Synbat

Chapter 10

Riley's ten-minute limit had passed long ago and Lewis was still fixed in his position at the center of the knoll with Doctor Ward. Riley harnessed his anger and strode over to the two men.

Lewis held up a hand to forestall Riley: "Chief, I know there are some things you want to know and I'm prepared to tell you everything."

"I don't like being lied to, sir. Especially about something that kills people."

"I'm sorry about that," Lewis said smoothly. "Bring your men in and we'll brief them."

Riley gestured around the hill. "What about security?"

Lewis looked at Doctor Ward. "Do you think they'll return?"

Ward shrugged. Since he realized that the curtain had closed on his project, his enthusiasm for the entire operation had waned. There would be no tranquilizing now. "I don't know. I doubt it."

Lewis pointed to where his men were rolling the Werners' remains into body bags. "As soon as we get this place cleaned up, I'm having the dogs brought up and we're going after these things. I think we can take a chance on bringing your men in to find out what they're up against."

Riley whistled, circled his left hand above his head a few times, and then pointed down. His men abandoned the perimeter positions and made their way to his location. After all were present, Riley gestured at Lewis. "The colonel is going to fill us in on what's going on. I want you to listen to him, but your eyeballs can still be watching the tree line."

Lewis assumed a modified position of parade rest as he began. "I apologize for not informing you men from the start, but that wasn't my option. I assure you that decision was made at the highest levels and there was a reason for it. It was felt that this situation could be handled rather easily and quickly."

Lewis gestured around the clearing. "As you can tell, it hasn't turned out that way. Security of the Synbat project was our highest designated priority on this mission. Our number one priority now is to stop these things before they kill again. I'll let Doctor Ward tell you about his project and the creatures you're tracking."

Just great, Riley thought. Now it wasn't monkeys anymore but "creatures." What had Ward been doing in that building?

Ward began hesitantly. "You heard the colonel refer to the Synbat project. Synbat is an abbreviation for synthetic battle forms. At Biotech Engineering we were working on a prototype for a creature that could partially replace the soldier on the battlefield."

Ward glanced around as six sets of unbelieving eyes briefly focused on him. He licked his upper lip. This wasn't a group of staff officers sitting in an air-conditioned room in the Pentagon. He backtracked slightly. "Not in terms of handling sophisticated weaponry or in terms of killing the enemy. Basically, this research was a variation of a project that the navy has been working on for years — training dolphins to recover equipment underwater and also to carry equipment."

Lewis realized that Ward's words weren't going over very well, and he interjected: "There was felt to be a need for a similar form of expendable creature for the army. A creature that could carry equipment or weapons into an environment where we wouldn't send men."

Lewis continued. "We were looking at the possibility of transporting equipment across chemical or radiation-contaminated areas using an expendable platform."

Is that what he calls these things, Riley thought incredulously, a platform?

"There are all sorts of situations where a living creature capable of cross-country movement would prove valuable and useful if it wasn't an appropriate situation in which to use human beings," Lewis continued.

Riley couldn't think of many combat situations where using human beings was appropriate.

Ward picked up the story. "What we did was take a normal baboon and conduct various types of genetic engineering procedures on its growth processes. The baboon is the largest of the simian or, as commonly called, monkey species, which gave us a good base.

"We worked on increasing the size of the creature. The Synbats you are tracking are the fourth generation we have grown. They no longer closely resemble the original body type. The males are about five foot five and weigh between one hundred forty and one hundred fifty pounds. The females are smaller, about five foot two inches in height and one hundred twenty to one hundred thirty pounds. Despite the fact that they are somewhat smaller than you, they hold the advantage in unarmed combat by being quicker and being armed with integral weapons."

"What the hell are integral weapons?" Trovinsky asked.

"Their fangs. The males' fangs measure nineteen centimeters, or a little over four inches. The females' are about sixteen centimeters. As you could see from the bodies here, those fangs have the capability of crushing a grown man's throat. You must remember that their main killing weapons are their fangs. Additionally the creatures are very strong.

"They are extremely quick and aggressive. They can travel on the ground or through the trees. Their movement across Lake Barkley caught me by surprise, since baboons are normally leery of going into water. On the ground they can reach speeds up to twenty-five miles per hour for quick bursts."

