The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  “Old friend,” Juan said.

  Austin looked her over. “I don’t suppose your name is Sophie?”

  She stared at him, nonplussed, before saying, “Naomi.”

  Austin shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  Juan grinned at the exchange, then turned back to Austin. “What are you really doing here?”

  Austin pointed toward the men they were fighting. “Those men. They have something to do with the disaster on Lampedusa.”

  “Is NUMA investigating that?”

  “By way of another government,” Austin said.

  Juan nodded. “Sounds like we’ve both got our hands full. Anything I can do to help?”

  Even though he’d been busy, Juan had heard of the tragedy at Lampedusa. For the past few days it had been competing with the destruction at the Monaco Grand Prix for airtime in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. Given the high-profile nature of the emergency, he couldn’t be too surprised NUMA was on the case.

  More shots came their way. All three of them pressed deeper into the recess under the lowest shelf. When they returned fire, the assailants pulled back once more.

  “Not sure,” Austin said. “It’s all connected to some Egyptian artifacts I hoped to find here.”

  “Good luck finding anything in this place,” Juan said. “We’ve been looking for a book Napoleon had on St. Helena.”

  Gretchen shot him a warning glare about sharing confidential info, but Juan ignored it.

  “An old copy of The Odyssey?” Austin said. “With some handwritten notes in the margin?”

  “That’s the one. Have you seen it?”

  Austin pointed toward their adversaries. “That way.”

  For now, the gunfire dwindled to the occasional random shot. Together with Austin, Juan and Gretchen crouched down on one end of the aisle, while their enemies guarded the two corners where the aisle intersected the next row. There was little hope for either side to gain any ground. “They seem intent on keeping us from heading that way,” Juan noted.

  “I’ve got a solution,” Austin said. He looked up and whistled to Zavala.

  Juan followed his eyes and saw Zavala, who had climbed all the way to the ceiling to reach what looked like a heat and smoke detector. He made it to the highest point on the upper shelf but couldn’t reach the sensor. He moved a box out of the way and stretched, an effort that put him out in the open. One of the gunmen saw him and fired. Bullets began punching holes in the ceiling around him.

  Juan turned and felled the shooter with a single round.

  With the coast clear, Zavala reached for the sensor again and pressed a Taser against it. The heat of the snapping and sparking high-voltage electricity was instantly interpreted as a potential fire. Alarms screeched, strobes flashed, and jets of carbon dioxide blasted out into the open space of the warehouse.

  The assailants waited only seconds before fleeing with whatever they’d been able to recover. Juan thought they had the right idea. Even though the carbon dioxide stopped pumping shortly after Zavala pulled the Taser away from the sensor, the authorities would be coming.

  “Forty feet past that intersection,” Austin said. “First shelf on the left. I’d hurry, if I were you.”

  Juan offered a hand. “’Til next time.”

  Austin shook it. “Over drinks instead of bullets.”

  With that, Juan and Gretchen sprinted toward the location Austin had indicated.

  “We’re outside the front door,” MacD said in Juan’s ear.

  “Hold there,” Juan replied. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

  “I hope you’re eventually going to explain what just happened,” Gretchen said as they ran.

  “Happy to,” Juan said. “Let’s just hope I’m not explaining it to the police as well.”

  They reached the aisle and saw the placard marked Lot XVI. Lying inside the container next to it was a fire-proof Nomex envelope. Juan unzipped it and saw L’Odyssée. They had originally planned to flip through it and take photos of each page, but they didn’t have time for that now. He zipped the envelope back up and tucked it into his waistband.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  It was Juan’s turn to be surprised when Gretchen fired twice down the aisle. He spun around to see Golov’s men, still clad in black, duck for cover.

  “Come on,” Gretchen said. “The front door is right over here.”

  They raced toward the exit and dashed outside to the police car waiting for them.

  “Hop in!” MacD yelled. “Gomez is at the airport.”

  Once they were in, MacD mashed the accelerator and drove off.

  “Drop us at the car,” Juan said.

  “We’re not headed to the helicopter?” Trono asked.

  “Soon. We owe a favor to a couple of friends back there who might need a lift, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala. You can’t miss Austin and his platinum hair. They won’t be at the loading dock. Too crowded. Look for them at a side door. We’ll meet you two at the airport as soon as you drop them wherever they’re staying and then ditch the police car.”

  By now, fire engines were approaching. Police cars and half the security team from the auction were not far behind. Juan and Gretchen got out of the stolen police car and into the BMW. MacD and Trono sped away back to the warehouse to pick up Austin and Zavala.

  “The auction is sure to be canceled now,” Gretchen said as Juan put the car into gear and slowly drove by the emergency vehicles heading for the warehouse.

  Juan gave her the envelope holding the diary.

  “It’s good you speak French and Greek,” he said, “because the only way we’re going to find ShadowFoe and our money now is to beat them to Napoleon’s treasure.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Golov stood at the bridge’s mahogany console, drumming his fingers, as he listened to Sirkal and O’Connor’s report about the warehouse raid. Except for Ivana, the rest of the crew had been sent off the bridge. Now that he no longer needed the services of the harbor pilot and they were out of Valletta’s harbor, Golov could steer the Achilles on his own. The task kept him from blowing up at his men and doing something he’d regret. Like killing them.

