TelD CaNtIVE OON SHEPs
He wasn’t saying that he was “HELD CAPTIVE ON SHIP.” He was too precise, too careful for that. I should have known that right away. That meaning was a decoy. He was actually saying something else. I saw it as clear as day. If the letters were rearranged, the lowercase spelled “tesla” and the uppercase spelled “DEVICE.” If the unused letters were rearranged only slightly they spelled “NOT ON SHP.”
He was trying to spell out:
tesla DEVICE NOT ON SHP
True, there was a single letter missing — “I,” and I had no idea how he had been able to compose it, but the message made sense. And I knew that I was right beyond a shadow of a doubt, because the technical drawing on the last page of the journal was a representation of Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe tower.
Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-born, American scientist responsible for more patents and inventions and downright breakthroughs in the field of electricity than anybody before him. In the early twentieth century, he was considered the Einstein of his day. Edison got the credit, but it was Tesla who walked the walk. His inventions were too numerous to list but they included: alternating current, radio, the electric generator, the spark plug, and a fancy energy beam that sat atop a wooden-framed structure on Long Island, New York called Wardenclyffe Tower.
That I knew any of this, was a result of the work I’d done interning at the archaic technology lab during my time in college. The mission of the lab was to combine the best of archaic technologies with modern ones with sometimes surprising results. The notion was that a lot of old technology still revolved around a good core idea — an idea that could be leveraged if it could be adequately integrated with modern systems. We worked with all kinds of old stuff, from steam engines to vinyl record players, with the guiding notion that some part of the preceding technology could be saved and played to its strength, even if the entire system was no longer viable.
Tesla was much more than the namesake of a fancy electric car. He was a man whose technologies had transformed the world and might well continue to do so. I knew I had found something big, but I needed to regroup. I had killed a man in my unit, and I didn’t know whom I could trust, if anyone. I pocketed the journal and shouldered my backpack, returning to the door of the ironworks. Then I stopped, because I was staring at exactly the person I didn’t want to see.
“Hey, Mike.”
“Crust,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“You know, just checking in.”
Crust stepped over the high sill and into the alley. He stood on my right, not more than a few feet away, a big friendly smile on his face. But my radar was all the way up.
“Keeping tabs on me, are we?”
“They don’t equip us with GPS devices just because they like the flashing lights.”
Backup beacon. I had been a fool. I had crushed the primary, but the boys at the CIA had equipped me with more than one tracking device. Under the circumstances, I should have ditched my gear, all of it, immediately. But that’s what happens when you get discombobulated. You make mistakes. And now I had to pay the piper. Crust turned to close the door, securing it with the rusty barrel bolt. I had no quandary about what I had to do next. I silently reached into my pocket and pulled out the gleaming yatagan with my right hand.
Chapter 12
Yatagan in hand, I swung around with my left arm, ready to put Crust in a quick headlock. But it didn’t go like that. Because before I could turn in to position, Crust turned revealing the heavy wrench he held in his hand. I stood ready with the blade. We were very close. Our bodies were within a couple feet from each other. Sure, I could slash his throat if I had to. But I didn’t want to. I knew a strike to the solar plexus would be just as effective if I wanted to get to the truth. So I dropped the blade, the yatagan falling to the rocky ground below.
Crust didn’t take his eyes off me. He was too much of a professional for that. But his body relaxed. I saw it in his shoulders. That’s when I placed a firm hand on his shoulder and punched him hard in the abdomen. A lightning-fast jab, no warning, no pity. I knocked the wind right out of him. He gasped and bent over. It was reflexive, he needed to catch his breath but I didn’t let up. I stepped toward him, slipping my left arm over the arm he held the wrench in. I pulled tight to my side and applied a good strong arm-bar forcing him to drop the wrench. It also put me into position to snap his arm.
“Bend your knees,” I said.
Crust bent his knees.
“On the ground. Slowly, or I break your arm.”
Crust complied. To his credit, I didn’t sense that he was angry or even flustered. It seemed as though it was all in a day’s work.
“Are we done yet?” Crust asked.
“We’re just getting started,” I said. “Hands on your head.”
Crust gingerly lifted his big meat-hook hands and placed one on top of the other atop his head. I didn’t have a gun. But Crust did. I could see the bulge poking out from the back of his khakis. I reached down and removed it. A Browning Hi-Power 9mm. Nice weapon. I chambered a round. Then I kicked the yatagan out of his reach and stepped around so I could see his face.
“What are you up to, mate?” Crust asked.
“Staying alive,” I said.
“Don’t you need a flair for disco and a love of old movies for that?”
“Cut the shit,” I said. “The question is, what are you doing here?”
“I got a tip from an asset to meet an agent from Montreal here. That’s Jean-Marc’s cover, but he’s gone dark. Where is he?”
“Well, that’s a spiritual question isn’t it?”
“What do you mean by that?” Crust asked.
“I mean Jean-Marc is dead.”
I watched Crust’s eyes. It was a surprise to him. I could see that. He was a professional, but he couldn’t keep the shock from showing.
“How?”
I saw no point in beating around the bush.
“I killed him,” I said.
“Why?” Crust replied.
“You tell me.”
“How on God’s green earth am I supposed to know that?” Crust said.
So this was the way it was going to go. Full circle. The exhaust fan on the far end of the wall sparked to life blowing out the garlic odor of the welders’ acetylene gas. Crust was directly in front of me, kneeling on the rocky ground in front of the door, his hands on his head. I held the gun. It was my show now.
“Jean-Marc asked me two questions,” I said. “Then he tried to slice my throat. I didn’t like the idea. So I sliced his.”
Which wasn’t technically true. But it got the point across.
“Did anybody see you?” Crust asked.
“Yeah. Some old guy in a towel. He’s dead too.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Jean-Marc did.”
Crust sighed deeply. After my announcement that Jean-Marc was dead, it was obvious he wasn’t surprised by anything else I had to say. He was concerned, resigned even, but not surprised, I saw that right away.
“Why did he attack me?” I asked.
“That’s a complicated question, Mike. And my knees are starting to hurt.”
I could see where this was going and it wasn’t good. I was the new guy on the block, the green guy, the guy that gets taken for a ride. I decided I wasn’t going to be that guy.