“Security, eh? Are you one of those people who believe that some aspect of Nikola’s work could be turned into a weapon?”
“Actually, sir, I’m here to make sure someone else hasn’t already done it.”
That seemed to pique Tennyson’s interest. He opened the door fully. “Sure, we can talk, for a bit, but it will cost you.”
Judging by the size and age of the house, Tennyson didn’t look like he was wanting for money, so the comment threw Cabrillo until the man went on.
“I’ve cut down a small elm tree out back, but I’m afraid I’m not up to the task of digging out the stump. A strapping young man such as yourself can have it out in no time.”
Juan grinned. “I think we have a deal if you let me use your restroom first. It’s been a long drive.”
“You drove all the way from D.C.?”
“I’m based in New York,” Cabrillo said as he stepped into the house. The furnishings were spotlessly clean and looked as if they were the original contents of the home. An ornately carved banister rose up to the second story. Juan noted that, as in many homes of this era, there were two-foot-square grates set between the floors to allow heat from the main hearth to reach the bedrooms above. To the right of the entrance was a hallway with a small table next to the door that would lead to the garage. He saw that the bowl sitting on the spindly legged table appeared to be an antique Tiffany.
Tennyson noted Cabrillo’s interest in the furnishings. “This house belonged first to my grandparents and then a spinster aunt,” he explained. “She kept it exactly as it was as a personal shrine to her father and mother, and when she passed a few years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to change it either.”
“It’s beautiful,” Juan remarked.
“And a nightmare to maintain,” Tennyson said with a small laugh. “I often wonder if I am the house’s occupant or its servant.”
The fixtures in the bathroom looked like they’d come out of a plumbing museum. After using the toilet, with its tank mounted high up on the wall, Juan shrugged out of his coat and removed his holster. There was no way he could dig out a stump wearing the rig without Tennyson spotting it, and it was his experience that civilians were wary around firearms. He folded the pistol into his jacket, placed the jacket under his arm, and joined Tennyson on the back brick patio. The gardens were just starting to bloom, and by summer would be a riot of colors and aromas.
“Is gardening a hobby?” he asked.
“Yes. Unfortunately, it was my aunt’s, not mine. I personally hate it, but what can one do?”
He led Cabrillo over to the left side of the fenced-in yard, where a three-inch-diameter stump stuck up through the grass. Next to it was a shovel and an ax. A pair of robins were building their nest in a nearby tree and squawked at their approach.
Juan set his hidden gun bundled in the jacket a short distance away and took up the spade.
“So tell me, Mr. Smith—”
“John, please.”
“And I’m Wes. What sort of weapon do you think Nikola invented?”
Cabrillo liked how Tennyson used Tesla’s first name, as if he were a friend and not a long-dead stranger. “That’s just it. We’re not sure. We think his research is tied into a defense program, but we don’t know exactly what.”
“He was a remarkable man — Tesla, I mean. Mad in the end, and destitute, the poor bugger, but he was a certified genius. I’m sure I don’t need to give you a primer on all of his accomplishments in the field of electrical research — the induction motor, radio control, wireless communications, spark plugs. It was said that his ideas and inventions came to him fully formed in a flash of inspiration.”
“What about weapons research?”
“There is talk that later in his life he wanted to build a direct-energy ‘peace beam,’ but it is mostly known as the death ray. His treatise on the subject, The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, is in the Tesla museum in Belgrade. I’ve read it and it’s pure drivel. His theories are interesting, but the device would never work. He spent time trying to develop an aircraft that flew by ionizing the air under it. Perhaps that is what you’re looking for.”
As he dug, Juan couldn’t see a fit between an ion-powered plane and George Westinghouse’s boat ending up in Uzbekistan. “He and Westinghouse were friends?”
“Oh yes,” Tennyson nodded vigorously. “Though he was already a wealthy man, Westinghouse added to his vast fortune on their collaborations.”
“Can you think of any experiment that Tesla would have performed aboard Westinghouse’s yacht, the Lady Marguerite?”
“No,” Tennyson said quickly.
Too quickly, to Cabrillo’s trained ear. “Something on or about August first, 1902?”
“Nikola was working on the Wardenclyffe Tower in 1902, out on Long Island. It was intended to transmit electricity wirelessly.”
“Funding for that project was pulled a month earlier,” Cabrillo shot back, silently thanking Murph and Stone for the briefing paper they’d prepared for him. “Please, Professor Tennyson, this is important. I found the Lady Marguerite buried in a desert that used to be the Aral Sea just a few days ago.”
Tennyson went ashen, and he laid a hand on his chest, taking a couple of steps back. “My God.”
“What happened that night?” Juan pressed. “What were they working on?”
Tennyson moved to an Adirondack chair and lowered his bulk into it. “It was only a secondhand account. That’s why I never put it in my book.”
“What was he trying to do?” Juan laid the shovel aside to give Tennyson his full attention.
“It was an experiment they were going to show the U.S. Navy, had it worked. The idea was to use magnetism to bend light around a ship in such a fashion that anyone looking at it would not see light reflecting off of its hull. Their field of vision would pass over the ship and on to the other side.”
“Optical camouflage?”
“Exactly. They rigged the system to the Marguerite and sailed out from Philadelphia, where the work had been carried out in a dockside warehouse Tesla owned. Another ship went with them, for the observers. It was from a story handed down from one of the observers, a Captain Paine from the War Department, that I know any of this.”
“What happened?”
“No one was really sure. They were still steaming out past the shipping lanes when the Marguerite suddenly lit up the night sky with a strange blue aura. It lasted for about thirty minutes and then winked out. When they went to investigate, the yacht was gone. They assumed she had sunk.”
“Did they report any anomalies on their ship? Anything to do with magnetic fields?”
“You’re referring to the story of the Mohican?”
Cabrillo nodded.
“Of course I investigated that tale as best I could. Nothing like what that crew experienced happened on the observers’ boat, but, in full disclosure, I must say they were in a wooden-hulled sloop. The Aral Sea, you say?”
“Yes. What do you think happened?”
Tennyson went quiet. His eyes behind the tortoiseshell glasses had gone vacant as he stared into the middle distance.
“What is it, Professor? What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure,” Tennyson finally admitted. “The Lady Marguerite vanished that night. Of that, there is no doubt. And you say you found her in Kazakhstan.”
“The Uzbek side of the Aral,” Juan corrected.