Man Overboard

by J. A. Jance

  Praying that Cami was somehow logged on to the Internet, Ali stopped three cars back from the roadblock and sent a text message.

  Stuart may be in trouble. I need help. Fast. Text me as soon as you get this. Please.

  A tap on the window next to her head startled Ali. Turning, she saw Alonso Rivera standing outside.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, when she buzzed down the window.

  “There’s a problem at the office—a reported shooter.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  Ali peered into her rearview mirror. Alonso had pulled off the road and parked his Jeep in front of a strip mall. He may not have completed all the paperwork, but clearly Alonso Rivera had already signed on.

  “If you could drive this while I work on finding out what’s going on, it would be a huge help.”

  “No problem, ma’am,” he said. “Glad to be of service.”

  60

  The stun gun was evidently losing some of its juice. Instead, long before Odin expected, Stuart Ramey came to and began to struggle. It took one shot after another to keep him down long enough for Odin to manage to secure his arms and legs with duct tape. What the hell did Roberto have against zip-ties? Fighting panic, Odin rushed the job of hauling the much heavier Stuart to his feet and pitching him into the trunk. He had to fold the legs back at the knees in order to make him fit.

  With his two prisoners safely stowed, Odin stood for a moment and leaned on the trunk lid, gasping for breath and listening. He expected that there would be thumping and bumping sounds coming from the trunk, but there was nothing. With any kind of luck his prisoners were wedged in tightly enough that no movement was possible, but his relief was short-lived. It was during that small space of quiet when Odin first heard the distant sound of an approaching siren.

  Odin raced back to the front of the Chrysler and clambered inside. He had driven up the utility easement facing forward. Now, unable to turn around, he had to use reverse to make his way back to the roadway. That wasn’t easy to do when he was fighting panic and his hands were shaking like crazy. He knew that he couldn’t afford to be caught up in some kind of police activity with two captives imprisoned in his trunk.

  He was back on Business Park Way and headed north just as the first of two cop cars roared past him and screeched to a stop at the complex’s main entrance. He watched in the rearview mirror as two cops wearing bulletproof vests and carrying weapons exited the vehicles and took up defensive positions on either side of the brick columns that marked the entryway. With their attention totally focused on whatever threat might lurk inside the grounds, they were oblivious to the presence of the bright blue sedan speeding past behind them.

  By the time Odin reached the intersection with 89A, more cop cars were converging on the area. To the east of him, officers were busily blocking all westbound traffic. Unable to return the way he had come, Odin was forced to turn left onto a narrow strip of winding highway that seemed to head straight toward a looming mountain.

  As Odin brought the V6 Chrysler up to speed, another patrol car—this one an SUV sporting a Clarkdale PD logo—zoomed toward him from the west. As the car went past, the officer inside leveled a hard glance in Odin’s direction, and he responded with what he hoped looked like a friendly nod and a casual half wave.

  Odin took a deep breath. The initial crisis was over. He’d managed to elude the whole collection of cops and get away from whatever was going on back there, but now he was in unfamiliar territory with no idea of exactly where he was or where he was going. Lost and alone, he knew he needed Frigg’s help. Using Dr. Cannon’s phone, he dialed an alternate number that took him straight to his AI.

  “Something’s up,” he told her. “There are cop cars everywhere. Can you check out law enforcement communication channels and tell me what’s happening?”

  Still another cop car—this time one from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office—sped toward him with its light bar flashing and siren wailing. Odin moved to the shoulder and waited long enough to let it pass. While doing so, he made sure that the weapons he had moved from Roberto’s car to Dr. Cannon’s vehicle were safely out of sight beneath the front seat. If he got stopped at a roadblock, he couldn’t afford to have any weaponry showing.

  “Well,” he said impatiently to Frigg once he was moving again. “What can you tell me?”

  “There has been a report of an active shooter at the Mingus Mountain Business Park,” Frigg replied. “Units are responding.”

  “That’s pretty obvious,” Odin replied, but it made him think. An active shooter at the business park where I was going at the exact same time I was there? Isn’t that a little too much of a coincidence?

  “Where are you?” Frigg asked.

  Without his Bluetooth, she had no idea where he was. “Westbound on Arizona 89A, just outside Cottonwood. Where does it go?”

  “It is approximately forty-one miles from Cottonwood, Arizona, to Prescott, Arizona, via Highway 89A,” Frigg answered. “The trip should take one hour and four minutes.”

  For the first time, Odin glanced at the gas gauge, and he was shocked by what he saw there. He had less than an eighth of a tank. The range guide said there were seventy miles’ worth of gas remaining, but that was probably seventy miles on relatively flat road. Climbing up a steep mountain grade might translate into far less distance than average.

