Synbat

Chapter 5

While waiting for the dogs to arrive, CWO Dave Riley spent forty-five minutes trying to sort through the day's events. He was a methodical thinker who scrutinized every aspect of a situation, examining each detail from various perspectives. Then he'd try to reassemble the details so that the entire situation fit together and appeared clearly in his mind's eye. Except it wasn't working here.

Riley could understand the concern about the possibility of a new strain of the VX virus getting loose via these monkeys. But he was puzzled by just about everything else he had seen today. The collars, the security setup at the lab, the vehicle in the parking lot with a retired enlisted sticker, the —

Riley's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an inbound Huey. He held his patrol cap in place as the helicopter settled down onto the knee-high grass bordering the terminus of Williams Hollow Creek. The side doors slid open and two county sheriffs hopped off, each one controlling a German shepherd on the end of a short chain. A third man got off, dressed in what Riley assumed to be the DIA's field uniform of khaki pants and bush jacket over a khaki shirt. The man was armed with an MP-5 submachine gun slung over his shoulder. The bird lifted and winged back in the direction of the lab.

After briefly greeting the two law officers, Lewis gave the order for Riley to lead the entire party back to the last ground tracks of the monkeys, where Trovinsky and Caruso were standing by. Riley quickly led the way, his team automatically fanning out on either side of him. The dogs, their handlers, Lewis, Freeman, the third DIA man, and Ward tramped behind in the center.

Once they reached the tree, the two sheriffs allowed their dogs to spend some time sniffing around the base and along the monkey tracks leading up to the tree. As soon as they got the scent, both dogs immediately started an agitated whining.

"What's wrong with them?" Lewis demanded.

The senior sheriff, identified as Douglas by his nameplate, shook his head as he tried to control his dog. "I don't know. I've never seen them like this. I guess it's because they've never smelled monkey before."

"Are they going to be able to do the job?"

Douglas nodded. "Yeah. They'll be all right."

The two officers spent a few minutes calming their dogs, then both switched the short chain leashes for longer nylon ones.

"All right. Let's go," Douglas called out. "The wind looks good, coming from the west, and the dogs are picking up the scent that way. Just keep your people downwind from us."

Riley positioned his men with a few quick hand and arm signals. He followed as the two handlers moved the dogs out in a series of S-shaped movements, always coming back centered on a west-northwesterly heading. Riley pulled out his map as they moved. Another klick and they'd hit Lake Barkley. Nowhere for the monkeys to go then. He glanced around, making sure that his men were spread out and alert.

Suddenly the left dog halted and started yipping furiously, straining backward on its leash. Riley slid the selector lever on his M16 to semiautomatic and signaled for the rest of the team to stay in place. He moved over to Douglas. "What's the matter?"

Now the other dog joined in the same shrill barking. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Riley's neck.

Douglas was pulling on the leash. "Don't know. They're smelling something they don't like." He yanked the dog forward. It slinked along, hackles raised.

Riley scanned the bushes and trees in the immediate area. He gestured for Caruso and Philips to keep their eyes up in the trees as he moved with Douglas.

The lead dog stopped, its nose pointed at something dark on the ground. Riley knelt next to it. It took a second for his brain to register what the object was: A few pieces of fur and a skull with tatters of flesh on it identified the carcass as that of a rabbit.

A few feet away lay some dark lumps. Riley recognized them and signaled for Trovinsky to come forward. "That look the same as the last pile you found?"

Trovinsky knelt down next to the feces. "Yeah. Same color and texture." He stood up and tapped them with his boot. "About two to four hours old, I'd say."

"What do you make of the carcass?"

Trovinsky reached forward to poke it with his finger.

"I wouldn't do that," Riley advised. "Remember that if those monkeys ate this thing and they're carrying the virus, their saliva might be on the body."

Trovinsky quickly pulled away his hand. He slid out his knife and poked with it. "Guess around two to four hours, like I said. Maybe more. Hard to tell. The body — what's left of it — looks cold. The blood is pretty dry."

Riley looked around. Lewis, Freeman, and Ward, along with the other DIA agent, were clustered behind the team's skirmish line. The three DIA men had their weapons drawn and were looking around a little nervously. Seemed a bit of an overreaction to Riley. He noticed that Lewis had a massive.44 magnum revolver for his personal weapon; the new DIA man had the MP-5 in the ready position. Hell of a lot of firepower for a few monkeys.

Riley turned his attention back to Douglas and nodded toward the dogs. "They always get like this over a dead rabbit?"

Douglas shook his head and looked at his partner, Sheriff Lamb. "Pete, you ever seen these dogs act this way? They acted funny when they first got the scent."

Lamb spit out a wad of tobacco. "Only time I seen Jake get stupid like this is when we ran across some panther tracks up in the Smokies last summer."

