“Oh,” Burke said. “That!” He paused. “I’m a photographer. I’m taking some pictures for Travel and Leisure.”
“Here? In Beograd?” Novakovic asked.
Burke nodded. “They’re calling it ‘the New Prague.’”
Novakovic chuckled. “Two years ago, Budapest was ‘the new Prague.’ Now, is our turn. Next year” – his hands flew into the air – “Skopje! After that, who knows – Tbilsi!” The Serb giggled merrily.
“It’s a beautiful city,” Burke said, running out of conversation.
“Yes, I think – ahhhhh! Now we cook with gasoline! I have liftoff.” The museum’s director hunched over the keyboard to his computer, and began to type. “I get participant list. We find your friend.” After a moment, he hit Return and the printer spewed out a list of speakers. Novakovic took a pen, and put a check beside half a dozen names. “These are the Americans,” he said, and handed the list to Burke.
Johnson
Dobkin
Wilson
Para
Federman
Schrager
Burke studied the names for a moment, then laid the page on the desk. Shrugged.
“You don’t recognize?” Novakovic asked.
“No,” he said. “One or two of them sound familiar, but… this was a young guy.”
It was Novakovic’s turn to shrug. “Dobkin and Schrager, they’re old men. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, and he wagged his forefinger back and forth. “I don’t give up!” He got to his feet, and crossed the room. Opening the door, he stuck his head into the hallway, and rattled off an order in a language Burke didn’t understand. Then he came back to his desk, and sat down with a smile. “This is what I am all about – to put together a Teslan from here and a Teslan from there. This is our mission – a part of our mission – at the International Tesla Society.” Once again, he folded his fingers into a steeple, and sat back in his chair.
A minute ticked by, and then there was a knock on the door. A young woman came in with a manila envelope. Handing the envelope to Novakovic, she smiled at Burke and left the room.
The museum director reached into the envelope, and extracted a handful of black-and-white photographs. “This is banquet, I don’t know if your friend comes, but…” He pushed the pictures across the desk.
Burke studied half a dozen pictures before he found what he was looking for: d’Anconia, standing with a drink in his hand, in earnest conversation with half a dozen others.
“There he is!” Burke said, pointing to the handsome face of the man who had stood in his office in Dublin.
Novakovic leaned over for a look. “Which one? Him? But that’s Jack! Jack Wilson!”
“Right!” Burke said. “Jack Wilson.”
“I can tell you, it was such pleasure to meet him. We’re in correspondence for years. And, finally, this year I meet. It’s like seeing old friend.”
“That’s great,” Burke told him, “but… do you know how I can get in touch with him?”
“Of course!” the museum director told him. “Everything is on computer.” He tapped a few keys, and scowled. “Telephone number, I’m sorry, I don’t have. But e-mail, yes! Address, yes!” He shook his head, chuckling. “Jack Wilson!” The printer clacked and whirred and a moment later, Novakovic handed the printout to Burke.
Jack Wilson
P.O. Box 2000
White Deer, PA 17887
“This is current?” Burke asked.
“Yes, of course! Is always same address. We are exchanging letters for years.”
“You think he’s in Pennsylvania now?”
Novakovic shrugged. “Yes, maybe. But from here, from Beograd, he goes to Lake Bled.”
“Is that around here?”
“No, no. It’s in Slovenia. Bew-ti-ful place. Mountains, lake, the old hotels.” He bunched his fingers together and kissed them. “Tito had villa there.”
“And you think maybe Wilson’s still there?”
Novakovic made a face. “No no no! He goes to see the notebooks. A few days, a week. Not months.”
“Notebooks?”
“Very special,” Novakovic said. “All of Tesla’s writings – the ones we know – we have them here. In museum. But not Top Secret writings. Your FBI takes these. Long time ago. Sends them on train to Los Alamos. Where they make bombs, you know? But Luka Ceplak, he has his father’s notebooks. Every day, his father is writing. ‘The maestro did this, the maestro did that’ – for thirty years. I have seen them with my own eyes. And sometimes, Tesla himself makes notes on page. This is what Jack Wilson goes to see.”
Burke nodded, but he must have looked puzzled because Novakovic continued. “Luka’s father, Yuri Ceplak, was lab assistant who worked with Tesla in New York, then in Colorado Springs, and then again in New York. He writes hundreds of notebooks! And now they are Luka’s. But will he give them to us? No! He’s stubborn old man. And lonely. Having notebooks, people come to see him. Sometimes, they bring presents.”
“Like what?”
“Vodka.” Novakovic frowned. “You know, your FBI, they lie about the maestro. They are saying he did not keep records, that he works in his head, that he makes no models, no step-by-step. So this is…” he smiled, rolling his hand through the air, searching for the word. “Bullshit.”
Burke laughed. “But this guy, Ceplak-”
“Yuri sees the war coming, and he comes home.”
“You’re talking about the Second World War.”
“Yes, of course. This war. Yuri brings notebooks home. War ends. And we have cold war. Notebooks are going nowhere during cold war.”
“They just stayed with his son,” Burke said.
“No, Luka goes to Australia. Notebooks stay here. Luka’s a physicist at university – in Perth, I think. He comes home only when his father dies. Sixty, sixty-five. Like that.”
“And after that?”
“He’s teaching in Zagreb. But that was long time ago. I don’t think he teaches now for ten years. So maybe we have different story.”
“What do you mean?” Burke asked.
“I’m hoping Luka will let us have the notebooks. I ask Jack Wilson to speak with him of this, but… I think Luka enjoys too much the visits he gets. People come to see notebooks, they take him to lunch, they say, ‘Luka this, Luka that… ’” The curator made a what-can-you-do gesture with his hands.
When Burke asked, Novakovic looked up the particulars for Luka Ceplak, and wrote them on the same sheet of paper with Jack Wilson’s address.
“This is so nice of you,” Burke said, as he got to his feet.
“No problem. You want me to send the abstract on Wilson’s speech? You’ll see, it’s very very interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, I think so,” Novakovic told him. “But, I have to say, I don’t approve. And I don’t think the maestro would approve, either. Tesla, he was heartsick about Tunguska, so… all this talk about weapons? No. I don’t think so.”
Burke frowned. What’s a “Tunguska”? he wondered. “Is that what his speech was about?”
Novakovic nodded. “Yes. He’s talking about Tesla Cannon.” Seeing Burke’s puzzlement, Novakovic smiled. “Is particle-beam weapon. You know” – he made a gesture, his fists coming together and then exploding outward – “Pffft… gone!”
“Really?”
“Yes! Jack’s paper corrects maestro’s eigenvectors to get more accurate focus.”
Burke didn’t know what the museum director was talking about. The whole thing got wilder and wilder. Tesla Cannons? Why not? Beam me up, Scotty. He thanked Novakovic for his help, and made his way downstairs and out to the street. The main thing was, he had what he’d come for: d’Anconia’s name and address. He’d give the information to Kovalenko, and that would be the end of it.
His elation faded at the Internet cafe around the corner from his hotel. An e-mail that he sent to Wilson, with “Tesla” in the subject line, was bounced back almost as soon as he sent it. He checked the address that Novakovic had given him, but there was no mistake. And no Wilson.