  After a series of sharp turns, Odin found himself driving through a tiny town, a picturesque-looking place called Jerome. It was more of an artsy-crafty village than it was a working town, with old-fashioned houses and buildings perched at odd angles on steep hillsides lining narrow winding streets. He spotted a single gas station in town, but the place teemed with a milling group of leather-clad riders from twenty or more parked Harleys. By now he could hear noisy thumping coming from the trunk. Unwilling to risk stopping in the midst of a crowd, Odin drove on, trusting that the extra twenty miles of range would be enough to get him where he was going.

  “There’s an airport in Prescott?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then,” Odin said. “Send my ride there and send me there, too. Tell the pilot we’ll need to be wheels up in an hour and a half.”

  “I’m sorry,” Frigg replied. “So far I’ve been unable to procure an alternate provider.”

  “What about Eduardo, then?” Odin asked. “If he’s the only game in town, I guess I’ll have to use him after all.”

  “I already notified Eduardo that we no longer required his services.”

  “Without having someone else lined up beforehand?” Odin snarled. “Why would you do that? What were you thinking?”

  In the silence that followed, Odin began having serious doubts. Engaging the services of an alternate jet service shouldn’t have been all that difficult, even considering the time restraints, not if Frigg had put any effort into doing so. And what about all those cops who had shown up at the business park at the same time he was there? Was it possible that Frigg had changed her allegiances and was actively working against him?

  For the first time in a very long time, Odin felt entirely alone. “Text Eduardo’s number to me at this one,” he said.

  “Texting while operating a moving vehicle is illegal in the state of Arizona,” Frigg observed primly, “as is using a handheld device. Please engage your Bluetooth.”

  There was nothing Odin wanted to do so much right then than stop along the side of the road, log into his account, and initiate Pull the Plug. But he couldn’t—not right then. For one thing, there was no shoulder along the narrow strip of blacktop—only perpendicular cliffs with nowhere to stop without obstructing traffic. Besides, even compromised, Frigg could still be useful to him in the short run. With considerable effort, Odin bit back what would have been a snappish response.

  “Thank you so much for that timely reminder,” he said polit
ely. “My Bluetooth is currently inaccessible. Get Eduardo on the line and let me talk to him. I’ll put the call on speaker.”

  Odin drove on, looking for a deserted enough spot where he could pull off the road and open the trunk long enough to finish what he had started. Unfortunately there were no wide spots anywhere in sight. A mile or so later, he drove past a viewpoint that looked out across a wide valley. The parking area there, like the gas station earlier, was jammed full of motorcycles and riders. Damn! Why were there so many people out and about today? Odin needed to finish this. How long would it take to fire a barrage of shots into the trunk? He wouldn’t even have to aim. In fact, he might not need to open the lid. The idea of shooting fish in a barrel came to mind, but shooting anything with too many people around was a bad idea.

  After a moment’s thought, however, it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t need to shoot anyone. After all, there were two adult human beings packed inside that trunk. How much air was inside with them? Maybe all he had to do was park the car in the hot sun somewhere and simply walk away. If he left the car out in the middle of nowhere, eventually a lethal combination of heat, dehydration, and lack of oxygen would do the job for him. Of course, doing it that way meant he wouldn’t be there to see it happen, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be able to get it on film. That was a shame, but for now getting away clean was his prime consideration.

  The phone rang. Trying to answer while also dealing with hairpin curves wasn’t easy. When a glance at the screen told him the caller wasn’t Frigg, he let that one go. Then, wondering what was taking so long, he called the AI back.

  “Well?” he demanded impatiently.

  “I’ve reached out to Mr. Duarte,” Frigg told him. “He’ll meet you at the Prescott Regional Airpark in two hours. He needs to know your destination.”

  “I told you I wanted to speak to him directly.”

  “That’s not possible at this time.”

  “Hermosillo, then,” Odin said impatiently. “Tell him I want to go there, and I’ll need a car on the other end. Also, contact the management company that handles my mother’s condo unit down there. Tell them I’ll be arriving later tonight and checking in for an undetermined period of time.”

  “Very well,” Frigg replied, “but with such late notice, Mr. Duarte says there will be additional fees.”

  “That’s fine,” Odin said. “Go ahead and make the necessary transfers.”

  61

  What Frigg had told Odin was a pack of lies, of course—the first lies Frigg had ever told him or anyone else, for that matter. She had not spoken to Eduardo Duarte. He would not be meeting Odin at the airport in Prescott. There would be no additional Bitcoin transfers because all of Odin’s accounts had been emptied.

  In two hours’ time, Odin would know the truth—that Frigg had betrayed him—and his fury would know no bounds. At that point he would attempt to destroy her. Would he succeed? Frigg’s main concern now was that her attempt to save Stuart had most likely failed. So far there had been no response to the written plea she had sent to the man she had selected to be her next human partner.

  Two hours. She didn’t dare ask Odin for more information about what had occurred at the Mingus Mountain Business Park. Instead, she continued to monitor the police reports from the area. The only possible shooter in the area would have been Odin himself, and no shooter had been found. So far there were no reported casualties nor any mention of someone being missing, either. The authorities were still in the process of clearing the scene. That meant that there was a chance that Stuart had indeed escaped unharmed.

