Synbat

Chapter 11

"Look at them damn rebels," Jeremiah muttered. "I thought they was supposed to be setting up yonder along the holler."

"It don't start till tomorrow, Jer." Louis, the elder of the Sattler brothers, locked the brake on the tractor trailer truck and turned off the engine. "I guess they're setting up here for tonight and are leaving their trailers and such in the parking lot for the duration. I'm sure they'll be gone tomorrow."

"I don't want to be spending no night this close to rebels." Jeremiah spit a large wad of tobacco out the window on his side, then opened the door and followed it out. Louis exited his door and met his brother in front of their rig.

Four men on horses splattered by in the rain and tipped their hats. Louis returned the gesture while his brother pointedly ignored the riders. The men wore the light gray and butternut of southern cavalry. Jeremiah noted the insignia on their belt buckles — 3d Georgia Cavalry.

Jeremiah and his brother were dressed in the dark blue coats and light blue pants of Union soldiers. Their insignia designated them as members of the 7th Cavalry — the Garry Owen Regiment. Louis was wearing the rank of a lieutenant; Jeremiah, only fifteen years young, was a private.

"There's the colonel. Let's see where we picket the horses."

The two brothers had just driven seven hours from the regiment's hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, a moderate-sized city on the north side of Chicago. A truck driver in his other life, Louis hauled the trailer containing eight of the regiment's horses whenever the unit traveled to a reenactment. The rest of the men should be arriving later in the day and on into the evening in several cars. The long weekend's festivities would start this evening with a formal mustering of the Confederate and Union forces on the large open field three miles to the south of the LBL Wrangler Camp. Then the two groups would separate and conduct mock battle for the two days before heading home Sunday evening.

Louis was looking forward to this camp. It was predicted that there would be units from almost every state east of the Mississippi. A visitor wandering through the area would have felt transported a hundred and thirty years to an era of citizen-soldiers who waged the bloodiest war the world had seen up until that point.

Every detail was painstakingly exact, from the horses' rigs to the wire-rim glasses the men wore. No modern tents were pitched in the campground; rather there were canvas tarps stretched between trees, and men cooking "sloosh" on their ramrods over open fires.

At every reenactment, Louis felt himself sent back to a time when he should have been born. In his heart he was a cavalryman in the 7th Cavalry. His other existence as a truck driver for Red Ball Lines was just to provide him the means to explore his real life on these weekend trips.

The colonel directed them to picket the horses on a rope between two trees on the edge of the field and throw some feed to the animals for the night. Wisps of fog and the light, misty rain combined to reduce visibility to less than a hundred yards.

That task done, the two brothers looked for a spot to string up their tarp. Jeremiah was adamant about not setting up within sight of any rebel camps. Sometimes Louis worried about his little brother; he took the whole thing way too seriously.

At Jeremiah's insistence, the two set up their camp the farthest east, out in the woods. After getting their gear settled in, they headed over to the main encampment to join in an afternoon and evening of authentic Civil War camp merriment. The only thing lacking were the camp followers.

Jeremiah was carrying his brother's rifle in addition to his own. Louis took charge of the canteen full of "Oh-be-joyful," which he had started sipping when they'd crossed the Illinois-Kentucky state line. He was feeling no pain and didn't even notice the light rain. They had just reached the edge of the forest when Jeremiah halted, his brother bumping into him.

"Whassa-matter?" Louis slurred.

"Listen."

"To what?"

"It's quiet." Jeremiah's fifteen-year-old mind was in tune with the forest and the creatures in it. And the creatures were lying low and quiet. From ahead, the sounds of the main encampment could be faintly heard.

Louis just wanted to get there and share his canteen with the others. He tugged on his brother's arm. "Come on."

"Shh!" Jeremiah didn't know what was happening, but if all the woodland animals were being still, it might be good for the two humans to do the same. He strained his eyes, trying to see, turning his head from side to side. Something was coming. He wasn't sure what it was or from where, but it was coming.