"They can't outrun a muzzle velocity of a thousand meters per second," junior weapons man T-bone Troy offered.

Ward showed a spark of life hearing his prized creations questioned for the first time. "No, they can't. But first you have to find them and then you have to hit them before they get you. You all haven't done a very good job of that so far, have you?"

"We haven't known what we were up against either, Doctor," Riley replied heatedly. He gestured around the now-cleared campsite. "So far your Synbats have managed to kill a couple, their daughter, and a guide. Pretty impressive."

"That's enough," Colonel Lewis interceded. "Now you know what you're up against. As soon as the dogs get here we're going after them, and we're going to finish it, this morning. The dog handlers are not to know the information you were just briefed."

"So these creatures aren't carrying any sort of virus?" Doc Seay asked.

"No."

"What about the backpacks?" Seay pursued.

Lewis looked at Ward to answer. "The backpacks are just a training device we worked on with the Synbats to get them used to carrying equipment. The backpacks are rigged with two straps that the Synbats can slip over their arms."

"Then why were we warned to stay away from them?" Seay wasn't going to let this go.

Ward exchanged a look with Lewis that made Riley a little nervous. They still weren't giving the full story. He also wondered about some of the clean cuts on the bodies — he doubted that those were made by fangs.

Lewis fielded the question. "That's not really important right now."

"I have a feeling it might be," Riley interjected.

In response, Lewis reverted back to his standard defense. "Mister Riley, you know enough now to complete your job. From here on out you do what I tell you to do. Right now, I want you to get your people ready to move."

Riley glared at the colonel for a few seconds. He was tempted to say fuck it and walk away from this whole thing. He didn't need this bullshit.

Doc Seay touched Riley's elbow and leaned close, whispering in his ear. "Come on, chief. Don't lose it now. There's nothing you can do about this anyway."

Riley still hesitated, his eyes burning at the senior officer. Despite Doc Seay's presence at his elbow, Riley didn't want to back off. He'd backed off from too many people like Lewis before. He was fed up with it.

"Sir, and I use that term loosely, you can — " Riley was interrupted by the rumble of the other DIA van pulling into the campground with the dog teams on board. Riley bit off his remark, realizing that if he completed that sentence, Lewis would relieve him on the spot and then Knutz would be in charge, which was akin to leaving no one in charge. This was a very dangerous situation. It wasn't the time to let emotions interfere.

As the dog teams got out, Lewis walked away, apparently feeling that in this case discretion was the better part of valor. Riley took a deep breath and came down off his toes. He turned to his men, who had been watching the confrontation with avid interest.

"All right. You know what we're up against. Let's do it. On line, round in the chamber, weapons on safe."

Lewis briefed the sheriffs and then had them get the dogs going again. The animals had no trouble picking up the scent, and the procession moved off the knoll, Riley and Seay in the center, trailing the two sheriffs and their dogs. The rest of ODA 682 was spread out in a wedge-shaped formation, with Riley at the point leading the way. Lewis, Ward, and three other DIA men, including Freeman, brought up the rear. They left the helicopter in the middle of the clearing with the DIA vans parked near it. The knoll would now be the center of operations.

As they passed under the trees, Seay sidled over next to Riley and spoke in a low voice. "Hey, chief, there's something else that was funny about that campsite."

Not taking his eyes off the terrain ahead, Riley asked, "What?"

Seay was also keeping his watch to the front. "The horses."

"What horses?" Riley replied, sparing Seay a brief questioning glance.

"That's what I mean. Where are the Werners' horses? Hapscomb's horse made it back to the Wrangler Camp, but not the Werners', according to the head wrangler. And they weren't at the campsite. What happened to them?"

"Probably broke free."

Seay shook his head. "Then they should have gone back to the Wrangler Camp; horses always head back to the barn."

"Maybe these Synbats got them out in the woods somewhere on their way back."

"I guess so," Seay agreed in an unconvinced tone. "Seems like they would have stayed on the road, though. Woods here are kind of thick for cross-country movement."

