The Emperor's Revenge

FIFTY-SEVEN

At nine a.m. the next morning, Eddie, Linc, and Murph checked in at the reception desk of Dijkstra Industries, headquartered in a stately Gothic stone building in the center of town. As they were escorted to the CEO’s office, Eddie noticed that the Dijkstras had spared no expense on the antiques lining the halls. It was decorated like an elegant royal palace and, as far as Eddie knew, it might have been one.

The CEO’s office was even more ornately furnished. A reed-thin man in his late twenties leaned on the desk, talking on his phone. He waved them in with two fingers. The three of them stood as they waited for his call to finish. After a few more words in Dutch, the man hung up the phone.

“Gustaaf Dijkstra,” he said in a regal tone as he stood and shook their hands. “Oskar Dijkstra was my father. You are Edward Seng, Franklin Lincoln, and Mark Murphy, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Eddie said. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, it’s been difficult for all of us. My cousin Niels is sorry he couldn’t be here, but he’s in Singapore negotiating a large shipping contract. He threw himself back into work after the funeral of my uncle Lars.” Gustaaf paused to shake his head slowly. “So, you think Maxim Antonovich had my father killed?”

“We don’t have any conclusive evidence that he was responsible,” Murph said, “but we’re sure his people did it.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“According to the forensic team analyzing the wreckage,” Linc said, “there’s evidence that the plane’s wing was heated from the outside before it caught fire. A high-powered laser would leave that exact signature.”

Gustaaf frowned. “I thought the crash was suspicious, but a laser?”

“You saw the video we sent of the Achilles,” Eddie said. “I’m guessing we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t. Antonovich’s yacht brought down your father’s plane with the same laser that was used in the video of the Narwhal’s sinking.”

“I don’t know where you got that video, but all I saw were missiles exploding in midair. I couldn’t tell why.”

“Then why are you helping us?” asked Linc.

“Because I very clearly saw the Achilles destroy the Narwhal. I have no idea why Antonovich would want to kill my father and sink one of our ships. Ownership of the joint venture remains fifty-fifty even with my father’s and uncle’s deaths, so assassination makes no sense for Antonovich. However, I do know that I don’t trust him.”

“But you trust us?”

“As your chairman suggested, I called the Kuwaiti emir, who is a friend of our family. He was very impressed with the job your company did for him and recommended your services very highly. If he trusts you, I trust you. And if Antonovich is behind my father’s death, he might be coming after me and Niels next. I’m not about to sit back and wait for that to happen.”

There was a knock at the office door and a young woman entered, carrying a roll of blueprints.

“Thank you, Yvonne,” Gustaaf said, taking the plans from her. “Please close the door behind you on the way out.”

He spread the papers on his desk and invited the rest of them closer.

“As you requested, these are the floor plans of the European Continental Control Hub. It’s a high-security facility, with fingerprint and retinal scan access pads at all the doors. No one gets in if they’re not in the system.”

“Unless you’re on a tour,” Murph corrected.

“Yes. The tour will show off the main features of the Control Hub. If you’re suspicious that Antonovich and this ShadowFoe hacker intend to hack the electrical grid, they’d have to do it from the command center.”

The command center, located at the heart of the facility, was a large room containing over three dozen monitoring stations and a wall-sized screen mapping out the entire European grid.

“Are you sure we can’t get this tour canceled or postponed?” Eddie asked.

As their Chairman had guessed, the warnings fell on deaf ears. The European electrical authorities weren’t going to tick off one of their biggest suppliers on the basis of rumors and hearsay.

“I can cancel my participation in the tour,” Gustaaf said, “but if Antonovich wants to go forward with it this afternoon, I’m sure they won’t say no.”

“Then it’s important that you don’t cancel. We need to be there when he and ShadowFoe are. We’ll have to be ready for anything.”

“But what could they do? Even Antonovich, and anyone he’s with, couldn’t get inside without being screened. They can’t possibly be armed, and there are guards everywhere.”

“Believe us, they’ll have a plan to account for that,” Linc said.

“They’ll need access to the computers,” Murph said, “which means they’ll have to subdue the workers inside the command center somehow. No way ShadowFoe could hack into the system without anyone noticing.”

“This all sounds so absurd,” Gustaaf said, “but I’m willing to take you with me if it means we can stop them.”

“That’s all we ask,” Eddie said. “We’d like to take some time to go over these plans so we can come up with some possible scenarios they might use and develop our countermeasures. Will it be any trouble getting us in with you?

Gustaaf shook his head. “I’ve already arranged for employee IDs for all of you, so—” He was interrupted by his phone. “It’s my contact at the Control Hub.”

Eddie couldn’t understand what Gustaaf was saying in rapid-fire Dutch, but when the young businessman’s eyes went wide, he knew it couldn’t be good.

“Antonovich is on his way to the Control Hub,” Gustaaf told them. “He asked them to push up the tour to this morning as a last-minute request.”

“Right now?” Murph said.

Gustaaf nodded. “His helicopter is about to take off from the airport to fly to the Control Hub.”

“Please tell me you have a chopper, too,” Linc said.

“Of course. It’s at the airport. But the Control Hub is in the other direction, near a small town called Terlinden.”

“How far is that?” Eddie asked.

“Twenty kilometers,” Gustaaf said. “We can be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Have your car brought around. We need to go.”

“I bet I can get us there faster than twenty minutes,” Linc said.

Murph was already rolling up the building plans to look at in the car. As they hurried out of the office, Eddie called the Oregon.

The Chairman asked, “Did you get in to see Gustaaf?”

“We did, but we’re just leaving. At this moment, Antonovich is on his way to the Control Hub. We are, too.”

“So he moved up the timetable even more. Smart. Luckily, so did we.”

“You’ve caught up to the Achilles?”

“We’ve got them on the screen, right in the crosshairs.” Eddie could hear the satisfaction in the Chairman’s voice. “And Golov has no idea we can see them.”