The Tesla Legacy (19 page)

Edison walked over and lay down with his head on his front paws, watching.

“Good boy.” He pitched the dog a treat.

He went back to the column and knelt next to it. The concrete was hard and cold under his knees, and that would get worse the longer he was here. Wishing it weren’t so loud, he began to file. Black dust and the occasional spark fell to the floor. He settled into a rhythm.

Soon he would get this box free, and he would know what had scared his father.

Chapter 30

Quantum stood in front of the New Yorker Hotel, a forty-story monument to Art Deco. It took up half a block. The place probably had over a thousand guest rooms, plus lobby, conference rooms, and who knew what else. Impressive.

The giant lobby was decorated with fashionable people, a lot of gold, and an Art Deco chandelier big enough to be buried in. But no Joe Tesla. Not that he’d expected to find him here. This place had probably gone through a lot of remodeling since Nikola Tesla’s day. Not a good place to hide anything long term.

He plunked himself into a yellow leather chair as if he belonged at the hotel, took out his secure phone, and went to the chat room to see if Ash had more suggestions. Careful not to type in anything that might get him in trouble later, he sent a message from the burner phone he used to communicate with Ash:
@ hotel lobby. directions?

He did the math in his head while he waited for a reply. The hotel must have about a million square feet. He researched the place on the burner phone while he waited to hear from Ash. The hotel had a strong Tesla connection—Nikola Tesla had died in this hotel seventy-one years before. Seemed like his old room would be a good place to start. Maybe he’d hidden something in the walls or the floor. But Quantum would never find it if he had to search all million square feet.

He checked the chat room before standing up to go see if Nikola had made it easy for everyone and left it in his room.

ash: start in south basement. GO!

The basement made sense, since Joe couldn’t go outside, but how did Ash know he was in the south one? He must be tracking Joe’s phone. Quantum was glad he was using a burner. He didn’t want Ash tracking him.

ash: GO!

Quantum’s temper flared at the command in those capital letters. Nobody told him what to do. Nobody. But he tamped down his irritation. He needed to get the device, get the Bitcoins, and get the hell out of Dodge. In that order.

He walked over to the elevators and pressed B. Nobody questioned his actions. It seemed too easy. The elevator stopped with a bump, and the doors opened onto the basement level.

No money was spent on the décor down here. The walls were a dingy white, and the smell of laundry hung in moist air. The faraway thump of dryers reminded him of childhood trips to the Laundromat.

“Hey!” An overweight guy in a security guard outfit waddled up. “Guests aren’t allowed down here.”

Guess he wasn’t going to get lucky after all. He’d have to deal with—Quantum checked the man’s name badge—Mr. Francis Ferguson personally, which probably wouldn’t be that hard.

“I’m not a guest.” Quantum plastered an irritated look on his face, the kind every IT employee perpetually wore. “My name is Mathison Turing.”

Francis looked him over suspiciously.

Quantum glared back. He looked nerdy enough to pass as an IT consultant, and Mathison Turing was the best nerd name ever—having belonged to early computer genius Alan Mathison Turing, the guy who had practically invented modern computer science. “I’m here to fix the Wi-Fi. Someone in Reception called us.”

The guard’s eye twitched when Quantum said
Reception
. Apparently, that was a sore subject.

“The Wi-Fi is upstairs.” Francis put one pudgy hand on a nightstick. He didn’t rate a gun, which was a good thing.

“I know where the hub is, thank you.” Quantum sped up his voice and injected some peevishness. “I’ve fixed it up there, for now, but this is a chronic problem. It keeps going out. Or haven’t you heard?”

The guy nodded uncertainly. He knew he probably should have heard, and Wi-Fi went out everywhere all the time.

“I need to go down to the south basement and see where the fiber optics come into the building.” Quantum had no idea if the hotel used fiber optics, but he was willing to bet this guy didn’t either. “Can you give me directions?”

The security guard looked toward the noisy dryers as if they could tell him what to do.

“Or I can keep bumbling around on my own. I don’t care. I’m paid by the hour.” Quantum smiled. “I know your hotel is already mad about the size of the bill. What was your name again? I’ll need to log it.”