"Here," he whispered, handing his brother his musket. "It's charged. Ain't got time to put a ball in it."

Visibility was poor. Jeremiah put his musket to his hip, muzzle pointing out. The part of him that went to school every day told him he was being foolish, but the part of him that spent the afternoons and weekends in the forest told him to beware.

His seriousness had finally gotten through to his brother, who matched his position. "What are we waiting for?"

"I don't know, but there's — "

Something large flickered across his field of vision — up, above their heads in the trees. Jeremiah swung the muzzle up and pulled the trigger. The rifle roared and a tongue of flame licked up toward the branches. There was a loud screech and suddenly the branches were alive with movement. Louis blindly followed suit with his musket.

The noises in the branches moved away. Jeremiah quickly reloaded, his hands running through the twelve steps with the ease born of thousands of practices. This time, though, he included the one step they never did at reenactments: He inserted the.60-caliber minie ball. He wished he'd had a round in the weapon instead of just the powder charge on the first shot. He didn't know exactly what he had glimpsed in that brief second, but there was no doubting it was bad.

"What was up in the trees?" Louis was fully alert now.

Jeremiah pointed his loaded weapon, listening. The woodland sounds were coming back slowly. Whatever had been in the trees — it or they — was gone. The younger Sattler felt a chill hand settle over his heart. He didn't know why, but he knew.

"It was a demon." He turned to look at his brother. "It was here to claim us."

Louis wanted to laugh out loud at his brother's words, but he'd long ago learned that Jeremiah was a different sort of person who sensed things that others didn't. Instead of laughter, he felt a sense of unease wrap around him. He pulled his brother by the arm. "Come on. Let's get over to the main camp."

In his humvee two miles to the northeast, Riley shook the rain off his goggles and looked at his map. They'd covered a lot of ground in the last several hours with no results. The Synbats could be hiding forty feet off the road and they'd never spot them. They were going to need a lot of luck to run into them as long as the weather stayed bad. The rain had let up quite a bit, but using the dogs was still out of the question.

Something was nagging at Riley and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He had a feeling that no one knew exactly what was going on anymore. The Synbats' escape was a mystery, and they had picked up no more clues. The removal of the collars also muddied the picture. What bothered Riley the most, though, was the way the whole thing had been handled. If he had been told what the Synbats truly were in the beginning, he would have pushed the search harder, especially last night. The vision of that young girl lying in the wet grass was seared into Riley's memory.

If the Synbats were just altered baboons, Riley couldn't blame the creatures. He blamed the system — and the people who made up the system — that designed such things with no regard for the consequences, then lied to the people trying to bail them out.

There had been no sound reason for Freeman and Lewis not to tell him and his men the truth about the Synbats. Yet Riley wasn't surprised. Secrecy was more of a habit than anything else. A maxim of the intelligence community was to never say anything unless absolutely necessary. In addition there were still too many loose ends, too many things that didn't fit. They still hadn't been told everything.

Riley watched the woods roll slowly by, shifting his gaze from right to left. The rumble of the engine and the moisture-filled air deadened any sounds. If they hadn't found the Synbats by evening, he wondered what Lewis's next step was going to be.

At the campsite Captain Barret watched the rain run off the helicopter's Plexiglas windshield in shallow rivulets. Through the earpieces in his helmet he could hear the Special Forces soldiers in their humvees talking to each other as they searched. Sitting here dry in the helicopter was one of the perks of being a pilot rather than a ground pounder — almost as good as the extra $650 a month in flight pay.

The captain pulled back one of the ear cups and turned to his copilot. "How long before you think we'll be authorized to take off, Steve?"

Steve Vergil, the Huey's copilot, popped his gum and put down the magazine he'd been reading. "A while. Last weather report said it might clear up a little in a couple of hours. We might get a brief window of no rain and mist, but we can't count on it for long." He gestured out the front. "The wind seems to have died down a little."

