I paced a few more steps ahead until the trolley hung directly below me from its rails on the bottom of the jib. A large metal hook hung from the trolley, and from the hook hung the sphere. Up close I could see that the sphere was held in a net. It looked like one of those foam mesh things that they sometimes sold fruit in, but I think that it was a nylon fishing net. Whatever its composition, it seemed to be strong enough to hold the ten-foot focusing array. Wind gusting, I lowered myself over the edge of the trolley and down onto the surface of the sphere.
Chapter 61
I crouched there, dangling hundreds of feet in the air on top of what amounted to an oversize Christmas bauble, swinging in the wind. It was tough to stay balanced, perched up there like that, but it was doable. The first thing I did was transfer my phone to my hip pocket. The generators running the crane may have shorted out, but I was sure that there was still power to the sphere. I actually felt the big ball resonating below me, the fat electric cable tapped into its upper pole.
Now I needed to confirm my hunch. I had seen the crosshatching on the surface of the sphere while it was in its crate but I wasn’t sure whether it amounted to anything. I pulled the LED flashlight out of the side pocket of my pack and held it between my teeth, lowering myself onto my stomach. I felt the magnetized sphere pulling at the metal casing of the flashlight. Below the sphere, I could see everything: the lights glistening off the Mediterranean in front of me, Azad on the castle floor below, the fat electric cable hanging down like a long tail. I could even see the engraved crosshatching running up and down the sphere, like lines of latitude and longitude. What I couldn’t see was a way in.
I traced my fingers along the grooves in the sphere’s surface, searching for any kind of incongruity while my body draped over the rounded metal as though I was bent over a giant pipe. A gust of wind ripped in across the sea, and I grasped the nylon netting to hold on. Glancing up I saw the triggers resting on the walkway above me, along with Faruk and Meryem.
“You will hurry,” Meryem called down.
“I liked you better before you got political,” I said.
“You will hurry or Azad will shoot.”
I ignored the threat and carefully traced my fingers the rest of the way around the circumference of the sphere. Had it been a globe, I figured I was circumscribing a line of about fifty-five degrees latitude north. In my estimation there was a whole lot of componentry inside the sphere that would have required assembly. So the question was, where would Tesla locate the hatch to his invention? Somewhere accessible, I thought. Somewhere near one of the poles. But which one? If it was the South Pole, I was out of luck. I’d never be able to open a hatch on the bottom of the sphere. But the top might be an option if, of course, the wind didn’t blow me down first. I have to confess, at that moment, all I really wanted to do was go home.
Home.
Could it be that simple? Serbia, I thought. Tesla was a Serb. Would he put the hatch there, on the portion of the sphere where Serbia would lay, as a nod, a tiny wink to his homeland? It was worth looking. I pulled myself over, reaching farther down the sphere. If I remembered correctly, Serbia was located in the mid-northern 40s latitudinally. There was no set longitudinal reference point for me to count off of, but there was no reason I couldn’t check all the way around the circumference at that latitudinal level. I concentrated on the engraved grooves, careful not to be mesmerized by the castle courtyard spinning below me. Three-quarters of the way around the circumference, I found it.
Exactly where I imagined Serbia would lay on a globe, the crosshatching of latitudinal and longitudinal lines was almost imperceptibly more pronounced, a silver screw in the intersection of the lines at all four corners. The hatch, as I saw it, was probably two feet square, just big enough for me to squeeze through. I wasted no time. I immediately grabbed my Swiss knife.
“Five minutes, Michael,” Meryem called down. “Five minutes and Azad begins to shoot.”
I reached down and began to cut through the netting. It was very tight in most places, but the net was too big for the sphere, which meant that it bunched up in a few areas to take up the slack. I felt the magnetic pull on the knife. Blood rushed to my head as I severed the nylon one string at a time. If I hadn’t held the knife tightly, the magnetic pull would have drawn it right out of my hand. Soon, however, I had a two-foot opening around the access door. I glanced up and Meryem smiled back down at me, tight-lipped, but beautiful. I still kind of liked her. Too bad she was a no-good terrorist.
I flipped my knife blade shut and popped open the screwdriver. The Swiss Army knife, with its handle oriented at a ninety-degree angle to the bit, provided me with a nice, secure grip. I popped out the first screw and placed it inside my pocket. Then I worked my way clockwise around the hatch. I was able to remove the second screw just as easily. It was the third that was a problem. That screw was in an awkward location all the way at the bottom of the panel. I couldn’t keep the screwdriver plumb and I had already leaned over the sphere as far as I dared to go.
Didn’t matter. I’d have to lean farther. I stared at the crowd in the square below as a gust of wind blew in, and the sphere started to rotate in the opposite direction. Then I leaned over even more with my head hanging upside down and the Philips head screwdriver perfectly plumb in the head of the screw. I twisted the driver just as a second gust of wind blew through. And that’s when I fell.
I lost my grip completely and slid down the surface of the sphere. I let go of the screwdriver and grabbed at the netting. I almost got a finger under it, but the netting was too tight. I continued to slip. Not being afraid of heights is one thing. But I never said I wasn’t afraid of dying. And right then, death was on the menu. I plummeted at least nine or ten feet below the bottom of the sphere before the same wind that had tossed me, saved me. It blew the fat electric cord directly toward me like a big yellow beanstalk. I latched on with both hands, fearful of the charge within, even as I grasped at its rubbery surface for dear life. Between my hands and legs and a whole lot of will power, I managed to arrest my fall. Both Meryem and Faruk stared down at me from above.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I said.
Then I started to climb back up the cord, grasping ahold of a piece of the bunched-up netting once I reached the sphere. My Swiss Army knife and the flashlight had each stuck to the sphere’s magnetized surface, and I grabbed ahold of them and followed the seam of excess netting back to where I had lain earlier atop the sphere. It was like bad déjà vu, but after a concerted attempt to hold the screwdriver plumb, I managed to unscrew the third fastener. After that one, the fourth screw was easy. Then, I lifted off the panel and peered inside the hatch.
Chapter 62
From the moment my flashlight beam scoured the interior of the sphere, I knew that I had made the right call. I had been operating on the assumption that the focusing array of a directed-energy weapon might be largely hollow, and I was correct. There was equipment in there, wiring and anodized conduit, but not so much equipment that there wasn’t room for me as well. I took hold of the other side of the hatch and lowered myself in, headfirst, my backpack scraping the threshold of the hatch as I climbed inside.
“Michael, what are you doing?” Meryem called down.
I didn’t answer. Not right away. I was trying to see what I was dealing with. The electric hum was much louder inside, the vibration more noticeable. I ran my fingers through my hair only to discover that it was standing on end, sparks of static electricity crackling around me. My feet were planted on a two-inch conduit bolted to the periphery of the sphere. There was a lot of wiring, but the most prominent feature was the smaller silver sphere in the center of the assembly. It hovered at the center of the larger sphere, perfectly balanced in its electromagnetic cocoon. I felt the Swiss Army knife in my hand pulled to the outer wall of the main sphere. A closer inspection revealed that there were hundreds of disc-shaped magnets covering the sphere’s inner skin. Had I been wearing chain mail, I probably would have floated in the air as well.