Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (27 page)

THE DREAM WAS warm and sunny, and Dar stretched into it, reveling in the feel of the sun against her skin as the boat rocked beneath her. Her eyes were closed, but she could hear the strains of a popular tune from behind her and smell the tang of the salt air as it brushed over her.

Her body was pleasantly tired, and she was content to rest in the sun, turning her head slightly as she heard a gull land on the boat. Its claws made soft, ticking sounds as it moved closer, and she kept very still to see how close it would dare to come.

She could almost feel the warmth of its body as it pattered nearer and nearer, and she resisted the urge to open her eyes and look.

Then it blew in her ear.

Dar’s eyes popped wide open as her dream world rapidly merged into her waking one, and the gentle waves and warm sun became the rocking of the waterbed under Kerry’s laughing form and the startling reality of true sunlight gilding both of them.

“Holy shit.” Dar’s eyes found the clock, which was displaying a cheerful 7:40. “Jesus. Did we forget to set the alarm?”

“I think so.” Kerry propped her head up on one hand and let her chuckles wind down.

“Damn.” Dar sighed, her brain still a little fuzzy from sleep. “How could I have done that? I haven’t forgotten to set that damn alarm in...in...”

“Honey,” Kerry leaned over and rubbed Dar’s bare belly, “you forgot because you fell asleep with your clothes half on. I had to pull them off. I was the one who forgot to check the clock, okay?”

“I did?” Dar tried to remember the previous night in the fog of exhaustion she’d been walking through. “Um...I think I remember a strawberry...and you kissing me.”

Kerry smiled, her fingers tracing a light pattern over Dar’s skin.

They’d both been far too tired to eat when they’d gotten home, and had settled for a shared bowl of freshly washed strawberries and two large glasses of milk. She’d put her things upstairs and come down to find Dar sprawled over the bed, already well on her way to sleep.

“I remember that, too.” She looked up and almost laughed when
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she saw Dar’s expression relaxed back into slumber. “Hey...Paladar.”

She gave her lover a tiny poke.

“Eh?” Dar’s eyes opened again. “Oh. Damn,” she complained, rolling over and capturing Kerry in a tangle of warm arms and smooth skin. “Why can’t it be Saturday? I don’t wanna get up.”

That was okay. Kerry didn’t want to either. She tried an experiment, making her little patterns again, and was rewarded by hearing Dar’s breathing even out almost immediately and feeling her body go limp and relaxed. She closed her own eyes and reviewed her schedule, thinking about what her morning was like.

Hmm
. It was Thursday. That meant her staff meeting at ten, nothing after that until lunch, then network strategy sessions from two to five.

She liked those, actually, when her operations team would test different scenarios to see how they could reshape the network to better suit their customers’ needs.

So. She didn’t need to be in until ten. Dar wasn’t supposed to be in the office at all, since she was heading back down to the base. They could actually sleep in a little, if they skipped their morning run. Could they afford it?

One green eye appeared and regarded their intertwined bodies critically, then closed in contentment. Yep, they could afford it, Kerry decided, squirming a little closer and settling down with a silent sigh.

She let herself relax into a light doze for another half-hour, then nudged herself awake again.

For a few minutes, all she did was just look at Dar. The sun was spilling in the window through the blinds and painting gold stripes across the bed, and one stripe had captured most of Dar’s face. Kerry could see the tiny motes of dust in it and watched the faint flickers as some dream stirred her lover’s eyelids.

She is so beautiful
. Kerry let out a breath, resisting the impulse to run a finger down one of Dar’s planed cheekbones. She did move a lock of dark hair back, though, biting her lip when even this slight motion brought a flutter of eyelids and a pair of sleepy blue eyes into view.

“Oops. Sorry.”

Dar blinked. “Did you let me go back to sleep?” she asked incredulously. “Ker, we’re going to be late as hell.”

“Yes, I did,” Kerry replied in an unperturbed tone. “My first thing’s at ten, and you’re OCB today, so take a chill gelcap and relax, okay?”

She slid a hand over Dar’s hip and lightly scratched her back. “How’s this doing?”

The smooth surface under her hand tensed, then moved as Dar stretched, the muscles under her skin shifting under Kerry’s fingers.