Francis sighed. “Give me your card. I’ll check.”

Quantum handed him a business card for Mathison Turing, IT consultant. The number on the card rang through to a complicated faux-voicemail system designed to keep the caller on hold until he gave up. He’d used it a bunch of times to mess with people.

The security guard dialed the number on the card and got the first voicemail prompt. He said his name, his telephone number, and the number seven, which was the code for
other inquiry
. He’d be at it for a while.

Quantum pointed to his wrist, where he’d have a watch if he wore a watch, then he rubbed his fingers and thumb together in the universal gesture for money. Time is money, asshole, he thought. Francis held up a hand to tell him to wait.

But he couldn’t wait. Joe Tesla wasn’t likely to stick around for long. Ash wouldn’t tolerate another failure, he was sure of it.

The guard entered another number and brought the phone to his ear.

Quantum rolled his eyes and whispered, “What if we call Reception instead? I’m sure they can verify my status, and then you can help me on my way.”

The man groaned. Quantum speaking had caused him to miss the voice mail prompt. He’d have to go back a step. Or maybe two. He pressed seven again.

“So,” Quantum said in a slightly louder voice, “maybe call Reception?”

Francis clearly didn’t want to do that. With another sigh, he pointed behind him, made a walking motion with his hands, and mouthed the word
stairs
.

Quantum set off in the indicated direction. He’d better hurry. Eventually the guy might give up on the voice mail system and come after him. All that time messing with the phone probably wouldn’t improve his disposition.

Once he found the stairwell, he put on a pair of latex gloves before opening the door. He didn’t want to leave any fingerprints.

He headed downstairs as fast as he dared in the flickering light of a fluorescent tube. The stairwell was painted battleship gray. It had dents in the walls and large slivers of dusty wood on the steps. It looked like someone had tried to ride a wooden crate down the steps—smashing walls and losing bits along the way.

At the bottom he had to throw himself at the door a couple of times to get it open. He wedged a sliver of wood in the doorframe to keep the door from closing all the way. He didn’t want to get stuck down here. He might be lost until someone chanced upon his mummified corpse.

He hit the corridor and started a quick jog. He had to find Joe and take the device from him before the security guard came looking. No time for finesse on this one. Brute force would have to do the trick. That was OK. Sometimes he liked brute force.

He ran along quietly, listening. The corridor was deserted and had been for a long time. Guests weren’t the only ones who didn’t come down here.

A rasping sound reached his ears, and he slowed. Light spilled out from a door halfway down the corridor.

Cautiously, he approached. The dusty floor showed footprints coming from the opposite direction. A man and a dog.

The window had been broken out, most likely by Joe, and the door was ajar. Quantum twisted sideways and went through the door without touching anything. Covered pieces of furniture surrounded him like military ghosts at attention. He crept forward. Joe was making enough noise that he could get close to him undetected.

It sounded as if the man had a hacksaw and was cutting through metal with a lot of noise and elbow grease. That had to mean he’d found the Oscillator.

The words pounded in his head as he slipped behind a wardrobe and peeked through a line of furniture toward the corner of the room. Joe was hunched around a steel column. His right arm was jerking forward and backward in time with the awful rasping noise.

Quantum considered his options. Best plan was to take out the dog first, the man second. He had bullets enough for both, but he didn’t want to spook either one until the last second.

A flash of yellow legs showed under a squat wardrobe. The dog was heading toward him. That made the decision easy. He touched the hilt of his gun, but pulled out the Taser instead. If he played his cards right, he could take the dog out without Joe even noticing it over the sound of the sawing.

The dog walked around the corner. Its nose was raised as it sniffed. It didn’t seem to sense any danger, and it was trained to help, not to attack. The dog wagged its tail and took a tentative step forward.

“Good dog,” he said in a low voice that wouldn’t be heard by Joe over the sound of his sawing.

The dog heard his words. It moved forward another step.

He tasered the dog. The dog went right down and lay on the ground, twitching and foaming at the mouth. That had been easier than he’d imagined.

