EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum

by Shane Stadler

  He slipped into the room on the left and closed the door. These men slept in the same bed, both on their sides and facing away from each other. This one he’d have to do differently.

  He shot the man closest to him in the temple and then immediately fired a bullet into the second man’s head, across the bed. The first man was silent, but the second one wailed out and stood straight up on the bed, leaning his back against the wall. Lenny didn’t know how this was possible as the bullet struck him above the right eye. He shot him again, this time in the forehead, and the man tumbled off the opposite side of the bed, crashing onto a lamp and nightstand.

  The man closest to him twitched again, and Lenny snuffed the spasms with another shot.

  A few seconds later, someone pounded on the door. “What the hell’s going on in there?” a man’s voice said from the hallway.

  When the man pounded again, Lenny shot though the center of the door, chest-high.

  The man cried from the other side.

  Lenny took out his flashlight and pulled the door open. He flicked on the light and shone it in the face of a man sitting in the hallway with his back against the wall, bleeding. He was hit in the shoulder. Lenny shot him twice more in the head.

  There was one left, and he heard him rustling around in the dark in the last room on the right. Lenny turned off his flashlight, crouched down, and entered the room. He felt around on the wall for the light switch, located it, and turned it on. A ceiling-mounted light fixture lit the room just as the man pulled a gun out of a dresser drawer and turned. They shot simultaneously. Lenny’s bullet ripped through the middle knuckle of the man’s shooting hand and into his shoulder. The man’s bullet nicked Lenny’s right ear.

  The man dropped the gun and fell back against the dresser, holding his disfigured hand and screaming. Lenny walked around the bed, and shot him five times: twice in the head, and once to the chest, hip, and right leg.

  Now he had to move quickly. The neighbors might have heard the blast from the other man’s gun, sans silencer. He took gun number one out of his coat, put in a full magazine, and went to the dead man in the hall. He put it into the man’s hand and fired it multiple times with the shooting finger, putting holes in the floor, doors, walls and ceiling. He then shot him a few times in random places with gun number two.

  He went to the second room, shot the men a few times with gun number one, and then dragged one of them into the doorway. He reloaded gun number two, fired it a half dozen times with the man’s twitching hand, and left it there. He then put gun number one back into the hand of the man in the hallway.

  Lenny stood and did one more walk around, just to make sure everything was set up as he’d planned. It looked like a shootout – as if one of the two men killed all of the others, but they fought back and killed him. A thorough investigation would reveal that something was amiss, but it would take time, and he’d be long gone.

  The stench of emptied bowels and urine permeated the house. He assessed the damage to his bleeding ear with his right hand as he glanced at his watch. It was 2:59 a.m. More important was the date: he’d made the deadline for the bonus.

  As he exited the side door, the alarm panel emitted a continuous beep. He knew he had a minute to get in his car and get out of sight before the alarm activated. He was gone in 30 seconds.

  CHAPTER XI

  1

  Tuesday, 26 May (8:17 a.m. CST – Baton Rouge)

  The sun shining through the kitchen skylight warmed Will’s shoulders as he ate cold cereal. He was speculating about when the FBI might make their move on the CP men when the phone rang. It was Denise.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” Something was wrong.

  “You haven’t heard? There was a shootout – the CP men in Baton Rouge.”

  Dazed, Will turned on the television and found the local news.

  “They’re all dead,” she said. “It’s being reported that they killed each other in a skirmish, but it’s not true. It was a hit. It happened at about 2 a.m. this morning.”

  There was nothing on the news. Of course it was a hit, he thought. “Who did it?” After a few seconds the silence on the other end became awkward. “Denise?”

  She cleared he throat. “Where were you last night?”

  It took Will a few seconds to understand the context of the question. “Sleeping,” he said, finally.

  “The FBI is going to question you,” she said. “Can you prove you were home?”

  “No.” His blood seemed to freeze in his veins as a feeling he’d experienced in the past set in. He wasn’t a killer, but it was hard to prove a negative.

  His phone beeped in his ear, indicating he had an incoming message: it read 523.

  “Gotta go,” he said.

  “Wait, there’s more,” she said loudly before. “You read my email? Chinese operatives came to us asking where you are.”

  “I know. It’s good that you don’t know where I am,” he replied.

  “And the two CIA operatives,” she added, “they want you to work with them.”

  “I’m sure they do,” he replied. “Goodbye, Denise.”

  He hung up just in time to catch the incoming call. He answered.

  “Thompson?” a female voice asked.

  “Natalie. You’re back?”

  “You hear what happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “I contacted Adler and told him he’s also in danger. We have to move on Syncorp now, or lose everything.”

  “Syncorp killed those guys,” Will said.

  “Probably,” she replied. “We have to get into the complex and get all of the information we can. If they knew enough to put out a hit, they might be getting ready to pack up everything and move.”

  “When do we go in?”

  “I’m meeting Adler tonight to make plans,” she replied. “In the meantime, get a burner phone. There’s a leak at the FBI and they’re tracking you. Call me on your new phone tomorrow morning.”

  He confirmed her phone number and they ended the call.

