EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum

by Shane Stadler

  Regarding the hit on Jennings, he figured there were three possibilities. The least likely scenario was that the CP inmates got wind of the investigation and caught Jennings following them.

  Next, Syncorp may have identified Jennings during the visit to the facility, which made him wonder about the whereabouts of their inside guy, Jake Adler. The problem was that, if Syncorp was able to identify Jennings, then why not Natalie Tate and himself? It was more likely, however, that Syncorp had gotten to Adler, and he’d double-crossed Jennings.

  The third possibility was the most disconcerting; someone in the FBI had betrayed Jennings. In that case, it was uncertain who was responsible for carrying out the actual deed of terminating the man. Was it Syncorp, or did some government thug make the hit? Either way, he or Natalie could be the next targets – the FBI knew them both and how to find them.

  As he rolled to a stop at a traffic light, his phone beeped with the message 523. He turned right into a crowded parking lot in front of a large bookstore. Natalie Tate called thirty seconds later.

  “Adler’s still alive,” she said.

  “Is Syncorp after him?” Will asked.

  “Doesn’t seem so,” she replied. “He claims he knew nothing about the hit on Jennings, and there’s nothing that points to Syncorp having anything to do with it. Besides, Adler went into work yesterday.”

  “Could it have been the CP inmates?”

  “If so, we’re going to come down on them hard,” she said. “But before we get to them, we’re going to get more out of Adler. He’s still our ticket into Syncorp, and I think we should make a move.”

  Will’s heart raced. “When?”

  After an awkward silence, she replied, “When I get back from Chicago. I have to brief my superiors on what happened to Jennings.”

  “You’re wasting time,” Will said, not hiding his displeasure.

  “My flight leaves in an hour,” she said. “You’ll be on your own for a while.”

  The phone went dead.

  If the CP men had killed Jennings, then Will figured he wasn’t in danger. But it also meant they might be ready to move on Syncorp. If they did, they’d jeopardize the investigation. If Syncorp murdered Jennings, then his identity might be compromised. But it didn’t matter. Anyone coming to him with bad intentions would be making a grave error.

  With the FBI wasting time, he’d have to take things into his own hands. He’d start with the former inmates.

  8

  Tuesday, 19 May (7:34 a.m. CST – Chicago)

  Daniel took a bite of a toasted onion bagel slathered with cream cheese, and took a sip of coffee. He glanced up at Sylvia who was eating strawberry yogurt and reading a newspaper on the opposite side of the table. The little restaurant was busy with Chicagoans getting a quick bite before work.

  The night before, he’d convinced Director Thackett that the information exchange with McDougal would be fruitful. It hadn’t been a difficult sell – Thackett would part with just about anything as long as it advanced their investigation of the beacon. Besides, McDougal wasn’t requesting government secrets that threatened lives or national security. To the contrary, the man was doing the country a service.

  What Daniel already knew about Red Wraith disturbed him greatly. The project needed to be terminated and the people involved brought to justice. He was certain that the new information he’d be getting from McDougal would only strengthen that notion, as would the information going the other way. Synergy in intelligence was rare, but might be exemplified by their impending deal.

  They took their time finishing breakfast and were at McDougal’s office by 8:15 a.m. The large wooden door was propped open. Daniel knocked and they waited in the hall.

  “Come in,” McDougal said from somewhere deep inside.

  Jonathan and Denise were sitting across from each other at a large wooden table. Denise gathered a bunch of papers spread out on the table and put them into a manila folder.

  “Please, have a seat,” Jonathan said. “We were just working on another case.”

  Daniel sat next to Denise, and Sylvia sat across the table from him, next to Jonathan.

  “What’s the verdict?” Jonathan asked.

  “We have 43 names for you with location information,” Daniel explained. “As of a week ago, each inmate on the list was alive and in a mental health facility of some sort. They’re scattered about, but concentrated mostly in the Midwest and Northeast.”

  Daniel thought he saw Denise smile as she glanced over to Jonathan.

  “I think we can do business,” Jonathan said, grinning. “After months of searching, we’d only located five.”

  “And two of those were dead before we could get to them,” Denise added.

  “How soon can you get us the names?” Jonathan asked.

  “I’ll have them in an hour,” Daniel replied. “When can you get the files?”

  “They’ve been stored in electronic format,” Jonathan explained. “I just have to make a phone call. We’ll have them by noon.”

  The timing was perfect. Daniel and Sylvia had a flight out of O’Hare International at 2:20 p.m.

  Daniel smiled. “We’ll come back at noon and do the exchange.”

  Jonathan nodded in agreement and leaned back in his chair. “I have to say, Daniel, I’m interested in what’s happening, and why you so desperately need this information.”

  Daniel shook his head slowly, and said, “All I can say is that it has existential implications.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  1

  Tuesday, 19 May (9:00 a.m. EST – Antarctic Circle)

  Captain McHenry observed the sonar screen as Finley adjusted some settings.

  “We’re approaching the fork,” Finley said and then pointed. “There’s the sub.”

