Dry Ice

by Evans, Bill; Jameson, Marianna

  “They’re going to freak people out,” Nik told Teke as they stripped off their gear.

  “They’ll be okay. They know they’re dealing with civilians. We’re just here to get everyone out and turn off the lights.”

  Nik stopped what he was doing and stared at him. “Turn off the lights? You mean—”

  Teke nodded. “We’re pulling everything off line. Where is Tess Beauchamp?”

  “She’s in the clinic.” Nik saw the admiral’s eyebrows rise. “She was on the plane. She was driving.”

  The admiral’s eyes grew wider. “She was? Can I talk to her?”

  “Sure,” Nik said. He showed the newcomer to the clinic and listened with mixed emotions as plans were made to shut down TESLA for good.

  * * *

  Tess’s trip stateside was hectic. She’d insisted that all non-essential personnel be evacuated at once, that same day, but a few of them—Ron, Nik, and herself—had remained to make sure TESLA was brought down carefully and secured. She wasn’t a whole lot of help in her semi-invalid state, but Teke had remained with them and they were able to leave within twenty-four hours of the others. The Flint board had sent the entire fleet of corporate jets to Christchurch to bring home the Teslans, sparing no expense in luxury and medical attention.

  It was the least they could do, especially in light of the media blitz that awaited the personnel when they landed on American soil.

  Stories of the devastation around the globe dominated the news cycles for weeks afterward; images of horrific injuries and destruction were seared onto Tess’s brain.

  As news of what had happened began to leak and trickle into the mainstream press, Greg became the living symbol of evil. His exploits and their aftermath resulted in global death tolls that rivaled those of Hitler and Stalin combined. The administration had pushed for a speedy trial in the face of the incontrovertible evidence of the TESLA monitoring logs, the diaries of Croyden Flint, and the testimony of Frederick Bonner. Greg had behaved callously in court, and his outbursts were the rants of a lunatic, but even his own legal team never raised the question of his sanity and the trial had gone forward. Greg was now among a new set of peers in the low-tech solitude of a supermax prison.

  The outcome for Tess had been different. The media glare had focused on her even before she arrived in the country, and her name had been linked with Greg’s in every imaginable way. It mattered to no one that she’d been Greg’s scapegoat, that she’d lost her parents in Greg’s first salvo. She’d gone from having cameras shoved in her face to death threats in her email to bricks thrown through her windows. Armed guards had been posted outside her hospital room when she had surgery on her collarbone, and she’d been moved from safe house to safe house every other day for the entire three months of congressional hearings.

  By the time she was finally cleared of wrongdoing and the talking heads began to call her a hero, the public wasn’t interested anymore. She didn’t care. All she wanted was to grieve in private for her parents, for Gianni, for all the countless souls who’d died because of Greg’s vindictiveness. As soon as she could, she’d picked up what was left of her life, severed her ties with everyone, and, leaving what remained of her reputation behind, moved back to Europe.

  CHAPTER 34

  Tess sat in the early-spring sunshine on her tiny patio at the back of her house in central France. The fields came right up to the edge of her small space; they were her fields, but rented to her neighbors, who tended them as if they were their own.

  Life was finally good again. No one knew about her past here and she had no complaints with being known as just another crazy Americaine with romanticized views of life deep in the French countryside. She had enough money to do what she liked, which usually entailed little more than reading, taking walks, eating, and surfing the Web.

  Though good, life was also very slow in Lavoine. The high-speed Internet access she’d paid a small fortune to get had been a saving grace sometimes, keeping her informed about the world and her former colleagues. And Nik.

  She stared at the screen of the laptop she had in front of her on the small table and felt prickles of both fear and desire run along her spine.

  Nik was still in the business—after most of the furor had died down, he’d been offered and had accepted an endowed chair at MIT—and was speaking in Moscow in four days.

  She rested her elbow on the table, set her chin on her cupped palm, and looked out.

  Solitude is a luxury.

  So is the company of an old friend.

  And even if I chicken out and don’t meet up with him, I’ll at least have gotten out of the house for a while.

  With a smile, Tess logged on to the Air France website and began to look for a flight.

  * * *

  Nik generally drove conference organizers crazy with his insistence that the lights in the hall remain lit. For one thing, he hated being in the spotlight, literally or figuratively. For another, he liked seeing who he was talking to and how many people were in the room. And that quirk of his was the only reason that, just after he was introduced, he saw the tall, blond figure in a coat and boots slip into the side door of the auditorium that had once been an opera house, and settle into the nearest open seat. After that, keeping focused on the notes in front of him had been a challenge, and he’d opened up the floor to questions earlier than he’d planned. He just wanted the damned lecture over so he could catch her before she left, in case she was thinking of sneaking out the way she’d sneaked in.

  It would be just like Tess to do that. She had ignored his emails and phone messages and every other attempt he’d made to contact her since the congressional hearings had ended a year earlier. Most of the people involved had gone to ground to get out of the media’s unrelenting eyes, but Tess had simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Until now. In Moscow, of all places.

  There’s no way this is a coincidence.