Seay's tone of voice made Riley ponder the situation for a few seconds. Doc had a point. Where were the other horses? The area where all four horses had been picketed had been easy to find, along with the trail that Hapscomb had left when he had taken off running. The bridles for the other three horses had been slashed — not untied. He had assumed that Hapscomb had cut the other horses free prior to running.

Riley thought again of the clean cuts on the bodies. Could the Synbats have cut the horses free? Besides being a little chilled at the intelligence level needed to do that, Riley asked himself what their motivation would have been. For a moment he had a vision of monkeys riding off on horses — something right out of Planet of the Apes. This is getting too bizarre, Riley thought. The missing horses were another question to heap on top of all the others making up this confused, classified puzzle. It was a question that Riley decided to shelve for the moment.

The Synbats' trail moved south off the knoll. Riley checked his map when they were less than four hundred meters away from the hilltop. If they continued in this direction, in another half a klick they'd hit Fords Bay, an inlet off Lake Barkley. According to the map, the terrain there dropped off abruptly into the water.

Soon, however, the dogs started drifting west of south and then almost due west. Suddenly both dogs halted and began jumping about.

Riley pushed forward to the handlers. "What's up?"

After a few moments of discussion with his partner, Lamb answered with a question. "You said there were four monkeys, right?"

Riley nodded.

The sheriff pointed south and west. "Well, looks like they split up. The dogs are getting scents from two different directions and are confused."

"Can we follow both?" Riley asked.

The handler shook his head. "We need to go with the stronger of the two first. We work as a team. Then, once we track that one down, we'll let the dogs loose on the other one. Plus we're truly downwind of only one trail now. We'd have to backtrack to get the other one." Lewis and Ward appeared from behind, and the sheriff repeated his explanation.

"How far away do you think they are?" Lewis asked.

Douglas shrugged. "Hard to tell."

The colonel made his decision. "All right. Let's get at least two of them."

Ward seemed troubled. "I'm surprised they separated. They're very group oriented."

Lewis had more important things to worry about. "Maybe they know they're being chased. I don't know and I don't care. Let's get a couple of the sons of bitches. Go after the stronger scent first."

The two sheriffs nudged their dogs off to the west and the party moved out. Soon they hit a dirt trail heading in that direction and the dogs stayed on it.

During a short rest halt, Riley called Trovinsky over. "Mike, check the road a little bit ahead of where the dogs are and see if you can spot any tracks."

Trovinsky moved ten feet past the two policemen. He spent a minute there and then returned. "Roger that, chief. Two sets of tracks, moving right up the center of the trail to the west. One set larger than the other."

Riley unfolded his map and peered at it, holding it steady against the wind that threatened to rip it out of his hands. They were almost a kilometer from the Werners' campsite. This trail was marked on the map and joined up with Lick Creek Road in another five hundred meters. He had a feeling that the creatures were deliberately leading them this way. Every move the animals had made since escaping from the lab seems to have been made for a reason.

Colonel Lewis gave the order to move and they picked up the trail again. Within fifteen minutes they arrived at the single-lane hard-topped road, labeled Lick Creek Road on the map. The dogs moved unerringly straight down the road for four hundred meters to where an improved gravel road headed off to the west and Lick Creek Road turned south. The dogs took the gravel road, eagerly pulling their handlers along behind.

Riley consulted his map again. They were now on Fords Bay Road, still heading almost due west. The Synbats were making no attempt to hide their trail or take to the trees, and they'd already covered almost three kilometers from the site of the Werner massacre. They were moving in practically a straight line. This was all too easy in Riley's opinion.

It occurred to Riley that the creatures might be outrunning them, but it obviously hadn't occurred to either Lewis or Ward. Riley was tempted not to say anything, but the thought of one of those things running into some innocent civilians negated his antipathy toward Ward and Lewis. He slowed slightly, falling back to Lewis's party, signaling for Seay to take the lead.

As they tramped down the road, Riley looked over at Ward. "Doctor, how fast can these Synbats move? I mean at a steady pace."

Ward shook his head. "I don't know. We've never field-tested them on that parameter."

