Stuart had already launched into the hard part of the job. When B. called, Stu was well into the process of hacking into Molly’s cell phone provider. Once B. gave him the S550’s VIN, Stu set aside his triangulation effort and concentrated on the Mercedes.
Computerized records being what they were, he was easily able to track down the original bill of sale for Doris Ralston’s S550. As Stu hoped, at the time James Ralston purchased the vehicle, he also signed a yearlong contract with Prestige Auto Concierge Service, which had long since lapsed.
Stuart refrained from high-fiving himself. He had dealt with the company before. In fact, he had designed some of their anti-hacking security measures, so it was easy for him to find an untraceable back-door entry into their servers and backup servers, and he did so with no concern that they’d be able to detect his unauthorized entry.
Within minutes, he had updated the records of the S550’s service account, bringing the billing up to current status. For good measure, he changed the name of the account from James Ralston to Doris Ralston, backdating the order to two months ago, citing the receipt of James Ralston’s actual death certificate as the reason for the billing change.
Stuart was tempted to give the updated account a new password. He favored something like MMWRUS, which would have been short for “Minnesota’s Most Wanted Are Us.” Instead, he left James Ralston’s original password. As far as Stu was concerned, Jimmyjim wasn’t a particularly secure password, but that wasn’t his problem. What made him smile was his newly acquired ability to see that Doris Ralston’s S550 was moving steadily west on Arizona Highway 68 west.
With his silver bullet properly locked and loaded, Stuart exited Prestige’s system and returned to the task at hand, infiltrating Molly Handraker’s cell phone provider. Within minutes, he succeeded. Once he had the first cell triangulation ping, Stuart Ramey also had his answer. Molly Handraker’s cell phone, and most likely Ali’s iPad, were in the S550.
“Okay,” Stu said, watching the cell phone screen. “I’ve just located Doris Ralston’s vehicle and Molly’s cell phone. They just turned off Arizona Highway 68 west, northbound on Davis Dam Road.”
“All right.” B. was off the line for a moment while he conferred with someone else. “Okay,” he said, speaking to Stuart. “The pilot says we’re still about twenty minutes out. What’s the program?”
“I’ll keep monitoring their movements. Call me again when you’re at Davis Dam Road. Above Cabin Site Road, there’s a tangle of unnamed dirt roads that lead to boat launches; I’ll probably need to help guide you in. When I believe you’re close enough, I’m going to use Prestige’s auto theft recovery system to shut down that Mercedes. Once they’re stopped dead, it’s up to you. Do you want me to call in law enforcement?”
“We’ll get back to you on that,” B. said.
Stuart sat back, closed his eyes, and uttered a silent but fervent prayer-that Ali would be there, that she’d be alive, that they’d be able to save her. If none of those things turned out to be true, Stuart didn’t think he’d ever be able to face himself in the mirror again. He wouldn’t be able to face B. Simpson, either.
To keep himself occupied, he put himself back to work. Within minutes he had hacked his way in to the surveillance cameras at Turnberry Towers. There were dozens of them, but he focused on the ones that opened from the elevators into the various parking garage levels. Once he had those cameras isolated, he called up the related recordings. After inserting Barry Handraker’s mug shots into a beta facial recognition program that High Noon Enterprises had been testing, he turned the program loose on the tapes.
Scanning the tapes manually would have taken days. The new program accomplished the goal within minutes. In a section of tape dated Sunday evening at 06:28:31, Stuart found Barry Handraker exiting the elevator on level three of the parking garage. He was pulling a single piece of roll-aboard luggage. Two minutes later, another camera located at the parking garage entrance showed him driving an S550 with Arizona plates.
“I’ve got you, you scumbag,” Stuart said aloud to the monitor. Not only had Barry Handraker been living in Doris Ralston’s condo, he had evidently been using her vehicle.
Stuart had every expectation that his silver bullet was going to work, but just in case it didn’t, he wanted to make sure he had backup. To that end, he used an untraceable VOIP connection to send a copy of the Turnberry Towers tape to the Minnesota’s Most Wanted website. If Barry managed to slip through the first trap, he probably wouldn’t be as lucky with the professionals from the Las Vegas Police Department. They had plenty of practice in taking down fugitives.