The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

Gretchen shot back, “And his Arabic makes him sound like he’s auditioning to be a member of the Saudi royal family.”

Everyone at the table laughed. After effectively being shut out of the investigation, the five of them—Juan, Gretchen, Linda, Murph, and Eric—had found an empty outdoor café where they could get a late lunch and brainstorm what to do next now that they’d seemed to hit a dead end.

“Was calling Juan ‘Chairman’ instead of ‘Captain’ his idea or yours?” Gretchen asked anyone but Juan.

From the look on their faces, Juan could see that they were wondering whether she was cleared to know about the Oregon, so he interjected, “Overholt has fully briefed her about us. She’s got a top secret clearance.”

With that, the hesitation vanished. Eric was the first to speak. “It happened organically. We all think of ourselves as partners in the Corporation, so it just made sense.”

“Do you call it the Corporation for anonymity?”

“Partly,” Linda said. “But it also doesn’t make sense to give it a specific name when it’s called something different wherever we have our assets.”

“Assets that are now depleted because of this hacker who’s taunting us,” Juan said. “If we really have just ten days left before a global financial catastrophe, how would they do it?”

Gretchen put her fork down and sat back as she considered the possibilities. “They could have planted a virus that would lock down trading at the major banks. That would cause the markets to crash. Or they could wipe out the computer data where the assets are held, causing a banking panic. There would be a run on the banks, and interest rates would go through the roof. Lending would effectively be brought to a halt. International trade would go into the dumpster. We’re talking food and gas shortages and massive unemployment.”

“The question is, who would benefit from that kind of carnage?”

“Short sellers, for one. They bet that stock prices go down and that they can make a killing when markets take a dive. Or it could be commodity owners. The price of gold would probably skyrocket because of its reputation as a safe haven, and those holding a good chunk of it could then buy distressed properties for dirt cheap prices.”

“Or it could be terrorists who simply want to cause grief in Western countries,” Linda said. “Or anarchists opposed to world trade and big business.”

“So it’s someone who’s either greedy or vengeful,” Murph said. “That doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot.”

“All we know is that it’s someone with extremely advanced computer skills,” Eric said. “I wouldn’t put it past them to be able to do some heavy damage to the financial system.”

Linda looked as frustrated by the lack of a lead as Juan felt. “So we just wait until a bank goes belly up and they make their demands?” she said. “There’s got to be something else we can do.”

“The video that you found of Munier in the car during the chase wasn’t definitive enough for us to prove that he was being coerced,” Juan said. “Even if he was, without knowing more about the hacker, we have no clue who’s behind this.”

“I’ve informed Washington about the threat,” Gretchen said. “They’re sending out a generic warning to banks, but no one can take any useful preventive measures, not without more specific info about how to spot the virus or which banks might be targeted. We’ll have to get lucky to identify the bank mentioned in the message before it’s attacked in five days.”

“Or hope whoever is behind this makes a mistake before then,” Linda said.

Gretchen shrugged. “You say Potayto, I say Potahto. It’ll still be luck on our part.”

Murph suddenly got a faraway look on his face. After a few moments, he victoriously yelled, “Potato chips!” and yanked the phone from his pocket.

“What are you talking about?” Eric asked him, as confused as the rest of them by Murph’s strange outburst.

“I’m pulling up the photo I took of the warning the hacker left. Remember Minecraft?”

Eric thought about it for a moment and then the same dawning look of excitement crossed his face. “You’re right! We missed that.” He started scribbling on his napkin.

Juan spoke for the rest of them, who were still dumbfounded by the exchange. “Would you mind sharing your blinding insight?”

“Remember in the message when the hacker was daring us to break the code?” Murph said. He read from his phone. “Go ahead and comb through the code looking for this time bomb, if you dare, but eventually you’ll have to cough up the dough to us.” He tapped on his screen and went quiet.

Juan was still puzzled. “What has that got to do with potato chips?”

“And what’s ‘Minecraft’?” Gretchen asked.

Eric showed Linda, Gretchen, and Juan what he’d written on his napkin.

Ghoughpteighbteau tchoghs!

“What is that?” Linda said after she tried sounding out the phrase. “Klingon?”