‘Oh?’
‘Like, Lana can be changed into Alan. Pots can be rearranged into Stop.’
‘Now I’m with you,’ nodded Mick, the bourbon starting to give him a slight glow.
‘Well, Slate is an anagram of Tesla,’ said Jesse.
‘And Klaus is a Scandinavian form of Nikola. Short for Nicholas.’
‘Rigghht,’ said Mick.
‘So in my view,’ said Jesse, ‘Klaus Slate was actually Nikola Tesla.’
Mick eyed Jesse over his glass. ‘Are you sure of this?’ he asked her.
‘Yes I am,’ said Jesse.
‘Okay,’ said Mick. ‘So what was he doing out here?’
Jesse held up her glass. ‘Get me another drink and I’ll tell you.’
Mick took Jesse’s glass. ‘Too many more of these and you won’t be driving home,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve thought of that,’ said Jesse.
‘Hey. Unreal,’ smiled Mick, getting up to go to the kitchen.
Mick returned with the two drinks. Jesse thanked him and took a sip as Mick sat down and made himself comfortable again.
‘Besides work,’ said Jesse, ‘I’ve been on the internet and going through books and whatever till my eyes feel like they’re hanging out.’
‘Yeah. They look a bit red,’ said Mick.
‘But I’ll tell you what I’ve found out and figured out so far. Starting with Mrs Hedstrom’s uncle.’
‘Okay.’
‘Lonsdale Hedstrom,’ said Jesse, ‘was Big Lonnie Hedstrom. A Sydney bank robber and standover man who originally came from Maitland. He did time for assault police and whatever. But managed to get away with all the bank jobs.’
‘Like Muswellbrook,’ said Mick.
‘Exactly. Except he came to a sticky end in Victoria in 1926, when he robbed the Bank of Bendigo with a Melbourne criminal called Frank Westblade. They got away with the bank robbery, but Big Lonnie disappeared. And not long after, Westblade was seen throwing money around like there was no tomorrow. Although it was never proved, Westblade murdered Big Lonnie and took his share of the money.’
‘And got away with it,’ said Mick.
‘Sort of,’ nodded Jesse. ‘Till Frank also disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Along with the rest of the money.’
‘That’d be Melbourne,’ said Mick.
‘Yes,’ agreed Jesse. ‘So in my opinion, after robbing the bank in Muswellbrook, Big Lonnie’s left the car at his sister’s place and removed the number plates, thinking of using it again sometime with another set of plates. The two
briefcases probably had no money in them. So he’s just left them in the car. He was probably going to dump them when he came back and things had cooled down.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Mick. ‘Why do you think he left the pages out of the newspaper in the car?’ he asked Jesse.
‘I reckon ego,’ she replied.
‘Ego?’
Jesse nodded. ‘Yeah. All crims like to skite about what they’ve got away with. Big Lonnie’s probably figured on showing that to some of his crim mates later on.’
‘Right.’ Mick took a sip of bourbon. ‘Okay. We’ve got the car and that sorted out. But where does this Nikola Tesla come into it?’
Jesse opened her bag and took out a sheet of paper. ‘Mick. Read this. I got it off the internet. It’s from the
Chicago Tribune
in 1935. It’ll explain a few things quicker than I can.’
‘Okay.’ Mick put his drink down, took the sheet of paper and unfolded it.
Below a fuzzy photograph of a thin-faced old man wearing a tie was a caption saying
Nikola Tesla, noted inventor, 78
, was a headline that read:
TESLA AT
78
BARES NEW DEATH BEAM. INVENTION POWERFUL ENOUGH TO DESTROY
10,000
PLANES
250
MILES AWAY. SCIENTIST IN INTERVIEW, TELLS OF APPARATUS THAT HE SAYS KILLS WITHOUT TRACE.
Nikola Tesla, father of modern methods of generation and distribution of electrical energy, who was 78 years old yesterday, announced a new invention, or inventions, which he considered the most important of the 700 made by him so far. He has perfected a method and apparatus, Dr Tesla said yesterday in an interview at the Hotel New Yorker, which will send concentrated beams of particles through the free air of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 enemy planes at a distance of 250 miles from a defending nation’s border and will cause armies of millions to drop dead in their tracks.
Mick read the page again then handed it back to Jesse. ‘Tesla said this in 1937?’
Jesse took the sheet of paper, folded it and returned it to her bag. ‘Yes he did.’
‘No wonder that bloke said he’d make a good mad scientist in a movie. He sounds like a war-crazy nut.’
