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

With a disgusted look, the woman turned and stalked off, her heels clattering loudly on the concrete.

"C'MERE...C'MERE..." Dar was focused intently on the screen, her body arced forward and hunched over the laptop. She had three windows open, and she was running traces in all of them, using a fourth to scramble rapidly after the would be hacker as they probed the gateways into her network.

It was a tough balance, trying to follow the hacker around while at the same time not revealing her presence and at the same time running traces on him to find out where he was from.

Instinctively, she'd thrown up a zone around the router he was attacking, locking off the security to her login alone, and restricting all inbound traffic to reroute through her analyzer. So there was no danger in letting him poke around because there was literally no place for him to go.

And maybe she could learn something about what he was looking for if she let him keep looking. But the probes did not seem to have any particular intent. The hacker was looking for something, anything, as though he was just opportunistically searching for any crevice.

Which, if she thought about it, made a peculiar kind of sense given the jerk wad challenge she'd tossed out there.

Without looking, Dar picked up the can of Yoohoo and took a swallow, then set it down quickly as her nemesis apparently decided to give up and backed out of the gateway. "Ah, ah, ah..." Dar glanced at the trace and then chuckled wickedly. "Ah, gotcha."

She followed him back out, away from their hardened entry point, back through the backbone he'd come in on, back to his own front door.

He vanished, his IP disappearing behind a firewall, but before he did Dar got one last bit of information from him she hadn't expected, an unusual port that she took a chance on and went in after him.

She never expected it to work, but the next thing she knew, she was in the raider's gateway router, a bland, innocent prompt facing her with a pound sign that rang alarm bells so loudly she had to look up to make sure she wasn't actually hearing them in real time.

For a moment she just sat there fingertips resting on her keyboard, letting her heartbeat settle down.

Okay. Dar took a deep breath. From where she was she could do damn near anything, far more in fact than the hacker could have done to her network if he'd gotten as far as she had.

It seemed a perfect opportunity. She could find out where this guy was from and what were his motives. Maybe turn the tables on him? He'd been pretty confident he'd get to her. Now she could chase him down to his very desk and...

Paybacks? Dar drummed her fingers, feeling a rising instinct that she knew from long experience to ignore at her own peril.

Carefully, she screen capped where she was, then very deliberately she clicked the X box on her command window and took herself out of the alien gateway.

If she could set up a trap, so could he, and the stakes were a lot higher for her if she was caught snooping inside someone else's network. If Mark had done it, well...he was her security chief. But to have the CIO of ILS get caught red handed breaking in?

No. Much as her fingertips itched to do it, that open router with a

pre-set enable password...that was just too easy.

"Guess I'm really not that hotshot punk anymore." Dar announced to the blinking routers. "Ah well." She sighed.

Then she sat back and pulled her bag over, taking a swig of her drink and pulling out an apple. She set it on her lap and pulled out her pocketknife, slicing the apple in half. With one eye on the monitors, she pulled out a tube of peanut butter and squeezed a blob onto the apple, taking a bite of it as she freed her other hand to type in a command.

Now, she could find out more about the hacker. She had a spoofed IP he'd been using, but the router she'd dropped into had a real one, and finding out who owned that was a relatively--

Dar blinked at the screen. A square was blinking in the center of her screen, with a simple, red heart in the middle of it, beating slightly.

Then a message appeared.
Okay, so it's not Gopher Dar, butit gets my thoughts across, right?

Dar clicked on it, and answered back. Definitely. Where are you?

In my meeting. We're getting a price list together.

Dar watched her trace finish, and then exhaled, her eyes narrowing.
Well, Telegenics just tried to send a hacker in here.

Big surprise
. Kerry's snort could almost be heard.

No, it wasn't, but it was definitely a two edged attack, Dar realized. If they were coming after her and, as she suspected, trying to lure her into a trap--what would happen if they realized she'd already laid one for them?

Hey, Dar?

Dar took another bite of her apple, and typed a one handed reply. Yeah?

Mark says his alert monitor is going bonkers and no onecan get into the master router. You got any ideas what's up?

Oops.
Tell him to relax. I'm doing something.
Dar put the apple down and rattled the keys, resetting the router security and giving access back to the automated systems. Better?

