Page 93 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

Now the real chase would begin.

Unless this thing truly had some sort of unknown cloaking technology, Nicky knew it would not be too difficult to track it in real time as it carried the cash and jewels away. It was not easy to hide in the air. Which was precisely what troubled Nicky most.

How do these guys think they’ll get away with a billion dollars?

They could try to transfer all or part of the ransom to another aircraft midflight.

They could try to elude and outmaneuver any task force choppers following in pursuit.

They could hold on to one or all of the kidnap victims until they achieved a safe distance.

But ultimately there was no such thing as a safe distance.

The trail would never go cold. They would eventually be tracked down.

If Nicky knew this, the kidnappers obviously knew it too. They’d thought of everything so far.

If these conditions are met to my satisfaction, the hostages will be released and their locations shared with Mr. Schraeder.

So what was their escape route? How would this end?

“Nicky!” Mike cried. “Are you seeing this?”

“And there goes another one!” said Ross Lindbergh. “Can you see it? What the hell are they doing?” The financial-crimes expert sounded personally insulted.

They were all pointing at the oversize screen, tracing an arc from the chopper to the mountains. The high-res video feed from Jeff Penney’s team was enhanced as much as possible.

“What was that?” Nicky asked. “They’re not all jumping out of that chopper, are they?”

“That was a money pallet,” Ross said, unable to hide his astonishment. In this job he’d seen pretty much everything, but he’d never seen anything like this before.

“That was the second one,” Mike said. “I watched them heave the first one overboard. What the hell are they doing?”

“And there goes the third,” Ross said.

Nicky’s mind raced. Okay, what was this play?

Smart bank robbers often stashed their loot not far from the scene of the crime so it could be recovered later, sometimes weeks later, after the heat had died down.

But that depended on the law not knowing the stash’s location.

Why would the kidnappers do this in plain sight?

“Penney,” Nicky said, “tell me you can track the location of those bags.”

“We’re about ten miles away from the chopper,” Jeff said. “But we’re in pursuit from the north. I’m going to need blockades on the south side of the mountain range.”

“Are there any parachutes on those things?” Mike asked over the comms.

“Not seeing anything resembling a chute,” Jeff replied.

“There’s gotta be chutes on them,” Mike said. “Those pallets smack into the side of Mount Baldy from that height, cash will be sprayed all down the canyon!”

“There goes the fourth and final pallet,” Lindbergh said. Nicky pulled her attention away from the screen and saw that the flight path of the Bell 407 had radically changed—it was swerving to the northeast, picking up altitude and speed.

“Did they chuck the jewels too?” Mike asked over the comms.

“One of my guys said he saw something before they dumped the first pallet,” said Jeff.

“We’ve got to get to that fucking drop site,” Mike said.