Synbat

Chapter 3

"Shit," the burly soldier muttered, stretching out his left leg straight from the seat. In spite of the pain, he worked the knee — bending and straightening it — for twenty more seconds as beads of sweat dotted his forehead. The doctor had told him not to move the knee for another two weeks, but he was damned if he'd sit here on his rear any longer than he had to.

The buzz of the secure STU III phone interrupted the regime. A large gnarled hand shot out and curled around the receiver. "3302. Sergeant Major Powers. This line is unsecure, sir."

"Powers, this is Colonel Hossey. Go secure." There was a pause as Powers pushed the button on his phone, then the colonel's voice continued. "Dan, I want a team at PZ twelve in nineteen minutes. They need to be armed and ready for a deployment. Have them draw a basic load of live ammunition from the arms room. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"There'll be two choppers landing at that time to take the team to an LZ where they will be opcon to someone from the DIA. That's all I have, so don't bother asking any questions."

Powers smiled briefly. He liked Colonel Hossey; he was old school army, not one of this new breed of ass-kissing political officers whom he seemed to be encountering with more frequency. "Yes, sir. One team, armed, basic load, PZ twelve, eighteen minutes, opcon to DIA at the LZ."

"Good," Hossey's voice rumbled. "And Dan…"

"Yes, sir?"

"I want you to send good people and I don't want to lose track of whoever you pick. You understand what I mean?"

"Yes, sir. I stay in contact with all my teams. It's SOP."

"Good. Out here."

Powers put down the phone. He looked out the window next to his desk onto the large field that stretched behind the headquarters and separated the buildings housing the team rooms for 2d and 3d battalions. Despite the wet ground and moisture in the air, Powers could see several teams out there doing exercises in clumps of eight to twelve men each.

Powers scanned the groups until his eyes came to rest on one where the men were lined up in two rows of five, paired off facing each other. The men were wearing fatigues; their rucksacks lay on the ground nearby. One of the soldiers stepped forward toward his partner and, with movements too quick to follow, swept his opponent off his feet, slamming him into the ground. Powers smiled for the second time this morning. He knew who had done that move and he knew he now had the perfect choice for this tasking — a choice that Colonel Hossey would definitely approve.

Powers focused in on the man, who was now kneeling on the other soldier's chest. He was talking to the soldiers gathered around, making a point. Powers didn't have to be any closer to recognize that figure. Back when Powers had been a master sergeant on a 7th Special Forces Group A Team at Fort Bragg, that man, Dave Riley, had been his team leader for two years. Not only had the two served together, but Riley had also been his best friend. During a mission to Colombia against the drug cartel, Riley had saved Powers's life. Powers wasn't an overly emotional man, but he had a special place in his heart for the wiry, half Irish, half Puerto Rican warrant officer.

Powers yelled for the battalion staff duty NCO and gave some quick instructions. Then the sergeant major jerked to his feet and limped for the door, ignoring the crutches that the doctor had ordered him to use. He slammed open the heavy metal door to the rear of the building and stood on the loading platform.

His knee on Doc Seay's skinny chest, CWO2 Dave Riley finished his open-hand strike a fraction of an inch above the medic's neck. Riley glanced around at his team. "Always finish the man off while you have the chance. There's no such thing as a fair fight. Your goal is…" He paused as he recognized the voice that rumbled across the parade field, calling out his name.

Riley popped to his feet. "Doc, take over. Practice leg sweeps."

The warrant officer turned and jogged toward battalion headquarters, where he could see the sergeant major leaning against the back wall, favoring his bad leg. Riley shook his head. Dumb son of a bitch wasn't using his crutches like he was supposed to. Riley loved the old NCO like a brother, but the guy sure could be pigheaded at times.

Riley had once heard the 5th Special Forces Group surgeon hold forth on theories regarding Special Forces soldiers and their various injuries. The man had compared being in Special Forces to playing professional football with regard to frequency and severity of injuries, particularly to joints. Knees were usually the first victims of an intense lifestyle that included such activities as parachuting, rucksacking with hundred-pound packs, hand-to-hand combat, and physical training seven times a week when not deployed, not to mention the potential of getting wounded or killed on a mission.

As Riley drew near his former team sergeant, he reflected on the fact that a professional athlete was considered ancient if he or she was over thirty. Yet here was Powers, forty-seven years old, and coming off his third major knee operation, still trying to get back in shape so he could return to the real world of operational missions rather than filling time working in the battalion operations shop. It certainly wasn't because Powers was making four million dollars a year like Joe Montana. It was because Powers was like the majority of Special Forces men — a dedicated professional who believed in what he was doing.

As he lightly sprinted up the metal steps to the platform, Riley felt a twinge from the puckered scars on his lower right abdomen and upper right back: entry and exit holes from two AK-47 rounds. They were reminders of a classified mission years ago on the other side of the world — his own physical sacrifice.

He came to a halt in front of the sergeant major, who towered over him. "What's up, Dan?"

Powers didn't waste any time. "You've got sixteen minutes to have your team ready to board two inbound birds here at the PZ. Rucksacks ready for deployment, personal weapons, and basic load. I already got the SDNCO tracking down the armorer, so the arms room will be open in a couple of minutes. The birds will fly you to an LZ where you'll be opconned to some DIA wienie. I got that straight from the group commander on the secure line two minutes ago."

"Anything else I need to know?"

Powers leaned forward. "Just remember our SOP about staying in touch." He reached out a hand and shook Riley's. "I'll take care of this end. Good luck, compadre."

Ward followed Freeman through the wreckage of the basement lab. The DIA man stared at the two bodies, then turned to look hard at Ward. "You didn't want to terminate those things after seeing this?" He didn't give Ward a chance to answer as he continued. "We're going to have a hell of a time keeping this under wraps."

