Mirage

  “They took every scrap of paper they could find, but they left the ship behind. Nikola died owing a great deal in taxes, so the ship was turned over to the War Department as scrap in order to pay off his debt.”

  “How do you know all this and why haven’t I read about it before?”

  Tennyson smiled. “Because of a little-known pact made during World War Two between the U.S. government and the Mafia.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me right. You see, the mob controlled the port facilities in the Northeast, from Boston down to Wilmington, Delaware. In order for the docks to run smoothly for the war effort, certain concessions were made to organized-crime figures, including Lucky Luciano, who was paroled from prison after the war for his cooperation.”

  “And how does this pertain to Tesla’s boat?”

  “Dockworkers first tried to fire up the ship’s boilers to move it to a wrecking facility on the Delaware River. They succeeded, and one worker inadvertently powered up the equipment Tesla had left wired to the ship’s hull. Two men were in the room when the machine went live. One of them was cut in half by an unknown force and his lower extremities vaporized. This is where the rumor of men fused to the deck of the Eldridge originates. It’s said the dead man’s torso was found erect and propped up on his hands as though he was lifting himself out of the deck.

  “The second man looked perfectly fine, but he too was dead, his skin turned as white as a sheet. It was later determined that the iron in his blood had been ripped free of its binding protein, and toxic shock killed him. These two men happened to be pretty well connected with the local mob boss—I can’t recall his name at the moment—but, needless to say, the workers were spooked and refused to work on the ship. They discussed a general dockwide strike until the Navy agreed to tow the ship out into the Atlantic and sink it.”

  “Did they?”

  “They had no choice. Philadelphia was one of the Navy’s most important facilities for both shipbuilding and repair. It wasn’t worth the scrap value of one old mine tender to put that in jeopardy.”

  “Why didn’t the Navy investigate the machine that killed the men?”

  “I’m sure they wanted to, but with twenty thousand workers threatening to walk off the job at the same time the Allies were marching up the spine of Italy, and matériel was being amassed for the eventual invasion at Normandy, they took the prudent course to keep the peace on the home front.”

  “How did what you just told me become the story of the USS Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment?”

  “In 1953, the author of an obscure book about UFOs named Morris Jessup received a letter from a man identifying himself as Carlos Allende. Allende singled out Jessup because in his book he speculated that UFOs were powered by electromagnetism and that during the war the Navy had experimented with such forces on a ship in Philadelphia. Allende claimed the research was based on Einstein’s unified field theory, though Einstein never could reconcile all the forces of nature into one elegant formula like he had for relativity.

  “They corresponded for a time until Jessup realized Allende was some kind of crank and stopped all contact. Who Allende really was has never been established, but I believe he was aboard Nikola’s old mine tender when those two men were so mysteriously killed and spun an even greater tale for a gullible dupe.

  “Interestingly, the Office of Naval Research contacted Jessup a few years later about an annotated copy of his book they’d been sent. He informed them that the cryptic notes were written by Allende. Then in 1959, Jessup set up a meeting with Dr. Manson Valentine, the man who later discovered the limestone formation called the Bimini Road in the waters off the Bahamas. Jessup never made that meeting. He was found dead in his car in Miami, with a rubber hose stretched from the exhaust to his closed window. That last detail is the lifeblood of conspiracy theorists the world over. They say it wasn’t suicide but that he was killed by French operatives.”

  Cabrillo scoffed. “French?”

  “It’s a conspiracy theory, after all.” Tennyson chuckled. “Why not the French?”

  “Where did you get the story about the mine tender and why didn’t you put it in your biography?”

  Before answering, the retired academic hauled himself to his feet. “I’m thirsty. Let’s get something to drink and then finish up with that stump. You almost have it out of the ground.”

  Picking up his jacket and securing the holstered gun when Tennyson had his back turned, Juan followed him across the lawn and patio. The house’s kitchen was tucked into the back corner overlooking the garden, and while there were “modern” appliances, the fridge looked like it had been converted from an icebox, and a box of extra-long matches next to the stove meant its pilot had to be lit by hand.

