Page 69 of King’s Ransom

The cemetery was maybe a mile long, with several tree-covered hills and a small river—the Pocantico—that ran up most of its eastern border.

A section of new graves lay across the Pocantico River and was accessed by a classic wooden ‘covered’ bridge, like the one from the headless horseman legend. (Seriously.)

Seen from above, the place looked like a deserted mix of trees, winding paths, many small headstones and a few dozen larger marble mausoleums, with every bare patch of ground in between them covered by snow.

Light snow continued to fall.

Garrett pointed. ‘Put us down there, where those four paths intersect near the Carnegie grave.’

Our helicopter touched down at exactly 1:50 p.m.

No sooner was it down than Garrett’s cell phone rang.

unknown caller.

Garrett put it on speaker.

‘Very good,’ the voice said. ‘You made it. I was worried my riddle was too hard or that you might have stupidly gone to the cathedral.’

‘What now?’ Garrett demanded.

‘One of you—I don’t care who—will bring the QuantumSpeed-7 chip to the covered bridge at the river, give it to my courier and then leave. The rest of you can find Mr King, who I can assure you, is here in the cemetery. Tick-tock, tick-tock. You really should hurry.’

Click.

The call ended.

Garrett was still holding the QuantumSpeed-7 chip.

‘Here.’ He offered it to Xiao. ‘You take it to the bridge and do the drop with whoever his “courier” is. We’ll look for King.’

Xiao reached out for the chip.

‘I should hold on to that,’ Audrey said, reaching forward and taking the chip. ‘I’ll do the drop at the bridge with Xiao. Then the FBI can take the blame if something goes wrong.’

‘Fine by me,’ Xiao said.

‘As long as somebody takes it and goes,’ Garrett said urgently.

‘Be careful, Audrey,’ I said.

She drew her Glock. ‘You, too.’

Beside her, Xiao drew his gun.

Then they jumped out of the chopper and raced eastward down the hill, into the trees.

‘As for us,’ Garrett said, hefting his silver pistol. ‘We’re looking for a new grave.’

‘Bill, stay with the chopper,’ I said. ‘Given what’s happened already today, they might try to steal it while we’re out searching.’

‘Will do.’

And with that, Garrett and I leapt out of the helicopter and sprinted into the cemetery, running through the light falling snow, searching for a freshly dug grave.

We found it at 1:57 p.m.

Garrett and I crested a low hill not far from the Carnegie grave and almost ran right over a young woman kneeling in a flowerbed.