Page 49 of King’s Ransom

‘But what does that mean here?’ Hooper said.

‘What have we seen in this building that starts with the letter h or which has a great big H on it?’ I said. ‘The helipad.’

A few minutes later, the elevator arrived on the roof and we poured out of it . . .

. . . to see a bloodied body slumped in our path.

It was the FBI chopper’s co-pilot.

He was dead, shot many times in the chest.

We dashed past his body, up onto the helipad . . .

. . . and saw it.

‘Jesus God in Heaven,’ Director Longmuir said.

The chopper was no longer on the helipad.

Now it hung precariously off the edge of the roof at a shocking angle, nose down, tail up, 98 storeys above the world.

The four ratchet-straps that had previously secured it to the helipad had been reconfigured so that—instead of being attached to brackets on the chopper’s belly—they were all now looped around the tail of the helicopter.

The long canvas straps were thus extended to their very limits from the four tie-down studs on the helipad.

The chopper’s bubble-shaped windshield was cracked and spattered with blood. The dead pilot was slumped in his seat, strapped in, his head bowed, unmoving.

And inside the dangling helicopter with him—still very much alive, but bound and held in place by seatbelts in the back—were Aristo King’s first and third wives, Winnie Tan and Yasmina King.

THE CHOPPER ON THE ROOF

Director Longmuir’s phone rang.

He answered it.

‘Excellent, you found them,’ the voice said pleasantly. ‘Call me romantic, but how can anyone put a price on love? Let alone the loves of Mr King’s life?

‘Let’s do it anyway.

‘We should start with the first Mrs King, Winnie Tan.

‘Let’s go up another twenty million and charge $80 million for Winnie’s life. Send it to the same bitcoin wallet as before within two minutes and I release her.

‘If you don’t send the money in time, I drop the helicopter.’

Still holding his phone, Longmuir turned to Quinn McCade.

‘Two minutes, insurance guy. You have one.’

McCade was already on his phone. He relayed the kidnapper’s demands to his board.

I looked from him to the dangling helicopter, thinking.

‘Hmmm . . .’ I said aloud.

Audrey heard me. ‘What is it, Sam?’

‘I’m thinking about patterns. This is escalating. And he’s already shown us that this isn’t about the money. The money’s an amusing sideshow. He wants to kill these people.’