EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum (23 page)

He decided to relax for a while before eating and continuing his work. He poured a glass of red wine and sat on the couch. He’d learned a lot in one day – about the plans of the CP men and about his own capabilities. He could have killed the men in the truck. He could have killed the man in the house. He came to the realization that killing was something he might have to do. Again.
It was too easy
.

7

Saturday 23 May (2:08 p.m. EST – Antarctica)

It could only make sense if it wasn’t exclusively a submarine base
, McHenry thought. Antarctica was a horrible place on the surface; it would be extremely difficult to transport anything substantial so far inland. There were no roads, the land was riddled with crevasses, and the environment was horrifically cold and windy. The only things missing were polar bears.

Traveling under water, however, would be the same year round. But he was sure that subs of that era, with their diesel engines and some battery power rather than a nuclear reactor, couldn’t get through the tunnel without surfacing for air. Yet, here they were.

The
North Dakota’s
crew had spent the previous 24 hours mapping and photographing everything, the primary purpose of which was to find booby-traps. After they deemed the area clear, McHenry gave the okay to approach the structure.

As they ascended towards it, more details came into view. Each slip was fitted with a large vertical tube, about a meter in diameter, that hung from above. In the three occupied slots, the tubes were fitted over the hatches of the subs. In the center of the bank of slips was a gap so that there were three slips on each side. In the ceiling above the gap was a set of enormous steel doors. The opening they covered looked to be large enough for a sub to enter.

“Orders?” Finley asked.

“Let’s get a look at the lake,” McHenry replied. “How thick is the ice?”

“Thin, if anything,” Finley said. “The water is brackish, and 7° Celsius near the surface.”

The cavern was probably fed by some deep volcanic source, McHenry thought, but he didn’t know much about the geology of the continent. “Go to periscope depth,” he ordered. “Let’s have a look around.”

The crew watched the periscope view on one of the monitors. As it broke through the surface, the camera adjusted for the lowlying sun and its reflection from the quiet lake. To the portside, which was toward the geographic South Pole, the lake extended about a half-kilometer, ending at the steep rise of a rocky cliff. The precipice was well over 200 feet high, and sloped downward along the perimeter of the lake, terminating gradually to the water level at points directly forward and aft of the
North Dakota
. It was as if the oval-shaped lake was carved into the slope of a rock mountain. To the starboard side, the lake gently blended into a snow and rock shoreline that sloped gently upward into the horizon. The crew stood in silent awe of the landscape.

“Any manmade structure?” McHenry asked, breaking the silence.

After a few seconds, Finley responded, “We took high-res images. We’ll have to study them carefully.”

“Get GPS coordinates and dive,” McHenry ordered. “Do we have any shots of the floor?”

“It’s over 1,000 meters, sir,” Finley replied. “We’ll need to do an active scan to image it.”

“Go to 200 meters and do it – full spectrum sonar,” McHenry said. “Meanwhile, where does GPS estimate our location?”

“We’re 262 kilometers from the coast. We’d estimated 264 kilometers,” a man replied.

McHenry was flabbergasted. He’d not been paying much attention to the total distance traveled.

Finley indicated that they were at depth for floor scans.

“Commence,” McHenry said.

“Starting multi-frequency imaging,” Finley confirmed and pushed a button on the touchscreen display. “Imaging.”

Twenty seconds passed and then Finley’s face distorted. He tilted his head at the screen and then put on a set of headphones.

McHenry didn’t like his look. “What is it?” he asked, hoping his sonar tech wasn’t going to respond with
fish in the water
.

“There’s another source,” Finley responded. “Mechanical – multiple frequencies.”

A sailor pointed at one of the monitors that displayed the visual overhead view. “I see it,” he said.

McHenry walked closer. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the large steel doors in the gap between the slips.
They were opening
.

8

Saturday, 23 May (2:50 p.m. EST – Washington)

Daniel sat with the others in the central gathering area with a mug of coffee to get him through the mid-afternoon drag.

Thackett started the meeting. “As we’ve learned from Daniel’s encounter with the Israeli, Russia and China, and certainly other countries are involved in this. They know about Antarctica and the Red Wraith project.” Thackett rubbed the stubble on his face. It was clear that he was sleep-deprived. “The Chinese have sent operatives here to find the ex-inmate from the Red Box.”

“William Thompson,” Daniel blurted out. “Red Box inmate 523.”

“They’ll all be looking for this man,” Horace said. “And they’re all ahead of us. We have the resources to pursue multiple leads, and we better get them activated.”

“Where do we start?” Thackett asked.

Daniel shook his head. “McDougal might know where he is.”

Thackett crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. He looked to Sylvia and Daniel. “You two will get on a plane to Chicago tomorrow morning, talk to McDougal, and get everything he knows about Thompson. If he wants something in return, call me. We need to move on this.”

“This will slow down our research,” Sylvia argued. “We have thousands of pages to read.”

“We can’t send anyone else,” Thackett responded. “Your research will wait.”

“How about calling?” Daniel suggested.

“If McDougal is being watched, and you can bet he is, every communication device he owns is compromised,” Thackett explained. “Get him out of his office – meet in a public place.”

“Isn’t this getting risky?” Sylvia asked. “I mean, for us.”

“CIA personnel will be watching over you,” Thackett assured them. “You’ll be in good hands.”

