Chris folded his arms. “And how do you propose we stop them? In case you’ve forgotten, there’s nothing left. They took everything, the equipment, our notes, everything.”
Alison had stood up but now slumped back down thinking.
“Uh,” Lee raised his hand, “I have backups.”
“What?”
Lee grinned. “I have backups.”
Chris looked confused. “What do you mean? The backup tapes were in the servers, and they took them all.”
“I back up the servers every night,” Lee said. “And I replace those tapes every week. Most of the tapes are shipped to a storage facility, but the last two weeks have not been sent yet.”
“So…where exactly are those tapes?” Alison asked.
“Downstairs in the storage closet.”
Alison and Chris looked at each other, but he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The tapes don’t help without the servers.”
Alison saw that Lee was grinning again. “What?” she asked again with a cautious look.
“We have a server. We have two. The small servers we took on board the Pathfinder. Captain Emerson had them shipped back to me about a week ago.”
“Any chance those servers are the storage closet downstairs too?”
“Yes, they are.”
Alison smiled broadly with excitement. “Lee Kenwood, I could just-” she suddenly changed her mind and just lunged at him giving him a giant kiss. “You are amazing!”
“I know,” he joked.
“Could we install it on the boat?” she asked.
“What?!” Chris said jumping to his feet. “We’re taking the boat?”
The boat was a thirty year old, 40 foot Bayliner diesel power boat. It was donated to the aquarium years ago and was primarily used for small trips out on the ocean for local research groups or students on a field trip.
“We’re not taking the boat Chris. I’m taking the boat.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m doing this…alone,” she said calmly. “It’s dangerous, and I’m not going to risk two more lives over this. There’s something big going on here, and I’m not going to let us all die over it.”
Chris just stared at her, silently constructing his argument. Finally he said “Alison, don’t you think we should leave this to the pros? My mom has a friend who’s a cop, I’m sure we can trust him.”
Alison frowned at Chris. “We may not have time. And I really don’t know who we can trust, Chris. And to tell you the truth, I can’t let anything happen to Dirk and Sally or anybody else out there. I love those dolphins. You know that.”
“I know,” Chris said with a sigh. “But they mean a lot to us too. You know that!”
She put her hand on his arm. “Then help me.”
He sighed again, defeated. “Fine.” Chris looked over at Lee. “What do we have to do, Lee?”
Lee ran through the list of things they would need. They slowly climbed back out of the window, and made sure there was no movement other than the trees, then cautiously made their way back toward the building. When they reached the edge, they pulled open the double doors, quietly snuck down the main hallway and back toward the lab. It was completely black for which Alison was glad. It meant they could walk around the edge of the wall to the stairs without having to see any of the bodies. She felt sick thinking that Clay, Dubois, Caesare, and their friend Palin were laying lifeless somewhere in the darkness. As they made their way through the lab, their shoes crunched on broken glass and pieces of plaster from the walls. When they reached the stairs, Lee led the way down with his left hand on the railing. They reached the storage room and found the electricity to the building was still on. Inside the closet, Lee grabbed one of the servers. Chris carried a monitor, while Alison followed them out with the backup tapes, a keyboard, and a number of other items that she did not recognize.
They made their way back outside and out to the water where a small dock led to the boat, sitting and bobbing contently in the gentle swells. They quietly climbed aboard and put their equipment down inside the cabin. Alison quickly closed all the curtains and turned on one small light so Lee could see.
“Chris,” he said, “I need you to find some straps or rope to hold this stuff down. If you can, grab a toolbox too.”
Chris nodded and disappeared outside.
“What should I do? asked Alison.
“Where’s your phone?”
She gave a puzzled look and patted down her clothes. “I don’t know.” She thought for a minute. “I think I left it in Chris’ car.”
“Go get it.” Lee told her. “And grab the charger too.”
While the other two were gone, Lee pieced together the server components. He fired up the engine and kept it idling as quietly as possible while he powered up the server and began restoring the data from the tapes. He let the data restore run and proceeded to rewire the boat’s existing speakers and microphone into the server.
Alison arrived with her phone and handed it to Lee. He duct-taped it to the dashboard above the boat’s steering wheel and plugged the charger in. A few moments later, Chris returned with the straps and toolbox. Together they wrapped the straps around the server and monitor then tugged on them to be sure the systems would stay upright against the back and forth motion of the boat. It took another thirty minutes to restore the data onto the server and a few more still to test it. All in all, it took them less than an hour and a half.
Lee finally finished typing. “I think we’re about ready.” He looked at Alison. “Okay, let me walk you through this. I was able to restore IMIS’ information all the way up to last week. However you are limited only to the vocabulary up to that point. This does not include the bulk of the raw data, which means you cannot learn new words. But you should have more than enough translation capability to find Dirk and Sally and warn them. Now,” he said, pointing to the server on the floor, “the server uses a lot of power which means you must be running the engine for it to operate. I attached a small battery backup though, so if the engine is turned off, you can probably still use it for ten minutes, but that’s it. Oh and the server is sensitive to any significant motion, so do your best to keep the boat steady.”
Next he pointed to her cell phone. “I’ve turned on the GPS navigation on your cell phone and plugged in the coordinates for Bimini. You shouldn’t have any problem finding it. Basically it’s about 70 miles due east. I also disabled your cellular signal so they can’t track you. You also have,” he looked at the gauge, “about half of tank of fuel which should be more than enough to get you there and back. Any questions?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay-” Lee suddenly stopped and looked around. Where’s Chris?”
“I don’t know.”
Outside they heard someone hop onboard, and a few seconds later the door opened with Chris panting. His arms were filled with junk food from the vending machine inside. “Here take this,” he said dropping everything into a seat next to them. “Wait!” he shouted and quickly pulled an orange life vest from under the same seat. He wrapped it around Alison and clipped it in front.
She smiled at him reassuringly and gave him a tight hug. She then turned and hugged Lee.
“I’ll be fine,” she said wondering if that sounded more like a question than a statement. She looked at Chris. “Chris, take Lee and find your mom’s police friend. It won’t be long before the cleaning crew comes in and then all hell is going to break loose. We need to make sure we’re in front of this and already explaining things to somebody.”
“And what if they ask where you are?” he said.
She shrugged. “Tell them you don’t know. Tell them we got separated after the shooting. By the time they start to suspect anything, I should already be back with Dirk and Sally.”