Page 26 of King’s Ransom

And then it came again.

The voice.

The same cultured male voice we’d heard earlier from the drone’s speaker.

Only now it came from the small black cube-shaped boxes attached to the dog collars around the boy’s and the bodyguard’s throats: they were speakers.

‘Golly gee, that was exciting. Congratulations, Dr Speedman, you made it in the nick of time. This is Alexei King, aged six, and his bodyguard, Mr Nick Blakeney.’

I said nothing but I thought: He knows it was me who solved the riddle.

He must have cameras in here . . .

He’s watching us . . .

‘Can you hear me?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘What do you want now? I completed your challenge in time.’

All the other private detectives, FBI people and NYPD cops were piling down the stairs behind my little group.

Special Agent Hooper and his boss, Longmuir, shoved up beside me in the doorway at the edge of the shaft, the other three detectives close behind.

The voice chuckled.

‘Well, now I want you to pay. Mr King makes approximately $20 million a day in interest on his bitcoin holdings alone. I want Mr King’s assistant, Ms Kimura, to send me a single day’s worth of that interest—$20 million in bitcoin—using the QR code attached to Mr Blakeney’s mouth gag.

‘Do it within sixty seconds or I drop Mr Blakeney ninety-four floors to his death. After that, we will negotiate for the boy’s life.

‘If you try to remove him or Mr Blakeney from their positions, I drop them both.

‘Your time starts . . . now.’

I turned to Special Agent Hooper and Director Longmuir who both spun to face King’s executive assistant, the diminutive Ms Kimura.

‘Well?’ Longmuir said to the young woman in her sleek suit and heels.

She stammered, blinking quickly. ‘I mean . . . well . . . Mr King has . . . insurance for this kind of thing . . . maybe we should talk to their guy—’

‘Forty-five seconds, folks . . .’ the Tech Detect said. He’d started a stopwatch when the voice had said our time had begun.

At that moment, the well-dressed insurance guy Quinn McCade stepped forward.

‘What do you need?’

‘Can we . . . can we pay twenty million dollars?’ Ms Kimura asked.

Longmuir said, ‘Are you fucking kidding me? We don’t have time for an insurance assessment!’

Ms Kimura swallowed, staring at McCade.

In her chic outfit, this wasn’t what she was used to at all.

She was used to being the Hand of the King, the world’s richest man’s aide. I imagined on any given day she wielded considerable power; she could call the CEO of any major American corporation—heck, the White House—and be put through.

But not today.