Dangerous Betrayal Page 5

  There was a downside to each marvelous untried addition being built into Titanic. Serious men took great care to ensure that ships were built to withstand the forces that an angry sea could bring forth. Historically, changes came about slowly and after much deliberation. It was the use of technology, especially electricity, that made Titanic vulnerable to accidents. The inherent redundancies and resilience of the many proven mechanical systems that had been well known and in use for years were gone. The ship would depend upon a steady and never-ending supply of electricity for her operation and safety. This would be exploited at a future date by a brilliant but misdirected mind, intent on extracting measured revenge against J.P. Morgan.

  BOOK 2

  CHAPTER 10

  Nikola Tesla

  As Ana Tesla went about her daily chores she prayed that the stifling heat would break. It had been unbearable for weeks, and as she approached the end of her ninth month of pregnancy, the humidity made her feel like she was moving in slow motion. The hot summer day was typical for Smiljan, a small town in the Lika region of Croatia. Ana had told her husband, Milutin, earlier that morning that this may be the day, and asked him to remain near home in the event she might need him. Having already given birth to two children, daughter Christina and three-year-old son Dane, she recognized the signs that nine months of pregnancy were about to come to an end. Her back was sore, and every once in a while she felt pressure in her abdomen.

  Ana was at the stove when a large amount of water ran down her legs and spread across the floor. Christina, fixing vegetables, was standing right next to her. This was the sign the midwife had told Christina to expect, and although only a girl of twelve, she knew her mother’s labor had begun in earnest. She ran to the barn to get her father.

  Milutin sent Christina to fetch the midwife. He carried Ana to her bed and helped her out of her soiled garments. He took her hand and prayed that she would not suffer needlessly. Milutin’s soft voice and his easy way with prayers helped Ana relax as she was assured that God would watch over her in her struggle to deliver her third child.

  As if nature had been called to add drama to the entrance of a new life into the family, thunder and lightning crashed as a powerful summer storm unleashed its full fury. Christina did her best to comfort young Dane, her toddler brother, who was terrified of the crashing sounds coming from the sky.

  At exactly midnight, on July 9 1856, Ana delivered a healthy baby boy; Nikola Tesla arrived into the world. At that precise moment the thunder and lightning abated, followed by a heavy summer rain.

  Christina and the midwife bathed tiny Nikola in warm bathwater and wrapped him in a soft blanket. Christina and Milutin took turns holding the tiny infant and smiling at his bright dark eyes that seemed to follow them around as he took in his first views of the world.

  The experience of her mother’s labor and delivery deepened the bond between Christina and Ana. The miracle of new life touched Christina deeply, and from that moment on she shared in the love for Nikola that normally only comes from a mother to a son.

  For the most part, Nikola’s early years were idyllic, if a bit frustrating for his parents. He exhibited an insatiable curiosity, and regardless of the constant reprimands from his father, he never stopped exploring the world around him in the fields and town of Smiljan, or the world he discovered in the books of his father’s library.

  Milutin got up early one Sunday morning to prepare for his Sunday sermon. He went into the kitchen and found five-year-old Nikola asleep at the kitchen table with his head resting on the open pages of a book of Greek mythology written entirely in the original Greek. A Latin Bible and a Latin book of canon law lay half-opened in front of him.

  “Nikola Tesla,” he shouted in anger. “How many times have I told you to leave these books alone?”

  Nikola jolted awake. His initial look of confusion was replaced with fear as he realized that he had been caught once again disobeying his father’s very clear and direct admonition that these valuable books were not to be touched.

  Milutin Tesla was a loving but stern father. He and Ana had many discussions about how to deal with this curious and incorrigible boy they had brought into the world. Their older son, Dane, now eight, rarely disobeyed. He was quiet and reserved, the one destined to follow his father’s footsteps into the Orthodox priesthood.

  Milutin was about to grab Nikola by the shirt and take him out for a solid whipping, but the look of fear in the boy’s eyes touched something in his heart. Using every ounce of willpower, he forced himself to hold back, taking a deep breath. Nikola sat as still as a statue, not knowing what was about to happen. Was he about to get another spanking?

  Nikola struggled to explain why he had once again disobeyed. He lowered his eyes and they filled with tears. His shoulders started to shake.

  The commotion in the kitchen awakened his mother. She got out of bed and stood in the doorway, watching the tears stream down her son’s face. She walked to the table, sat next to Nikola, and pulled him to her breast as she stroked his hair and whispered his name. “Nik, our poor dear Nik, whatever are we to do with you?” She rocked gently back and forth, looking pleadingly into the eyes of her husband, silently asking what are we to do?

  Nikola said, “I’m sorry, Papa, but these books have told me so much. Their stories make me wonder about the world and about God in heaven.”

  “What do you mean, they tell you things? These books are in Latin and Greek.”

  At that, Nikola flipped a few pages back in the book that had been his pillow and began to read aloud a tale of the Greek god Poseidon and his struggles to control his domain of the seas.

