JANUARY 8, 1943

The maid was being stubborn.

“You see?” she said, pointing to the sign hanging on the doorknob. “It says ‘Do Not Disturb.’ So I do not disturb.”

The call had come yesterday morning.

“Come to my room,” the voice had said without preamble. I recognized the accent immediately. “You must get here first. Bring a briefcase. Do not stop at the desk. Room three-three-two-seven. Leave now.”

I’d left as soon as I could but snow along the route had slowed my train, and I didn’t arrive until mid-afternoon today. I thought I might be too late to be “first,” but the sign on the door gave me hope.

So now I stood on the thirty-third floor of the Hotel New Yorker, arguing with a maid.

“He’s not answering,” I said, knocking on the door again. “I’m afraid something’s wrong. You must let me in. What if he dies while we’re arguing?”

That spurred her to action. She picked a key from her ring and opened the door. I rushed into the two-room suite ahead of her. She gave out a small cry when we found Tesla lying fully clothed in repose on his bed. As she rushed out, I touched one of the hands folded on his chest and found it cold. He’d been dead awhile.

Strangely, I experienced no grief. He’d had eighty-six years, as full of accomplishment as they were frustration; he’d known riches and poverty, world-changing success and crushing failures. A life well lived. Everything except the love of a woman. But that had been his free choice.

…you must get here first…

Why?

I didn’t have to look far. On the nightstand between the bed and the wall lay a stack of papers beneath a white envelope inscribed with Charles. I shoved them all into the briefcase I’d brought along and hurried out.

In the lobby I found a seat against a wall, equidistant from the elevators and the front desk, and settled in to watch.

On my way in from Chicago, I hadn’t known exactly what to expect. I’d guessed I wouldn’t find Tesla alive. But was the call the result of a premonition or premeditation? From the positioning of his body I assumed that he’d died by his own hand. He’d already tried death by taxi. Now, death by…what?

I opened the envelope. Inside I found a multi-page, handwritten letter and an empty medication packet labeled Digitalis. I recognized it as a heart medication, but knew no more about it than that. I assumed, though, since he’d given it to me, that he wanted me to know he’d chosen the time, place, and means of his passing via a deliberate overdose.

A middle-aged man carrying a doctor’s black bag entered and was escorted into an elevator. I watched the floor indicator stop at 33. Two men in three-piece suits entered and said “FBI” as they showed identification to the desk man. They too ascended to the thirty-third floor.

I returned to the letter, a very personal message stating how much he’d enjoyed working with me, and how I should not waste my time in the employ of a municipal utility, but break free and find my true potential.

I glanced up and almost cried out when I saw Rudolph Drexler stroll into the lobby. Of course it had to be the son he’d mentioned. Ernst. But the resemblance was remarkable—right down to the silver-headed, rhino hide cane. What was a German national doing here in New York during wartime? He sidled to the side and stood watching.

The two FBI men returned to the lobby and put their heads together. I couldn’t follow their low conversation but “OAP” was mentioned more than once. As a naturalized citizen, I knew the acronym: the Office of Alien Property.

I could see where this was headed: OAP would seize all of Tesla’s papers wherever they might be, and various government scientists would cull through them for anything of value. I didn’t have to sift through my briefcase to know that right now anything of true value was sitting here on my lap.

Drexler must have realized that as a German he would not be allowed within a mile of Tesla’s papers. He slipped out as quietly as he had arrived.

His departure sparked a sudden urge in me to do the same. I stuffed the letter into my suit jacket pocket and made my exit.

Outside I stopped on the cold corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street. How different the city from my last visit. The streets bustled. Gone were the desperate men seeking work. They were either in the army or laboring in the armament factories. Nothing like a year of global warfare to save politicians from disastrous economic decisions.

Penn Station lay directly ahead. My train back to Chicago would leave from there, but I had time to kill. To my left, the Empire State Building beckoned. On my previous trip I’d had no time to visit the Tallest Building in the World, but I could remedy that now.

* * *

The way the wind buffets the windows makes me glad the 102nd floor observation deck is enclosed. Chicago may be the Windy City but I doubt street-level gusts can compare to a winter gale a quarter mile up. The sun is low enough and red enough now that I can stare into its eye without wincing. The views in all directions steal my breath.

I finished Tesla’s letter while waiting in line for an elevator to the deck. Among other things, he told me he burned the film of the successful test in Wales. He ended by repeating what he’d said five years ago:

You saved the world, Charles. The world should be told so it can accept you as its hero.

Saved the world? That April morning seems like a bad dream now, but I suppose I did. As for the world accepting me as its hero, however…I cannot see that happening. The world is a long way from accepting someone like me.

Even though I was able to accomplish what I did only because I am the way I am, that would not be enough. Truly, had I been a woman through and through, and pretending to be a man merely to land the job, I would have fallen into the same funk of hopelessness and despair that affected everyone else at Wardenclyffe. I might even have followed the others in a plunge down that bottomless shaft. Instead, the dissonance roiling within inured me to the Occupant’s influence and allowed me to function at a more normal level.

But that would not be enough to prevent my being shunned as a freak instead of lauded a hero. Always I seem to have something to fear. The spread of the eugenics movement throughout the 1920s was frightening enough, but its adoption as state policy by the Nazis is downright terrifying. If they win this war, I and others like me are doomed.

But I remain optimistic. The Allies will prevail.

And here, with the world spread out before me, I know I am not unique. There are others like me out there, many living as demimondaines. Someday the world will understand us, but I have no hope of that in my time. Someday medical science will allow someone like me to be as male on the outside as he is on the inside, but I will never live to see it.

And so my choices are limited. But I refuse to live in the shadows. I have no choice in being an unconventional man, but I can and do choose to live a conventional life, in plain sight…as a man.

And to that end, it is time to return to the two people who matter most in that life: my wife and child.