by Amelia Autin
“Mr. DeWinter?” The silky-smooth American voice on the other end was immediately recognizable.
“Yes.” He had to bite his lip to stop himself from demanding...begging...pleading.
“You didn’t call the police. Very good,” the voice said.
It could have been pure speculation, but Dirk didn’t think so. Somehow the kidnappers knew he hadn’t called the police. Whether someone on the inside had relayed that information, or whether the kidnappers had a contact in the police department, Dirk didn’t know. But he was very, very glad he hadn’t called.
“You told me not to call them,” Dirk said now.
“And do you always do what you’re told, Mr. DeWinter?”
“I do when my daughters’ lives are at stake.” His free hand formed a fist. “I don’t care about the money,” he said, which was the truth. “I don’t even care if you’re never caught,” he added, which was a lie. “All I care about is getting my daughters back...alive.” Mei-li dashed off something on a piece of paper, and thrust it in front of Dirk’s eyes. Ask for proof they’re still alive, he read. He drew a deep breath and held it for a couple of seconds, then said, “But before we go any further, I want proof they’re alive.”
“What kind of proof?”
“I want to talk to them,” Dirk said, but Mei-li shook her head vigorously and scrawled one word on the paper. Photos, he read. “And I want photos of them emailed to me,” he added quickly.
“That will take time, Mr. DeWinter. Time I’m afraid you don’t—”
“You promised me I’d have time to get the money together,” Dirk said on a rush. “I’m already working on it. But before I deliver the ransom, I need to know my daughters are alive.”
Seconds ticked away, and Dirk couldn’t breathe. In the sudden silence he heard an odd sound at the other end, vaguely familiar but maddeningly just out of reach of his memory. He knew he should recognize it, but...he didn’t. He tried to concentrate, to retrieve the memory, but then the voice said, “Very well. You arrange for the money. I’ll arrange for proof of life.” And the memory was gone.
“How much?”
“What are they worth to you, Mr. DeWinter?”
Dirk gritted his teeth, biting back the urge to roar like a wounded lion at the man who held his life in his hands. “Name your price,” he insisted when he could finally speak in a semblance of a normal voice.
“What’s your salary on the movie you’re filming now?” the voice taunted. “Twenty million? Thirty?”
Dirk really couldn’t answer the question, because he’d taken a cut in salary for a piece of the film’s gross. Until the movie was finished, released and had completed its run, he wouldn’t know exactly how much he’d earned. But the kidnapper took his silence as refusal to answer.
“Ah, well, it doesn’t really matter,” the voice said. “We want twenty million dollars, US—ten for each child.”
“Done,” he said promptly. He knew from the sudden frown on Mei-li’s face and the way she shook her head that she didn’t want him to commit to the price, that she wanted a chance to negotiate the ransom down. But this wasn’t a Hong Kong kidnapper...and he wasn’t risking negotiation. He could easily pay the ransom demanded. And even if he couldn’t, he had friends with even deeper pockets he could call on. He would have given every penny he had, every penny he could beg, borrow or steal, to have Linden and Laurel returned to him alive and unharmed.
“I’ll send you the photo you asked for,” the voice said. “You get the money together. I’ll contact you later about the delivery.”
“When,” Dirk demanded. “When will you—” But the call had already been terminated.
“How much?” Mei-li asked when Dirk put his smartphone away.
“Twenty million. US.”
Mei-li blinked, but that was her only reaction. “Did he specify what denominations for the bills?”
That stopped him in his tracks. “No. No, he didn’t,” Dirk said slowly.
She shook her head and told him, “That’s not a good sign.”
“Why not?”
“Because it sounds as if they’re not expecting to collect it in cash. That’s why not.”
Dirk still didn’t get it. “I don’t see—”
“The largest denomination of US currency in circulation is the hundred dollar bill, right?” Dirk thought about it for a moment, then nodded, and she said, “Twenty million dollars—even if it’s in hundreds—would be impossible for one man to transport. It would even be difficult for two men. Think about it. That’s two hundred thousand one-hundred-dollar bills.”
“Okay, so they’re not planning on a cash drop,” Dirk acknowledged. “They’re going to ask for a wire transfer or something like that. Why is it a problem?”
“Because that’s how most kidnappers are caught,” she explained patiently. “They have to retrieve the ransom, which means they have to be at a certain place at a certain time. A wire transfer’s completely different. There are banks...and countries...where once you wire the money, it’s gone. Vanished. Leaving almost no trace.”
Mei-li’s face softened with compassion. “Once they have the money—assuming the money is really what they’re after, which is a big assumption in this case—they have three options, only one of which is good for you. They can release your daughters unharmed. They can kill them.” Dirk flinched. “Or they can demand additional ransom...forever. Bleeding you dry.”
A deadly silence filled the room. “So what am I supposed to do?” he rasped when he found his voice. “Give up? Not pay?”
