EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum by Shane Stadler Page B

problem, guided by the grandmaster of all Omnis, Horace. But he and Sylvia would have to come up with their own, unbiased conclusions without knowing how Horace came to his. It wasn’t clear that Horace had a logical path to his conclusions, whatever they were. Daniel suspected the man was working on a gut feeling.
    He unwrapped a granola bar, took a bite, and chased it with a sip of water. Something bothered him: if Horace was who Thackett said he was – the country’s greatest intelligence resource – then the old man’s identity had been compromised. He wondered now if he and Sylvia would have to be eliminated once they’d served their purpose. Through his many years of classified research, he’d often crossed cases of preventive assassinations. So it was a possibility. Or did they trust him and Sylvia? After all, they’d eventually need someone to replace Horace.
    Daniel sighed and shook his head. What was he going to do, quit?
    The new project had elements that made it different from all the others, including a facet he’d not before experienced: time pressure. It was as if there was a race to solve some big puzzle.
    He choked down the rest of his snack, picked up the file, and got back to Operation Tabarin.
    He’d concluded that the Brits and Americans had initiated their respective operations as a response to something, and their response had to be related to the war effort. The Americans had initiated their mission after the war ended, so to whatever it was that they were responding had persisted after the war.
    Up to this point, he hadn’t turned up anything more than background information. However, he did find a clue in a Royal Navy logbook from a reconnaissance vessel that had been deployed in the southern sea before the war had begun. The British ship had followed a German vessel, called the Schwabenland, to Antarctica. No details were given about the reason for their suspicion of this vessel, nor anything they’d discovered about it.
    Daniel submitted a requisition for top-secret documents and emailed it to the appropriate CIA address. He’d have all the available information about the Schwabenland in the morning.
    He twitched. The urgency of the assignment had his mind tumbling with adrenaline. What he needed was a nap. Instead, he turned on the electric teapot on the windowsill. He hoped some tea would sooth his nerves and ready him for the long hours ahead.
     

 
    6
    Saturday, 9 May (7:58 p.m. CST – Chicago)
     
    Lenny Butrolsky leaned his throbbing right shoulder on the wall of the balcony of his 19 th floor hotel room. The even pressure spread the pain around so that it wasn’t all in one place.
    The sweet Chicago night air was poisoned intermittently by cigarette smoke that wafted up from a lower balcony. The enormous red moon dominated the cloudless sky above the Great Lake despite the lights of the city. The glittering ripples in the water made him think about better times, and the uncertain future.
    He dialed the number on his secure mobile phone. A man answered after one ring.
    “It’s done,” Lenny said, referring to his latest target, Kelly Hatley.
    “We know,” the man responded. “The funds will be deposited within 24 hours along with the first installment for your next job.”
    “Instructions coming by the same method?” Lenny asked.
    “Yes,” the man replied and hung up.
    Lenny put the phone in his pocket and looked out over the water. Hatley had been taken out with a simple injection into her I-V. He felt hollow inside when he thought about her – she was in her late twenties, at most. Although, he thought, by virtue of her choice of employer she was no angel. He grinned and nodded as he took a deep breath. He could say the same for himself. But his actions damned him much more than anything the woman had done.
    The Hatley job had been easy. He preferred it that way, as would anyone in his profession, but he’d become more aware of risks now that he was considering