A few seconds of silence, then
He's not hyperventilating anymore. Must be. Can you take a break and come up just to hear the recap?

Dar drained her Yoohoo, looking thoughtfully at the question.

Yeah, be right up.

She needed to think about what she'd just seen, anyway.

"WHAT DID YOU think?" Kerry asked, as she and Dar walked down the hallway toward her office.

Dar glanced at her. "About your presentation skills, the plan, or how cute you look in that outfit?" She asked, with a rakish grin.

"What," Kerry sighed in mock exasperation, "am I going to do with you?" She shook her head, giving a wave to Mayte. "Get in here." She added pulling the door open and standing back to let Dar pass.

"Or?" Dar sauntered by, and waited for Kerry to close the door. "You going to spank me? Should have done it out in the hallway. That'd keep the rumor mill going for weeks." She walked over to the small couch in the office and sat down, letting her elbows rest on her knees.

"You're such a little devil sometimes." Kerry walked over and sat down next to her, preferring the couch's soft confines to her lonely desk chair. "And no, I meant the plan. I already know what you think about those other two things." She nudged Dar's shoulder.

Dar wiped a bit of router room dust off her fingertips. "I like it."

Kerry waited. Nothing else followed. "And?"

"And?" Dar reached down and retied the shoelace on her boot. "I think you've come up with a solid proposal. The one question is gonna be the cost."

"Well, sure." Kerry agreed. "But you think the way it's laid out, it'll work?"

Dar leaned back and crossed her arms, giving her partner a sideways look. "Can I ask something?"

Kerry also sat back. "Sure."

"You've done, easy, four dozen accounts without my help," Dar said. "So why do you think you need it on this one?"

Hmm. Kerry crossed her own arms and stared thoughtfully at the carpet, giving the question its due deliberation. Finally she just shrugged. "I don't know." The admission surprised her, possibly more than it did Dar. "Maybe because I know how important this is.?"

"They're all important." Dar unfolded her arms and laid her right one over Kerry's shoulders. "Just run with it, Ker. Don't worry about what I think. Just do what you think is right."

Kerry's index finger traced a light pattern on the denim covering Dar's thigh. "Easy to say, harder to accomplish." She smiled briefly. "So, anyway...what were you doing in the closet?"

"I've never been in the closet." Dar deadpanned, accepting the change of subject. "But I'm glad you asked. C'mere." She got up and led Kerry over to her desk, sliding into the chair and giving Kerry's trackball a roll. "Maybe I'm nuts. But I think I got out of a trap by the skin of my teeth."

"You?" Kerry leaned on the desk next to her. "Trap set by whom?"

Dar looked at her, and smiled grimly. "Someone who'd love to embarrass the hell out of us and plaster it all over the trade press. Look." She called up the screen on her own laptop, which she'd locked in the closet. It still had the screen captures she'd done on it, and her notes.

Kerry bent close, leaning on her elbows as she read, her lips moving slightly. She was aware of Dar's close presence, her breath warming the skin on the outside of Kerry's arm. "Wait, you got right in there?" She said. "Into that router? Holy pooters!"

"Uh huh." Dar rumbled softly.

"Wow. Bet you wanted to go right in there and smack 'em." Kerry mused. "I might have. How did you guess it was a trap? What if it wasn't? What if they're really that stupid?"

"Ker."

A sigh. "Yeah, I know. I just can't help it." Kerry flicked her fingernail against the monitor. "I can't even believe I'm suggesting that. I think my business ethics got chucked in the dumpster when it comes to those two f'ing bitches." She gazed down at her desktop. "Maybe that's why I'm all off balance on this thing, Dar."

"Mm." Dar glanced up as Kerry's intercom went off.

"Kerry?" Mayte's voice broke in. "I have that Michelle Graver person on line one." Though polite, Mayte's voice had a definite tinge of disapproval to it, much like the one her mother's had when necessary.

"Am I in?" Kerry swiveled around and laid down flat on her back, her legs dangling off the edge of her desk. "I have to ponder that for a minute. Tell Michelle to hold on." She turned her head and gazed at Dar.

"Sure." Mayte clicked off.

"Is it unprofessional of me to just want to keep her waiting for the hell of it?"

