"She's real shy, Katla is, but sometimes, when she was sure we were alone and unmonitored, she would try to talk to me about things. Cleats's project was one of them. He-he told her that if she didn't work with him, with his people, then something might happen. Not to her, but to someone else."
"He threatened you to get her to work with him?" Hyaki remarked.
"Not by name." Her attention shifted to the big man. "He didn't have to. It was enough to suggest that something might happen to someone close to her. He might have been talking about a sochemate, or a casual friend. You've never been around him, Sergeant. There's a quality to his voice. It's unforced, natural, but The Mock can order take-out Chinese and make it sound like he's going to commit serial murder. When he actually is making a threat…" There being no need to finish the sentence, her voice died away.
Cardenas pulled the conversation back to an earlier thread. "This project of his, the one that he had Katla working on: can you tell us anything about it? We don't know any details, only that it's of some significance. Apparently, others besides your husband are very interested in it."
She spread her hands wide and shrugged. "I told you. Katla tried to explain it to me, several times. I only remember a little about it, and I don't pretend to understand even the parts that I remember. It has something to do with a procedure she called 'quantum theft.'"
The two federales exchanged a glance. "That's all?" Cardenas prodded her.
"Oh no, there's lots more. I just don't understand any of it."
Brow wrinkling, Surtsey Mockerkin struggled to remember terminology and designations, definitions and descriptions, that were clearly beyond her. As she rambled on, it became increasingly evident to Cardenas that much of it was equally beyond him and his partner. What was worse was that, in the absence of their charred spinners, they had only their own inadequate minds with which to try and record any of the details.
"It all centers on the remote controlling of the optical switches that drive the commercial ganglions of the Box. I'm talking about the global Box, not some local offshoot dendrites." Seeing the expression on their faces, she added wryly, "I told you I didn't understand it. I just remember some of it."
"Go on," Cardenas urged her, desperately wishing he had his spinner. Or the knowledgeable presence beside him of Aurilac the Wise.
The remembering seemed to help her relax. In between declamations, she drained the remainder of the beer. "Apparently the trick- that's what Katla kept calling it-is to tune the relevant multiple amplifiers so that the lasers being controlled at the opportune moment exactly match a certain wavelength. If correctly pumped, this is supposed to create an onsite duplicate of whatever information is being scanned at that time. The instant this exact duplicate is created at the remote site, the original is destroyed." She shifted her backside on the couch.
"It's supposed to duplicate bank numbers, or stock details, or whatever information is being pumped, on someone else's molly."
"And at the same time," Cardenas added, straining to make sense of what she was telling them, "the original information is rendered useless?"
"Not just rendered useless," she corrected him. "It's obliterated, as if it never existed. But it does, in the form of the perfect duplicate that's been created elsewhere."
Both men were quiet for a moment, trying to digest it all. As he so often did, Hyaki neatly summed up what they had just been told.
"The banks are gonna love this."
"Very nifty," Cardenas observed. "Not only do you steal information, you simultaneously eliminate the original record of its existence. Like running away from someone while brushing out the tracks you leave behind you." His brows drew together slightly as he regarded Surtsey Mockerkin. "If it works."
Setting the bottle aside, she extracted another from storage and flicked on the chill. Once again, she did not offer any to her guests. Cardenas supposed he couldn't blame her.
"I couldn't tell you that. I wouldn't know if something like that was working right even if I saw it in action."
"So you don't know if this wild concept is anything more than a theory? You don't know how far along any practical application actually is, or if your husband's people have gone beyond just theorizing?"
"No," she muttered, "I don't. But I do know one thing. I got tired of watching my daughter be used, much less drawn into that bastard's line of work."
Hyaki nodded contemplatively. "The couple of million you and Brummel took off with had nothing to do with it, of course."
Her voice rose. "What the hell was I supposed to do, fedoco? Get a job washing floors, or making beds in cheap hotels? If you're going to run from The Mock, you'd better run far, and fast. That takes money." She subsided a little. "Wayne wasn't such a bad guy, considering."
"So you miss him a lot," Cardenas ventured sympathetically.
The gaze that met his was so steeled that for an instant, he thought she was intuiting him. "I didn't say that. I said he was okay, and he was. My first concern, my only concern, was to protect Katla. To get her away from her pinche father."
"Not to look out for yourself." Hyaki was no longer smiling.
The steel faded from their host's gaze and she looked away.
"Think what you want. A dead mother isn't a very useful mother." Another long swallow of cerveza, and when she again considered her visitors, some of her resolve had returned.
"I'm not going anywhere with you, gentlemen. You can keep your goddamned protection program. You've got no jurisdiction in the CAF, and less than none in the Ciudad Simiano. I know. Wayne's research was real specific on that point. Sure-o, this isn't the Strip, or Nueva York, or even Agua Pri, but Katla and I can manage. We've managed this far. If I go back, if I set foot inside Namerica, I'm cold meat." Her speech was beginning to take on a slight slur, a consequence of the second beer. "That pinche cabron can shoot his lasers and his programming up his ass. He's not getting Katla back."
"All right." Cardenas rose. "We won't bother you anymore, Ms. Mockerkin."
Hyaki gaped at his partner. "Hoh, Angel, are you…?"
The Inspector spoke firmly to his partner. "She doesn't want to leave, we can't make her. She's content to stay here, I'm happy for her." Returning his attention to their hostess, he added, "Assuming Sorong grants permission and we can arrange a place to sleep, my partner and I will be here for another couple of days. Think about the offer, Ms. Mockerkin. Think about everything I've said. After a while, living on the run, even in a place as congenial as you might find the CAF tropics, starts to wear a person down. I know: I've seen it happen. It ages you fast and vapes you quick. There are more insidious killers than a bullet. Anticipation is slower, but can be just as deadly." On a hunch, he nodded in the direction of the sitting area's rear window. "One thing for certain: it's no place to try and raise a child."
Holding tight to the beer, she muttered a dismissal. "Wish I could say it's been fun, Inspector. But it hasn't."
He started past her, keeping one eye on the shadowed hallway ahead lest they run afoul of a certain easily aggravated orangutan. "Couple of days. Think about it."