EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum

by Shane Stadler

  (Note: Subsequent interrogations of Untersturmführer Hans Demler provided no new information, but were consistent.)

  A handwritten annotation indicated that Demler had died in prison in 1962.

  Daniel bristled at the mention of the “special place on earth,” and that it was cold there. It would have made no sense if he hadn’t already known about the beacon.

  The next file was the official transcript of Demler’s interrogation – the one that would be found in the normal classified records. Every mention of Red Falcon, and Demler’s testimony regarding a special place on earth, had been redacted. To have the complete and redacted versions of the files side-by-side was revealing. If Demler had been deemed crazy, or just fabricating information to save his own skin, there would have been no need to hide any of his testimony.

  Subsequent transcripts indicated that, indeed, Israeli interrogators had initially concluded that Demler made up the story in order to give the appearance that he was cooperating. After all, he’d been fighting for his life. Demler was fortunate, however, that there had been other Nazis who had corroborated details of his story. The Israelis had really needed to find Dr. Josef Mengele, but, as was well known, it was not to be. However, it seemed that they’d gotten a break when the Israeli Mossad captured the Nazi fugitive, Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, in 1960.

  Daniel leaned back on his couch and read.

  2

  Friday, 22 May (1:10 p.m. EST – Antarctica)

  McHenry leaned over Finley’s shoulder and studied the computer monitor. “How wide does it get?” he asked.

  “Over 200 meters,” Finley replied. “It looks like we’re entering the mouth of a large chamber.”

  After days of weaving the North Dakota through the narrow tunnel, McHenry felt a sigh of relief. It was as if he’d fallen down a dark well and finally climbed out and lay flat on the surface with the sun beating down on his face. His moment of release was quickly squelched by the reality of their situation. They had no means of communicating with the outside, and would still have to navigate their way back through the treacherous tunnel.

  “Orders?” Finely asked.

  “Forward, keep center,” McHenry said. “Map all surfaces as we go.”

  “We looking for something in particular?”

  McHenry thought they should be looking for something related to the beacon. On the other hand, there were dead subs at the mouth of the tunnel, and other manmade debris further in, so they should be ready for anything.

  “Anything resembling the beacon – or any unnatural structure,” McHenry finally replied. Something else occurred to him. “Also look for side-chambers, or tunnels. And there could be mines.”

  Finley nodded, and then gave instructions to navigation and sonar personnel on the consuls around him.

  McHenry went to his quarters. He put his head on a pillow, took a deep breath, and exhaled. It was a sigh of relief and exhaustion. After what seemed like just a minute, he sat up stiffly. His communicator buzzed. It was Finley.

  “Sir, I think you need to come back,” Finley said. “I recommend an all stop.”

  McHenry rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t been off the conn for 20 minutes. “I’ll be right there,” he said, and then communicated the all-stop order. What the hell had they found?

  3

  Friday, 22 May (1:35 p.m. EST – Washington)

  Daniel refilled his mug with hot water and walked over to the window. The silver tea ball released brilliant green currents in his cup that matched the colors of the sunbathed treetops below. He set the cup on the coffee table and sat on the couch.

  The interrogation of Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann made Daniel’s spine tingle as if his most primitive instincts were commanding him to run. His brain overrode the primordial urge, but he twisted and turned in his seat as he read.

  Eichmann had been evil incarnate. He’d had the power and opportunity to carry out acts that defied the inviolability of life itself. Although known as the “desk murderer” for carrying out his heinous acts by action of the pen, Eichmann had done so without emotion or remorse and, in some cases, with denial. His numerous interrogation transcripts, especially those parts that had been redacted in other documents, had revealed something that scared Daniel more than anything else: hope.

  Eichmann himself had used the word in defense of his actions. He’d had hope for something transformative to happen, something he’d been told by Hitler himself. He described something about a new facet of human existence – a metamorphosis – that would elevate humanity to the next stage. It sounded familiar.

  The problem was that Eichmann had never mentioned specifics in the interrogations – not because he hadn’t wanted to, but that he apparently hadn’t known any. He’d explained that the purpose of the concentration camps was to exterminate Jews, and others the Nazis wanted out of the way, but the reasons were different from what had been assumed by the rest of the world. The Nazis wanted to clean the earth not for the Aryan race in its form at the time, but for the transformed race. He’d explained that there would soon be a refined race that transcended humans in their current form.

  The second major purpose of the concentration camps, other than extermination, was for a source of healthy subjects to be used in experiments of the sort carried out by Dr. Josef Mengele at the Kraken asylum, and other such places. It was the transcripts of interrogations of Mengele that Daniel really wanted to read. It was most unfortunate that the evil doctor hadn’t been captured. He’d lived in Argentina until the Israeli Mossad got too close, and then fled to Paraguay. Finally, Dr. Mengele had drowned off the coast of Brazil in 1979. They’d called him the Angel of Death for his participation in the selection of Jews for the gas chambers at Auschwitz – an operation that Daniel now suspected was just a discarding of the subjects he couldn’t use in his torture and medical experiments.