Earlier, they'd taken the body from the lobby, put it in another room, and cleaned up the glass. The stain on the carpet they'd covered up with a rubber mat.

Ward was antsy. He'd already lost his prized creations. He wanted to find out if he'd lost everything. "When are we going after the remains and the backpacks?"

Freeman was examining the cubicles. "We wait until we get reinforcements. I've got a reaction force team coming from Fort Campbell. When they get here we'll go looking. My headquarters in Washington is also sending a team, but it'll take them a little longer to arrive." He pointed to the carnage. "They'll handle this."

Freeman swung the cubicle doors back and forth. The doors could be opened either manually from the outside or electronically by the computer. There was no sign of the doors being forced from the inside. "How did these get opened? And the inner containment doors?"

Ward summarized what he had gleaned from the computer log. "Those were opened by the guard in response to computer prompts when the power went off. We keep the environment inside the cubes controlled — mainly for monitoring purposes — and without power the Synbats would have eventually suffocated. Opening them increased the amount of oxygen, since they had access to all the air inside the inner containment. If the guard hadn't opened them, the Synbats would have been dead within twenty-five minutes." Ward shook his head. "The guard was supposed to call the doctor on duty before he did anything, but I guess he reacted to the computer prompts."

"What about the containment doors?"

"I'm not sure we'll ever be able to piece together exactly what happened with those. The guard's key is still in the outer one, so that was used to open them. I'm not sure how the inner one got open. As I said, that idiot was instructed to call me or Doctor Merrit if something like a power failure occurred, yet he never did."

Freeman looked at Ward pointedly and then at the bodies. "I guess that 'idiot,' as you call him, either was in on what was going on or he never had the time to call. Who was on call last night?"

"Doctor Merrit."

Freeman looked up. "I assume she didn't get a call?"

"She didn't mention anything and I'm sure she would have." Ward was already thinking ahead. "What are we going to tell the army people when they get here?"

"We'll stick with the cover story in the contingency plan."

"That will work until we come upon the bodies. Then what?" Ward asked.

"With the charges in those collars, there won't be much in the way of bodies. As soon as they spot them, we have them back off. These guys are just the most immediate response we can get, and they all have security clearances."

The chatter of helicopter blades reverberated off the buildings surrounding pickup zone (PZ) 12. Before the aircraft came into sight, Riley could identify them from the sound as UH-1 Huey transports. As he split the team into lifts, he spotted the two helicopters coming from the east in the thin line of clear sky between the ground and low-lying gray clouds.

Riley pulled off his patrol cap and stuffed it into the cargo pocket of his lightweight camouflage fatigues. As the aircraft settled down on their skids, he moved forward toward the right side cargo door of the lead bird. Throwing his rucksack in ahead of him, he slid over on the gray web seats until he was facing forward on the left side. Four other members of the team clambered in behind. The crew chief slid the doors shut and the Huey lifted.

Riley reached over and tapped the crew chief, signaling for a headset. The young specialist indicated that there were no extra sets on board. Riley pointed at the rig that the crew chief wore. The man shook his head. Riley smiled benignly at the young man, pointed at his own subdued collar rank insignia of two black dots on a green bar, versus the young man's specialist rank, and signaled that he wanted to use the headset only for a minute. The crew chief reluctantly handed over the set.

Riley settled the two ear cups in place and then pushed the ON switch for the boom mike. "This is Chief Riley. I'm in charge of the guys back here. Can you all tell me where we're going?"

The pilot in the right front seat glanced over his shoulder. "I'm Captain Barret. I've got a grid out near Lake Barkley. There's supposed to be a building there and we're to land in the parking lot. I've been told there'll be an officer named Freeman who we're to take orders from. That's all we've got. Do you know what this is about?"

"No, sir. What you just said is about ten times more than I know. We were just told to get on board."

The pilot returned his attention to the front. "Then just relax and enjoy the ride. I've got an ETA of fourteen minutes."

Riley handed the headset back to the crew chief. For the first time since he had been briefed by Powers outside the headquarters, he had a chance to really think about the present situation. This whole thing was unusual. Riley knew that his team had been picked simply by virtue of its being in the right place at the right time in the right uniform. Riley didn't mind that too much. He was tired of sitting around in the team room. He liked action.

His thoughts flickered to the most recent real action he'd been in and the woman who'd been with him. When he'd returned with Kate Westland from Colombia after the mission against the drug cartel, Riley had thought that he was ready to settle down — at least for a while. Kate and he had entertained serious thoughts of marriage, but then the realities of their professional lives had kicked in. The CIA — grudgingly acknowledging Kate's crucial role in the successful completion of the mission, but seething over her disrespect for authority — had banished her from Langley to a field office in Atlanta, where she did little more than process paperwork. The army high command had shuffled Riley out of Fort Bragg as quickly as they could print the orders and had sent him to Fort Campbell.

Kate and Riley had kept a long-distance relationship going for a while, but Riley found himself absorbed by the demands of commanding his team. In addition, Kate had been getting very moody over the downward spiral of her career. The talk of marriage had disappeared from their conversation more than six months ago, and it had been two months since Riley had last driven across Tennessee down to Atlanta to see her. Kate had shown little interest in making the reverse drive. He'd talked to her on the phone two weeks ago and had been vaguely bothered by the lack of spark and her pervasive depression. Riley was concerned about Kate and her unhappiness. He was bitter at the CIA for treating her so poorly after she'd put her life on the line to save both him and Powers.

As the blades cut through the air above his head, Riley resolved that the first chance he had he would go down to Atlanta and see her. Their future as lovers might be over, but he knew that she needed a friend and he had not been a very good one lately. He hoped he wouldn't be deployed too long on this mission, whatever it was; he wanted to be there to support her while she sorted out her life.

