Edwin's Reflection: A Novel

by Ray Deeg

  Esha nodded again and then checked his watch, motioning to Chandran and Ashok. The two henchmen ripped the top layer of wood off the model, sending the miniature world crashing across the basement floor. The farm, the city, and the train station shattered. The water tower collapsed and cracked open, and a golden coil slid across the concrete floor. Esha leaned over and picked it up. “Number three,” he said, examining the oscillator more closely. Tom and Gwen stood wide-eyed and silent, pressed against the wall.

  As the henchmen ascended the steps with the giant wheel, Tom pushed out the thought that had been causing him so much distress. “That man in New Hope—Monty—had nothing to do with this,” he said. “There was no need to kill him.”

  “I have killed in this life, that is true,” Esha offered, now leaning against the railing with his Beretta in one hand and the oscillator in the other. “But we never harmed a hair on that man’s chin.”

  “A hair on his head,” Chandran interrupted from the top of the steps.

  “When we spoke two days ago, I tried to tell you this, but you would not listen,” Esha continued. “There was another man who knew exactly what was happening at the Palace of Science. He was just another nobody, a government agent assigned to keep an eye on the lab and the experiments being performed there. He began sneaking into the lab late at night to take photos and gauge their progress. He became obsessed, mad with the possibility that he might see behind the curtain, too. In January of 1932, just one week before your grandfather’s accident, this government agent, a man named Walter Evans, snuck into the laboratory late at night and turned on the machine. They found him in the morning, still strapped in and unable to turn it off. This Walter Evans was the grandfather of FBI agent Randall Evans.” Esha pulled up the official FBI photo of Randall on his phone. “Does he look familiar to you?”

  “He was inside Monty’s shop when I bought the medal,” Tom admitted reluctantly.

  “I have visions,” Esha replied. “They started when I was just a boy. These visions are a little like seeing behind the curtain, but not nearly as powerful. The great Swami Vivekananda had them too. Mine started when I was eight years old. They made me what I am. I did not kill the antique dealer. Randall Evans took that man’s life.”

  “As I said, take the coil, take the wheel, and leave us in peace,” Tom demanded.

  “I’m sorry; that’s not possible,” Esha said sternly. “I’ve seen it, and both of you are there when we turn on the machine. You can watch; I will be the first to travel.” Esha looked at Tom and began laughing. “Granted, we don’t usually get this far, but you do understand that this is not the first or second time we’ve done all this, don’t you, Mr. Hartger? But tonight, we shall finally break free of this cycle!” Esha motioned them up the steps with the Beretta as the sheep dog.

  Helpless, Tom and Gwen led the way.

  CHAPTER 50

  THE FBI’S DOWNTOWN field office was lively. It was unusual for an agent to be gunned down. It was more unusual still for an agent to be gunned down in their own building—and by one of their own. When they had rolled Deleon’s body out earlier, most of the staff went to jelly. Deleon lay on a shiny silver gurney under a thin white sheet. The sheet was awkwardly tight, showing off Deleon’s large nose. The whole thing was altogether creepy—and a little surreal. That’s the thing about white sheets on dead bodies: You can’t help but imagine that the stiff under there is asking himself why the hell he’d crawled out from under one sheet only to end up under another, and wondering why he didn’t see it coming. Most men can’t help but wonder what day of the week they’ll be rolled out. Deleon had had a 14.3 percent chance of it being a Tuesday—everyone does. Agents and administrators scrambled around the office, reacting to the still-unbelievable event. There wasn’t much getting done, just the appearance of motion carried on by people whose faces were filled with the fear of death.

  The director of the FBI, James Comey, had ordered every field agent in the state of New York to active duty, and agents were pouring into the building from throughout the tristate area. A local news crew had set up in Federal Plaza and was reporting on Deleon’s murder and the manhunt for his killer. Just twenty minutes earlier, Jolanda Kulish had been combing through Randall’s Sentinel account. She’d disabled his access on orders from Section Chief Davis. But she had discovered the alert Randall had attempted to delete. After checking a backup copy of Sentinel’s database from earlier in the day, she was able to recover what was lost, the credit card charge from the Waldorf Astoria posted to Esha Durga’s Visa card. Kulish immediately shared what she had found with her superiors. The mysteries were unraveling, the facts were coalescing, and the powers that be were meeting to prescribe a course of action.

