The Emperor's Revenge (Oregon Files 11)

“Sure you were,” Eric teased. “Of course, you would have been dating the accomplice of a murderer.”

“So procrastination worked for me yet again.”

“Anyway,” Eric continued, “there was enough incriminating evidence in those emails to send her away for life, if she had lived.”

“She even had a cool hacker alias,” Murph said. “MasqueBleu, or Blue Mask. She was flaunting her double life, as a police employee and as a criminal, while keeping it hidden. Almost worked until she tried to get the two of you shot and took the bullet instead.”

“Did you find anything about zings or lightning grid?” Juan asked.

Eric shook his head. “We did a cursory search for both, but nothing jumped out. We’ll keep working on it.”

“Make sure you include Germany in your search terms,” Gretchen said. “I got the impression that whatever they’re planning will happen in Germany somewhere.”

“Could be,” Murph said. “The attack on that Frankfurt power station already gives us a link to Deutschland. We’ll look into it.”

“Marceau also mentioned something about a formula,” Juan recalled. “She said, ‘The formula is in the treasure. Polichev. It’s the code.’ Did you find anything related to those terms?”

Eric shook his head again. “Nothing.”

“Why would a formula be in the treasure?” Max asked.

“We probably won’t know until we find it,” Murph said. “And we have no clue who Polichev is or was. But we do know that it’s a Russian surname, so it could be linked somehow to the treasure Napoleon took from Moscow.”

“Okay,” Juan said. “Keep searching.”

“Chairman,” Eric said, “we did find one email that I think you’ll find interesting. It was sent from Marceau to ShadowFoe two weeks before the bank heist.”

“Is it about how to get into the bank’s system?” They knew ShadowFoe’s offer to return their money had been a ruse, but Juan still wanted it back.

“Unfortunately, no. But, fortunately, it is about where the treasure can be found.”

Juan chewed on a piece of bread slathered with Brie. “You’re right. I’m interested.”

Murph turned on the large display screen at the end of the table and linked it to his laptop. “It seems that our cute computer traitor was doing some extracurricular work for ShadowFoe. The original email from ShadowFoe asked Marceau to use the Monaco Sûreté’s forensic lab to analyze the writing on both sides of the three missing pages from Napoleon’s Diary. Even though a university lab would have better equipment, they didn’t want to risk using one.”

Eric jumped in. “Apparently, the pages had been stored poorly and faded quite a bit in the two hundred years since Napoleon’s death. They’d also suffered some damage and tearing, so the emperor’s handwritten margin notes were illegible to the naked eye.”

“Go ahead, Murph,” Juan said. “I can see you’re dying to get to the kicker.”

Murph rubbed his hands together in glee. “I give you the missing diary pages.” He punched a key on his laptop and six book pages appeared on the display. They were frayed and worm-eaten, but Juan recognized them as having the same typography as the copy of The Odyssey he and Gretchen had taken from Malta.

Juan leaned forward. “Are we sure these are authentic?”

“One hundred percent,” Eric said. “The torn edges match up precisely with the missing pages in the diary. Marceau must have used their lab equipment to enhance the images artificially.”

“So Antonovich had the pages all along,” Gretchen said.

“Which is why he needed the diary,” Murph said. “These pages tell where the treasure is, but they’re incomplete.”

“You see those missing spots?” Eric said, pointing at the parts that had been chewed away over the years by pests. “They included some of the details that would help us find it. But it does confirm there is a treasure to be found.”

“Do the notes tell us anything about the location?” Max asked.

“Yes,” Gretchen said, getting to her feet. She traced one of Napoleon’s notes with her finger and translated the French. “Here it talks about a river that they followed on the retreat from Moscow. It’s called the Neris.”

Linda looked at Juan with a grin. “You called it, Chairman. They dumped the treasure in a river.”

“Where’s the Neris?” Juan asked.