  Milutin grabbed the book from Nikola and began to read, first silently and then aloud as he haltingly translated what Nikola had just read with ease. He was struggling to translate the Greek, at which point Nikola recited from memory the story on the pages before Milutin’s eyes.

  Milutin closed the book of Greek mythology and reached for the Latin Bible. He opened to a random page in the New Testament, one of St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. He turned the book to Nikola and said, “Read this.”

  Nikola immediately began to read the text before him, translating into his native Croatian tongue. The translation was flawless.

  Milutin closed the Bible. “What else does it say?”

  Nikola continued from memory, flawlessly and without hesitation, giving a word-for-word translation of St. Paul’s letter. It was perfect. Even the inflection was correct.

  Milutin asked him, “How many times have you read this?”

  Nikola thought for a moment. “I think just once a month ago. Since then I have been reading about the Greek gods.”

  Tears rolled down Milutin’s face. He shook his head as he realized that this incorrigible boy of five had taught himself both Greek and Latin, just by reading these books.

  Finally Milutin spoke. “Nikola, come here, come over here to me.”

  Ana looked at her husband, and her eyes pleaded with him to be lenient. She had just witnessed something she did not understand, but knew in her heart that it was a sign of genius.

  Nikola walked slowly around the table to his father. Milutin gently placed his hands on Nikola’s small shoulders. “My dear boy, how we have misunderstood you. Can you forgive me for trying to take away these treasures from you? Go ahead, you may read any of my books, whenever you want. But there is no need to stay up all night and strain your eyes by candlelight.”

  Nikola wrapped his small arms around his father’s neck, squeezed as hard as he could, and then turned to his mother asking if he could have something to eat. Ana’s face broadened into a huge smile as she laughingly said, “How typical of a little boy, thinking about his stomach at a time like this.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Depression and Despair

  Five years later, Nikola was out in the barn playing in the hay with a few of his friends when he heard a loud cry from his mother. Running into the house he found Ana knee
ling on the floor holding the lifeless bloody head of his older brother Dane to her breast, sobbing and screaming “No, no, dear God, no, this cannot be!”

  Standing before her was the farmer who lived next door, his own clothing stained with blood. He was rocking from foot to foot in a nervous frenzy, tears streaming from his eyes, and in his hands he held his hat which he kept wringing and squeezing like a rag. He was trying to speak, but all he could do was stammer. “I, I don’t know how it happened, oh God, I am so sorry, I found him next to the wall, he was not moving. Oh my God, no. Oh my God, no! What am I going to do?”

  Dane loved animals, especially the horses next door. Their neighbor, Mr. Gavran, had a large vegetable farm and a pasture with horses. Dane had learned to ride early and loved to be carried bareback on a large black horse that ran like the wind. The huge animal would wait for Dane, almost like a dog might, swishing its tail and snorting with anticipation whenever Dane came into view. They would run through the woods, jumping the low stone walls that marked property lines until both Dane and the horse were exhausted.

  Dane had gone out as usual that afternoon, but this time the horse came home alone, overheated and clearly agitated. The horse, normally quite docile, was snorting, tossing its head around, and pawing at the ground.

  The farmer got on his own horse and after a search of the meadows and hills found Dane’s lifeless body slumped next to a stone wall. There was blood on the wall, and Dane lay in a spreading pool of blood from a deep gash in the side of his head.

  Nikola just stood there in shock. He was frightened. Blood was everywhere. At first he thought it was his mother who had been hurt, but as she continued to rock back and forth on her knees, holding Dane against her, it was obvious that it was Dane’s blood on the floor before him.

  Ana’s cries continued. “Dane, oh my Dane, oh no, this cannot be!”

  Young Nikola knew right then that Dane was dead, that his big brother was gone. He ran from the house and raced to his father’s office. By the time he got there his face was streaked with tears and dirt. His father looked up and was about to scold Nikola for disturbing him, but when he saw the tears and heard the sobbing, he said, “Nik, what is it, what’s wrong?”

  Nikola could only say one word over and over as he pointed to the door. “Dane, Dane, Dane.”

  Together they ran home to the scene of a tragedy that would be burned into Nikola Tesla’s memory forever. Dane was dead. His mother, Ana, was lying on the floor beside him, her dress soaked in blood. She wailed and screamed, cursing a God who would take away her son. Dane, a young boy full of promise and goodness, only thirteen years of age, had been taken from her, and with him went a part of Ana’s heart and mind.

  After the terrible loss, Ana withdrew into herself. Dane was her favorite, and his loss proved to be a blow from which she couldn’t recover. Bouts of depression that had occasionally gripped her in the past deepened and became a constant part of her life. She grew distant and isolated from her husband and children. She had little to do with Nikola or his sisters, abandoning the care of her family to Christina. She began to resent Nikola for the loss of Dane, causing him extreme pain and a sense of guilt because he was alive and Dane was not. In the depths of her depression, she would lash out at him. At other times she spoke to him as if in a dreamlike state, calling him Dane, apparently unable to accept that Nikola was alive and her favorite son was gone.

  From that time onward the life of Nikola Tesla became an increasingly solitary existence.