Careful to stay away from its head, he scooped up the warm body and stuffed it into an empty wardrobe, then eased the doors closed. He turned the tiny key in the lock. The dog wouldn’t be bothering him again. He hoped that someone would find it before it starved, but that wasn’t his problem. His problem was in the back of the room, all alone, deaf to what had just happened because he was sawing away.

The rasping noise finally stopped, and a metal object clattered to the ground.

“I got it out, Edison!” Joe called, jubilant.

The dog whimpered. A quiet sound, and Quantum didn’t see how it could carry across the room, but it did.

The man jumped to his feet. “You OK, boy?”

Quantum stuck the Taser in his pocket and pulled out the gun. He had to kill Tesla, then take the device. There was no other way.

He slipped behind the wardrobe next to the one that held the dog.

Rapid footsteps came closer. “Edison?”

The dog whimpered again, a faint sound of pain and despair.

Joe blundered past a desk and stood in front of Quantum’s wardrobe, confused.

Quantum shouldered the wardrobe out into the aisle, tipping it forward onto the hapless man. Joe fell backward and struck his head against a desk on his way down. The crack reverberated around the room. The dog yipped.

Quantum walked to the end of the wardrobe with his gun out and ready to fire.

Joe Tesla lay flat on his back. The wardrobe had landed across his chest, pinning him. Not that it mattered. Blood poured out of a wound on the side of his skull, and Quantum could see that his eyes were closed.

He wouldn’t have to shoot him after all. Joe, assuming he lived, wouldn’t be able to identify him later. Best to just leave him there.

The dog seemed to have recovered and set to barking. He doubted that anyone would hear it. If the dust on the floor was any indication, nobody but he and Joe had come this way in months.

Still, he hurried across the room to where Joe had been working. There, on the floor next to the column, was a metal object that looked like a metal platform with a candlestick stuck to the top. He recognized it from pictures online: Tesla’s Oscillator.

He scooped it up and left the man and dog to die.

To make sure that they wouldn’t be found any time soon, he turned off the light and closed the door behind him.

Chapter 31

Francis gave up on the damn voice mail system. He was going to have to track the guy down and drag him upstairs even if it made him look like a fool and cost the company money. Plus, he’d have to deal with the guy’s snotty attitude. Mathison? What a name!

He hurried down the gray stairs to the sub-basement. The sooner he got this over, the sooner he could go on break. He wanted to call the bakery about the cake he’d ordered to celebrate his first six months on the job. He was officially out of the probationary period and was starting to save money for his own place. Things were looking up.

He flicked on the overhead fluorescents as soon as he stepped into the hall. This level gave him the creeps, and he was glad that he didn’t have to come down here often. Nothing worth guarding.

A yellow dog slammed out of a door at the end of the corridor, and Francis jumped. The dog streaked toward him, barking. He turned toward the door, but the dog passed him and pushed him back a step.

Francis put his hand on the butt of his nightstick, but he didn’t want to hurt the dog. What the hell was it doing down here anyway?

“Easy, boy!” he called out, wondering if it was a boy. “Good dog!”

The dog stopped barking and stared up at him. It bumped him with its nose and looked back the way it had come. It whined and took a few steps down the hall.

The IT guy hadn’t had a dog with him, so where had this pooch come from, and what did it want?

The dog whined again and bumped his hand, leaving a sticky trail. Francis pulled his hand away, prepared to wipe off dog spit, then stopped. The dog hadn’t drooled on him. Its muzzle was stained with blood.

He knelt next to the dog. Only now did he realize how upset the animal was. It was shaking like a leaf, and its eyes were practically popping out of its head. Gently, he felt the dog’s head, body, and legs. The dog didn’t shy away or yelp. It wasn’t wounded.

Which meant that the blood was from someone else.

He pulled out his nightstick. He wished he’d been issued a gun, but he wasn’t allowed to carry one. The hotel felt that armed security guards spooked the guests. Well, the guests weren’t half as spooked as he was right now.

The dog licked his hand, then grabbed the end of his sleeve between its teeth and tugged, dragging him a step down the hall.