Mrs. Tesla was already moving toward the gurney. “My son.”
“You’ll have to move to the waiting area, ma’am.” The EMTs didn’t even look at her as they rushed forward.
“Is he alive?” Mrs. Tesla’s words boomed out toward them. She had the practiced rich voice of someone used to working onstage.
“He came to in the ambulance, answered some questions.” The man by Tesla’s feet gave her a quick smile. “They’ll do the best they can with him inside.”
The dog jumped out of the back of the ambulance and started after them. He held something metal in his mouth that jangled when he walked.
“Edison!” Vivian called, and he stopped.
The two EMTs whooshed through the doors and disappeared inside. She gestured to Dirk, and he followed them. His police badge would let him stay closer to Tesla in the hospital than she could. He couldn’t go into the operating room, but he could stand outside in the hall.
The dog looked between her and the disappearing gurney, a question in his eyes.
“You can’t go in there,” she told him. “Heel.”
The dog trotted over and put his head against her leg. Dried blood was caked on his muzzle, his paws, and his chest. His master’s blood. She positioned herself between the animal and Mrs. Tesla. Tesla’s mother didn’t need to see that.
She leaned down and took the object from his mouth. It was a giant key ring full of dozens of keys. She’d seen it before and knew that Tesla considered it irreplaceable. He used it to get through various locked doors underground. He’d probably used one of the keys to get into the basement of the hotel where he’d been attacked. She clipped it to her belt. “Good boy.”
Mrs. Tesla hadn’t moved from her station by the door, although she had sagged against Hollingberry. She looked as if she’d aged years in the minute since she’d seen her son go by.
The two EMTs came out the door and jumped into their ambulance before Vivian could corner them with her questions.
She called Andres Peterson, Tesla’s dog walker, and arranged for him to come get the dog and keep him until further notice, then walked over to Mrs. Tesla. Edison stayed close.
“Would you like to go inside, ma’am?”
Mrs. Tesla’s dark eyes met hers, and for an instant Vivian saw the fear there, but the woman blinked, and the expression was gone.
“Can we bring the dog in?” Hollingberry asked.
“He’s wearing a service vest. They can’t keep him out,” Vivian answered.
“Why didn’t he save my son?” she asked. “There’s not a mark on the dog.”
Vivian swallowed and told her all that Dirk had been able to find out. “My understanding is that the dog was shut inside of a wardrobe, knocked the door off the hinges, and went for help. He probably saved Mr. Tesla’s life.”
Mrs. Tesla crumpled to her knees and wrapped her hands around Edison. The dog was usually standoffish when he was in his vest, but right now he seemed to need Mrs. Tesla as much as she did him. He leaned into her embrace, then licked the tears off her cheeks.
Vivian looked away, not wanting to intrude on a private moment.
Chapter 33
Ash ground his teeth in frustration. After sending his last enigmatic text, Quantum had gone offline. He’d ditched his phone, and he wasn’t in any of his favorite online hangouts. Ash had sent men to his house and work, but Quantum wouldn’t be as easy to find as Geezer had been. Meanwhile, Joe Tesla had been badly wounded, and Ash still didn’t know where or what the device was. Quantum had said it was the Oscillator and that he had it in hand, but who knew how trustworthy he was?
So, here he was in the back of his limo on his way to the hospital to pretend he cared about Joe Tesla. If the wounded man was still alive, he might be able to give clues about what he’d found. Ash fiddled with his secure phone, hoping to find traces of Quantum, but the clever man stayed hidden. Instead, he verified that news of Joe’s accident had been posted on the Internet, so he could say that’s where he’d found it out. He found an article on the New York Post’s website: Multimillionaire Brained in Hotel Where Ancestor Died. If Joe ever read it, he’d be angry at being mentioned next to Nikola Tesla, and he wouldn’t like the use of the word brained either. Delightful.
“Shall I circle the block, sir?” His limo driver had parked and opened the door before Ash even noticed.