  It was time to go off the grid.

  2

  Thursday, 28 May (7:59 a.m. EST – Washington)

  Daniel had read hundreds of Mossad interrogation transcripts since his return from Chicago. Between those and the files they’d gotten from McDougal, he’d made some loose connections to events in the southern hemisphere, but no breakthroughs. Thackett had scheduled a morning meeting, but Daniel had nothing significant to report.

  Thackett changed the routine and brought them into another part of 713. Daniel sat next to Sylvia and across from Horace at a wooden conference table located at the far end of the large office space, near the entrance. Thackett walked to the front, started up a projector, and lowered a screen. Daniel could tell by the look in his face that something was coming.

  As the projector warmed up, Thackett poured a glass of water and downed it in a few giant gulps. He refilled it, took another sip, and set it in the table. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and spoke.

  “As you know, the North Dakota had been out of contact for nearly ten days,” Thackett said. “It has returned.”

  “What you are about to see is one of the most frightening finds in recent history,” Horace said and nodded to Thackett to start the show.

  The first slide was a photo of what seemed to be large loading bay with a dock. A giant banner with the Red Falcon emblem hung from the wall on the far end.

  “What the hell?” Daniel asked, flabbergasted.

  “It’s a Nazi submarine base located at the end of a tunnel that extends more than 150 kilometers into the Antarctic continent,” Thackett explained, and then described the North Dakota’s mapping of the trench and discovery of the base. “They explored the facility, but only spent two days there – one of which was needed to get the power grid up and running.”

  Horace cut in, “What they found was nothing less than fascinating. There’s an elaborate torture ch
amber, a research library, and a vault,” he explained. “Show them the photos, Thackett.”

  Thackett advanced the presentation through pictures of the torture facility.

  Daniel was shocked by the crude similarity of the device to the modern Exoskeleton. Even more disturbing was the victims’ skeleton still trapped inside it. He wondered whether the person had been killed or just left to die when the Nazis deserted.

  “Why did they do it there? Seems inconvenient,” Daniel commented. “They’d have to transport them.”

  “We don’t know why they’d chosen the location, other than its proximity to the beacon,” Horace explained, “but the information found in the vault and research library might reveal something.” He nodded again to Thackett, who then navigated to the relevant photos.

  There were pictures of a library, and of the books and papers on the library table. Although Daniel had some knowledge of semiotics and symbology, he didn’t recognize most of the characters in the photos, although many were reminiscent of hieroglyphics.

  Thackett clicked to the next photo, which was of a white disk. It was approximately 2 feet in diameter and 4 inches thick, and was being tipped on its end by two sailors. Covering its surface were black, hieroglyphic-like symbols arranged in five concentric circles.

  “There was a sketch or print of the same in the research library,” Thackett said. “The object itself was found in the vault.”

  “What is it?” Sylvia asked.

  “It might be a decoder of some kind,” Thackett said.

  “More likely it’s what they were trying to decipher,” Horace said. “We think it’s composed of the same material as the beacon. It’s impossible to tell since we can’t obtain any of the beacon’s material. But, like the beacon, the disk can’t be scratched.”

  “There’s more,” Thackett said and flipped to the next slide. “This is the cover page of a file extracted from the vault at the base.”

  It was on Red Falcon letterhead and written in German. Daniel read what he could – it was the cover page of a report. He saw the signature.

  “Josef Mengele was at the base?” he exclaimed.

  “Look at the date,” Horace instructed and nodded towards the screen.

  Daniel read: 5 July 1948. “That must be a mistake.”

  Horace shook his head. “There were other files dated after the war.”

  Daniel’s mind spun like a wheel in the mud. He glanced at the others. There was a tension in the room that was amplified in Sylvia’s expression. Horace’s face also deviated from its normally calm appearance. Thackett tilted his head downward and stared blankly at the table as if he were gathering his thoughts.

  Daniel couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s going on?”

  Horace looked to Thackett and nodded, as if he knew what Thackett was supposed to say.

  “As you can see,” Thackett started, and gestured to the projector screen, “it’s very likely that the answer to our mystery lies in that place.”

  “Yes,” Daniel agreed. “We need all of the information they can get.”

  Thackett glanced to Horace, who smiled and looked down at the table.

  “There’s too much, Daniel,” Thackett said, making eye contact with him. “It would be a massive undertaking, even if it were just down the road. A submarine crew can’t handle it. It would take time – time we don’t have.”

  “And there would be something lost – context,” Horace added. “You want to see the whole picture in its undisturbed state, in its original environment. Tearing it apart destroys information.”

  Daniel stared at them.

  Sylvia laughed. “You’re a little thick sometimes, Daniel.”

  He remained silent.

  “They want us to go there,” she finally blurted, and reached over and smacked the top of his hand.

  “What?” Daniel looked first at Horace, who was smiling, and then to Thackett, who stared back blankly. “You’re serious?”

  Horace nodded.

  Daniel sat back and processed the information. It would complicate things. “We won’t have access to our resources. Our information –”

  “You’ll take whatever you need in electronic format,” Thackett said. “Your primary task is to determine the purpose of the base.”