Riley decided to clarify what he was asking, since it was obvious that the doctor had not understood the implications of his question. "What I want to determine is whether we're gaining ground on these things. They may be staying a set distance ahead of us or even pulling away."

Riley could see the question sink home on Lewis. The colonel abruptly stopped. "Tell your men and the sheriffs to hold up, Riley." He unclipped a Motorola radio from his belt. "Search Base, this is Six. Over."

Riley couldn't hear the reply, but he could follow Lewis's side.

"Have the Special Forces people gotten back from Campbell yet? Over."

Pause.

"All right. Give me a call the minute they do. What about the helicopter? Over."

Riley could tell by Lewis's expression that the answer wasn't a good one.

"OK. Have them secure the helicopter there. I want you to move Base Two out to our location here. We're presently — hold one." The colonel paused and raised his eyebrows inquisitively at Riley.

"Fords Bay Road, about three klicks from the camp."

"Fords Bay Road. We're about three kilometers west of your position. I want you here ASAP. Out."

As the squelch on the radio went out, the rain began pouring down in earnest. Riley shielded his face from the blasts of water that the westerly wind threw at him. This was going to complicate things quite a bit. He made his way over to the two sheriffs, who were taking meager shelter under a large oak. He couldn't tell who looked more unhappy: the wet dogs or the two soaked sheriffs. "Can you guys do anything now?"

"Hell, no. Dogs won't be able to smell and we can't even see. Why don't we call it a day and pick this up tomorrow?"

Because we got four bodies and we don't want any more, Riley answered silently. Still, if the dogs were ineffective now, it seemed pointless to keep the handlers out here. Unfortunately this wasn't Riley's decision to make. He hunkered down with his team in a loose security perimeter, waiting for Lewis to give further instructions.

Kate grabbed the phone on the first ring. "Westland."

"Kate, it's Drew. Go secure please."

"I'm secure. What have you got?"

"First off, you need to know we're dealing with Red Level Two, Q clearance information here. You know what that means. Do you still want me to tell you?"

Kate indeed knew what that meant. Heavy shit if they got caught digging around. Red Level Two was the next to highest security level possible. "Go ahead."

Patterson was all business as he laid out the few facts he had dredged up. "Biotech Engineering is working under direct contract for the Pentagon."

Kate had figured as much. "Black Budget?"

"Yes. Trollers's people. I couldn't get too much out of the computer. They're still being smart over there and keeping all their files in paper copy and on disk — nothing incriminating in their central data base hard drive. I got more from running the two names you gave me through the unclassified data base.

"Ward — that's Doctor Glen Lowell Ward. Graduated Harvard in 1968 with an M.D. Then earned a doctorate in genetics in 1974 from Stanford. He's considered one of the top men in the field. His specialty is animal growth. He was one of the developers of the porcine growth hormone."

Kate interrupted. "What's that?"

"It's something they inject into pigs. Makes them develop faster, more efficiently, with leaner meat. The animals reach market size approximately ten days earlier. That doesn't sound like very much until you multiply the number of pigs by the overhead for those ten days, then it comes out to quite a bit of money."

"Why's he working for the government?"

"I don't know, Kate, but if I had to make a guess I'd say for the research money and more importantly the ability to work without as many restrictions. I also found some news reports that he was involved in work with human fetal tissue that caused a bit of a stink several years ago."

"Do you have anything on what he's working on now?"

"No. The other name — Merrit. That's Doctor Robin Merrit. Graduated University of Tennessee with a doctorate in bioengineering in 1985. Worked for four years at the University of Texas at Austin as a lab researcher. Her specialty is recombinant DNA."

Kate considered the information along with Riley's message. "Drew, if you add those two people in with four bodies and monkeys, what do you come up with?"

Patterson's words were chilling. "I'd say they've been doing something to those monkeys. In fact they may no longer be monkeys."

"Whatever they are, they've escaped, and my friends are involved in the security response."

Patterson's voice changed from professional to personal. "Listen, Kate. You know that these people play hardball. If there are deaths involved there's going to be a cover-up, and some very high-level and powerful people will be behind it. Although your friends are caught up in it, there really isn't much we can do. And I'd say that whatever your friends are being told probably isn't the whole truth either. I'd suggest you lay low on this."

