors who paid their salaries.

  So, how to present utter chaos? "It's been a difficult bid so far," Dar answered slowly. "There were a number of things that contributed to that, most of which did not involve any of us or our respective past histories. For instance," She ticked off a finger, "the unexpected move of the project from New Zealand to Miami and the speeding up of the timeline. That put a focus on us that would not have existed there."

  "Because you're local."

  "Exactly," Dar agreed. "Second, putting the project into the spotlight by the involvement of the Travel Channel and their filming crew. That added to the circus."

  "True."

  "Third, the confusion over the intervention of the EPA that further truncated the timeline, and turned the bid into something of a frantic horse race."

  "Also true." The reporter nodded. "But that's not what I meant, and I think you know that."

  Ah. "Does this article have to do with business or gossip?" Dar countered, looking directly at her. "To be honest, sure, we've all been behaving like contestants for a trip to Jerry Springer, but the bottom line is, we need to get this job done and whoever does it right wins the prize."

  The reporter's eyes glinted. "So, you're not saying the controversy between the four of you is the real story? It's their opinion that the discord is what is preventing both of you from being able to effectively compete."

  Dar remained silent for a moment then she shook her head. "Far as I'm concerned, we're effectively competing. If they let this distract them to the point they aren't, that's not my problem."

  Rodriguez scribbled a few notes, and then she looked up again. "Tell me about your father working on the docks. Deliberate?"

  Dar allowed a few seconds to pass before she answered. "Sure," she said. "I asked him to get a job down here to keep an eye on things."

  "Ah. Did he?"

  "He did. He's the one who discovered that Telegenics had placed four copies of their networking gear order to keep anyone else from getting equipment on time unless they wanted to pay through the nose."

  The reporter's eyebrows rose. "Did they?"

  "Mm." Dar nodded. "Fortunately for us, we had more clout than most, and we forced an order through."

  "For that matter, according to them, you all bought up all the circuits to force them to do the same." Rodriguez countered. "Sounds like a tit for tat."

  "Except we didn't." Dar half smiled. "Kerry was just hedging her bets, since they wouldn't assign a pier to any of the ships."

  "So you say."

  "So it is."

  The reporter scribbled some more notes. "Did your father sabotage them?"

  Dar chuckled. "My father's retired underwater demolition. He's not subtle. If he really sabotaged them the damn boat would be on the bottom of Government Cut." She scoffed. "If anything, he probably did them good by organizing that chaos."

  "Mm." Rodriguez nodded. "The pier supervisor said the same thing. He doesn't have a high opinion of Telegenics, matter of fact." She swiveled to face Dar. "So, I'd have to say most of the points on this are on your side, Ms. Roberts."

  Dar held both hands out in a plaintive gesture.

  Kerry re-entered the office and ambled over to Dar's side, sitting down on the desktop and exhaling heavily. "He's finished pulling cable, Dar."

  "That's bad?" she queried.

  "They closed the walls up after they pulled all the wires, and he's not sure if anything got clipped or nicked. He suspects some of it might have been, so we need to test before he can go any further."

  "Ah." Dar nodded. "Mark's got some network guys here. Send 'em in."

  "I did." Kerry acknowledged. "But here's the issue--the electricians need to turn the power off, and it'll be off all night and part of tomorrow. We're dead in the water while that's going on.?

  "Shit." Dar rubbed her temple. "Can we install the switches?"

  "In the dark?"

  "We have flashlights."

  Kerry leaned closer to her. "Dar, that's a construction zone, there's no air conditioning, and they're going to be using welding torches in the same spaces we're putting switches into. Do you want to risk it?"

  The reporter was sitting in silence, watching in fascination.

  Dar considered. "Yes, I want to risk it," she replied. "If we have the switches in place, already configured, and the lines are tested then when the power goes back on we can bring up the core. Otherwise, we're two days behind and if something's screwed, we've got no time to fix it."

  Kerry took her turn at consideration. "Okay, but we need to find out where the electrical crews are, and put our people in after they're finished in each closet."

  "Good plan," Dar agreed.

  "Right." Kerry got up and left, scrubbing her hair with the fingers of one hand as she disappeared.

  Dar returned her attention to the reporter. "Where were we?"

  "My question to you now is--why are you here?" Rodriguez asked. "Why aren't you in an ivory tower somewhere, eating quiche and wearing a silk suit? CIO's and vice presidents are not supposed to do the work they pay other people to do."