“A little stiff, but not bad,” Dar admitted. “Maybe we can do some swimming this weekend. That should fix it up.”

Kerry wriggled over and pinned her lover down, receiving a startled, widened-eyed look in return. “Maybe we can take you over to 146
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Dr. Steve’s, and have him look at it.”

“Aw...Kerrryyy...” Dar whined.

“Pick one: Dr. Steve, or the ophthalmologist,” Kerry replied kindly, ignoring the endearing pout that faced her. “Sweetheart, I’m not going to sit by and watch you either hurting or hurting yourself, so you’d better just get used to it, okay?”

“I hate doctors,” Dar said. “You know I hate doctors.”

Kerry sighed. “Yes, I know you do; but I have to take very good care of you, Dar.” She put a fingertip on Dar’s nose. “Humor me. Please?”

Dar thought about it, her eyes moving slightly, regarding the eggshell-colored ceiling. Then they focused on Kerry’s face and softened. “All right,” she agreed quietly. “But you have to go with me.”

“Of course I will.” Kerry smiled in relief. “In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I haven’t had my eyes checked in a few years, either.

We’ll both go, okay?”

Dar nodded. “Okay.” She rubbed a thumb over Kerry’s rib cage, which expanded under her touch. “I think it’s time we got our lazy butts out of bed, don’t you?”

“Do you really want to?” Kerry laid an arm down on Dar’s chest and rested her chin on it. “You know what I’d like?” she added suddenly.

“What?”

“Someday, I’d like us to just...” Kerry nibbled her lower lip, “get a camper, or something, and travel all over the place, just seeing new things.” A half smile appeared. “Does that sound strange to you? There are so many places I haven’t seen, and I’d like to—together.”

Dar cocked her head slightly to one side. She took a breath to answer, then released it when her cell phone, dropped haphazardly on the bedside table, buzzed. “Hold that thought,” she told Kerry as she fumbled one-handedly with the instrument. “Because I really like it.”

Kerry grinned wholeheartedly and gave Dar a pat on the side. “I’ll get coffee started.” She lowered her voice as Dar answered the phone, then took the opportunity to suckle Dar’s navel gently, chuckling as she heard her lover’s voice break slightly. “Tell Mark I said hi.” She gave Dar a nip, then rolled out of bed and made her way out into the living room, where Chino was already waiting impatiently to be let out.

She opened the back door for the Lab, then clicked the coffee on before she trotted upstairs and into her own bedroom. “Two bathrooms, no waiting,” she told her reflection as she entered hers, splashing water on her face, more to wake her up than anything else, and scrubbing her teeth industriously.

One of the nicer things about the condo was the amount of space they both had, she reflected. She’d grown up in such a big house, with a lot of people around, and Dar had grown up just the opposite, but they both needed and appreciated the room to get away a little and be alone sometimes.

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Which made her comment to Dar seem really odd, if she thought about it. But Dar had liked the idea of traveling around together, so maybe it wasn’t so weird after all.

Of course, showers, now...
Kerry grinned at the rumpled, rakish-looking figure gazing back at her. Showers they liked to take together.

“Hey, scruffy, time for a haircut.” She pointed at her reflection, before she turned and went to her closet, bound on selecting her clothing for the day.

DAR SETTLED HER sunglasses more firmly as she headed from the parking lot into the staff building. She was dressed in her favorite pair of worn jeans and a Navy sweatshirt, in deference to the cooler weather that had rolled in overnight.

The Marine at the door gave her a friendly nod and opened the portal for her. “Good morning, ma’am.”

“Morning,” Dar replied politely. She took the stairs two at a time and ducked around the upper hall doors, glancing around for any sign of her glowering nemesis. “Eh...maybe I’ll get lucky for a change.”

She made it into the network hardware room and put her case down, then glanced around at the walls full of telecommunications punch downs. With a sigh, she pulled out her Palm Pilot and opened it, checking the circuit ID Mark had given her and comparing it to the rows of tags hanging from the blocks.

“Ah. There you are.” Dar pulled a tool from her briefcase and studied the network bridges, consulting her Pilot for the network node the base had assigned her to. Her brow creased, and she ran a finger lightly down the massive hub, curious about the design. For no reason she could readily identify, an entire segment was bridged off to a completely different hub.