He also was somewhat concerned about his team. Riley had been in charge of Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 682 for only four months. The team was currently two personnel short of its authorized strength level of twelve. They lacked a commissioned officer as team leader, which explained why Riley — a warrant officer who would normally be the team's executive officer — was in charge. They also lacked a junior commo man. The personnel shortage in itself was no major problem; almost every team that Riley had been on had been short personnel. The thing that truly bothered him was the personalities of some of the team members, particularly the team sergeant.

Riley glanced across the cargo bay at the overweight figure of MSgt. Joe Knutz. The man was what Riley would define as R.O.A.D.: retired on active duty. Knutz had twenty-four years in the army, and in Riley's opinion he just didn't give a shit anymore. He was marking time, earning a larger pension percentage with each year he hung around. Once upon a time Knutz might have been a good soldier, but since his attitude had gone down the tubes, the rest of his abilities had followed suit, making the team sergeant more of a burden than an asset. Over the past month, Riley had been consulting with the B Company sergeant major, trying to work out a way to ease Knutz off the team into a relatively harmless slot. Riley was tired of doing the work of team leader and team sergeant.

The ranking enlisted man on the other helicopter would be the man whom Riley would pick to be team sergeant if he had his say. Doc Seay was the opposite of Knutz. A senior sergeant first class, Seay had recently turned down an offer to be team sergeant on another team. Seay enjoyed being the senior medical sergeant, and he was the most knowledgeable medic with whom Riley had ever worked. Seay was also an extremely competent NCO. If the shit ever hit the fan, Riley wanted the doc to be his right-hand man.

The presence of two cans of 5.56mm ammunition and one can of 9mm that senior weapons man Mike Trovinsky had carried on the aircraft made Riley wonder if this mission could possibly be one where the training ended and the action became real. It had been awhile since he'd gone anywhere with real bullets. Of course, this also could be a test alert run by Group or by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to test their readiness to deploy. Riley had been on many of those too.

Having done as much figuring as he felt was appropriate given the lack of information, Riley leaned against the seat back and watched the low, rolling terrain of the Fort Campbell Military Reservation slide by beneath them. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still hung low, threatening to deposit more moisture. The temperature was in the high fifties, normal for April in Tennessee.

The helicopter was flying at a hundred feet above ground level (AGL). Despite the lack of leaves, Riley could barely see the earth through the deciduous trees and tangled undergrowth. The pilots were following a paved road to their destination. The aircraft did a hard bank to the right and Riley could see mist-covered Lake Barkley through the left window. Pushing up against the door, he could make out an isolated low-lying building and a parking lot with three vehicles in it. The helicopter came to a hover over the lot and began to descend.

Freeman glanced at his watch. A little more than an hour since he had first called Fort Campbell for the reaction force. He wasn't sure if that was a good time for them or not. It really didn't matter now, since it was just a matter of going out and policing up the bodies and backpacks. He turned off the computer terminal where he'd been looking at the scant data from the night before.

The two helicopters landed and the side doors slid open. Soldiers got off, carrying rucksacks, and quickly ran toward his side of the lot. The whine of the helicopters declined as the pilots rolled off their throttles. A short Latino soldier in camouflage fatigues threw his rucksack down with the others and then came over to Freeman.

"I'm Chief Warrant Officer Riley, sir, team leader for ODA 682, 5th Special Forces Group."

Freeman stuck out his hand. "Major Freeman, Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm in charge of…" He paused as another soldier came up. The newcomer was an overweight man, almost as big as Freeman, with a balding head.

Riley did the introductions. "This is Master Sergeant Knutz. He's the operations NCO for the team."

Freeman shook the team sergeant's hand and then gestured for both men to follow him. "Let's go inside and I'll fill you in on what's going on. Your men can wait out here."

Riley and Knutz followed Freeman into the lobby. Riley had already noticed the sign on the front of the building that read Biotech Engineering. That, plus the man from the Defense Intelligence Agency, made for an interesting combination. Riley could see two other people waiting inside: A tall, distinguished-looking man in a white lab coat and a frumpy dark-haired woman seated at a large desk.

Riley had spotted the remote cameras on the roof of the building as they landed, so he assumed that the television screens here were the terminus for the cameras. That pointed to a pretty extensive security setup for a place in the middle of the woods. The only thing Riley could figure from this sketchy visual data was that some sort of security leak had occurred.

Freeman introduced the two groups to each other. "This is Doctor Ward, who is in charge of this lab, and his assistant, Doctor Merrit. This is Mister Riley and Sergeant Knutz. They're from the 5th Special Forces Group over at Fort Campbell and are here to help us with our little problem."

After all parties shook hands, the two Special Forces men pulled over some plastic chairs. Riley unbuckled his load bearing equipment (LBE) and laid his M16A2 across his knees. His first impression of the two doctors was that they were very upset by something, especially the woman, but trying hard not to show it. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and prepared to take notes.

Freeman shook his head. "No notes. Everything that you do, hear, and see here is classified top secret. It shouldn't take us long to take care of things. You all should be back at Fort Campbell by dinner."

Riley shrugged and put the notebook away. He'd go along with them. He'd played the secret game longer, and in more real situations, than this DIA major had.

Freeman turned to Ward. "Doctor, perhaps you could give these men a quick rundown on what this lab does, without getting into anything too classified. Enough so they understand the background."

Ward turned and faced the two men. "Biotech Engineering conducts research into mutating various viruses in an attempt to find cures for the effects of the original viruses. We work mostly for the National Institutes of Health, doing some of their more sensitive projects. Right now, we're working on various forms of the known biological weapon viruses, hoping to find a mutated form that might act against the pure form as an antidote. We conduct live experiments on monkeys to stimulate the growth of the mutated viruses in a host organism and examine the results against the original virus."

