The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  “I think I may have a way to narrow it down. Back in Napoleon’s day, they used quills dipped in ink to write. It could be messy if you weren’t careful.” She picked up the magnifying glass next to her and showed Juan the faint outline of ink on the page opposing the missing one. “He must have closed the book before the ink dried.”

  Juan could barely make out the reverse image of the word Clé and, next to it, CJ.

  “Clé means ‘key’ in French,” she continued. “That’s why he tore out the page, and probably the others as well. Those pages listed the key for deciphering the code. He may have been trying to smuggle the treasure location off St. Helena but never got the chance.”

  “But what’s CJ?”

  “Maybe we can search the auction database to see if there’s a match,” Gretchen suggested.

  “It’s worth a shot.” He rang up the Oregon on his laptop with the jet’s satellite linkup. After two rings, Murph’s face appeared on-screen.

  “I was just about to call you,” he said. “We got some intel on your party crashers.”

  “Who are they?”

  “We don’t have anything on Ivana Semova, but Sergey Golov lit up the CIA’s database. He’s a former Ukrainian frigate captain who got canned when the Russians took over his ship during the Crimea incident. According to the Maltese Oceanic Museum, he and Semova were there representing Maxim Antonovich.”

  “Antonovich?” Gretchen said, surprised. “The Russian mining tycoon?”

  “The same one. The museum’s rep said that he saw them get off his yacht.”

  “Then either Antonovich is behind the warehouse attack,” Juan said, “or Golov and Semova are running some kind of rogue operation in secret.”

  “Oh, wait,” Murph said with glee. “It gets better.”

  “Spill.”

  “Antonovich’s yacht is called the Achilles.”

  Why did that name sound familiar to Juan? Then he realized where he’d heard it recently.

  “Monaco,” he said.

  Gretchen looked at Juan with wide eyes. “That’s the yacht where the president of Credit Condamine was last seen before his wild ride.”

  “Right on both counts,” Murph said.

  “Is the yacht still docked at Malta?” Juan asked.

  “Negative. It set sail soon after the warehouse mess. Must have passed right by us. And, so far, the Malta police have no suspects, which is great for you guys, but doesn’t help us finger Golov for the break-in. Apparently, you were the only ones to see his girlfriend take the director’s keycard.”

  “That means that Interpol doesn’t have enough even to question Antonovich and his crew,” Gretchen said, “let alone pin the bank heist on him.”

  “Then we have to track down the yacht ourselves and do a little covert investigation.”

  “Now that we think the Achilles is the boat we’re looking for,” Murph said, “are you guys going to abort the Vladivostok mission?”

  Juan shook his head. “I want to know exactly how the Achilles was modified before we attempt to infiltrate it. If we can find the plans, it might tell us the best way in.” Max was in command of the Oregon until he returned.

  “Murph,” Gretchen said, “we have another question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you have access to the list of items being sold in the auction?”

  He tapped on his keyboard. “Pulling it up now.”

  “We’re looking for something listed as CJ.”

  “There can’t be too many of those,” he replied, and typed again. After a pause, he said, “Actually, there are none of those.”

  “What about abbreviations or acronyms?” Juan asked.

  “Nope. Nothing that even comes close.”

  “Wait a minute,” Gretchen said. “Weren’t there some items given to the museum by the donor that weren’t included in the auction?”

  “You’re right,” Juan said. “Murph, check any references to new pieces the museum acquired.”

  “My fingers are flying.” He took a little longer this time, then said, “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “There is one piece that comes close. But it’s called the Jaffa Column. JC, not CJ.”

  “Colonne Jaffa,” Gretchen said. “That’s how it would be written in French. We found it!”

  Murph scratched his head and grimaced. “Well, we almost found it.”

  Juan knew that expression and it wasn’t good. “Why?”

  “Because the museum just reported that it’s gone missing.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  PARIS

  Ivana pretended to be asleep while Marcel Blanc rose from the bed and went into the bathroom. The lovemaking session had been blessedly short as usual. She had played the role of occasional mistress of the cybersecurity firm’s director for the last six months in anticipation of this night. The luxury apartment in the Neuilly suburb had been rented under a pseudonym specifically for these trysts.

  As soon as Blanc closed the door, she slipped from under the covers and darted over to his briefcase. She waited for him to turn on the shower and then removed the laptop and authentication token from the case.

  Blanc’s company, Relvat Security, provided computer protection software for some of the biggest banks in Europe. Ivana logged into Relvat’s virtual private network and referred to the authentication token. Its digital readout changed every sixty seconds so that no one could log in with just Blanc’s password, which she had obtained weeks ago. With a few keystrokes, she was into Relvat’s system.

  Now it was time to initiate the second stage of Operation Dynamo. As anticipated, banking security protocols had been changed in the aftermath of the Credit Condamine bank heist, playing right into her hands. She plugged her USB memory stick into the laptop and began uploading her custom-built virus into Relvat’s server.

