“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.

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“Not really. But my birthday is this week, and I’ve been getting gifts from old students and colleagues,” Tennyson said as he ambled from the kitchen. Juan brushed passed him and looked out the front window. A delivery van was parked next to his Porsche on the street, its side emblazoned with a bouquet of flowers. His pulse slowed.

“Looks like someone sent you flowers.”

“Probably my old secretary. She sends peonies every year.”

Cabrillo shifted his angle to see the driver standing on the stoop. He could only see a sliver of the man and just a hint of the color of the flowers he carried. And then he took a second glance at the truck. The name under the painted bouquet: EMPIRE FLORISTS.

The connections came as fast as the synapses in his brain could fire. Vermont was the Green Mountain State. It was its neighbor, New York, that carried the Empire nickname. No way would a florist deliver this far out of state. They would have called a local business to drop off a bouquet of whatever the customer requested. Someone coming all the way from New York wasn’t here to deliver flowers. Pytor Kenin’s name popped into his head, and he knew that if Kenin used local talent to kill the world’s foremost expert on Nikola Tesla, they would be based out of Brighton Beach, New York, aka Little Odessa.

“Wes!” Cabrillo shouted, turning to see that Tennyson was already reaching for the front door. “No!”

Tennyson started to pull on the heavy brass handle when the door burst against his face as the florist kicked it in from the outside. The professor fell backward onto the floor only seconds before the muted buzz of a machine pistol on full automatic filled the parlor followed by two muted blasts from Cabrillo’s silenced FN pistol that sent the phony florist reeling into a bed of rosebushes.

Tennyson’s fall had saved him. He had dropped to the floor below the volley that sprayed the air above him. Cabrillo cursed himself for being two seconds too late to stop the attack on the professor, yet he was thankful that Tennyson did not appear to have stopped a bullet. He barely had time to tell him to play dead.

In the eerie silence that followed, Cabrillo heard two men speaking in Russian as they rushed across the backyard and into the kitchen. When they reached the parlor, it was empty but for Tennyson’s body and a small yellow carpet of scattered daffodils. Only the shattered front door showed any sign of splattered crimson. Unknown to the men, Cabrillo was hiding behind coats in the hall closet as he stared through a crack in the door.