EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum

by Shane Stadler

  It was time. Will stood and listened at the door.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Zhang asked, still clenching his damaged fingers with his healthy hand.

  “Take off all your clothes except for undergarments,” Will replied dryly.

  “Why?” Zhang asked.

  “You too, Cho,” Will added. “Now.”

  The men hesitated.

  Will pointed the gun at each man and demanded that they comply. He then tied them up using their belts and shoelaces. Then, using their pants and shirts, he gagged them and then tied each man to one of many thick pipes that ran vertically along the wall opposite the door. They were now out of each other’s reach, and should remain bound until they were discovered. By then he hoped to be off of the ship.

  Will sat in a chair, separated, and passed into the hall. All was clear. Time to go.

  He exited the room and walked at a hurried clip towards the helipad.

  7

  Wednesday, 10 June (1:29 p.m. EST)

  “You certain, Finley?” McHenry asked.

  “No doubt, sir.” Finley replied. “It’s their newest boomer.”

  “Any other boomers?”

  “Unknown, but doubtful,” Finley replied, “They’ve all been on the move in the past 48 hours, and we’ve tracked all six subs. The others are all fast-attacks.”

  McHenry’s concern was that there was a seventh Chinese sub, another boomer sleeping in the dark. He couldn’t afford to sink one and then have another launch on the carrier group.

  He picked up his communicator. “Load forward torpedo tubes, 1 through 4. Load aft countermeasures, 1 and 2.” They’d launch and run. It wasn’t clear whether or not the Chinese fast-attack subs could hear them, but they might launch in the general direction of the North Dakota and let their torpedoes do the hunting.

  He received affirmation that everything was ready.

  “Status?” McHenry asked.

  “Boomer went silent,” Finley replied. “Assuming the same location.”

  McHenry spoke into his communicator. “Launch torpedoes 1 and 2.”

  8

  Wednesday, 10 June (1:44 p.m. EST)

  Will climbed a flight of stairs, opened the door at the top, and emerged on the carrier’s upper deck. The wind pierced his clothing like frozen needles, and his body went into spasms of shivering. He pressed forward, breathing in the salty, freezing mist that was expelled into the air by the massive waves that crashed into the side of the ship. The deck was slippery, and he grabbed a hold of whatever he could as he moved along.

  He headed toward the bright flames that still reached high into the sky above the bridge, fluttering in the wind like loose sails. About halfway to his destination, he noticed something on the deck that he recognized. It was dome-like object covered with a tarp, and he was sure it was a multi-barreled gun used to shoot down incoming missiles, modeled after the American Sea Wiz weapon. Yet another stolen technology, he thought.

  He sat cross-legged on the deck and separated. As he approached the gun from the top, he realized it was much larger than he’d anticipated. He penetrated the plastic tarp and examined the gun. It had six barrels mounted on a spindle attached to a gear mechanism. The entire weapon was on a rotatable platform, and an internal gearbox aimed the weapon. All he had to do was pinch the barrels closed. A few seconds later, the task was completed and he was back in his body and heading for the helipad.

  He knew that most aircraft carriers could launch missiles, but he couldn’t identify anything that looked like a launcher. As he made his way aft, a flash lit up the horizon, showing the silhouette of a ship. Seconds later, a deep boom made his chest vibrate. The explosion was followed by barrage of others that illuminated the clouds from below. The American ships, and possibly planes, were attacking.

  Adrenaline surged into his bloodstream and he took off in a sprint. An instant later he was sliding on his chest. He stood and rubbed his chin, which might have been bleeding but couldn’t tell in the dim light. He continued at a controlled pace, slipping about every third step but maintaining his balance.

  He had no idea what the U.S. Navy had planned to get him off of the ship. His first thoughts were that they’d try by helicopter since they’d arranged the rendezvous at the helipad. That would be a tough mission, he thought, and he didn’t want anyone to risk their lives for him. He understood the reason for the preemptive strike – there was an imminent threat. But his life was inconsequential. In fact, the world might be better off without him – he was the reason for the confrontation. If he died, and they followed with destroying the beacon, there’d be nothing left to fight about. But the smell of burning diesel and the sight of the two ships tugging the carrier told him that was a false sentiment. He – one man – had just destroyed an aircraft carrier. Every major country in the world would seek to make more like him.

  Maybe the final solution was to enter the beacon and solve its riddle.

  9

  Wednesday, 10 June (2:01 p.m. EST)

  McHenry already knew what the words were going to be.

  “It’s a hit,” Finley said, and then added, “with secondary explosions.”

  McHenry’s heart tightened. “Get us out of here,” he ordered over his communicator. “Ready countermeasures and reload forward torpedoes.” He turned to Finley. “Mark the next closest target.”

  Finley nodded, his face more solemn than McHenry had ever seen it. It was a tough thing for a man to do, end another’s life. McHenry had done it before, and he’d hoped to never have to do it again. But that wasn’t how it was going to be. Now there were over 100 more souls on their way to crush depth, never to be recovered.

  “Fish in the water!” Finley yelled.

  An image of sinking into a watery grave of his own flashed in McHenry’s head. “Bearing?”