“I’ll text you when I need you.” He was out of the car and halfway across the sidewalk before he heard the door close.
It didn’t take long to find Joe’s room in a long corridor. Two people stood guard outside—a man and a woman, both around six feet tall. No chairs for them. They stood practically at attention. Retired military.
He approached them casually, like a man who didn’t expect trouble.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go beyond this point.” The Amazon had a gun visible under her jacket, and she stood like someone who knew how to use it.
“It’s OK,” Ash said. “I’m a close friend of Mr. Tesla.”
“You have my sympathy, sir, but you’re not going through that door.” She took his arm, and he tried to shake her off, but she wouldn’t let go.
The man who’d been stationed on the other side of the door looked over at them as if ready to intervene to help her out, maybe tear Ash’s head off if necessary. He wouldn’t be bullying his way into the room. New tactics were called for.
“Let’s start over.” Ash held out his hand. “Mr. Alan Wright. You may have heard of me.”
The woman did not shake his hand. “Vivian Torres. If you’re lucky, you haven’t heard of me either.”
Ash was irritated. He was well known in New York and one of the richest men in the world. “I’ve known Mr. Tesla for many years, and I’d like to see how he’s doing.”
“I understand that, sir.” She planted herself between him and the door and forced him back a step. “But only family is allowed in at this time.”
He thought of making a scene, but his efforts might be better spent looking into this Vivian Torres, seeing what leverage over her he could find online. Fighting a long game instead of a skirmish here. “Is he going to be OK? Is he conscious?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer those questions, Mr. Wright.”
“Is Edison all right?”
Her expression thawed by half a degree. Nobody could resist a man who cared about dogs. “The dog is fine. And I’ll inform Mr. Tesla of your visit when he wakes up.”
So, Joe hadn’t regained consciousness yet. A good sign.
He tried to imagine Joe Tesla without the use of his magnificent brain and felt no pity. He’d had his chance, and he’d squandered it. He could have done great things.
Maybe he still could, but given the worry on Ms. Torres’s face, that was no longer a certainty.
Chapter 34
Vivian looked through the glass at Tesla in his bed. He’d been tested, admitted, and brought to this private room hours before. His mother sat in the room’s only chair. Hollingberry had pulled it up next to the bed and fussed over her for a while, but had recently left to get everyone coffee. Mrs. Tesla held Joe’s hand, her eyes never leaving his face.
He looked terrible. He was always pale, but now his skin looked as translucent as a vampire’s. Even his lips were pale. A bandage on the back of his head covered where they’d stitched up his scalp. After running him through a CT scan, they’d announced that he had no skull fracture, but he did have traumatic brain injury. He would recover, but it would take time and rest.
He’d woken up a few times, asking about Edison and talking about Nikola Tesla. Vivian had looked the name up on her phone and found out that the guy had been dead since before the end of World War II. That couldn’t be a good sign.
She wondered how he’d react to being out of his familiar surroundings when he woke up all the way. She’d seen him have a panic attack before, in the middle of the day in a familiar situation. In a place he’d never been and with a head injury, we
ll, she didn’t like to think about what might happen.
Tesla’s eyes opened again, and his mother spoke to him. He answered, and she pressed the button behind his head to summon a nurse.
“I’m going in,” Vivian told Dirk. She handed him the piece of paper that listed the doctors and nurses who were authorized to go into Tesla’s room. “He’s awake again. Maybe this time he’ll be conscious enough to tell us who hit him.”
“It’s not so bad,” Dirk said. “You can stop kicking your own ass, Viv.”
She hadn’t said a single word to indicate how guilty she felt, but Dirk knew her well. Tesla had been injured on her watch.
“I might just kick his ass,” she said. “For getting himself into trouble.”
Dirk gave her a smile, flashing his trademark dimple, and she had to smile back before going into the hospital room.
Mrs. Tesla looked at Vivian. “He wants to know about Edison again.”
