The Tesla Legacy (28 page)

He checked the reading from her phone, then called her. “Vivian, it’s stronger up here. Get to the sixtieth floor, and we can take readings there.”

But his gut told him that he wouldn’t need to wait for those readings. The device was close to where he was standing now.

Chapter 47

Ash couldn’t help himself. After he got a notification of the evacuation of the Empire State Building from Sage, Ash had a public reason to go back, so he ordered his chauffeur to turn the limousine around and head back to the building. He wanted to watch.

The car couldn’t get close. Police had blocked off the street for two blocks in each direction.

“I could try to circle around,” said his driver. Ash couldn’t remember his name.

“I’ll get out here and text you with a meeting place.”

Ash climbed out and hurried down the street. Fire trucks, police cars, and people clogged the street and the sidewalk. Hard to believe so many people had been working in the building on a summer Sunday. Plus tourists.

A policeman stopped him. “You’ll have to turn around, sir.”

“But I have people in the Empire State Building.” Ash used his worried voice. “Will they be OK?”

“We’re evacuating it, and the surrounding buildings. I’m sure your friends will be fine.”

He hadn’t called them friends. “What’s happening? Why the evacuation?”

“We received a bomb threat—a call that someone had planted a sonic bomb in the building.”

Ash stopped breathing. A sonic bomb. Who could know that? “What’s a sonic bomb?”

“I have no idea, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to move away.”

Ash backed away, keeping the building in sight. Who could have called in a sonic-bomb threat? Who else knew about the Oscillator? Geezer was dead. Quantum was dead. The only other person who might have an idea about the device was Joe Tesla.

Ash grimaced and moved against a nearby building to let evacuees file past. He pulled out his secure phone and called up the tracking app. The green dot that represented Edison was close. In fact, it was inside the Empire State Building.

Joe knew.

He couldn’t know everything, of course, but he knew that the Oscillator was in the building, pounding away. But without any idea of where, he’d never be able to find it in time. The Empire State Building was huge—one hundred and three stories high with over two million square feet of space.

Still, doubt grew in Ash.

Even if Joe couldn’t stop it, he might have told others about how the Oscillator could cause such a disaster. Had he somehow uncovered evidence that would lead him to Spooky? Ash didn’t see how, but he could take no chances. He would have to distance himself from Spooky, at least for a time. He could track Joe via the device on Edison’s collar for two more months, assuming Joe had the sense to get out of the building before it went down.

The building shuddered, and windows shattered. Glass fell toward the street like deadly rain.

A woman screamed, and evacuees began to run.

Ash was pushed away from the building, fighting to keep his feet in the crowd. But he chanced a glance behind him. The building shook. It was coming down soon.

And Joe Tesla was still inside.

Chapter 48

Joe sprinted from the elevator to a set of giant glass doors with a green logo painted on them. Wright. It was Alan Wright’s company. He’d had no idea the company had offices here. Hopefully, Alan got out. No doubt he had—taking care of himself was what Alan did best.

Edison shook his head as if the noise bothered him. Joe couldn’t blame him. He was going to throw up if it didn’t stop.

Before that happened, he needed to find the device. He placed his phone flat against the floor next to Wright’s doors and studied the vibrations on his phone. The wave pattern was almost identical to the one he’d taken near the elevator, but the tops and bottoms of the curves looked a fraction of a millimeter smaller. Too small a difference to be sure.

The door shattered, and glass rained down. He pulled Edison against his chest, protecting the dog’s sensitive eyes and ears.

After the glass stopped falling, he told Edison to stay, then crunched across the glass into the Wright office and toward the outside of the building. The floor trembled under his feet, and the giant window in front of him vibrated.

He had to get as close to it as he could, so that he would know if the Oscillator was placed near the side of the building or closer in, such as near the elevator. But the window loomed in front of him. The gray sky beyond looked as if it had climbed into the room with him. His heart started to race, and each beat brought an answering pound of pain to his skull. He hadn’t thought that his panic attacks could get worse until that moment.