  “Can you believe these guys?” Ivana said to her father. She was slumped in his captain’s chair, twirling her tablet in her fingers. “We spend two hours at that snooty party to get the keycard, and they let the one thing we need get taken by a couple who looked like they walked out of the pages of Vogue.”

  “They were well trained,” Sirkal said. He stood ramrod straight, with his hands clasped behind him. “And they had help.”

  “Bleedin’ right,” O’Connor said, leaning against the wall and munching on an apple. “Security guards, we could have taken care of easily. But how were we supposed to know they’d have a whole squad of soldiers in there? We were lucky to make it out without being hauled in by the police.”

  Sirkal nodded thoughtfully. “By the way they handled their weapons, I would guess they’ve had military or law enforcement training. They might have been the same people who rescued Kula.”

  “And you’re sure the diary is gone?” Ivana asked pointedly.

  “Yes,” Sirkal said. “We saw them take it.”

  “So you’ve now put this whole operation at risk. One that we’ve been planning for over a year.”

  “What’s the big deal?” O’Connor said. “So they have the diary? How can they possibly stop us?”

  “Because if they discover Napoleon’s treasure, they might find Alexei Polichev’s formulas.”

  “You mean those mathematical equations you’ve been talking about? The ones that no one else has been able to duplicate in over two hundred years?”

  “Exactly,” Ivana said. “No one can decipher the cryptographic algorithms I developed based on Polichev’s work. Antonovich found the onl
y known documents with his formulas. But if the equations still exist in the treasure Napoleon took from Moscow and someone else finds them, our entire operation will be compromised. They could track down the money by rebuilding the encrypted databases.”

  O’Connor snorted. “It all sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Of course it does. The red hair must be an alert that your brain cells are running low.”

  He bit another chunk of apple. “It’s going to take more than a little insult like that to rile me, lass.”

  “At least you understood it was an insult.”

  “Enough,” Golov said. “Up until the last day or so, we’ve had nothing but success. We were bound to run into problems sooner or later. The truly great are separated from the merely good by how they respond to setbacks. Sirkal, can you track down who those people really are? There’s obviously more to them than meets the eye.”

  Sirkal nodded. “I’ll tap my mercenary contacts and see if anyone knows them. I’d also request that Ivana put her computer skills to work.”

  Ivana waved one hand idly. “I can’t do much without photos of them. But I can access Russian security archives and see if their names appear.”

  “Good,” Golov said. “We can’t let up now. It’s not like we have an idea for the next big Internet company. We can’t steal copper mines or oil refineries. This operation is our only chance at real wealth. We’re a week away from being richer than any of us could have ever dreamed, and Mr. Antonovich made all of this possible. I’m not going to let anyone or anything keep us from the prize. Does anyone here disagree?”

  All three of them shook their heads.

  “Then I suggest we work together for one more week. After that, we will never see each other again, except for you and me, my dear.”

  Ivana blew him a kiss.

  “When is the fake Narwhal expected to leave port?” he asked Sirkal.

  “Tomorrow evening. That was the earliest they could reserve a slot in the port.”

  “Is the container ready for loading?”

  “Yes, I saw it myself,” Sirkal said. “The Jaffa Column is exactly where we expected it to be. Dijkstra’s representative will have no way of knowing the Narwhal that he’s delivering the container to isn’t the real one. Should I tell the captain to change the destination port now that the diary has been stolen?”

  The original plan was to deliver the column to a shipyard in Marseilles and transport it by truck to a secret location in the south of France, where they could study it at their leisure once they had Napoleon’s Diary. Golov would find the treasure and eliminate the threat to their plan once and for all. But now that the diary wasn’t in their possession, the plan would have to change.

  Golov shook his head. “The column is of no use to us anymore. In fact, it’s a liability. We can’t let it fall into the hands of whoever has the diary.”

  “What about blowing it up once it’s delivered?” O’Connor suggested. It always came down to explosives with him.

  “We could have the captain toss it overboard in the middle of the Mediterranean,” Sirkal said. “He doesn’t know what’s inside the container.”

  “That’s risky,” Ivana said. “What if the captain remembers where he dumped it and squeals later?”

  Golov patted her on the shoulder, proud of his daughter’s insight. “Ivana’s right. We can’t take that chance. We’ll have to repeat our sinking of the Narwhal. We’ll give the captain instructions to alter course. Once it’s two hundred kilometers from Malta and out of the main shipping lanes, we’ll put it on the bottom of the sea.”

  “I know I’m an idiot,” O’Connor said, eyeing Ivana, “but if we can recover the diary, then maybe we can still find the treasure. I know we’re all going to be rich, but, from what I hear, that treasure could be worth billions of euros.”

  “That’s a lower priority,” Golov said. “If these people get their hands on the column now that they have the diary, they can torpedo our entire plan and we’ll have nothing. I won’t let them jeopardize the Dynamo operation. Understood?”

