"Oh, sure."
"It's an MCI router." Kerry told him. "The building's lit with Bellsouth. You should know that."
The tech grabbed the paper back and looked at it. "No way."
Dar shifted her position and now leaned her arm on Kerry's shoulder. "Sorry. She's right."
"Someone making trouble for you all?" Andy asked his eyes fastened on the techs.
"Shit." The tech put a fingertip on the paper. "That's the damn Seaport center router."
The other tech looked at it then silently shook his head, his expression altering to glum.
"You couldn't have checked that before you dragged our asses over here?" One of the other security men asked. "That lady spotted it in a half second."
"I wasn't looking at that, I..." The first tech was turning red. "We just ran a check on that IP and it was assigned to them." He pointed at Dar. "And they just put up an office here. What would you think?"
The security chief now appeared impatient and bored, rather than impatient and menacing. "Okay, so it's not them. Let's get out of here, and you can figure out who it is, right?" He edged away from Dar. "Sorry about that, but you know security's a touchy subject around here. We got a lot of merchandise going through the port."
"Uh huh." Dar snorted. She reached over and grabbed the papers back. "Give me that. I've got a lot better chance of finding the damn pirate than you do." Inside, she was rattled. Seeing their own IP structure in the trace had made her heart race just long enough to make her lightheaded before she realized the source wasn't inside their network.
Someone was taking a lot of time and effort to cause trouble, all right. Question was, who? Was it hackers still trying to embarrass her, or... Well, hell, what were the chances some hacker would pick this particular target?
"You can't have that, it's restricted information." The tech protested.
"Yeah, well, she sure looks like she can do more with it than you can, buddy. Move." The security chief knew when to cut his losses. "Next time you call us, try to have your act together, huh?" He and his men herded the techs out of the office. "Sorry again."
"Jerks." The second security guard muttered, shaking his head. "Get us all tangled up for no reason."
Dar folded the paper in her hand in half, sharpening the crease with intense, precise motions. She waited for the men to leave and disappear around the corner before she half turned to look at the rest of the people in the room. "Hi, Dad," she murmured. "Was I yelling loud enough for you to hear me outside?"
"Naw." Andy retrieved his cell phone and held it up. "Kumquat sent me a note thing."
Kerry sat down on the edge of the desk. "What the heck was that?" She looked up at Dar. "Can you trace it from those notes?"
"I don't know." Dar half shrugged. "But I guess I'll find out." She added, "I'm sure someone was trying to make it look like we're doing something wrong."
Kerry's eyes darkened. "Oh, I can't imagine anyone would want to do that," she replied sarcastically. "But Dar, who says they won't try it again? This location's so vulnerable."
Cheryl sidled up, with a worried look on her face. "She's right about that." She gave the security guard an apologetic look. "No offense, Charles, but you wouldn't have stopped those guys if they'd charged in here."
The guard didn't look embarrassed. "No, ma'am." He agreed. "But I would have called the police. We're not bouncers." He looked at Dar and Kerry. "Ah, not that?"
"Why not? I've got a black eye. Maybe we moonlight." Kerry remarked dryly.
Andrew chuckled under his breath. Dar gave him a look, then folded the paper into quarters and stuck it in her back pocket. She walked past them to the rack, circling it as she considered her options.
The box on the wall was connected to their gear by a set of conduits running through the drop ceiling.
Dar walked over and grabbed a chair, dragging it behind her until it was behind the rack. She climbed up onto it and punched the ceiling panel up, shoving it up and into the framing as she stuck her head up into the dark space.
The rest of the room's occupants looked at each other. Cheryl gave Kerry a slight shrug, and then she went back to her desk and sat down. The security guard sidled back out to his station in the hallway, leaving Kerry and Andrew standing in the center of the space.
"Long as there ain't no more hollering, I'm going to get back to mah work." Andrew said. "Them fellers don't much like when folks wander off."
"Thanks for coming over Dad," Kerry told him. "I just wasn't sure what was going to happen."
"No problem, kumquat." Andy told her. "You find anything up there, Dar?"
"Dust bunnies with fangs." Dar sneezed. "Thanks for asking," She looked down for a moment, "and thanks for coming over to make sure we weren't in trouble."
Andrew patted her leg. "No problem, squirt. See y'all later." He headed for the door, giving Cheryl a brief nod as he passed her. "Lo."
"Hi." The office worker waggled her fingers at him. "Bye." She waited for Andrew's tall form to disappear beyond the door before she looked at Kerry in question, her brows lifting. "Dad?"
Kerry nodded. "Hers, not mine unfortunately." She pointed at Dar. "He's doing some work on one of the other ships."
Cheryl peered at the now empty door. "Is he working for them?" She indicated the next pier.
"He's working for us."
"Ahhhh." The office manager smiled, giving Kerry thumbs up. "Nice."
Dar put her head back up into the ceiling, her eyes tracing the conduit. It moved in an unbroken curve from where it dropped down to her rack, up through the drop panel, bracketed to the concrete true ceiling, and dropped back down through the panel to the box on the wall.
No taps, no junction boxes. Dar felt better. She tugged the ceiling panel back into place, then pulled her way along the drop ceiling as she balanced on the chair, it's wheels squeaking in protest.
"Dar!" Kerry popped up off the desk and grabbed hold of the chair back as it threatened to squirt out from under Dar. "Careful!"
"Ah, with any luck, I'll fall on my head." Dar now carefully examined the box on the wall, unlatching it and swinging it open. With a satisfied grunt, she closed and latched it. "Put a lock on that," she ordered Cheryl, as she turned and hopped off the chair. "No one goes near it, no one touches it, no one does anything to that unless I'm standing here watching. Got me?"
"Yes, ma'am." Cheryl nodded.
Dar dusted her hands off, her eyes falling on Kerry as she reached for the chair to move it back. Kerry had her fingers resting on the rack, a look of quiet pensiveness on her face.
Sensing the attention, Kerry looked up. "Maybe we should stick around here this weekend?" She suggested.
Perhaps they should, Dar acknowledged silently. There was too much going on, too many loose ends for them to just take off out of town. She could see the agreement in Kerry's posture, the slight relaxing of her shoulder muscles that almost, but did not quite seem like a slump. "No." She was surprised to hear herself saying. "We've got a line at the cabin and our cell phones. C'mon." She tapped Kerry on the arm and pointed to the door. "Let's go onboard, and get moving."
Without further argument, Kerry simply nodded, and headed for the door. Dar followed her, wondering if that decision, too, wouldn't come back to bite her in a bad, bad way.
"C'MON, CHI...IN you go." Dar held the door to the cabin open, allowing her family to enter before she stepped over the threshold and followed them inside.
It was dark, close to ten p.m., and later than either of them had expected to arrive after traffic and a stop at a tiki hut. But it had been a nice drive even so, and Dar didn't regret it as she detoured toward the wall switches.
Ah. She turned the lamps on and gazed around appreciatively.