The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

She snickered when she read Mark Murphy’s card. “Are you the lean and smoky variety?” she said, handing it back.

Murph turned red and glowered at Eric, who chewed his lip to keep from laughing.

“So you must be Eggs?” she said, indicating Eric, who gave her a quizzical look. She pointed at his ID. “You know, Colt Benedict Patton?”

Murph snatched it away, letting out a huge guffaw when he read it. “As in eggs Benedict?” It was Eric who blushed this time. They both turned to Linda.

She grinned at them coyly. “Guilty. I thought we needed to lighten the mood.” She turned to Gretchen. “Have your computer techs found out anything?”

“Not much so far,” Gretchen said. “The virus that was installed is so complex that they’re stumped at how to pull up any of the files at all.”

Juan nodded at Murph and Eric. “Why don’t you see if you can give them a hand?” The two of them took a last look at Gretchen and went through the bank’s front entrance.

“I’d like to take a look at the Grand Prix garage explosion and fire,” Linda said. “I’ll see if I can spot anything that might have been missed.” She had watched the TV recording of the car chase and crash repeatedly during the flight to Nice.

“Good,” Juan said. “Gretchen and I will go over the video from inside the bank. Let’s get together for lunch in two hours to go over our findings.”

Linda went back to the car and drove off toward the harbor, leaving Juan and Gretchen alone again.

“Come on,” she said, and led him toward the security office.

As they walked, Juan said, “Gretchen, where’s our money?”

“As far as we know, it’s still in the bank. It’s simply frozen. We’ve detected no unusual transactions from this location since the virus was installed. Besides, it would have been nearly impossible to transfer the money without authorization from the depositors because of two-factor authentication. Someone from your side would have needed to give permission for any transactions.”

“So we haven’t lost our money—”

She held up a hand. “I can’t promise the accounts are still intact until I can look at the data, and they’re currently locked up. Let’s hope Bacon and Eggs have more success opening up the computers than Monaco’s finest.”

When they reached the security office, she pulled up the video of Henri Munier stepping off the elevator into the bank lobby.

Juan gave Gretchen a questioning look. “Is this the first video we have of him? Nothing from the garage?”

She nodded. “Except for a couple of minutes, it’s all been wiped clean.”

On the video, Munier spent a minute talking to the guard, who then walked off and reappeared a moment later with the second guard. They all entered the elevator, and the video ended. There was no audio.

“Why would he miss these two minutes?” Juan wondered aloud.

“Rivard thinks Munier was being careless or that the alarm was tripped before he could finish erasing the videos.”

“Munier is sophisticated enough to plan all this out, plant a computer virus, and kill three men, but he forgets to erase his own face?”

“I didn’t say I agreed.”

“How did the alarm go off?”

“Rivard thinks one of the guards did it before he died. They carried remote activators in case of a robbery.”

“And what’s Munier’s motive?”

“Embezzlement is the first thought in cases like this,” Gretchen said. “He could have been covering his tracks but then got caught and had no other options.”

“What do you think?”

She tilted her head at the screen. “Take another look at the video.”

Juan watched it three more times before he saw it.