The Tesla Experiment

Chapter 26

Sam woke up in a daze. His eyes felt thick and his head throbbed, but the worst of it was the agony of a pulled muscle between his neck and shoulder where a hefty blow had rendered him unconscious before. His face distorted in pain, but he made sure that he did not make a sound. So many times before he had been in a situation like this that it had almost become normal. As his memory returned gradually he remembered the promise of a good beer and the nervous butler who, it turned out, was not anxious about the lightning after all.

“Bastard,” Sam whispered, recalling Healy’s betrayal.

In the dark of his surroundings Sam took his time to test the restraints he probably had wrapped around his ankles and wrists. But to his surprise he found that he was not bound at all. He could see nothing, but he could smell new carpets and a whiff of perfume. With a groan of effort Sam sat and tightened his abs to sit up, but his head instantly pounded with a sharp sting he could not endure and he quickly returned to his old position. The mattress he was lying on was soft, but the perfumed air had him worried about what was lying next to him.

He wondered how long he had been here, wherever here was, and then he thought of the ladies waiting for him in Lyon. It would be terrible if Healy had the same hostility planned for them that he had for Sam, for some reason. Sam shook his head to get rid of the ringing in his ears. Voices came from far off. One was male, the other female. He recognized the female voice.

“Penny?” he frowned. “What the hell…?”

They drew nearer. Sam rolled gently off the bed as not to be pummeled by the deadly headache again. On his knees on the thick carpet he inched himself closer to the sound of the muffled voices. By a few more paces on his knees, keeping his body low to the ground, Sam reached a corner that hugged his frame comfortably. From there he could hear them better.

“Please tell me you did not kill him in front of everyone,” Penny said.

“Bitch,” Sam whispered in disbelief of the woman he thought was just a professional who needed his services.

“Sam Cleave is a celebrity, you know,” she told the man. “We can never be associated with his death, Christian! Nobody should even find him, actually.”

“Who the hell is Christian?” Sam whispered.

“My dear, you are too hasty in your judgment,” Christian Foster reminded her. “I did not kill him. I do not wish to kill him until we know for sure that he is the man you are looking for.”

“I like this Christian bloke,” Sam nodded to himself, trying to remember if he had ever encountered someone by that name before, someone he could have vexed into doing this to him. He had no idea why he had been kidnapped or why Penny Richards wanted him dead. He had not done anything to justify her wrath, as far as he could tell.

“Listen to me,” she said, “he is the man we are looking for. He was the last person to see Albert Tägtgren alive. Who else would have killed him?”

Sam gasped. “Tägtgren is dead?”

“I don’t know,” Foster said. “I just think we should interrogate the journalist before we just make away with him. See what he has, what he knows. If we are satisfied that he is guilty, even by association, I will make him disappear forever.”

‘The phone call,’ Sam thought. ‘He wanted to kick my ass for something.’

“Alright, see if you can find out where he is staying at the moment so that we can confiscate his gear. Once we have checked all the footage we will know for sure if he edited out anything important before sending it to me. He cannot know about the Tesla Experiment or our competition will have us by the short and curly’s, do you understand?” Penny instructed.

Sam tried to make sense of it. Now he understood why the Cornwall Institute hired him. But he still could not figure out who made Tägtgren believe that Sam had spilled his secret to anyone. Someone had to have seen them together; someone who knew what they did. That was the person who probably killed Tägtgren for telling Sam. ‘Penny knew, from what she just said,’ he reckoned. ‘Healy also knows about the Tesla Experiment and I know how underhanded he is now.’

Perplexed, Sam sat in the dark room with his hands on his wet hair. The warmth of his palms soothed his headache as he listened to the two in the next room. When he had enough strength he stood up against the wall to feel for a light switch, but found nothing but smooth paint under his probing fingers. In the back of his mind Sam knew that he had to escape as soon as he was able. Whatever his enormous captor had in mind, he had Jenner Manor in his sights next and Healy was definitely not going to protect Lydia and Nina anymore.

“Find out from Healy if he can obtain Sam Cleave’s equipment without being discovered,” Penny told Foster. “You can use the phone in my office. It has a scrambler so that we cannot be found by any tracers.”

“Alright. I’ll be back shortly,” he agreed, leaving her alone in the adjacent room. Now was the opportune time for Sam to act. Penny by herself would be no problem to subdue, but once the big brute returned it would be virtually impossible to make an escape before Healy got to Lydia and Nina.

Sam used his entire bodyweight to thump against the wall where he was crouched before. He knew the sound would provoke Penny to investigate. Every time Sam hurled himself against the wall, he moaned from the sharp shooting pain in his head and the strain on his traps. But a little pain was nothing to bear in comparison of what would happen to him if he waited to be questioned — and likely get killed.

Now he truly realized why Lydia was so adamant on using Purdue to help her with the Tesla Experiment. It was obvious that she could not trust anyone else who knew about it. Penny was quiet, listening for the irregular bangs in the room where she told Foster to leave Sam Cleave. She could hear him whimpering in agony, and she did not want him to attempt anything stupid to keep her from finding out what he knew. Her own husband committed suicide for fear of having his secrets discovered years ago, so such measures were the first to surface in her reasoning with the sounds of pain she could hear in the next room.

“No, you don’t,” she said.

