Quick as a flash, BM rushed upstairs to his Emergency Operations Centre. He grabbed the video phone and rapidly dialed the number of the Chief of Police.
"Hi Chief, Bottom Man here. I heard about the Mayor being kidnapped. Anything I can do to help?"
"Am I pleased to hear from you, BM! Any help you can offer would be most welcome. We all know what great work you've done in the past," said the Chief, beaming.
"OK. First, you'd better give me a situation report," said BM.
"Mr Fiddley was nabbed at 7 o'clock this morning by persons unknown. He was out jogging when a white van pulled up next to him and two men in balaclavas knocked him out, bundled him into the van and drove off."
"What happened to his security?"
"Hmm. It seems that the officer assigned to guard him wasn't a very good runner and couldn't keep up with Mayor Fiddley. By the time he arrived, the van was gone. Some people across the street saw the whole thing and told us what happened."
"Did we get an ID on the van?" asked Bottom Man.
"No luck," said the Chief. "The witnesses were too far away to get either the make or the registration of the vehicle. In any case, we have only just this minute received a ransom note by e-mail. The kidnappers want $20 million for the Mayor's safe return. The reply details on the e-mail are fake, so we can't contact them. We are supposed to post our response on our web-site."
"But surely you can trace the mail?" said BM, perplexed.
"Sure we can," said the Chief, "but it isn't going to do us any good. We have found out that the note was sent from a Hotmail account which was created several years ago by cyber-criminals from a long-since disconnected computer account in Lithuania and then presumably sold to its present owner. We begged Microsoft to check where the user logged on from to send the actual e-mail, but they wouldn't tell us without a warrant, which would take several days to get."
"Alright, Chief, I'll see what I can do. Please send me a copy of the e-mail straight away. I'll get back to you as soon as I find out anything."
"Roger," said the Chief and hung up.
About ten seconds later, BM's computer beeped and there was the e-mail from the Police. BM quickly scanned the e-mail. Apart from the demand for $20 million, there wasn't much except for a heart-rending picture of Mayor Fiddley tied up to a chair and gagged. As the Chief had said, the reply-to address on the e-mail was a phony. BM opened a window on his computer and clicked a button. In moments the somewhat bemused face of Cedric appeared. Cedric was BM's geek buddy, who was always happy to help out with technical matters, such as setting up BM's home network.
"Ceddy, I need your help on something."
"Oh dear, I hope it's not your printer again, BM," sighed Cedric.
Quickly BM filled Cedric in on what had happened and sent him a copy of the ransom note.
"Drop everything and see if you can trace where it came from, Ceddy. Everything depends on you. Call me when you have something."
"Sure thing, BM," said Ceddy, and blipped off the screen.
"Your tea's ready, honey," came the voice of the Countess from downstairs.
"I'll be right down," called BM and headed for the stairs.
About twenty minutes later, after BM and the Countess had finished their tea, the computer beeped again. "That'll be Cedric," said BM, and disappeared upstairs again. The Countess just sighed and shook her head.
"Yes, Ceddy," said BM. "What have you got for me, my friend?"
"I must confess that I had to bend the rules a bit to find out. I sort of hacked into Microsoft's computers to find the record of the Hotmail session which sent the ransom note. Seems it was sent from the Public Library at Bethesda.
Which was handy, because Bethesda is near where BM and the Countess live.
"Good work, Ceddy. I'm pretty sure the Countess has some books which need returning anyway, so I'll go and check it out right now. BM over and out."