  Tennyson pulled two Cokes from the fridge and handed one over. “I’m sure you’d prefer a beer, but I don’t drink.”

  “This is fine.” Cabrillo popped the can and took a long draught, not realizing how dry his throat had become.

  The doorbell buzzed, and Juan’s thirst vanished as his mind flashed to the bullet striking Yusuf out in the desert where no assassin had a right to be.

  “Are you expecting anyone?”

  “Not really. But my birthday is this week, and I’ve been getting gifts from old students and colleagues,” Tennyson said as he ambled from the kitchen. Juan brushed passed him and looked out the front window. A delivery van was parked next to his Porsche on the street, its side emblazoned with a bouquet of flowers. His pulse slowed.

  “Looks like someone sent you flowers.”

  “Probably my old secretary. She sends peonies every year.”

  Cabrillo shifted his angle to see the driver standing on the stoop. He could only see a sliver of the man and just a hint of the color of the flowers he carried. And then he took a second glance at the truck. The name under the painted bouquet: EMPIRE FLORISTS.

  The connections came as fast as the synapses in his brain could fire. Vermont was the Green Mountain State. It was its neighbor, New York, that carried the Empire nickname. No way would a florist deliver this far out of state. They would have called a local business to drop off a bouquet of whatever the customer requested. Someone coming all the way from New York wasn’t here to deliver flowers. Pytor Kenin’s name popped into his head, and he knew that if Kenin used local talent to kill the world’s foremost expert on Nikola Tesla, they would be based out of Brighton Beach, New York, aka Little Odessa.

  “Wes!” Cabrillo shouted, turning to see that Tennyson was already reaching for the front door. “No!”

  Tennyson started to pull on the heavy brass handle when the door burst against his face as the florist kicked it in from the outside. The professor fell backward onto the floor only seconds before the muted buzz of a machine pistol on full automatic filled the parlor followed by two muted blasts from Cabrillo’s silenced FN pistol that sent the phony florist reeling into a bed of rosebushes.

  Tennyson’s fall had saved him. He had dropped to the floor below the volley that sprayed the air above him. Cabrillo cursed himself for being two seconds too late to stop the attack on the professor, yet he was thankful that Tennyson did not appear to have stopped a bullet. He barely had time to tell him to play dead.

  In the eerie silence that followed, Cabrillo heard two men speaking in Russian as they rushed across the backyard and into the kitchen. When they reached the parlor, it was empty but for Tennyson’s body and a small yellow carpet of scattered daffodils. Only the shattered front door showed any sign of splattered crimson. Unknown to the men, Cabrillo was hiding behind coats in the hall closet as he stared through a crack in the door.

  “That him?” one of the killers asked.

  His accomplice nodded. “Right here. Vermont driver’s license issued to Wesley Tennyson.”

  In the closet, Cabrillo held his breath, hoping that Tennyson was savvy en
ough to play a good corpse. The only hitch was, there was no blood on him.

  As if suddenly thinking of something, one of the killers stood and looked out the doorway. “Where’s Vladimir?”

  “He probably went to the van to get the gas cans to burn the house.”

  “I can see through the van’s windshield. He’s not in it.”

  “I’ll check the front,” the man standing in the doorway muttered. “You go upstairs and search the bedrooms. I’ll take the downstairs after I find Vladimir.”

  “Don’t forget to turn on the gas on the stove.”

  The man stepped out in front of the house while his co-conspirator climbed the stairs.

  He only took five steps past the front door when he spied Vladimir’s remains lying in a bed of roses, his dead eyes staring into the sun. He whirled around and ran back into the house, shouting his colleague’s name. As soon as he burst into the entryway, he saw a man sitting on a nearby divan. Surprise cost him the three microseconds Cabrillo needed to put a bullet in his forehead precisely between the eyes.

