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“We’re three-quarters full,” the XO answered.
“That’s enough,” Yu said. “Inform the tanker captain to wait to refuel us for the return trip. If we aren’t here in one week, we won’t be coming back.”
The XO shot him a grave look and then nodded. “Understood, Admiral.”
“Detach the fuel lines. Make ready to dive the boat.”
The sailors scrambled to finish their work and get inside the sub. When Yu saw that he was the last on deck, he climbed down the ladder to the control room.
“Emergency dive!” he ordered.
The Klaxon sounded, and the ballast tanks filled with water. He watched through the periscope as the Wuzong slipped beneath the surface. The tip of the sailboat came into view just before the scope was swallowed by the waves. They’d made it without being seen.
The next stop was the rendezvous with Tate and the long-deserved destruction of the Oregon.
“Set course for Tierra del Fuego,” Yu said. “Maximum speed.”
48
NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE AMAZON RIVER
It took a day to get the Oregon off the Amazon and back into the Atlantic. The only stop the ship made was to drop Michael Bradley in Macapá, where he could contact the American military attaché and arrange a flight back to the U.S. Juan didn’t want to risk a bystander’s life any longer, no matter how brave or qualified he might be. He imagined that the Navy would have a lot of questions for Bradley when he returned, and Juan left it to the SEAL to reveal whatever he deemed necessary.
Once they were safely away from the Brazilian coast, Juan went to Mark Murphy’s door and knocked. Normally, he’d expect to hear heavy metal blasting from the cabin combined with explosions and gunfire from a first-person shooter video game. Instead, it sounded like dialogue from a movie he vaguely recognized.
Murph yelled, “Door’s open!”
Juan went in and saw Murph, Eric, and Hali watching a film on the room’s wide-screen TV. Trays piled with dishes of half-eaten food and empty cans of Red Bull were scattered around the black leather sofa, and Murph and Eric were sitting on the floor with backs leaning against the couch. Each had a laptop on his knees and another on the carpet next to him. Hali was sitting on the couch, munching a club sandwich.
“Am I interrupting movie night?” Juan asked as he watched the screen. Then he realized that the movie playing was The Princess Bride. But in this case, all of the major male characters’ faces had been replaced with the face of Shrek. Although it was strange to hear the green ogre say, “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya,” the effect was seamless.
“Hey, Chairman,” Murph said. “Hali stopped by to help us with the deepfake technology that Tate has been using to mask his identity on voice chat.”
“At least you’re not using my face this time,” Juan said.
“We wanted to see if we could substitute anything we wanted,” Hali said.
“What’s the purpose?”
Eric sat up and brushed crumbs from his button-down shirt and khakis. “I read a story in the news that malware can be used to trick radiologists into thinking someone has cancer. They use the deepfake-type software to infect computer-scanned MRI or CT images and make it look like there is a tumor on the screen.”
“Or to remove one entirely so that the radiologist thinks the patient doesn’t have cancer,” Hali added.
Juan shook his head. “Scary, but where does that get us?”
“Murph and I think we can insert malware into the video chat data stream,” Eric said. “The intent is to disable his deepfake technology. Hali is here to help us figure out how to use the chat’s feedback loop to launch the software without Tate knowing.”
“Would he realize that the deepfake had been disabled?”
Hali shrugged. “I guess we could make it so that it still looks like it’s working on his end even though disabled on ours.”
“Good work, gentlemen,” Juan said, his mind churning through the possibilities that the malware raised. “I have an idea how we might use that. Let me know when you’ve got it up and running. Now, to the work you were supposed to be doing?”
Murph held up his hands in a gesture that said My bad. “The translation of Horváth’s notebooks wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be. The Hungarian is a bit difficult for the scanner to decipher because of his handwriting, but the real issue is that he used some sort of code. I wrote an algorithm to decrypt it, and it’s running now. Should be done in a half hour. I can’t promise how complete it will be. Some of the pages were severely mildewed.”
“And the captain’s log?”
Eric handed him a stack of paper. “Here it is. I also emailed it to you. Some interesting stuff in there.”