‘Actually, he was a pacifist,’ said Jesse. ‘He hated
war. But they did base Lex Luthor the mad scientist in the old Superman comics on him.’
‘I remember Lex,’ said Mick. ‘Didn’t he live in a fortress in Antarctica?’
‘I don’t know. But Tesla lived in New York most of the time.’
‘Did you find out much in the diary, besides what I told you?’ asked Mick.
‘Sort of. But I’m going to have to read it all again. The handwriting’s hard to understand and some of it’s in a kind of code. But between the diary and everything else, I’ll tell you as much as I can.’
‘Go on,’ said Mick.
‘Well, Schuyler Brunton was a Canadian geologist and a friend of Tesla’s. He was in Australia searching for coal. And found this mountain of solid copper.’
‘Oldfield mentioned that in the letter to his brother.’
Jesse nodded. ‘So Tesla got him to take out a fifty-year claim. Guglielmo was Guglielmo Marconi.’
‘Marconi?’ said Mick. ‘Didn’t he invent radio?’
‘Yes and no. Tesla got in first. But he didn’t follow it up. So Marconi got all the credit and the money. He saw to it Tesla got a share in the end, though.’
‘Tesla mentioned that, too,’ said Mick.
‘That’s right. But before Marconi came good, Tesla was broke. He got cheated out of everything by a ruthless American tycoon called J. Pierpont Morgan.’
‘Yeah. Tesla sounded a bit dirty on him. Why was that?’
‘It was all over the free electricity Tesla wanted to provide for the world,’ said Jesse. ‘In 1903, Tesla had this huge Wardenclyffe Tower project on Long Island. Tesla wanted to use it to transfer free electricity all round the world. Morgan wanted it for wireless transmission and telephones and the like so he could make more money. Morgan was providing the funding. So with the help of Thomas Edison and the FBI, they had the tower blown up. They said it was a danger to the public and Tesla was crazy. They even had Tesla discredited with school textbook publishers so he never got any credit for his inventions. Edison and Marconi got it all. Which is why, right up until today, a lot of people have never heard of Tesla. You hadn’t. And you’re an electrician.’
‘No wonder he was dirty on J. Pierpont Morgan,’ said Mick.
Jesse took another piece of paper from her handbag. ‘I almost forgot to show you this. It’s a
quote from Tesla in 1900. I’ll read it out to you. “If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations.”’
‘He said that in 1900?’ said Mick.
‘Yep,’ nodded Jesse. ‘If Tesla hadn’t been stopped it would be a different world we’re living in.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Mick. ‘No burning fossil fuels. No greenhouse gas emissions. No global warming.’
‘No hole in the ozone layer,’ added Jesse.
Mick pointed to the black briefcase. ‘Well, according to what I read in his diary, why did he want to blow the world up? And why didn’t he?’
‘That,’ said Jesse, ‘is the sixty-four dollar question. I’ll have to go right through the diary again and find out. Because that’s what he was building out here. Some sort of death ray machine, like the one in that article in the
Chicago Tribune
.’ Jesse smiled mirthlessly. ‘Now. You want some more good news, Mick?’
Mick sipped his bourbon. ‘Go on,’ he said.
‘Tesla said in his diary, “We made a mistake at Tunguska.” You know about Tunguska, Mick?’ asked Jesse.
‘I think I came across it in some New Age magazine over at your place,’ answered Mick. ‘But I’ve forgotten.’
‘Okay. Well, Tunguska was, or still is, a valley in Siberia. In 1908, there was an explosion there that levelled two hundred and fifty square kilometres of pine forest. That’s about six or so Nagasakis.’
‘Shit!’ exclaimed Mick.
‘Scientists believe it was a meteorite,’ said Jesse. ‘Some people claim it was a UFO exploding. They still don’t know. But there was no sign of any radiation. So…’
‘Tesla?’ said Mick.
‘He was a suspect,’ smiled Jesse. ‘But that’s not all the good news, Mick.’
‘There’s more?’ said Mick, swallowing some bourbon.
Jesse smiled. ‘On one of the pages in the diary Tesla says that Lander Oldfield believes the mountain they’re working on is sitting on a fault line.’
‘Oh…shit!’ exclaimed Mick.
‘Which means, Mick, one half-decent earthquake and ka-bloowie. No more Hunter Valley.’
‘How about no more Australia,’ said Mick. ‘Or no more world.’
‘Exactly,’ said Jesse. ‘And we’ve already had one earthquake in Newcastle. It’s inevitable we’re going to have another one up this way. And even though I don’t know where Tesla left his doomsday machine, it has to be somewhere near Muswellbrook.’