Freeman cut in. "That's the reason you gentlemen are here. Four of the lab's monkeys escaped last night. These four were infected with a mutated form of the biological agent VX."

Riley frowned. VX was a biological agent that was in the Soviet inventory. What the man was saying was serious, but why was he using the past tense? The female doctor, Merrit, was curiously quiet and looked uncomfortable. Before Riley had a chance to ask a question, Knutz jumped in, anxious, Riley supposed, to show that he was still working for a living.

"How did they escape?"

Riley noticed a glance between Ward and his assistant as Freeman answered. "How they escaped isn't important. What is important is that we find their bodies as quickly as possible."

Knutz cut in again. "What do you mean 'bodies'?"

Freeman gestured at the portable computer. "The animals were wearing collars that contained both a homing beacon and an explosive charge. When we determined that they really had escaped, we electronically triggered the charges in the collars. The charge was more than sufficient to kill the animal. Prior to firing we got a direction fix on them."

These people were certainly serious about not letting those animals run free, thought Riley. Freeman slid a map over to the edge of the table. Riley and Knutz got up to look at it.

Freeman pointed at the penciled-in line. "The bodies must be somewhere along this line, which is the last azimuth we had prior to detonation. The range is less than five kilometers. What we need you and your men to do is move along this line and find the bodies for us."

Riley frowned. "Why'd you kill the monkeys? Why not just capture them?"

Freeman fielded that question. "We couldn't take the chance of their running into people. Even though the possibility was low, we didn't want to expose anyone to this new, mutated virus. We felt we had to kill them in order to stop them."

Riley noticed that the male doctor didn't seem too thrilled about having terminated the monkeys. He traced his finger along the line on the map, noting where it ended at the lake. "All right. It shouldn't take us long to move three klicks along an azimuth from here. Mind if we use this map?"

Freeman gave it over. "It's all yours."

Ward held up a hand. "There's something else. When one of your men spots the bodies, he must be sure to immediately back off and call us in to take care of the remains. The virus might still be active in the corpses and we don't want to take any chances. Your men are not to get any closer to the bodies than they need to for identification purposes."

Riley shrugged. He doubted that any of his men would want to get close after they heard what the monkeys had been infected with. "Sure. I'll brief them on that."

"How contagious is this virus?" Knutz asked.

Freeman answered. "As you know, in the weapon form, the VX is sprayed or deployed by airburst. Here they injected it directly into the monkeys' blood, so as long as you don't make contact with the blood, you'll be all right. Just do what Doctor Ward said."

The female doctor spoke for the first time. "Are you at least going to tell them about the backpacks?"

Ward turned toward her angrily. Riley noticed that the senior doctor restrained himself with great difficulty.

"What's she talking about?" Riley asked.

Ward turned from glaring at Merrit and spat out the words. "The monkeys took two pieces of equipment with them."

"What's in these backpacks?" Riley demanded.

Freeman cut in. "That's classified. Your men are also not to touch the backpacks if you see them. They should be with the bodies."

"Well, what do these backpacks look like?" Riley asked.

"About the size of a large ALICE rucksack," Freeman answered. "But instead of nylon, the whole thing is plastic and painted gray-green. The bottom line is that you find the bodies and back off immediately. Call us in and we'll do the recovery. Doctor Ward and I will be moving along with the center of your search line. Doctor Merrit will remain here."

Riley had had enough of the "I've got a secret" game. "All right, sir. Is there anything else we need to know?"

Freeman looked at Ward, who shook his head; then he turned back to Riley. "No. That's it. Tell the helicopter pilots to stay here until we're done. This shouldn't take too long. We need to get body bags from the lab downstairs and some other equipment, and we'll join you in the parking lot in a few minutes."

Riley headed outside, closely followed by Knutz. The team had dumped their rucks near the wall of the building. Trovinsky had broken open one of the cans of 5.56mm and the 9mm and was passing out the ammunition. Each team member was loading magazines.

Riley got their attention. "All right, guys. We won't be needing the ammo. Go ahead and put what you've got in your ammo pouches, but I don't want anything live in your weapons. I don't want to see any magazines in."

Riley spread out the map that Freeman had given him. "Here's the deal. They had — "

"I'll brief the team, chief."

Riley looked up in surprise at Knutz's interruption, but stepped back, handing over the map. It was the team sergeant's prerogative as operations NCO to brief the team, something he should have been doing long ago. Riley was glad that Knutz finally appeared to be taking his job seriously, but to be honest, he was also a little miffed. He was used to doing things his way.

Knutz used a pen to point at the map. "They had four monkeys escape from this lab last night. The monkeys had collars on that had a radio-detonated explosive device built in. The people working here fired the devices, so now there are four dead monkeys out there. Before they blew the devices, the direction finder on the collars gave an azimuth, which you see marked on the map. We're going to move along that azimuth in a search line and find the bodies.

"Once you spot anything that resembles a monkey's body, you're to back off and call in the doctor who will be traveling along with us. There's also something they call backpacks that the monkeys took with them — the size of a large ruck and gray-green in color. If you see these you're to back off and call in the doctor.

"We'll move with fifteen meters between each man. That gives us a hundred and fifty meters of frontage. Since the signal was good for only five k's, it shouldn't take us too long to find the bodies." Knutz looked over the team. "Any questions?"

He sure was direct and to the point, Riley thought, but uninspired. Knutz would never be a leader. Riley decided that he'd better elaborate a bit. People worked better when they knew the why behind the what. "I'd like to highlight the reason we're not supposed to go near the bodies. According to the doctors here, these monkeys had some sort of variation of the VX biological agent injected into them. They don't want you to mess around with the bodies, and I'm sure you don't either. They say the only thing that is contagious is the monkeys' blood, but make sure you be careful. Let's let the doctor earn his pay."