  Dar was momentarily silent, havin
g no real answer ready. In general terms, the reporter was right, and she knew it. "I have good people, and they do a good job."

  "But?"

  A shrug.

  "Or does it really all come down to a very personal conflict after all?"

  And of course, the reporter was damn right about that too. "It's just how we do things," Dar demurred. "Stick around, and I'll prove it."

  Elecia smiled, biting the end of her pen.

  "OKAY, WE GOT THE PIPE UP." Mark had his head bent over his laptop, fingers pecking away industriously. "Let me bring these puppies online."

  Dar was leaning against one wall, watching the activity. "We're going to need to put full security on this room tonight," she remarked. "I wouldn't put it past our friends down the pier to try and break in here to make some trouble."

  "Psht." Mark made a disparaging noise. "Hey boss..." He half turned and looked at Dar. "Did you do a special config for this, or should I just use the standard?"

  "Standard," Dar answered briefly. "We can customize it when it's on the ship." She looked around for Kerry, but she was nowhere to be seen, and the reporter had disappeared as well. "How much more do we have to do?"

  Mark turned all the way around to face her. "Dar, like, seriously, you don't have to hang out here. We're fine," he said. "We've just got the setup to finish, and some cleaning."

  Dar had the grace to look slightly abashed. "I know," she admitted. "I just felt a little bad about wrangling everyone over here last minute."

  Mark relaxed. "No prob. To tell you the truth, the guy's have been pretty curious about what's going on over here, and they think the ship's way cool."

  "It's a wreck."

  "Yeah, but it's something new and different, y'know?"

  Dar did, indeed, know. "Yeah." She removed her PDA from her back pocket and flipped it open, tapping out a message as Mark went back to work.

  Hey. Where are you?

  The machine remained silent. Dar scowled. Then she gave up and limped back to the office, feeling more than just a touch useless out in the busy hall. She took a seat at the desk and slapped the keyboard of one of the office computers, logging in with her login and drumming her fingers while she waited for the system to authenticate her.

  Once she'd gotten things set up to her satisfaction, she put the keyboard on her lap and leaned back in the office chair, getting comfortable as she moved the windows around a little to better see them.

  For a moment, she let her eyes linger over the network monitor, studying the readouts intently. Everything appeared relatively normal, the one alert showing indicated to her that eight new devices had been added to the network in the last hour.

  "Knew that, thanks." Dar dismissed the alert. She logged into the routers and studied her program's results, calling up the program itself on the second screen and preparing to work on it.

  What did she want it to do next? Dar hesitated, her fingertips resting on the keys. Something Kerry had said to her before she'd started on the project came to mind, and she thought about how she'd have the program extend itself outside their network and chase down hackers.

  That brought her breakfast to mind, and Dar set aside the program briefly as she went to a third screen and checked for activity at their gateway. All was quiet. Apparently her hacker friend had either given up or just gotten bored and found something else to occupy his or her time.

  His or her--Dar suspected it was his, since most hackers she'd ever known had been guys. She'd never been really sure if it was just a social thing, or a hormonal one, and she never really thought too hard about what that had said about her.

  With a sigh, she typed a few lines into her program, then stopped and closed it. She switched to the network monitors instead, and started browsing them.

  Given the hour, it looked pretty normal. Dar clicked and pointed, shifting the monitor from their outer boundary to the inner workings of the main office, drilling down to a department level. "Let's see. Duks must be working his guys' overtime tonight."

  She clicked on a message icon, and typed in a note.

  Hey, and you call me a slave driver.

  Dar chuckled slightly and went back to her browsing. It seemed busy, and she racked her brains trying to think if there was a deadline she'd forgotten about.

  Budgets? No, not for another month, and the quarter didn?t close for nearly two.

  Her screen blinked, and she looked at it, seeing the message that had come back from Duks.

  I? Here I sit alone in my office with just a dust bunnyunder my desk. Where are you? I was by your office this evening but you were not there.

  Dar blinked at the message. Then she removed her cell from its clip at her belt and opened it, rapidly dialing Duks phone number. Her thighs jerked under the keyboard as she waited for him to answer, sending it bouncing slightly as her nerves jangled a howling warning. "Duks?"

  "Ah, Dar." Duks sounded completely calm. "How are you?"

  "Just listen to me," Dar said. "I'm in the network, and I see a ton of traffic on your servers. Are you running something?"