Barret looked over his shoulder into the back. The crew chief, Specialist Fourth Class Klohen, was stretched out on the web seats sleeping. Another exciting day in airborne country. They'd been sitting there all day, and Barret had no idea if they were going to spend another night out here.

He returned his bored gaze to the front. The government van was parked about forty meters away and shut securely. Barret didn't know who the spooks in the van were, but they had whisked away the bodies from the clearing in record time. Whatever was going on was some bad shit and Barret wanted to keep his feet as far out of it as possible.

Inside the DIA van — Search Base — Doctor Ward was also listening over the radio's speaker to the intermittent reports from the search teams. One of the two DIA men was using a grease pencil to mark the movements of the humvees on the acetate cover of an area map. The vehicles had already searched a large square around the knoll and were beginning to move westward toward the Wrangler Camp. Ward thought that they had little chance of finding the Synbats. There had never been a provision for finding the creatures if the collars were removed.

The other DIA man, Gottleib, was sitting in front of the radios reading a novel. Ward felt uneasy and claustrophobic in the darkened interior, with no window to view the outside world. He thought about climbing up to the driver's seat to look out the front window, but decided he'd rather go outside.

He stood up, pulling his windbreaker tightly around himself. "I have to take a leak."

Gottleib ignored him, and the other man simply nodded. Ward slid open the side panel door and was greeted by a light but steady downpour. At least it wasn't as windy as before. Ward stepped out and shut the door behind him. He was damp all over anyway so the fresh rain didn't bother him.

Actually, now that he was out, he really did have to urinate. He walked over toward the tree line, stopped about ten feet shy, and unzipped his pants. His urine mingled with the raindrops splattering the ground. As he stood there, he casually scanned the forest. His gaze froze on a pair of golden eyes glaring intently back at him.

Ward's bladder was already voided, but the overwhelming fear that gripped him caused his sphincter muscles to loosen. Wet shit slid down the inside of his trousers. Ward knew that he was dead; it was just a question of how quickly. He couldn't even summon the strength to turn and look back toward the van or the helicopter to see how far away they were.

In the helicopter, Barret had watched the doctor climb out of the van and walk to the tree line. He was the sole witness, other than Ward, to the events of the next ten seconds. He could see the doctor stiffen and freeze. He was just beginning to think how odd that was when a large brown blur flashed across the ten feet of open area from the tree line and knocked the doctor to the ground.

"Jesus Christ!" Barret yelled as he shot bolt upright in his seat. He considered going out to help, but quickly vetoed that idea. Hell, they didn't have a weapon bigger than a survival knife between the three of them on the aircraft.

Outside, Ward was flailing his arms futilely at the Synbat. Barret keyed the mike and screamed into it. "Search Base, this is Search One! We've got one of those things outside and it's attacking the doctor! Over." Even as he finished, Barret realized that he could have phrased the message more clearly.

The reply lacked the urgency the words should have ignited. Gottleib was confused. "This is Search Base. What things are you talking about? Over."

Barret could see that Ward had stopped moving. The captain tried to clarify his first message, speaking slowly into the mike. His copilot and crew chief, alerted by his yell, peered out the glass with him, mesmerized by the scene being played out in front of them. "One of those creatures has got the doctor down on the ground right outside the van. I think the doctor is dead."

Gottleib apparently had the IQ of a gnat. "Are you bullshitting me?" The DIA captain kept the mike keyed as he talked to his partner. "Pete, check on the doctor outside. The people in the chopper say he's been attacked."

As a squelch came on indicating that the mike had been released, a new party broke in: Lewis from the other van. "This is Search Six. What's going on back there? Over."

Barret yelled into the radio, "No! Don't go out." But it was too late. The creature left the body and headed for the van. Barret had a side view as the door to the van slid open. The Synbat was on the DIA man before he even got a foot on the ground.

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Barret's words broke the copilot and crew chief out of their spectator modes.

Vergil reached for the checklist on his kneeboard and started reading it off.