  Nik wrapped up the Q&A and waited patiently for the applause to subside. Miracle of miracles, Tess didn’t bolt out of the room at her first opportunity. She hung around through all the applause and even lingered in her seat as various scientists, students, and members of the press came up to the stage to chat with him. Finally, all the others drifted toward the exits and she was the only figure left in the red velvet and gilt seats of the opulent but tattered auditorium.

  And to think I was bitching about being the last speaker of the day.

  Nik grabbed his jacket and managed to refrain from sprinting down the steps at the edge of the stage and up the aisle. In a moment, he was in front of her. She’d risen and moved into the aisle.

  “Hi, Nik.” Her voice was soft. Everything about her was soft—her hair, the sweater he could glimpse through the opening of her heavy coat, even her eyes. They didn’t have that haunted look in them anymore. Not like the last time he’d seen her—the afternoon the congressional hearings ended. She’d stepped into the back of a waiting limo and disappeared without a backward glance.

  “Hi, Tess,” he said, not quite sure what to say or do next. It was a first. “You’re looking well.”

  Her smile was the same, maybe a little hesitant. “Thank you. So are you.” She paused for a second. “It was a good talk. Maybe a little rushed.”

  “That was for you.”

  Still smiling, she glanced away. “You’ve made the Schlüchthofen band into a household term. Who knew it would capture anyone’s imagination other than ours? I heard that one of its internal belts is named for you.”

  He gave a silent laugh. “Yeah, I guess that counts for the big time in this business.”

  She smiled, but didn’t say anything.

  “I’m glad you came, but I doubt you learned anything new.”

  “Well, to be honest, I already know everything about fractal clusters at the internal periphery of the Schlüchthofen band. I came to see you,” she said.

  The silence that built between them was heavy.

  “
You left without a trace, Tess. You didn’t even say good-bye,” he said at last.

  She was silent for another moment, then met his eyes. “I know.”

  “I tried to contact you. A lot.”

  “I know that, too.”

  He let out a hard breath. “Tess, what happened to you? I—” He stopped as an unwanted blast of emotion threatened to crack more than his voice. He looked at the ornate ceiling soaring many feet above them and counted to five. Once more in control of himself, he continued, “I was worried about you, Tess. You just … disappeared.”

  “I was worried about me, too, Nik. That’s why I left,” she said quietly, looking away again and shifting on her feet. “I needed to be someplace where my face wasn’t on the news every day, where I didn’t have cameras following me and microphones shoved in my face and death threats overloading my email—where I wasn’t called a mass murderer one minute and a hero the next.” She let out a long breath and he could see tears glittering on her downcast eyelashes. “I’m sorry that I ignored you. I ignored everyone, if that makes you feel any better.”

  “It doesn’t,” he said with a short laugh. “Let’s go somewhere. Get a coffee or a drink?” He glanced at his watch. “Dinner. Something.”

  She nodded, then slipped her arm through his. They walked slowly through the bustling, early-evening streets, dodging urban Russians headed in all directions. It was impossible to converse over the noise and, after a few blocks, wanting to get out of the teeth-rattling cold, they ducked into a small, crowded, too-warm bistro for a drink, which led to dinner.

  With the soft lighting and languorous French music in the background, the setting might have been romantic if their conversation hadn’t been so painful.

  “So that was it,” she said much later, pushing away the empty demitasse cup in front of her. “The hearings were over, I’d been demonized, my career was … I didn’t know where my career was going, my parents were dead, and the world was in shambles.” She shivered and shook her head as if to get rid of the memories. “All I wanted was to disappear, to go someplace where I could remember what ‘good’ was. So I went back to France, to a small town I’d driven through once.”

  Nik nodded as if he understood, though he didn’t fully. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. The public’s attention never lasts too long. After a few months, we were all back to being ignored by store clerks and getting no recognition whatsoever when we said our names out loud.”

  Tess gave him a sad smile, brushed some of that long blond hair from her face, and flipped it over her shoulder. “I’m glad that for you it’s that way. But you weren’t the face of it. I was—” She shook her head again and forced a brighter smile onto her face. “Sounds like you’ve stayed in touch with the team.”

  Nik lifted a shoulder. “I worked with most of them for several years, so, yeah, we kept in touch.”

  “How is everyone?”

  “Pretty well, for the most part. Ron got hitched. Well, eloped actually, but the party when they announced it was fun. Lindy married some admiral. Dan and Fizz got hitched, too—” He stopped and shook his head, watching the light from the table’s lone candle flicker across her face. “So where are you living?”

  “Outside of Lavoine in Allier. Central France. It’s a tiny town that’s not known for anything in particular. You’d have to look at a very detailed map to find it,” she replied. “I’m surrounded by fields and vines and sheep and just a few people. We get four distinct seasons and very few tourists. It’s great.”

  “But is it ‘good’?” he asked lightly. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  She nodded. “It’s very good.”

  “Any plans to get back into research or get on the lecture circuit?”

  A shadow crossed her face. “I’m not making any plans, Nik, I’m just living in the present,” she said after a moment.

  He drained the last of his cognac, then rested his hands on the table near hers. She glanced at them, then at his face, and slipped one of her hands over his. It was smooth and cool and a very good sign.