  Against the advice of his first officer, McHenry had decided to exit the tunnel and communicate their discovery to the carrier group. They’d responded within minutes with the identification of the sub. He’d also informed them of their choice of direction at the fork. That way they’d know where to start looking for them, if it came to that.

  He examined the sunken SS-193 USS Swordfish on the monitor and wondered what secrets had died with it. They were now in the same position they were in ten hours before, but the new information they’d transmitted could be used by Naval Intelligence to help figure out what the hell was going on.

  He pushed a button on his communicator. “Slow to two knots and proceed along the right fork.” They’d determined that the left fork narrowed to unsafe dimensions a half-kilometer up the hole.

  His order was acknowledged as he walked to the conn.

  When he entered the control room the crew was eerily quiet. Most of the men concentrated intently on their computer screens, and their illuminated expressions conveyed both excitement and fear. What they were doing was serious business. One mistake and they could be stranded, or worse.

  McHenry took a seat with a good view of the monitors displaying sonar and video feeds. The North Dakota was equipped with a wide assortment of lights and cameras, all of which were active and displayed. The forward camera presented the widest and best-lit view.

  What he saw ahead of them gave him the same feeling he saw on his crew’s faces. It also made him question, yet again, what the hell they were doing. He reminded himself that the North Dakota was the most advanced sub in the fleet, configured with capabilities that the others didn’t have. Beyond the tight maneuvering and navigation advances, it could defend itself – something a science sub couldn’t do. The North Dakota also had unlimited range, and could stay submerged or stuck, God forbid, and keep the crew alive for months.

  After 20 minutes of slow maneuvering, the tunnel became uniform in shape and size. It was nearly circular and widened to over 100 yards in diameter. The light gray walls were marbled with veins of red and brown. Jagged boulders littered the floor on occasion, crumbled from the ceiling or walls.

  After two hours, the dimensions hadn
’t changed drastically, but it was difficult to tell whether it was angled downward or upward with respect to the surface.

  “What’s our relative depth?” McHenry asked.

  A young operator looked up from a computer consul. “A hundred meters. We’re 20 meters deeper than we were at the entrance,” the man replied.

  “Keep an eye on the depth and let me know if there are any drastic changes,” McHenry said. “We should have a three-dimensional map, including detailed depth data, for the return trip. How far are we from the entrance?”

  “Twenty-one kilometers, sir,” the man replied.

  “Notify me when we get to 30, or if you come across anything unusual,” McHenry said, and walked out of the control room. After 18 hours awake, he needed sleep. But first he’d discuss possible plans with his first officer.

  2

  Wednesday, 20 May (6:15 a.m. EST – Washington)

  Daniel stared into the overcast morning from the window of 713. Flying had always exhausted him, and he wondered how he’d handled the frequent travelling when he was a CIA operative. He already knew the answer to that question but never wanted to admit it: he was younger then.

  He was happy to be back to his normal routine. The trip had been good for him and also, he thought, for Sylvia. She was brilliant and hardworking, and he enjoyed her company. He hoped she had a similar impression of him.

  He twisted a small, silver memory device in his fingers. It had a capacity of 256 gigabytes of data. It was amazing how much information that was – thousands of books – much more than everything he’d read or write in his entire lifetime. He just hoped there was something on it that advanced their investigation.

  The coffee maker beeped, indicating that its product was ready. He filled his glass mug, sat at the computer, and inserted the memory device. He entered the password from memory and a long list of files appeared, the names of which weren’t revealing. He started at the top and sent each document to a printer to produce two copies.

  He’d been impressed with Jonathan McDougal and Denise Walker. They’d been cooperative, and even gave him advice on how to go about reading the files. They pointed to one specific file, dated recently. It was a report summarizing the progress of Red Wraith up to that point in time. He just hoped it would reveal the impetus of the whole thing – the underlying objective of the project. The truth.

  When the printer stopped chugging out pages, he began sorting and stapling. The very first page caught his eye. It was on the unusual Nazi letterhead with the strange swastika-like symbol, identical to those in the photos of the Schwabenland and U-530. He fanned through the pages, and was sure he hadn’t seen the document before.

  A beep sounded from the direction of the entrance, and he turned just as Sylvia entered and pulled her knapsack off her back.

  “Printing already?” she asked, smiling.

  Daniel nodded. “Could hardly sleep.”

  “Me either.”

  “There’s more here than I thought,” he explained. “Some are long – reports and scientific works. Many in German.”

  Daniel handed two thick documents to Sylvia.

  “You can start with these,” he said.

  He went back to his office and stood in front of the window. Strong spring winds generated swirling waves in the treetops that mesmerized him for a few seconds. His mind was overloaded and he had to force himself to concentrate on one thing.

  He grabbed the thick report McDougal suggested he read first, sat on the couch, and flipped it open.

  3

  Thursday, 21 May (7:10 a.m. EST)

  Daniel felt as if his eyes had been doused in lemon juice. At his age, pulling all-nighters wasn’t good for anything – especially his brain.

  The document McDougal had recommended revealed that Red Wraith had influenced almost every black activity since the end of World War II. The alarming thing about that fact was that he’d never crossed it in any of his earlier investigations. A secret of that magnitude kept for over a half-century was miraculous.