Riley considered it. "Think it's just like you said earlier — they've never smelled a monkey before?"

Douglas shrugged. "Could be. Don't know." He jerked the chain. "Come on, Caesar. Let's get going."

Lamb shook his head. Riley overheard him mutter to himself, "I'd say it's cause they're scared shitless." The sheriff forced his dog forward.

Riley walked back to Ward. "We've got more feces and the body of a rabbit that looks like it's been stripped clean of almost all the meat. I didn't know monkeys ate meat."

Ward glanced about nervously. "Monkeys are omnivorous. They eat whatever they can get."

"You all probably want to scoop up that body to make sure that none of your virus is in it," suggested Riley. "Wouldn't do to have some other animal feed on it."

Ward and Freeman put on surgical gloves and delicately placed the remains in a large freezer bag, then put the bag into Freeman's backpack. Once they were done, Riley gave the signal to move out again.

They crossed an old dirt road and started heading downhill. According to the map, Riley could see that they were within a hundred meters of the lake. Through the trees he could make out small patches of sparkling light as the sun briefly broke through the heavy clouds and reflected off the water. He signaled for his team to tighten up the formation.

With a final plunge, the dogs were out of the tree line and standing on the thin grass strip that bordered the lake. Both dogs were poised in the same position: nose up, leaning forward, pointing straight at the lake.

The men assembled on the bank and collectively looked at Doctor Ward. Knutz voiced the thought they all seemed to have: "I thought you said they couldn't swim."

Ward seemed preoccupied, staring across the dark water at the far bank, almost a kilometer and a half away. "They can't. At least I didn't think so. We never tested them on swimming. There's no way they could have made it over there by themselves, though."

"Well, where are they then?" Lewis demanded.

Riley went into his slow and steady thought mode. He wondered what Ward meant by never having "tested" the monkeys on swimming. "All right," Riley announced. "Everyone just back up off the shoreline. Trovinsky, I want you to take a look along the bank and see if you can find where they went in the water. If the dogs are smelling them across the water from here, they must have gone in either here or maybe somewhere upstream."

Riley eyed the shimmering surface of the water. Lake Barkley was actually a dammed-up portion of the Cumberland River. The water didn't appear to be flowing in either direction, but from looking at the map, he could see that the Cumberland ran into the Tennessee River, which meant that the water in the lake was flowing from left to right.

Riley gestured at Seay. "Doc, you and Caruso head down that way along the bank and see if you spot anything."

As Riley waited for Trovinsky and the others to finish their search, he noticed the DIA men having another heated discussion with Doctor Ward. This is getting more and more curious, Riley thought. His reverie was interrupted by Doc Seay's call.

Riley jogged the thirty meters to where Seay and Caruso were standing.

"Check this out, chief."

Riley followed Doc's finger. Someone or something had pulled a log off the bank into the water. The indent where the log had laid was clear, as were the drag marks leading down into the water. Tracks identical to the ones they had followed up to the tree were clearly impressed in the mud.

"Pretty fucking smart monkeys," Caruso muttered.

"You know what they say," Doc Seay offered. "Lock fifty monkeys in a room with fifty typewriters for fifty years and sooner or later one of them will write a play by Shakespeare."

Riley shook his head. First the collars and now this. "Yeah, well it's been only twelve hours and we have only four monkeys. Let's see what the brain trust over there has to suggest now."

Little goodwill was evident between Colonel Lewis and Doctor Ward. The two stood, separated from the others, staring out over the water. Lewis's radio beeped and he removed it from his belt. "Search Six. Over."

"This is Search One. We've recovered the guard's body. We've also got a survivor from the attack at the lab. Kentucky State Police found them both in a van south of our location about three hours ago. A captain from the state police showed up here a half hour ago wanting to know what's going on. I took over both the woman and the body but they're plenty pissed at the secrecy. Over."

Lewis gripped the radio tightly. "Do the locals have any idea what happened? Over."

"Negative. The woman's in shock and out of it. Hasn't said a word. I told them she must have been with the escaped convicts and that they ransacked the lab here and must have taken the guard's body with them. I suggested that the guard getting killed in front of her is what put her into shock. I also told them we had nothing more here that could help them and that the facility was classified so they couldn't enter. I think they're satisfied that the convicts have moved on and left the woman behind. Over."

Lewis relaxed slightly. "All right. Find out from the woman what happened. You know how to do that. I'll get back to you when I figure out what's going on out here. Call me immediately if any more locals show up. Out."

Lewis slipped the radio back into his belt and looked at Ward. "Our cover is barely holding. If the Synbats are in this area, they're relatively isolated. We need to get back to the lab and get reorganized."