Son of Tesla

SON OF TESLA: Chapter 39

THE NEXT TWENTY HOURS barely felt like a heartbeat to Jem.

They'd slipped out of the burning hotel room, seen that the elevator was on its way up to the third floor, and taken the stairs to the ground floor. In the parking lot, Petar had done something to a car with his polytransmitter, and barely a minute later they'd been peeling onto the highway's on-ramp, westbound and free.

After two hours of solid driving, Petar had detoured off the highway and they'd wound their way to Port Columbus International Airport's long-term parking deck. They'd switched to a cherry red four-door Kia, and they'd been off again.

Ohio. Indiana. Missouri. Kansas. The signs flitted past the car like dreams; the miles sprinted away in the rear-view mirror.

They'd taken turns driving and sleeping for the first eight hours, and as dawn broke, Petar took the wheel again for the rest of the long stretch to Colorado.

The whole time, Jem had been a fountain of questions.

"What's your father like?"

"How did you learn how to fight?"

"When will he come?"

"Do you think you can stop him?"

Petar struggled to keep up with everything. Some of the questions he had answers for, others he answered simply by shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders. He loved the kid's enthusiasm. Sure, they'd had a rocky start, but who wouldn't in those circumstances?

Like a carnival merry-go-round, though, his thoughts kept coming back to their current predicament. The CIA. Koscheis. And now the US military. Their pursuers kept adding up, and Petar didn't know when they'd run into the next roadblock. By now, someone had definitely reported their vehicle missing from the Fairfield Inn's parking lot. Had they been spotted leaving? Did anyone know where they were going? Dropping the car off in the airport parking lot would keep it from being found for a few days; ditto for the new ride they'd snagged. Hopefully. If the owner of the Kia came back from his or her flight that day, though, it'd be reported and the other stolen car would probably be found. Why had he parked the old car right next to the Kia's spot? Stupid oversight. Petar prayed it wouldn't come back to haunt him later.

But there was hope mixed in with the worry. Both the CIA and the military were going through a lot of effort to bring him in. Petar didn't have any doubts about why – so they could interrogate him some more and stick him in a prison cell, most likely. And General Samil...that man had a crazy tilt to his eye. Petar thought the man just might want to kill him.

Underneath it all, though, was the hope that maybe someone was taking him seriously. That someone believed in the threat hanging over their heads. Maybe it would lead somewhere. Maybe that seed would grow. Maybe the next time he came back over, someone, somewhere, might have prepared something.

Maybe.

And even if so, would it be enough?

The flat, endless plains of Kansas gave way to the rolling foothills of eastern Colorado with nothing but a cheery "Welcome to the Centennial State! Please buckle up!" to mark the crossing between state lines.

As their destination drew ever closer, Petar should have felt relief. Instead, a dark cloud of worry hung over him. Pressed down on his thoughts. He couldn't shake it off. Something felt wrong with all of this. Like they were driving into a trap. They couldn't be, though. Nobody knew where they were going.

Crunching on a handful of Funions beside him, Jem was oblivious to the thoughts flitting through Petar's head. He watched the landscape roll by through the window. A kid on summer vacation. His questions had finally trickled to a halt somewhere west of Hays, Kansas, and the two had ridden in comfortable silence ever since, each preoccupied with his own thoughts.