"Fuck the checklist!" Barret screamed. "Generator switch to start. Fuel on." At the same time, the pilot rolled the throttle to the start position and pulled the start trigger. The turbine engine slowly whined to life. In the rear the crew chief was securing all the loose equipment.

Barret watched the N-1 gauge, the indicator of the engine's RPMs, slowly rise. At 15 percent the blades overhead finally began moving. Since he had been listening to the radio, the battery was down and the whole process was taking slightly longer than it normally would have. A minute at least, Barret calculated, before he could get them into the air.

Inside the van, Gottleib whirled in his seat as Pete crashed to the floor with the Synbat on top of him. Blood was spurting from a wound in the man's neck. As Pete's screams echoed off the panels, Gottleib reached for the MP-5 lying on the radio console. Sensing the new threat, the Synbat sprang off the downed man with startling speed and lashed forward.

Barret heard the roar of a submachine gun and a dying scream from the live mike in the van. The gun roared again.

"What the fuck is going on? Over." Lewis's voice crackled in the headset.

Barret keyed the radio. "I heard gunfire from inside the van. I think they shot it." Nevertheless, he was going to get into the air just in case.

"Search Base, this is Search Six. Report. Over."

No answer.

Forty seconds since starting and 40 percent power. The copilot turned on the inverter switch. "Straight to full power, watch the gauges," Barret commanded, ignoring the usual safety check.

The whine of the engine increased. Only ten, maybe fifteen seconds at the outside before they'd be in the air. Barret wondered why the men in the van didn't answer.

The Synbat appeared in the door to the van, MP-5 in hand. Long arms awkwardly held the weapon's stock to its body. The bowed legs were spread apart in a grotesque replication of a firing stance. Matted brown hair hung limply over the entire body and the protruding jaw dripped blood. The eyes scanned the clearing and focused on the source of all the noise.

"Jesus Christ! It's fucking armed!" Barret yelled as rounds slammed into the Plexiglas below him. Large cracks appeared as the bullets ricocheted off the nose of the aircraft. The Synbat pulled the trigger again, but the gun was out of ammunition. Throwing down the sub, the creature sprinted toward the helicopter.

Screw the safety requirements and the possibility of overtemp! Barret slammed the throttle to full on and hauled in an armload of collective. The chopper shuddered.

The Synbat came in for its attack, aiming for the exact point at which it had fired. It hit headfirst and the Plexiglas shattered. "You have the controls!" Barret screamed as he pulled his feet off the tail-rotor pedals, getting them out of reach of the two powerful hands that scrabbled blindly at him. Barret could see blood pouring from wounds in the creature's head as two golden eyes stared up at him.

The copilot repeated Barret's efforts at the controls, and this time the aircraft slowly lifted. Grasping for a hold, the Synbat snatched Barret's right pedal, causing the tail of the aircraft to swing violently to the right. Vergil desperately pressed on his left pedal to counteract. Barret stomped down on the creature's hand. That, in combination with the swing of the helicopter, caused the Synbat to lose its grip. A jagged edge of the windshield tore deeply into its left arm as it released its hold.

Barret sighed with relief as the creature fell off the aircraft onto the ground twenty feet below and lay there stunned. The copilot finally regained control of the wildly careening helicopter.

Vergil screamed a curse as the tail rotor tore into a tree behind them and seized up. They didn't even have time for an emergency reaction as the helicopter inverted and went down. One blade of the main rotor struck the ground first, twisting the other blade; it slashed into the cockpit, cutting both Barret and his copilot in half. The crew chief in the back was slammed against the rear bulkhead as the aircraft came to a tangled rest.

Bouncing in his humvee, Riley heard the screams of the pilots over the radio headset, then silence. Colonel Lewis's voice came on. "Search Base, this is Six. Report. Over. Search Air, this is Six. Report. Over."

Silence.

"Break. All search units head for the base camp. We're going to get this bastard. Out."

