Thicker Than Water - DK5 Read Online Free PDF

guess.” He paused as he turned towards the car. “Maybe we are related.”

    20 Melissa Good KERRY LEANED OVER Dar’s shoulder, watching her key in rapid commands on a console. Dar’s legs were locked around the base of the chair, and she rocked slightly—the energy coming off her was almost palpable.
    “What is it?” Kerry asked in a soft voice.
    “Dunno…dunno, yet,” Dar muttered, trying to wrestle an analyzer into place on the line. “Jesus, it’s big.” She gave up on her work, then keyed another screen. “I’m going to mirror and dump it.”
    “Ma’am?” The console operator sounded nervous. “We’re not supposed to do that.”
    “ You’re not supposed to do that.” Dar finished her task.
    “Until I can see what this is, I’m not taking any chances.” She went back to work on the sniffer. “Damn port’s pushing so much data, I wonder if I can…Damn.”
    “Can you just put a…Ah.” Kerry closed her mouth and watched as Dar managed to get a handle on the traffic by throwing it to their packet analyzer. “Okay, let’s see what we…Oh, hell.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Encrypted,” Kerry said. “Well, that’s a good thing, right? I mean, you want your data to be encrypted.”
    “Mm.” Dar traced something with a long fingertip. “I don’t like that header.”
    Kerry leaned forward again and studied the packet Dar pointed at. “Why?”
    “Unusual port,” Dar murmured. “Do me a favor. Get Charles Ettig on the phone and feel him out. See if he’s got a big transfer going on. Just say we saw a usage spike on the pipe.”
    Kerry sat down and lifted the phone on the console. She pulled out her PDA and checked the number to dial, then punched it in and waited for a connection. “Charles Ettig, please. Kerry Stuart, from ILS.”
    Bad Musak happened for a few minutes, then it cut off.
    “Hello? This is Charles Ettig speaking.”
    Kerry kept her voice casual. “Charles, this is Kerry Stuart.”
    “Oh, hello, Kerry,” Charles responded. “How are you?”
    “I’m fine, thanks. Listen, one of our measuring systems caught a spike on the usage of your primary line. Are you guys moving some files?”
    There was a moment of silence. “Moving files?” Ettig asked.
    “No, not that I know of. I mean, it’s Monday, y’know, and we do have all the reconciliation transfers coming from the banks in here, is that what you mean?”
    Dar shook her head and pointed to herself.

    Thicker Than Water 21
    “No, this is something coming out of your building,” Kerry said. “Like if you were putting out a software upgrade, that kind of thing. We thought maybe you were distributing patches to your database.”
    “Oh.” Ettig pondered a moment. “Well, I guess we could be.
    Let me call around and find out.” He hesitated. “We aren’t being charged for it, are we?”
    Kerry chuckled. “No, it just seemed a little out of the ordi-nary, so we thought we’d ask.”
    “Okay.” Ettig now sounded more confident. “Thanks for keeping an eye on things. You know we really do appreciate that, huh? I’ll call you back.”
    Kerry hung up and gave Dar a quizzical look.
    “Beautiful,” Dar said. “I’m going to see if I can track down where it’s going.” She typed in a command and observed the result.
    “Be careful, Dar, you’re walking a very fine line here.” Kerry laid her hands on Dar’s shoulders and flexed her fingers against the powerful bone and muscle under them.
    “Got it.” Dar went to another screen and typed in a query.
    “Let’s see who you are, hm?”
    “It could very well be legitimate.”
    “Could be.”
    Dar waited, drumming her fingertips on the keyboard. “Cali-fornia. Okay.” A few more moments passed as the trace continued. “Well, it’s heading for a DSL node in San Francisco. They got anything in San Francisco?”
    “Three branches,” Kerry said. “But they’re on Frame Relay lines, Dar. Not DSL.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “Where are they tapping in? Is it on our