Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 16

BRODHAM WAS SPEECHLESS.

He'd been poring over the security footage from the CIA compound, and each time he rewound it to watch it again, it seemed to get more and more bizarre.

He knew one thing: His hunch had been right. He'd been knocked out of the way before the rifle blast had hit him.

When he'd first gotten to that part, he'd tried rewinding the tape and then going through frame by frame, just as Vickers had done.

Even that hadn't convinced him. Not fully.

So he'd rummaged in his desk for a Scotch tape dispenser.

The interrogation room on the monitor was set up like a basic rectangular box, about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Walls, floor, and ceiling a stormy dark gray. The gunmetal door was set about three-quarters of the way down one of the long walls, and in the long wall opposite the door was a twelve-foot-long mirrored window that hid an adjacent observation room.

Roughly in the center of the floor, a dozen feet to the left of the door, was a dull metal interrogation table, its joints welded rather than bolted so prisoners couldn't discretely secure a weapon in a loose screw or rivet. And completing the somber decor, two matching gray, straight-backed chairs. The whole ensemble gave an atmosphere of being designed by robots. Which in a way, Brodham considered, it had.

There were two cameras in place to record interrogation sessions: One mounted to the wall inside the chamber and one on a tripod facing through the mirrored wall.

The inner camera was secured in the upper corner that connected the wall to the right of the door and the wall opposite the door. It offered a giant's-eye view of the prisoner's face as he was being questioned, allowing analysts to review the footage later for telltale ticks or signs of dishonesty.

It was the feed from this camera that Brodham was reviewing with red-eyed religious zeal.

He pressed rewind for the umpteenth time and the characters in the play zipped in reverse at an almost comic clip, like an old Chaplin film.

Medical techs, dropping Brodham off a stretcher into a pile on the floor. Five armed guards skipping out of the room. Two cloaked men, backing into the door, weaving around like caffeinated flies, then exiting in mirrored crouches, rear-ends first. Brodham, flying off the floor to a standing position facing Petar. Correction: Facing where Petar should have been.

Brodham mashed pause and the image froze. He squinted at the monitor in front of him. Tapped a key. Gerry and the other guard skittered forward a pixel. The precursor to a smile jumped onto Gerry's lips. Each keystroke Brodham made was moving the action forward ten frames.

Brodham peeled a fingernail strip of Scotch tape from the dispenser and stuck it straight to the monitor, right over the image of his throat. Framed forward. Brodham's body pivoted off the tape strip. He peeled it off the screen and stuck it over the new position of his throat. Framed forward again. A blue glow appeared from a shadow behind the doorway.

Next frame. Gerry was on his way to the floor, collapsing underneath a dull spray of red.

Brodham backed up and used the computer mouse to change the skip function to move only one frame for every stroke.

Clicked again.

Two things changed. First, the blue glow expanded into a white-hot flash. Second, a crimson rose bloomed from Gerry's throat. Within the same frame.

Backed it up one. Smiling Gerry, blue glow. Forward one. Bloody Gerry, white flash. No visible projectile. Brodham leaned back in his chair and shouted through the open door.