Riley had already turned his vehicle around and was heading for the base camp. Another minute and he'd be there. He swung the barrel of the .50-caliber machine gun in an arc. To be extra sure he recharged the gun, ejecting the round that had been in the chamber. He held the dual grips of the gun tightly against his chest, rolling with the bounces of the vehicle.

Carter spun the wheel and the humvee slid around a steep turn. Riley scanned the hilltop as it appeared before him, keeping the muzzle of the machine gun following the arc of his eyes. He could see the helicopter lying on its side at the edge of the clearing; amazingly enough, there was no fire yet. Riley checked the rest of the hillside. No sign of the Synbat.

"Go to the helicopter," Riley ordered. Carter drove to it.

"Man the fifty." Carter took his place; Riley hopped out and ran over to the helicopter. He could smell leaking fuel and knew that it was probably only a matter of seconds before the wreckage would erupt in flames. He peered into what remained of the cockpit. It was a jumble of blood, flesh, Plexiglas, and machinery.

Riley moved around to the side. The cargo door wouldn't budge. He opened the access for the emergency entrance and pulled the lever; the Plexiglas popped out of the side window. Riley slid in and grabbed the crew chief, hoisting him up through the window. He followed the body out, then threw him over his shoulder and ran just as the helicopter burst into flames.

Riley put the body down on the backseat of his humvee and quickly did a primary survey. The man was breathing and wasn't bleeding, other than a few scratches. He'd survive for a while without attention.

Riley replaced Carter at the fifty and put on his headset. Out of the corner of his eye he could see another humvee roar into the clearing. Riley circled his right hand over his head, pointed at his eyes, and then gestured for the vehicle — with Doc Seay standing in the hatch — to move to the left and take up security there.

A brown figure appeared to Riley's left front, stumbling toward the van. Riley depressed the butterfly trigger and the fifty roared. His first tracers were short and he was arcing the rounds up when the Synbat disappeared behind the cover of the van. Riley released the trigger.

"Ranger Three, do you have it in sight? Over."

"Negative. Over." Riley knew that Doc Seay would have seen the creature if it had made for the far wood line.

Riley switched to intercom. "John, move to the right so we can see the other side of the van."

The humvee moved at almost a walking pace. Riley kept the muzzle of the weapon trained on the van, expecting to see the creature hiding underneath or huddled on the far side.

Riley could now see another body lying near the wood line. Then the side door to the van came into view, gaping wide open.

"Hold here." Between his position and Doc Seay's, Riley knew that they had the van completely covered. There was only one place the Synbat could be.

Riley keyed the radio. "All stations this net. This is Ranger One. The helicopter is down and on fire. Both the pilot and copilot are dead. We've got one body that we can see lying near Search Base. The Synbat is hiding in the van. Over."

"This is Search Six. Wait until I arrive. I'll be there in about five minutes. Over."

Philip's humvee now rolled into the clearing. Riley directed the driver to take up position to his right.

An eerie scream wafted through the damp air, echoing out of the open door of the van. Riley had heard that howl once before. The scream was repeated. They had the Synbat trapped and there was no rush to move in. Riley checked to see where his fourth humvee was.

"Ranger Two, this is One. What is your ETA at Search Base? Over."

On board Ranger Two, MSgt. Joe Knutz was dodging low-hanging branches, trying to prevent the barrel of the .50-caliber machine gun from getting caught up. They were less than a quarter mile from the campsite. He activated the radio to answer Riley's question. "I'll be there in two mikes. Over."

"Roger. Out."

Ranger Two hit a turn on the trail. The left wheels of the humvee lost traction and the vehicle slid sideways, slamming the driver's door against a tree.

Knutz cursed down through the hole as T-bone spun the wheels in the mud. "Put the fucker in four-wheel drive!"

T-bone let up on the gas briefly and yelled back: "It is, Top! We're stuck."

Knutz took off the headset and hopped out of the hatch to push.

On the knoll, Riley called Seay on the radio. "Ranger Three, do you have any movement in that body near the van? Over." He wasn't about to order anyone to go on foot that close to the van.

