The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 38

Ash stopped pacing the length of his long living room and dropped onto a ridiculous modern sofa. Rosa had bought it when they were married, and he somehow couldn’t get rid of it even though it was not now, and had never been, comfortable.

He cycled through his email and his chat rooms. Quantum was back. He’d worried that the enterprising young hustler might try to sell the Oscillator to a higher bidder, or use it himself, but he was in the chat room, waiting like a good boy. He let him stew for a few minutes before answering.

Ash wondered if this could be true. Not that it mattered. Quantum would not be a problem for long. He’d be richly paid, and then he’d go where all the richly paid went, where everyone went, eventually.

Quantum entered details for a Bitcoin account. He would probably pick the payoff up at a Bitcoin ATM, making it more difficult to find him. Clever, but not clever enough.

Quantum posted a link to a video feed. When Ash clicked on the link, he saw a large metal box with a glass door. It looked like a gun safe, which meant that the door was probably not glass, but ballistic glass. He could hire someone to break into it, of course, but that would take time.

The camera zoomed in on one of two objects inside. He recognized the flat bottom and distinctive cylinder. It was the Oscillator, just as Nikola Tesla had drawn it many years ago. As if on cue, the camera panned to the left to display a bomb. Thirty minutes left on the counter, and it began to count down.

He stared at the words, not sure what they meant. Then he realized that they were synonyms. Synonyms for two words that might be high on the NSA’s radar today. Hello meant hi or high. And a segment was part of a line. High line. Ash gulped. Quantum was saying that the Oscillator was responsible for the collapse of the High Line park extension. Ash needed to make it clear that he understood the reference with some synonyms of his own for park.

If Quantum hadn’t knocked the tracks down, it would be one hell of a coincidence that a freak earthquake had happened in Manhattan on the day that he stole the Oscillator. Ash’s heart raced. It worked! And he had to have it. The clock ticked down on the video feed. Would Quantum really blow it up?

He posted a street address on Park Avenue and the Realtor code for the lockbox. Quantum must have hidden the safe in an empty apartment for sale. Again, a clever boy.

Ash picked up his secure phone and sent a man to that address. The man said he’d be inside in twenty-five minutes. That didn’t leave much margin for error.

He admired the young hacker’s audacity. Ash began the transaction, but waited for final confirmation. He’d get the money back later, regardless.

His secure phone beeped and displayed a picture of the safe and the device, the man he’d sent to retrieve it reflected in the glass door and the timer at four minutes. He pressed the Transfer button on Bitcoin.

The number on the timer changed to seventeen, so Quantum was still there. After a few tense minutes of staring at the video feed, the countdown stopped, the clock went dark, and the door swung open.

Not that Quantum was guaranteed good health. Not when Ash found him. Quantum must know that, so he would run.

But Ash knew a few things about the hacker beyond his real name. Quantum had exchanged emails on a temporary account with a hacker in Berlin, whom Ash suspected of pretending to be a woman. He’d learned from those emails that Quantum had never left the country, and the most logical assumption would be that he wouldn’t leave it now. But a clever boy like Quantum would challenge that assumption.

Ash was willing to bet the cost of a few operatives at the international terminals of JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark’s Liberty Airport that he was right.