Mirage (Oregon Files 9)

Cabrillo knew enough of the subject, thanks to Mark Murphy’s rantings, to say, “You’re not talking about the Philadelphia Experiment, are you? That was completely debunked.”

Tennyson turned his gaze on Cabrillo, his eyes fierce. “Debunked? You just found the Lady Marguerite in Uzbekistan and you’re willing to discount the story of a Navy ship vanishing from Philadelphia and reappearing in Richmond, Virginia? The tale goes on that the ship then returned to her home port with some of the crew fused to the deck in grotesque tableaux while others were driven mad by their experience.” He paused to get a grip on his emotions. “I’m sorry, John. This is all so overwhelming. There was so much more to Nikola than I could ever write about. He was a genius in the way Einstein was a genius except history has completely forgotten him because so much of what he accomplished has been dismissed as speculation and rumor.”

“So what happened in Philadelphia?” Juan said softly to prompt the professor along.

“Right . . . Philadelphia. Not long after Nikola’s death, the FBI took control of part of his estate under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover himself. They raided the hotel room he lived in in Manhattan and also seized property he owned on the Philadelphia waterfront. The story of the USS Eldridge is bull. But it remains the basis of what they discovered in that waterside warehouse. What happened to the Eldridge wasn’t the story. What they found in Nikola’s warehouse was.”

Without a doubt, Tennyson had Cabrillo’s full attention. “What did they find?”

“Another ship. One that had been modified. It was an old Navy mine tender that Tesla had purchased with the help of Westinghouse. He had claimed that he had a new concept to make his optical camouflage work this time. But he never had enough money to complete the project, so the ship languished in the harbor for years until the FBI raided the facility.

“They took every scrap of paper they could find, but they left the ship behind. Nikola died owing a great deal in taxes, so the ship was turned over to the War Department as scrap in order to pay off his debt.”

“How do you know all this and why haven’t I read about it before?”

Tennyson smiled. “Because of a little-known pact made during World War Two between the U.S. government and the Mafia.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me right. You see, the mob controlled the port facilities in the Northeast, from Boston down to Wilmington, Delaware. In order for the docks to run smoothly for the war effort, certain concessions were made to organized-crime figures, including Lucky Luciano, who was paroled from prison after the war for his cooperation.”

“And how does this pertain to Tesla’s boat?”

“Dockworkers first tried to fire up the ship’s boilers to move it to a wrecking facility on the Delaware River. They succeeded, and one worker inadvertently powered up the equipment Tesla had left wired to the ship’s hull. Two men were in the room when the machine went live. One of them was cut in half by an unknown force and his lower extremities vaporized. This is where the rumor of men fused to the deck of the Eldridge originates. It’s said the dead man’s torso was found erect and propped up on his hands as though he was lifting himself out of the deck.

“The second man looked perfectly fine, but he too was dead, his skin turned as white as a sheet. It was later determined that the iron in his blood had been ripped free of its binding protein, and toxic shock killed him. These two men happened to be pretty well connected with the local mob boss—I can’t recall his name at the moment—but, needless to say, the workers were spooked and refused to work on the ship. They discussed a general dockwide strike until the Navy agreed to tow the ship out into the Atlantic and sink it.”

“Did they?”

“They had no choice. Philadelphia was one of the Navy’s most important facilities for both shipbuilding and repair. It wasn’t worth the scrap value of one old mine tender to put that in jeopardy.”

“Why didn’t the Navy investigate the machine that killed the men?”

“I’m sure they wanted to, but with twenty thousand workers threatening to walk off the job at the same time the Allies were marching up the spine of Italy, and matériel was being amassed for the eventual invasion at Normandy, they took the prudent course to keep the peace on the home front.”

“How did what you just told me become the story of the USS Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment?”

“In 1953, the author of an obscure book about UFOs named Morris Jessup received a letter from a man identifying himself as Carlos Allende. Allende singled out Jessup because in his book he speculated that UFOs were powered by electromagnetism and that during the war the Navy had experimented with such forces on a ship in Philadelphia. Allende claimed the research was based on Einstein’s unified field theory, though Einstein never could reconcile all the forces of nature into one elegant formula like he had for relativity.

“They corresponded for a time until Jessup realized Allende was some kind of crank and stopped all contact. Who Allende really was has never been established, but I believe he was aboard Nikola’s old mine tender when those two men were so mysteriously killed and spun an even greater tale for a gullible dupe.

“Interestingly, the Office of Naval Research contacted Jessup a few years later about an annotated copy of his book they’d been sent. He informed them that the cryptic notes were written by Allende. Then in 1959, Jessup set up a meeting with Dr. Manson Valentine, the man who later discovered the limestone formation called the Bimini Road in the waters off the Bahamas. Jessup never made that meeting. He was found dead in his car in Miami, with a rubber hose stretched from the exhaust to his closed window. That last detail is the lifeblood of conspiracy theorists the world over. They say it wasn’t suicide but that he was killed by French operatives.”

Cabrillo scoffed. “French?”

“It’s a conspiracy theory, after all.” Tennyson chuckled. “Why not the French?”

“Where did you get the story about the mine tender and why didn’t you put it in your biography?”

Before answering, the retired academic hauled himself to his feet. “I’m thirsty. Let’s get something to drink and then finish up with that stump. You almost have it out of the ground.”

Picking up his jacket and securing the holstered gun when Tennyson had his back turned, Juan followed him across the lawn and patio. The house’s kitchen was tucked into the back corner overlooking the garden, and while there were “modern” appliances, the fridge looked like it had been converted from an icebox, and a box of extra-long matches next to the stove meant its pilot had to be lit by hand.

Tennyson pulled two Cokes from the fridge and handed one over. “I’m sure you’d prefer a beer, but I don’t drink.”

“This is fine.” Cabrillo popped the can and took a long draught, not realizing how dry his throat had become.

The doorbell buzzed, and Juan’s thirst vanished as his mind flashed to the bullet striking Yusuf out in the desert where no assassin had a right to be.