Read EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum for Free Online

pursuer.”
    “It also illustrates the effectiveness of a coordinated team,” Roy added. “Losing two people is tough. Surveillance and pursuit is often done in teams of two, or more – up to a dozen.”
    “We’ll analyze the exercise in detail later,” Perry informed. “Your psychiatric evaluation isn’t until 10 a.m., so we have time for breakfast. Anyone object?”
    Ten minutes later they were in the café, sitting in a booth next to the front window – the same one through which Renaldo had peered 15 minutes earlier.
    “Your limp made you easy to track,” Roy explained as he took a sip of coffee. “That permanent?”
    Will thought the limp had gone away, but he’d been working it pretty hard. He rubbed his right thigh even though the aching was in the bone and therefore unreachable. “No, a fractured femur,” Will replied. “Healing quickly.”
    “How’d it happen?” Roy asked.
    “Motorcycle accident,” Will lied. “Four months ago.”
    Roy nodded.
    He could tell Roy didn’t buy it.
    Renaldo shook his head. “How did you double back on me?” he asked.
    Perry put up his hand indicating that he’d answer that question for everyone. He took a laptop out of the leather knapsack that never left his person and started it. A minute later a map of the area appeared on the screen along with three moving, colored dots. “The green one is Thompson, and the red is Roy,” Perry explained. “You’re the yellow one, Renaldo.”
    Perry fast-forwarded to the point where Roy snapped Will, and then stopped it. “You should never expose yourself on a corner like this – you’re extremely vulnerable here,” Perry said as he traced an area on the screen with his finger. “This is why you were snapped.”
    Will nodded. Watching it all unfold from above was revealing.
    Perry forwarded to the point where Will ducked into the café. He switched to a display mode that exposed a rough layout of the building’s interior so they could see Will’s movements.
    “How did you get into the kitchen?” Perry asked.
    Will described his coffee trick.
    “Not bad,” Renaldo said.
    “And he followed the rules,” Roy added. “We do exercises here often, and I know this place well. You could’ve bolted out the back door, but that would have set off the alarm.”
    “Then it would’ve become a foot race – something you always want to avoid,” Perry chimed in.
    Roy huffed. “Especially since you’re currently lame.”
    Will nodded. “I need practice.”
    Perry shook his head. “This was your last exercise. You’re as ready as you need to be for relocation.”
    For an instant, Roy’s face distorted in an expression that Will interpreted as panic. The instructors had been informed that he was a relocation case, but even he didn’t know exactly when that would happen. There was something about Roy that alarmed him. Will shrugged it off. It didn’t matter; he’d soon be somewhere else.
     

 
    4
    Thursday, 7 May (9:32 a.m. EST – Antarctic Circle)
     
    Captain Chuck McHenry weaved his way through the narrow corridors from his quarters to the sonar station where three young sailors, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, stared at a computer monitor. A handful of others craned their necks to observe from their respective stations. McHenry cleared his throat and all but the man seated at the sonar station scattered and returned to their posts. “Hear it, Finley?” he asked.
    The young sonar technician nodded as he tweaked some controls. A mess of multicolored curves appeared on the computer screen.
    “The signal is there, sir, loud and clear,” Finley explained as he pointed to various locations on the screen. “About one pulse per second.”
    “Can you locate it?” McHenry asked.
    “It’s strange,” Finley explained, “the frequency spectrum of the signal makes it difficult to pinpoint its source – even with filtering – and we’re getting too many reflections from the ice. All I can say is that it’s