“I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this,” Burke said.

Ceplak shook his head. “Is hundred years ago! Middle of nowhere! Much, much speculation about event at time. What was it? People hear explosion hundreds – maybe even thousand – miles away. Reporters from Tomsk go to see what happened. Is complete destruction! No one ever seeing anything like this. Is huge area. Trees, grass, animals – all gone. Evaporated.”

“And did people connect it to Tesla?” Burke asked.

“No,” Ceplak replied. “He is by then marginal figure, eccentric, maybe a little crazy. And he does not step forward to take credit. He is horrified.”

“So how did they explain it?” Burke asked. “The reporters.”

Ceplak shrugged. “Scientists say maybe meteorite is hitting earth.”

“That’s what I’d say.”

“Yes, except no impact crater. And core samples down to forty meters show zero nickel, iron, stone. These are components of all meteorites, so… theory number one goes out window and we get new one.”

“Which is what?”

“Since it can’t be meteorite, scientists decide it must be part of comet.”

Burke nodded.

Ceplak shook his head. “Can’t be comet.”

“Why not?”

“Because astronomers don’t have comet in vicinity. Plus, no one seeing it. No fiery mass falling from sky. Many many many… hundreds of witnesses report hearing explosion – but no one sees fireball? This is… not reasonable.” Ceplak shook his head and smiled. “So! When all reasonable explanations fail, we are left with Tesla! June 30, 1908, nine thirty p.m., Eastern Standard Time, he launches his beam and at this exact time – because beam is traveling at speed of light, yes? At this exact time, on other side of the world, destruction of Tunguska.”

“Like the owl.”

“Yes. I am sure, my father was sure, Tesla was sure! He was responsible for Tunguska. Destructive power of resonance! And maestro is obsessed with this for rest of life.”

“Amazing.”

“Amazing that he does not try to exploit it. You can imagine the military interest.”

Burke nodded, but Ceplak knew that he didn’t really get it because the old man leaned forward and spoke in a voice full of intensity. “Not just destructive potential as weapon. Think, Mr. Math for Poets! Beam travels at speed of light, yes?”

Burke nodded.

“Powerful beam arrive to target at same time sent!” Ceplak said. “How do you stop? How do you intercept? You understand there is no defense against this.” The old man folded his hands together.

“They would have thrown a fortune at him,” Burke said.

Ceplak held up his finger. “Of course, Tesla is pacifist.”

By now, Ceplak was devouring a crème brûlée. Burke stared out at the lake, distracted. A wind stirred the new-fallen snow into white dervishes. Burke was thinking that, as interesting as all this was, an explosion in the wilderness nearly a hundred years ago, some marginal notations in some dusty notebooks held hostage by a lonely old man… How was any of this going to help Tommy Aherne – his lonely old man?

Across the lake, the wishing bell began to toll.

“Anyway,” Ceplak said, “Tesla returned to this work for years, trying to find out where he goes wrong. He thinks he makes error in calculations of electrogravitational field. Many notations in my father’s notebooks.”

“Did he ever test it again?”

Ceplak shrugged. “I think he never has chance. After Tunguska, he dismantles transmitter. Works on equations, works on focusing mechanism in lab – but no money to rebuild. No money for anything. In 1917, tower at Wardenclyffe torn down for salvage.”

Burke nodded distractedly. No more money for anything. He was thinking about the bill for lunch.

“But your friend,” Ceplak said, his voice sharp and loud. “I think, maybe Jack Wilson figures it out.”

“Figures what out?”

Ceplak didn’t answer. “He’s here with me for twelve days. He studies notebooks in chronological order, starting in 1902. So he follows maestro’s thinking. But, mostly he’s looking at 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910. He reads other notebooks, yes, but these four are always in front of him on table. These four concern transmitter and corrections for targeting of beam.”

“Okay.”

Ceplak put down his spoon. “I think Jack Wilson wants to build transmitter. Not to give free power to peoples, no. To build as weapon. He looks through notebooks for some little piece of data he’s missing.”

“You think he found what he was looking for?

“Yes. On last day, he is so so happy. He hug me, for real – not his way at all. And he’s saying… ‘it’s time to dance.’” Ceplak raised his eyebrows. “I ask what this means, but he doesn’t explain.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“You think he’s capable of building this thing?”

Ceplak expelled a soft puff of air, then met Burke’s eyes. “I’m teacher, okay? My gifts?… they are limited. I can’t judge who is capable of doing what in physics. Wilson is smart? Yes. Hard worker? Yes. Spent lot of time on beam equations? Yes. Could Jack Wilson build?” A pause. “Maybe. But I tell myself – pffft – not to worry.”

“Why?”

“I don’t think he has resources to do something! He…” Ceplak frowned, shrugged. “He brings me cheap bottle of wine! He’s not staying at Toplice. He stays at cheap hotel. He eats pizza pizza pizza. He’s not having funds, this is clear. So, I take him for just another Tesla junkie with big ideas. He will write article on Internet about Tesla beam weapon and that is it. But then you come, you tell me – Wilson, suddenly he’s rich person. And terrorist!”

Burke shrugged. “That’s what the FBI said, but you have to wonder. It’s not like they really pursued this. I mean, Jesus, they didn’t even find you.”

Ceplak leaned forward. “Yes, but… maybe you’re right. Maybe this is big exaggeration of your security services. Maybe they are playing game we don’t know, but… I think you better find him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m doing my best,” Burke said, thinking This is insane.

Once he told Kovalenko what he’d learned, that a crazy ex-con from Stanford was planning to do God knows what with a 100-year-old “invention” that never worked in the first place – or never worked properly – it was all over.

However you looked at it, Thomas Aherne & Associates would not be reopening anytime soon.

“Best is not good enough,” Ceplak said. The expression in the old man’s eyes was grave. “Tunguska was half million acres in Siberia. Pine trees, reindeer, a few nomads. But…” His voice trailed away.

“But what?” Burke asked.

“I’m asking you: How big is Manhattan?”

Wilson found it on the Internet, two weeks after he arrived in the States from Liechtenstein.

“A little piece of Paradise,” the B-Lazy-B was embedded in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, a discontinuous conglomerate of California and Nevada lands, comprising a vast wilderness of mountains and deserts, forests and meadows.

The ranch – its emblem consisting of one “B” standing at attention, and the second “B” snoozing on its back – had been created as a religious retreat in 1921. A back-to-nature movement had captured the imagination of Americans, who were beginning to question the direction in which industrialization was leading them. The wilderness was suddenly seen as a place where spiritual and physical renewal might be found.

With its big main house and a dozen spartan cabins, it had housed generations of Baptists on retreat. All was well until the 1940s, when the sect’s accounts were looted by an evangelist with a green eyeshade, who then disappeared in the direction of Brazil. The bank foreclosed, and the retreat was sold to a Russian émigré, who’d always dreamed of owning a dude ranch.