Page 40 of King’s Ransom

Cassandra was attached to one near the corner, while Ajax’s window was beside it.

As I did this, I heard Audrey speaking into her cell phone: ‘. . . he said sixty million this time—then come down now, damn it—73rd floor.’

Garrett was also assessing the big glass panes. ‘Can we open these windows?’

I said, ‘No, they’re both single sheets of glass sealed in place. They don’t open.’

Merritt Garrett didn’t reply.

When he didn’t say anything, I turned to look at him.

He was standing frozen on the spot behind me, looking out the windows, past the two figures suction-cupped to them.

I followed his gaze and saw it.

The big black military drone hovered directly outside the windows, its two mighty cannons aimed right at us and the two King children.

And in that moment I saw how our villain was going to do this.

He didn’t need to shoot the two children.

Indeed, that would be too swift a death for them.

No, his drone would shoot the glass, shattering it, causing Ajax and Cassandra to fall seventy-plus floors to their deaths.

Suddenly, with a roar, the NYPD chopper dropped into a hover outside the windows.

Immediately, the military drone pivoted, rotating laterally in the air, and casually unleashed a burst of gunfire at the helicopter.

The chopper was hit several times in the tail.

It peeled away, flying off like a spooked animal.

Then the drone simply resumed its former position, with its guns aimed at the windows.

‘Goddamn . . .’ I breathed.

I returned to the problem at hand. ‘If we can’t open the windows, how can we save them?’

‘What about the blow-through floors?’ Garrett said. ‘They’re positioned every twenty-five storeys, so there’s one a couple of floors above us. That’s where the abseiling rigs for the window washers are kept. We go to the blow-through level two floors up from here and abseil down from there and rescue them.’

‘You do that for Cassandra,’ I said. ‘I think Audrey and I can reach Ajax from here.’

‘Got it.’ Garrett took off, running hard.

I banged on the glass. ‘Ajax! Cassandra! Hang tight! We’re coming!’

75TH, 73RD AND 61ST FLOORS

As Merritt Garrett raced back through the apartment and bolted into the fire stairs, I stared at the floor-to-ceiling window beside Ajax’s one.

Then I raised my borrowed Smith & Wesson pistol and fired.

The window shattered.

Glass shards fell away. Wind rushed into the apartment.

I leaned out and saw Ajax King level with me, a bare six feet away: close but not close enough for me to get hold of him.