Blown Circuit (17 page)

“Cleopatra wanted the finest beach in the world and Mark Antony gave it to her. The beach here is protected, you’re not even allowed to touch it.”

The boardwalk dead-ended in the sea on the edge of the beach.

“Then what are we doing here?”

“We’re having dinner.”

Kate stepped off the boardwalk and into the gently lapping waves. She didn’t seem terribly concerned about her dress getting wet. I slipped off my shoes and followed her, the Mediterranean warm on my feet, the strange, exotic sand seeping up between my toes. I picked up a handful of it. It didn’t even feel like sand, more tiny round grain. A waiter approached from the boardwalk. Tanned with dark, longish hair smoothly slicked back, he carried a bottle of wine and two long-stemmed glasses.
 

“Look,” I said. “I’m not Mark Antony and you’re sure as hell not Cleopatra, so why don’t we cut the bullshit and get to what’s really on your mind.”

As I said it, the waiter presented the wine to Kate. All I saw was that it was red. The waiter poured a quarter glass for her, then waited dutifully while she swirled the wine in her glass, smelled it, and lifted it to her lips. I had to admit, she made the whole process look more natural than pretentious. I checked myself because I was liking her again and I didn’t want to like her. I reminded myself of just how dangerous Kate really was. She seemed to like what she tasted because she nodded and the waiter filled her glass, followed by mine. Then he exited the way he had come.

“Little-known factoid: Cleopatra is widely believed to have killed her sister,” Kate said. “She ordered her death. Her sister’s skeleton was found at Ephesus, not far from Aphrodisias where the plane picked you up.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“She did it with Mark Antony. They worked together.”

“So she’s a murderer too. Good for Cleopatra. What’s your point?”

Kate smiled.

“My point is that you may not want to be a Mark Antony, but I’m certainly not above being a Cleopatra.”

The warm Mediterranean lapped at my feet. It was the only time I had ever sat at a dinner table actually standing in the water.

“And is that supposed to intrigue me?”

“Of course not,” Kate said. “That’s what the dinner and wine are for.”

I nodded and took a sip of my wine. It was good, if good meant that it was smooth and not too sweet. I liked it. I took another sip, swishing the wine around in my mouth. The heat of the day had subsided and we were fast approaching magic hour, the sun low to the sea in the west. If I hadn’t been sitting with a woman whose very sight unnerved me, the whole thing might have been relaxing.

“How did you get away from the CIA?” I said. “I delivered you all wrapped up in a pretty black bow. What did you do? Tie them up in it?”

“Nothing so risqué.”

“You must have done something.”

“All I can tell you is that the Dragons have their ways.”

I thought about it. “So you’re one of them now, are you? Left MI6 far behind? You’ve officially joined forces with the enemy?”

“Six would have left me to rot. I did what I needed to do.”

“Which was?”

“I didn’t dig my way through a six-foot-thick concrete bunker if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Tell you what? Why don’t we skip your disappearing act and move on to what you want with me?” I said.

“I want to tell you about your father.”

Once again, I felt my heart skip a beat. I didn’t want Kate to see the effect her words had on me. She knew that finding my father was of urgent personal interest, but no need to hand it to her on a silver platter.

“What about him?”

“Patience, Michael. I said I want to tell you about your father. And I do. But before I do that, I have a question for you.”

“I’d say shoot, but you might actually do it.”

“You don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do, Michael.”

“I know that you didn’t blow my cover, which means you intend to play me like a fiddle until you get what you want.”

“Cover? Please, Michael. The people I work for are a little more sophisticated than the Turkish Secret Police. The Dragons don’t know what you’ve done with Raptor, but I can assure you that from the moment you stepped on that boat, they knew you weren’t him. The loyal Michael Chase a traitor? Come on. No need to tell your secret police friend, though. Wouldn’t want to get you into hot water for fibbing.”

“What’s your question then?”

“I’d call it more of a request really. We want your cooperation.”

