EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum (36 page)

6

Tuesday, 9 June (7:39 p.m. EST – Weddell Sea)

Cho’s men left Will caged in the room for many hours, during which Will separated multiple times to spy on what was going on. Now things were happening and he knew he had to move.

Will separated, passed through the ceiling into a storage room, and continued into a large bay where scores of men tended to aircraft. They were fueling, and attaching missiles to the undersides of their wings. It seemed they were going to follow through on their threat to attack the American ships that were confronting them.

He rose to the ceiling of the bay, and pressed through it and into open air. He sensed the change of temperature and the wind, and could see despite the darkness. He ascended to a point 150 feet above the deck. Now at the greatest distance he’d ever separated from his body, weakness invaded him, and he fought hard against the urge to recombine with his body.

A group of men rolled two fighter jets into position on the launch deck. He scanned the horizon in all directions: no sign of the US warships.

He returned to his body and analyzed the situation. If those jets launched to intercept the U.S. destroyers, it was unclear whether they would attack, or just threaten them. If they attacked, people would die. He couldn’t allow the planes to launch. He had to get his body closer to the launch deck.

He separated and passed through the wall, into the corridor. Two plain-clothed men stood guard, one on each side of the door. He pinched an artery in the neck of the man on the right, just as he’d done to the ex-CP inmate. The guard collapsed, and Will repeated the action on the second man. He unlocked the door, returned to his body, and was out and running down the corridor. He had to get close enough to the planes so that he could maintain his separation. He was already fatigued.

A hundred feet down the hall he came to a steep stairway leading up to the next floor. He climbed two steps at a time, turned left into a corridor, and passed by two of the Chinese crew. They glanced in his directions but otherwise ignored him. He knew that carriers held crews of a few thousand, so most of the people he’d cross would have no idea who he was. Even though he stood out by appearance, there were other Caucasians in civilian clothes on the ship who were not prisoners. If he remained cool and acted like he belonged there, he’d be okay.

He climbed another flight of stairs and emerged in the large bay where men readied the fighter planes. He crossed to the wall on the far side of the bay, which was lined with doors. Men walked in and out of the rooms, and on a steel-grate walkway just above them. He checked the rooms until he found a small custodial closet. He ducked in, closed the door behind him, and snapped on a light switch. The door had no lock.

He rummaged around and found a plastic tarp riddled with splotches of dried gray paint, and then dragged it to a corner behind a shelf. He pulled a few empty cardboard boxes around him and covered himself with the tarp.

He separated and pressed upward, through deck and above the carrier’s runway. Just a few yards from him, two jets pulsed their engines and seemed to be ready to launch. As he tried to determine how to damage the first plane in line, its engines blasted and the steam-powered catapult engaged. The fighter accelerated down the runway.

Will, panicked, reacted entirely upon instinct. In an instant, he was in the cockpit with the pilot, accelerating along with the jet – the distance from his body increasing quickly. The jet blasted off the edge of the deck and lifted. Will did the only thing he could do; he grabbed the stick and jammed it forward. The screams of the pilot seemed to ring in his ears as the plane plunged into the sea.

Next thing he knew, he was back in the closet, light-headed and weak. He pulled the tarp from over his head and found a bucket just in time to avoid vomiting on the floor. Having almost nothing to eat in the past day, not much came up except a burning concoction of mucus and stomach acid. He spent the next few minutes dry-heaving. When it had finally subsided, he went to a small sink and rinsed out his mouth with cold, brackish water. He’d separated from his body by more than 250 yards.

He sat down behind the boxes and tried to determine whether what he’d just experienced had really occurred. If so, the Chinese captain probably wouldn’t launch another jet until they’d determined what had happened. They wouldn’t figure it out.

A feeling of darkness and dread hit him hard. The pilot hadn’t had time to eject – he was dead. He’d killed him. It was too easy.

