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Dirk cursed under his breath. “You mean all this time...every picture I’ve taken with my phone...?” Mei-li nodded. “Turn it off,” he told her in no uncertain terms.
When she had done so, she told him, “See?” Her eyes betrayed her excitement. “You had the GPS-embedding feature turned on, and you never even knew it. That’s what I’m hoping for with the kidnappers.”
Mei-li’s excitement was contagious, and hope flared to life so quickly he almost kissed her. But before he could act on the impulse she warned him, “Don’t tell anyone about the geotagging.”
“You mean—”
“No one,” she said, cutting him off. “Certainly not Vanessa and Chet, but not Mike and Rafe, either.”
A cold, sick feeling descended on Dirk as the realization dawned. “You don’t trust them.” Anger surged to the fore, and his voice grated when he asked, “Why did you let me tell them about Terrell Blackwood if you don’t trust them?”
“Because,” she said softly, “it was the perfect opportunity to let them think we trusted them. And if one of them is involved, he already knows about Blackwood. So you wouldn’t be revealing any secrets.”
* * *
At 9:01 a.m. Dirk called the number Mei-li had given him, the one for the Hong Kong banker she’d worked with before. And as she’d told Dirk, the banker knew what to do. Dirk called his agent, who had power of attorney and could sign any paperwork on his behalf. Then he set up the wire transfer, arranging to move twenty million dollars and change to a correspondent bank in Hong Kong, an account he would open with the wire transfer.
Dirk took a moment to thank Marty for having advised him years ago to invest via an international brokerage concern with offices in multiple time zones; otherwise, timing could have been a huge problem. Hong Kong was fifteen hours ahead of California, but only seven hours ahead of London. Dirk’s brokerage house in Hollywood was already closed and wouldn’t be open until the following day, too late to transfer the money, but that didn’t matter. The money would be transferred from the London office as soon as it opened for business.
“That’s done,” he told Mei-li when he finally disconnected. “What next?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
She assessed him for a moment, then said, “On whether you’ll be satisfied to recover your children alive. Or whether you’ll want the kidnappers brought to justice.” He started to respond automatically that, of course, he wanted the kidnappers caught, but she held up a hand. “Think about it before you answer,” she said. “Really think about it.”
His first thoughts when his daughters had been taken had involved ripping the kidnappers limb from limb himself. And while that instinctive rage was still there, it was tamped down, controlled, and the veneer of civilization had returned. So while he might want to mete out justice himself, he was civilized enough to accept that he couldn’t. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want justice for his daughters.
Then another thought occurred to him—probably the one Mei-li had in mind when she told him to consider carefully exactly what he wanted. Attempting to bring the kidnappers to justice held grave risks...for his daughters.
He knew what he should say. Knew what he should want. Kidnappers were the scum of the earth and should rot in prison for the rest of their natural lives. And a primitive part of him still wanted to do whatever he could to accomplish that goal. But...
In his mind’s eye he saw Linden and Laurel the last time he’d read them a story, the last time he’d tucked them into bed, their faces shining and oh-so-sweet and innocent. He could feel their arms around his neck as they kissed him good-night. And he knew with absolute certainty he would do nothing that could jeopardize their safety.
“I want the kidnappers caught,” he told Mei-li in a low voice. “But not at the risk of my daughters. If I get them back safely...that’s all that matters to me.”
Mei-li nodded, and there was something in her eyes that told Dirk his answer pleased her, that she wanted him to feel this way. “It’s good to know,” she told him now. “Because our next steps depend on it.”
“So, what are our next steps?”
She sighed and her mouth turned down at the corners. “If this were a regular kidnapping, we would assemble the ransom money exactly the way they demanded it, but other than that—nothing. We would sit tight until we were contacted by the kidnappers, and we would follow the ransom delivery instructions to the letter. Then, if this were a regular kidnapping, we would wait and pray that nothing went wrong, that no one other than the kidnappers showed up at the delivery point, that the ransom wasn’t picked up by some well-meaning citizen who—”