  “How long will you be in Moscow?” he asked.

  “I leave tomorrow.”

  He could feel his eyebrows shoot up. “When did you get here?”

  “This morning.” She looked at him for a long moment without talking, and Nik watched her smile flicker and fade and reappear. “How long are you staying?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow, too.”

  “Are you flying through Paris?” she asked softly.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  “Any chance you might be interested in taking a detour to Lyon and then driving for about two hours to visit a little town in the middle of the country that’s not even remotely a tourist destination and that doesn’t have a whole lot to offer except its own brand of rustic charm?”

  “I could be persuaded,” he replied, feeling a grin steal over his face.

  “How long could you stay?” She met his eyes, and let out a short laugh. “I suppose I should have asked you first if you’re married or—?”

  “I’m emotionally, legally, and financially unencumbered and I can stay until you throw me out. Did I mention that I’m not teaching again until August?”

  She began to laugh. Nik cupped her hand in both of his and brought it to his mouth, not so much to kiss it as to just make sure it was real. “Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, taking one of his hands away to signal for the bill.

  “And go where?”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Savoy,” she said casually. “It’s nearby.”

  And only the most expensive hotel in the city. He raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he handed over his credit card to the waiter. As soon as the transaction was completed, he stood and pulled her to her feet.

  “To the Savoy. We’ll have a nightcap in better surroundings than the last one we shared.”

  She gave him a questioning glance.

  “My room at the installation. Your first night there,” Nik added as they were handed their coats. He bundled her out the door and back into the cold, dark night. “It’s strange to think that you were only there for three nights.”

  “Nik,” she said, laughing at his hurry. “Slow down. I know it’s cold, but the hotel is only a few blocks away.”

  “I don’t want to spend any more time not looking at you than I have to,” he said. “I want to get warm and comfortable and be able to—no, forget that. This can’t wait.” He whirled her to the edge of the sidewalk and then into a darkened doorway. He rested his forehead against hers. “Do you remember what you said to me before you went out to the plane, Tess?” he demanded, his voice rough from both the cold air and the fire inside him. “About if we had half a chance?”

  She nodded, her eyes bright, her smile getting wider.

  “Did you mean it? That given half a chance—”

  “I meant it, Nik,” she whispered. “That’s why I came here. To see if we still had half a chance.”

  “We’ve got more than that, Tess. We’ve got the rest of our lives,” he said, and brought his lips to hers, kissing her until the door behind him opened and a rough Russian curse jolted them apart.

  Tess laughed, slipped her arm through his, and said, “On second thought, Nik, let’s see if we can’t catch a cab back to the hotel.”

  AUTHORS’ NOTE

  Who was Nikola Tesla?

  There is no greater or more interesting scientist than Nikola Tesla. When you add it all up—his voluminous body of work, amazing scientific discoveries, electrifying showmanship, and eccentric personality—he was the “mega science star” of all time. In his day, scientists were like rock stars and he was “The King.” Yes, there were other biggies, like Röentgen, Marconi, Sir Oliver Lodge, Hertz, Ampère, and that Edison guy, but Tesla, with his extreme height (he was over six feet tall) and even more gigantic personality, was astonishing.

  Yet, now, Telsa is the unsung prophet of our ele
ctronic age. Without Nikola Tesla there would be no electricity as we know it, no power generation and transmission using alternating current, no radio or television, no ignition systems for cars and other vehicles, not even the remote control. To me, it’s terribly disappointing that his life and achievements have all but vanished from public awareness. It’s really a mystery to me why he has so vanished into the haze of the past. While I was researching and writing this book, I’d go to book signings and ask if anyone had heard of Nikola Tesla and usually no more than two hands were ever raised.

  Tesla possessed a remarkable talent for charming and astonishing his admirers while at the same time totally enraging his critics. His peers held him in high esteem—he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Science in 1937. He did however have his harsh critics. Waldemar Kaempffert, science editor for The New York Times, branded him “an intellectual boa constrictor and a medieval practioner of black arts.”

  Tesla could also display streaks of cruelty. He was disgusted by people who were overweight and did nothing to disguise this. When one of his secretaries, who, in his opinion, was too fat, awkwardly knocked something off a table, Tesla fired her despite her pleading. He had a favorite joke about two of his aunts; the center of the story was that they were sublimely ugly. Even great men have their flaws and Tesla clearly had several.

  * * *

  Tesla was also a very cool man about town. He was one of Manhattan’s social elite and a member of “the 400”—the most influential four hundred people in Manhattan high society (this group also included John Jacob Astor, Hamilton Fish, Jr., Peter Cooper Hewitt, Clement C. Moore, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and other notables from banking, industry, and the arts and sciences). He was also big-time friends with the writer Mark Twain, who was a frequent guest at Tesla’s lab when Tesla put on his famous light shows.

  Tesla fancied himself as the best-dressed man on Fifth Avenue. John J. O’Neill, the Pulitzer Prize–winning science editor of the New York Herald Tribune and Tesla’s first biographer, said of him, “He was handsome of face, had a magnetic personality, but was quiet, almost shy; he was soft spoken, well educated and wore clothes well.”