The Emperor's Revenge (The Oregon Files)

by Clive Cussler

  “Now we know why he was low on air,” Julia said. “We need to get him out of that suit.”

  It was an agonizing wait as Max motored over to the suit and the mechanical arms grasped the handle on its front.

  Max turned Nomad and sped toward the lights of the Oregon’s boat garage. Technicians attached a line to the Jim suit and winched it aboard. They laid it down on its front, but the latches were jammed shut by the crush damage.

  Gretchen didn’t wait for them to act. She took a heavy wrench that one of them was holding and fiercely bashed two latches until they sprung free. The clamshell back snapped open and they hoisted Juan’s limp body out. His lips were bright blue and his skin was ashen.

  As soon as they had him lying on his back on the deck, Julia took over. Gretchen stood back and watched as the doctor felt for a pulse. She put a mask on his face and turned the tank’s valve.

  “He’s still got a heartbeat,” she said. “He’s also got a nasty bump on the back of his head.” She jostled him lightly. “Juan, wake up.”

  Julia rubbed his sternum with her fist to get a response. He remained motionless. The other crewmen watched in concerned silence.

  Suddenly, Juan took a huge breath and his eyelids fluttered. Then they opened wide as if he were startled and he tried to sit up, but Julia held him down.

  “Juan, you’re on the Oregon. There’s a mask on your face giving you oxygen. I want you to relax for a minute and take deep breaths. Do you understand?”

  He nodded slightly. “Who . . . What happened?” he mumbled. His groggy voice was muffled by the mask.

  Gretchen felt a wave of relief wash over her when she heard him speak. She knelt next to him and took his hand. “Your stupid idea about the torpedo worked. You got out of the wreckage just in time.”

  “My insides feel like jelly.”

  “That’s the concussion effect of the torpedo,” Julia said. “We need to do a CAT scan to make sure there’s no internal bleeding.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m all right.”

  Gretchen squeezed his hand. “Are you going to disobey doctor’s orders?”

  He looked at both of them. And then seeing that he was going to lose the argument, he said, “You two would make good professional arm-twisters.”

  “It doesn’t pay enough,” said Gretchen.

  “And I already have a job keeping this ship’s sorry lot in one piece,” Julia added.

  Juan removed the mask and tried getting to his feet. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

  Julia pushed him back down. “No you don’t. I have to clear you with the CT before you’re allowed to walk. I don’t want you passing out on me from blood loss on the way to the medical bay.”

  Despite his protestations, they loaded Juan onto a stretcher. Gretchen walked beside him as he was wheeled to get his scan.

  “Did we get the container?” he asked.

  “Max said they got it on board. Eric and Murph are examining it now.”

  “Tell them I want to know the minute they have anything to report.”

  She grinned at him. “What, am I part of your crew now?”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  “You definitely live interesting lives around here. It’s been fun doing some fieldwork again.”

  “I’ll take that as a job application.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said, but the idea intrigued her more than she let on.

  The CAT scan didn’t take long, and Julia pronounced him free of any internal injuries, although he’d probably be sore for a few days. The concussion assessment protocol similarly came up negative. She gave him some pain meds, but he simply pocketed them.

  They went up to the deck and found Eric and Murph inside the open container, poring over the engravings etched into the surface of the white granite column.

  There were three rows of writing, in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. According to their analysis of Napoleon’s Diary, specific letters in his copy of The Odyssey referred to Greek letters on the column, and the corresponding Latin letters would spell out some kind of clue. Napoleon must have had a drawing of the Jaffa Column with him on St. Helena in order to be able to create the clues, but the drawings were lost or destroyed after the report of the emperor’s death.

  Eric looked up from the tablet computer he was using to take photos of the etchings. “How are you feeling?”

  “Nothing that a snifter of Rémy Martin won’t take care of,” Juan said. “Have you made any progress?”

