The First Casualty (9 page)

Once in the tiny toilet, reminiscent of those aboard aircraft, he locked the door, pulled down the seat, and held the iPhone in one hand while the fingers of the other typed a text message. Then he sent Natalia's picture.

21

Excerpts from
Nikola Tesla: Genius or Mad Scientist

by Robert Hastings, PhD

Nikola Tesla was eccentric. Like Howard Hughes, he had an obsession with germs, washing his hands constantly. He could be easily identified in a restaurant by the stack of eighteen napkins upon which he insisted so he would not have to use the same one twice. He meticulously calculated the volume of each dish he ate and consumed only food that had been boiled. He was fascinated with numerology, demanding that the number of his hotel room be divisible by three.

He was particularly fond of the pigeons in Central Park, ordering special birdseed for them. One, a white female with gray-tipped wings, was his favorite. He told of her flying into his hotel room one night, her eyes “shining with a light the like of which I had never before seen” before she died in his hands. He took this as an omen of his own death.

As idiosyncratic as he might be, he was compelling when seeking investors for his inventions. J. P. Morgan put $250,000, a fortune by the standards of the day, into a scheme by which Tesla would use the ionosphere and the earth's electromagnetic field as a giant transformer to power all forms of transportation worldwide. When he returned to the noted financier seeking additional money for the project, he made the mistake of telling the famously conservative banker how his invention would make the nations of the world one. Morgan was horrified and additional funding was not forthcoming.

Several of Tesla's inventions had a decided dark side. The electromechanical oscillator so enjoyed by Mark Twin could, according to its inventor, destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in a matter of minutes. Given several days, it could “split the earth in two like halves of an apple.” When skeptics pointed out a number of flaws in his claim, Tesla replied he could at least “peel the surface of the earth away, which would serve to destroy mankind just as completely.”

Another was his so-called “Death Ray,” the stuff of which comic-book supervillains are made. In 1937, he described it thus to a
New York Times
reporter: “It will send a concentrated­ beam of particles: through the free air of such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet of 10,000 airplanes at a distance of 250 miles from the defending nation and will cause enemy millions to drop dead in their tracks.”

Since light trends to diffuse over distance and the concentrated beam of the laser was still in the future, the “ray” was to consist of tiny particles of mercury charged with more than one million volts of electricity sprayed into the air from towers by means of a special nozzle that resealed itself to maintain the vacuum necessary to eject the mercury particles. This device was never patented, if indeed it ever existed, so we do not know how the nozzle both sprayed particulate matter and maintained a vacuum. We do know that both the U.S. military and Great Britain declined to purchase the device. The Soviet Union paid Tesla $25,000 for the plans. Had the Soviets succeeded in manufacturing the machine, World War II would have come to an earlier conclusion.

The author made considerable effort to find existing evidence of the “Death Ray,” if it existed, including reviewing the microfiche documents in the Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, some 155,000 in all, including almost 70,000 bits of correspondence both personal and business and more than 45,000 papers of scientific content. The Nikola Tesla Museum of Science in Colorado Springs, Colorado, contains re-creations of a number of the man's inventions, including the oscillator. It also has copies of his journals, which are infuriatingly incomplete. No mention of the “Death Ray” was found.

22

Somewhere in the Croatian Countryside

Sixty-Two Minutes Later

Natalia had been right: It seemed to Jason the train stopped almost before it got going from the last stop. From what he could see, it stopped at groupings of a few wooden houses or in empty country. He rarely saw passengers get on or off, but he did note livestock—sheep, horses, goats—seemed to grow more numerous as the train progressed ever upward. He was certain the animals' interest in the train increased in direct proportion to the steepness of the grade. It was as if they were curious as to whether the engine would make it to the top of the next hill.

At first, he noticed snow in patches, most in the shade of groves of trees. Then there was more white than the brown winter grass. Within minutes, they were crossing a white mountain meadow, the bottom of a bowl created by the snowcapped Dinaric Alps. Jason wondered if he could capture the subtle shades of white on a canvas. The tones varied only from the gray shadow of passing clouds to a blinding white that gave back the glare of the sun. Far different from the seascapes of Isola d'Ischia and the Channel Islands that had occupied his brush for the last few years. Probably wouldn't work, he decided. The acrylics with which he painted gave depth to colors of the sea and land, the greens, the blues. A nearly monochromatic scene such as that outside the window would suggest a medium such as watercolor.

Natalia pressed a gloved finger against the window, pointing. “You have heard of Medvednica?”

Jason admitted he had not.

“Very famous ski resort, one of the best in the world. It is on the other side of that mountain range there.”

Jason doubted Med . . . Med-whatever . . . He doubted it was either famous or competed easily with Saint-Moritz or Garmisch-­Partenkirchen or Kitzbühel or, for that matter, Aspen. He also knew better than to question a matter of national pride.

