“He believed that the story of Jason and the Argonauts is true, sort of. He believed that the
Mercer and Cali broke out in laughter.
“What?” Harry said, looking from one to the other.
“No more adventures, my friend. Chester Bowie’s got his place in the history books. If someone else wants to prove the rest of his ideas they’re welcome to it. I’m done.”
“That goes double for me,” Cali agreed. “I want nothing more to do with Bowie, ancient legends, or myths.”
“Hey, come on,” Harry wheedled. “There could be a fortune out there for us. Think about it, a treasure barge loaded with loot. We’d be rich.”
“I’ve got everything I want right here.” Mercer put his arm around Cali as he spoke. She nestled into his embrace.
“Oh great.” Harry threw up his hands. “You end up with the girl and I’ve got nothing.”
“You’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you helped mankind,” Cali said sweetly.
“That don’t pay the bar tabs,” he groused.
“And I’ll pay you back the twenty grand I borrowed in New Jersey,” Mercer added.
Harry suddenly looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in this room. “Ah, you, ah, don’t have to bother.”
Trepidation crept into Mercer’s voice. “Why? What did you do?”
“You know I was on a roll, right, at the craps table, I mean, and if you’re on a streak you keep going, right? Well, Tiny knows a guy who floats a game. It was a sure thing. I couldn’t lose so I sort of borrowed something of yours for collateral.”
“You didn’t?”
“I did.”
“Did what?” Cali asked, switching attention between the two men.
Harry looked at her with an expression more pitiful than anything Drag was capable of. “I used Mercer’s Jag to cover my marker.” He turned to Mercer. “If it makes you feel any better I lost the rest of my thirty grand, too. Besides, Ira promised to cover all your expenses. We can get your car back no problem, or better yet buy a new one. And I swear on my soul Tiny and I will never borrow it, either.”
Mercer’s head was cradled in his hands. “Harry, when the vodka and Percocets wear off, you and I are going to have a very long talk about boundaries-like how I need to set some. Drinking twenty grand worth of my booze over the years isn’t the same as hawking my car.” He looked at his old friend with a rueful smile. “And you don’t have a soul.”
Knowing he’d be forgiven, Harry’s old face scrunched up in a matching grin. He lofted his highball in a salute. “You’re a prince and I don’t care what anyone else says about you.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Cali said. They both downed their cocktails and as Cali went behind the bar to recharge their glasses she said, “There’s something I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?” Mercer asked.
“We’re pretty sure the Janissaries sank the
“I’m afraid that’s one more mystery piled up on all the rest. Hell, it really could have been an accident after all.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“Not really. I’ve never liked coincidences. Someone wanted to stop Chester Bowie from telling the world about the plutonium. We’ll just never know who.”
Postscript May 6, 1937 Princeton, New Jersey
The rain continued to fall as evening turned to night. It wasn’t a fresh spring storm but something darker and uglier that kept people indoors and huddled under blankets. The residential street on Princeton’s campus was deserted. The only motion was the swaying of naked branches and the flutter of sodden leaves stripped from the trees by the wind.
A shadow detached itself from where it had cowered behind a parked car, and approached a white two-story house. Its street number, 112, was affixed to the steps leading up to the broad front porch. The home was an unassuming Greek revival with black shutters and just a tiny patch of front lawn. The man who approached had never been there but had corresponded with its occupant numerous times.
He knocked on the door. His suit was soaked through and because he wore no hat his longish hair hung past his collar in greasy strings.
A woman opened the door. She was in her fifties and slender, with dark hair just turning to gray and a pinched, severe expression. She had the look of a guard dog and said nothing when she eyed the unkempt stranger with the thick mustache and crazed eyes.
“Is he here? I must speak to him.” The stranger spoke in a heavy accent that was more guttural than the woman’s native German.
“He is not seeing anyone tonight. Go away.” She made to close the door and the stranger blocked her by slamming his hand against the wood and sending the door crashing back to its stops. Glass rattled in the windowpanes.
“You cannot come in,” she said forcefully.
The stranger ignored her protests and stepped into the entryway, his shoes squelching on the floor. He looked around, his eyes narrowing. “Are you here?” he called.
A gentle voice called from further in the house,
“A man, Herr Doctor,” Helen Dukas said in German. “I do not know who he is and I don’t like the look of him.”
The most celebrated scientist of his day emerged from the kitchen wearing baggy trousers and a cardigan. His hair was a wild tangle atop his head and he smelled of pipe tobacco. While he was normally an affable man, there was concern and sorrow etched around his eyes and mouth.
He studied the stranger dripping rainwater on his carpet but didn’t seem to recognize him. Then his eyes went wide as he realized who the man was.
“How could you do it, Nikola?” Albert Einstein thundered in an accusatory tone.
Nikola Tesla met his piercing gaze. “I had to stop you, Albert. I couldn’t let you unleash that horror on the world.”
“As soon as I heard the news on the radio I knew you had done it.”
“I know an anarchist, a Croatian immigrant who was more than willing to help me,” Tesla said defiantly. “You left me no choice. Writing to you about natural transuranic elements was just an intellectual exercise. You were never supposed to try to find them.”
“Are you mad?” Even as he said it Einstein knew the Serb inventor was. “Do you think blowing up an airship full of innocent people will stop others from seeking out such elements? My God, man, in a few years we will be able to create them in a laboratory.”
“To what end?” Tesla shot back. “We both know there can be only one outcome of such research. You and I are the only two people in the world who can foretell the death and destruction. We can not spread that knowledge.”
“Nikola, you must understand that a war is coming, a war for the very soul of humanity. We have to be ready. It is only a matter of time before Hitler grabs more territory Germany lost after the Great War, and a clash between America and Japan over the Pacific is inevitable. Teller and Fermi and Szilard and I have seen this coming and have been working on a plan so we have a weapon before the Nazis. We could stop such a world war from even starting