  “Wait!” Finley exclaimed. “An explosion.”

  McHenry knew there were friendlies in the area – 2 American subs and 1 British. He hoped they were the ones doing the shooting.

  “Lost track of one of the Chinese fast-attacks,” Finley said.

  It was an immediate relief, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

  Finley concentrated on the computer monitor, and after 20 seconds, he said, “All clear.”

  The North Dakota’s mission was to seek out and destroy the Chinese boomer. That being accomplished, they were to leave the cleanup to the other subs and get to the rendezvous point: the Stennis.

  10

  Wednesday, 10 June (2:06 p.m. EST)

  The wind picked up pace and changed direction. Will caught motion in his peripheral vision and looked up to see a helicopter hovering in silence above the landing pad.

  He moved as quickly as he could towards the black aircraft, but halted when he realized the burnt debris littered the helipad, making it unusable. The chopper would have to land somewhere else. There was no other suitable place nearby: he’d have to get back to the flight deck.

  He started to wave to the helicopter when a rope ladder dropped from its underbelly to the deck, near the helipad. He got to it as quickly as he could, grabbed the highest rung he could reach, and hoisted himself up to get a foot in a lower rung. He struggled as the lower part of the rope ladder flopped under his feet, but he managed to hook the arch of his right foot in the lowest loop. The helicopter lifted him slowly from the deck.

  When he was about 30 feet above the deck, a deafening blast of sound and searing light spewed from beneath the helicopter’s nose and startled him, nearly making him fall. It was firing its heavy machine guns.

  He looked back over his shoulder: dozens of Chinese military personnel skated around on the deck, firing weapons at the helicopter. Many of the sailors fell on the icy surface as they moved about, making their shots inaccurate, but bullets still whizzed through the air by his head and clanked against the armor of the helicopter.

  The helicopter ascended, pulling him higher and out over the water. Short bursts from the chop
per’s guns above him created flames that left white afterglow images on his retinas. Bullets sprayed in more heavily from the carrier deck, filling the space all around him, and striking the helicopter. The huge Gatlin gun weapon he’d disabled on the way out erupted into flames.

  A bullet whizzed by his ear, making it pop. Then everything seemed to freeze in time. It was still over 100 feet away, but a bullet was on course to hit him. Before he knew what happened, the bullet missed its mark, and the man on the other end of the trajectory, the one who had fired the shot, was ablaze and rolling on the deck. He was screaming.

  A fraction of a second later, the scene froze again. Two more bullets were on target: one to his back, the other to his thigh. An instant later, two more burning men shrieked and rolled on the deck. Their shots had been deflected.

  He secured his grip on the ladder and adjusted his footing. Time stopped again: four more bullets on target. The relentless onslaught angered him beyond his threshold of control. He screamed in rage and seemed to black out for an instant. When he recovered he couldn’t believe his eyes. The deck was strewn with rolling and flailing bodies ablaze. For an instant, all of the gunfire stopped. Although he knew the image would be burned into his mind, it was the screaming of the 53 men that would haunt him. How he knew that number, he didn’t know.

  The firing commenced.

  Without warning, his body shifted sharply, making his foot slip out of the ladder and his right hand release its grip. A bullet had cut one of the vertical links of the rope ladder four rungs above his right hand.

  His left hand now supported his full weight, and he spun in tight circles as the ladder twisted in the wind. His left wrist wrenched painfully as he struggled to keep his grip and flailed with his right hand to get a hold of the ladder. His hand was slipping.

  A man yelled at him from above to hang on. It was the last thing he heard before he plunged into cold and utter darkness.

  It was as if he’d hit a wall when he slammed into water. After the shock of the splash, his ears recorded only bubbling static. The water was so cold it was as if death itself had engulfed him. It was a feeling he’d experienced before, and he knew his body would be useless in seconds. He was already too deep: even if he got to the surface, his hands would be too sluggish to grip the ladder – if they were even able to get it close to him. He relaxed.

  His thoughts slowed, and full-color images of his life passed into the forefront of his mind: swimming with the family at the lake as a kid, Little League, Christmas when he got his first bike, fishing with his grandfather, the smell of grass on the football field, soccer in summer afternoons, bailing hay, dinner with the family, his high school girlfriend, graduating college, Denise … He was tempted to sleep but, as everything seemed to shut down, one thought remained: his life had a purpose. Even though he had no idea what it was, there was something he was supposed to do. And he was close to it somehow – he could feel it.

  He had one last chance. With every synapse of mental capacity he had left, he relived the most painful things he’d experienced in his life. All of them: physical, psychological, emotional … sadness for the things he had missed, and for those that would be stolen from him if he died now. The next thing he knew, he was out of his body and above the waves.

  He descended into the water and found his sleeping body. He grasped it somehow – as if he were picking up a baby bird from the grass – and pulled it upward. He brought it through the surface and out of the waves. The helicopter was still directly above him, as if no time had passed since he’d fallen. His sprawling body moved upward as if it were rising out of the depths of hell.

