Page 12 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

NICKY ARRIVED IN Westwood and hurried through the lobby of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, which covered the Central District of California, trying to process the flurry of inter-agency updates beamed to her phone and the messages from her colleagues.

This was a crisis rapidly evolving on multiple fronts—three separate kidnappings within the same wealthy family, all executed at the same time. Nicky half expected to hear word of a fourth kidnapping when she stepped into her office on the sixth floor.

There she found her immediate superior, FBI assistant director John Scoleri, leaning against her desk, whipping through a stack of reports.

“Back so soon, Gordon?” he asked, not looking up from the pages.

“Very funny, Scoleri. Where do you need me?”

“This one’s all yours.”

“Which one? Schraeder’s wife? His young kids?”

“Don’t forget about the adult son and his starlet girlfriend down in Mexico.”

Nicky and John had worked together long enough to speak in a kind of a shorthand that baffled other agents. Their brains tended to be on the same wavelength.

But right now, Nicky was struggling to read his mind.

“That’s what I mean,” Nicky said. “You want me working Beverly Hills? Bel Air? Or liaising with the PFM in Mexico City?”

Only now did John look up from the stack of reports, one of them, she saw, from the Policía Federal Ministerial.

“No,” he said. “You’re going to be heading up the whole thing. I’m putting you in charge of the task force on this one. Loop in the LAPD and the mayor’s office. You pick your team. You call the shots. Just brief me enough to keep DC off my ass.”

This stunned Nicky, but she composed herself. The smart move was to project the right blend of gratitude and confidence.

“Thank you.”

“You may not be thanking me in a couple of hours.”

Nicky shook her head. “No, Scoleri. I’m serious. You know what this means to me.”

“And I’m serious when I tell you that this case is a goddamned hand grenade,” John said. “Handle it carefully, bring everyone home safe, and it can make your career. Screw it up, and it’ll blow you straight to hell.”

“I’m not thinking about my career right now.”

A wry smile grew on the assistant director’s face. “Sure you are. And, hey, that’s okay. It would be strange if you weren’t.”

John had clocked her ambitions from the first day they worked together.

He liked to make jokes about him working for her someday, which Nicky dismissed.

But those jokes also secretly thrilled her.

If a longtime Bureau legend like John Scoleri had faith in her, she might actually head up her own field office in the not-too-distant future.

“With all that in mind,” he said, “you sure you still want this?”

“Yes,” Nicky said. “But I’m going to need you to set the tone. It must be crystal clear that I’m the one in charge. I don’t want anyone reaching out to you behind my back or second-guessing me.”

“You got it,” John said. “I mean, you’re the one who’s been working all of our high-profile kidnapping cases lately. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the expert.”

“No one steps in, and that includes you, ” Nicky continued. “Even if you think you’re saving me from a mistake.”

John nodded and showed her his palms in a I’ll keep my hands off gesture. “You get those people back safe, the credit is all yours.”

“And if I don’t?”

John grinned but not in a particularly warm way. “I’m sure Kaitlin will be happy that you’re retiring early.”