Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 27

PETAR TORE THE STRIP of duct tape off the roll with his teeth, stepped back, and dusted off his palms.

"I didn't want to do this," he said.

"Then don't," mumbled Jem indifferently. Jem was propped on his back on the stiff polyester bedspread, hands crossed over his waist where nearly half a roll of black duct tape printed with yellow Steelers logos secured his wrists. His feet were crossed and bound in a similar manner. And still he played the bored teenager. Petar shook his head.

"You're not really giving me a choice," he said.

"I made you kidnap me?"

"Can I tell you about where I come from?" Petar tried switching tactics.

"No."

"How about my father. You should probably know about that."

"What, daddy didn't love you?" Scorn tore through the ennui.

"Actually, he did. That was the problem."

"Don't you have it tough." Jem turned to stare at the petal-print curtains covering the window of the hotel room. Petar knew the kid had lost his father. Some scars were always ready to drip fresh blood. And here he was complaining about his own dad caring too much. Jem was a hard boy to figure out, but this was at least something Petar could grasp.

After dropping into the SUV, Petar had used the neural impulse modulator in his embedded polytransmitter to render Jem unconscious, then held the wheel from the passenger seat to guide the Escape onto the shoulder while it coasted to a stop. He hated using impulse bursts on the boy, but there was no point arguing with him while at the wheel of a moving vehicle. Who knew what kind of escape attempt the kid would try next. He was too clever. Petar had underestimated him at the truck stop; he wouldn't do it again. If they were going to talk, Petar needed a controlled environment.

He'd carried Jem's limp body to the passenger seat, buckled him in, and continued east on Highway 76 until it crossed 70, at which point he'd turned south past the state line and then west onto Interstate 68. After skimming the lower rim of the Pennsylvania/Maryland border for a good thirty minutes, he'd pulled off in a little town called Cumberland that looked like it had simply sprouted right off the highway.

From the Escape's GPS, Petar knew that the town was barely forty miles due south of Bedford, where the truck stop had been located. They'd made a rough horseshoe pattern. But the town was large enough to hide them safely for the time being, and besides, Petar was counting on the police search to continue east in a line between Bedford and New York City. There was no reason to suspect they'd left the state and were heading back the way they'd come. Camping out in Bedford's back yard might be the safest place after all.

So Petar had turned into the Fairfield Inn and Suites right off I-68 and, leaving Jem in the car, had secured a single room with two beds for them. Then he'd asked to use the phone. The clerk pointed to a small room at the rear of the lobby, where Petar had immediately dialed the Fairfield's front desk. Watching through the glass door as the clerk answered, Petar held a cupped hand over his mouth and said that he'd just seen a toddler in the greens behind the hotel. He was gravely worried about her safety, he said, since he couldn't see her mother anywhere.

The clerk had hurriedly thanked him and rushed through the service door behind the desk, at which point Petar ran outside, grabbed Jem from the SUV, and carried him through the lobby to the elevators.

Once Jem was safely inside the room, Petar had left with the Escape and parked it in the packed lot of a nearby Best Western that he'd seen on their way into town. There was some kind of convention in progress. Petar figured it'd be several days before the vehicle was noticed. Thirty minutes of brisk walking had seen him back at the Fairfield Inn. It was still daylight as he walked up to the wide, four-story hotel, and he'd entered the room just as Jem was beginning to groan groggily.