Page 85 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

“I HAVE… THEM … on line one,” Hope Alonso said.

Here it was, at long last. The first direct communication between Nicky’s task force and their adversaries.

Seven minutes before, the kidnappers had again hijacked the FBI’s internal messaging service with instructions to call a WhatsApp number at exactly midnight.

Using WhatsApp meant the communication would be encrypted and untraceable, even for the FBI.

Nicky scanned the faces of the people in the Sandbox. Which one of you knew this call would be happening right now? And how do you plan on helping from the inside?

“Okay, gather everyone who’s awake.”

Ross Lindbergh immediately patched in the team from Capital; a younger operative had been standing by the phone all night.

Virgil Tighe was temporarily unavailable, so his boss, James Haller, was pulled away from a dinner party to listen in.

The slightly tipsy lawyer insisted on conferencing in Randolph Schraeder as well.

“I know he’ll want to be on this call,” James insisted. “This simply isn’t happening without him.”

“Cool, but can you keep your client muzzled?” Mike asked. “We don’t need him antagonizing these guys.”

“Hardy, this is a billion fucking dollars, ” James Haller practically snarled. “My client can antagonize whomever he wants whenever he wants.”

“Well, I don’t know, Jimmy. Does your client understand that his entitled mouth could get his own children killed?”

At this point, Nicky had had enough. “You two want to keep trading punches or are you ready for this call?”

“The mayor’s office is on the line,” Hope said.

She had spent the past few minutes struggling to reach the mayor’s chief of staff so that he could keep his boss updated, but he was unreachable.

Hope diligently worked down the line until she roused the director of LA’s Chamber of Commerce from a dead sleep.

Not ideal, but it would cover their asses politically.

“Are we all here?” Nicky asked.

James Haller confirmed that yes, his client Randolph Schraeder had joined the call. They saw Schraeder’s face on a screen, but the man did not speak. Perhaps Haller had been smart enough to preemptively mute him.

“Everyone who’s awake is on the line,” Mike replied.

“Okay,” Nicky said. “Let’s hear what they have to say.”