Zero Hour

  Without delay, Kirov’s partner launched himself. He seemed to land and tumble more than slide.

  The train’s horn howled through the night, and Kirov knew time was running out. Any faster and he’d be facing certain death. He took a deep breath and stepped into the breach.

  For a long second, he flew, waving his arms for balance. Then he landed sideways and tried to tuck and roll. His face slammed into the gravel. His neck and shoulders were wrenched in the process. He flipped several times, covered at least fifty feet, and ended up facedown in an unconscious heap the second time in less than an hour.

  • • •

  IN THE FORWARD ENGINE, Kurt, Joe, and the engineer were celebrating as the Ghan continued to pick up speed and leave the original hijackers behind. Hayley was in a seat, shaking and looking like she might be sick.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Kurt asked, moving a wastepaper basket into range just in case she wasn’t.

  “I think so,” she said. “At least that’s over.”

  “Good,” he replied. “Because as soon as we make the next stop, we’re hopping on a helicopter and flying the rest of the way.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes bulging out. “Helicopter accident rates are five times higher than that of passenger trains . . .”

  The words trailed off. It was too much, too fast. She turned toward the bucket and promptly threw up.

  NUMA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  Dirk Pitt stepped from the elevator and onto the tenth floor as soon as the doors opened. Unlike the other floors of the NUMA building, the tenth had no receptionist to check people in or workers busy with different tasks. In fact, the only real noise in the open space came from the hum of exhaust fans and the climate-control unit that kept the computer servers and other processers cooled to the correct temperature.

  Walking at a brisk pace, Dirk passed through the symmetrical stacks of computing power. Somewhere in the center, he found the goal of his search: a man with a long ponytail, wearing blue jeans and a corduroy shirt.

  The lanky figure stood in the middle of three rectangular glass screens that were the size and shape of full-length mirrors. In fact, the arrangement was somewhat like that of a department store fitting room, which allows the customer to view his or her potential clothing purchase from all angles.

  In this case, the angled glass screens did not reflect much, except perhaps the obsessive nature of their designer and chief user: one Hiram Yaeger.

  Yaeger was a certified genius. He’d been designing and building computers since he was twelve years old. At NUMA, he’d been given almost unlimited resources to build his own systems, collect his own data, and apply it how he saw fit. The tenth floor of the NUMA building had long been given over to Yaeger’s machines. In recent years, he’d expanded, taking over portions of the eleventh, much to the chagrin of the meteorology group, who were moved to the basement.

  In a constant search for the most efficient human/machine interface, Yaeger had redesigned his system countless times over the years. He used multiple keyboards, voice activation, even virtual reality and talking holograms. This setup was his latest.

  Oddly enough, even as the systems continued to evolve, Yaeger remained the same, as if he were the only constant in an ever-changing equation.

  As Pitt approached, Yaeger’s eyes darted around the glass screens upon which data was flashing here and there. He gestured and touched and moved things from one screen to another. A strange headset covered one ear and placed an additional tiny screen a finger’s length in front of his right eye, which seemed to flicker. Even from ten feet away, Pitt could see information flashing up on it.

  “One day, I’m going to come in here and find you hardwired to the system,” Pitt said.

  In his zeal, Yaeger hadn’t sensed Pitt coming. He turned abruptly, startled by Pitt’s voice. “You might have knocked.”

  “All this technology, and you don’t have a doorbell?” Pitt said. “Or one of those things in the mall that ping when someone enters the store. Maybe I should get you a dog.”

  Yaeger’s face scrunched up at that thought. “I already have a dog. I leave him at home because he pees on things and chews up the wires.”

  “Sensible choice.”

  “What brings you down here?” Yaeger asked.

  Pitt placed a thick manila packet down on the table. “From the Aussies. Their file and technical data. I figured you and the computers could analyze it.”

  “They sent it on paper?”

  “Some people still use the mail, Hiram.”

  “Might as well write with a quill pen,” Yaeger grunted.

  Pitt climbed up onto the platform. “So what is all this?”

  “New interface.”

  “What’s that thing over your eye?” Pitt asked. “You look like a cross between Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes and one of the Borg from Star Trek.”

  “Unfortunately, I feel more like Sergeant Shultz,” Yaeger said. “Because I know nothing at this point.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “The NSA doesn’t want to share,” Yaeger explained. “Despite their promises. I’ve got nothing from them.”

  “Didn’t they send a batch of data over this morning?”

  “It’s all seismic data,” Yaeger said, “which we do need, I admit. But you asked me to look into this Dynamic Theory of Gravity that Tesla supposedly came up with. I’ve requested a boatload of documents on that end and received nothing. They’re stonewalling me.”

  Pitt figured they would have to do something about that.

  “Let me show you something,” Yaeger said, waving Dirk to the platform area between the three screens.

  Pitt stepped forward. “I feel like you’re going to measure me for a suit.”

  “The system could do that if you wanted it to,” Yaeger insisted. “But it’s a waste of processing power.”

  “Depends on how the suit fits,” Pitt replied.

