Dangerous Betrayal

by Bill Blowers

  One of the workers said, “Mr. Tesla, you are to talk to Viko, not to us.”

  Tesla was becoming red in the face just as Viko shouted out, “Why, Uncle, so nice of you to grace us with your presence. These men have put in a day’s work and are going home to their suppers.”

  Tesla started to speak, but all that came out was sputtering as the entire group of workers filed past him out the door.

  “Viko, what is the meaning of this? Get them back here!”

  “I will do nothing of the sort. You will demand nothing from me, now or at any time. Come over here and sit down.”

  Before Tesla could utter a word, Viko took him by the arm and sat him down at a makeshift desk.

  “Last night you told me you are leaving for Colorado and that I was to take over here. I have begun to set this place straight, and you will not interfere. If you want or need to try a new idea, you can tell me about it. I will decide if it is important. If you try to stop me, I’ll go to Morgan and disclose that you are using his money for other purposes. If you want my help, this is the way it is going to be!”

  Tesla had never seen Viko so in control, so ready to carry out the threat he had just laid before him. Inside he was seething that his judgment was in question and his authority usurped. But implied was the truth that with Viko in charge, he could make his trip to Colorado, conduct his experiments, and make (in his mind at least) another contribution to the world of electricity.

  They sat and talked for several hours, and as Viko questioned Tesla regarding details of lamp production, Henry Abbott took pages of notes.

  Tesla had established an account at American Citizens Bank in the name of the Tesla Electric Lamp Company. Morgan deposited funds into the account as needed. Tesla arranged for Viko to have access to the funds. Viko signed documents, approved by Morgan, allowing him to write checks against the funds. Tesla reluctantly agreed to stay away from the Bronx building unless invited, thus putting full responsibility for the success or failure of the venture on Viko’s shoulders.

  CHAPTER 25

  Treachery and Deceit

  By the time four weeks passed, Viko had made miraculous progress in readying the building for production. If progress remained steady, they would process their first lamps in two months’ time. Morgan knew that Viko was running the show, and the reports from Curtis brought good news every week.

  Viko was usually the first one to arrive at the building. March 8, 1905, was an important milestone date. The first deliveries of chemicals would arrive. He went to his desk to get the bills of lading kept in his upper left drawer. They were missing.

  As soon as Henry Abbott arrived Viko asked him, “Did I leave those chemical lists with you?”

  “No, I haven’t seen them at all.”

  They looked around their small office and on top of a filing cabinet found a folder containing a list of suppliers. It was also out of place, and inside were the missing bills of lading for the chemicals.

  Viko was a creature of habit. Neither he nor Henry would have left out an important file, nor would they mix up important paperwork.

  Viko closed the office door. “Who’s been in here besides us?”

  Something was definitely amiss. The most troubling aspect was that there was a guard on duty outside the only unlocked door. Was an employee going through sensitive files? Could it have been the guard?

  From that moment on, the desk and the filing cabinet remained locked whenever they were not in the office, and the office door was locked after hours. Later that day when Mark Curtis came by, Viko told him of the apparent breach of the files.

  Curtis’s report to Morgan that week reported the discovery by Viko that there might be a security breach, and he concluded, “Tell that clown Edison that his people need to be more careful.”

  Six weeks later, after herculean effort on everyone’s part, the first production line was ready. The work was not without its personal toll on Viko. He was no stranger to hard work and long hours, but for the first time in a long time, he began to look forward to weekends so that he could get some extra sleep.

  Late on a Friday afternoon, Viko said goodbye to the last of the men and returned to the office. He had hours of paperwork to do before he could leave. As he sat there in front of the piles of paper, his eyes got heavy; he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. After all, resting a few minutes couldn’t hurt.

  He awakened several hours later to the sound of something falling, followed by cursing. “Get this damned box off my leg. Dammit Batchelor, will you try to be a little more careful!”

  Did the voice say “Batchelor”? Viko glanced at the clock on the wall in front of him, a quarter to twelve. He had been asleep for four hours. Who was in the building?

  He carefully got up from his chair and looked around the corner and down the hall. He could not hear all they were saying, but he heard enough to make his instincts razor sharp. He heard Morgan’s name. They seemed to be looking over the latest installation progress.

  He quietly worked his way through the dimly lit building, hiding behind boxes and machinery until he was just twenty feet from three men who were standing and talking.

  One of the men said, “Listen, Edison, when are you going to admit that Tesla knows things about these lamps that are not in the patents. If you could get past your bullheadedness, you two could learn to cooperate.”

  “I will never cooperate with that son-of-a-bitch. If you bring that bastard’s name up again, you can get the hell out of my sight—forever. Morgan wants nothing to do with him! Why the hell do you think he arranged for us to get in here? He wanted this place shut down, but ever since that young Viko, or whatever he calls himself, has taken over, he’s not so sure.”

