No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2)

by Mark E Becker

  NO CORNER

  TO HIDE

  MARK E. BECKER

  No Corner To Hide by Mark E. Becker

  Library of Congress Case #

  Copyright © 2016 Mark E. Becker

  Published by New Genre Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an article or review.

  First Traditional Printing 2016

  ISBN:

  Cover and Interior Design: GKS Creative

  Printed in the United States of America

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, plot, and dialogue are products of the author’s creativity and are not intended to be interpreted as true. Any resemblance to actual persons, alive or deceased, is entirely coincidental.

  ii NO CORNER TO HIDE

  Dedication/Acknowledgment

  I want to thank my many friends and family who first encouraged me to write, and who read the manuscript. The brutally honest critics made me a better writer, and the rest gave me the support I needed to take the story that was rattling around inside of my head and give it release.

  I have no investment in the words. I do have an investment in the story.

  Now, let me tell you about a guy who is not a politician who just happens to be the President of the United States... iii

  u

  PROLOGUE

  S

  am? Are you home?” Nikola Tesla paid a visit to his friend and occasional mentor, Samuel Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain. The humorist and writer sat on a wicker glider in his undershirt and ever-present suspenders. He was barefoot and

  smoking his favorite pipe. After a pause that made Tesla fidget, Clemens exhaled a cloud of rum-scented tobacco and sighed.

  “I’m in plain view, you mad scientist. If it wasn’t me, I’d make a damnable ghost of me, and if you make me lose my place, I’ll … Oh, tarnation!” He laid the section of the New York Times on the previously-read stack at his side, and turned his attention to the source of the disturbance.

  “Well, I come for a purpose,” Tesla responded quickly in his Croatian accent. He was immaculately dressed, even though the temperature suggested casual. The inventor-genius clutched a large file under his arm. The word, GOVERNMENT was boldly inked onto the cover. Clemens drew on his pipe and languidly exhaled a cloud of smoke as he surveyed his visitor’s appearance and obvious state of agitation. “Well . . . come on in and sit awhile, and we can talk about it,” he croaked. He shooed his spaniel, Blue, off the wingback chair at his side with a soft whack of the thick Sunday version of the New York Times still rolled up in his lap.

  Tesla chose a stiff straight-backed chair and pulled it close to Clemens’ bare feet, causing his friend to peer at him between his toes. “You are the most peculiar man I have ever met. I know you’re smart and all, but peculiar just the same. I like that in a person.” Tesla smiled. Clemens had broken the ice in the most disarming of ways, a talent he had developed from years of public speaking. If you can get them to laugh, your audience of one or one hundred will relax, and they will like you for it. Call it entertainment. I got him to relax, but I’ll be damned if I know what this is all about.

  “You want a cigar or something to drink? How ’bout some lemonade?”

  “No, I can’t stay long,” Tesla said nervously. His eyes shifted. The dark circles beneath his eyes betrayed a lack of sleep. I wonder how long it’s been since that head touched a pillow. Clemens was concerned, but he had known his young friend to forego sleep for days when his mind was working on a project. It seemed to be his way of living.

  “Well, then spit it out. What you got in that suspicious folder with Government written on it? If you have come here to tell me that you have invented something that will take the place of politicians, it might cause me to get up from this chair and vigorously shake your hand . . .”

  Tesla interrupted, not one to banter. “I have here a cure for some of the ills of mankind, and I want you to give it to him next week.”

  “Who? Who do you want me to give it to, and what is this danged thing?”

  “You are meeting next week, with our young president, this Mr. Roosevelt . . . I read it in the paper. My invention. I want you to give it to him.”

  “Now Nick, you need to slow down. I need to figure out what we’re dealing with here,” said Clemens, more accustomed to moseying than engaging in direct discourse. “What I’m saying is, Son, you gotta start at the beginning, because it’s early in the day, and I haven’t had my first drink, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He raised in his chair, but in his present state of comfort, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Sam, I’m good at making things. I think big thoughts. I dream in colors. I plan things in my mind. I think things that other people don’t. I don’t explain things very well.” Tesla was quickly becoming exasperated.

  Clemens saw that his guest was nervous. He believed the words, as his experience with geniuses had led him to the conclusion that they were incapable of deception, and had no concept of it. They were awful communicators, socially inept, and honest to a fault. They had an intense need to get their thoughts known, without the capitalist concept of making money from their ideas. Their satisfaction was the creation part. What happened beyond that was for others to exploit, and Tesla had experienced more than his share of that.

  “Sam.”

  Nikola Tesla stood, and extended the folder.

  “This is my gift to our country.”

  “What is it, Son, and why do you want me to give it to Theodore Roosevelt, for God’s sakes? I have heard that he’s crazy as a bedbug, and that he likes to go around doing these feats of strength and . . .”

