Page 65 of King’s Ransom

‘What’s the note say?’

Down in the apartment on the 44th floor, Audrey read the note aloud over the phone:

IN THE WIZARD OF OZ,

THE WIZARD COMMANDED DOROTHY TO FETCH

THE WICKED WITCH’S BROOMSTICK.

YOU WILL FETCH FOR ME MR KING’S

QUANTUMSPEED-7 PROTOTYPE CHIP

FROM THE SAFE IN HIS PANIC ROOM

AND BRING IT TO HIS LOCATION.

ONLY WHEN THIS IS DONE

WILL I DEACTIVATE THE C-4 IN THIS APARTMENT

AND REVEAL THE LOCATION OF HIS YOUNGEST DAUGHTER.

DON’T DELAY.

MR KING RUNS OUT OF OXYGEN AT 2 P.M.

Xiao checked his watch. ‘It’s 1:05 p.m. now.’

‘We gotta call King and get the code for his safe,’ Merritt Garrett said. ‘His wife has the number for his work phone, the one he FaceTimed her from before.’

‘I have to call Director Longmuir,’ Audrey said.

I said over the phone: ‘Are the nanny and the boy attached to the bomb?’

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Audrey said. ‘I don’t think this bomb is meant to kill them. It’s meant to bring down the whole building.’

‘See if you can free them, then come and get me,’ I said. ‘We gotta locate Aristo King.’

‘Hopefully, the others will find him over at St Patrick’s Cathedral,’ Audrey said.

‘They won’t find him there,’ I said.

St Patrick’s Cathedral

Fifth Avenue, New York City

While this was going on at the tower, Special Agent Hooper had arrived with his group at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, in its spot almost perfectly between Carnegie Hall and the Chrysler Building.

There they found the exhibit of relics from Worms Cathedral in Germany, and in the middle of all the medieval objects of the exhibit, they saw . . .

. . . a single autonomous robot cart from 59West.

Just sitting there.

Its lights blinking.

‘Clear this entire city block and call the bomb squad,’ Special Agent Hooper ordered.