Penny’s staff did not realize her involvement in the protection of the Tesla Experiment. It was a secret only known to the few people who funded it, attempted it and designed the means to put it into practice. Penny was part of the funding side over the years leading up to its fruition.

When she came to the door of the store room she roughly converted to Sam’s holding cell she took a last look around to make sure nobody at the Cornwall Institute’s local branch saw her. That was fortunate for Sam too, because there were no witnesses to see him jerk her inside the moment she opened the door.

“What is this about, Penny? I did not kill anybody. I did not even know that Tägtgren was dead! He sent me a threatening message, that I leaked his involvement and I cost him his job.” Sam revealed, holding his hand over her mouth. He had Penny in a bear hug from behind to restrain her movement and he kicked the door shut. Penny said something into his hand.

“If you scream I will hurt you, I swear,” he said, and she nodded.

Slowly he lifted his hand. “Who else knows about you filming there?”

“Just Healy and a friend of mine, David Purdue, but he is…” Sam cut the rest short, since explaining Purdue’s whereabouts would take way too long.

“Then Healy could be the killer. He had no problem handing you over,” she speculated. “What did you do with the real footage, Sam?”

“I don’t have time to explain now,” Sam said. “Give me your car keys.”

“No.”

“Penny, give me your car keys,” he repeated, pulling her hair to manipulate her movement.

“I will not! You have no choice but to…”

Sam punched her lights out. Penny’s body fell limply against him.

“I’m sorry, old girl,” he whispered. “I just don’t have time to listen to you shite right now.”

He left Penny in the room and latched the door on the outside. Christian Foster would be on his way back by now, so Sam slipped through the rest room to another door that led past Penny’s office. There Foster stood, talking on the phone. Sam’s phone was probably still in Foster’s possession. Keeping an eye on the huge man in the office, Sam entered the open laboratory and scanned the place for a suitable weapon. An iron bar holding up a makeshift shelf against the wall looked ideal. Gently lowering the shelf, Sam removed the bar and stole back to the hallway.

He stood next to the doorway, waiting for Foster to come through it. Sam’s hands tightened around the bar as he sank to his haunches to be just about the height of Foster’s knees. Holding his breath, he listened for the footsteps of his target drawing nearer as his heart pounded wildly in anticipation. With all his might Sam swung the bar against the assassin’s legs, sending Foster howling in pain, writhing on the floor. With another blow to his head, Sam incapacitated him. He searched Foster and retrieved his cell phone.

With time to call for help Sam quietly passed through the hallways of the building, past employees and filing clerks. He tried to look as natural as possible, considering he sported a few bruises and nursed a headache from hell. Finally he made it to the lobby, dialing the only person he knew in this part of the planet.

Within ten minutes Sam was rescued by Professor Westdijk. It was a matter of luck that Sam recalled the old man telling him he would be taking a few days off in Bourgoin-Jallieu until the end of the month. His only friend at CERN collected Sam to take him back to Jenner Manor. Two blocks into his escape Sam noticed that they were being followed by a red Mercedes that quickly caught up with them. It was difficult to outrun the red car in traffic, and Sam could see that it was Foster sitting behind them. As soon as they were on the highway the chase continued at high speed.

Sam was impressed with Prof. Westdijk’s driving. He kept Foster at bay for a good 10km further. A call came through on his cell phone.

“Are you alright, Sam?” Nina asked. “Where are you?”

“Nina, don’t trust Healy! Don’t open the gates for anyone! I’ll explain later,” Sam told her urgently. “We’ll be there shortly.”

“We?” Nina asked. But Sam had hung up already.

“Where are they?” Lydia asked.

“Sam sounds frantic,” Nina said. Her voice was fraught with worry. “I know that tone of his, Lydia. It is not something to take lightly. He says we mustn’t trust Healy.”

“Bullshit. Healy would never do anything to hurt me,” Lydia disagreed.

“Think about it!” Nina forced. “Healy stays away for the first time in how many years to catch up with a friend… just about the time that you send Purdue back? Just before you plan to finally get the Tesla schematics?”

Lydia had to concede. The time frames would coincide. Healy did change slightly when Purdue agreed to help with the experiment, although she did not think he was at all concerned about her work. In fact, Lydia reckoned Healy was a little jealous of the attention she got from Purdue and that was the reason for his slightly cooler behavior. Then again, Healy was not a warm, fuzzy man to begin with and it was difficult to tell how he felt most of the time anyway.

“Nobody knows that you are still alive, right? Those who knew you were working on the theories, Lydia, did they know you came back at all?” Nina asked.

“No. They had no idea that I survived the CERN accident,” Lydia said after some thought.

“There you go. Healy waited until you started getting messages from Purdue, to make sure that the experiment was successful!” Nina reasoned, and Lydia’s eyes betrayed her exact deduction too. “Now he had the perfect opportunity to reveal that you were still alive! Obviously the highest bidder would want to get your whereabouts from Healy and I think Sam just discovered who he gave it to.”

Lydia looked at Nina with an ashen expression. She finally realized that she truly was in danger and she knew that at least four other people knew about the Tesla Experiment. Any of those could be showing up at her door at any moment.

“Nina, get that skinny ass of yours behind my chair and wheel me to the second floor! Now! We have some time to prepare to dig in here at the chamber in case Purdue makes contact, so let’s make it count!”