"No." Dar rested her elbows on the desk and leaned forward, tilting her head and gently exploring Kerry's lips with her own. "On the other hand..." She kissed her again, this time for a longer period. "Making her wait for this is highly unprofessional."

"Oh." Kerry folded her hands over her stomach and let her eyes flutter closed briefly as Dar continued her extremely unprofessional behavior. "If someone walks in right now, I think we'd both deserve to be fired," she finally said, with a small sigh.

"Probably." Dar agreed. "But I'd have to fly Alastair in to fire us, and by the time he got here, something would break and he'd just be asking us to come back."

Kerry's eyes twinkled, but she made a face as she reached across to hit the intercom. "Okay, put her through, Mayte."

"Okay." Mayte responded. "But are you sure? I think the music is very enjoyable for her.?"

Dar chuckled softly. "Mayte, you're sounding more and more like your mother every day." She added watching Kerry's eyes crinkle at the corners as she grinned.

"Thank you." Mayte said. "Mama will like that you said that, I am sure."

"Go ahead and connect her, Mayte," Kerry said. "I wouldn't condemn even Michelle to much more Muzak regurgitated "Nine Inch Nails"."

Mayte clicked off, then after a second, a soft buzz replaced her.

Kerry reached over and hit the answer button. "Operations, Stuart."

"Hello, Kerry." Michelle's voice was a mixture of cordiality and veiled frustration. "Sorry to disturb you."

Dar reached over and traced the edge of Kerry's ear, watching it turn pink after a few seconds.

"Ah, no problem. What can I do for you?" Kerry gamely replied. "Or are you just calling to insult me a little more? It's been a slow morning." She ignored the tiny mewing sounds from very close to her ear.

An audible sigh came through the phone. "Actually, I'm calling you to eat crow, which I know you'll enjoy, and ask how much you want for your blackmail circuit."

Kerry wiggled a little on her back, doing a small victory dance. "To be honest, Michelle--"

"Oh yes, I know you'll be that."

The mewling had altered, growing into a low growl. Kerry glanced at Dar, not surprised to see the pale blue eyes narrowed into slits. Experimentally, she reached over and touched Dar's lip, lifting it to inspect a well formed canine tooth just underneath.

Dar cocked an eyebrow at her, and stopped growling.

"Pass through cost plus five percent." Kerry said. "Take it or leave it." She drew a line up the center of Dar's nose, watching her eyes cross as she tried to follow it, and smiled as she imagined she could hear Michelle?s teeth grinding together on the other end of the phone.

"Fine." Michelle answered, clipping the word short. "What do you need to get it done?"

"A check and a circuit terminus." Kerry replied. "Just have someone see Mark Polenti at our office in Pier 10 tomorrow. He'll take care of it."

"Fine." Michelle said again. "Thanks. Bye."

The line went dead. Kerry exhaled. "Well, boss, we made almost four percent profit on that insurance policy. Not bad, huh?"

"Brilliant." Dar blew in her ear. "So brilliant, I'm going to leave this other little problem in your hands because when I backed out of that router I didn't want the CIO of ILS to be caught hacking. I remembered I put an industrial spy in Telegenic's camp. What happens if that comes out?"

Kerry eased herself upright, her back not particularly appreciating the hard surface of her desk. It gave her time to think about Dar's question, and consider the impact of it. "Well." She hopped off the desk and walked around in front of it. "How would it come out? It's not like he's not just doing a job, right?"

"Mm."

"Shari never met him, I guess, or she'd be a long squashed mango on I-95 by now." Kerry went on. "So unless he--"

"Hears them talking about us," Dar got up and ran a hand through her hair, "and behaves like he usually does, we're safe. Right?"

"Oh boy."

Dar headed for the back door to the hall that connected their offices. "Worry about it when it happens." She waved a hand at Kerry. "Meanwhile, I'm going to see if I can't find a way to turn the tables on our little bucket of chum."

Kerry sat down in her chair, the leather holding a hint of Dar's scent that surrounded her as she leaned back. What would really happen, she wondered, if Andy was found out? Would it be viewed as a scandalous criminal act, or just a smart piece of business? It wasn't as if, as she'd said to Dar, that Andrew had gotten the job on false pretenses.