  The content of the report was more disturbing than anything he’d read up to that point. That the world was filled with evil people who did vile things was not a revelation, and it no longer affected him as it had in his younger years. What troubled him was that the world was fundamentally different than he’d believed it to be.

  The physical world was a distraction. During their finite lives, people concentrated on eating, gathering resources, and raising children. Not much different than animals. But he’d always suspected that there was something else in the world, something hidden, and it took something extraordinary to reveal it. In this case, it took extraordinary wickedness: Red Wraith, its Nazi predecessor, Red Falcon, and the people who had created them. Through their horrible actions, however, they’d revealed a facet of a hidden reality.

  After reading hundreds of pages, Daniel found the information he’d sought: the true objective of Red Wraith. He had no doubt now that the meeting with McDougal had been worth it, and he’d pass that sentiment on to Thackett and Horace.

  If what he’d learned during the past day was true, an entire plane of existence had been concealed from the human race. This knowledge would change everything, and probably not for the better. It was the most frightening idea he’d ever encountered.

  “Are you coming?” a voice asked, startling him from deep thought.

  He turned from his window to face Sylvia, who was standing at his office boundary. He looked at his watch: over an hour had passed – it was time for the meeting. He topped off his coffee, walked out of his office, and sat with the others in the central discussion area.

  “Find any new connections between Red Wraith and the beacon?” Horace asked.

  “No,” Daniel replied, rubbing his eyes.

  Next was Director Thackett. “So what has our risky trade of information brought us?”

  “The purpose of Red Wraith,” Daniel replied.

  Horace shifted in his seat. “Explain.”

  Daniel took a sip from his mug and set it on the coffee table. “As you know, the Red Wraith project invoked the systematic torture of human subjects, many of whom died in the process,” he explained. “But they hadn’t been killed purposely. To the contrary, every measure had been taken to make sure they stayed alive and healthy. The objective was to cause severe, prolonged pain with minimal damage to the body. In the Compressed Punishment system, this was carried out using a device called an Exoskeleton, an automated skeleton-like apparatus into which the victim was inserted.”

  A prickly sweat broke out on Daniel’s neck and he tried to rub it away.

  “Please, its purpose,” Thackett said, becoming impatient.

  Daniel folded his hands on his lap and took a deep breath. “They were trying to separate the subjects’ souls from their bodies.”

  Thackett’s eyes turned glassy. Horace seemed unfazed.

  “I don’t understand,” Thackett blurted out.

  “They believed there is a state of duality in which a person’s soul could separate from the body but remain connected to the physical world,” Daniel said. “The purpose seemed to be for military applications: solders and spies penetrating walls undetected, or unleashing great physical power.”

  “Preposterous. Where did they get such an idea?” Thackett asked, his expression even more bewildered now.

  Daniel continued, “It was based on the premise that, with the body subjected to great pain, and the mind convinced there was no hope of relief, the soul would leave a healthy body.”

  “Wouldn’t they just die?” Thackett asked.

  “Not if the body was still healthy,” Sylvia replied. “Red Falcon had begun with the torturing of Jews and prisoners of war in the concentration camps. While executing long torture sessions that involved burnings and amputations, Nazi doctors had observed telekinetic-like events – toppling of furniture and the like.”

  “The most convincing event was a bizarre massacre – Nazi doctors and so
ldiers were killed,” Daniel added. “Some tried to explain it away – saying that a guard who’d been observing the torture had snapped and killed those people. But the story didn’t fit. Some of the bodies had been ripped apart – inexplicable wounds.”

  “So the Nazis got someone to separate?” Thackett asked.

  “Maybe,” Sylvia replied. “But there’s no evidence it was sustained.”

  “And what about us?” Horace asked.

  “The Red Wraith project was also unsuccessful, with one possible exception,” Daniel replied. “Events resembling those observed by the Nazis are described in the treatment log of one of the Red Box inmates. But the file is incomplete, and the subject’s treatments ended the day the explosion destroyed the Red Box.”

  It seemed that Thackett wasn’t buying it. However, Horace nodded and his eyes revealed something that looked closer to epiphany.

  “Let’s get to the point,” Thackett said. “How is this connected to the beacon?”

  “No idea,” Daniel replied. “The only connection we have is the photo of the Schwabenland – the symbols. And the same on the files in the picture of the U-boat captain.”

  “What does the symbol mean?” Thackett asked.

  “It symbolizes separation,” Daniel explained. “If you collapse the tic-tac-toe board, making the two sets of parallel lines merge to look like a cross, then the symbol turns into a swastika. The symbol for the Red Falcon project is a separated swastika.”

  “Nazis,” Horace said. “What a blemish on humanity.” He sat back and crossed his legs.

  They sat in silence for a minute. It seemed that Horace and Thackett were both digesting the information, but Daniel knew it would take time. He’d known for over a day and still wasn’t sure his mind would ever accept the premise.

  Horace broke the silence. “What’s next?”

  “We’ll continue with the Red Wraith files, and analyze whatever new information comes in about the beacon,” Daniel said. “But we need to speak with one of the former Compressed Punishment inmates.”