"Yes, sir."
"How are you going to proceed today?"
"I'm going to have my people on the ground with the two vans in radio communication with the two helicopters. Five Special Forces people on each bird along with a dog team each. We're going to set the dog teams down, one team north of where we think the Synbats are and one south, along the shore. We'll have them move in; the wind is out of the west so both should pick up the scent. My people will stay on a tarred road called the Trace, which divides the park. Between the four groups we should pin them down pretty quickly."
Lewis nervously fingered the weather report that Gottleib had handed him five minutes ago. The impending storm could spell disaster for any hopes of conducting a search. He wasn't about to inform Trollers of that, though, at least not until he gave it his best shot. He wasn't that confident about the plan he had just briefed either.
"How much have you told the Special Forces people? Do they understand the situation?"
Lewis considered his answer. Freeman had told Lewis about finding the Special Forces warrant officer and Doctor Merrit together, but the tapes from the video and the audio monitors showed that she had been stopped before she revealed anything critical. "I haven't told them any more than the VX antidote cover story. I don't want to change the story now. I think that would cause them to lose confidence in us. They've been instructed to shoot on sight."
"All right. You'd better finish it today. And you'd better recover those backpacks. Call immediately if anything new develops." The radio went dead.
Lewis sighed and leaned back in his chair. He was lost in thought when Gottleib cautiously knocked on the door.
"What is it?"
"Sir, that Special Forces warrant is here to talk to you."
Just what I need now, Lewis thought. "Send him in."
Riley entered the room and faced the colonel at a modified position of parade rest. "Sir, the head pilot, Captain Barret, has informed me that we've got a front heading this way that's going to ground his birds. It's also going to knock out any scent for the dogs while it lasts."
Lewis nodded irritably. No shit, Sherlock. "I know that."
"Sir, I've got an idea of how we can still search over there even without the aircraft and cover a lot more ground than we would on foot."
Lewis leaned forward in his chair. At last someone with answers instead of just problems. "What's your idea, Mister Riley?"
McClanahan was two miles up Wrangler Trail when his horse, Ginger, in concert with Angel, started acting nervous. "Whoa, girl. What's the matter?"
McClanahan peered up the trail. The two horses were smelling something they didn't like, that was for sure. Wisps of early morning fog still drifted across the trail, obscuring the view. It would be at least another hour before the fog cleared, if it did at all with this front heading in. McClanahan didn't like the sight of the clouds in the west. He figured that the Werners would probably have to cut short their vacation. It wouldn't be any fun in the nasty weather that was coming.
McClanahan spurred Ginger and the horse grudgingly obliged. Angel was much more reluctant, pulling against the lead line.
"I ain't never seen two more stupid horses than you idiots," McClanahan muttered. He was uneasy himself. For the first time he noticed that it was too damn quiet. No birds chirping, no insects, no nothing. Maybe it was just the storm coming. Then again, maybe it wasn't.
McClanahan wondered if Angel showing up at the Wrangler Camp wasn't more than just a busted picket line. Maybe something had happened to Hapscomb. But then why hadn't he seen the Werners or their horses heading back to camp?
As they came to a bend in the trail, Angel stopped, and no amount of tugging or coaxing by McClanahan could get her to move forward. "Goddamnit, girl. You ain't got the sense God gave a rock."
McClanahan looked up the trail, trying to see what was scaring Angel. The dirt road curved left around a solid tangle of growth. He dismounted and tied the two horses to a tree on the side of the trail.
McClanahan had just started walking forward when he heard the distant whop of helicopter blades in the air. The sound carried easily across the blanket of quiet that had settled over this part of the forest. The noise of something man-made caused McClanahan to stop and think for a second. If there was something up ahead that had the horses spooked this bad, then maybe he didn't want to run into whatever it was either. On the other hand, McClanahan's rational side told him that there was nothing in the forest in the Land Between the Lakes area that he should have to fear. The last bear had been sighted almost ten years ago. A rabid animal was about the worst thing he could think of. McClanahan revised that thought — the worst thing he could think of would be humans bent on mischief. He recollected the news he'd heard on the radio this morning about the escaped convicts from Eddyville.
"What the hell am I going to do?" McClanahan muttered to himself; it was a phrase he repeated when under pressure. His wife had chided him about the expression more than once. "Go back and sit on my butt in the shack while Hapscomb is out here without a horse? Maybe the damn fool fell and busted his leg or something. Those music people from Nashville sure wouldn't be much help." Then again maybe the party had run into some criminal-type people. Whichever, he needed to get going.
Having verbally rationalized his decision, McClanahan started walking around the bend, scanning the woods on either side of the trail. He cleared the bend and stopped in his tracks, his eyes growing wide at the sight that greeted him.
Something was lying in the trail — something that looked worse than the worst road kill McClanahan had ever seen. The warning buzzer that was his survival instinct started a low ringing in the back of his mind, telling him that this heap of mangled blood, bones, and muscle was Hapscomb.
McClanahan took a few steps closer, to a point about ten feet from the remains. A custom-made snakeskin boot, drenched in blood, at the end of what McClanahan assumed to be a leg, confirmed his fear. It was Hapscomb.
"Lord help me! What the hell could have done that to a man?" The buzzer in the back of McClanahan's mind started ringing louder, telling him that whatever had done this to Hapscomb might still be around.
"Hellfire — it must have been a damn car." No way, McClanahan's rational mind told him. You want to believe that it was a car, but it wasn't. No car could tear a man apart like that.
At that moment, the horses whinnied loudly. The head wrangler needed no further urging. He turned and ran back to the horses as fast as his old, out-of-shape legs could carry him. Both horses were pulling back on their lead ropes, trying to get loose.
It took all McClanahan's strength for him to untie the horses and mount Ginger. The animals needed no urging to head back the way they came. McClanahan was looking back over his shoulder for whatever had spooked the horses when, with a rush of wind and noise, an army helicopter roared by overhead, perhaps ten feet above the treetops. Both horses bolted and it took all of McClanahan's skill to stay with Ginger.
Chapter 9
Riley's Huey flew straight toward Lake Barkley, while its partner banked right and shot an azimuth back toward Fort Campbell. Riley watched the other aircraft fade into the distance as the dark waters of the lake rushed by below. Four members of his team were on board the other aircraft heading back to home base to implement the idea he had presented to Colonel Lewis.
Riley spotted the easily identifiable inlet at Lick Creek. That jig of shoreline was designated as center of sector. Where the inlet ended, the aircraft — Search One — broke south, to drop the team off at the designated point.