One dark eyebrow lifted. “Hmm.” Dar followed the cables to the other hub and peeked in back of it. “Ethernet...Ethernet...Fast Ethernet...T3?” Dar looked closer. “Twelve network nodes sharing a T3?

What the hell is running on them?”

Really curious now, Dar pulled the network schematic she’d been given out of her briefcase and spread it out, running an experienced eye over the layout. After a few minutes, she folded up the paper and tucked it away, letting out a careful breath as she considered her options.

Then she walked over and copied down the circuit ID on the mysterious hub and pulled out her cell phone.

KERRY TOOK HER seat in the operations meeting, setting down her cup of tea and glancing around the table. No one met her eyes, and she let a wry grin touch her lips as she settled back in the leather 148
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conference chair, extending her legs and crossing them while she rested her folded hands on the table surface.

Mark was the last to arrive, and he closed the door behind him before he took his own seat, the one directly across from hers. There was none of the usual bantering; everyone just sat quietly, eyes on their agendas, and waited.

“So.” Kerry broke the silence. “Heard any good rumors lately?” She waited for the embarrassed shuffling to quiet down. “That was pretty counterproductive, wasn’t it? I’m used to people having nothing better to do than speculate about my private life, but tying up the resources of the entire department for an entire morning was going a little overboard, don’t you think?”

Nobody knew what to say. They all just stared miserably at the table.“I’m not sure what’s more disappointing,” Kerry went on quietly.

“The fact that people who know me personally participated in it and thought so little of my integrity that they’d think I’d do something like that to Dar in front of the entire company...” She paused. “Or the fact that in a department full of intelligent people, only Dar’s admin had the sense to check the visitors log.”

Mark finally looked up, his jaw muscles visibly clenching as he met her gaze squarely. “I didn’t bother checking,” he stated. “I knew it was bullshit. The only thing I wanted to do was find out where it started and stop it,” he reflected. “I did. But the word flew out so fast, it went through my fingers.”

Kerry nodded. “I know. Thank you, Mark.” She saw some of the rigid tension in his shoulders relax a little. “Dar and I make a point of keeping our personal lives out of this building. I’d appreciate it if you all would do the same. Find something else to speculate about.”

Nods and murmurs of agreement went around the table.

“Okay.” Kerry was satisfied that she’d scared, embarrassed, and intimidated the entire room to the best of her capability. Dar, of course, would have done a much scarier job of it, but she felt she’d gotten her point across, and predicted her people would be having little meetings of their own in their areas as soon as the current session was over.

“Next item on the agenda. Enid, what’s the status on the new accounts in the Northwest?”

Never had there been so many people in one room so glad of a subject change. Enid eagerly sifted through her papers and started into her report.

THE SMALL OFFICE was very quiet. Only the faint sound of the laptop’s hard drive and the occasional soft click broke the silence. Dar had her head propped up on one fist as she reviewed the data flicking across the display.

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“What in the hell are they doing?” the CIO asked her computer, which morosely refused to answer. She scanned the data stream for the nth time, trying to figure out the pattern in the weird anomalies she’d been seeing for the last couple of hours.

The cell phone resting on the desk buzzed, and Dar answered it.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Dar.” Mark’s voice sounded unusually quiet. “I tracked down that T3 ID for you. It’s a private subscriber circuit. Not BellSouth.”

“Huh.” Dar’s brow creased. “That’s even stranger. I could understand having a—” A thought occurred to her. “Hang on...I’ll call you back.” She hung up and retrieved a number from the cell phone memory, then dialed it.

It rang twice, then was answered. “Gerry?”

“Ah, Dar!” Gerald Easton’s voice sounded cheerful. “I was just thinking of you.”

“Someone send you a memo?” Dar hazarded a guess.

The military man chuckled. “Eh...heard from old Jeff, as a matter of fact. He’s thrilled to have you down there, Dar.”

Dar felt a half grin forming. “He’s the only one, Gerry. I’m not a popular person down here. Listen, is there anything black here?”

There was a momentary silence. “Eh,” Easton grunted. “Odd question.”

“Odd because it’s yes, or because it’s no?” Dar was conscious of the cellular connection, which could be monitored. “I don’t want details, Gerry, just if there is or isn’t.”