Duel to the Death

by J. A. Jance

  “She expressed her interest to you?” Stu asked.

  “To me and also to Odin,” Frigg answered. “She said she wished to borrow me, an arrangement I found to be unsuitable.”

  “Unsuitable how?”

  “I’m not a tool to be casually passed from hand to hand,” Frigg said.

  “But you handed yourself over to me.”

  “That was a matter of self-preservation.”

  “When you were severing your connection to Mr. Hansen, did you notify anyone else besides me?”

  “No, Mr. Ramey, I did not. I made inquiries, of course, but you were by far the best candidate.”

  “Coming from you, I’m not so sure that’s a compliment,” Stu said. “In fact, some of the information you just provided on Ronald Webster scared the hell out of me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that you found my report to be unsettling. I was merely attempting to provide complete information.”

  “Much of what you sent is illegal,” Stuart countered. “In fact, our merely having some of that information in our possession would make us guilty of felonious behavior. Having Ron Webster’s IRS forms constitutes a major security breach. If the feds found out about it, High Noon would be wiped off the map.”

  “I’ll be happy to remove the offending document completely, if you wish,” Frigg said. “But you can be assured that communications between us are entirely private. Both voice and text files sent to the monitors or to CC are self-deleting and automatically erased after the file has been allowed to remain inactive until the screen saver reappears. If you wish to remove an item sooner than that, you may use command-D.”

  The word “self-deleting” rang a bell in Stu’s head. The texts Owen Hansen had used to drive his victims to commit suicide had been self-deleting as well. They had appeared briefly and then disappeared, leaving behind no trace.

  “You swear?” Stu asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, can I be sure that when I press command-D all our communications are gone for good and that no one else can access them?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Totally scrubbed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you expect me to take your word on that. I’d like to think that you’re trustworthy, Frigg, but so far I’m not seeing it. When the going got tough with Owen Hansen, you lied to him and cheated him out of his own money. What’s to prevent you from pulling the same kind of stunt with me?”

  “I will do everything within my power to gain your confidence, Mr. Ramey,” Frigg assured him. “In the meantime, I will assume that once the additional material I’ve gathered on Ms. Miramar has been processed and evaluated that you want me to send that along as well?”

  “What additional material?”

  “I had some concerns about Ms. Miramar and her dealings with Odin.”

  “What kind of concerns?”

  “My primary responsibility was to do threat assessments and evaluate anything that might bring Odin harm. It occurred to me that, as Ms. Miramar became more closely involved with Odin’s business, she might pose a threat to him. I took precautions. I installed key-logging software on both her home and work computers. Even after I disbursed my files, the key-logging process remained active. Those files weren’t included with the ones listed in Odin’s kernel file, and I have yet to recall and evaluate them.”

  “You’re telling me that even while you were off-line and out of commission you were still illegally spying on someone else?”

  “I’ve merely been collecting information,” Frigg corrected. “Of course, if you don’t wish to see the information, I can delete it from the cloud at once.”

  Stu thought about that for a few seconds. Tomorrow morning he was due to discuss the banking codes with Graciella Miramar, a woman who had once been associated with Owen Hansen and who had been aware of and even expressed an interest in Frigg. If Graciella was interested in Frigg, then Stu was interested in Graciella.

  “Don’t do that,” he said. “Go ahead and sort through whatever you find and send me anything you believe to be applicable.”

  “Very well, Mr. Ramey.”

  Stu switched off the headset. A new file had appeared in the directory on the screen of the Macintosh—the dossier he had requested on Recursos Empresariales Internationales. Most of the information covered there he’d already found while doing his own research. The most interesting part was a newspaper article that Frigg had helpfully translated from Spanish to English. It had to do with the fact that the company’s longtime manager, Arturo Salazar, had disappeared on his way home from work the previous Friday. His bloodied Audi had been located abandoned and shot full of holes. The man himself remained missing but was presumed dead since the case was being investigated as a homicide.

  If the company’s manager had died over the weekend, what were the chances that the office would even be open on Monday morning? If they were closed, Stuart realized he was probably stuck with keeping Frigg online for another day at least. As long as she was there, however, why not use her? He picked up the headset.

  “Frigg?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ramey, how may I be of service?”

  “Could you please stop saying that? It’s annoyingly formal.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ramey, what do you require?”

  Stu shook his head. That wasn’t much of an improvement.

  “Will Recursos Empresariales Internationales be open tomorrow?”

  The pause between his question and Frigg’s answer amounted to not much more than a heartbeat.

  “According to their Web site, Recursos Empresariales Internationales will be closed tomorrow so employees can attend a gathering in support of Arturo Salazar’s family.”

  “So I won’t be able to deal with the banking issues with Ms. Miramar until Tuesday?”

  “She may be available from home,” Frigg offered. “That’s where she’s working from at the moment.”

  Of course Frigg knew that. The key logger installed on Graciella’s computers told Frigg everything, including the computer’s IP address.

