Page 130 of King’s Ransom

And so I pulled out my notebook and, letter by gruelling letter, I rewrote the first paragraph of plaintext by hand, divining the words and sentences and adding punctuation.

This was the text I started with:

The first few ‘words’ of the first line showed how difficult this was going to be. They appeared like this:

1216264071AYURI01WIL00LBLDGB11EREA01DYFO0RDEC21

First, I tried spacing the letters out into vaguely recognisable words. (Knowing the user identification numbers helped a lot, but the insertion of random 0s and 1s made things really finicky.)

After ten whole minutes, I had this:

121626 4071AY URI 01WIL 00 L BLDG B11 E REA 01 DY FO 0 R DEC21

Next, I drew lines through the 0s and 1s.

121626 4071AY URI 01WIL 00 L BLDG B11 E REA 01 DY FO 0 R DEC21

Only then was I able to string the remaining letters into readable words.

I wrote them out by hand and, finally, I had this:

12/16/26

4071AY: URI, WILL BLDG BE READY FOR DEC 21?

It began with a date—December 16th, 2026—and a question to someone named Uri about whether the building would be ready for the 21st.

And there in the darkness of the Tech Detect’s sleeping closet, I risked a smile.

I was reading correspondence between the perpetrators as they planned for December 21st.

This was serious progress.

Energised, I ploughed on, painstakingly transcribing the plaintext—removing 0s and 1s, adding spaces, making it readable. It was detailed and difficult work, but I was focused, intensely focused, and when I sat up thirty minutes later, I was able to read the first three lines.

12/16/26

4071AY: URI, WILL BLDG BE READY FOR DEC 21?

4071FB: YES, GROSSMAN INFILTRATION WORKING WELL. PREPARATIONS COMPLETE FOR ACTIVITIES ON LEVELS 44, 61, 73, 95, 98, PLUS 28 AS BACKUP. BLDG WILL BE READY FOR DEC 21

4071AY: VASHA, WILL THE CEMETERY BE READY FOR DEC 21?

4071VZ: YES. GM ACQUIRED PLUS TWO ESCORTS. WILL TRANSFER TO MILL ON DEC 20

4071AY: THEN 21 DEC IT IS. STANDBY

I wasn’t smiling anymore.

Now I felt a chill.

Because now I was way behind enemy lines.

I was reading secret conversations between the kidnapper-­killers as they prepared everything at the tower and the cemetery for December 21st.

I swallowed.

I had to analyse what I was reading.