Page 74 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

FOUR’S BURNER PHONE went off at the worst possible moment. She considered not answering, but if One was on the other end, ignoring it would be very close to suicide.

She tapped the button to accept the call and braced herself. What if he’d somehow discovered that Four had strayed from the strict letter of the plan and left the kids alone with Three? What would One do? Would he punish them as he’d threatened to?

“Hello,” Four said quietly, stepping out into the hall. She had to be mindful of her surroundings at this late hour, but she didn’t want to stray too far.

A raspy female voice asked, “Is this Four speaking?” This voice did not belong to One.

“Who is this?”

“This is Six. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”

“Hold on,” said Four, still in a near whisper. “Who are you? How do I know this is real?”

“Do you have many prank callers who know your secret code number?”

“Look, even if it is real, we’re not supposed to be talking to each other.”

“You’re free to hang up,” said the woman claiming to be Six. “You and Three can take your chances. But if you don’t listen to what I have to say, there’s a good possibility that both of you will be dead within the next twelve hours.”

Four didn’t know how to respond. Clearly this Six had some kind of inside information. Otherwise, how could she know that Three and Four were working together? Or, like she’d said, even know the number to this burner phone?

“I’m listening,” Four said.

“You need to get out right now. One is going to double-cross you and your husband. It’s part of the plan. It’s always been part of the plan.”

The warning would have been easy to ignore if Four hadn’t secretly believed all along that this would be the outcome.

Of course One was going to double-cross them.

She and her husband were nobodies. Someone smart enough to plan this kind of audacious triple kidnapping would also be smart enough to keep all the ransom money for himself.

Still…

“How do you know?” Four asked. “Maybe this is some kind of test. Maybe you’re working on One’s behalf as a kind of… quality control.”

The person claiming to be Six said, “Maybe I am. You want quality control? Just wait a few hours and find out for yourself. By then, it’ll be too late to complain to the manager.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. What are we supposed to do with—” Four caught herself before she said the children .

There was still a chance, a good one, that this was some kind of trick or test. One had said he had eyes everywhere.

Maybe he had ears too. Best to reveal as little as possible.

But Six knew what Four had almost said. “With the children? Leave them where they are. They won’t be alone for very long.”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do? On nothing more than your word ?”

“You’d better hurry,” Six said. “It might be too late already.”

Four hung up and returned to the hospital bed.

Her daughter was ten years old and suffering from a rare blood cancer that wasn’t responding to chemotherapy.

All this time in the hospital, all the expensive treatments, and the experts had only slowed the progression of the cancer.

There was no cure, no hope of one. Except…

Except for an experimental drug trial down in Central America. It was already showing excellent results but had a price tag of two million dollars. Impossible for people in their financial state. Until One showed them a way it could be possible.

“Who was that?” her daughter asked.

“Nobody important.”

“That sounded really important.”

“Honey,” Four said, “I hate to say this, because I know how awful you’re feeling, but…”

Her daughter nodded. “We have to go, right?”

Yes, it appeared that they had to go right now, again at the worst possible time. Four’s daughter’s platelet count was perilously low, even after several platelet transfusions. Four’s sister had said earlier that the medical team was very concerned.

So was Four.