  Kulish had a personal stake, and she felt a tinge of guilt for having allowed it to get this far. But even after uncovering a key piece of evidence, she was asked to stand down once again, to sit this one out. She was too close to it, they said. From the time Everett Lemily’s death alert was ejected from her printer, Kulish had felt something welling up in her heart and mind, hitting her like an epiphany. It was like seeing a sunrise for the first time in a long time and remembering contentment, remembering the depths of her inner strength and being able to tap the vastness of her own wisdom and allowing its renewing power to fill her. Kulish realized she was bigger and more powerful than this bureaucracy of suppression, espionage, and conformity she’d endured for nearly two years. Sometimes you have to get off the bench and into a game to understand that it’s not the right game for you. She knew that now. She couldn’t make this her life anymore, but there was unfinished business—and it was personal.

  Conference room F was filled with high-ranking bureau and Homeland Security members from Perren’s meeting earlier in the day, but there were even more people now.

  As the room listened intently to a briefing given by Blake Savich and Andrew McCabe, an intelligence officer burst through the door. He’d been assigned to verify the Visa charge. “Confirmed, sir,” the intelligence officer said, holding a piece of paper. “It was definitely our perp’s credit card. The man in this photo is Esha Durga, the same Esha Durga that Agent Evans photographed at the antique store in New Hope and put an APB on. We just accessed the Waldorf’s reservation system, and Durga is still listed as an active guest.”

  A small security camera in the corner of the conference room came to life. Its tiny motor lifted the lens toward the huddle at the conference table, but no one noticed. “This Esha Durga is some kind of investment tycoon, a billionaire in India,” the officer continued. “He’s on the board of the Anbang Insurance Group; it’s a private equity fund that recently acquired the Waldorf Astoria. Evans definitely tried to delete the charge, so I can only imagine he’s going for Durga and the machine himself.” The officer handed a large cardboard tube to Comey.

  “Good work. Keep digging,” Comey said, loosening his tie. He opened the tube to retrieve a blueprint, which he spread out on the conference table.

  “There’s an old train station under the hotel, you know,” Perren said, pointing excitedly.

  “We know that,” Savich replied through clenched teeth.

  Jolanda Kulish stood in the security room, listening to the conversation on a small closed-circuit monitor. She smirked as she zoomed the camera in using a small joystick on a control panel.

  “Right there,” the tactical commander noted on the blueprint. “The main power junction resides on the far wall on the east side of the platform.”

  “That’s where I’d put it,” Perren said.

  A tactical commander across the table nodded and then spoke. “You’d have privacy and access to the entire electric grid down there.”

  “What about the particle collider?” Comey asked.

  “We’ve been pleading with them to postpone their test until we can gather more information,” Perren replied. “They say it will cost millions to postpone. They say they get these alarmist theories all the time.”
/>   “How soon can you be ready?” Comey asked.

  “I have fifty agents suiting up,” the tactical commander replied. “I have two buses waiting downstairs, and we can be there in less than thirty minutes. We can take the building and the train station by midnight.”

  “That’s cutting it close—we need it to happen before midnight. OK, let’s do it now. Right now,” Comey replied.

  Savich stepped into the huddle. “We have a chopper leaving from the plaza with two tactical agents. They’ll coordinate with hotel management and handle NYPD, who is already arriving on scene. Let’s pray this is just our imagination.”

  Jolanda stared at the monitor for another second, contemplating what she had heard. She stared at Savich and saw that shit-eating grin through the pixilation of the tiny black-and-white monitor. “I’ll take it from here,” she said out loud.

  She stormed out of the security room and jogged down the hallway to the elevators, where she began pressing the button feverishly. She was considering the stairs when the bell sounded. When the elevator door opened in the lobby, Kulish could hear the Rolls Royce turboshaft engine powering up and spotted their bird in the plaza. She ran through the lobby and burst through the doors at the main entrance.

