The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 7

Quantum stopped at a park bench to stretch his calf muscles. He’d been keeping an eye on the entrance to the Waldorf Astoria hotel and on a suspicious gray-bearded hippie sitting on a bench in front of it. The guy had a Wall Street Journal, which didn’t match his outfit, and he’d been pretending to read it while glancing at the hotel door every minute or so. Not subtle.

Quantum was here to watch for a certain woman to leave the hotel. After she left, he had orders to search her room for documents in Nikola Tesla’s handwriting, and also for the Oscillator. Ash had given him the assignment, and he was thrilled to be trusted with something this important.

He leaned into the stretch, thinking about Ash. He hadn’t managed to uncover much about him, but he was willing to bet that the guy was loaded. His Spooky actions always started with insider knowledge. Ash knew what happened off-line in the corridors of power and then used his online teams to screw things up. He was powerful in ways that Quantum only dreamed about. But maybe Ash would share some of that power and wealth. Whether he wanted to or not.

The old hippie shifted on the bench. He wore faded jeans and a gray NYU hoodie, and he had a beard like a wizard. He looked like Quantum had always pictured Geezer. What if he was Geezer? What if Ash had sent them both here? A prickling in Quantum’s neck told him not to discount the possibility.

He’d lived through four foster homes, a violent older brother, and a couple of stints in prison. He knew to trust his instincts for danger. But that didn’t mean he was going to wimp out.

Quantum wiped sweat off his forehead. More sweat replaced it. He didn’t much mind. He’d spent every summer in New York, and he’d done without air conditioning for most of them. If he played his cards right, he’d end up living in air-conditioned splendor one day. He bet Ash lived in air-conditioned splendor all the time.

A bustle of activity drew Quantum’s glance to the front of the hotel. His target had emerged from the building. She was a small woman, in her sixties, accompanied by a man in his fifties pulling a black suitcase. Both looked well-to-do, and the woman moved with a coordinated grace that made his awareness pop up a notch. She looked like she could handle herself. Probably a dancer, but she could just as easily be a martial arts expert. Not one to underestimate anyway.

Quantum might look like a nerd online, but in the real world he had a black belt in karate. Before she died, his mother had insisted on sending him to karate after kids started picking on him in grade school, like she thought he’d be a modern-day Karate Kid. After a couple of years, it started to pay off. He still ran from fights and didn’t like to get hurt, but he was quick in the way that a little nerd on the streets had to be to survive. And when he had to stand and fight, he could actually kick ass. He’d given a kid twice his size a broken nose, been charged with assault a couple of times, and once beat a guy and left him for dead in the street. He still didn’t know if the man had lived or died, and he didn’t much care.

The lady smiled up at the man in the business suit. He didn’t look like anything to worry about as he kissed both cheeks and installed her in a bright yellow taxi, sticking the suitcase into the trunk himself. Only after the taxi pulled away from the curb did the man start walking briskly in the other direction.

Perfect. Both of them were out of their room.

In a piece of weird timing that couldn’t be coincidental, the Geezer guy jumped to his feet and ran to the street. A taxi practically hit him, and he climbed inside. The hippie seemed to be arguing with the driver before it pulled away. Quantum debated following, but didn’t. Ash had told him to search the room as soon as the couple left. He wasn’t going to screw up such a simple assignment to follow some hippie.

He jogged across the street and looked right through the uniformed doorman. Quantum was a guest of this hotel, his room paid for through Spooky’s petty-cash fund — another reason he thought Ash might be rich. Spooky always had access to plenty of money, either from Ash’s pocket or stolen by him, each as good as the other as far as Quantum was concerned.

Since check-in, he’d ordered all the room service he could and had raided the minibar. Money was just a concept to someone like Ash, he suspected. And Quantum could resell those tiny liquor bottles.

He sauntered across the opulent lobby toward the elevators. Nobody said anything about the sweat he was dripping on the floor, because he had every right to be here. He was a guest. Refrigerated air wafted across his skin, and he took in a deep breath of it.

A quick smile in the concierge’s direction, and he was already to the elevator. His room was beside the one he was supposed to search, and he had a card key to it in his wallet next to his own. If the card key didn’t work, he’d have to improvise, but he bet Ash had come through. That guy didn’t miss a trick.

A few minutes later he was in the hotel room of one Tatiana Tesla and Hugh Hollingberry, a tidy couple. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and began his search. His mother called him The Accountant, because he was so meticulous in his habits — always putting things back as he had found them. He’d been like that as long as he could remember. A useful trait.

He finished the search and returned to his room, where he tapped out a message to Ash in a dark chat room, telling him he hadn’t found anything, but the woman had left with a suitcase. Maybe the plans or the Oscillator were in there.

It was spooky how much Ash knew. Quantum smiled at the pun. He only ever contacted Ash through a screen of false identities or with a disposable burner phone, so he wouldn’t be easy to track, even for someone like Ash. Or at least he hoped not. His phone vibrated with an incoming text, reminding him that he was still on duty.

Quantum parsed those last sentences. What kind of damage did Ash deem to be serious? Tough to say. He’d have to use his own judgment. And no matter what, he didn’t intend to get caught.