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“I’ll send you the photo you asked for,” the voice said. “You get the money together. I’ll contact you later about the delivery.”
“When,” Dirk demanded. “When will you—” But the call had already been terminated.
“How much?” Mei-li asked when Dirk put his smartphone away.
“Twenty million. US.”
Mei-li blinked, but that was her only reaction. “Did he specify what denominations for the bills?”
That stopped him in his tracks. “No. No, he didn’t,” Dirk said slowly.
She shook her head and told him, “That’s not a good sign.”
“Why not?”
“Because it sounds as if they’re not expecting to collect it in cash. That’s why not.”
Dirk still didn’t get it. “I don’t see—”
“The largest denomination of US currency in circulation is the hundred dollar bill, right?” Dirk thought about it for a moment, then nodded, and she said, “Twenty million dollars—even if it’s in hundreds—would be impossible for one man to transport. It would even be difficult for two men. Think about it. That’s two hundred thousand one-hundred-dollar bills.”
“Okay, so they’re not planning on a cash drop,” Dirk acknowledged. “They’re going to ask for a wire transfer or something like that. Why is it a problem?”
“Because that’s how most kidnappers are caught,” she explained patiently. “They have to retrieve the ransom, which means they have to be at a certain place at a certain time. A wire transfer’s completely different. There are banks...and countries...where once you wire the money, it’s gone. Vanished. Leaving almost no trace.”
Mei-li’s face softened with compassion. “Once they have the money—assuming the money is really what they’re after, which is a big assumption in this case—they have three options, only one of which is good for you. They can release your daughters unharmed. They can kill them.” Dirk flinched. “Or they can demand additional ransom...forever. Bleeding you dry.”
A deadly silence filled the room. “So what am I supposed to do?” he rasped when he found his voice. “Give up? Not pay?”
“No,” Mei-li told him. “We’re not giving up. But we have to be smarter than they are.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“For one thing, make them send you photos of the girls, showing they’re still alive.”
“I get that, but what does it really prove? They could take the pictures, and—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“Yes, they could take a picture and kill your daughters immediately afterward,” she said bluntly. “But that’s not what we’re going to let them do. We’re going to demand a series of photos be emailed to you, and each one will be date and time stamped—that will prove when they were taken. But what the kidnappers might not know is that it’s very possible we’ll know where each photo was taken, not just when. They could be switching locations—we won’t know until the second photo—but if they’re taken in the same location, we’ve got them.”
“How will we know where the pictures are taken?”
Mei-li smiled. “Because if they’re using a smartphone to take the pictures and they haven’t turned geotagging off, any photos they take will have the GPS coordinates embedded in the photo.”
Chapter 6
“What?” Dirk couldn’t believe it.
“All smartphones nowadays have GPS-embedding features in their cameras,” Mei-li explained to him. “It’s known as geotagging. Some are easier to turn off and on, and there are even apps that will allow you to specify a privacy area. That is, leave GPS-embedding enabled for all pictures except the ones in your privacy area—around your home, for instance, or at your children’s school.”
“I never heard of this.”
“A lot of people have no idea,” she told him. “So don’t feel bad. Give me your phone—key in the password first—and I’ll show you what I mean.”
Several clicks later, Mei-li held up the device for Dirk to see. “That’s all it takes to turn it on or off. But a lot of users have no clue—the first time you use the iPhone camera app it asks you if it can use your location, and most people don’t give it a second thought, they just click Yes. That’s what you must have done, because geotagging is enabled on your phone.”