  Dead silence. Then--"I am not."

  "Can you check your running jobs?"

  A rattle of keys sounded clearly through the phone. Dar waited, knowing if she had to she could have logged into a session herself and checked them, but also knowing Duks would know most intimately what belonged in the system and what did not.

  "Paladar, we have a problem."

  Dar licked her lips. "Okay," she responded. "What do you want me to do? I can isolate that box, Duks."

  "Please do so."

  Dar's hands moved in a blur, cutting off the multiple network accesses to the minis. It also cut off her access, of course, but in her mind, that wasn't important. "Okay, done."

  "I am going to the computer room now. I will call you from there." Duks voice was quiet, and very, very serious. "Please do not, as of yet, contact anyone."

  "Okay," Dar agreed softly. She closed the cell, and left it folded on her leg, while she opened up the monitor screen to its fullest size and stared at it, focusing on small surges here, and there, flickers of pale green against the normal green, completely ordinary to any eyes including hers.

  A flashing alert caught her eye, and she clicked over to her router program, blinking at the screen as she read the cryptic results emerging from her own coding. Another warning about being accessed, and Dar almost clicked it closed before she caught a second line behind it, a routine access listing for a remote router that bore an IP not her own.

  She dove after it going to the router in question and scoping it out immediately, found the session and captured the address before it could disappear. Then she deleted the session and locked the router down, allowing only her own login to access it.

  Breathing a little faster, she ducked out of that router and into the core, searching for the offending IP. Her heart started to speed up as she located it, racing to trace it before it disappeared. She grabbed the Mac address and pasted it into a note pad, then searched it out.

  "Ah." She captured the port and pasted that also, then redid the trace. As she'd expected, the address was now gone, but she had the port.

  If she had the port, she knew what was on the other end of it. Grimly, Dar opened up her network documentation and pasted the port number into the search field, then hit enter.

  Her cell phone rang. She answered it one handed while she stared at the screen. "Yes?"

  "This is Louis."

  Dar inhaled, making her nostrils flare in reaction. "Yes."

  "Some person has been attempting to remove the records in this system that pertains to our customer accounting," Duks stated flatly. "The login that has run these reports belongs to my department, from the senior auditing unit."

  Dar waited, but the line was silent. "And you did not ask them to do this?"

  "I did not," Duks confirmed. "I am contacting security, and I would appreciate that you send me what data you saw that spurred you to contact me."

/>   "I will," Dar replied quietly. "I may have another problem."

  Duks sighed. "Paladar, please. One disaster at a time is all my heart can handle." He exhaled. "I will call you back after I speak with Able Jacobs."

  "Okay." Dar let him hang up, satisfied, at least, that Duks had the situation under control. It would do no one any good for her to get involved. Duks was harsher on his own staff and security than she could ever be and she knew finding a data thief inside his department would send her old friend into an overdrive rage.

  Now, to her other problem. Dar studied the screen again. The request for her program files had come from a PC on the fourteenth floor, just down the hall from her own office. It was, she recalled, a spare work room that also held two manual fax machines and a copier, and was occasionally used for visitors who needed access to a PC for various reasons.

  Dar quickly dialed the phone again. She listened to the ring then exhaled when it was answered.

  "Operations, Rosie speaking."

  "Hi Rosie," Dar said. "It's Dar Roberts."

  The woman's voice definitely perked up. "Oh, hi, Ms. Roberts! What can I do for you?"

  Kerry had her admirers in the office, and so, Dar acknowledged, did she. Rosie was one of them. "I have something I need you to do," she said. "You know the computer in the printer room, on floor fourteen near my office?"

  "Oh! Yes, ma'am, I sure do." Rosie assured her.

  "Okay." Dar said. "I want you to go upstairs, and listen closely, okay?"

  "Yes!"

  Dar would have rolled her eyes if it had been a less serious occasion. "Rosie, this is very serious," she told the woman. "Someone just tried to access something from that PC that they shouldn't have." She heard the intake of breath on the other end. "So what I want you to do is to take a couple of plastic bags, and go down there. Put the keyboard and mouse in a bag, and take that, the PC and monitor, back to Ops with you, okay?"

  "Right away, ma'am." Rosie acknowledged. "Do you want me to call security?"

  Dar sighed. "They're busy with something else right now, and I'm not sure exactly what was going on with this PC. So just secure it, and I'll pick it up from you later."