Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 42

DAMIEN SAMIL'S HEADACHE HAD gotten progressively worse over the past hour while he and his men waited in the darkened lab for Petar to show up. A sentry posted aboveground had seen the two pull up in a red Kia and enter the sewer system. A quick scan of the local infrastructure blueprints had shown the eastern wall of the lab as the point that ran closest to the sewer, and that's where he'd set up their welcoming party.

His men were well trained. They had to be. He hand-picked every single member of his active division and, unlike most generals, who got fat playing wargames in the Pentagon, Samil stayed in the field, directly commanding his men.

Such activities were frowned upon among the brass; they believed that an officer's place was behind the lines, directing from a point of safety. Officers such as themselves were too valuable to risk on the battlefield.

Cowards. Cowards and fools, every one of them, Samil said. Only one officer, a lietuenant general, had ever questioned Samil's tactics. When he wound up with a pair of permanent wheels and a colonoscopy bag after a freak elevator accident, nobody else seemed to have an opinion on Samil. There were whispers, but always behind closed doors and never to his face. It didn't matter; Samil found out anyway. He had fingers everywhere from the NSA to the Oval Office. Let them whisper. Whispers couldn't hurt him.

Among his hardened men, he'd picked a small regiment of pure steel to apprehend Petar. Each and every one of them was a remorseless killer, loyal only to him. If he gave the order, they'd assassinate their own president without batting an eye or losing a second's worth of sleep. These were men he could rely on. Men he could trust to keep a secret.

Without a sound, without twitching so much as an eyelash, these men had waited the better part of an hour in the unlit lab for Petar and the boy to show up. The dull throb of his headache became a piercing ache. The darkness hung over him like a blanket. Behind him, the only evidence of life was the hot breathing of his men in the dead hush. He could tell they were nervous; news of Tico and the Fairfield Inn had circulated. They knew this wasn't a usual assignment, and these men, hardened as they were, didn't like surprises.

But they followed his orders and they waited. When muffled voices sounded from the sewer beyond the wall. When a piece of the wall blasted inward. When Petar and the Parson boy climbed through the opening. While Samil spoke with the fugitive. Waiting for his order to arrest. Or kill. Samil did notice that several of the men jumped when Petar tried to lower his hands. A show of weakness, Samil thought with disapproval. He'd deal with that later. Samil never missed a thing.

Samil had everything under complete control.

"Ta-ta," Petar said, waving his fingers.

Samil was a man of instinct, a man who survived on intuition and vigilance. When he saw the orange lights under Petar's skin, he didn't know what was happening, but he knew it wouldn't be good. A moment before the spacial coherence amplifier unleashed its dazzling blaze of light, he saw Petar's eyes squeeze shut. Years before, Samil had learned an important rule of warfare: If your enemy is diving for cover, you better get something over your head before the bombs fall.

Samil never missed a thing.

He shut his eyes and tried to turn.

There was no heat, sound, or shockwave, but the light itself hit with an almost physical force. Unlike Petar, he was standing directly in front of it. Although his eyes were closed and his head was half turned away, he felt his left eyeball – the one still angled partly toward Petar – shrivel under the intense brightness burning through his eyelid. His cheek blistered like it'd been sunburned. His headache forked like a lightning bolt, a slicing power saw beneath his skull.