Riley could see the men giving sidelong glances at each other. Doc Seay raised a hand. "Hey, chief. What's in these backpacks?"

Riley shook his head. "They wouldn't say. Let's assume the worst and figure that it might be some sort of container for viruses or other types of biological agents. So let's not mess around with this stuff. You see something that nature didn't put in the woods, you yell out and we'll let these people deal with it. We're just the spotters on this operation. We'll let them pick up their own garbage." Riley looked around the gathered men. "Everyone got that?"

Eight bobbing heads indicated assent.

"We'll leave rucks here with the helicopters." Riley glanced over at the two silenced aircraft. He turned to the team's intelligence sergeant. "Bob, I want you to tell the pilots to cool their heels. The man in charge said they're to wait until we get done. Hopefully we'll be back at Fort Campbell today."

Sergeant First Class Bob Philips, a lanky New Englander with a massive hook nose that was often the butt of jokes, strode over to the two aircraft where the crews were still sitting inside.

Riley pointed at the open cans of ammunition. "T-bone, I want you to close those up and put them on one of the aircraft. We'll account for all the rounds after we get done."

Sergeant "T-bone" Troy, the junior weapons man, clamped shut the lids. Troy had picked up the nickname T-bone during a survival training exercise when he'd spent the last five days gnawing on the bones of a squirrel he'd caught on the first day. Since his real first name was Bob, same as Philips, the distinction had caught on. Riley's philosophy for the team was that nothing on ODA 682 was sacred, so he'd ignored Troy's protests about the nickname. The man was going to have to learn to live with it. Troy was a solidly built, six-foot, blue-eyed, blond-haired Viking. He spent most of his off-duty time working out and lifting weights. Unfortunately, in Riley's opinion, the man had the personality of a rock, to match his muscles. T-bone's lacking a sense of humor made the other members of the team pick on him that much more.

Riley's musings on T-bone Troy were interrupted by Ward and Freeman coming out the front door of the building. Ward was carrying a day pack with something stuffed into it. Freeman, wearing a suit and dress shoes, didn't look ready to go traipsing through the woods, but Riley figured that was the man's own problem. Ward had changed into slacks and a short-sleeved shirt under a windbreaker, along with a pair of sneakers. Slightly better to go beating the bush, but not by much in Riley's estimation.

The men of 682 were wearing the same uniforms they'd had on for their PT ruck march this morning prior to the close-quarters combat training: lightweight battle dress camouflage fatigues, jungle boots, load bearing equipment, and patrol caps. The only addition was the M16s. On their LBE each man sported two canteens, two ammunition pouches, a butt pack containing survival equipment, a first-aid pouch holding two dressings on the nonfiring shoulder, and at least one knife. A shoulder holster was strapped on beneath the LBE, holding each man's 9mm Beretta semiautomatic pistol.

Riley pulled his Silva compass out of its case on the LBE. He laid the Silva down on the map, then rotated the fixed arrow in the compass base to line up with the penciled-in azimuth. By keeping the north arrow aligned with the outer ring, all he now had to do was follow the arrow to stay on the desired azimuth.

At the present moment the arrow pointed straight from the lab toward Lake Barkley. Since the map sheet was the same as the one they used for Fort Campbell, Riley knew the declination difference between magnetic north and grid north. His compass was preset to compensate for that difference.

Riley looked up and called out to the team. "Azimuth is two-oh-two degrees magnetic." He waited while the rest of the team set their compasses. "It's three klicks from here to Lake Barkley, so that's our far limit." He designated personnel with quick jabs of his finger: "I want you five to my left and you four to my right." He checked with Freeman. "Ready, sir?"

"Let's do it."

Riley swept his free hand overhead and they started. The team moved around the building and then spread out on the indicated azimuth. To Riley's immediate left, Chief Knutz beat his way through the undergrowth; to Riley's right, Doc Seay was the closest man. Ward and Freeman followed several paces behind Riley.

Immediately behind the building the terrain dropped off into a creek bed running southwest. Riley selected a tree on line on the far side of the ravine and used that as his aiming point.

As he went down into the creek bed, he wondered what the remains of the monkeys would look like. An explosive charge in a band around the neck was pretty nasty. Riley could understand the concern, though, about letting any sort of biological hazard get free. Stringent control measures did seem necessary.

Despite that, a few things about the operation didn't fit, in Riley's opinion. Knutz's question about how the four had escaped was a valid one. The lab seemed to have a good security system, and if those Biotech people had gone to the trouble of rigging homing beacons and explosive collars, they must have taken other strong steps to prevent an escape.

Another thing that bothered Riley was the lack of any security personnel at the building. He very much doubted that one of the doctors had been on the guard shift last night when the escape had occurred, yet there had been no sign of a guard. Riley had noticed the old pickup truck in the lot: It had a retired enlisted sticker on it, which authorized the driver to enter the closed Fort Campbell main post. He wondered who that belonged to. Obviously not to Ward, Freeman, or Merrit.

Riley was a suspicious and observant person. Harsh experience had imbued him with those characteristics. His boyhood, growing up on the streets of the South Bronx, had taught him the value of observation. A person who couldn't learn to notice the warnings of various developing situations didn't stay healthy very long on those streets. Riley had survived the Bronx for seventeen years, threading a delicate path through the demands of a rough environment and avoiding the kind of trouble that would end any hope he'd had for getting out of the cesspool that lapped at him. Earning a high school diploma under those conditions had been a major achievement and had allowed Riley to enlist in the army.

