Page 66 of King’s Ransom

93rd Floor

Back at the tower—after Audrey had freed me from the sauna—I stood with Garrett, Xiao, Mrs King and her son, plus Heidi and Bill, in Aristo King’s panic room.

(The nanny and her young son had been successfully freed from their bonds and, for want of a better place, had been left with the two cops up on the 95th floor.)

We all stared at the vault door embedded in the wall. It was thick and made of steel.

A small wireless Ring security camera had been stuck to it, aimed right at us. A Post-It under the camera read:

SMILE, YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA!

No doubt, this had been set up by the man in white when I’d seen him hustling in here earlier.

‘Mrs King,’ I said. ‘Call your husband on FaceTime.’

Yasmina King shook her head. ‘I tried it several times before, but it just rang out.’

‘It’s not your husband who’s controlling that phone, ma’am,’ I said. ‘I have a feeling it’ll be answered this time.’

‘Me, too,’ Merritt Garrett said.

Mrs King FaceTimed her husband’s work phone . . .

. . . and the call was answered.

Again, Aristo King’s face filled the frame, once again in a dark place and illuminated by his own screen’s glow, and still wearing his plastic oxygen mask.

‘Ari!’ Yasmina said. ‘Please! Listen to these detectives.’

She handed the phone to Merritt Garrett.

‘Sir, your kidnapper has demanded that, to save your life and reveal the location of your youngest daughter, we bring the QuantumSpeed-7 prototype chip to your location,’ Garrett said.

‘The QuantumSpeed-7 . . .?’ Aristo King whispered. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

Yasmina leaned in. ‘He said it’s in your safe, Ari, in your panic room. And he won’t tell us where Katya is till it is delivered! Please, just give him what he wants and end this!’

Garrett grimaced. ‘We need the code for the vault, sir.’

On the phone, Aristo King said immediately, ‘6–4–6–8–8–0. The QuantumSpeed-7 chip is on the bottom shelf. Just find my daughter and get me out of this.’

I punched in the code on the vault’s keypad.

Bolts clunked as it unlocked.

I swung the heavy door open to reveal a large walk-in vault.

Wads of cash were stacked on shelves. (I mean, lots of them; all 100-dollar bills; many millions of dollars in cash.)

A couple of paintings.

A marble sculpture.

And there, on the lowest of the shelves, beside the wads of cash, was a slim silver silicon chip the size of half a credit card.

Garrett grabbed it and held it up to the phone. ‘Is this it, sir?’

‘Yes. That’s—’