  The third man spoke up. “Look, Edison, you’ve had five months to duplicate the lamp, and all you have are hollow glass tubes that turn black. Viko is going to make a prototype run within the next ten days, and if these lamps work Morgan will have to continue to back Tesla. He doesn’t want to do that. I’ve arranged for you and your men to get in here at night for months, and you haven’t been able to make one good lamp. Batchelor is right. Tesla is a smarter man than you give him credit for.”

  Before Edison could lash out with another string of profanity, Batchelor spoke up. “Curtis, we know this, but we’re convinced that the patent applications are incomplete, Tesla has left something out.”

  Curtis?

  Was it Mark Curtis’s voice?

  Viko took a chance and lifted his head just enough to see the three men. He could clearly see Charles Batchelor and Mark Curtis, and facing away from him was Edison. He fought his urge to get up and confront them, but his cold calculating side remained in control. It was more important to listen and learn as much as possible. He needed to understand the extent of Morgan’s deceit. Was there another breach of security? Were any of their workers spying for Edison during the day?

  Viko listened carefully to the conversation.

  Batchelor said, “If they’re about to make the first run of lamps, let them. Talk to Anderson and make sure he is familiar with each step. We need daily reports from now on, and considering how much I pay him he had better damned well follow through. As soon as they produce the first few lamps, we come back in here and see for ourselves. Once we know how they do it, we take over the building and move the assembly line out of here to Schenectady.”

  Edison put his arm around Batchelor. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. That son-of-a-bitch Tesla will never know what hit him.”

  Viko quietly got up and made his way back to his office. One name kept running through his mind: Anderson—Kenneth Anderson, a new hire, brought to Viko’s attention by none other than Morgan’s man, Mark Curtis.

  Curtis was responsible for the safety and security of Morgan’s varied and scattered business interests as well as serving as Morgan’s personal bodyguard. Viko never really questioned why someone who had a rather prestigious position with J.P. Morgan would take
such an interest in a small part of Morgan’s ventures. If the true extent of his duties had been known, Viko would have been shocked to learn that this man had perpetrated some heinous acts of violence against hapless steel factory workers who had the temerity to try to form a union.

  Kenneth Anderson was an expert in handling glass. The fact that he was recently an employee of Edison’s Menlo Park facility was carefully hidden. Because of a fat bonus provided by Morgan, he was more than willing to become an employee of the Tesla Electric Lamp Company, gather inside information, and pass it on to Edison. The idea of putting a mole inside the plant started in Morgan’s mind after he became convinced that Edison was not going to be able to reproduce the Tesla lamp without inside help.

  They would plant a good person inside the building, one who could learn the process and gain the confidence of the other workers. Once the line was operational, they would move it to Schenectady and run production from there.

  Returning to his apartment in Manhattan at three in the morning, Viko located some red wine and drank straight from the bottle.

  Despite his fatigue, sleep was impossible. He paced back and forth, stopping only long enough to take another slug of wine, finally heaving the empty bottle against a far wall. He watched it shatter, imagining it was Morgan’s head exploding. The veins in Viko’s neck stood out like the lines in a relief map of the world, pulsing violently with each beat of his pounding heart. Were he not young and in good physical condition, he would likely have been dead on the floor from a stroke or heart attack. The ability to think rationally escaped him. Nothing in his life—the loss of his parents, his depression at the university, or the rejection of the townspeople in Salonia—had prepared him for this.

  He never fully trusted Morgan. But this outright intent to steal Tesla’s property, this was beyond his ability to comprehend. It had all been a deliberate plan to steal the lamps. Morgan proved himself worse than a common thief, worse than even his own reputation for ruthlessness. In Viko’s mind, there was no forgiving this deliberate act by the pathetic little man with a clown’s nose.

  One thought circulated through Viko’s mind. There would be no more attempts at negotiation, no further efforts to make a success of the lamps as proof of Tesla’s superior technology, no asking the advice of people like Robert Johnson and especially not Nikola Tesla. No, this time it would be him, Viko Tesla, who would exact a measure of revenge on this despot, this worm of a human being, this fat man in his plush office with his fat cigars and fancy Brazilian coffee. Morgan would rue the day he ever heard the name “Viko Tesla.”

  The bottle of wine dulled his senses. His body was screaming for sleep. He fell into the nearest chair, and as the first light of dawn crept through the window, he drifted into a troubled sleep.

  In his nightmare, demons surrounded and taunted him. They wore faces of hatred. Men who had stolen his father’s tavern, the man who had killed his father, Josef, the student who mocked him at the university—they repeatedly tore up letter after letter from his uncle Nikola, laughing and poking at him. In the distance he saw his mother and father, Juliet, Professor Lipmann, all watching, unable to help. A grotesque face belonging to Morgan floated back and forth, directing the others like puppets: “Hit him, poke him, taunt him.” Viko screamed for help. No one came to his aid. The last to turn away was the face of his uncle Nikola, repeating quietly, “You must help yourself; we cannot help you.”

  The bright light was hurting his eyes. He turned away and his head hit against something hard. Viko opened his eyes. He was on the floor in bright sunlight, curled up in a fetal position, trying to protect himself.