Kate knew that Patterson had made a valid point. There really wasn't much she could do to help Dave, other than relay the information to Powers. "Is there anything else, Drew?"

"No. Do you want me to keep digging? I'm really not sure there's anything more I can find out without raising a red flag."

Kate considered the offer. "If you can't get anything on the program itself, maybe you can dig up some more information on those two people. Anything that could possibly indicate what's going on. How about checking their clearance investigations?"

"All right. Be careful."

"I'll do that. Out here." She pressed the OFF button briefly, then turned the phone back on and called Powers.

The DIA van finally pulled up and Lewis got in the back, gesturing for Ward and Riley to join him. The inside was packed with electronic equipment and smelled of wet clothes. There were no windows and the driver's compartment was separated from the rear by a thick black curtain. Lewis commandeered a swivel seat facing a communication system. Riley sat down on the floor and leaned his back against the door. Two other DIA men sat in their own chairs looking at the colonel expectantly. Ward slumped into another seat, managing somehow to look more miserable than everyone else.

"What did the sheriffs have to say about the dogs?"

Riley ran a hand across his forehead, trying to stop the water from dripping into his eyes. "The dogs are done for until this storm stops."

"You have any suggestions?"

Riley was slightly surprised to be asked that by Lewis. He realized that the colonel must be at the end of his rope. He considered his reply. The Synbats, or at least two of them, were somewhere not too far ahead. Although the dogs were no longer useful, and visibility was down to about fifty feet, they couldn't just drop this and go back to the lab. He checked his watch.

"My men should be back here with the humvees in a little while — I'd say anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour. Without them, we'd just be blundering around. I suggest we wait for them to get here and, while we're waiting, work out a search pattern so we can get started the minute they arrive."

Lewis got up from his chair and stepped over to an acetated map stapled on a board. "Let's do it."

In fifteen minutes they had worked out the rudiments of a plan that would allow them to quarter as much of the area as conditions and trails would permit. Riley wasn't optimistic about their chances of finding the Synbats in this weather without the dogs, especially if the creatures kept moving, but he knew that they had to give it their best shot.

Someone pounded on the door and Riley slid it open to the whipping rain. Knutz stood there wearing a Goretex rain suit.

"Got the vehicles, chief."

"All right." Riley took his waterproof case containing the map of the area and tied it with a length of cord to the buttonhole on his right cargo pocket, then zipped up his rain jacket. Ignoring the weather, Riley gathered his team around the hood of the humvee on the right. The other three vehicles were parked next to it, their squared chassis held high above the mud by the beefed-up suspension.

Humvee is the nickname for H.M.M.W.V.: high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicle. The humvee started coming into service in the mid-eighties, replacing not only the venerable jeep, but also the gamma goat cargo carrier and the mechanical mule used by airborne units. The vehicle had become particularly popular during the Persian Gulf War. The basic design was a four by four, powered by a 6.2-liter V-8 diesel engine. Its rated top speed was sixty-five miles an hour, but members of 5th Group had broken that barrier several times. It was capable of climbing a sixty-degree embankment, fording five feet of water, and could run for thirty miles with all four wheels flat.

The 5th Special Forces Group had taken the basic-issue humvee and modified it for operations in Southwest Asia, the group's area of operations. Each vehicle mounted either a .50-caliber machine gun or 40mm automatic grenade launcher in an open hatch in the center of the roof: sort of an armed sunroof. The gunner stood with his chest out of the vehicle, and the pedestal-mounted gun was capable of firing 360 degrees. The humvees also had FM radio capability. Each team in the group had four vehicles assigned.

After outlining the various areas of responsibility to the vehicle commanders, Riley added some final words. "We'll go with team SOP for breakdown on crews. I want the guns manned and all quarters scanned. I know that the weather conditions aren't the greatest, but we're dealing with something that has killed and will do so again until we stop it.

"Don't underestimate these things. Just because you have weapons, don't think you hold the advantage." He looked around at the wet faces and felt a slight unease. He was leading men into a potentially life-threatening situation, and he felt a strong sense of responsibility for each of them.

