Juan nodded slowly. “Makes sense. If they were using the camera in a cell phone to observe the interior of the car, they’d have to attach it to the dashboard somehow. It would also allow them to talk to Munier and tell him what to do.”
“It’s odd he would commit suicide in such a public and gruesome way just because someone ordered him to,” Gretchen said.
“It gets stranger,” Linda said. “They found some of the same residue melted onto the face of Munier’s watch and on the steering wheel.”
Juan paced as he imagined how someone might force the bank president to install the virus. Then he stopped and said, “Could his hands have been tied to the steering wheel?”
“Sure,” Linda said. “But why?”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” Gretchen said to Juan. “He wouldn’t be able to make a full rotation of the wheel with his hands lashed to it. From the look of the TV feed, he was making violent turns that would have required free hands.”
“This might sound crazy,” Juan said, “but what if he wasn’t driving? The Tesla is drive-by-wire. It could have been programmed to be remotely driven.”
Linda snapped her fingers. “Just like the PIG.”
“Right.”
“The PIG?” Gretchen asked.
“We have our own remote-controlled truck,” Linda said. “Powered Investigator Ground. It was damaged in a recent mission, but the remote control system worked beautifully. I’ll go take a closer look at the TV feed from his car chase. If we’re lucky, maybe someone got a high-def video of Munier’s hands on the wheel.”
“Good idea. We’re heading to the bank president’s office. Apparently, whoever wrote the virus that Munier installed has left a message for us.”
“Can’t wait to hear that,” Linda said, and she was gone.
They arrived at Munier’s office to see Eric and Murph excitedly talking with a woman in her twenties, a cute blonde wearing horn-rimmed glasses and her hair in a pixie cut. She was at the computer’s keyboard, and Murph and Eric were hunched over her on either side, pointing at the screen. The three of them chattered in dense computer jargon, little of which Juan understood.
“Sounds like you two have made a new friend,” he said.
After Juan and Gretchen identified themselves, Murph and Eric stepped on each other’s words to introduce the seated woman to them.
“This is Marie Marceau,” Murph said at the same time that Eric blurted out, “She’s the Sûreté’s top computer analyst.”
“Let’s take it one at a time,” Gretchen said, obviously amused at their infatuation.
“Pleased to meet you,” Marie said in a silky French accent. “We were stuck . . . I was stuck about how to break in to the computer system. The virus is a very unusual design that has us locked out. But then Chris and Colt had some fantastic ideas about how to approach the problem.”
“She really just needed a little push in the right direction,” Eric gushed.
Murph jumped in. “Marie was already on the right track. She would have figured it out soon enough—”
“Okay, okay,” Juan said with a gesture of surrender. “You all make a great team and were able to get into the system—got it. You said there was a message?”
“What message?” Rivard said as he burst through the door, breathless, as if he’d run three blocks. “Marie, what is this?”
“Ah bon, you got my text.”
“It just said that you had a breakthrough and to come at once. Now I find you telling these consultants information before you tell me?” He eyed Juan and Gretchen with contempt.
“I haven’t told them anything yet,” Marie said in exasperation. No doubt Rivard was unpopular with his staff. “They arrived only a moment before you did.”
Rivard was partly mollified and collected himself. “Well, go on. Tell us what you’ve found.”
“I think my new friends are being generous. I wouldn’t have gotten this far without them. But, together, we were able to override the code that had us completely locked out of the system. When we did, a message popped up on the screen. Here it is. ‘To the winner go the spoils, you computer genius, so congratulations! It’s impressive that there’s someone out there worthy of this message. All other hackers may be inferior to you, but don’t bother trying to crack my code. It’s 4096-bit encryption, so you’d need about a hundred years to break it.’”
“Is that true?” Rivard demanded.
“Not at all,” Murph said.