  Too late, the man on the stairs realized something was wrong. Cabrillo fired a second time, and a red hole appeared in the Russian’s neck.

  Cabrillo looked down on the body that had fallen across Tennyson’s feet. Then he hoisted the corpse and dropped it on top of the other. Only then did he kneel beside Tennyson.

  “Are you all right, Professor?”

  Tennyson raised his head and stared into Cabrillo’s eyes. “No, I’m not all right. I lead a quiet, dignified life, and within five minutes I have three dead men in my flower bed and entryway. What am I going to tell the police?”

  “Not to worry. Have you got a wheelbarrow?”

  “I have one in the tool shed.”

  “May I borrow it?”

  Tennyson looked at him. “What for?”

  “I’m going to haul the bodies out to the van and hide them. Do you have any ideas for a nice secluded area?”

  Tennyson thought a moment. “There’s an old gravel pit that’s filled with water. Sport divers don’t go into it because of chemicals left over when it was abandoned.”

  “Where can I find it?”

  “About ten miles south of town. It’s rough going. It runs through a thick wooded area. The road to it hasn’t been used for thirty years.”

  “Sounds perfect,” said Cabrillo. He handed Tennyson the keys to his car. “You lead me to the gravel pit as soon as you pack.”

  “Pack?”

  “Yes, pack. Your life isn’t worth two cents if you stay here. My corporation owns a nice little condo on the island of Antigua. You can go there and relax on the beach until I let you know it’s safe and there will be no more attempts on your life.”

  Tennyson asked the obvious question: “Why do these people want to kill me?”

  “You know too much about Tesla.”

  Without further talk, Cabrillo loaded the van with the cadavers while Tennyson quickly threw clothes and a shaving kit into a suitcase.

  It took forty minutes to drive the ten miles. Cabrillo took the lead, followed by Tennyson in his rented Porsche. The professor honked the horn once for a right turn and twice for a left. Once they left the main road for a barely visible dirt track through the woodlands, their speed dropped to fifteen miles an hour. Three times they were forced to stop and heave dead branches off the old road. Finally, they reached the abandoned gravel pit.

  Old rusting equipment lay scattered around the edge of the pit. Battered and rotted wooden buildings were all that were left of the offices and crew’s mess hall. Cabrillo stepped from the van and stared over the lip of the pit. The water looked yellowish brown and smelled like sulfur. He could only guess how deep the water was and hope it was enough to cover the van.

  He put a rock on the accelerator, shifted the transmission into drive, and watched as the van jerked forward, dropped over the brink, and impacted the water with a formless splash and slowly sank into the watery ooze.

  Then Cabrillo sat on a large rock, deep in thought, as he waited for the van to sink out of sight. He knew who hired the assassins and why, yet there were other questions.

  Amateurs, he said to himself. Why did Pytor Kenin send a trio of amateurs?

  When the mast rose out of the sea like a shark’s telltale fin, it barely cut through the water and left no trail of churned oceanic phosphorus, no presence other than a tiny blip undetectable to all but the most trained observers. Leviathan showed itself yet remained hidden in its watery realm.

  Forty feet below this thin stalk of metal lay one of the most devastating weapons ever devised by man. Named Akula, or shark, this class of Russian fast-attack submarine was a true predator of the sea. Measuring more than a football field in length and displacing some twelve thousand tons when submerged, the hunter/killer boasted multiple torpedo tubes, rocket launchers, and a sonar suite that could detect the minutest sound over vast distances. She carried a crew of seventy-three led by one Kapitan Anton Patronov.

  Patronov was so fair-haired and pale-skinned that he almost appeared albino, and with an upturned nose that looked like the double barrels of a shotgun, he was considered porcine as well. His wet lips were overly large, and he had a cauliflower ear from his days as a boxer in the old Soviet naval academy. He wasn’t particularly tall, but had wide shoulders that sloped up to a bullet head that he kept trimmed in a half-inch buzz of pure white hair. What he lacked in mannish charm he made up for in capability and utter ruthlessness. He’d turned down promotions twice so that he could stay at sea, and because many years ago he was the youngest sub captain in modern Russian history, he had more experience as a submariner than anyone else in the Navy.