  Hiram ignored him and pointed to the left-hand screen, where the photo of a one-story brick building appeared. It had ten evenly spaced windows, five on each side of a central door. It looked like a schoolhouse.

  A half-finished structure stood behind the building. It was made of latticework, somewhat like the Eiffel Tower but with little of the French construction’s graceful lines. In fact, it looked very utilitarian. At the top of the tower was a dome. Altogether, the setup resembled a giant metal mushroom.

  “Wardenclyffe,” Yaeger said. “Tesla’s million-dollar folly, they called it. Construction began in 1901. Tesla insisted it was the first of many to be placed around the world. Towers that would allow instant transmission of data and, more important perhaps, the wireless diffusion of electrical energy.”

  “Amazing,” Pitt said.

  “It really is,” Yaeger said. “Tesla worked on this tower in conjunction with his Dynamic Theory of Gravity. He exhausted himself on it, financially, physically, and mentally. He just about broke himself trying to see it through. In 1905, he ran out of money. The building remained in his possession for years but was eventually foreclosed upon. Finally, in 1917, a demolitions crew blew up the rusting tower. In many ways, it was the biggest setback of Tesla’s life. And yet, we have this letter.”

  As Yaeger spoke, the photocopy of a handwritten letter flashed up on the central screen. It was signed by Tesla and addressed to a man named Watterson. It was dated March 1905.

  “Who’s Watterson?” Pitt asked.

  “Daniel Watterson,” Yaeger replied, “Tesla’s prodigy at the time. Computer, please read the letter.”

  The computer began speaking aloud, using a convincing foreign accent. “Is that Tesla’s voice?”

  “No,” Yaeger said. “But it’s an authentic re-creation of Tesla’s English. The way he probably sounded.”

  “You ta
ught it to do that?”

  “No, it made the choice itself based on a thousand different dialects.”

  Pitt shook his head, feeling a sense of disbelief and wonder as he listened to the voice over the speakers.

  “Young Daniel, we have both been afraid this day would come. Ever since the patents on my motors of alternating current expired, the incoming funds have been drastically reduced. Neither Mr. Astor nor Mr. Morgan seem willing to put up more funding . . .”

  Yaeger leaned over to Pitt. “That would be J. P. Morgan and John Jacob Astor IV, the one who went down on the Titanic.”

  Pitt nodded. “Our paths have crossed before.”

  “So I recall.”

  “. . . they have intimated that perhaps they would be willing to grant us more if we’re able to demonstrate the transmission of power, but considering our inability to neutralize the anomalies we’ve encountered, I feel it is too dangerous to try at this point.

  “Remember, poverty can be overcome with hard work. Death cannot be. And I will not be the instrument of harm to so many who know nothing of our struggle. For this reason, I must decline the other offer you arranged as well.

  “Please inform General Cortland that I appreciate his efforts but cannot move forward until I have been able to render the danger moot.

  “With all hope, Nikola.”

  The computer had finished.

  “Who’s this Cortland fellow?”

  “Harold Cortland,” Yaeger said, “a brigadier general in charge of special procurements at the time.”

  “So Tesla decided not to seek more money from Jacob Astor because he thought it was too dangerous, and then he turned down money from the U.S. Army as well?”

  Yaeger nodded. “According to the letter. But aside from this reference, I’ve found no proof that the army ever spoke to Tesla, let alone offered him something.”

  Pitt turned back to the photo of Wardenclyffe. “It looks a lot like what Kurt and Joe found in that flooded mine.”

  “The ratios of the dome to the piping are almost identical,” Yaeger said. “And just like that mine, Tesla’s Wardenclyffe tower had electromagnetic conduction pipes that ran hundreds of feet down into the ground. According to Tesla, this was to ‘get a firm grip on the Earth,’ which he insisted would not only conduct the power but provide it.”

  “Million-dollar folly,” Pitt mused, “except it sounds like Tesla was glad to let it go. Almost relieved. Why? What was he afraid of?”

  Yaeger tilted his head as if the answer were obvious. “Probably the exact effect Thero is striving to achieve: tipping over the applecart of this zero-point field and wreaking havoc as all the apples tumble out.”

  Pitt nodded. He was beginning to sense a pattern.

  “From what you’ve said,” he began, “and what this Australian scientist has said, the zero-point field is connected and intertwined with gravitation. Tesla began work on his gravity theory and these towers at about the same time, around the turn of the century. He seemed to give up on both until . . . when?”

  “Nineteen thirty-seven,” the computer replied.

  Pitt looked around. “Thank you,” he said, feeling odd about responding to the machine. “Why then?”

  “Insufficient data,” the computer said.

  “Can it guess?” Pitt asked Yaeger. “And, if not, can you?”

  “Tesla was older by then,” Yaeger said. “And broke. Maybe he needed money.”

  “From what I’ve read, he always needed money. Why should 1937 be any different?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  Pitt shrugged as if it were obvious. “He buried this Wardenclyffe project when he could have saved it or at least kept it afloat. Then, thirty years later, he insists he’s ready to spring the theory on the world. What are the chances he would do that unless he thought he’d found a solution?”