His hand dropped to Edison’s head for reassurance, but the dog wasn’t there. He’d left him near the broken door, because he hadn’t wanted him to shred his feet. Good place for him. Safer than here.

Not safe for Joe. He was seconds away from a full-scale panic attack. He was going to die, right here. He recognized his fear as the truth, not a panicked response in his brain. The building wouldn’t hold up long under this pounding. He would actually die.

Paradoxically, this thought calmed him enough to let him think. He took one deep, slow breath and then another. It felt like wasting time, but he had to do it. He thought of his house far below the city and Celeste’s smile. Places where he was safe.

His heart still pounded, but he ignored it now. He turned his back to the giant window. Instead of the sky and the world outside, he saw Edison, sitting patiently on the other side of a mound of broken glass. Joe’s legs shook, his mind screamed at him to run, but he didn’t. He stared into Edison’s faithful brown eyes and took one step backward, then another.

Slowly, he backed closer to the window until his shoulders bumped against its solid surface. He was right against it now. Only an inch of glass separated him from the world outside. He’d thought he couldn’t panic more, but he did.

A soft sound drew his attention to the ceiling. A dirty white pigeon fluttered around near the LED lights. The bird must have flown in through an open window. Joe hoped that the open window wasn’t right behind him. Wind from outside might undo him.

The pigeon swooped back and forth gracefully, as if performing a show, not flying around inside a building on the verge of collapse. Joe caught himself watching it and realized that he had relaxed. If the pigeon could stay calm, then so could he.

Still, his hands shook as much as the building as he lowered his phone to the carpeted floor. He read the waves on its tiny screen. The numbers were smaller here. The device was behind the elevators. Maybe in the stairwell. That was the best possible news. He could get away from the window.

Not even trying to steady his breathing or master the pain in his head, he sprinted across the office toward Edison, not slowing until he was out of Wright’s offices, across the hall and standing in front of the door to the stairs.

“Come,” he called, opening the door.

Edison bounded to him, and the pigeon followed, swooping through the open door and into the stairwell. The poor bird would be trapped in there. It should have turned tail and flown outside. Of everyone he could see, the bird had the best chance of survival.

The elevator doors opened, and Vivian strode out.

“It’s up here,” he said. “Close.”

The whole building might collapse at any second, but she looked calm. Just an ordinary day for this retired soldier. He was glad that she was there with him.

He went into the stairwell. It was smaller than he’d expected—just wide enough for two narrow sets of stairs packed side by side with a thin stripe down the middle that presumably ran all the way down to the first floor.

He touched his phone to the gray floor, next to a white stripe that outlined the edge of the stair. The vibrations were stronger. Downstairs. He grabbed the steel railing when he stumbled. The steel quivered in his hand like a giant bell pealing out the death of the king.

The building creaked around him, and the crash of breaking glass sounded again. Hopefully, it wasn’t the outside windows. They would send deadly shards of glass down onto the people below.

Edison deserted him and ran down a half flight of stairs. He was glad the dog had finally succumbed to a self-preservation instinct. Maybe the dog would make it out safely, even if the bird didn’t.

But Edison stopped instead. He put his paws on the wall above the railing and barked. Joe could barely hear the bark over the alarms, but he knew what it meant.

Edison had found something.

Joe and Vivian ran after him. Edison was jumping, trying to scratch at a hole in the drywall at Joe’s eye level. He clicked on his flashlight and peered into the hole.

The Oscillator, the small gray-painted device built by his father’s hero, was clamped to a steel column. Joe’s heart leaped. They’d found it. A needle in a huge haystack, and they’d found it.

“There!” he pointed inside for Vivian’s benefit.

The device pounded relentlessly away—a million tiny taps at just the right moments to bring the building down.

Vivian’s light joined his.

“We gotcha, you little bastard!” she yelled.