“Edison is with Andres Peterson, and he’s completely fine, Mr. Tesla. Not a mark on him.” She’d told him that three times already.
Tesla looked toward the curtained window. Vivian had drawn the curtains as soon as the doctors had left, not wanting him to see the sky outside when he woke up and panic. He had enough to worry about without that.
His gaze drifted around as he took in the room. “Where am I?”
“Hospital.” His mother patted his arm. “You’re safe.”
Tesla’s eyes met Vivian’s. “How can I get home?”
Before she could say anything, a quick rap on the door announced a visitor. She tensed.
“I cleared him,” called Dirk from the door.
That meant that his name was on the list, and he’d been patted down for weapons, but she didn’t relax.
“Dr. Nigel Winterbottom.” A pudgy white guy in a lab coat stepped into the room. “I’ve been assigned Mr. Tesla’s case.”
“What’s your specialty?” Vivian had memorized the names and specialties of all of Tesla’s doctors and nurses.
Winterbottom glared at her in the condescending way of every doctor she’d met. “Neurologist. I’m here to examine my patient.”
She stepped away from him. She knew Winterbottom was the neurologist’s name, and he was definitely behaving like a doctor.
The doctor strode across the room toward the bed, but at the last second he pivoted and pulled open the curtains.
Tesla leaped out of the bed as if the light scalded him. He listed to the side and fell to his knees behind the bed. He yanked out his IV. Blood spattered across the back of his hand.
He lunged toward the door. His blue eyes were huge and panicked—nobody home. The smartest man she’d ever met, and there was no trace of intelligence in those eyes. Just terror.
Chapter 35
Quantum studied the elevated train tracks. He was at Tenth Avenue and Thirtieth Street. The tracks above him hadn’t been used for years, and they were due to be opened as another part of the elevated High Line park next year, but for now they were empty.
Behind him trains rattled along the tracks at the West Side Yard, and in front of him the traffic on Thirtieth Street roared by. He’d picked this busy location because nobody would notice him standing around with his hand in his pocket. He’d scouted the area, and he’d seen no surveillance cameras that spied on this particular spot. He was invisible, a rare thing in the city these days.
He’d sell the device to Ash soon, but first he wanted to know what price to set. If the device worked, and he could prove it, then the $100K on offer was too low. If it didn’t, he could collect his Bitcoins and leave Ash holding a hundred-year-old hoax. He smiled. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than Ash.
For a test subject, he wanted something that was big and dramatic enough to show to Ash later, but not something that would cause a huge loss of life. That would attract too much attention. This unopened part of the High Line park was a perfect testing ground.
Steel support columns soared up from ground level to the tracks above. They’d been built in the 1930s and abandoned in the 1980s. After their closure, people had tried to get the tracks torn down. That hadn’t worked. A grassroots movement had worked to have the elevated tracks converted into a park. A lot of money had been spent, the park was named High Line, and now people wandered around up there enjoying nature. This particular set of tracks hadn’t been opened to the public yet. Nobody was up there. They were waiting for the grass to grow or something.
He patted the riveted steel affectionately. It had stood for a long time, and the time had come to see if he could bring it down. From his backpack he took wooden clamps and attached the base of the device to the steel beam. He’d chosen wood since it would resonate at a different frequency than the steel.
Before he turned the device on, he paused. If the statements that Tesla gave when he was an old man were true, then when the Oscillator hit the right frequency for long enough the steel column would shatter like a wine glass next to an opera singer. Others had tried to build the device from the description in Tesla’s early patent, but it had never worked. Maybe he’d sabotaged the patent on purpose, and this device would work.
With a shrug, he turned the device on and started to tune it. He’d looked up the resonant frequency of steel, and he dialed it in now. A few minutes later, the steel shivered the tiniest bit, as if cold.
A quick glance around assured him that no one cared what he was up to. He loved the self-absorption of New Yorkers, and he was going to miss them when he left. Maybe he could come back in a couple of years.