  In what seemed like no more than a second, he’d taken his body from 20 feet beneath the icy waves to 100 feet above the surface. He brought it to the underbelly of the helicopter and shoved it through the open door on the side. The soldier manning the rope latter shrieked as Will’s body slammed onto the floor of the cabin. Will recombined and then rolled on the floor and curled into a ball, shivering uncontrollably.

  “What the f …” the soldier yelled. “I saw him fall into the water. How did you …”

  The onset of hypothermia forbade Will’s mouth to form words, not that he could’ve explained what had happened.

  The helicopter ascended, rolled left, and headed for the open sea.

  11

  Wednesday, 10 June (2:48 p.m. EST)

  Will’s head bobbed sideways and bounced off the cabin floor as the helicopter landed on the deck of the USS Stennis. Lying sideways and curled in a ball, he welcomed the hands that helped him to his feet and unraveled his sluggish limbs from the thermal blanket in which the crew of chopper had wrapped him. A group of sailors met him as he stepped off the aircraft, and two grabbed him by the arms and helped him along. He recognized someone waiting in a wheelchair near the door, and was happy to see her.

  Denise stood and grabbed his arm as he approached. “Why are you all wet?” she asked.

  “Fell in,” he said, barely getting his lips to move.

  “What – into the water?” she asked, her face distorted in disbelief.

  He nodded.

  “Into the sea?”

  “Yes,” he said again, barely getting it out.

  “How did you – ”

  Before she could finish asking the question he couldn’t answer, medics peeled her from his arm and pulled him through a doorway and into narrow corridor. A tall man in his early fifties approached him.

  “Captain Grimes,” the man said and stuck out his hand. “Glad you made it, Dr. Thompson.

  Will managed to nod and weakly shake his hand. “Thanks.”

  “Let’s get you into dry clothes and fed. We’ll meet in an hour,” Grimes said and nodded to a female doctor who hooked Will’s arm with her own and led him away. Five minutes later he was in a piping-hot shower trying to come to terms with what had happened over the past 24 hours. He’d disabled an aircraft carrier. He’d killed people. Many people. He’d also saved himself from certain death. He wasn’t convinced that any of it had really happened: someone watching the events would have witnessed over 50 men spontaneously ignite into flames, and a body emerge from the depths of the icy sea and ascend into the sky. What he’d done had violated the laws of physics, among other things.

  He reflected on what had happened while the cold water was leaching his soul from his body. His life had passed through his mind – all of the important scenes had flickered in front of his eyes like an old movie reel. But it wasn’t a reminder – he hadn’t forgotten any of those things. The purpose was to get them out of the way – they were hiding something that dwelled beneath. Something bad had happened to him that didn’t fit into his current existence. And there was something for the future: he had a purpose. But he couldn’t formulate the thoughts into words or images. They were feelings.

  A half hour later he was in dry, comfortable clothes and eating a hot bowl of beef stew. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he took the first few bites. The nourishment seemed to release tension and sooth his nerves. He could hardly keep his eyes open, but knew that he’d have little time to sleep.

  “How do you like your new Navy clothes?” a woman said from behind him.

  He stood and turned just as Denise rolled in and gave him a hug. Jonathan followed behind her, and Will almost didn’t recognize him in the blue Navy garb.

  Denise released him, and he shook hands with Jonathan.

  “Heard you had a close call on the way here,” Jonathan said.

  Will nodded. “Slipped into the water. I was lucky to get out.”

  Jonathan gave him a sideways look indicating that it required further explanation, but didn’t push it.

  “Better eat well and get some coffee,” Jonathan said, nodding to the bowl on the table. “Things are moving quickly, and you have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Denise sat at Will’s right, and Jonathan directly across from him. He was too hungry to ask questions, so he just listened as Jo
nathan spoke. For the next 20 minutes he learned how Jonathan and Denise had gotten involved and how they’d lost the Chinese operatives in Chicago with the help of the Israelis. It was the story of how Chinese agents had caught up with them at Mar del Plata that angered him most. He wished Denise and Jonathan had stayed out of it.

  Will got up and set his tray on a cafeteria-style conveyor, and then took Jonathan’s advice and got a cup of coffee. As he walked back, he noticed that two others had joined their table: a dark-haired man, thin build, forties, and a woman who could have been the man’s twin, but with red hair and dark-rimmed glasses. Both wore the Navy-issued clothing.

  As Will approached the table, all eyes were on him. He remained standing.

  “This is Daniel and Sylvia,” Jonathan said. “I’d give you last names, but I don’t know them.”

  Will nodded to the newcomers. “CIA,” he said and watched their flushed responses. Direct hit, he thought.

  “Daniel Parsons,” the man said and walked around the table, hand extended. “I trust you, Dr. Thompson. Please, try to trust me.”

  The woman was next. “Sylva Barnes,” she said and shook his hand. “There’s a third, Horace, but he’s been ill.”

  “Horace is an older man,” Daniel explained. “He’s also the most valuable intelligence resource we have.”

  Will nodded solemnly. “What are you planning?”

  “That’s what we wanted to discuss,” Daniel replied and stood. “Captain Grimes is waiting in the ready room.”