The flight of stairs broke free from the wall and dropped down. Edison grabbed Joe’s pant leg and held on. Vivian grabbed his arm. The stairs stopped.

They’d fallen a few feet, and the stairs had canted sideways. He could still see the device, but he couldn’t reach it.

He crawled up the trembling staircase until he was level with the device. The whole staircase could collapse at any second and pancake who knew how many floors.

He could see the device. He reached forward, but the device was still a foot away.

Vivian stripped off her belt and threaded it through his. He’d be able to lean farther out, and hopefully, she’d be able to hold him steady. The staircase shook underneath them.

He dangled over empty space with one foot on the staircase. His hands grazed the wall. He didn’t look down. Vertigo was not one of his phobias, but he wasn’t going to test that right this minute.

Heat radiated from the device. He wouldn’t be able to touch it with his bare hands to turn it off. He took the handkerchief from his suit pocket and reached for the device. The dial was stuck, and the handkerchief started to smoke.

He gritted his teeth, trying to shut out the pain in his head and his hands, the noise of the alarms, the creaking of the steel, and his rising dread. The platform they were standing on quivered like a cat about to pounce.

He’d never be able to turn the dial. Instead, he focused his attention on unscrewing the clamps. His sweaty hands slipped off the clamps again and again. The device shifted, and he yanked it off. It burned through his handkerchief. He’d have a scar to match his father’s.

He dropped the device into his coat pocket. It probably had evidence on it, but he wasn’t going to give it to the police. That wasn’t what his father would have wanted.

“Back!” he called, and Vivian pulled him back.

The shaking had already slowed. Barely perceptible, but it was a good sign.

“Steps down are clear, sir.”

He looked down the broken staircase. If she’d dropped him, he’d have died.

Edison took Joe’s sleeve in his mouth and gently tugged. “Right you are, boy. Time to go.”

Someone had shut off the alarm. Joe’s ears rang in the silence.

He dropped his hand to the top of the dog’s head. “We’ve got a long walk home.”

The device cooled as they hurried down the broken stairs. The pigeon followed, circling above their heads.

He opened the door at the next level, and a rush of warm air streamed in. Either an open window or a broken one. Either one would do.

As if it understood what he was thinking, the pigeon flew straight through the open door and out into the building like it had a plan.

Joe wished that he did, too.

Chapter 49

Vivian dragged Tesla through the tunnels. He was white and trembling, but he still kept his legs moving. He’d thrown up once inside the building, and she was worried that he’d reinjured his head. She had to get him back to Dr. Stauss.

“Need break,” he said.

She looked back. They’d put some distance between themselves and the Empire State Building. She lowered him to the ground.

He leaned against the stone wall and closed his eyes.

There had to be surveillance cameras in the Empire State Building. It was only a matter of time before someone traced them here. But he couldn’t walk any farther, and he wasn’t going to let her carry him.

She sat next to him, wishing she’d thought to bring a water bottle. The dog was crowded up against his leg, resting his head on Tesla’s lap. It looked worried, too.

“How you doing, sir?” she asked.

He opened his eyes and gave her a weak grin. “Thanks for not letting go back there.”

“That’s my job,” she said. “Rule one: Never let your client fall eighty-five stories. Bad for business.”

“You have a good grip.”

“I climb,” she said. “Good for hand strength.”

He smiled. He looked a little better now. The rest had done him good.

He took the metal device out of his pocket and set it on the ground. “My father wanted me to destroy this.”

“Yes, sir.” They’d seen what it could do in the wrong hands.

“It could be a force for good.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something. “Or evil.”

“Any weapon is only as evil as the one wielding it.”

“If we let this out of our hands, anyone could be the one wielding it.”

“That’s what ‘out of our hands’ means.”

Tesla shut his eyes so long she wondered if he’d gone to sleep. Vivian waited. Destroying the device was Tesla’s choice to make. Even if she did it, for all she knew he could build another one. She glanced back the way they had come. If they got caught here, it would be confiscated, and then there wouldn’t be any decision to make.