She took his silence as assent. “Do you ski?”

The question brought of a picture of Laurin sluicing between moguls, her laughter echoing through the snow-burdened trees along Jackson Hole's black diamond slopes. Snow like he was looking at frequently­ recalled the memory. “Not in a long time.”

She seemed to consider this for a moment. “The family you are looking for, what is their name?”

He almost blurted it out before, “Name?”

He was stalling, trying to think of a common Balkan name. He had known a number of them during the 1992–1995 Operation Deliberate Force in which U.S. military joined the United Nations in ending ethnic warfare. He certainly wasn't going to tell a near stranger where he was going. That was a mistake few people in this business had the chance to repeat.

“Name, you know, how is your relative called?”

“Dragan Horuat.”

It was the name of a Serb Jason's Delta Force unit had captured and interrogated. The man was suspected of setting fire to Moslem homes with the occupants still inside. Jason recalled the man had both the face and the soul of a rat.

“Dragan Horuat,” Natalia repeated as though tasting the sound. “I do not know the name.”

“Should you?”

She shrugged. “In Croatia, as in many parts of what was Yugoslavia, the intermarriage of few families has led to many common names. I . . .”

She was interrupted by the conductor, a silver-haired man in a navy blue uniform with brilliantly polished brass buttons and that round pillbox with a brim, the cap peculiar to railroad conductors. After each stop, he had walked the aisle checking and punching tickets. Every time, he had carefully inspected Jason and Natalia's as if the destinations printed on them might have changed. This had to be the fourth or fifth time he had been by. But, as Jason well knew, whether in the United States, Croatia, or Outer Mongolia, nothing is more important to a functionary than his function.

Jason turned to watch the man walk the length of the car, now empty of other passengers. Inside his pocket, his iPhone vibrated.

He stood. “Excuse me . . .”

She gave him a bewildered look.

He shrugged “Too much coffee, waiting for the train, I guess.”

She smiled indulgently. “The
ručak dama
, lunch lady, should be passing through. Should I get you something if you're not here to choose for yourself?”

Jason hadn't thought of food. He hadn't eaten since a quick, cold croissant washed down with bitter coffee at Charles de Gaulle. He was suddenly ravenous.

“Sure. What do they have, sandwiches and stuff?”

“Lunch is the main Croatian meal, so she should also be selling something more substantial, too,
sarma
, cabbage rolls stuffed with meat,
mlinci
, baked noodles, pizza, stuff like that.”

He was edging toward the end of the car. “Whatever looks good.”

Locking the door of the claustrophobic toilet, he again sat on the seat and read the text on the screen.

“The picture you sent could be Habiba. NLN. See attached photo. Habiba is believed to be a woman born in Spokane (Wash.) of an American mother of Bosnian descent and Saudi father. She gave her name in college as Abeer Al-Wafd and was active in radical, pro-Islamic causes. She was believed to have been active in the Balkan War 1990–1995 and was convicted in absentia in 1998 by the International Criminal Tribunal of the murder of Serb Catholics by Bosniaks (Bosnian Moslems). She is suspected of planning and participating in both the 2000 attack on the
Cole
and the 2002 bombing of the resort in Bali, Indonesia. Because of her European looks and fluency in both English and Farsi, Habiba, as she calls herself, passes easily from the Islamic world to the West without detention so far. The last-known contact was a security camera at Heathrow that photographed a physically similar woman disembarking from a flight from Sana'a, Yemen, a week ago today.”

Jason called up the attachment, a fuzzy black-and-white snapshot of a woman in a hijab, the head scarf common to Bosnian Moslems, not the niqab, the full robe and veil revealing only the eyes, hands, and feet, common to Yemeni women as demonstrated by a woman to the left of the picture. The scarf, of course, concealed the hair; and, pulled tight around the face, could be distorting the features.

Could be Natalia. Could be the person he was going to see, this Herka Kerjck, had mentioned she was expecting him. Could be idle conversation had gotten to the wrong ears in time to set up an attempt to stop him. Could be. Jason wasn't sure; he didn't have to be. One of the many things he had learned working for Narcom was that suspicion and paranoia were good for the health.

As he walked back to his seat, a glimpse out of the windows told him the train was climbing a grade cut into the mountainside. To his right was sheer rock; to his left, empty space. Mountain roads have tunnels, he thought. He took his seat, giving Natalia a smile. And tunnels meant darkness. Maybe not. He could see lights recessed into the car's ceiling. He looked around, failing to see a switch.

“Looking for something?”

“Yeah.” He pointed upward. “How do you turn those lights on?”

She put down the copy of the magazine she had gotten from somewhere, a magazine with a man in a suit on the cover along with Cyrillic letters. His practiced, sincere expression told Jason he probably was involved in politics.

“They come on automatically when it gets dark in the car, why? You will have arrived at Gospić, Lika, before sunset.”