Daniel believed him, but this trip would be much more nerve-racking than the first.

“McDougal might appreciate the warning,” Horace added. “He seems to be a careful fellow, but he’s in over his head.”

So were he and Sylvia, Daniel thought.

9

Saturday, 23 May (3:48 p.m. EST – Antarctica)

McHenry had to decide: surface and communicate their status to the carrier group, or move in to explore further? The former came with the risk of revealing their position and, therefore, the position of the base. If foreign parties intercepted their communications, something he suspected had been occurring for a long time now, they’d lose whatever advantage they had, and put the
North Dakota
in danger. On the other hand, if something happened as they explored, the information that they’d collected, including the knowledge that the base existed, would be lost. So the choice was to risk letting
everyone
know about it, or risk having
no one
know about it. He decided on the latter.

“Get to a position 30 meters directly below the bay doors,” he ordered. “Ready the dive team.”

“Do you think someone’s in there?” Finley asked. “Or did we actuate some automated system?”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to him that there might be someone inside. “My guess is that our sonar activated some sort of remote control.” His thoughts went back to Finley’s question. He got on his communicator. “Tell the dive team to go in armed.” Surely there was no way there were Nazis inside. But what if one of their geopolitical competitors had already secured it?

He gave the dive team orders to examine the bay area, determine if there were any threats, and measure the slip and bay dimensions. If the base was as large as he suspected, they’d dock and explore it.

The dive team was back within an hour. McHenry and his first officer, Lieutenant Diggs, met with them in the planning room.

The dive team leader, a sinewy man named Critch, explained what they’d found. “The bay doors open to a vertical tunnel, 25 meters in height, leading to an internal dock. It was designed for subs. It’ll be tight, but it’s large enough for the
North Dakota
.”

“What’s the state of the internal structure?” Diggs asked.

“There was no light,” Critch answered. “From what we could see with flashlights, the place seemed to be in good shape. We didn’t go beyond the dock, as instructed.”

McHenry nodded. “Good work, gentlemen, you are excused.”

The men left, leaving McHenry and Diggs alone in the planning room.

“What do you think?” McHenry asked.

“Sounds like we should get moving,” Diggs said. “Dock and send teams out to explore.”

“Agreed,” McHenry said.

“Do you think this base, or whatever it is, is connected somehow to the beacon?”

“Yes,” McHenry replied. “Too much of a coincidence. And we need to gather as much information as we can.”

“If we find something important, will we communicate with the carrier group?”

“Depends on what we find,” McHenry explained. “But I don’t think we should transmit at all.”

Diggs agreed.

McHenry stood up and opened the door. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

1

Sunday, 24 May (7:50 a.m. CST – Chicago)

Jonathan McDougal was regretting taking on a summer class, even though it was only a six-week course. He sat at his desk and took a break from grading the last few of over 40 papers he’d promised to return to his students by ten the next morning.

He stood, walked over to the windows, and gazed into the small courtyard below. Leaves had started to fill in the skeletons of the trees that had been dormant for longer than usual this year. It had been a cold winter and a busy spring semester teaching, mentoring two law students, and running the DNA Foundation.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Denise.

He waved her in and said, “I don’t have too much time.”

She nodded and set her backpack on a chair at the large wooden table, pulled out a laptop, and turned it on. As she pulled her hair into a ponytail, she said, “You have to see this. It’s from Will.”

“Oh?” he said and walked over to the table.

“He sent some pictures to our joint email account,” she explained as she downloaded the files. “He said action is imminent.” She pulled up the photos.

Jonathan looked on as she paged through them. Some were photos of documents – lists of names, maps, building layouts, and instructions on how to build bombs. Others were pictures of cars and license plates, houses, and men with bumps on their foreheads – five of them. One was a photo of a case of plastic explosives.

“The men are former CP inmates,” Jonathan said. “Looks like they’re planning to carry out some assassinations – with bombs.”

“There’s more,” Denise said, opening another set of photos.

Jonathan looked them over and was flabbergasted. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Exoskeleton parts,” she said, nodding. “These are from the Syncorp facility in Baton Rouge. They’re shipping them to China.”

He sat down and rubbed his chin. “Those Syncorp bastards are like cockroaches.”

“Will thinks the CP men are planning to attack the Syncorp facility – and assassinate the upper-level personnel,” she said.

“I have a half a mind to let them carry it out,” he said.

“What should we do?”

“There are only a few people we can trust in the FBI,” Jonathan said. “Let’s turn the info over to Agent Carver – ”

Jonathan turned his head in response to a knock at his office door.

A young woman stood in the doorway, mid-thirties, glasses, reddish hair pulled back in a bun. He recognized her, and his heart picked up pace.

“Professor McDougal?” Sylvia said.

“Back already?” he answered, “please, come in.”

Sylvia walked in, handed him a folded piece of paper, and walked out.

Jonathan and Denise sat in silence for a few seconds, looking at each other. He unfolded the note as she walked around the table to his side:

Please meet us at Bridges Café in Logan Square today 2:00 p.m.

Do not speak or write of this.

Do not take your cell phones. You are being watched.

You may be in danger.

Denise spoke first. “Here we go again.”

Jonathan nodded as a chill crept up on him. Why were the Omnis back in Chicago?