  Human twins were of particular interest to Mengele. His curiosity had stemmed from another Nazi researcher named Nestler who had conjectured that twins’ souls were entangled. The entanglement in this sense was not of the sort suffered by two fishing lines that had twisted into an irreversible birds’ nest. Instead, it was related to the entanglement described by quantum physics, the common example being the entanglement of two electrons. When two electrons were entangled in the quantum sense, they could feel each other’s state from long distances – a phenomenon referred to as “spooky,” even by physicists. So was the case with twins, according to Nestler and Mengele. The twins would be separated, Mengele would kill one of them in one room, and the reaction of the other twin, unaware of the fate of the other, would be observed in another. The results had been inconclusive.

  Eichmann had referred to Red Falcon several times during the interrogation – the first instance initiated by him. The interrogator had obviously led him in that direction, but had never mentioned the name of the project. In the end, Eichmann hadn’t known the details of Red Falcon. However, near the end of the interview, he’d made some chilling references. Eichmann described a New Order rising from cold waters. He called it the Last Reich. It was this Last Reich that would be the transformed version of humanity, and it was Eichmann’s hope that it would rise before he was executed. He had also claimed that Hitler wasn’t dead, nor were many of the others at the top of the Nazi hierarchy. They had escaped Germany through the secret Nazi SS operation called ODESSA, and would rise again from the south. Eichmann was executed in 1962.

  ~ 4 ~

  Friday, 22 May (1:48 p.m. EST – Antarctica)

  McHenry entered the control center. Whatever they’d discovered, it was big. Everyone was standing – some at their respective stations, others near the bank of overhead monitors.

  “What do you have?” McHenry asked, his question directed at Finley.

  Finley approached McHenry, grabbed his arm, and directed him to a monitor.

  McHenry’s heart pounded. He’d never been grabbed by a crewmember – and Finley’s eyes were wide with
either fear or excitement.

  McHenry studied the monitor. It was an image from one of the North Dakota’s forward cameras. The water was perfectly clear.

  The tunnel terminated in an enormous cavern.

  “What are the dimensions of this place?” McHenry asked, hardly believing what he was seeing.

  “Irregularly shaped, about 800 meters in length, the same width, and the depth is over 1,000,” Finley replied. “But that’s not all.” He nodded towards the screen. “The image you see there is with our external lights turned off.”

  It took McHenry a second to process what Finley had said, but then it was clear. “Ambient light from somewhere,” he said. “An opening to the surface.”

  “Yes,” Finley said. He instructed another crewmember to adjust the view. “The ambient light is coming from here,” he said and pointed to a location on the opposite end of the cavern. “But while we searched for the light source, we found this.” He pointed to two areas high on one of the walls, near the ceiling and at the edge of the opening to the surface.

  McHenry gasped. There were human-made structures. “What the hell is it?”

  “Don’t know,” Finley said. “We’ll have to get closer.”

  McHenry nodded. His fatigue had all but dissolved away, the adrenaline taking over. “Go slowly.” It occurred to him that there might be traps. He warned the crew.

  As they inched closer to the light, the structure became more visible. Mounted to the cavern ceiling and wall, on the North Dakota’s port side, were rectangular structures resembling the skyboxes seen in some football stadiums, but larger. Some were solid black – probably metallic or concrete – while others had windows. In all, there were over 50 of them. Behind the boxes, where the ceiling curved gradually downward into the wall, were six slots that resembled slips for submarines. Three were occupied.

  As they approached the structure, the source of the overhead light became apparent. There was a colossal hole in the ceiling of the cavern. On the surface, McHenry realized, it must have looked like a lake. If needed, they could surface to confirm their position with satellite navigation, and communicate with the carrier group.

  “Get closer to the structure,” McHenry ordered. “We need to get pictures.”

  The pilot brought the North Dakota into the light, temporarily obscuring their view of what was ahead. Sonar kept them apprised of the cavern walls and structures. A few minutes later, they passed back into the shade of the cavern ceiling, and were now close enough to see the structures in detail.

  McHenry swallowed hard, not believing what was before his eyes. It was a base. The protruding structures were indeed slips. The crew stared in silence at the decrepit Nazi U-boats sleeping in their slots like corpses in a crypt.

  5

  Friday, 22 May (3:40 p.m. CST – Baton Rouge)

  Lenny Butrolsky soaked in the sun and sipped iced coffee at an outdoor café. Baton Rouge was well inland from the Gulf, but the scent of the sea imbued the warm breeze that filtered through his short hair.

  His predicament had become complex. First, he was uncertain of the identity of his employer. Second, he was there for an operation that involved multiple hits: a bloodbath. He was supposed to make it look like one member of a large group had snapped and massacred the others. He was still awaiting the details of how it was supposed to go down, and when. It sounded like a cleanup operation. Cleanup was dangerous: everyone involved seemed to be nervous, and the authorities could swoop in at any time.

  He shook his head and smiled to himself: his bank account was ballooning to retirement size. He hoped he’d have the opportunity to spend it.