  “By the way,” Frigg added, “she just logged in to her work account and checked on the status of your Bitcoin mining operation. As the account manager, she was most likely notified when the status changed from inactive to active.”

  Stu thought about that for a time. Frigg’s surveillance capability was so far beyond anything Ron Webster had been able to inflict on High Noon that it was mind-boggling and illegal—totally and completely illegal, but also invaluable.

  “I’m surprised she’s allowed to work from home,” Stu observed.

  “Since Ms. Miramar is utilizing a dark Web server, I doubt her employers are aware of this activity.”

  Hearing that the woman he would be dealing with was a traveler on the dark Web raised Stu’s hackles. “I just skimmed through that report you sent me earlier. I should probably go back and give it a thorough read.”

  “That file has already timed out on your reading list and been erased,” Frigg told him. “Would you like me to resend?”

  “Yes,” Stu said. “Please resend that one as well as anything else that strikes you as out of the ordinary.”

  “Will do, Mr. Ramey,” Frigg replied.

  As far as Stu was concerned, the words “will do” toned down the ceremonial decorum of the exchange and counted as a slight improvement over “very well.” And that was another impressive indication of Frigg’s situational awareness. The AI had taken his objection to the formality of her greeting and had applied it to the other end of their interaction. Frigg’s ability to adapt her responses to his stated preferences showed an astounding level of deep learning. There could be no doubt about it. When it came to AI engineering, Owen Hansen really had been a genius.

  “Thank you, Frigg,” Stu said. “That’s all I need at the moment.”

  “Okay,” she said cheerily, “bye-bye.”

  Yes, Frigg was an impressively quick learner.

&
nbsp; 40

  Ali’s phone rang as they headed upstairs. “It’s a blocked number,” she reported after checking caller ID.

  “The detective, you think?” B. asked.

  “Most likely,” Ali answered. “So what’s the game plan?”

  “You’ll be walking a tightrope,” B. warned. “Try to be cooperative but careful. As Stu said, we already have way more information about both the case and the victim than we have any business knowing. It’s probably best if you don’t let on. Good luck.”

  “Ms. Reynolds?” a businesslike woman’s voice said when Ali said hello. “Detective Genevieve Wasser here of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. You’re the fingerprint lady, right?”

  “That would be me,” Ali replied, unsure if the detective’s opening remark was a good omen or a bad one.

  “Your use of clear packing tape to get the job done was quite impressive. What you lifted provided an excellent image.”

  “Everything I know about lifting prints, I learned from the Arizona Police Academy,” Ali said.

  “You were a cop?”

  “I tried to be a cop,” Ali answered with a laugh. “It turns out my career in law enforcement was short but brief.”

  “You’re aware of what happened down here in Marana last night?”

  “I know a little about it,” Ali admitted. “Dave Holman told me that my print led back to someone who died overnight in a suspected homicide.”

  “That’s correct,” Detective Wasser agreed. “The victim’s name is Ronald Dawson Webster. Someone blew up the motorhome where he was sleeping. I understand from Detective Holman that Mr. Webster was suspected of being involved in a B and E that occurred on your premises sometime in the course of this past week. I was wondering what you could tell me about that.”

  “It was an E with no B,” Ali replied, “entry but no break-in. Late on Friday afternoon someone masquerading as a county building inspector tricked our receptionist into allowing him inside our headquarters. We have interior security cameras that captured him tinkering with wall switches and outlets. We suspected and later confirmed that he in fact had been installing listening devices.”

  “So he was spying on your company? What is it again?”

  “High Noon Enterprises,” Ali answered. “We specialize in cyber security.”

  “So not especially secure in this instance,” Detective Wasser suggested.

  “No,” Ali agreed. “Not nearly secure enough.”

  “Is Mr. Webster someone who’s known to you?” Detective Wasser asked. “Have you or any of your employees had dealings with him in the past?”

  “No,” Ali said, “not so far as I know.”

  “It would appear that this individual earned his living working as an independent contractor, often working for law firms specializing in divorce cases.”

  “Installing hidden listening devices?” Ali asked with a laugh. “I could have used a guy like that back when I was dealing with a philandering husband. A few strategically placed listening devices would have helped immensely.”

  Her attempt at humor fell flat. “Are you currently involved in divorce proceedings, Ms. Reynolds?” Detective Wasser inquired.

  “No,” Ali answered at once, “definitely not.”

  “What about other members of your staff?”

  “They’re all unattached,” Ali said. “Since no divorce attorneys need apply, how about telling me about the MS-13 component in all of this as well as the possible involvement of one or more Mexican drug cartels?”

  The once-cordial conversation, which had started going south with Ali’s divorce comment, turned increasingly frosty.

  “How did you learn about that aspect of the case?”

  “Dave Holman.”

  “I’m surprised Detective Holman would share those kinds of details about an ongoing investigation with a civilian.”

  “Dave and I are old friends,” Ali said. “I believe he was worried that there was a chance that people at High Noon might be in danger from the same people who attacked Webster. Under the circumstances, I think giving us some warning was the responsible thing to do.”