Riley's introduction to Special Forces had reinforced those early lessons. He remembered his first team sergeant in Special Forces: MSgt. Frank Kimble, Okinawa, 1981. Riley was a young E-4, fresh out of the Qualification course, when he ran into Kimble. Kimble had tried hard to pass on to the younger man knowledge earned in three tours in Vietnam and nineteen years in Special Forces.

Kimble had constantly honed Riley's powers of observation. They'd be sitting in a bar on a Saturday night getting drunk, and the veteran would suddenly ask Riley to describe all the people behind him without turning around. After six months of that, Riley had learned to be much more observant — just in time for his first live mission to Thailand, running classified border operations. In the years since, Riley had sharpened his skills, always trying to notice any anomalies in the environment. Right now, his instincts were buzzing from several anomalies he had picked up at the lab.

Riley pushed his way through the thick undergrowth that lined the watercourse. He carefully extracted his arm from a thorny bush and high-stepped through the storm-swollen creek. Behind him, he heard Ward curse as the man became caught in the brambles. Riley stepped out of the water and halted, listening carefully, tuning out the man-made sounds. Looking to his left he spotted Knutz, who gave him a quick nod. To his right, Seay took a few more seconds to appear.

Riley was pleased that his team was moving silently and staying on line. Riley's philosophy was that the members of 682 had to travel like ghosts through the woods. Despite the fact that there was no need to be quiet here, the team was reacting that way because they knew what Riley expected. To him, every moment was training.

Riley dug in his feet and pushed himself up the far side of the ravine. His eyes were constantly scanning back and forth, searching for any signs of the bodies or the backpacks. When he reached the tree he had designated, he pulled out his compass and selected another target along the azimuth. From his pace count, confirmed by a studied look at the map, he estimated that they had progressed six hundred meters from the lab.

He crested the incline and paused a minute. The terrain flattened out slightly. Looking back, he waited as Ward and Freeman clambered up the slope. Knutz and Seay gave Riley a thumbs-up from fifteen meters away on either side, indicating that everyone on their respective sides was on line. Riley waved his arm, signaling for them to move out again.

After another hundred meters they crossed an old dirt road. Riley knelt and looked carefully at the ground. There were no recent tire tracks or any other markings on it. He moved across and pushed into the woods on the far side. The trees were getting thicker and the cloud-filtered midmorning light was barely penetrating. The men moved through a dripping, dimly lit brown and gray cathedral. Vines looped from trees, forcing Riley to duck his head. Prickly bushes grabbed at his fatigue pants. Yet Riley maneuvered his way smoothly through the woods, his years of practice showing.

Riley glanced at his watch as they walked across a small knoll that he could locate easily on his map: 10:02 A.M. The knoll placed the search line approximately one kilometer from the lab.

Looking up through the trees, he could see that the sun was struggling to break through the clouds. Hopefully, that would take away some of the morning chill. On the far side of the knoll, the terrain descended to another creek running from northeast to southwest. According to the map, this watercourse, labeled Williams Hollow Creek, ran into Lake Barkley, a little more than a kilometer and a half away. Checking to his left and right, Riley began the descent. This slope was steeper than the last, and he divided his time between looking for the bodies and searching for secure footholds.

Riley was startled by a yell from behind him. He wheeled, instinctively swinging his empty M16 around, pointing toward the source. He was greeted by the sight of Doctor Ward tumbling down the slope. Riley slammed his rifle, butt first, into the ground along Ward's path and with his other hand he grabbed hold of a tree. As Ward slid by, he reached out and grabbed the rifle, almost pulling Riley's other hand from its grip on the tree.

The doctor cautiously stood up, cursing. He was streaked with mud and leaves. His small day pack continued the trip downhill without him. Riley continued on his way down. Reaching the bottom, he picked up the day pack and waited for Ward. He silently handed it to the doctor and then led the way across the lowland. Knutz and Seay indicated again that the rest of the team was on line. They were two-thirds of the way to Lake Barkley. Riley hoped they would find what they were looking for soon. He also hoped that none of his men had passed by anything, although he imagined that the results of the explosions ought to stand out pretty strongly. Blood, popped-off heads, and torn bodies was the logical guess of what they would find. Despite the thick undergrowth, that sort of gory spectacle ought to be noticed rather easily.

Williams Hollow Creek was swollen from the previous night's rain. Riley didn't give it a thought as he splashed out into the swiftly running water and pushed his way across. Discomfort had been a constant companion during his years in Special Forces. The ability to put up with a minor irritation like being wet and chilly was more mental than physical in his opinion.

Riley had survived, and operated in, environments ranging from a windchill of minus sixty degrees at 14,000 feet of altitude to sweltering jungles. He had learned to adapt rather than fight nature. During those six months in Okinawa, Frank Kimble had taught Riley that a man could never win a fight against the elements. Nature was unchanging and unforgiving, just as the enemy was. Instead of making the environment the enemy, Riley had learned to make it his ally. He embraced the terrain and weather's hardships because it made his enemies weak.

In martial arts training during a tour in Korea, Riley had worked with a Korean master who had not believed in checking the weather before starting an outdoor workout. The two had practiced in six inches of snow, barefoot and bare-chested on top of a mountain in the Korean countryside, using snapped-off branches as kicking targets. Riley had quickly learned to focus on the training and ignore the environment as he worked his way toward his first-dan black belt in tae kwon do. During his Korean tour he added that black belt to the one in Hapkido he had earned years earlier in Okinawa.

Riley's wet pants stuck to his wiry legs as he pushed his way up the far side of the creek. One more stretch of high ground and then they'd be at Lake Barkley.

Behind Riley, Ward was wondering when they'd find the bodies. They'd been scrambling through this forest for more than an hour and a half now. He had no idea how far they had come or how far they had to go before reaching the lake. His legs and arms smarted from the tiny scratches that thorns had inflicted upon him. On top of that he was wet, cold, and hungry.

