Cryptonomicon

by Neal Stephenson

Harvard Li cranked out a few million PC clones in the early nineties and loaded them all with Windows, Word, and Excel—but somehow forgot to write any checks to Microsoft. About a year ago, Microsoft kicked his ass in court and won a huge judgment. Harvard claimed bankruptcy: he doesn’t have a penny to his name. Microsoft has been trying to prove he still has the odd billion or two salted away. Harvard Li has clearly been thinking very hard about how to put money where guys like Microsoft can’t get it. There are many time-honored ways: the Swiss bank account, the false-front corporation, the big real estate project in deepest, darkest China, bars of gold in a vault somewhere. Those tricks might work with the average government, but Microsoft is ten times smarter, a hundred times more aggressive, and bound by no particular rules. It gives Randy a little frisson just to imagine Harvard Li’s situation: being chased across the planet by Microsoft’s state-of-the-art hellhounds.

Baskin robbins