Another bout of nausea overtook him, but he didn’t use the bucket – there was nothing in his stomach. He dry-heaved for a full minute before it subsided. His hands trembled and his nausea turned to a sickly exhaustion. Although he was famished, he knew the weakness was caused by the extreme separation. It was like stretching a rubber band beyond its limit, causing an irreversible distortion. Although he was already recovering, he couldn’t help thinking about what might’ve happened had he separated beyond his limit. Would he be dead?

He wondered now about Cho. If he’d been aware of his abilities, why did he leave him alone? The answer was that Cho didn’t really understand. If so, he would’ve known they were in danger from the beginning.

His thoughts turned to what to do next. First, he’d disable the mechanism that launched jets down the runway. After that, he’d sabotage the lift that took planes from the bay to the deck. Finally, he’d destroy the propulsion system of the carrier. He wondered if the ship had a nuclear reactor. If so, he’d render the vessel a floating radioactive ruin.

7

Wednesday, 10 June (4:55 a.m. EST – Mar del Plata, Argentina)

Jonathan struggled to keep his eyes open by the time they’d reached the Argentine naval base at Mar del Plata. By her silence, he could tell Denise was also exhausted. And they were both freezing.

He rubbed his runny nose with the back of his cold hand as they sat on an iron bench inside an open Quonset hut, awaiting the next leg of the trip. Two CIA operatives paced at the wide opening that faced the sea. After an hour of half-frozen, intermittent sleep, the chopping sound of a helicopter rose above the sounds of the waves that lapped against the rocky shore. Jonathan strained his eyes to locate its red and white blinking lights in the sharp background of stars.

Just as the helicopter made its final approach, its engines whined and it flared back into the air. The two CIA officers screamed in Jonathan’s direction as they scrambled for cover. Jonathan looked into the rear of the Quonset hut and spotted an open door and two shadowy figures. There were two men, one crouching behind an old boat and the other behind a stack of wooden crates.

The first shot struck the thick metal arm of the bench. Denise yelped and bent over, falling onto the gravel floor. Jonathan fell on top of her as dark blood mushroomed rapidly around the frayed tear in her jeans.

After that, everything seemed to move in slow motion as the two CIA operatives charged in the direction of the shooters. Jonathan rolled Denise onto her back and placed her hand on the wound on her thigh.

“Press hard,” he yelled.

Keeping crouched as low as he could, he dragged her by her feet behind an old tractor. He then fumbled under his coat only to realize he didn’t have his gun – couldn’t get it on the international flight. More shots rang out, some hitting the tractor frame, scattering lead and paint in random directions.

The CIA men maneuvered around old marine equipment and returned fire. One of them took a bullet to the shoulder, and settled on his rear behind a pile of bricks. The other rushed to him, but sprinted away a few seconds later as the wounded man covered his advance. Ten seconds later a flurry of shots ended the conflict: both attackers were dead.

The two CIA officers yelled back and forth a few times, and the wounded man radioed the chopper. Jonathan turned his attention to Denise, whose face was pale, and her pant leg soaked with blood. He pressed his hand over hers to put more pressure on the wound. She grunted in pain.

“You’re going to be okay,” Jonathan said.

“Those bastards shot me!” she yelled with a look of rage in her face he’d never witnessed before. She tried to stand.

“Stop,” Jonathan said. “You need a medic.”

She relaxed and started to go unconscious. He grabbed her face and shook gently. “Stay awake,” he said. He didn’t want her to go into shock.

He examined the wound but couldn’t assess the damage.

Ten minutes later they were on board the chopper and heading out to sea.

The wounded man looked to be okay. The other operative looked more closely at Denise’s thigh. “She’ll be okay, but you’re lucky we’re just minutes away,” he said.

“You guys did well back there, thank you,” Jonathan said. “Who were they?”

“Chinese operatives,” the man replied. “No identification on them, but we were warned about Chinese interference. They looked the part.”

“They’re dead?” Jonathan asked.

The man nodded. “Would’ve been better to bring one back alive, but that’s not the way it worked out.”

Jonathan nodded and looked forward, past the pilots and through the front windshield. They were approaching the USS
Stennis
.

