Cryptonomicon

time I don't even have a girlfriend per se.'

'Well,' Avi says, 'to begin with, I think it's better to aspire to having Amy than to actually have Charlene.'

'Ouch! You are a cruel man.'

'Sometimes wanting is better than having.'

'Well, that's good news,' Randy says brightly, 'because-'

'Look at Chester. Would you rather be Chester, or you?'

'Okay, okay.'

'Also, you have a substantial amount of stock in Epiphyte, which I'm quite convinced is worth something.'

'Well, that all depends on the lawsuit, right?' Randy says. 'Have you actually seen any of the documents?'

'Of course I have,' Avi says, irked. 'I'm the president and CEO of the fucking corporation.'

'Well, what's his beef? What's the pretext for the lawsuit?'

'Apparently the Dentist is convinced that Semper Marine has stumbled upon some kind of vast hoard of sunken war gold, as a direct byproduct of the work they did for us.'

'He knows this, or he suspects this?'

'Well,' Avi says, 'reading between the lines, I gather that he only suspects it. Why do you ask?'

'Never mind for now-but he's going after Semper Marine, too?'

'No! That would rule out the lawsuit he's filing against Epiphyte.'

'What do you mean?'

'His point is that if Epiphyte had been competently managed-if we had exercised due diligence-then we would have drawn up a much more thorough contract with Semper Marine than we did.'

'We've got a contract with Semper Marine.'

'Yes,' Avi says, 'and Andrew Loeb is disparaging it as little better than a handshake agreement. He asserts that we should have turned negotiations over to a big-time law firm with expertise in maritime and salvage law. That such a law firm would have anticipated the possibility that the sidescan sonar plots created by Semper Marine for the cable project would reveal something like a sunken wreck.'

'Oh, Jesus Christ!'

Avi gets a look of forced patience. 'Andrew has produced, as exhibits, actual copies of actual contracts that other companies made in similar circumstances, which all contain such language. He argues it's practically boilerplate stuff, Randy.'

'I.e., that it's gross negligence to have failed to put it in our contract with Semper.'

'Precisely. Now, Andrew's lawsuit can't go anywhere unless there are some damages. Can you guess what the damages are in this case?'

'If we'd made a better contract, then Epiphyte would own a share of what is salvaged from the submarine. As it is, we, and the shareholders, get nothing. Which constitutes obvious damages.'

'Andrew Loeb himself could not have put it any better.'

'Well, what do they expect us to do about it? It's not like the corporation has deep pockets. We can't give them a cash settlement.'

'Oh, Randy, it's not about that. It's not like the Dentist needs our cigar box full of petty cash. It's a control thing.'

'He wants a majority share in Epiphyte.'

'Yes. Which is a good thing!'

Randy throws back his head and laughs.

'The Dentist can have any company he wants,' says Avi, 'but he wants Epiphyte. Why? Because we are badass, Randy. We have got the Crypt contract. We have got the talent. The prospect of running the world's first proper data haven, and creating the world's first proper digital currency, is fantastically exciting.'

'Well, I can't tell you how excited I am.'

'You should never forget what a fundamentally strong position we are in. We are like the sexiest girl in the world. And all of this bad behavior on the Dentist's part is just his way of showing that he wants to mate with us.'

'And control us.'

'Yes. I'm sure that Andrew has been ordered to produce an outcome in which we are found negligent, and liable for damage. And then upon looking into our books the court will find that the damages exceed our ability to pay. At which point the Dentist will magnanimously agree to take his payment in the form of Epiphyte stock.'

'Which will strike everyone as poetic justice because it will also enable him to take control of the company and make sure it's managed competently.'

Avi nods.

'So, that's why he's not going up against Semper Marine. Because if he recovers anything from them, it renders his beef against us null and void.'

'Right. Although, that would not prevent him from suing them later, after he's gotten what he wanted from us.'

'So-Jesus! This is perverse,' Randy says. 'Every valuable item that the Shaftoes pull up from that wreck actually gets us in deeper trouble.'

'Every nickel that the Shaftoes make is a nickel of damages that we allegedly inflicted on the shareholders.'

'I wonder if we can get the Shaftoes to suspend the salvage operation.'

'Andrew Loeb has no case against us,' Avi says, 'unless he can prove that the contents of that wreck are worth something. If the Shaftoes keep bringing stuff up, that's easy. If they stop bringing stuff up, then Andrew will have to establish the value of the wreck in some other way.'

Randy grins. 'That's going to be really difficult for him to do, Avi. The Shaftoes don't even know what's down there. Andrew probably doesn't even have the coordinates of the wreck.'

'There is a latitude and longitude specified in the lawsuit.'

'Fuck! To how many decimal places?'

'I don't remember. The precision didn't reach out and poke me in the eye.'

'How the hell did the Dentist learn about this wreck? Doug has been trying to keep it secret. And he knows a few things about operational secrecy.'

'You yourself told me,' Avi says, 'that the Shaftoes have brought in a German television producer. That doesn't sound like secrecy to me.'

'But it is. They flew this woman into Manila, put her on board Glory IV.Allowed her to take minimal baggage. Went through her stuff to verify she didn't have a GPS. Took her out into the South China Sea and ran in circles for a while so she couldn't even use dead reckoning. Then took her to the site.'

'I've been on Glory.It's got GPS readouts all over the place.'

'No, they didn't let her see any of that stuff. There's no way a guy like Doug Shaftoe would screw this up.'

'Well,' Avi says, 'the Germans aren't the most plausible source for the leak anyway. Do you remember the Bolobolos?'

'Filipino syndicate that used to pimp for Victoria Vigo, the Dentist's wife. Probably set up the liaison between her and Kepler. Hence, presumably, still has influence over the Dentist.'

'I would phrase it differently. I would say that they have a long standing relationship with the Dentist that probably works both ways. And I'm thinking that they got wind of the salvage operation somehow. Maybe a high- ranking Bolobolo overheard something in the German television producer's hotel. Maybe a low-ranking one has been keeping an eye on the Shaftoes, taking note of the special equipment they've been shipping in.'

Randy nods. 'That works. Supposedly the Bolobolos have a big presence at NAIA. They would notice something like an underwater ROV being rush-shipped to Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe. So I'll buy that.'

'Okay.'

'But that wouldn't give them the latitude and longitude.'

'I'll bet you half of my valuable stock in Epiphyte Corp. that they used SPOT for that.'