“No,” Mei-li told him. “We’re not giving up. But we have to be smarter than they are.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“For one thing, make them send you photos of the girls, showing they’re still alive.”
“I get that, but what does it really prove? They could take the pictures, and—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“Yes, they could take a picture and kill your daughters immediately afterward,” she said bluntly. “But that’s not what we’re going to let them do. We’re going to demand a series of photos be emailed to you, and each one will be date and time stamped—that will prove when they were taken. But what the kidnappers might not know is that it’s very possible we’ll know where each photo was taken, not just when. They could be switching locations—we won’t know until the second photo—but if they’re taken in the same location, we’ve got them.”
“How will we know where the pictures are taken?”
Mei-li smiled. “Because if they’re using a smartphone to take the pictures and they haven’t turned geotagging off, any photos they take will have the GPS coordinates embedded in the photo.”
Chapter 6
“What?” Dirk couldn’t believe it.
“All smartphones nowadays have GPS-embedding features in their cameras,” Mei-li explained to him. “It’s known as geotagging. Some are easier to turn off and on, and there are even apps that will allow you to specify a privacy area. That is, leave GPS-embedding enabled for all pictures except the ones in your privacy area—around your home, for instance, or at your children’s school.”
“I never heard of this.”
“A lot of people have no idea,” she told him. “So don’t feel bad. Give me your phone—key in the password first—and I’ll show you what I mean.”
Several clicks later, Mei-li held up the device for Dirk to see. “That’s all it takes to turn it on or off. But a lot of users have no clue—the first time you use the iPhone camera app it asks you if it can use your location, and most people don’t give it a second thought, they just click Yes. That’s what you must have done, because geotagging is enabled on your phone.”
Dirk cursed under his breath. “You mean all this time...every picture I’ve
taken with my phone...?” Mei-li nodded. “Turn it off,” he told her in no uncertain terms.
When she had done so, she told him, “See?” Her eyes betrayed her excitement. “You had the GPS-embedding feature turned on, and you never even knew it. That’s what I’m hoping for with the kidnappers.”
Mei-li’s excitement was contagious, and hope flared to life so quickly he almost kissed her. But before he could act on the impulse she warned him, “Don’t tell anyone about the geotagging.”
“You mean—”
“No one,” she said, cutting him off. “Certainly not Vanessa and Chet, but not Mike and Rafe, either.”
A cold, sick feeling descended on Dirk as the realization dawned. “You don’t trust them.” Anger surged to the fore, and his voice grated when he asked, “Why did you let me tell them about Terrell Blackwood if you don’t trust them?”
“Because,” she said softly, “it was the perfect opportunity to let them think we trusted them. And if one of them is involved, he already knows about Blackwood. So you wouldn’t be revealing any secrets.”
* * *
At 9:01 a.m. Dirk called the number Mei-li had given him, the one for the Hong Kong banker she’d worked with before. And as she’d told Dirk, the banker knew what to do. Dirk called his agent, who had power of attorney and could sign any paperwork on his behalf. Then he set up the wire transfer, arranging to move twenty million dollars and change to a correspondent bank in Hong Kong, an account he would open with the wire transfer.
Dirk took a moment to thank Marty for having advised him years ago to invest via an international brokerage concern with offices in multiple time zones; otherwise, timing could have been a huge problem. Hong Kong was fifteen hours ahead of California, but only seven hours ahead of London. Dirk’s brokerage house in Hollywood was already closed and wouldn’t be open until the following day, too late to transfer the money, but that didn’t matter. The money would be transferred from the London office as soon as it opened for business.
“That’s done,” he told Mei-li when he finally disconnected. “What next?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She assessed him for a moment, then said, “On whether you’ll be satisfied to recover your children alive. Or whether you’ll want the kidnappers brought to justice.” He started to respond automatically that, of course, he wanted the kidnappers caught, but she held up a hand. “Think about it before you answer,” she said. “Really think about it.”
His first thoughts when his daughters had been taken had involved ripping the kidnappers limb from limb himself. And while that instinctive rage was still there, it was tamped down, controlled, and the veneer of civilization had returned. So while he might want to mete out justice himself, he was civilized enough to accept that he couldn’t. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want justice for his daughters.
Then another thought occurred to him—probably the one Mei-li had in mind when she told him to consider carefully exactly what he wanted. Attempting to bring the kidnappers to justice held grave risks...for his daughters.
He knew what he should say. Knew what he should want. Kidnappers were the scum of the earth and should rot in prison for the rest of their natural lives. And a primitive part of him still wanted to do whatever he could to accomplish that goal. But...
In his mind’s eye he saw Linden and Laurel the last time he’d read them a story, the last time he’d tucked them into bed, their faces shining and oh-so-sweet and innocent. He could feel their arms around his neck as they kissed him good-night. And he knew with absolute certainty he would do nothing that could jeopardize their safety.