  She was only a few seconds into the process when light spilled from the bathroom. Her breath caught when she realized she could see Blanc reflected in the laptop’s screen, his doughy physique wrapped in a towel.

  “Oh, you’re awake,” he said in English. “I can’t find the toothpaste . . .” He suddenly noticed what she was doing and froze. “Why do you have my laptop?”

  Ivana tried to place her body between him and the screen, leaning seductively over the chair. Her hand hovered by her purse. “I was just checking my email. Why don’t you forget the shower and come back to bed? I’ll be done in a minute.”

  “If you’re checking your email, why is my security token on the desk?” He strode toward her and roughly pushed her aside, his eyes widening when he saw the screen. “That’s Relvat’s network!”

  Ivana plunged her hand into her purse and drew the tiny .22 caliber Beretta. Blanc stopped when he saw the gun pointed at him.

  Ivana shook her head. “Why couldn’t you have just taken a shower and then gone home to your wife like a good boy?”

  “Darling, what are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “It looks like you’re using my security codes to break into Relvat’s system.”

  “Right. So asking what I’m doing now seems like a stupid question, doesn’t it?”

  “But why?”

  “Now, that’s a smart question. It should have been your first.” She continued to monitor the download progress of her virus while keeping an eye on her duped paramour.

  “I don’t understand. Why would you do this to me?”

  “Well, it’s not really about you. This is about me. Specifically, about money that I intend to take.”

  “You’re stealing from Relvat?”

  “No, you are,” she said coyly. “No one knows about me, do they?” She rose from the chair, aiming the pistol at his head. “Do they?”

  Blanc shook his head vigorousl
y. “No! No!”

  “That’s good. And it will stay that way?”

  He nodded just as vehemently. “Of course! I’ll tell no one.”

  She smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” She pulled the gun back, though she continued to keep it trained on him. He relaxed a bit but remained wary. “Sit on the bed and turn on the TV. I want to hear the news.”

  He did as he was told and tuned the TV to the BBC evening report.

  “I don’t know how much you think you can take,” Blanc said. “Most of our assets are in stock value and property.”

  “Do you really think I care about the two million euros I could take from your little company?”

  “But you said—”

  “That you are stealing from Relvat. It’s a pittance compared to what I’m going to net. Turn it up louder,” she said. When he hesitated, she motioned with the gun and he pressed the VOLUME button until the newscasters seemed to be yelling. “Now, just stay quiet until I’m finished.”

  It took two more minutes for the virus to upload. When it was complete, she wiped the security token with a tissue and stuck it back in the briefcase but kept the laptop out.

  “Now I’m going to tie you up,” she said. “Turn over so that you’re lying facedown, hands behind your back, face toward the drapes.”

  “But I—”

  “Do it!”

  He did as instructed. With his face turned, he couldn’t see her.

  She went to the sofa and picked up a throw pillow. This was going to be the hardest part, but she steeled herself. She walked over to the bed with the pistol up against the pillow, placed it against Blanc’s head, and pulled the trigger. The TV drowned out the muffled shot.

  Blanc’s body went limp.

  Ivana pulled the pillow away and appraised the small hole in the back of his head. There wasn’t even much blood.

  She shrugged. That didn’t seem so hard after all.

  She dressed quickly and wiped down every surface she had touched. Then she took Blanc’s wallet and laptop to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. By the time they connected Blanc with the bank theft to come, any leads would be ice-cold.

  She mentally retraced her steps and confirmed that she had left nothing incriminating behind. With a satisfied nod, she headed to the door. Even though it hadn’t gone as she’d expected, it wasn’t a bad night’s work. She didn’t know a single soul who wouldn’t kill for thirty billion euros.

  As she walked out of the apartment, she could hear the BBC announcer going to a special bulletin. The computer system of France’s largest bank just went down.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  FRANKFURT

  Sirkal lay on a hill on the outskirts of the city, a .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle firm against his shoulder. O’Connor was prone next to him, observing Frankfurt’s biggest electrical substation through binoculars. Between them was a map of the substation, with twenty-five high-voltage transformers highlighted.

  The brightly lit facility was situated in the middle of a farming region split by an autobahn, where headlights sped by in the distance. No one was within a mile of their hiding spot on the edge of a forested park.

  The substation was monitored remotely, so nobody currently occupied the twelve-acre property surrounded by chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. Security cameras had a good view of the facility itself, but none of them were pointed outside the fence.

  O’Connor snapped gum as he surveyed the target, a habit that had helped him quit smoking. The sound irked Sirkal, but it didn’t pose a threat in their isolated position. The Irishman was a good operative and a trusted partner in a fight, but he could be a pain in the butt.

  “What idiots,” O’Connor said with another snap. “Not a soul around and lit up like a roman candle. They might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on it.”

  “Their vulnerability is our advantage. ‘He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.’”

  “Do you always have to sound like a Buddhist monk with those sayings?”

  “That’s Sun Tzu, from The Art of War. You should read it sometime. And I’m a Hindu.” While that was technically true, he didn’t follow the teachings of the Hindu scriptures any more than O’Connor adhered to the tenets of Catholicism.

