“I’ve spent most of my time down here in your lovely home researching that. I’ve been in touch with various colleagues, without using your name of course, and so far I haven’t found anything conclusive.”
“Can it be fixed?”
The doctor’s eyes flicked to the side again. Another lie coming. “The brain is a very plastic organ. Reducing stress, meditation, adopting a positive attitude. Those could all go a long way toward sensitizing your amygdala to positive emotions instead of negative ones.”
“But?”
“But you may always have difficulty processing fear.”
So, his agoraphobia might never go away. No surprises there.
“You might be able to work through it. People work through traumas all the time.” Dr. Stauss took his arm. “Let’s get you out of bed for a bit.”
A half hour later, Joe had used the bathroom, washed himself off with a warm washcloth, put on clean pajamas, and was tucked in bed between fresh sheets. Everything hurt and took longer than he would have imagined possible, but it felt good to be clean and awake.
Before he left, Dr. Stauss gave him a happy drug. His head still hurt like hell, but he didn’t seem to care about it quite so much. It also didn’t bother him that his head was half-shaved, or that he had a row of stitches in the back. The drug was that good.
“I brought you some broth.” His mother set the bowl on his nightstand, then adjusted the pillows against the headboard so he could sit up.
The most delicious smell in the world wafted to his nostrils. Beef, vinegar, and spices — sour meatball soup, or at least the broth. His stomach growled, and his mother laughed and handed him the bowl. A few tiny pieces of meat floated in the broth, along with grains of rice and a few shreds of onion.
“You made this?” He hoped so.
“From scratch. Like you used to drink when you were a sick little boy.”
He held the bowl to his lips and drank every drop. It tasted salty and rich and heavenly. It reminded him of the colds of his childhood, when his mother would bundle him up in blankets and set him propped against the trapeze net with a thermos of soup, so she could keep an eye on him while she practiced.
Edison licked his lips when Joe finished. “This is all mine, buddy. It’s too good to share.”
His mother smiled.
The dog rested his head next to Joe’s hip. He looked as content as if he’d been given the bowl himself.
“He worried about you,” his mother said. “We have to tear him away from your side for his daily walks with Mr. Peterson.”
Joe rested his hand on Edison’s head. “Was he hurt?”
His mother shook her head. “The police say that your attacker used a Taser on him and locked him inside a wardrobe. Edison broke the door and fetched a security guard to help you.”
Edison must have been in agony when he was tased and terrified inside the dark wardrobe. Joe remembered hearing him whimper before the wardrobe had fallen on him. The sound still haunted him.
Rage welled up in Joe, and with it more pain. Apparently, there weren’t enough happy pills in the world to temper his fury that someone had hurt his dog.
“Don’t anger yourself,” his mother said. “Dr. Stauss says that getting upset will make your head worse.”
He took a few calming breaths. Self-soothing had become his new way of life. He should be able to manage. “Did they find a device in the corner of the basement?”
Someone tapped on his bedroom door.
“Come in,” his mother called. “He’s awake and talking sensibly.”
That indicated he’d been awake and not talking sensibly before. Great.
With silent steps, Vivian entered his bedroom. She wore jeans and a gray T-shirt and her gun in a shoulder holster. She looked ready to take on a room of armed assassins, and it reminded him again how weak he currently was. “You’re looking better, Mr. Tesla.”
“Miss Torres has been guarding us both round the clock,” his mother said. “After she took you from the hospital.”
“Did they find the Oscillator in the basement?” he asked. “Was it by the wall?”
Vivian shook her head. She explained what the police had been able to piece together about his attack, and that footprints showed that someone had gone to the back of the room and retrieved something, but they didn’t know what it was.
So, his attacker had taken Nikola Tesla’s famous earthquake machine. He’d recognized it the instant he pulled it away from the column, before he’d heard Edison’s sad whimper.
His father had warned him to tread carefully, but he’d been heedless. He’d blundered into one of the most powerful devices ever invented, and he’d let someone take it from him. If it worked, and his attacker used it, all those deaths would be on Joe, and on his father for putting him in the position to begin with. Not that shared guilt made things any easier.
“You need more sleep,” his mother said. “We tire you.”
“I’d like to rest,” he lied.
He couldn’t rest, not until he got the Oscillator back.
Chapter 40
Quantum liked the anonymity of Newark Liberty International Airport. Nothing ever happened in Newark. No one knew who he was, and no one cared.
Security trusted that he belonged to the forged passport he’d used to check in. He was Matt Chang, an Asian guy on a business trip. Nobody looked twice at him.
The generic atmosphere of McGinley’s Irish Pub wrapped around him like a warm blanket of anonymity. He took a long pull of dark Guinness and set his glass on the black granite bar. McGinley’s clearly wasn’t splashing out on authenticity. The bar was the same kind of stone used in a lot of upscale kitchens in the nineties, not a wooden bar like he’d seen in the movies, so the whole place felt more like someone’s kitchen than an Irish pub.
But he didn’t care. In forty-five minutes he’d be on a plane to Dublin. Then he’d see what was real, and what was leprechaun clichés. He’d mingle with the Irish lasses and keep his head down until Ash gave up on him. They had enough high tech in Dublin that an Asian geek from America wouldn’t stick out too much. Plus, he had no links to Ireland. He’d taken a list of likely international destinations that he had no connection to, given each a number, and let a random number generator choose where he should go. If it were up to him, he’d have picked Berlin, which is why he hadn’t let himself pick.
A heavyset man in a nondescript gray business suit sat on a nearby stool. The bar’s overhead lights reflected off his shiny bald spot. He was glued to the soccer match on the bar’s television. Quantum supposed he’d have to learn to like soccer in Ireland.
A commotion in the terminal drew his attention away from the game. A wiry blonde pulling a hot-pink suitcase was screaming at the man standing next to her. He had a hot-pink suitcase, too, obviously a domesticated man, and he’d apparently run over her expensive shoe. She was giving him colorful hell for it.
Quantum reached for his beer without looking and took another sip of the bitter brew. He was facing the terminal now, enjoying the show. No amount of apologizing on the man’s part would make such a transgression right again, that was clear.
The woman took off her shoe and waved it under the man’s nose, so that he could really understand the depth of his crime. Quantum would miss the New Jersey accent and attitude. But he supposed Dublin would have its own charms.
Nausea passed through him, and he swallowed. He hadn’t had Guinness in a while, but he didn’t remember this reaction. Grogginess drove his head toward his chest. He set his beer down so hard that the glass broke, and dark liquid splashed onto his shirt. The businessman was gone. He’d left a crumpled ten-dollar bill on the bar, and he’d taken Quantum’s laptop.
Quantum staggered to his feet, one hand on the bar to steady himself. He’d been poisoned. Ash had found him, and he’d been poisoned, and he was going to die at a cheap chain bar in Newark.