  She sprinted toward the helicopter, screaming. “Wait, wait!”

  The pilot spotted her and opened his door. “I’m supposed to go with you,” she yelled while her hair blew around her face.

  The back door opened, and she climbed in, slamming it shut behind her. She saw the pilot and two tactical agents staring at her. They were dressed in Kevlar armor and armed with assault rifles. She put on the headset hanging in front of her and adjusted the mic. “You’re going to the Waldorf Astoria, right?” she asked.

  All three nodded.

  “OK, let’s go,” she said. One of the oldest tricks in the book is to ask a question when you know the answer is yes—submission usually follows. She took a deep breath and stared out the window. The engine roared and tilted the edges of the rotor blades upward, lifting the chopper into the darkness of the night.

  CHAPTER 51

  CHANDRAN AND ASHOK carefully rolled the intricate, geometrically patterned wheel through the lobby of the opulent Waldorf Astoria. As they passed a restaurant bustling with activity and music, they slowed down to peer inside. Glimmers of light reflected from the surface of the bronze statue—a bull and a bear, a nod to the market’s ever-changing tides—displayed on top the elegant circular bar. Hanging from the ceiling at the far side of the bar was an electronic stock ticker, which offered actual quotes during the day when the market was trading. A bearded man wearing tails played a baby grand piano at the side of the room while well-dressed patrons sipped old-fashioneds and dirty martinis as they exchanged compliments and toothy smiles.

  The symmetrical framework at the center of the machine’s wheel dazzled passersby as it spun, casting golden beams that danced in their eyes. Both staff and guests gazed with curiosity and admiration as the patrons parted to allow the strange procession to pass. It could have been a piece of modern art or a part inside an industrial dryer—heck, it might even have been a colossal cake mixer—but it was none of those.

  Gwen and Tom followed the two henchmen, and Esha, hiding his Beretta under a newspaper, brought up the rear. Tom searched for an opportunity to break free, but there was no eminent danger, and the risk couldn’t be justified.

  The quintet moved casually through the fray toward the Waldorf’s northwest wing, navigating smaller and less populated hallways until they arrived at a nondescript industrial door with a small plaque affixed at its center. Tom recognized the font, and the number rang a bell. Staff 61, it read. Ashok swiped a keycard, and a small green light flashed. The door opened, revealing a stairwell with just one option—down. Carefully, the henchmen rolled the wheel down three flights until they came to a larger industrial door. Chandran retrieved an ornate key from his pocket. It was identical to the one Randall had recovered from the grave of Sue Htemorp. He used the shiny thing and then slid the door open.

  Tom recognized the look on Gwen’s face: it was fear. “We’ll get through this,” he whispered.

  All five passed through the door’s threshold into complete darkness. Esha slid the door closed behind them. The dark room was warm, almost humid, and the sound of footsteps and their captors’ voices no longer echoed from nearby walls. They’d stepped into a vast hollowness, and there was nothing to see but black. Chandran and Ashok moved farther ahead in the distance, and Tom and Gwen found themselves alone in the dark.

  “Keep walking,” Esha said.

  Gwen’s hand found Tom’s.

  “Stop there,” Esha ordered.

  Tom and Gwen stood in the darkness and waited. A click echoed, and then a knock clamored—Ashok had tripped a large breaker on a far wall, and dozens of golden-orange lights began shrugging off the blackness. The near-timid approach of twilight became perceptible, and then a subterranean world was born in a brilliant orange-white glow. They’d been transported into another universe.

  “It can’t be,” Tom murmured under his breath. My dreams. They were standing in a breathtakingly spacious train station. It was clearly not operational; it appeared to have been abandoned for ages. From the platform, he could see two sets of train tracks leading off into the darkness and an old, nearly ancient, dark-blue train car off to the side. Tom immediately recognized the train station from his model. It had the same platform, the same metal fasteners, tiles, orange lights, the same dark-blue train car…In that moment, he realized that the model train he’d been given as a child had been designed to mimic the things he would see and the places he would visit in just the last few days.