  Soaking wet from sweating, he realized he had also pissed in his pants. He got up, staggered toward the bathroom, and filled the tub with the hottest water he could stand. The time was half past three in the afternoon. He had slept most of the day.

  As he soaked in the hot water, he recalled the conversation he had overheard the previous evening, knew that the era of the Tesla Electric Lamp Company was about to end, and began a mental list of the irreversible steps he had to take.

  Viko knew the final secret of successful lamp operation. There was a tiny, key step that made it all work, a step Tesla deliberately left out of his patent filings, having learned the hard way that filing a US patent in 1904 was simply a way of conveying the most complex and clever secrets to anyone who wished to copy them.

  One step in the preparation of the phosphor materials was the ultimate secret to the longevity of the lamp, one ingredient so common in the world and yet so unexpected that only the analytical mind of Tesla would have realized its importance. If this step, this added catalyst, was omitted, the lamps turned black within hours, sometimes in minutes, rendering them inoperative. Edison did not understand this step. With his bullish approach to problem solving, he never would. Viko didn’t keep the chemical at the plant for fear of discovery. He kept it in a kitchen cabinet in their apartment, sitting among all the kitchen spices, hidden as well as it would be at Fort Knox.

  It was his original plan, as the first lamps were being coated, to explain this all-important step to a few key employees, and one of those had been the traitor Anderson.

  CHAPTER 26

  Justice

  The following Monday morning Viko arrived at the plant and greeted the ever-present Mark Curtis with a friendly handshake. “We’ll make our first lamps this week. We are as ready as we can be!”

  “That’s great news, Viko. This will make Morgan very happy.”

  “Mark, the news he gets this week will be among the most important he has ever received.”

  Viko checked the financial balance: just over twenty-eight thousand dollars in the account. He waited until Henry arrived, explained that he had some business to tend to, and went to the bank. He withdrew twenty-five thousand dollars, issued as two thousand in cash and the balance in three cashier’s checks—two at eight thousand dollars and one at seven thousand dollars. The remaining three thousand dollars in the account would meet the week’s payroll—the last he would issue. He then stopped at three small independent banks, opening new accounts in the name of Viktor Gracac, and deposited the three cashier’s checks.

  He arrived back at the plant just after lunch and had the spy, Kenneth Anderson, brought into the office. “This week you are going to earn your keep. We are going to make the first lamps. I want you to stay close, as I have much to teach you.”

  Sensing something unusual, Henry asked, “Why just him? I don’t understand. Why not teach others as well?”

  “I have my reasons. Trust me.”

  There was something different about Viko, not as pleasant or forthcoming, somehow secretive.

  By Monday evening, Edison and Morgan knew of the eminent launch of the first lamp production. At Edison’s Menlo Park headquarters that same day, another failed attempt at making a lamp occurred with the same result of blackened lamps shortly after being turned on. “That son-of-a-bitch has left out a detail!” Edison spewed. “That has got to be it. With Anderson in there we are finally going to get the answer. He will let us know at noon on Thursday if they are on schedule. Plan to go over there Thursday night; we need to see for ourselves. I can’t wait to get that bastard Tesla out of the way.”

  On Wednesday afternoon, Viko called together five men, large strapping farm boys, all more than six feet tall. They were men he knew well. They met in the office with Viko and Henry. Viko closed the door, got a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer, poured seven shots, and offered a toast. “Boys, to Nikola Tesla, the genius who has made it possible for us to work here.”

  There was agreement all around, and the group relaxed as Viko asked them to sit down.

  “You all know that you can trust me. I am asking each of you to swear to me right now that what I am about to tell you will not leave this room, that you will tell no one, not your friends, not your family, and especially not anyone who works here or guards this building. I want a show of hands, do you agree?�
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  It was unanimous, but a few started to ask questions, especially Henry.

  Viko continued: “Let me explain. I think that what I have to say will answer all your questions. We have a spy. Someone has been in this building gathering information and taking it to Edison. Henry and I have suspected it for some time, and last Friday I found positive proof that it’s happening. I’ve asked you all here to help me catch them in the act and to take them to the authorities. I don’t trust the police to do this, and you will understand why when we have caught them. You men are big and tough, not afraid of a fight, and I trust you to keep this to yourselves.”

  Viko outlined his plan.

  He was quite certain that Edison and his cronies would be so curious that they would come to the plant Thursday evening after Anderson told them the lamps worked.

  At quitting time on Thursday, they were to leave just as they did every day. Viko and Henry would meet them in the back alley at ten o’clock where Viko had changed the outer lock. They would steal into the building and take up positions where they could block any attempts at escape, and on signal from Viko (a blast on the plant’s time clock whistle) they would surround the thieves and detain them.

  “Any questions?” Viko asked.

  Henry had the final word. “Everyone here has worked for Tesla Electric for several years. Do you remember what it was like before Viko? Remember the weeks without pay, putting up with Tesla and his moods and tantrums? But this man, Viko, has turned it all around. Tesla is respected because of him. We owe our livelihood to him. Viko, we are with you. Let’s stop this bastard who is trying to discredit Nikola Tesla with one hand and steal his secrets with the other.”