  “It’s very cool stuff,” Murph said without looking up from his own tablet computer. “The markings are exactly the kind we expected to find based on the clues in the diary. We think we’ve already narrowed down the location to Vilnius, Lithuania. Got a problem, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s something you need to solve with logic, deduction, and creativity, but that’s not important right now.”

  Gretchen chuckled at Murph’s reference to the movie Airplane! “You did walk right into that one.”

  Juan smirked. “My mind must still be fuzzy. I mean, what’s the problem?”

  “The damage to the container,” Eric said. “The metal gouged the column on the underside. It destroyed some of the markings, which could make it difficult to find the exact location of the treasure. We won’t know until we get a chance to remove it and stand it up. Max said he’d rig up something in the hold.”

  “What’s the time frame?”

  “We should have it removed from the container and standing by morning.”

  Murph’s phone buzzed. He answered, then said, “Really?”

  He tapped on his tablet and handed it to Juan. “It’s for you. A video call.” He looked at Gretchen. “I think you’ll want to see this, too.”

  Juan took the tablet from Murph. Gretchen crowded in as well, intrigued as to who could be calling.

  Juan answered the call, and Gretchen immediately recognized the face staring back at them. She had first met him a few nights ago.

  It was Whyvern, the Albanian hacker. Now she was doubly curious as to why he would contact them.

  “Hello, sir,” Erion Kula said. They had never revealed their real names to him, but they’d left an untraceable number for him to use if he remembered anything else about his break-in to ShadowFoe’s computer. “You look like you’ve had a long day.”

  “I feel fine,” Juan answered reflexively. “Do you have some more information for us?”

  “In a way. I have a message for you. It’s from ShadowFoe. Somehow, she knew I could contact you. Speaking of which, I’m not supposed to know this, but I found out that the message was routed to me through the computers at Monaco police headquarters.”

  Gretchen whispered into Juan’s ear, “Rivard?”

  He turned to her and under his breath said, “It would explain why the chief inspector of the Sûreté was such a thorn in our sides during the investigation.”

  Juan faced the screen again. “What’s the message?”

  “ShadowFoe says to meet her on the rooftop of the Radisson Blu Hotel in Nice tomorrow at five p.m. The note said she specifically wants to see Gabriel and Naomi Jackson.”

  ShadowFoe must have made the connection between them and the diary. “Did she say why?” Gretchen asked.

  “Yes,” Whyvern said. “She wants to give you your money back.”

  FORTY-FIVE

  NICE, FRANCE

  Juan returned to the top-floor room they’d reserved in the Radisson Blu triumphantly holding a hanger encased in a black wardrobe bag.

  “We’ve got thirty minutes until the rendezvous,” Gretchen said. “Does that fit?”

  “It might be a bit snug,” he said, “but it’ll do.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to this? You were dead yesterday.”

  “Mostly
dead,” he corrected her. “And if you can hobble around on a wounded leg during a firefight in that Maltese warehouse, then going to a meet and greet on top of this hotel should be a snap.”

  “Do you think Rivard will be with them?”

  “It’s possible. Even though it would be out of his jurisdiction, having a respected police detective from a neighboring country as an eyewitness might help their plan.”

  “I wonder how much he’s getting paid for his services,” Gretchen said.

  “It would have to be enough to set him up for life. But now we know why and how Monaco was chosen for the heist. Having someone inside the Sûreté would make covering their tracks that much easier.”

  “We need to get proof that he’s involved.”

  “First things first. We have a date with ShadowFoe. Supposedly.”

  “Then we should get changed,” she said. “Do you mind if I take the bathroom?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Linc and Eddie returned to the room before she could get started.

  “How’d the reconnaissance go?” Juan asked. Since Eddie and Linc hadn’t been seen in Malta, they were the best choices to scout out the location. They were both dressed in shorts and T-shirts, like many of the other tourists strolling on the beachside drive below their window.