  A few months after Dane’s death, Milutin came home one afternoon quite excited. He had a letter from his bishop and was anxious to share its contents with Ana. He had news that might lift her spirits.

  They were going to move to the town of Gospic. Milutin had been offered a large parish, quite an honor for a priest his age. He felt that this move would be good for Ana, getting her away from the memories of Dane’s loss that imprisoned her as certainly as the bars of a cell. Milutin was also pleased for the educational opportunity this move offered Nikola.

  Milutin gathered the family together in the parlor of their small home and read the letter aloud to everyone. Ana didn’t react. She listened to what he was saying but remained quiet and withdrawn. Nikola listened intently. He understood immediately, and his fertile mind began to analyze what this might mean.

  By this time, it was well known that Nikola was a genius. He had been placed in the local school when he was six and in less than a year mastered every course, and read every book, learning German, French, and a smattering of English. His mathematical skills were beyond anything the schoolmasters had ever seen. He only had to read a math problem, close his eyes and think for a few seconds, and he could give an answer.

  Despite his superior intelligence, Nikola was insecure. He had a few close friends, and the thought of moving away and losing them caused him much anxiety. Had it not been for his closeness to Christina, he might have done nearly anything to keep from going away to another town and the unknowns that waited there.

  Shortly after they moved to Gospic, Nikola experienced the first of what was to become a lifelong series of out-of-body experiences.

  His first day at his new school had not gone well. Nikola had been placed in a class filled with students six years his senior. The teacher was not prepared to deal with the effect of this diminutive genius being dropped into a class with much older students, who upon seeing young Nikola in their midst, did their best to make fun of his small stature.

  His new teacher was skeptical of the decision to put such a young person into the class and was quite open about it, adding further to Nikola’s embarrassment and insecurity. He managed to get through his first day, quickly filling in the answers to a test he was given to measure his abilities. When Nikola raised his hand after just twenty minutes, the teacher got up to see what the question might be and was completely shocked to see every question answered, every problem solved completely and correctly. The teacher was overwhelmed. No student had ever completed the test in less than two hours.

  Nikola had not wanted to move away from his familiar surroundings. This first day at school seemed to be a confirmation of his worst fears. He was taunted and made to feel like he didn’t belong. He hurried home and rushed to his sister Christina, wrapping his arms around her and sobbing. “Tell Papa I want to go back home. I don’t like it here!”

  Christina could do little more than comfort him, as she knew very well that the family would never go back to Smiljan. Their mother seemed to be smiling a little more each day, their father had a new larger parish, and it had come with a house that was larger than the cottage that a family of seven had managed to squeeze into back in Smiljan. No, they would not go back. She simply said, “This is our new home, and you must learn to like it here.”

  Nikola looked up at her, took his arms from her, and sat on the floor in the farthest corner of the kitchen. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his legs, pressed his head back into the corner, and sat motionless.

  At first Christina thought he was thinking about what she had just said. She was used to his brilliant mind pondering problems as he sat motionless. She let him sit there for a few minutes while she puttered about the kitchen. “Well, Nik, what do you think, can you get used to this place?”

  Nikola didn’t answer. He didn’t move or react in any way. His eyes were focused straight ahead as if looking at something on the other side of the room. She went over to him and gently put her hand on his shoulder and then pulled it back, alarmed. He was cold.

  She waved her hand in front of his eyes; there was no reaction. “Nik!” Still no response. She raised her voice and shouted at him, “Nikola, Nikola Tesla, answer me!”

  Ana was in the next room. Hearing the alarm in Christina’s voice, she came into the room. “Chris, what’s wrong, what has he done?”

  Christina was bent down, her hand on Nikola’s forehead, and at that moment she understood what was happening. When her mother
was grieving for Dane she would become lifeless, and her body seemed to become like ice—she was cold to the touch. It was the same thing, but now it was Nikola. Christina grabbed her mother’s arm. “Momma, he is in a trance or having a seizure. What should I do?”

  As they looked at him, his eyes would occasionally blink and remain closed for a few seconds, accompanied by a shudder or jerking of his body. It was as if he was seeing something that no one else could see.

  Christina ran to get her father. She interrupted a meeting of a committee that Milutin had formed from a group of the oldest members of his parish. In the room with him were the mayor, several members of the town’s governing body, a doctor, and one of the prominent landowners in the area. Milutin was not happy to have his oldest daughter burst into the room.

  “What is the meaning of this? These are important men of the city. How dare you—”

  But before he could get out another word, Christina grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “Papa, you must come immediately, it’s Nik. There’s something wrong with him. He is not moving and he is cold, like Dane was in his casket. He’s sitting in the corner not moving, maybe not even breathing. Momma is in one of her moods and doesn’t seem to care. Please, you must hurry!”

  “I’ll be right there. Go back and wrap him in a blanket and try to warm him up. Let me excuse myself from these men.”

  Milutin explained that his son had suddenly taken ill. The doctor offered to accompany him and the others told him to hurry off to tend to the boy.

  When they arrived they found Nikola sitting at the table furiously writing on a large piece of paper, a blanket draped over his shoulders.

  “I thought you said he was sick, not moving.”