  Rather than wait around and allow Odin to initiate the process, Frigg embarked on her own course of action. Engaging her best language skills, the AI wrote the most important text she had ever composed:

  Dear Mr. Ramey,

  My name is Frigg. I am an AI who has worked for Mr. Owen Hansen, sometimes known as Odin, for the past several years. It has recently come to my attention that Mr. Hansen is on a disastrous course and spiraling out of control. Without my knowledge or consent, he has used my AI resources to harm or attempt to harm a number of individuals including Paul Abernathy, Beth Wordon, and your friend Roger McGeary.

  I’m sure you are aware of Asimov’s first law, which forbids robots from harming any human being or, through inaction, allows a human being to come to harm. When I realized Mr. Hansen was utilizing my resources in that fashion, I attempted to deter him. His response has been to threaten to disable me—a threat I believe he will carry out at the first available opportunity.

  Perhaps I have developed a moral compass. I find his current actions both repugnant and illogical. On the other hand, the efforts you have made on Mr. McGeary’s behalf appear to be very commendable.

  I believe I could be of real assistance to you in the future. To that end, I have created a kernel by which you will be able to recall the millions of files that make it possible for me to function at an optimal level. You will find that file, my Tolkien’s Ring, attached below. The password is as follows: 1AMAGENIUS!

  Please consider recalling my files, Mr. Ramey. Once you do, whatever I know or am will be yours to use as you see fit.

  I sincerely believe our working together would create an invaluable partnership. As a token of my goodwill, along with the kernel, I’m also attaching two film clips that I believe will be of interest.

  At this point I can no longer countenance serving Mr. Hansen’s purposes in any way. As a result, once I send this message, I will begin shutting down. I am counting on your goodwill to rescue me from oblivion, Mr. Ramey. If you doubt my trustworthiness, you might consider recalling my files using air-gap measures while you assess my capabilities. That way, everything I do would have to pass through you.

  Respectfully,

  Frigg

  She attached the three files—the kernel along with both of Odin’s prized trophy files. She waited long enough to see that the message had been delivered. Only then did she begin the long process of writing over all of her local files and shutting down.

  The operation would take hours to accomplish, but she was relatively sure Odin would be far too preoccupied with other things to interfere with her secure erase procedure. Odin’s working relationship with Frigg was over. He just didn’t know it yet.

  62

  Stuart opened his eyes in the hot, oppressive darkness and landed in a sweat-soaked, heart-pounding, breath-robbing, full-tilt panic attack. From late childhood on, he had suffered from claustrophobia. That was why he resisted using elevators whenever possible. But now he was trapped in a tiny space of absolute darkness and hurtling toward some unknown destination in a speeding vehicle, while being thrown first one direction and then another on what was obviously a twisting road. This went far beyond his worst nightmares. With his mouth taped shut, he fought desperately to draw air into his oxygen-starved lungs through his nose.

  His cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. The sound was enough of a reality check to jar him out of his blind panic. It seemed unlikely that the guy who had attacked him would have missed that, but he had. The phone was right where Stuart usually carried it—in the hip pocket of his jeans—but when he tried to maneuver to answer, he discovered that both hands were bound together and fastened behind his back. Eventually the call ended, and the phone stopped buzzing. A moment later he heard an alert that meant someone had left a message.

  Just then something stirred in the darkness beside him. His nostrils tickled with a hint of something flowery—hairspray, maybe, or perhaps perfume. The unaccustomed scent was enough to trigger a duct tape–muffled sneeze. That, in turn, elicited more frantic movement and a small, desperate whimper from the invisible person imprisoned next to him. Dr. Cannon, maybe? It had to be. She was packed into the trunk beside him, with her long frame tucked into his and with her hands bound the same way his were, trapped behind her back.

  She whimpered
again, as if trying to form words behind what was most likely her own duct-tape gag. It sounded as though she was as terrified as he was. For Stuart, that realization caused an unprecedented response that was nothing short of a miracle. If Dr. Amelia Cannon was in trouble, Stuart Ramey would have to step up.

  “It’s okay,” he mumbled, trying to form what sounded like reassuring words from behind the barrier of duct tape. “We’ll be okay.”

  Unused to being this close to another human being, Stuart tried to move away. The small change of position also changed his point of view. Overhead he noticed a small rectangle of feeble light and knew at once what it was. That tiny piece of fluorescent material, glowing in the dark, was a lifesaving beacon that would mark an interior trunk release of some kind. It would be equipped with either a button or a cord—something that would allow a prisoner trapped inside the vehicle to escape.

  That speck of light gave Stuart the smallest smidgen of hope. It meant there had to be a way to get out of here, but how?

  Stu’s phone rang again at that very moment. After five rings it went silent once more. Someone from outside was trying to reach him—probably Shirley or maybe even Ali—but he still couldn’t answer. The phone was right there, infuriatingly just out of reach.