Page 4 of King’s Ransom

In addition to all the space in the plane’s main cabin, there was also a small kitchenette with a bar fridge that was filled with beers, juices and sodas.

Once we were airborne, a pretty thirty-something flight attendant named Bonnie came through the cabin and offered us a basket overflowing with snacks.

(I wondered if Bonnie was FBI.)

I must admit I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of choice in the basket.

There were apples, bananas, pretzels, potato chips and protein bars.

And I was hungry—the call from the FBI had woken me up at 6:09 a.m. and their motorcade had arrived at my house soon after so I’d missed breakfast and I don’t like missing breakfast.

After a considerable pause, I selected a protein bar and said, ‘Do you take cash for the snacks or is it credit card only?’

‘Baby,’ Bonnie the flight attendant said, ‘it’s all free and you can take as many as you want.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Oh, hell yeah. You go nuts.’

(I noticed her pet name for me, baby, started with the same letter as her name. This has happened to me before. I can’t figure it out.)

I grabbed two extra bananas and Bonnie winked at me.

Usually when I travel by air, I fly coach and almost exclusively on Southwest Airlines.

I like Southwest Airlines because it’s consistently ranked as America’s most reliable airline. Its flights are nearly always on time and it rarely loses luggage.

It’s also very affordable, with most flights selling for under $300.

Some people don’t like Southwest Airlines because it has no First Class or Business Class but I don’t care for First Class or Business Class.

To me, a seat is a seat and I spend most of any flight reading a case file or a book anyway.

But the main reason I like Southwest Airlines is because they serve my favourite kind of in-flight snack: ‘Maui Monk’ flavoured mini pretzel braids made by the Stellar Snacks company.

(Don’t tell the Southwest corporation, but sometimes when I fly with them I ask for a second packet and the flight attendants always—always—give me another one. The flight attendants on Southwest are universally nice. Bonnie would have fitted in very well there.)

Speaking of case files, when my team and I had arrived at the private terminal at William P. Hobby Airport earlier that morning, one of our FBI escorts had handed me a folder with two sheets of paper in it.

‘Briefing material,’ he said.

(I wondered why they’d needed to put the sheets in a folder. I mean, there were only two.)

As we lifted off, I held up the first sheet so Heidi and Bill could read it with me.

It was a bio of the missing billionaire.

A colour photo of him was at the top of the page.

He was Aristotle King.

The world’s richest man.

Or the W.O.R.M., as some put it.

Born Aristotle Theodore King—but known as Aristo or Ari to his friends—he was worth $770 billion, a colossal fortune that had come from the success of several of his companies: a ­graphics chip–making firm that had morphed into an A.I. chip–making firm that had morphed into a quantum computer chip–

making firm.