He sat with his back against the beam and went online. He’d bought a new burner phone after he’d ditched the last one. He logged into the darknet and cycled through the chat rooms Spooky used. Geezer, who usually visited often, hadn’t been around since yesterday. Did he suspect that Ash or Quantum might have recovered the device? It seemed to mean a lot to him, although Quantum wasn’t sure why. Geezer wasn’t the type to knock things down—he liked to lecture people on the error of their ways like some fusty professor.
Geezer hadn’t been around, but Ash had. He’d left coded messages for Quantum. He wanted him to turn over the device as per their agreement. He didn’t seem upset by Joe’s injuries. The guy hadn’t died, yet, although he was “in serious condition” according to various online news sources. Quantum hoped he pulled through. There’d be less fuss.
A train pulled into the train yard next door, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Best way to remain invisible in New York was to mind your own business, especially by staring at the screen of a phone. Everyone was a phone zombie these days.
The steel behind him quivered. He pressed his back harder against it. He felt a quick pulse through his T-shirt. The steel had come alive.
This was as far as MythBusters had gotten. When they built their own Oscillator and hooked it up to a bridge, the steel vibrated, but nothing else happened. Or at least that’s what they said on the show. If it had started to affect the bridge’s structure, he bet they would have covered that up. Not a good idea to broadcast how to knock down bridges.
He had to figure out a way to get the Bitcoins before he dropped off the device. He didn’t trust Ash. He’d wanted to believe in him as a crusader for the environment and freedom, but after Ash had threatened to expose his identity, he had no choice but to view him as a crook on a power trip. Or maybe a powerful guy on a power trip. Dangerous either way.
The steel behind him shivered more violently now. That hadn’t happened on MythBusters.
He stood and stared up at the structure above. The tracks themselves seemed to shiver, as if they, too, were affected by the oscillation in this one beam. He touched the device, trying to decide whether to turn it off, and it burned his fingers.
He sucked on his fingers, trying to decide what to do. If he turned it off now, all he’d know was that the device caused low-level vibrations in steel. That wasn’t particularly valuable or interesting.
An ominous crack soun
ded from above. He jerked his head up. Rust and dirt rained down on him. The column creaked.
His jaw dropped open. He hadn’t really expected the device to work. Another crack sounded from the elevated tracks, and the pieces of rust and dirt were larger than before.
Good enough. He tried to turn the device off. The damn dial wouldn’t turn. Hard to believe that the famous Nikola Tesla had built something with such an obvious flaw. He unscrewed the clamps and caught the Oscillator in his shirt before it hit the pavement. The creaking slowed as he dumped the hot device in his bag.
A siren sounded down the street, heading right toward him. He cut across the street and walked until he found a good working-class bar that smelled of beer and wood.
He ordered a shot of whiskey and drank it in one gulp. The bartender, a slight man wearing a denim shirt straight out of the seventies, held up the bottle to ask if he wanted another. He nodded, but let the second shot sit on the bar.
Sirens converged on the elevated tracks. It sounded as if they were going to exactly the spot where he had attached the device.
He swallowed the second shot of whiskey. The device in his bag was the most powerful thing he’d ever held. Nikola Tesla had been right. It could bring down the Empire State Building, or anything else.
Did he really want to give someone like Ash that power?
Chapter 36
Joe had to get away from the window. Light reached across the carpet with flaming claws. They would rip him open and kill him.
Blinding pain flashed down from his head. It didn’t matter. He would feel it later. Now he had to escape. He had to escape, or he would die.
He lurched across the carpet away from the light, but something caught him. A heavy bar rested against his throat. His legs collapsed under him as he fought to get away. The bar pressed in relentlessly, choking off his air. He grabbed at it. The bar felt warm under his fingers, like skin. He tore at it, but it did not move.
Darkness replaced the pain in his head. He liked darkness better than light, but he fought it anyway. He had to get away.
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