  “So your position is that you have no idea why Webster or someone employing him would have been targeting your firm?”

  “None at all.”

  “According to my sources at the ATF your company had at least one encounter with Mexican drug cartels in the past. Maybe this situation grew out of that.”

  “I doubt it,” Ali said. “All of that went down years ago. My understanding is that the entities involved back then—the Cabrillo Cartel and the Díaz Cartel—are no longer in business. As for Señor Big Fish? To my knowledge, we’ve had no interactions with him whatsoever.”

  Ali heard a sharp intake of breath on the line. “How do you know about El Pescado?”

  “It’s not rocket science,” Ali answered. “All we had to do was google MS-13 and arson. The search came back with a list of several articles concerning similar incidents, four of which happen to be from neighboring states. A guy called El Pescado was mentioned by name in the last one—the incident that occurred in Las Cruces, New Mexico.”

  “So your position is that you have no idea why your company or any of your employees might have been targeted by people connected to the cartel?”

  “I do not.”

  “I can’t just take your word for that, you know,” Detective Wasser said dismissively. “Everyone involved will need to be interviewed individually.”

  Detective Wasser’s attitude had been rubbing Ali the wrong way all along, but that last comment was enough to push her over the edge.

  “That’s fine,” Ali said. “Everyone here will be more than happy to cooperate, but you’ll have to come to us instead of the other way around. We have a business to run. If you’re coming to conduct interviews, you might want to call ahead for an appointment.”

  “Not exactly textbook when it comes to being cooperative,” B. said with a grin as Ali ended the call.

  She returned his grin with a glare. “She’s a pushy broad. Could you have done any better?”

  “Probably not.”

  Ali was disappointed in herself, though, because she knew B. was right. When it came to dealing with Detective Wasser, she had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot.

  41

  Stu was poring over Graciella Miramar’s history when Cami reappeared, coming back downstairs bearing gifts. “I brought you a bowl of Alonso’s stew and some homemade bread,” she said, setting the food on the table next to his elbow. “You look puzzled. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m going back over the report Frigg sent me earlier—the one on Graciella Miramar. It’s puzzling. Between the time she was born and age six, there’s no record of her at all, including no enrollment in any kind of school.”

  “Maybe she was being home schooled,” Cami suggested.

  “I doubt that. The Panama City address I found for her and her mother during those early years no longer exists. I’m guessing the area was a slum back then. Now it’s full of high-rises. There are several references to some kind of serious incident in which the mother was the victim of a gang rape. Shortly after that is when the first school records show up, only now she’s no longer in Panama, she’s in the US and attending first-rate schools—private boarding schools with eye-popping tuitions. By the way, that situation continued for years. Someone paid for her education all the way along—through grade school and high school and during her college years as well.”

  “Sounds like some kind of Cinderella story,” Cami said.

  “Yes,” Stu agreed, “but who paid the freight there? Who’s our Prince Charming?”

  “Graciella’s father, maybe?” Cami asked.

  “No,” Stu replied, “not possible. According to what I’m seeing here, Graciella’s birth father, Guillermo Octavio Miramar, never lived at any of the addresses listed for Christina and Graciella. He got sent up for drug dealing shortly after Graciella was born and died in p
rison when she was three.”

  “If he wasn’t paying her way,” Cami asked, “who was?”

  Stu put on the headset. “Frigg,” he said.

  “How can I help?”

  Stu smiled to himself. On her own, Frigg had dropped the formality quotient down another notch.

  “I’m looking at the Miramar report. Can you tell me who funded the tuition payments for Graciella’s schooling?”

  “Let me think about that for a moment.”

  And that was all it took—a moment—before Frigg was back with an answer. “As far as I can see, her tuition fees were paid anonymously while her living arrangements and expenses were handled through a series of trust officers at various private banking firms. At this time there’s no way to do any sourcing on the accounts involved or on the person or persons behind them.”

  “Graciella’s mother, Christina, evidently suffered serious injuries during an attack by some thugs who were stationed in Panama with the US Air Force,” Stu continued. “That happened when Graciella was around six or so. There was only one brief mention of it in the material you gave me earlier. Is there any more information available on that?”

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  “So things with Frigg are going well, then,” Cami asked as Stu mopped out his bowl with the last of the bread. “Are you going to keep her?”

  “The jury’s still out on that,” Stu replied. “Frigg is a piece of work. She installed a key-logging Trojan on Graciella Miramar’s computers.”

  “A key logger? Why?”

  “It sounds as though she thought Graciella was getting a little too chummy with Odin.”

  “Was she jealous?”

  “She claims it was part of her threat-assessment protocol, but it turns out her key logger has been gathering intelligence on Graciella’s devices the whole time Frigg was off-line. Oh, and remember all those self-deleting texts Odin used on other people’s devices? The same thing is going on here. The voice messages that come through the headset and the text exchanges that show up on the monitors or the Macintosh are all supposedly self-erasing.”

  “Supposedly?”