Page 16 of Billion-Dollar Ransom
Two’s captive seemed genuinely sad, which surprised him. This was not what he had expected. Nor had he expected to say the two words that came tumbling out of his mouth now: “I’m sorry.”
Boo looked up at him with glistening eyes. “I’ll be okay,” she said with a smile. “I mean, if I don’t die here, handcuffed to a metal chair.”
Two was quiet.
“No response, huh?” Boo asked. “Well, we’re going to have to grapple with that eventuality sooner or later, because if this is about money, I don’t think you or your boss will ever see a dime. In fact, if you kill me, you’ll save Randy a lot of legal fees and paperwork.”
“I don’t know about that,” Two said. “If wife number fiveends up dead, that might put a damper on your husband wooing wife number six.”
Now it was Boo’s turn to laugh—warm and infectious. Two couldn’t help but smile.
“So we’re in agreement,” Boo said. “Killing me would be bad for everyone. Especially me. It would ruin my chance at a fresh start.”
“I can see that,” Two said. “I’m all about fresh starts myself.”
Boo’s eyes widened. “Thisis your idea of a fresh start?”
After a perfect moment of comic silence, both cracked up. It was like they were old college friends catching up over dinner and cocktails and enjoying some in-jokes instead of two strangers who were stuck together in the middle of a vast and complex kidnapping scheme.
“Like I said,” Two told her, “I’m just a guy waiting for a phone call.”
CHAPTER 18
Wednesday, 5:24 p.m.
“AGENT GORDON? I think we have the kidnappers’ demands.”
Nicky looked up from the flurry of field reports arrayed on her laptop. She was confused. Why was Hope Alonso, a twenty-eight-year-old junior agent who served as Nicky’s personal assistant, giving her this news?
“Let’s hear it,” Nicky said.
“We haven’t played it yet,” said Hope. Nicky found the junior agent to be timid but super-observant. She reminded Nicky of her younger self. She too had been wide-eyed, quiet, taking in as much as she could without getting in the way. Until the day she realized that staying quiet in the back of the room practically guaranteed you’d remain in the back of the room.
“Playedit? What do you mean?”
Hope handed Nicky an old-school cassette tape. Affixed toit was a narrow white label with one neatly typed word:SCHRAEDERS.
Nicky hadn’t held a cassette tape since grade school, when a shy boy she barely knew made her a mix of his favorite songs.
“Where did this come from?” Nicky asked. “And do we even have a machine that can play this thing?”
“An unhoused person hand-delivered it to the reception desk,” Hope said. “The Schraeder name immediately raised a red flag, and that person has been held for questioning.”
“Who is it?”
“White male, approximately fifty years old, no identification. Says somebody paid him two hundred fifty dollars to bring this to the lobby. We’re waiting on prints.”
Nicky nodded. Her immediate impulse was to march downstairs and question the deliveryman, then trace his steps back to the mastermind behind this triple kidnapping. But that wasn’t her job now; Nicky needed to stay on the sixth floor and focus on the big picture.
“Tell Agent Rodriguez I’d like him to question the deliveryman.”
“Right away,” Hope said. “As for a player, I have Nancy down in the AV room looking for a working device. She’ll bring it to the main conference room as soon as she finds it.”
“Good. Call everyone back into the Sandbox—and contact the mayor’s office so we can patch her in.”
“Right away, Agent Gordon.”
This was what her boss and mentor would have done. Still, delegating felt strange to Nicky. Why was it that the more power you had to wield, the more impotent you felt?