“Just curious.”

She gave him a questioning look before returning to her magazine.

He was about to ask about the lunch lady when the car seemed to blink: It went ink dark for less than a second, then full light retuned. Before he could comment, it happened again.

Jason tensed, anticipating what he guessed was coming. He didn't have long to wait. The car plunged into midnight again, this time for longer than before. There were no lights from above. Quickly and silently, Jason jumped into the aisle, only a split second before he heard something rip the seat's fabric, something that he guessed would have stabbed into his chest had he not moved.

There was heavy breathing. He sensed movement from across the table. Jason froze, fearful any move would give away his location.

Then it was light again, a transition so sudden he was nearly blinded by it. But not so blind he could not see the sun's reflection shimmering along the six or more inches of steel embedded in the seat back where he had been sitting.

He didn't have long to look.

Natalia snatched the blade out of the slash in the fabric. Her pretty face was contorted in hatred as she jumped onto the low table, the knife held close inside the limits of her body, the stance of someone experienced in knife fighting.

Jason backed away, eliminating the height advantage the table gave her. “Damn, Natalia—or should I say Habiba? I've had women get pissed at how long I stayed in the john, but never
that
pissed!”

“Make your stupid joke, Peters. It will be your last.”

Jason's right hand went to the small of his back, the touch of the Glock comforting. No. Easy enough to shoot this woman, not so easy to explain to the local authorities, who would, at the very least, be less than thrilled with the gun he was carrying in undoubted violation of national law. The killing knife on his leg was useless for the moment: She was too close for him to stoop and pull up his pants leg to draw his own knife from its scabbard.

She took a step forward, her eyes searching to try to find a clue as to his next move. In training for what the army described as “close combat,” Jason had learned that watching your opponent's eyes could get you killed. Arms, hands, feet, and legs, as well as hips and elbows, cleared the way for the fatal opening to slide a blade into another body. Eyes were merely a distraction for the unwary.

Her shoulder tipped off her next move, a mere twitch but Jason saw it coming: a wide swipe of the blade, one meant not to kill but to disable. In the confines of the railroad car, the standard counter-move, ducking the opposite way and coming up under the arm wielding the knife, was not possible and she knew it.

“Not so easy,” he said evenly. “Burning woman, children, and the elderly in their homes is one thing, maybe even easier than planting a bomb to kill Australian tourists. Facing someone not totally defenseless must be unnerving. You have become used to killing only the innocent.”

Taunting to distract an opponent.

“Among the infidels there are no innocents!” she spat.

Behind her, the conductor entered the car from the one in front. She must have seen his reflection in a window.

“Lock the door,” she ordered. “We need no one to enter this car until I have finished.”

With a dull sense of surprise, Jason watched him comply. That explained why the lights had not come on. This was no longer a two-person show.

That was Natalia's first mistake, not coordinating exactly with the conductor so that Jason would be between the two.

If she saw it as error, she didn't show it. Instead, she advanced with the knife. Jason had little choice but retreat. His back came up against the door to the car behind. His hand found the handle and he opened it. Now he was on the platform between cars enclosed by two doors through which passengers would board or depart. He could ill afford to let himself be distracted by the view rushing by, a snowy precipice barely wider than the train itself. He thought he saw the silver ribbon of a river half a mile straight down. The other side was a wall of granite.

No time for sightseeing.

He stretched out as though participating in some form of calisthenics, his left foot jamming the latch that allowed the door to slide open. His right leg extended toward the following car as he used both hands to furiously roll up his pants leg. It was a position he could not long maintain. But he didn't have to.

The door flew open just as Jason snatched the killing knife from its scabbard, throwing him against the door to the next car. He rolled violently to his left as Natalia's knife thumped against the metal, a strike that would have gutted him like a fish had it found its mark.

It was then she saw what he held for the first time.

She backed up warily. “How unchivalrous, using a larger weapon. And against a woman, too.”

They were circling each other, a move that would not have been possible with seats and tables on each side.

“I must admit, I don't recall killing a woman before. But then I've never had one attack me with anything sharper than fingernails, either. I doubt that's something you learned in school as a young girl.”

She had counted on an instant of distraction. She flicked the blade upward, toward the hand holding the killing knife. Jason easily deflected it so it clanged harmlessly off the swordlike hilt.

He had the advantage at the moment and both knew it. He was larger, stronger, and had several more inches of reach. His weapon was longer and designed to stab or slash. She had counted on a single deadly stroke in the darkness of a tunnel, not prolonged combat. Her only hope was that her confederate, the conductor, would come to her aid. But to do so, he would have to come within the deadly arc of Jason's blade. Jason was certain she was as aware of all this, as was he.

“Tell you what,” he said amiably, “you put down that pig sticker, and I'll let you off at the next stop, no hard feelings.”