  “My friend, this is my life’s accomplishment, and I entrust it to you.” Tesla waited for Clemens to accept the folder. He pulled out the contents and perused them. After many minutes, he looked at Tesla with a stern gaze. “I write books. I have no idea of what this is.”

  “The papers in your hands describe free energy.”

  “What does that mean?” Clemens broke his gaze to reach for his lemonade, and took a big gulp.

  “You will never need to rely upon coal to heat your house or oil to supply power to light Mr. Edison’s lamps, or Mr. Westinghouse’s generators. The energy comes from the earth.”

  Clemens gave a sigh, resigning himself to the idea that he would have to raise himself from his lounging chair to properly deal with Tesla’s dilemma. “What I think you’re telling me is that I hold in my hands an invention that will change the world for the better, but there’s no money in it.”

  “Yes, I have learned that unless I can show my investors a profit, they are not interested. Just yesterday, Pierpont Morgan refused more funds for my Wardencyffe project on Long Island. . . . You know, my project to transmit power over long distances without the use of wires. I did not understand why, until he told me the reason. He has the monopoly on the copper that they put in the wires, and he would lose money . . .” Tesla stood and advanced toward the pitcher of lemonade. He poured himself a glass and drank it all, not pausing to take a breath until he had finished.

  “I was on the verge of making the project a success, and he shut it down. He told all of his friends, Westinghouse is one of them, to refuse to fund my projects. He owns all of them, and they own me.” Tesla hung his head in frustration. “By doing good, I have made many enemies.”

  “So wha
t makes you think that Theodore Roosevelt, that upstart from New York, won’t just steal your idea and dole it out to the highest bidder? He’s as much a silver spoon as the rest of them.” The conversation had struck a chord with the famous author, who had failed at every financial enterprise he had attempted in his long career.

  “I don’t know where to turn. This is a gift to my adopted country, and I want people to be the better from it. I read that this man believes that the president is the steward of the people and he should take any action necessary for the public good. If I cannot trust him, I cannot trust anyone.” The sorrow and frustration was reflected in Tesla’s dark eyes.

  “I’m kinda soured on inventions myself, but I’ll do your bidding. I got roped into going down to Washington next week to meet our Theodore Roosevelt, like they do whenever they take office. I’ll make sure he gets it. One thing, though. Nick, why don’t you just go down there and give it to him yourself?”

  “I was not invited, but you were. Even though I am an American, I remain a foreigner to these rich and powerful men, and they are watching me.”

  u u u

  At the end of his life, long after Clemens had passed, Nikola Tesla laid on his deathbed. Within minutes of his arrival at the emergency room, Tesla’s condition had been diagnosed: Heart failure. He was summarily dispatched to a hospital room by gurney, clutching a box of his beloved Ritz crackers. In his latter years, the crackers were the mainstay of his diet, when he took time from his experiments to eat.

  If the contents of the box had been analyzed, the chemical testing would never reveal that the crackers were laced with a tincture derived from the root of a common plant that grew in the northern forests north of New York, a plant known by the locals as Monkshood. Modern laboratory testing in 1943 lacked the sophistication to detect it: The symptoms, sweating, dizziness, breathing difficulty, and tingling up the left arm into the shoulder, all were the same as a heart attack.

  There was one unique characteristic that Monkshood possessed; it caused mouth numbness and rendered the victim mute. Even if Tesla knew he had been poisoned, he would have been unable to communicate his condition to his doctors. He would die there by the end of the day, never to return to his New York hotel room.

  Within minutes of Tesla’s departure by ambulance, the Nazi spies converged in a well-coordinated effort and picked the simple lock with practiced and expert swiftness. Once inside, they began sorting through Tesla’s files in a desperate effort to find the plans to the weapon that had the potential to change the course of the war and ensure world dominance for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. It was not the first attempt, and they were not alone. Previous efforts to obtain the plans for the death ray had been fruitless. The last break-in at Tesla’s laboratory had resulted in a confrontation with another team of intruders in the darkness, but they all left empty-handed. There were no plans.

  The Germans wanted the project the press had named the “Death Ray”, an invention that Tesla claimed would end all wars. The rest of the technology became irrelevant to their desperate quest, and it would be left behind for the vultures who were employed by industrialists intent upon making another fortune from his brilliance. This time, the Nazi spies had an advantage over the rest. They had poisoned him, and all they had to do was watch from the hotel across the street for the ambulance to arrive to take the great inventor away.

  The most recent spying was political and military in nature, but there were others. There had always been someone who watched and waited. It was a long-term stalking, always waiting for the next invention. The last project to fail for lack of funding, the project to wirelessly transmit electricity, had the potential to surpass the profits derived from all of the other projects combined, but he had perfected it without the support of the Robber Barons. Tesla’s lifelong experience of creating inventions and making them work only to have his ideas stolen, had made him wary. Of more than two hundred patents Tesla had obtained over his lifetime, the most profitable inventions were stolen. While they made millions from his brilliance, he had struggled. Out of frustration, he began keeping his ideas organized in his head in intricate detail, where he could protect and revise them. His brilliant mind became a safe which no intruder could crack. He had never drawn a schematic or put notes on paper. The death ray lived in intricate detail inside his mind, but when he was gone, his creations would go with him.