“I want the kidnappers caught,” he told Mei-li in a low voice. “But not at the risk of my daughters. If I get them back safely...that’s all that matters to me.”
Mei-li nodded, and there was something in her eyes that told Dirk his answer pleased her, that she wanted him to feel this way. “It’s good to know,” she told him now. “Because our next steps depend on it.”
“So, what are our next steps?”
She sighed and her mouth turned down at the corners. “If this were a regular kidnapping, we would assemble the ransom money exactly the way they demanded it, but other than that—nothing. We would sit tight until we were contacted by the kidnappers, and we would follow the ransom delivery instructions to the letter. Then, if this were a regular kidnapping, we would wait and pray that nothing went wrong, that no one other than the kidnappers showed up at the delivery point, that the ransom wasn’t picked up by some well-meaning citizen who—”
She broke off suddenly, and understanding came to him out of the blue. Compassion made his voice low and deep when he asked, “Is that what happened with your fiancé? Is that how the ransom delivery was botched?”
After a few seconds she nodded. “Someone picked up the suitcase and turned it over to the police, never dreaming... The man never even looked inside. And it was very busy at that particular police station that day. No one opened the suitcase to see if there was some kind of identification in it for hours. By the time they did, by the time they saw the money and realized what it was, it was too late.”
Her face took on a closed expression that told Dirk she really didn’t want to talk about it anymore, but his heart ached for her the way he knew hers ached for him. After a moment he forced himself to return to the original subject. “But this isn’t a regular kidnapping. So what are our next steps?”
“Normally I’d advise my clients to clear their schedules, but—”
“Damn! I never even thought of that. I’m supposed to be filming today.” He pulled out his smartphone, but Mei-li stopped him.
“I called my father this morning when you were ordering breakfast. I didn’t give him the details, but he knows your daughters were kidnapped. But don’t worry, he’ll keep the news to himself.”
“I wasn’t worried. I know Josh well enough to know that.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “He told me to tell you he’s very sorry this happened and for you not to worry about anything except getting your daughters back. Since he’s the producer as well as the director, he has great latitude. You’ve got a nasty case of the flu, and he’s going to rearrange the schedule to shoot around you for the next week.”
“Good of him to do that, but if there’s a financial impact to the picture I want to—”
Mei-li cut him off. “Worry about that when and if it happens. You’ve got enough on your plate right now.”
“Okay,” he nodded. “So you’ve cleared the decks for me. What else?”
* * *
Terrell Blackwood’s secret cell phone rang just after 9:00 p.m. He was alone in his Minnetonka mansion, having given his servants the week off—he wanted no witnesses available to testify to anything he said or did this week. Fending for himself for that long would have been a hardship twenty years ago, but not now. Not after prison.
“Yes?” he answered.
“There is another problem with the delivery of your packages,” a cold voice said with no introduction. No greeting.
“Problem?”
“Yesterday’s typhoon damaged the plane on which they were to have been shipped. Parts to repair the damage are not readily available.”
Terrell cursed mentally, but all he said was, “What do you suggest?”
“It would be...inadvisable...to attempt to ship your packages via another plane. There could be damage beyond our control.” Terrell correctly interpreted this statement to mean his agent was worried about approaching another pilot with a different plane to transport the little girls. “I suggest you delay shipment until the original plane is available.”
“How long?”
“Parts should be available within three business days, possibly sooner. They have to be shipped from the manufacturer in
the US. Once the parts arrive, repairs should take less than a day.”
Three to four days. An eternity. But he’d already waited this long, he could wait a few days more. “Do it,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the cold voice answered.
Then Terrell remembered. The message delivered to Derek Summers yesterday—the message he’d wanted Summers to receive—had included his name. He’d thought the little girls would have been safely outside Hong Kong by now, on their way to their final destination in the United States, or else he’d never have allowed his name to be given to Summers yet. Because, while he wanted Summers to know whose hand was delivering this crushing blow, he had no intention of going back to prison. So he said, “Because of the delay, you’ll need to modify your other plans.”
From the beginning the plan had been for his agents to collect the ransom—and not return the twins to their father. Terrell had guaranteed a set fee to the kidnappers over and above the ransom for several reasons, not the least of which was he didn’t want the little girls killed. But it had seemed poetic justice to Terrell that Summers himself would pay for the kidnapping. Another twist of the knife. And Terrell had had every intention of letting Summers know that little detail...at the appropriate time.
“Modify how?”
Terrell pondered how to word his instructions without revealing too much over the phone. Yes, he’d purchased this cell phone with cash so it couldn’t be traced to him. And these were verbal conversations, not text messages that could be retrieved. Still...he had learned to be a cautious man. He settled for, “Presentment of the bill will need to be postponed,” hoping his agent would understand this meant the ransom demand would need to be delayed somehow.
“Understood. We will implement your suggestion. But storage could be a problem. The pilots refused delivery yesterday. Said they couldn’t be responsible until the flight.”