8

(Unknown time)

Will awoke but remained still until he figured out where he was. Light filtered in through the dirty gray tarp that covered his face and body. The air smelled like paint, and the pungent taste of puke coated his mouth. He must have passed out, or fallen asleep. The extreme separation had drained him. The last thing he remembered was rinsing his mouth out with horrible-tasting water from the sink in the utility room, and then covering himself with the tarp. He was still in the utility room. He was lucky they hadn’t found him.

His stomach grumbled and he felt weak, like he had a hangover. He needed to find food.

9

Wednesday, 10 June (5:10 a.m. EST – Weddell Sea)

The helicopter landed gently on the
Stennis
. Jonathan tried to follow the medical crew who whisked Denise and the wounded CIA operative away, but a sailor stopped him – he’d only get in the way.

Four heavily dressed men guided him and the other CIA officer along a green line painted on the deck, leading them away from the landing pad and into the interior of the ship.

He was then handed off to two sailors wearing khaki jumpsuits and blue baseball caps who led him to a room where he met the ship’s captain, and two others that he already knew. Daniel and Sylvia looked distraught.

Daniel shook his head. “Sorry, we had no idea –”

“– we were aware of the risks,” Jonathan cut in.

“I was hoping to have Will Thompson here as well,” Daniel said, and then sat down and gestured for Jonathan to do the same.

“Why the frantic scramble?” Jonathan asked.

Daniel pulled a laptop from a leather knapsack at his feet. “We’re close to the beacon,” he explained as he turned the screen towards Jonathan. “It looks like this.”

It looked as he imagined it from Daniel’s description during their meet in Chicago, except the bulbous top portion seemed small compared to its long, tapered stem. It was like a stretched chess piece – a pawn with and undersized head. “Fascinating,” Jonathan said. “Have you determined its purpose?”

“Only guesses,” Daniel said. “We’ll learn more when we get inside it.”

“Inside?” Jonathan asked. “Did you find a hatch?”

“No, and it’s physically impenetrable,” Daniel replied. “That’s why we need Thompson.”

Jonathan gasped. He knew immediately what Daniel was thinking.

“What?” Daniel asked.

“You believe that he can separate,” Jonathan said.

Daniel stared at him intently. “Can he?”

Jonathan didn’t know the answer to the question. He had a vague idea what separation meant, but hadn’t considered that it was really possible.

“You ever ask him about it?” Sylvia asked.

“No, not directly,” Jonathan replied. “I’ve read reports from the Red Box that described some strange things, but they could all be explained by, well … other means. We’d assumed he might have been having hallucinations at the time and – ”

“Have you seen the videos from the Red Box?” Daniel asked.

“They disappeared before we could obtain them,” Jonathan answered.

Daniel nodded. “Well, we have,” he said. His face reddened and his voice gained volume. “In one, a woman – a dentist – got thrown to the floor by some invisible force. In another, Thompson read numbers out of his field of view. I saw him, while confined to the Exoskeleton, incinerate thousands of hornets in midflight – brilliant flashes of white light. The final events, and the explosion that ended it all, were nothing short of terrifying.”

Jonathan sat back in his chair, looking at Daniel and thinking. Having been focused on the legal issues and the investigative aspects of the case, he’d pushed all of the crazy stuff into the background. And Will hadn’t offered any information on his own.

“We need to get him back,” Daniel said, “and make sure the Chinese don’t to use him to get inside the beacon.”

“How will they do that?” Jonathan asked.

“A submarine – to get him close,” Daniel replied. “But that will be difficult with our ships in the area.”

“But suppose they
do
get access,” Jonathan said, “and Will separates and gets inside. Do you even have a guess as to what’s there?”

“No,” Daniel replied. “But we might find answers in the information we took from the base.”

“Base?” Jonathan asked. What the hell was he talking about?

Daniel nodded. “Remember I told you that one of our subs found a cavern?”

“Yes.”

Sylvia smiled. “There’s a lot we need to tell you.”

Jonathan’s fascination was quelled by another invading thought. Denise was like a daughter to him. He stood. “Please take me to sick bay. I need to see her.”