I found myself smiling on the inside. My cooperation. Of course they wanted it. They wanted a puppet on a stick. The waiter made his way back toward us, a dab of sweat on his forehead. He was carrying some kind of amuse-bouche. Amuse-bouch is French for amuse your mouth. The Dragons were amusing me all right. The dinner was over the top. It seemed that they were catering the food directly from the yacht itself via another launch. That explained why the waiter looked harried. He must have been running back and forth to the dock. My mind drifted back to the food. After we were done with the fancy stuff, I was hoping for a good rare steak. Something about having Kate around made me ravenous.

“My cooperation?” I said. “I don’t know a damn thing. What is it you want my cooperation with?”

The waiter set down the plate holding the amuse-bouches, bite-sized morsels in a flaky pastry shell. I plopped one into my mouth. I had no idea what it was, but it sure tasted good. A buttery seafood delight. The waiter walked off, the first bit of the fiery orange sun touching the sparkling Mediterranean.

Kate smiled. “We want your help finding the Tesla Device.”

“What, your people can’t find it on their own?”

“The Dragons don’t want it falling into the wrong hands.”

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself.
 

“The wrong hands. Pray tell, whose hands are those?”

Kate stared me down.
 

“Your friend, Meryem's.”

Chapter 31

T
HE
CHEF
DIDN
’
T
bother with an appetizer. He went straight to the main course. The waiter delivered a steak, rare. A filet mignon to be precise. I’d known vegetarians and I’d known liars and it seemed that Kate was both. Evidently, the chef had prepared a mushroom risotto for her.

“You don’t like meat?”

“I’m taking a break,” she said.

“How did you know I would like it?”

“All-American boy. Meat. What’s not to like?”

The filet mignon was as tall as it was wide, a perfect little oval. I cut into it and took a bite. The moment the tender meat melted in my mouth, I realized I was famished. I scooped up a forkful of buttery mashed potatoes with chives, swallowing my food.

“So, let’s get to it,” I said. “You want my help and you don’t like Meryem. Why?”

I took another bite of the steak. The sun had almost disappeared into the sea, bathing the two of us in its warm glow. I could have fought the moment, but I went with it. Despite my feelings toward Kate, I wanted to listen to what she had to say.

“We don’t know whose interests Meryem represents.”

“She’s MIT.”

“Is she?” Kate asked. “According to my people she may not be what she seems at all. In fact, she could be a Kurdish terrorist. Her plan may well be to use the Device to initiate a coup. For all you know, her plan is to launch a terror attack on a city.”

I immediately thought back to Crust’s devastating simulation of a directed-energy weapon hitting New York City. I knew that it would do the same to any city, but the image of New York was burned into my mind; Buildings reduced to smoldering heaps, the entire population incinerated. It was a terrible, sobering thought, and the chatter to support the Device’s use was there. People whose business was to know such things believed it was a credible threat. But the part about Meryem did not ring true. And I called Kate on it.

“So let me get this straight. A terrorist, and by terrorist I mean you, is telling me that my contact is also a terrorist.”

“She may be, Michael.”
 

“Sure she may be. It’s a possibility. But the thing is, I know what you are, and that’s a reality. And I’ll take a certainty over a notion any day of the week. But I tell you what, we’re here, so why don’t you tell me what you want? And don’t try to make out like it’s got anything to do with the journal. If that was it, you’ve already got it. Faruk took the book and everything else from me back on the plane.”

Kate sighed. The way the last soft rays of sunlight hit her face, they made her look almost vulnerable. I knew better.

“Well?”

“You know that Russia produced a version of Tesla’s energy weapon just after World War II?”

“I’m sorry, whose energy weapon?”

“Come on, Michael. No need to be insulting. I’m sure that you were briefed.”

I just smiled. There was no point giving her anything until I knew more.

“What you may not know is that the Russians had problems with the design—both range and accuracy. The Tesla Device was supposed to offer a nine-thousand-mile range, but the Russians were projecting that they wouldn’t be able to destroy a target more than eight thousand miles away. So the Dragons made a deal with them. They began funding key scientists and politicians involved in the project in the spirit of the freedom of information.”

