"Sergeant Major Powers reporting as ordered, sir."
"Sit down, Dan." Hossey waited until Powers was settled. "You have contact with six-eight-two?"
"Yes, sir."
"What's going on?"
Powers considered his answer carefully. "As far as I know they're doing some classified work for the DIA in the vicinity of Land Between the Lakes, sir."
"When will they be back?"
"I don't know, sir."
"When was your last receive?"
"Zero eight this morning, sir."
"Anything interesting in the message?"
Powers hesitated. "No, sir."
"Then why did they draw their humvees and fifties this morning? With live ammunition?"
Powers knew he couldn't keep something like that a secret. "I don't know, sir. I saw Master Sergeant Knutz when he came back in and he wouldn't tell me. He said it was classified."
"Do you have any idea what they are involved in?"
"No, sir."
Hossey looked long and hard at the sergeant major. "Dan, I know we're dealing with classified material that we don't have a need to know. But I also know that you and Dave Riley are very tight, and I have a strong suspicion that he has at least given you an idea of what's going on out there. My primary concern is the safety of my men. I want to know if they are in a dangerous situation."
Powers sighed. He reached into his right cargo pocket and pulled out the hard copies of all the sends and receives for 682. He handed them across the desk to the group commander.
It took Hossey only a couple of minutes to go through them all. "I don't like this, Dan. Four deaths, yet there was nothing on the news other than that prison break stuff. Nor have I been informed of anything by the DIA. What did Riley's friend find out?"
Powers was surprised that Hossey hadn't gotten upset over that part. "Just some information on the doctors working at the lab." He handed over the draft of the message he was going to send to Riley later in the day.
Hossey looked at it. "This is some bad stuff. Genetic engineering. God knows what they're messing with out there." He grabbed a notepad and wrote on it. "I want you to add this to your next message."
Powers took the slip of paper along with all the messages. "Yes, sir."
"Now, get out of here and let me get some work done."
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.