  Patronov was just stepping from his cubicle-sized cabin when the flash traffic came off the comm line. Over the Tannoy came the cry, “Captain to the shack. Secure transmission for your eyes only.”

  “Clear the way,” he growled as he made his way aft to the radio room. He possessed a low, rasping voice with a dark inflection that commanded instant respect. Seamen and officers alike pressed themselves against the tight companionway walls to ease his passage.

  The radio shack was a confined space made more hospitable to electronics than man. Yet somehow two young techs were shoehorned into the room, one with headphones draped around his neck while the other sat back as far as the confines would allow and translated the burst transmission.

  “We had an Ohio on the plot,” Patronov said as he entered the space. “Tell me this is more important.”

  The Akula had been trailing an Ohio-class submarine, one of the legs of America’s defensive triad of nuclear deterrent, when she was called to the surface by a ULF summons for immediate data download. “It’s in code,” the radioman said without meeting his captain’s glare. He held the flimsy paper over his shoulder in hopes it would be snatched away and his culpability in ending the sub chase was at an end.

  “Damn.” Patronov ripped the thin piece of paper out of the sailor’s hand, snapped it so he could inspect the type, and cursed again. “Kenin. He’s been the pain in my ass since the academy.”

  “Sir?” It was obvious from his tone that the young radio operator hadn’t expected such disrespect from his captain for the fleet’s commanding admiral.

  “Relax, Pavel. When the time comes for them to pin captain’s bars on your shoulders, you will curse my name ten times worse than I curse my first commander.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean . . .” The young radioman wisely stopped talking and kept his stare riveted on his equipment. The second radio operator swiveled in his chair and asked, “Will we reacquire the Americans?”

  Patronov shot him a look that twisted the tech back in his seat so that he too stared at the radios. “It took us a week of searching the first time,” he said as he left the room. “It will probably take me that long just to decrypt this damn
message.”

  It took him the better part of an hour to decode the page-length missive. Because this was a private communiqué between the two men and not an official order, he had to use a private codebook that Kenin had given only to his most loyal followers. Patronov knew that such a book was in the possession of senior captain Sergei Karpov. Karpov was currently on deployment aboard a Typhoon-class missile boat with a complement of twenty nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Patronov knew Sergei well and knew that if Kenin ever ordered a secret launch, Karpov would press the button as fast and as hard as he could.

  Truth told, Patronov admitted, so would he.

  With China ascending as a world leader and America no longer willing to fulfill its role as a superpower, a void was opening that a man like Admiral Kenin could exploit. The dragon and eagle would eventually fight it out in some form, but it would be the bear that would emerge victorious.

  Patronov read through the decrypted message for a second time before hitting the comm button on his desk that connected him to the bridge. “Emergency order. XO to the captain’s cabin. Helm, make your course two three-five. Course to be corrected later when plot is resolved. Speed all ahead full. The American boomer is no longer a target. Repeat, the American is no longer a target.”

  Seven seconds later, the sub’s executive officer, her second-in-command, knocked on Patronov’s cabin door.

  “Enter.”

  Paulus Renko stepped through the door and stood as stiff as a ramrod until his captain waved him into a chair. The younger man was the opposite of Patronov physically. He was as handsome as a model on a recruiting poster, a hairsbreadth shy of the maximum height allowance on a submarine, and had a fencer’s lean build, with broad shoulders and a tapered waist and hips.

  Patronov eyed him for a moment, his ugly countenance giving away nothing. He sighed as if reaching a weighty decision. “I’ve been tasked with telling you, Commander Renko, that you will never deploy as an executive officer ever again.”