  Again it was the computer that answered. “Considering Tesla’s adherence to his principles, the chances are less than ten percent.”

  “I was asking Hiram,” Pitt said. “But thank you anyway.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Pitt made a strange face.

  “This is how we work,” Yaeger said. “I talk. It talks back. This is how I’ve always worked.”

  “I liked it better when there was a hologram involved,” Pitt said.

  “Only because she flirted with you.”

  “You might be right about that. Can we get back to Tesla?”

  Yaeger nodded. “You’re suggesting Tesla found a way to eliminate the danger, these anomalies he talks about in the letter.”

  “It fits,” Pitt said.

  “Maybe,” Yaeger said, “except he still never published his theory. And when he died, it vanished.”

  “I wonder where,” Pitt said sardonically.

  “You think the NSA has it?”

  “They have something.”

  “That I don’t doubt,” Yaeger said.

  Pitt considered calling Sandecker and asking him to lean on the NSA, but the VP was in London at a G-20 meeting, and that kind of fire took a while to stoke.

  “What would happen if we nudged their database?” Pitt asked.

  “Nudged it?”

  “You know,” Pitt said, “like a vending machine that you put your money in but then it doesn’t give you what you paid for. You shake it a little until something falls out. What would happen if we did that to the NSA’s computers?”

  “Aside from prison and hard labor?”

  “Yeah, aside from that.”

  Hiram sighed. “Maybe we can find another way.”

  “You can always blame it on the . . .” Pitt nodded his head toward the computer display, wondering if the machine could pick up on the inference he was making.

  “I don’t think we’ll need to do that,” Yaeger said.

  “Maybe not,” Pitt said. “What about this Watterson character? You find anything on him?”

  Yaeger sighed. “He didn’t really do much after working with Tesla. As I recall, he died young.” He cocked his head. “Computer, are there any events in Daniel Watterson’s life of material relevance to our current project?”

  The computer calculated for a second, scouring billions upon billions of records, cross-referencing them and looking for any link, connection, or bit of data they might have missed. Finally, it spoke:

  “No meaningful influence on this project can be derived from Daniel Watterson’s post-1905 actions,” it said. “One statistical improbability detected.”

  Yaeger turned toward the main screen. “What would that be?”

  “According to obituary records, Daniel Watterson and General Harold Cortland both died on the same day. Their deaths occurred in separate states and from different causes. However, both obituaries were exactly fifty-one words in length and contained identical phrasing, except for the name of the deceased, cause of death, and location. Statistical probability of that occurring, considering the difference in their ages, occupations, and domiciles, computes to less than .01 percent.”

  Pitt and Yaeger exchanged glances. “Sounds like I’ll be nudging the NSA’s database,” Yaeger said.

  “Sometimes, it’s easier to apologize than get permission,” Pitt noted.

  Yaeger nodded. “Remind me of that when we’re breaking rocks at Leavenworth.”

  Pacific Voyager

  2,400 miles southwest of Perth

  Patrick “Padi” Devlin stood on the black-painted deck of the sailing abomination that had once been the Pacific Voyager. The wind was bitterly cold as it whipped around the front of the ship. Sleet had begun spitting from the steel gray sky, and mist in the air had reduced visibility to less than a mile for the past few hours.

  Devlin pulled his coat tight, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and wished mightily for a s
carf. Still, he didn’t want to go back inside.

  “Thank you for letting me out on deck,” he said to a figure, hovering behind him: Janko Minkosovic, his old crewmate and current jailer.

  “I can’t see any harm in it. Not like you’re going to swim back to Jakarta.”

  “I noticed you didn’t extend the same courtesy to the others in the hold.”

  “There are twenty-six of them,” Janko said. “They come from a pair of vessels we hit. Together, they could be a danger.”

  Devlin considered that. Did it mean Janko had only a small crew on board?

  The wind gusted and the sleet intensified. From the temperature and the cobalt blue of the sea, Devlin guessed they’d been traveling south. He couldn’t see the sun, but he guessed they were well into the Roaring Forties now, maybe even farther south. It looked like a storm was brewing.

  “Remind you of anything?” Janko asked.

  “The day this hulk went down,” Devlin replied.

  “The day you cut us loose.”

  “You know that was the captain’s choice,” Devlin shot back. “I begged him to hold on.”

  “Stop blaming him,” Janko said. “For that matter, stop blaming yourself, Padi. Look at you. You’re a worse wreck than this ship. And you thought you’d make captain someday.”

  Devlin cut his eyes at Janko.

  “There was nothing any of you could have done,” Janko said. “We set it up that way. If you hadn’t released the cable, we’d have cut through it ourselves.”

  “Who?” Devlin asked sharply. “Who’s we? And why? To fake the ship’s destruction? She was already a derelict. She wasn’t even insured.”

  “The man I work for bought her,” Janko explained, “years before. All that time in dry dock at Tarakan, he had people working on her. Making changes. When the moment came, he needed her to disappear. So he ordered us to tow her into the storm.”

  Devlin stared at Janko. “But you were part of the crew. Our crew!”

  “For six months, along with the other two. He arranged that with your employer.”