Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

“I don’t think they did,” Murph said. “In fact, I’m not sure the Indian military even knows that the weapon was installed on the Vajra satellites. As far as everyone knows, the satellite system is merely a communications platform for the Indian armed forces.”

“So Romir Mallik is behind the attack?” Juan asked. “And Natalie Taylor, who was involved with the hijacking of Xavier Carlton’s private plane, tried to kill him.”

“There was another interesting tidbit from the notebook,” Eric added. “It said that someone named XC visited the ship for an inspection a few months before it sank.”

“I wonder if Carlton is one of the Nine Unknown Men. We did find that symbol on the plaque on Colossus 3’s bridge, which implies that the Nine Unknown Men are involved with the project or even bankrolling it.” Juan and Eric caught up the others on the research they did on Ashoka and the legend about the men to whom he’d entrusted his most important knowledge.

“If I had to guess,” Murph said, “I’d bet Mallik is one of them as well.”

“And I saw a news report today that two other major CEOs haven’t been seen for days,” Max said. “Jason Wakefield and Daniel Saidon are supposedly missing. Wakefield was targeted in an attempted kidnapping last week in Sydney, and Daniel Saidon just happens to own the Moretti Navi shipyard. Those can’t be coincidences.”

Juan pushed his plate away and sat back as he tried to get his head around the strange events. “So we have at least two of the Nine Unknown Men fighting each other for some reason. There’s a satellite-based weapons system that can temporarily disable all electronics within a fifty-mile radius anywhere on earth. And, a highly advanced artificial intelligence is about to be released upon the world, which Lyla Dhawan thinks will be able to control any computer hooked up to the internet.”

“Is that all?” Murph joked.

“Which do we take on first?” Eddie asked.

“Info about the Nine Unknown Men doesn’t help us unless we know who the rest of them are,” Juan said.

“Reports say that Mallik is getting ready to launch a twentieth satellite in his communications constellation in a few days,” Eric said.

“So what?” Murph said. “Nineteen satellites, twenty satellites—one more isn’t going to make much difference in the scope of its capabilities.”

“Lang told me our highest priority is Colossus,” Juan said. “After the near debacle caused by the quantum computer, the U.S. government doesn’t want an even more sophisticated one out there that can not only crack our codes but rewrite them.”

“Do we sink the Colossus ships?” Max asked.

“If it comes to that,” Juan said, “we might have to. Max, I want you to take the Oregon and set off in pursuit of the three Colossus ships heading north on the Red Sea.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

Juan shook his head. “There might be a more elegant way to disable Colossus. Eric said they need all four to get the AI fully functional. So all we need to do is take out just one of the ships.”

“The one in Cyprus,” Max said with a nod.

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Juan turned to Julia. “Remember the blue-green algae bloom that was poisoning the seas around Qatar a few months ago?”

“The cyanobacteria?” she said. “Sure. Those countries were grateful that we stopped it from wiping out all the wildlife in the Persian Gulf.”

“Do you still have samples of it?”

“A few vials . . . Why?” Then she looked at the still image of the vat inside Colossus 3 that was up on the monitor. “Wait, you mean . . .”

Juan nodded. “If we can infect those vats with the bacteria, will it poison the computer?”

She thought for a moment, then said, “Blue-green algae usually require sunlight to reproduce, but since the biocomputer has to be bathed in a nutrient-rich environment, the cyanobacteria should have everything it needs to reproduce and release its toxin.”

“How long will it take to work?”

“Maybe a few hours to begin killing the cells. Most of it will be infected within a day. They’d have to flush the whole system and start over from scratch.”

“Perfect. Ready a sample for us that we can insert into the Colossus system. That will buy us some time to figure out how to wipe it out permanently. Eddie, get your team ready to go again. And tell Tiny I want to be wheels up for Cyprus within three hours.”

“Aye, Chairman.” Julia and Eddie left, but before the rest of them could follow, Eric stopped them.

“Chairman, there’s one other thing we should take into account before we go ahead with sinking the Colossus ships.”

“What’s that?”