  They’d already received confirmation from Ivana that her portion of the operation was complete. The banking system was in a panic because of the new breach. Steps were being taken to secure data that had previously seemed protected. Now it was time to set in motion the other part of the plan.

  The idea for this mission actually came from a little-known attack on an electrical substation outside of San Jose, California, in 2013. Unknown assailants pumped more than two hundred rounds into a key Silicon Valley power hub. Because the substation was unmanned, it seemed at first to be nothing more than an equipment malfunction on the remote maintenance screens, and it took authorities nineteen minutes to respond. By the time the police arrived, the attackers had disappeared without a trace, leaving no clues as to their identities or motivation. The bill for the damage totaled over fifteen million dollars.

  Seeing how easy it had been to take out an entire unguarded substation in the United States, Sirkal thought the same kind of attack would work in Europe. He had been an electrical engineer in college before gaining his mercenary experience in the Indian Army, so his expertise was critical for planning Operation Dynamo. After a careful study of the European Continental Synchronous Power Grid, he had pinpointed this one in Frankfurt as the prime target. He and O’Connor had scouted out the location over a month ago, picking this very spot for its unobstructed view of the facility.

  As part of the reconnaissance for the mission, they had set off some fireworks in the area and timed how long it took the Polizei to respond. The Germans had done much better than the Americans, arriving at the remote spot in only eight minutes.

  “Ready on the timer?” Sirkal said.

  “Ready. Do you have the first transformer lined up?”

  Sirkal looked through the scope and placed the crosshairs on the word Siemens stenciled on the side of the transformer. That would put the shot right through the tank of the transformer’s oil-filled cooling system.

  “Got it.” He had the progression of targets memorized.

  O’Connor checked his wind gauge and the binoculars’ laser range finder. “Wind is three knots due east. Distance to target is 1,085 meters.”

  Sirkal adjusted the scope to compensate for the conditions and distance. “Ready.”

  “Starting the timer.” O’Connor’s phone beeped.

  Sirkal let out his breath, waited for the lull between his heartbeats, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle butt slammed against his shoulder, and the gun fired with an ear-shattering roar. His earplugs were the only thing preventing permanent hearing impairment.

  “Dead on target,” O’Connor said. “Oil is spewing from the transformer.”

  Sirkal adjusted the Barrett to the next transformer and fired again. He got into a rhythm, stopping only to slap in another magazine. By the time he was done, all twenty-five transformers were leaking critical coolant. Eventually, they’d overheat and have to be shut down.

  He wasn’t going to wait for that to happen.

  “Time?” Sirkal asked.

  “Five minutes left.”

  “Then let’s give the oil time to pool,” Sirkal said, his voice betraying some of the enjoyment he felt at a job well done.

  “That’s some good shooting,” O’Connor said. “The farthest shot I’ve ever made is a thousand yards. It was a moving target, but still . . . Looks like you’ve got some experience with this.”

  “Fifteen kills on special operations in Kashmir.”

  “Nice.” O’Connor raised the binoculars again. “We’ve got a long pool from one end of the substation t
o the other, and oil is still flowing.”

  “Now you will see a real roman candle,” Sirkal said.

  This time, he targeted the junction box on the centermost transformer.

  He fired. Instead of simply putting another hole in the equipment, the .50 caliber round tore through the transformer’s main hub and shorted it out instantaneously. The sudden overload caused a detonation, sending sparks shooting across the facility.

  The pooled oil went up in flames. As soon as the fire hit the tanks in the other transformers, they blew apart in a chain reaction like exploding dominos.

  In seconds, the entire substation was a fireball visible for miles.

  O’Connor checked the timer. “We need to go.”

  Sirkal stood and picked up the rifle. He and O’Connor collected the shell casings and covered up their impressions in the ground to clear the scene of any evidence.

  O’Connor made a move to go back to the car, but Sirkal held up his hand to wait. It took only a few more seconds to see what he was waiting for.

  The high-powered lights surrounding the substation winked out, followed in close succession by the streetlights, and then the lights of the houses and towns in the distance. In a matter of moments, the glow in the sky above Frankfurt was virtually extinguished. Except for the fire and the headlights on the autobahn, the night was pitch-black, likely for the first time since World War II.

  One additional light source intruded on the perfect darkness. Blue and red lights flashed as police cars and fire engines raced to the substation.

  “Now it’s time to go,” Sirkal said, and they disappeared into the forest.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MALTA

  In the waiting area outside the harbormaster’s office, Linda Ross watched the bustling activity of cranes off-loading containers from three giant ships. Even at six in the morning, Manwel Alessi made her and Eric Stone cool their heels while he took care of port matters.

  Under the guise of the fake IDs they’d used in Monaco, she had explained that they were insurance investigators looking into the theft at the museum warehouse. Alessi had readily agreed to meet with them, as curious about the normally tranquil island’s unusual events as he was eager to assist the investigation.