  “Multiple exits, so a quick getaway should be easy,” Eddie said. “And there’s an apartment building with a great view of the terrace. We didn’t see anyone on the terrace who looked suspicious.”

  “Any trouble getting the photos?”

  Linc attached the camera he was carrying to a tablet computer. “Nope. Just two guys taking some pictures of the scenery.”

  He and Gretchen scanned through the pictures. Golov and Semova were nowhere to be seen. They went through a second time, and Gretchen stopped on a photo that focused on one side of the pool’s deck chairs and zoomed in.

  “Well, that’s not who I was expecting to see here,” Juan said. He looked at Gretchen with a raised eyebrow. “I suddenly get the feeling that Chief Inspector Rivard won’t be coming.”

  —

  Do you think they’ll show up?” O’Connor asked.

  The bedroom window of the apartment they’d broken into had a perfect view of the hotel’s pool area, where the meeting was to take place. The late-afternoon sun cast shadows on the rooftop terrace, but it wasn’t anything Sirkal couldn’t compensate for.

  He adjusted the scope on the Barrett sniper rifle. Zero wind today. Three hundred meters. The dining area, with its tables and umbrellas, was off to the left, while the swimming pool was centered on the roof. Dozens of guests sunbathed in lounge chairs surrounding the water, but they got up and moved around sporadically. It would be an easy shot.

  “These people want their money, don’t they?” Sirkal said.

  “I wouldn’t show up. It’s obviously a trap.”

  “Yes, but the bait is too appealing to resist.”

  O’Connor took a long, annoying slurp from a can of Diet Coke. “I still think this is a risky plan. If they’ve figured out the location of Napoleon’s treasure from the clues in the diary and column, they might be about to go there to get it. Then we’re screwed.”

  “Which is why this is the best option. If it works like Mr. Golov thinks it will, it should throw them off the track for days, plenty of time to complete Dynamo and get rid of the evidence.”

  O’Connor shrugged. “I just work here, mate. Golov’s the brains behind this. Well, him and his smoking-hot daughter. Who’d guess that someone with a body like that could be a computer whiz?”

  “That’s because you base people’s worth on what they look like, not what they accomplish. It’s why I keep you around despite your face.”

  O’Connor choked on his drink. “Is that a joke, Sirkal? Did I actually hear you make a funny?”

  Sirkal didn’t crack a smile. “I would stay away from her. There’s nothing he values more than his daughter.”

  “No worries about that,” O’Connor said with a chuckle. He put the binoculars back up. “She’s radioactive to me. I don’t want to end up like the rest of the crew after . . . Wait, we’ve got movement toward our bait.”

  Sirkal looked through the scope and saw an auburn-haired woman in a bikini top, a sarong, wide-brimmed hat, and huge sunglasses walk along the row of deck chairs nearest to him. A hotel employee with a towel draped over his arm followed her, carrying a standing umbrella that shielded his face. She pointed to the sun, and then at a chair she had chosen, and he began to set it up for her.

  “My mistake,” O’Connor said. “Just some tourist trying to save her spray tan skin from UV rays. Speaking of smoking-hot, though.”

  “Be ready,” Sirkal said. “They should be here any minute.”

  He kept his eye on the umbrella, primarily because it was now blocking his shot.

  —

  Juan, who was wearing a dark wig to cover his blond hair, and, to complete the disguise, the borrowed hotel uniform, set down the large umbrella. He made sure that it was between them and the apartment building, and he continued to fiddle with it as though he were adjusting its position just so. The feeling that he almost certainly had a rifle trained on him made his skin crawl.

  Gretchen took the chair next to a young blond woman in a white bikini. The woman’s horn-rimmed spectacles had been replaced by expensive sunglasses, but the pixie cut that Juan remembered hadn’t changed.

  “Hello, Ms. Marceau,” he said, continuing to shield his face with the umbrella while he pretended to take drink orders. He had never suspected the involvement of Marie Marceau, the forensic analyst Murph and Eric had been crushing on back at Credit Condamine when they were deciphering the message left in the code. Of course, now it made complete sense. Who better for a hacker like ShadowFoe to recruit than the Monaco police’s top computer expert?