  Horace looked first to Daniel and then Sylvia. “Get your affairs in order. We leave tonight.”

  3

  Friday, 29 May (10:38 a.m. CST – Baton Rouge)

  Will found the bagel shop and parked the SUV. The aromas of scrambled eggs and onion bagels hit him as he entered. He wasn’t hungry.

  He spotted Natalie Tate in a booth, walked over, and sat across from her.

  “I’m supposed to question you regarding your whereabouts when the CP men were massacred,” she said.

  “It happened around 2:00 a.m. I was sleeping. I can’t prove it,” he replied. “I would’ve been more apt to let them carry out their operation than kill them. I have no motive.” He still couldn’t believe that, for the second time in his life, he was being considered as a suspect in a heinous crime.

  “We know,” she said. “You’re cleared.”

  Will nodded. He felt relieved, but was still on edge. “Any leads?”

  “No, but it’s connected to the hit on Jennings.”

  “Now, what about Syncorp?”

  Natalie nodded. “Adler is going to get us in.”

  “You trust him?”

  She reached into black leather knapsack on the seat bedside her and pulled out a packet of papers. “He gave me these,” she replied and pushed it across the table.

  The first few pages contained a list of Syncorp employee names and addresses. Others listed more than a dozen companies connected to Syncorp. The last page was a detailed map of the Syncorp facility.

  “Why don’t you just use this information and start arresting people?” Will asked.

  “That’s not evidence. What we need is on their hard drives,” she said. “As soon as we’d make a move to arrest any of the people on that list, the data would be moved or destroyed. We need to acquire the digital information before we do anything else.”

  “Why doesn’t Adler get it?”

  Natalie raised an eyebrow and smirked. “This is too sophisticated for Adler. We need the storage drives themselves – copying them will take too much time. And we now have a window of opportunity: the computers are located in temporary storage. Syncorp is building a high security facility for digital media, and they will be moved there soon. Once in the new building, they’ll be nearly impossible to obtain.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “A week,” she replied.

  “Are there more agents coming?”

  “No, it’s only us,” Natalie explained. “You’ll go in, and I’ll be on the outside in contact with you in case something goes wrong.”

  “How am I getting in?”

  “Adler will smuggle you into the parking garage. The temporary storage building is right next to it.”

  “Sounds risky.”

  Natalie nodded.

  The danger didn’t bother him – he could protect himself – but was more concerned with failure. It was a unique opportunity. “When do we move?”

  “Depends on Adler,” she replied. “It will take a few days to set up, but be ready to go at any time.”

  Will didn’t want to sit around and wait, but he had no choice. In the down time he’d send Denise and Jonathan the new information Adler turned over.

  4

  Saturday, 30 May (8:25 p.m. EST – Antarctic Circle)

  Daniel was staggered by how quickly he’d been transported halfway around the globe, from the late spring of Washington, DC, to the late fall of Argentina. It started with a commercial flight from Reagan International to Buenos Aires, followed by a cold helicopter flight to the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. The next hitch unnerved him, even though the pilot had promised a gentle flight. He rode in an F/A-18F Superhornet fighter jet from the Nimitz
, somewhere in international waters off the coast of Argentina, to the deck of the USS Stennis, floating in the darkness of the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic Circle.

  Daniel, Sylvia, and Horace gathered in the mess hall on the Stennis, awaiting their rendezvous with the fast-attack sub, the North Dakota. Sylvia seemed to have faired the trip well, despite the sleep deprivation. Horace, however, looked as if he might expire at any time.

  They’d barely finished their meals when a group of sailors whisked them away for the final, and most treacherous, leg of the trip.

  They were bundled in waterproof slicks and floatation harnesses, and loaded onto a helicopter. The chopper elevated to a few hundred feet above the deck of the Stennis and then turned and moved into the darkness. In less than two minutes, the side door slid open, and a wind colder than anything Daniel had imagined seemed to whistle through his bones. The crew slipped a harness over his shoulders and strapped him in, while another man secured himself in another harness.

  Connected to a cable, the man latched Daniel onto the front of his own harness and bear-hugged him. “Hang on,” the man yelled over the noise, “and don’t touch anything. I’ll release you at the right time.”

  Daniel wasn’t going to argue. A drop into the water would mean certain death.

  Seconds later he was suspended in a wind so cold that he thought he might flash-freeze. He looked down upon the black shape of the deep-sea predator beneath him. Submarines had always given him an uneasy feeling – he didn’t know if it was the way they stalked their prey and attacked without warning, or the idea of being inside such a beast. He’d never felt comfortable in close quarters, but being submerged in hundreds of feet of water, and in danger of drowning or being crushed to death, didn’t sit well with him either.

  As they got closer to the Dakota’s deck, the air blasting from the helicopter blades sprayed a freezing mist of seawater into Daniel’s face. The taste of the salt awakened him to the reality of what was happening: he was boarding a submarine that would take him into one of the most secluded and unique finds in modern times. He’d be traveling into a dark history. He’d of course experienced such things in his mind, or seen them on paper, as his job required. But this time he’d actually be there.