  Within minutes of the news of Tesla’s rush to the hospital by ambulance, they were all there, clamoring to get into the apartment and fighting with each other like Christmas shoppers at a fifty-percent-off sale. A gunshot stopped the commotion as uniformed officers emerged from a large truck. Without a word, they produced hand trucks and brandished guns. The crowd became silent, and parted. One officer produced a badge and announced, “We are from the Alien Property Office. You are ordered to disperse. We are seizing the contents of this room on behalf of the United States government.”

  u u u

  As he drew his last breaths, Tesla smiled with private satisfaction. His best invention, the Tesla Generator, had never been patented. He had seen many others disappear from the patent office over the years. Radio. Radar. Alternating current. They were all his inventions, and they had all been patented and promptly stolen by the scavengers who could envision how to make a profit. They made fortunes from his genius, but he would die broke.

  This time, he retained that cherished idea in his head. Every detail was there for him to see; his synesthetic memory kept it in extreme detail. The only plans for the generator that would remain, after death had extinguished his thoughts forever, had been given in trust to the president of the United States many years before. The vultures could pick over what they wanted, but the invention that would be his ultimate legacy would remain entrusted to the American people.

  They must build it. My generator will make the world a better place.

  M

  ax Masterson stood on the balcony on the brisk, clear, November night. It was the kind of evening that made you think about how big the universe is, and how insignificant we are: tiny fleas on a small planet somewhere in the

  vastness of it all. The day before he had hope, but now he knew how the presidential election would end.

  Only a week before, the babbling incumbent had been dragged out of the debate feet first, and Max was left standing at the podium without an opponent. Then there was the pitiful assassination attempt which left the nation laughing. The final factor made winning inevitable: To the voters, Max Masterson was not the lesser of two evils. He was the only choice of a desperate nation. He went to bed at 9:30, when it had become a sure thing.

  He was the President-Elect of the United States of America.

  H

  e was elected on the first Tuesday in November of that year, in a landslide that would have been even bigger if the undecideds hadn’t simply voted the party line. It got everyone’s attention. He was an Independent, and Independents

  weren’t supposed to win. But Max Masterson had won the popular vote, and with it the hearts and minds of the people of the United States of America. That development had smacked “the powers that be” from behind, and they were determined to thwart the new administration’s efforts to disturb the status quo. To do nothing would threaten their privileged status.

  He remembered the words of his father many years before, and the responsibility of it all washed over him like a cold wave. “On election day, the voters will turn out and start to roll a massive, invisible boulder toward you. With every vote that is cast, that boulder will roll closer, until at the end of the day, it will be firmly nestled in your lap. You’ll feel the weight of it every day for the rest of your life, and it will be your job to carry it.”

  He was going to be president; the boulder had been rolled into his lap. Hope had become responsibility, and the weight of that responsibility was already becoming an ever-present burden. It went with the territory.

  Max was acutely aware of the responsibilities of
being president. He had been trained since early childhood for the position, spending his summers at a secret camp in the Adirondacks under the tutelage of his father’s best friend, Luke Postlewaite. When he and the other children weren’t playing, they were being trained for a life in politics. The rich and powerful families sent their most promising offspring there in the hope that one day their children would become the politicians of the future, occupying positions of great prestige and honor. Max’s training continued from infancy through to the date he announced that he was running for president. First, from the wisdom and teachings of his father, Senator John Masterson, and by Postlewaite, who continued the training long after the senator’s death.

  The most-coveted position was a private goal that few would attain, but Max was single-minded in his approach: He would not hold any public office before running for president, and he would follow a path to the presidency that had never been tried before. He was not a politician. He believed that politics prevented the presidents of the past from accomplishing great things. To conceal their motives for voting a certain way, his modern predecessors hid behind the badges of conservative and liberal, and those of party loyalty. He would have none of that. The presidency of Max Masterson would transcend politics.

  CHAPTER 3

  I

  have come to the point in my life where I realize that I can’t make anyone do anything, and now they want me to be the head manipulator,” said Max, fresh from his morning swim and speaking to the only person within earshot, his Vice-President,

  Scarlett Conroy.

  “You are not expected to be a manipulator,” she responded. “You

  are the dream-maker, remember? That’s what you told me when you

  asked me to be your running-mate, and I believed you. When I saw

  the size of the crowds that turned out for you—rallies that you never

  bothered to attend in person—I knew you were at risk of winning.” Max stood in the kitchen of Fairlane, his home on the banks