"We'll search until dark. Stay in contact on your FM radios according to schedule. The van back at the campsite will be called Search Base. Colonel Lewis's call sign is Search Six in that van there. You know our call signs. Everyone make sure you check the headspace and timing on your fifties before moving out. Any questions?"

Doc Seay raised a hand. "What if we come into contact with any civilians? What authority do we have over them?"

Riley turned to Colonel Lewis. "Sir, can you give us something on that?"

Lewis had come out of the van to watch the briefing and now he pushed his way in next to Riley. "Technically we don't have any authority over civilians. I can't even get permission to seal off the area yet. But let me tell you all something. These things have already killed. I don't want any more deaths. You come across anybody, you tell them to get the hell out of the area. If they ask you why, tell them it is a federal security exercise. They might not believe you, but at least you've given it your best shot."

Riley was surprised for the second time that day by the DIA man. Obviously, he did care somewhat about what he was doing, and about people as well. Riley sensed that in a way Lewis was as upset as he was about what had happened so far. One of the greatest drawbacks of military service was that sometimes you didn't want to be involved in a particular situation but you had to do your best anyway.

Everything that needed to be said had been said. Riley put his map away. "Let's move out."

The ten men of ODA 682 broke down into four groups and hopped into their respective vehicles. Ranger One was Riley's humvee and call sign. He had the team's only commo man, John Carter, as his driver. Riley would man the gun and radio.

Ranger Two was commanded by Knutz with T-bone as driver. Ranger Three was Doc Seay's with Bartlett as driver and Caruso along for the ride. Bob Philips was in charge of Ranger Four; Trustin was the driver and Trovinsky was also part of that crew.

The four humvees rolled out, vehicle commanders standing in the top hatch manning the .50-caliber machine guns. The drivers were scrunched up in their seats, noses pressed against the flat pane of glass that served as a windshield, as the wipers struggled against the pounding rain. Both drivers and commanders wore headsets with boom mikes that allowed them to work both the radios and intercom. It looked as though it was going to be a long, wet day driving around in the mud.

Colonel Hossey drummed his fingers on the desktop. The door across the room opened and Powers stepped in. The NCO stopped at the appropriate two steps in front of the desk and snapped off a brisk salute.

"Sergeant Major Powers reporting as ordered, sir."

"Sit down, Dan." Hossey waited until Powers was settled. "You have contact with six-eight-two?"

"Yes, sir."

"What's going on?"

Powers considered his answer carefully. "As far as I know they're doing some classified work for the DIA in the vicinity of Land Between the Lakes, sir."

"When will they be back?"

"I don't know, sir."

"When was your last receive?"

"Zero eight this morning, sir."

"Anything interesting in the message?"

Powers hesitated. "No, sir."

"Then why did they draw their humvees and fifties this morning? With live ammunition?"

Powers knew he couldn't keep something like that a secret. "I don't know, sir. I saw Master Sergeant Knutz when he came back in and he wouldn't tell me. He said it was classified."

"Do you have any idea what they are involved in?"

"No, sir."

Hossey looked long and hard at the sergeant major. "Dan, I know we're dealing with classified material that we don't have a need to know. But I also know that you and Dave Riley are very tight, and I have a strong suspicion that he has at least given you an idea of what's going on out there. My primary concern is the safety of my men. I want to know if they are in a dangerous situation."

Powers sighed. He reached into his right cargo pocket and pulled out the hard copies of all the sends and receives for 682. He handed them across the desk to the group commander.

It took Hossey only a couple of minutes to go through them all. "I don't like this, Dan. Four deaths, yet there was nothing on the news other than that prison break stuff. Nor have I been informed of anything by the DIA. What did Riley's friend find out?"

Powers was surprised that Hossey hadn't gotten upset over that part. "Just some information on the doctors working at the lab." He handed over the draft of the message he was going to send to Riley later in the day.

Hossey looked at it. "This is some bad stuff. Genetic engineering. God knows what they're messing with out there." He grabbed a notepad and wrote on it. "I want you to add this to your next message."

Powers took the slip of paper along with all the messages. "Yes, sir."

"Now, get out of here and let me get some work done."