Ward felt uneasy working with these army people. The Special Forces soldiers were moving so quietly through the woods that it was eerie. The man named Riley, whom Ward was following, had not said a single word since they'd left the lab. Ward was used to people who spoke and made their thoughts known.

Even the DIA man was quiet. He was probably figuring out how he was going to write this up, Ward thought. Ward himself had spent most of the time during the move trying to figure out how he was going to keep the Biotech project alive. The major problem was how the Black Budget people, particularly General Trollers, reacted to this incident. Ward had to admit to himself, as he slapped a branch out of his face, that the security breach looked bad. But Ward also figured that the Synbats' killing of the three men was good, in a perverse sort of way. It demonstrated that his creation could do something that the army should surely appreciate.

Ward bitterly regretted Merrit destroying the Synbats. Genetic engineering was more often a case of trial and error than precise calculations — a case of building on previous efforts. This last generation of Synbats had represented a key step in the direction the project ultimately needed to go. Their loss was a tremendous setback, even without the potential of the program getting shut down.

That fucking bitch Merrit, Ward thought angrily to himself. Who the hell did she think she was going against him like that? Ward was determined that if nothing else happened after this, he would definitely send Merrit packing. The woman had indicated several times before that she wanted out; this time Ward would see to it that she went. But he'd also see to it that she never worked in the bioengineering field again.

Ward was so immersed in his thoughts that he almost walked into Riley's back. The team sergeant was halted at the edge of a drop-off. Riley turned as Ward and Freeman blundered up next to him and spoke the first words in almost two hours. "There's the lake. No sign of your monkeys or the backpacks."

Riley looked down at the tranquil surface of the lake five feet below. "Is it possible they might have been in the water when you blew the collars?"

Ward considered that. "I doubt it. Monkeys don't care to swim. They barely have the capability, and certainly not the inclination. I'm pretty sure they would have stayed on land."

Riley signaled to Knutz and Seay to have everyone bring it in. The two passed on the gesture. Riley looked at the map and then at the terrain. After the team was gathered, he looked around the small circle of faces. "Did anyone see anything unusual? Anything even remotely resembling the monkeys or the backpacks?"

He was met with a negative response. Riley decided to try to make some peace with Knutz. "What do you think, Top?"

Knutz pointed at the two civilians. "They're the experts." He passed the question off to the DIA officer. "What do you want us to do now, sir?"

Freeman rubbed his chin. "I guess we turn around and do a sweep on the way back. We must have missed them. Maybe we were off course."

Riley stabbed a finger at the map. "We're exactly where a two-oh-two degree azimuth from the lab meets the lake, sir. No more than twenty meters off either way. How accurate was this beacon on their collars?"

Ward didn't have the data on that. "I'm not sure. But we've got to find the bodies."

Riley looked back the way they had come. "The choppers wouldn't do us any good. It's too thick down here." He addressed Freeman. "How about calling in some more help from Fort Campbell, sir?"

Freeman knew that wouldn't go over well at his higher headquarters. "I'd like to keep the number of people involved to a minimum as long as possible. Let's try a sweep on the way back. If we don't find anything, I've got some of my people flying in from Washington; they should be here soon."

Riley shrugged; sometimes it was better to be the follower rather than the leader. "All right, guys. Let's reverse it. Keep your eyes open. We'll go a little slower. Check out any clumps of bushes. Maybe they crawled under something before they got blown up. Let's do it."

Robin Merrit punched up the security log one more time and stared at it. Being an expert on computer systems was just one of the necessary skills that had made her a top genetic engineer less than four years after completing her doctorate. If the malfunction lay with the security setup the DIA had imposed, that might allow Ward to point some fingers and give the project some breathing room. Merrit knew that Ward was fighting the Pentagon to keep his conduit of funds flowing. In an era of reduced world tensions and budget cutbacks, even the anonymous Pentagon Black Budget was going to take a beating.

Merrit had long ago recognized the reality of her situation. She didn't like it here and she hated working for Ward. All her knowledge and work was siphoned off by the older man and she knew that she would get little, if any, credit for their research advances. Initially, her deepest regret was not being able to publish any of their results because of the security requirements. It was a catch-22. Working for the federal government allowed them to bypass the stringent procedural limitations on research imposed by law, but it also kept their findings from being acknowledged or replicated by the rest of the scientific community. Thus even the scant satisfaction of knowing that their work might be used productively somewhere else was denied to her.

Merrit's colleagues from college would be dismayed and shocked to learn that she was working for the government — the Pentagon no less. It had not been an easy choice, but the alternatives had been bleak. After graduating with her doctorate in bioengineering, Merrit had worked briefly as a lab researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. That job had lasted for four years, during which time she had started earning a closed-circle reputation for brilliance, supported by the ability to do the thorough, tedious work to back up her ideas.

Initially, for personal reasons, she had spurned several offers from various government agencies to put her talents to work for them. It was only after the university lost its federal research funding for farm animal genetic engineering that she was forced to consider government work. She finally took stock of the current state of scientific research in the United States, and was dismayed by what she found. Pure research in America was at a level less than 10 percent of what it had been thirty years before. A budget-conscious Congress had seen to that.

The ability, or desire, of universities and corporations to fund such research was also very low if the research did not point to an immediately usable solution to a problem — a profitable solution at that. The nebulous goals of pure research made it an undesirable field for investment of capital. This was despite the fact that pure research laid the foundation for the more immediate and practical findings. Like a slow-acting leukemia, the lack of funding for pure research was deteriorating the lifeblood of American industry, which relied heavily on research and development to be competitive in the international arena.