Mick shook his head. ‘Christ! I’m starting to wish I’d never found that bloody old car.’
‘Yes,’ smiled Jesse. ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you, hey?’ she said. ‘I noticed your computer’s on. You mind if I use it for a minute?’
‘No, mate. Go for your life.’
Jesse stood up and finished her drink. ‘Although Tesla calls the doomsday machine his legacy, he also refers to it as Project Piggie. I might Google Tesla up in cyberspace again. And see if there’s any reference to a Project Piggie. I meant to do it at my place, but it slipped my mind.’
Mick finished his drink also, then stood up and took Jesse’s glass. ‘I might go and have a quick snakes,’ he said.
Mick took the empty glasses out to the kitchen and left them in the sink. By the time he finished in the bathroom, he was yawning his head off. He was also spun out at what Jesse had told him. He walked into his office and Jesse
was seated in his big, comfortable, black office chair and had the search engine up and ready to go. Mick stood behind her and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders while he peered at the screen.
‘Okay. Here we go,’ said Jesse.
Jesse moved the cursor and typed in
NIKOLA TESLA PROJECT PIGGIE
. Nothing happened at first. Then there was an audible ‘click’ and the screen went dead as if there was a sudden power surge. A few seconds later the screen came back on. But what she’d typed in had disappeared.
‘That’s funny,’ said Jesse. ‘I’ll try again.’
Jesse typed
NIKOLA TESLA PROJECT PIGGIE
in one more time and the same thing happened again. Only when the screen came back on, it flickered for a few moments then settled down.
‘Must have been a quick surge,’ suggested Mick.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Jesse. ‘Anyway, there’s nothing. I may as well shut your computer down. You’re finished with it, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ yawned Mick. ‘I’m ready for bed.’
‘Me too,’ Jesse yawned contagiously. ‘I’ve had a long, hard day.’ Jesse shut down Mick’s computer then stood up, put her arms around Mick’s waist and rested her head on his chest. ‘Mick,’ she said,
tiredly. ‘Let’s go to bed. Put this behind us. And make soft, slow love.’
Mick kissed the top of Jesse’s head and gently hugged her. ‘Ossie, my dear,’ he said quietly. ‘Not even Nikola Tesla could come up with a better idea than that.’
Jesse went to the bathroom while Mick turned all the lights off and went to his bedroom. It ran off the loungeroom with another sliding glass door facing the sundeck and there was enough moonlight coming in so he didn’t bother about putting the bedlamp on. He got undressed and waited for Jesse under the green check sheets on his extremely comfortable queen-size bed. Jesse came in, took her clothes off and borrowed a dark blue T-shirt from Mick’s wardrobe; Mick liked to sleep
au naturel
. Jesse climbed in next to Mick and they kissed and cuddled for a while, whispering silly things to each other, then, just as Jesse asked, they made soft, slow love.
In Newcastle it was ten-thirty on a mild spring night when Jesse used Mick’s computer. The sky was full of stars and it promised to be another warm, sunny day tomorrow. In Washington, it was seven-thirty on a bitterly cold morning in late autumn. Snow was falling and parts of the
Potomac River were already starting to ice over. Three floors down in the National Security Agency at Fort Meade Military Installation, Agent Floyd Moharic, in his crumpled grey suit and matching tie, had almost finished an eight-hour shift staring at a monitor in a softly lit room crammed with the latest technology for listening in on email conversations or hacking into computer systems all over the world. Tall and fit, with close-cropped dark hair and pensive eyes, Floyd, and a cell of other agents, worked Room 90 on rotating shifts, waiting for a particular combination of words to appear on a particular monitor. Agents had come and gone, right up until the Central Intelligence Agency transferred the search over to the super-secret National Security Agency after 9/11, but the words had never appeared. They’d never shown up on radio or morse code or anywhere else since the search began just before the Second World War. Nobody knew what the words were all about or if they even existed. To the current team of younger agents waiting for the words to appear, it was comparable to sitting under a radio telescope at SETI—the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence—waiting for little green men to ring in from outer space. But the agents did know,
whether the words existed or not, that they were top priority and vital to national security. And if any agent fouled up, not only was it the end of his career, it also meant a hefty gaol sentence for dereliction of duty. So every agent did take his shifts seriously. Nevertheless, the agents assigned to Room 90 had to admit it was a good gig and a chance to catch up on some reading or study, with all meals delivered to the door.