"Negative. I checked it with my binos. It's Doctor Ward and he looks very dead. Over."

"Roger. Break. Search Six, this is — " Riley paused as another howl split the air. This one came from the west, not from the van. He listened for a few moments, ignoring the squawk of the radio, but the cry wasn't repeated.

"Ranger Four, I want you to move and cover the western tree line. Sounds like another one is heading this way. Over."

"Roger."

"Search Six, this is Ranger One. Over."

"This is Six. Over."

"How many people were in the Search Base van? Over."

"Two of my men and Doctor Ward. Over."

That meant two people, probably very dead people, were still inside the van. Riley wished that Lewis would get here quickly so they could deal with the animal in the van. He suspected the DIA van was having trouble maneuvering in the wet conditions. And where was Ranger Two?

Knutz was slipping in the mud, trying to push, as the humvee's engine whined, fruitlessly spinning the wheels. The team sergeant slammed his fist on the back hood of the humvee to get the driver's attention. T-bone stuck his head out the window.

"Rock it. Reverse and forward in short bursts," Knutz yelled. He put his shoulder on the back end and pushed forward as T-bone shifted gears. Knutz's left foot slid out from under him and he fell in the mud, just as T-bone reversed gear. The humvee rolled back. Knutz screamed as the bottom of the back bumper pinned his leg against the wet ground.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Knutz yelled as he levered a shovel into the mud, trying to push the rear end of the vehicle off his leg. T-bone must have heard him because he turned off the engine. In the silence T-bone could hear Knutz's labored words.

"Don't move it. I think my leg is busted."

A howl sounded almost on top of them and Knutz turned his head. A Synbat stood in the road staring at him, less than ten feet away. The two locked eyes for almost three seconds. Then the Synbat moved.

Riley heard the new howls again. The other one was damn close. Lewis's van came rolling up the hill and stopped about ten feet to the left of Riley.

The colonel got out and splashed over to Riley. "Is it still inside?"

Riley nodded.

"Fire it up."

"What about your men inside?"

"I said fire it up, mister."

Riley knew that the men inside were almost certainly dead. He pushed the send on his radio. "This is Ranger One. I'm going to fire into the van. I want everyone else to hold their fire unless the creature makes a break for it. Over."

"Three, roger."

"Four, roger."

Riley let go of the transmit switch and made sure that he had a good grip on the machine gun. He lay the muzzle directly on the opening and pushed down on the trigger. The first rounds flew right in the door of the van.

Riley kept the trigger depressed as he shifted the string of bullets slightly left and right, smashing into the sides of the van. The half-inch-diameter bullets were tearing holes in the sheet metal and rocking the van on its suspension.

The Synbat exploded out the front passenger door and sprinted for the woods. Riley let up on the trigger as he swung the muzzle to follow. The creature was screaming and moving more slowly than Riley had expected. It was about thirty feet from the tree line.

"Get it! Get it!" Lewis yelled. His men were moving out in front, fanning toward it.

Riley fired over the DIA men's heads, forcing them to duck. His first rounds were slightly low, but he walked the bullets up into the creature. The Synbat flew sideways like a rag doll as the steel-jacketed projectiles sank into its body.

Riley let up on the trigger. The DIA men sprinted toward the body.

"The north! To the north!"

Riley recognized Bob Philips's voice on the radio and turned to look in the indicated direction. The second Synbat must have circled around the camp, bypassing Philips's defensive sector.

Riley could see that this Synbat was carrying something as it moved swiftly toward the body of its comrade. Riley turned the fifty to track, but he didn't depress the trigger because the DIA men were now in the line of fire. One of the DIA men let loose with a wild burst from his MP-5. The healthy Synbat stopped, swung up an M16, and let loose a sustained burst. Two of the DIA men tumbled down as the others hit the dirt.

Riley was stunned by what he had just witnessed. The armed Synbat retreated into the wood line and disappeared.