Despite her blossoming reputation, Merrit had had difficulty in her search for a new civilian workplace. Compounding the problem was the fact that stringent animal experimentation requirements, forced upon the research world by animal rights groups pressuring the government, made it almost impossible to conduct the live-animal research necessary to genetic engineering.

Faced with the dual challenges of lack of available research sites and the federal limitations, Merrit gave in and listened seriously to Doctor Ward when he came to her with a pitch for a job.

The concept for the project at Biotech Engineering sounded relatively harmless but fascinating and challenging. The proposed budget, lab setup, and freedom from federal limitations were strongly attractive. Merrit had long nourished a radical concept in bioengineering, and Ward's proposal seemed to open the door to pursue that dream.

Only after she had signed on and started working at the lab did Merrit realize that Ward had twisted the truth. Yes, she was doing quite a bit of interesting theoretical work and valid applied experimentation. And, yes, this work was on the cutting edge of genetic engineering. But Merrit did not feel comfortable with the end result.

The purpose of the Synbats repelled her. Still, the advances they were achieving fascinated her. They were beyond the current scope of biological engineering, exploring uncharted territory. If Ward had ever stopped to see what they had truly achieved, Merrit thought he would realize, as she did, that they had moved beyond the realm of present understanding and, she felt, far beyond the requirements imposed by the Pentagon.

For the past year Merrit had lived on an emotional edge regarding her work. On the one hand, she knew that the theoretical findings would be invaluable once released to others in the field under the Freedom of Information Act. On the other hand, she also knew that the actual practical work done at Biotech would never be released to the public. The fact that they had initially been so far from the specifications desired by the Pentagon had given her false comfort. She had no way of knowing that Ward was falsifying his reports to General Trollers to keep the project going. Naively, she had waited for the budget plug to be pulled. It was only after she had tapped into Ward's personal files in the computers that she discovered his deception to both her and their military bosses. She saw then that the Synbat project would not be terminated anytime soon.

Merrit felt that they had stumbled onto something very significant in the Synbats — significant in a way that no one else in the project truly understood, or even cared to. Ward was too concerned with keeping his funds flowing and meeting the statement of requirements dictated by the Pentagon. Merrit alone had focused on what they had developed, and in doing so she had noticed some strange quirks in the data and, even more important, in the actions of the Synbats.

The situation had come to a head less than three months ago when Ward had gone to Washington for a week-long conference. Up to that point, they'd kept the Synbats heavily sedated to make them more compliant. The extreme aggression of the creatures had always been a major concern. Without sedation they were not trainable or controllable. Even with it, they were extremely dangerous, as evidenced by the events of last night. As Merrit had discovered from the computer, Ward had not reported that problem to the Pentagon; he was hoping that they could do something in the next generation to make the animals more tractable yet capable of performing as the Pentagon expected — an almost impossible set of contradictory requirements.

During those five days that Ward was gone, Merrit had held back the sedatives to see how the Synbats — now full-grown adults — would react without its numbing effect. The results had been startling and disturbing. She'd shown Ward the videotape, but he'd insisted that they keep it quiet or else face the loss of funds from the Black Budget.

At that point, Merrit had tried quitting. Despite her limited job options outside of the government, she had had enough. At last, she admitted to herself that she was terrified of what was happening in the lab.

Unfortunately, she had found out that quitting was not as easy as making an announcement. Ward felt her to be indispensable to the project, and the Defense Intelligence Agency had sent a representative to Merrit to clarify her position in no uncertain terms, pulling out the original work agreement she had signed when starting at Biotech.

The agent had explained it succinctly. The DIA would see to it that she didn't work for any research facility receiving federal funding. That meant she would either continue to work here or not work in the field at all. Additionally, any work she did on her own would have to be processed through the DIA's Research Supervision Office to ensure that nothing in it was related to any of the classified work she had done for the government. In other words, she could do nothing on her own. With that brief one-way conversation, the DIA had effectively nailed her to the job at Biotech.

Yet for the first time in many months she felt hopeful. Ward had upset the DIA by not blowing the collars on time. That and the three bodies had probably sounded the death knell for Biotech Engineering and correspondingly freed Merrit from her prison.

But three people were dead! The project should not have turned out this way. If they'd only listened to her. The world had enough problems without adding this unholy experiment, the exact ramifications of which not even its creators knew.

Riley was preparing to recross Williams Hollow Creek when he halted. Something on the far side caught his attention. He squatted down and scanned the bank, trying to focus. The sun had finally broken through the clouds and he was sure he had seen the light reflect off something. He heard the two nonteam members of the party come up behind him, breathing hard.

"What's the matter?" Ward puffed.

Riley put up a hand to silence him. Something metallic lay underneath a small bush on the far side. Riley stood up and waded across the creek, climbing up the far bank. He signaled for Ward and Freeman to stay back and then gingerly moved toward the bush. He scanned the ground beneath him. In the damp earth he could see some unidentifiable tracks.

Riley's questions about the entire operation hit him with more force on seeing those strange tracks. He pulled a magazine out of his ammo pouch and slid it into the well of the weapon. Seating it with a tap, he pulled back the bolt and slowly let it ride forward. He pushed on the M16's forward assist to make sure that the round was seated properly, then he rotated the selection switch to semiautomatic. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Doc Seay mimicking his actions with his weapon.

Riley crossed the last few meters to the bush, taking care not to trample the tracks. He could now see what was under the bush. He scanned the far side of the bush and the far slope. Nothing. If there had been anything else, they would have spotted it on the first trip.

Riley took a deep breath, then signaled the team to assemble nearby. He turned and gestured for Ward and Freeman to move up.

"Don't step in the tracks," Riley warned as the two came forward across the creek. He pointed at the bush. "There are your collars, or what's left of them."