  Something glimmered on the track below the platform. It was Tesla’s machine, fully assembled except for the reflector wheel. It was tremendous, and marvelously proportioned. It had been impeccably cleaned, and it gleamed in the orange light. Its magnificence was undeniable, an endless repetition of modernistic mechanical figures augmented by an inner phosphorescence. He imagined the metal touching his fingertips, and its shapes and contours produced exhilaration and horror like the time he’d been electrocuted as a boy.

  The significance of this place was clear: this was a doorway to the Gulf, a passageway whose single destination led to the spaces in between. Gwen grabbed Tom’s hand, and the two offered each other a reassuring look. Tom noticed a series of thick cables connecting the machine to a bank of servers at the end of the platform. Three large flat-panel monitors ticked through computations. A firehose-sized cable ran from the building’s electrical infrastructure on the far east wall down to the machine on the tracks.

  Ashok jumped down on the track and helped Chandran lower the wheel. With visible efficiency the two engineering masterminds fastened the wheel into the groove at the machine’s base: it fit like a glove. The two henchmen installed the three coils on the wheel, connecting each one with electric leads. When they finished, a fourth space sat empty.

  “You need four to travel,” Tom pointed out.

  “The fourth coil is finding its way here as we speak. Destiny is inevitable,” Esha replied, checking his watch.

  Tom noticed a painting resting on an easel near the far wall. It was an abstract in shades of blue. It was Esha’s face, entering a tunnel with white light glaring behind him. A blood-red handprint appeared to be smeared across his forehead. “War paint?” Tom asked, gesturing to the painting.

  “Not paint, blood. Her blood, as a matter of fact,” Esha replied, pointing to Gwen.

  Gwen tightened her grip around Tom’s hand.

  “Why are we here?” Tom asked. “You have everything. We can’t help you; we’re just in your way. Why not let us go?”

  “You’re destined to be here, both of you,” Esha answered. “I’ve seen it many times, and those are my instructions. You’re a part of this endless loop, at least until it stops.”

  Tom heard the word loop and imagined his train going round and roun
d. He heard Heckie’s words about the strange novel and the man that were presumed insane. He saw the particle collider’s massive underground loop in his mind, the same perfect circle as his train. “Where are we?” Tom asked, fishing for a way out.

  “This station was built in 1931,” Esha explained. “It allowed many important people, like the American president Roosevelt, to travel in and out of the hotel in secrecy. And although this train station has been abandoned for decades, its true purpose has not yet been realized. But even its builders didn’t understand its true nature, and it wouldn’t be Roosevelt, or the great Swami Vivekananda, or Alfred Lee Loomis, or even Tesla who would be chosen.” Esha raised his arms to the machine. “I am the traveler. I shall achieve moksha—release—and in doing so create a new path for all of mankind, free of the karmic trappings created at the Palace of Science.”

  Esha gazed at his captives; they appeared confused. “Ah, the mistakes—the mistakes of others—that we are forced to endure,” he said.

  CHAPTER 52

  FROM INSIDE HIS elegant suite, Randall Evans stared down at Park Avenue. He allowed his forehead to rest against the glass, and it felt cool on his skin. The TV was on and a CNN correspondent was reporting live from Geneva, but Randall wasn’t listening. He stared down into the street, the city’s lights reflecting in his eyes, while he scanned for hints of danger. Everything was quiet until he noticed an NYPD cruiser turn onto Park Avenue. He watched it pull into the middle of the intersection and stop. Its flashing red and blue lights came on, and two uniformed cops stepped out and began directing traffic.

  At that moment, there was a knock at the suite’s front door. “Room service,” a voice said, but Randall knew that trick. He retrieved the Glock 23 he’d taken from Deleon and then peered through the eyepiece. He saw his butler, carrying the third crab cocktail he’d ordered a few minutes earlier. It sat perfectly centered on a silver tray, and the man smiled as if knowing someone was staring from behind the door. Randall stuck the Glock in the back of his pants and opened the door.