  Sirkal gave a smart nod. O’Connor shrugged and tossed the core of his apple into the wastebin.

  “We need to stay on schedule,” Golov continued. “We’ll head to Sicily. The three of you will take the helicopter to Syracuse and catch airline flights from there. Sirkal and O’Connor will head to Frankfurt and take care of the substation there. Ivana will head to Paris and put the fear of God into the authorities with the next bank shutdown. I’ll stay with the Achilles and intercept the Narwhal. Any questions?”

  “Just one,” O’Connor said with a smile. “Did anyone choose Australia yet for their retirement place? Because I’ve got my eye on a thirty-acre estate in Sydney.”

  Sirkal glared at him, because the agreement was that none of them would reveal their destinations after the operation was over. Golov suspected that the Indian would choose somewhere on the subcontinent, while Ivana had designs on Southeast Asia, maybe Thailand or Bali.

  Golov turned back to the view of the sea afforded by the expansive windows and the quarter moon reflected on the calm waters. He had no desire to retire to a private island or exotic locale. He was more interested in the power that the newfound fortune would give him. He’d always chafed at serving at the whim of the rich and powerful, and being drummed out of the Ukrainian Navy convinced him that nationalism was a fool’s game. Money was the only true lever of power in the world, and he would soon have enough to decide the fate of entire nations, should he choose.

  No matter what he decided to do, he had no doubt that he’d continue to maintain a presence on the high seas, even if it wasn’t on the Achilles. The ocean was too ingrained in his blood to stay away for long.

  He would certainly have a vessel to rival the features of the Achilles. He was now spoiled for anything less extraordinary than the high-tech yacht. He shuddered at the thought of being stuck captaining a ship as dilapidated and pathetic as the one they were cruising past.

  Still, he did feel a twinge of empathy for the master consigned to that rusty cargo ship, a tramp freighter, whose stern read Nogero.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Juan brought Gretchen another cup of coffee from the Gulfstream’s rear galley. Eddie napped on the sofa, Linc lounged while he thumbed through a catalog of motorcycle parts, and Tiny was in the cockpit of the Corporation’s private jet halfway through their flight to Vladivostok. Now that they had more leads in the search for ShadowFoe, the next step was finding out who they were up against. If the hacker was part of a team that had its ship modified at the same naval base where the Oregon was refitted, Juan wanted to know its identity and capabilities. Only by gaining access to the Primorskiy Kray shipyard could they get the answers.

  The plan was to introduce Eddie to the current base commander, Admiral Nestor Zakharin, as the son of a Hong Kong communications billionaire wanting his yacht upgraded with the latest armaments. When the Oregon was being refitted, Juan had presented himself as a representative of the “real owner” and had met Zakharin briefly, although the admiral had been just a captain at the time. Gretchen would play Eddie’s aide, and Linc would undertake the role of bodyguard.

  Juan handed Gretchen the coffee and sat down across from her. She set the mug on the table and barely looked up from Napoleon’s Diary. For the last twelve hours, she had immersed herself in reading it, translating the emperor’s notations and jotting down references in The Odyssey that might be relevant. Knowing that they were only borrowing the delicate book and planned to give it back to the museum when they were done with it, she turned each page with care.

  Of course, the book was already damaged by Napoleon himself. He had torn three pages from it. One was from the scene in which Odysseus escapes from the Cyclops, one was from his passing the island of the Sirens while lashed to the mast so that he could safely he
ar their beckoning song, and the final page was taken from the perilous passage between the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis. Without knowing what notations were on those pages, Gretchen had to piece together any other clues to determine whether the diary really would lead to the Russian treasure that he’d been forced to abandon before it could be taken to France.

  “It’s strange that Napoleon would have left such a valuable item behind when he was taken off St. Helena,” she said idly. “If he thought it would lead to the treasure, why not take it with him? Or at least destroy it?”

  “If there’s any truth to this story, they went to a lot of trouble to leave a double behind. Napoleon might have been worried that the missing diary would be suspicious and took only a few key pages with him during his abduction.”

  “But he left some clues behind, although I’m sure no one would guess they led to a treasure. We wouldn’t have either if it hadn’t been for Delacroix’s letter. Look here.” Juan sat next to her, leaning close to read the diary. A faint whiff of her perfume suddenly brought back their days spent as a married couple.

  She pointed to a page with handwriting that looked like the ink scribbles of a seismograph during a magnitude 7 earthquake. The page before it had been torn out.

  “How can you read those chicken scratches?” he said.

  “It’s taken a while to get used to, but I can now understand most of it in context.” She traced the right-hand margin with her index finger. “This says that the ‘items’ have been stored for safekeeping. I think we can assume that the items he means refers to the treasure. It implies that whatever was on the page before this one is the key for decoding the location of the items, using a system based on the page numbers in this diary. The key is some object that Napoleon encountered in his travels. According to his notes, whatever the object is has writing on it.”

  “Then it could have been in the warehouse with the other Napoleon artifacts.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “But without that page, how are we supposed to figure out what it is?”