  Since he’d been freed from the hospital, his jobs had been assigned through the network in which he’d worked for over a decade. But, after the hit on Poliakov and the cancelation of his latest job, his handler admitted a “turnover in management.” His suspicions were now confirmed: a Chinese firm that had purchased the companies connected to the project. His former boss, the late Heinrich Bergman, had worked for the American government, and therefore so had Lenny. Now it seemed he worked for China.

  Lenny didn’t care either way. He wanted out of the business and was getting close to having the funds to do it. The only problem he had for playing two sides – fully aware that there might even be more sides – was that it was dangerous. And his upcoming mission was going to be particularly hazardous.

  At age 55 Lenny had experience on his side. He’d dealt with the Chinese in the past. They had a reputation of tying up loose ends, and he knew he’d eventually be one of those loose ends. He planned on getting half the money he was due – the part that was paid up front – and forget the rest if they didn’t transfer it. He’d complete his jobs, and then get out of Dodge. He wanted to be absent for the final wrap-up.

  He took a deep breath and rubbed his shoulder. The warm weather was good for his body – soothing the dull aches from the many injuries he’d suffered over the years, as well as the natural deterioration of his aging body. He sipped his iced coffee and casually scanned the café. He spotted his contact: a tall, blonde female, forties, with a charm bracelet. The bracelet was supposed to have a small dodecahedron – a twelve-sided die, like the ones used in role-playing games.

  The woman got in line, bought a coffee, and went to a small counter and mixed sugar and cream into her cup.

  Lenny approached from her right and spotted the bracelet and charm on her left wrist as she grabbed a stir stick.

  “Nice bracelet,” he said. “Anniversary gift?” It was the phrase he’d been instructed to use.

  “Yes,” the woman replied and smiled. “I live a charmed life.” She had a soft southern accent.

  It was the correct response.

  “Shall we sit outside?” he asked.

  She nodded and followed him to a table far away from foot traffic.

  Her face turned serious, and she handed Lenny a small memory device. “You’ll find what you need on this,” she said. “Your honorarium decreases after seven days. You’ll get a bonus if you finish the job within the next five.”

  Rushing things for a multi-target job was risky. He needed time to study them, and plan the operation. “What kind of bonus?” he asked.

  “Three fifty,” she replied.

  Lenny flinched. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It would free him from his occupation. “Why is this so important?”

  The woman ignored his questions. “Up to four more people will arrive in five days. Right now, it’s likely that only the original five are present.”

  “Likely?” Lenny asked. He didn’t like uncertainties.

  “There’s a constant flux,” she said. “It’s all in the file.”

  Lenny nodded.

  The woman stood with her drink, smiled broadly, and walked away, leaving Lenny with the memory device and his thoughts.

  6

  Friday, 22 May (8:06 p.m. CST – Baton Rouge)

  Darkness settled in as Will sat in the back seat of his SUV and waited. A gentle breeze carried the aroma of chicken from a small gathering of students cooking with a grill a few doors down. The night before, he’d tailed the former CP inmates from the Bullfrog to their house off of River Road, near the university campus. Dense traffic had provided adequate cover, and he’d followed them all the way to their door and parked his car on the street a few driveways down. He’d separated and observed them that evening, obtaining helpful information for this evening’s activities – the alarm code and the combination to a safe hidden in a back room. The back of his neck stiffened at the thought of breaking in and carrying out his plan.

  A door squeaked open somewhere on the right side of the house, and then banged shut a few seconds later. Five men emerged and piled into a red Honda Civic, one of three cars parked in the driveway. The car backed into the street and exited the subdivision, out of sight.

  Will separated. He entered the house, unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and punched the numbers into the keyp
ad of the electronic safe. He wanted to set up everything to minimize his time in the house.

  He returned to his body, got out of the SUV, and closed the door quietly. He looked for potential observers, saw none, and then walked up the driveway and followed a walkway along the right side of the house.

  He stopped on a concrete stoop and examined the entrance. A rusted screen sagged on the warped wood-framed door, and he was sure the tears in the corners let in mosquitoes. As he pulled the door, it creaked with a metallic ringing that he followed to a large spring that functioned to snap the door closed. He pulled it open as slowly and smoothly as possible until he was able to squeeze his body in and turned the knob of the inner door. He pushed the door open, and stale air from the cool interior breezed gently over his sweating hand. He entered, making sure to let the screen door close gently. The smell of stale beer and dried ketchup filled his nostrils. He was in a filthy kitchen.

  He had to fight to stay calm even though the men would probably be out for hours. He made his way into one of the three bedrooms, opened the closet, and removed the blankets and clothes that covered the unlocked safe. He turned the handle, opened it, and pulled out three manila folders, each with 10 to 20 pages of documents. He removed the contents of one of the folders and laid the pages in a row on the carpeted floor. He turned one of three light switches on the wall by the door, energizing a light fixture. He adjusted the dimmer switch until the illumination was sufficient.

  He pulled a small digital camera from his pocket and snapped pictures of the documents. He did this several times, checking periodically to make sure the images were clear. When he was finished, he packed the documents back into the safe and closed the door and locked it. As he piled the blankets and clothes back into their original positions, he discovered an Army-green metal box about the size of a carry-on suitcase.