Page 9 of Billion-Dollar Ransom
“Mom.”
“Yes, honey?”
“Just tell me what’s going on. I don’t need a bribe.”
Of course Kaitlin had immediately seen through the ruse. “The Old Maid” was their nickname for the Mermaid on the Pier, a favorite of Kaitlin’s since she was a toddler. The early black-and-white Dennis Hopper movieNight Tidewas largely shot in that location, which thrilled them both when they’d caught it late one night on cable. They had a running joke about killer mermaids swarming the place and pistol-packing Nicky saving the day.
“Nothing is going on,” Nicky said.
“Didn’t the FBI teach you special agents how to lie?”
Nicky fought hard to suppress a smile. “I’m not lying. Nothing’s going on…yet.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Nicky had been planning this conversation for weeks, but she still found herself at a loss for words. This wasn’t how she’d imagined it playing out. And she very much needed to sell Kaitlin on this in the right way, because she couldn’t do it without her daughter’s support.
How would you feel about your mom becoming the first female director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation someday?
Granted, the position was an appointment of the highest level, subject to the political needs of the sitting president and requiring the support of the US Senate. But according to John Scoleri, her boss and mentor at the LA field office, therewasa specific career path that could maximize her chances. “Take the right steps within the Bureau,” John had told her, “put yourself at the center of a few high-profile cases, and you can get on a very short list.”
Nicky Gordon had secretly dreamed of becoming director, but she’d never said it out loud. It spoke to Assistant Director Scoleri’s powers of intuition that he’d figured it out. Maybe it was just a motivation tactic. But she knew this about him: He wasn’t a bullshitter. If he said this was the way, he could back that up.
But this incredibly tempting career path came with a heavy price.
It meant starting on that track right freakingnow. It meant hopping from one field office to another all across the country and dragging along her daughter (who absolutely adored GALA and her many friends at the school). It meant spendingcountless hours on high-profile cases and precious few hours with Kaitlin during the most challenging years of her adolescence. It meant putting herself in the public eye, which in these polarized times often blew back on family. And Kaitlin was Nicky’s entire universe.
To do this, Nicky would need not only Kaitlin’s approval but her total and enthusiastic buy-in. She could not go down this path alone.
So try putting all ofthatinto words when you’re weaving around Teslas and BMWs on Olympic Boulevard.
“Mom?”
“Okay, so there’s this opportunity at work—”
Right at that moment, Nicky’s cell, mounted on the dash, whirred with a message from the LA field office. Of course. Of course! Just saying the wordworkseemed to have conjured it into being.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Nicky said as she tapped the screen. “Give me one sec.”
“Great, keep me in suspense,” Kaitlin said.
But Nicky was busy deciphering the short message, which was basically Bureau code forAll hands on deck, report to the office immediately. These types of messages were reserved for serious incidents, like terrorist attacks or mass shootings or attempted coups. And this one promised to be shocking. Just the family name alone—the Schraeders.
The Old Maid would have to wait.
“What happened?” Kaitlin asked, reading the troubled look on her mother’s face. “Some kind of national disaster?”
“More like three at once.”
CHAPTER 12
Wednesday, 3:56 p.m.
NICKY ARRIVED IN Westwood and hurried through the lobby of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, which covered the Central District of California, trying to process the flurry of inter-agency updates beamed to her phone and the messages from her colleagues.
This was a crisis rapidly evolving on multiple fronts—three separate kidnappings within the same wealthy family, all executed at the same time. Nicky half expected to hear word of a fourth kidnapping when she stepped into her office on the sixth floor.
There she found her immediate superior, FBI assistant director John Scoleri, leaning against her desk, whipping through a stack of reports.
