Page 97 of Billion-Dollar Ransom

THE GOOD NEWS was that there were relatively few roads coming down from the mountain. Blockades were easily set up on the northern and southern routes. And the eight Jeep Wranglers were pulled over to the side of the road without a fight.

The bad news: The drivers were completely baffled about why they’d been pulled over.

All of them were rideshare drivers. Sure, it was a little weird to receive a notice to pick up someone in the mountains at four in the morning.

But this was LA, so weird was kind of the norm.

Plus, the person who’d booked each ride promised them triple their rate.

The long drive was more than worth it, especially when the streets were pretty much dead.

And okay, sure, it was super-weird that someone had summoned eight of the same vehicles to trek up to Wrightwood to pick up the same passenger—“Randy Schraeder,” according to the profile on the rideshare app—but again, this was LA. It could be part of some reality show. Who knew?

So they’d all driven here, but there was no Randy Schraeder in Wrightwood. Each driver tried calling the phone of the person who’d summoned them, and in each case, there was no reply. Weird, but who cared as long as the credit card charges went through?

But being pulled over by an assortment of LA and San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies and members of an LAPD SWAT team, shotguns and revolvers drawn, lights flashing, threats shouted, and not-so-polite orders to eat gravel and lock your fingers behind your head—now, that was weird.

The drivers knew nothing about money or pallets of money.

They’d found nothing at the site but a closed mountain lodge, and there was no one to pick up.

Back in the Sandbox, Nicky wanted to scream. But you’re not allowed to do that when you’re the person in charge of the task force. This failure was on her alone.

“One,” she said. “He’s always a step ahead.”

“He faked us out,” Hardy said. “I’m so sorry, Nick. But this isn’t exactly a win for him. Maybe he kept the jewels somehow, but that idiot just threw away four hundred million dollars that hikers are going to be collecting over the next decade. If the bears don’t eat it first.”

“The money’s not up there,” Nicky said quietly.

“We saw it fall out of the chopper,” Hardy said.

“We saw what One wanted us to see. Sure, he might have thrown something out of the chopper. But it wasn’t the money.”

“So we keep following the chopper.”

“Which dropped off the radar, literally, while we were chasing the phantom money on that mountain.”