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Mei-li stood quietly with her back against the door while Dirk turned on his laptop and waited impatiently for it to power up. “What are you going to do about Rafe and Mike?” she asked. “Are you taking them with you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t need a bodyguard, not even carrying a quarter million at a time. And if the kidnappers are watching me, I don’t want an entourage. I’ll ask Rafe and Mike to see if they can find out what happened to Vanessa and Chet.”
“You still think Patrick might be guilty?”
He grimaced. “Not really, but I—” He stopped abruptly to key in his password and tapped one finger impatiently on the corner of the keypad. “And besides, I think I really do need him to drive me—there’s no way I’m going to drive myself. Not on the wrong side of the street,” he added, referring to how Hong Kong’s drivers, like Britain’s, drove on the left side of the street instead of the right. “Unless you’d rather do it.”
She shook her head. Just then the computer’s desktop appeared, with its charming picture of Linden and Laurel, and Dirk quickly opened his email program in a browser window. His haste had a two-fold purpose—to download the attached file...and to cover the picture.
He remembered exactly how to access the data they needed—that was something he’d never forget now. He pulled up the properties on both photos, side by side, and dismay stabbed through him—he didn’t need to do the math to see the GPS coordinates weren’t the same.
“The photos weren’t taken in the same place.” He tried to keep his frustration and disappointment from showing, but knew he was only partially successful.
“Which just means the kidnappers have moved since yesterday,” she replied in a tone that told him she’d half expected it. “Doesn’t mean they’ll move again. They might—there’s no controlling what they’ll do. But they might not.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “And we’ll want to track them anyway and mark the locations on a map. We might spot a pattern. Pull up Google Maps quickly. Let’s see where each of these pictures was taken.”
When he did that, she looked at the GPS coordinates on the first picture and told him, “Type this into the search bar.” She recited a number, followed by a comma, then another number.
“Wait,” he said when he was done typing. “I thought you had to do the—” He stopped, impressed. “You already did the math. In your head.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “I told you I was originally an engineering student before I changed majors. What I didn’t tell you is that before I settled on engineering I was toying with the idea of pursuing a math degree. I picked engineering because it’s applied math.” She switched gears. “Hit Enter. Let’s see where they were.”
An inverted red teardrop appeared on the map. “That’s odd,” she said, frowning. “If the private plane couldn’t take off because all flights were grounded and they had to take shelter somewhere, they were already at the airport. Why would they come all the way back to Central?” she said, referring to the small district on Hong Kong Island right across from Tsim Sha Tsui that was the city’s main business district. “Why wouldn’t they just get a hotel room at the airport?”
“Full up,” Dirk suggested. “No rooms available.”
She nodded slowly. “Makes sense. And let’s not forget you could hear the Star Ferry in the background when he called the second time. Pier No. 7—the Hong Kong terminus of the Star Ferry—is only a few blocks from Central. Here, let’s see where this morning’s picture was taken.”
She again recited two numbers divided by a comma. And once again an inverted red teardrop appeared on the map, but the location obviously surprised her. “Tai O?” she said in a disbelieving voice, referring to a fishing village on the far west side of Lantau Island, more than an hour away by car. “It’s the end of nowhere. Why would they go there?” Her face was a study in concentration as she considered this. “Look at the date and time today’s picture was taken, please.”
When that info was displayed, she murmured, “Early this morning. I wonder why. They were supposed to—” She broke off, as if she didn’t want to stress that the kidnappers were supposed to take the picture right before Dirk was to deliver the ransom. Her voice turned brisk. “Forward this latest email and attachment to me—I should already be in your address book from yesterday.”