I took a moment. The situation was already worse than I thought. An eight-thousand-mile range confirmed that California was on the menu as well. Not to mention my mother and sister still living in Washington State.

“So you’re saying your guys bribed Russian weapons scientists.”

“There are those who would take issue with the term
bribe
,” Kate said, “but, effectively, yes. When the project lost its luster with the politburo, the Dragons arranged for its delivery out of the country.”

“Must have been an expensive bribe,” I said.

“I imagine it probably cost a dacha or two, but nothing compared with the R&D that went into the actual Device. At any rate, the weapon was shipped over the Black Sea and through the Bosphorus. The Russians were to hand over the ship to a Dragon crew off the island of Bozcaada on July 21, 1955.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody knows what happened. All we know is that the exchange never took place. For all intents and purposes, the ship and its cargo vanished. Neither the Russians nor the Dragons have a clue to where.”

“And the bad apples?” Given that I was speaking to Kate, I reconsidered my choice of words. “The ones who sold it out?”

“All dead,” Kate said. “Killed in their sleep. They didn’t get to enjoy their new dachas for long.”

I thought about it.
 

“What happened next?” I asked.

“From there on it’s conjecture.”
 

Great
, I thought. Not only did I have to deal with lies, I needed to deal with a plain old lack of fact as well.

“But I can tell you what we think happened,” Kate said. “Tesla was a bit of a radical. He lived on milk and vegetable juice, didn’t have sex, befriended extremist groups, and firmly believed in a new world order. The man was a true internationalist. He had a Kurdish friend named Bayazidi. Bayazidi was a sculptor and a poet. He spoke a dozen languages. He’s the guy who we think drew all over Tesla’s notes in that journal you found. We know for a fact that Tesla and the much younger Bayazidi corresponded regarding their ideas for a new world order. We think that after Tesla’s death, Bayazidi hatched a plan to hijack the weapon and hide it for use at a later time when he could unite the world under his new vision.”

“Ambitious,” I said. “Bayazidi sounds like a dreamer.”
 

“The best ones are,” Kate replied. “We think that Bayazidi saw his opportunity in the transport of the Russian Device and was actually able to pull off its theft.”

I chewed the rest of my meat.

“Highly unlikely,” I replied. “At least not without help.”

“He may have had help. There were Kurdish sympathizers in the Turkish Parliament then. Whatever the case, there’s no denying that the Dragons lost their weapon. Now that you’ve found Tesla’s journal inscribed with Bayazidi’s sketches, it’s starting to look like the Bayazidi hypothesis is accurate. That some radical group did secret the thing away.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The Dragons have recognized your talent, Michael. You’re good at what you do. You found the journal. You found the Tower. We want your help finding the rest of the Device.”

“And why would I help you?”

“Because if you don’t, Meryem and her friends will get there before us and the Device will be used to wipe out New York or Washington or Chicago, or pretty well anywhere they want. Pick a place. You’ll have blood on your hands. Mark my words, people will die.”

I thought about it. I was sure that people would die if I didn’t do my job. I just wasn’t convinced that helping the Green Dragons was the best way to stop that. This was, after all, the same group that, only days before, had been willing to sacrifice every living thing in Los Angeles to keep their secret. Helping Kate would only make things worse.

“So you’re appealing to my humanity?” I said.

“Yes, Michael. I’m appealing to everything about you. I wish I didn’t have to reduce it to these terms, but if you help me, I’ll help you.”

“How?”

“You can save the world
and
your father. They have what they need from him now. They’ll let him go free.”

I laughed. The lie was absurd.

“And why should I believe you?”

Kate took a breath.

“Your father isn’t the endgame here, Michael. They needed him at first, but now he’s just another pawn.”

“And you?”

“When it comes to these guys, we’re all just pawns.”

“And you don’t think that the CIA might just have a tiny little problem with us working together?”

“Oh, I think they’ll have a problem with it. But ultimately, the Langley boys are pragmatists. I think they’ll let you do it. In fact, I think they’ll insist. But why don’t you ask them yourself?”