Page 21 of King’s Ransom

‘That’s Mr King’s watch?’

‘Yes,’ Trey Hooper said. ‘Custom-made Richard Mille. A one-of-a-kind made for Mr King.’

‘And his blood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we know yet how he was taken?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it must be pretty hard to kidnap the world’s richest man.’

Hooper said, ‘According to Mrs King, Mr King was staying here last night with his two youngest children. His assistant, Ms Kimura, raised the alarm when Mr King didn’t answer the call bell or his phone when she arrived at 6:35 a.m. This was most unusual. She used her keycard to get inside and found all this. Then she called us.’

I nodded. I also recalled that Mrs King hadn’t been staying in the glorious penthouse with her husband. That was noteworthy.

‘What about King’s bodyguard?’ I asked. ‘King must’ve had one with him at all times, including while he slept.’

‘Also missing,’ Trey Hooper said.

‘Signs of forced entry?’

‘None.’

That told me something. I filed it away in the back of my mind.

‘The voice on the drone says four of his kids have been taken. Not all of them?’

‘The two oldest children live in London and Paris. They’re safe and accounted for. The other four, however, are indeed all missing: Ajax and Cassandra—who also live in this building—and the two very young ones, Alexei and Katya, who, as I just said, were staying here with Mr King.’

I frowned. The kidnapping of young children often didn’t end well. The experience was also pretty darn terrifying for them.

‘The two kids who were staying here, they had bodyguards as well?’

‘Yes. Their bodyguards are also missing.’

‘And a nanny?’

‘Gone, too.’

I pointed at the bed. ‘The phone is King’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you opened it?’

‘Not yet, no.’ It was the female private detective who had spoken: Juno Everhart.

I threw a questioning look at the Tech Detect. All of us could unlock a regular phone; if anyone could unlock one with extra security, it was him.

He said, ‘We were waiting till you got here and for what’s going to happen at noon. Didn’t want to trigger any kind of booby trap.’

I peered at the chess piece: the black king.

‘And this?’

(I actually knew what it was, but I wanted to see what everybody else knew.)

‘It’s a calling card,’ Merritt Garrett said. ‘From a man known as the Grandmaster. Russian criminal fixer. Mostly kidnapping and extortion, sometimes murder for hire. Suspected links to the Russian mafia led by Roman Oberov out at Brighton Beach and also, according to some, Russian foreign intelligence. He’s smart. Got a flair for the theatrical.’

I turned to Special Agent Hooper. ‘Does the FBI have a file on this Grandmaster guy?’