  “No wonder you had trouble accessing the code that ShadowFoe left for us,” Gretchen said while she flipped through a magazine. “I’m sure you would have ‘found’ it eventually, but our people were just too efficient and discovered it early.”

  Marceau gaped at the two of them for a moment.

  Juan smiled. “You didn’t expect us to show up as ourselves, did you?”

  “Why did you do it?” Gretchen asked.

  Marceau put on her most innocent expression. “Do what? I’m just here on holiday. I’m simply surprised to see you.”

  “Are you ShadowFoe?”

  “Who?”

  “We know the request for us to meet here was sent through the Sûreté’s servers,” Juan said. “And now you’re here. You don’t have to be a genius or a mathematician to add one and one.”

  By now, her face had lost its golden tan and gone as pale as her bikini. Her eyes kept darting to the umbrella.

  “Your friends can’t help you,” Gretchen said. “Why don’t you come with us to Interpol? I’m sure they will be willing to strike a deal with you.”

  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Actually, we do,” Juan said. “But we need you to help us prove it.”

  Marceau’s grin dripped with contempt. “I think you’ve got nothing, which is why I’m going to be leaving now.”

  She stood and started gathering her things.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Gretchen said. “We will find the evidence that you’ve been helping ShadowFoe.”

  “No you won’t,” Marceau said, tossing her tote bag over her shoulder, and then she threw herself at the umbrella, pulling it down despite Juan’s efforts. It exposed them for just a moment, but that was enough time for one shot.

  Juan dived for cover, and the round hit Marceau in the upper chest, spinning her around in a fountain of blood. The crack of the rifle came immediately after. Screams of panicking tourists erupted around the pool as they ran for safet
y.

  Juan held the umbrella steady again, shielding them with it as he and Gretchen dragged Marceau’s limp body toward the protection of the restaurant. Once they were out of danger, they laid her down, and Gretchen put pressure on the wound.

  Marceau’s eyes were fading fast.

  “They . . . betrayed me.”

  “Who?” Juan said.

  “Shadow . . . Foe. Plans.”

  “What plans?”

  “The formula . . . is in the treasure. Polichev. It’s . . . the code.” She swallowed hard to get the words out. “They’re going . . . zings. Germany. Lightning grid.” Her hand reached for her tote bag before dropping to the floor.

  Gretchen checked for a pulse, then shook her head.

  Juan searched the tote bag. Besides Marceau’s wallet, the only thing it held was her phone. That’s what she was reaching for.

  He tried to access the smartphone, but it was password-protected. He took Marceau’s still-warm thumb and placed it on the fingerprint reader. The screen unlocked. He switched the auto-lock setting to Never so the phone would remain open.

  “Come on,” Juan said. “We don’t want to stick around.” He took out his phone and called Eddie as they made their way to the stairs to evacuate along with everyone else.

  “We heard a shot,” Eddie said. “Are you all right?”

  “We’re fine. Meet us at the back exit.”

  Juan looked down at Marceau’s phone. If there was anything on there that could lead them to ShadowFoe, Eric and Murph would find it.

  —

  O’Connor packed up their gear so they could make their getaway before the police could figure out where the shot came from, while Sirkal called Golov and put him on speaker.

  “Tell me you have good news,” Golov said. “Did you get the target?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sirkal said, looking at the red dot blinking on his phone’s map of Nice. “Marceau is dead, and her phone is on the move. The mission is a success.”

  FORTY-SIX

  After disabling the location feature on Marie Marceau’s phone and ensuring that it was not equipped with any kind of tracking device, Juan and the others went back to the Oregon to see if there was any actionable intelligence on it. Within an hour of handing Marceau’s phone over to Eric and Murph, the two computer experts called a meeting to report their findings.