"Bob, take your vehicle and try to find Knutz. Check the roads leading up here from the southwest. Be careful. These things are armed now. Give me radio checks with your location every five minutes."
"Roger that, chief." Philips hopped on board his humvee and it roared out of sight. Riley walked away from the bodies and Colonel Lewis. He poked his head in the door of the van. The rounds from his machine gun had torn apart the interior. The two DIA men's bodies had not been spared either, the bullets compounding the wounds the Synbat had caused, producing barely recognizable corpses. The story was told by the empty MP-5 submachine gun lying in the mud outside the door and the 9mm brass on the floor of the van and in the dirt outside.
Riley splashed over to where Ward's body lay. The doctor's sightless eyes stared up into the light, misty rain, his throat torn out. Riley felt no compassion.
Riley walked over to Doc Seay's humvee. Doc had the crew chief in the back, stabilized. The man was semiconscious, obviously on some sort of strong painkiller.
"How's he doing?" Riley asked Doc Seay.
"A couple of minor breaks. Nothing too bad. I've splinted the leg, which is the worst. We need to take him back to post to get X-rays and let them set the broken bones."
Riley checked his watch, then went over to Lewis, who was supervising his men as they put the Synbat's remains into a body bag. Riley found it disgusting that they gave top priority to the creature's remains while the human bodies still lay in the mud.
Before the DIA men had zipped the bag, Riley pushed them aside and lay the flaps open, looking at the creature. He was shocked by what he saw. It looked more human than monkey, as if a man had been given some simian characteristics rather than the other way around. Large fangs protruded from the thrusting jaw, but otherwise the shape of the head was manlike, with a high forehead suggesting intelligence. The eyes had golden irises and, even in death, spoke of something more than animal cunning. The body was covered with thin brown hair. The hands were totally human, with just a smattering of coarse hair on the backs.
Riley's gaze scanned down the body. There was a powerful-looking tail, and the muscled legs were bowed. The toes were longer than human toes and looked capable of gripping.
A crude bag made of torn cloth was tied over the creature's left shoulder. Riley untied the knot and looked in. It contained several scalpels and medical saws. At least now he knew how the collars had been removed and what had made the clean cuts on some of the bodies. No sign of a backpack.
The way the Synbat had used the rifle indicated both intelligence and training. Riley felt a chill as he considered the implications of what he had just experienced. No wonder Merrit said "so-called" monkeys. What were these creatures?
Riley looked up at Lewis, struggling to contain his rage and deal with the matters at hand. "Sir, we need to send the crew chief from the helicopter back to the hospital at Fort Campbell."
Lewis licked his lips. "Is it critical?"
"No, sir. Simple fracture of the leg, but there's nothing more we can do for him out here."
"We can't move anybody until I get word from Washington on how to handle this thing."
Riley wasn't thrilled, but he held his tongue. Lewis was an errand boy. Right now was the time for damage control. Riley's first priority was to find Knutz and T-bone, and he had sent Bob Philips to work on that. He went back to his own humvee to start on the second priority.
Carter had the vehicle's antenna hooked into the PRC-70 radio to receive the morning's message from Powers. Carter had just finished transcribing the six-letter groups off the DMDG.
Riley sat in the driver's seat, glad to finally be out of the rain. "Got the receive?"
Carter handed Riley a piece of paper.
Riley pointed at the FM radio. "Hear from Ranger Two or Four yet?"
Carter indicated negatively. "Nothing from Two. I've been trying to call them every two minutes. Maybe their radio is down. Got a sitrep from Philips. Nothing yet."
Riley felt the knot in his stomach grow.
Carter looked at Riley. "What do you think happened to Knutz, chief?"
Riley pointed in the direction of the dead DIA men. "Well, that M16 the thing had came from somewhere. I've got a bad feeling it might be Knutz's or T-bone's." In fact, Riley held little doubt that it was, and that Knutz and T-bone were dead. This whole operation had gone to shit in a matter of ten minutes, all because they hadn't been told the truth. Obviously the Synbats had been designed and trained to be more than beasts of burden. Riley's fear for his men equaled his disgust for Colonel Lewis and Doctor Ward, and all they represented.
Riley took out the field SOP and quickly decrypted. Obviously Powers had contacted Kate and gotten the requested information.
ZERO TWO XXX
FOB THREE XXX
BIOTECH ENGINEERING WORKING PENTAGON CONTRACT XXX
PROJECT UNKNOWN BUT IN FIELD OF GENETIC ENGINEERING XXX
HIGHLY CLASSIFIED XXX
WARD SPECIALIST IN GROWTH HORMONES AND GENETIC
ENGINEERING XXX
MERRIT SPECIALIST IN RECOMBINANT DNA XXX
HOSSEY SAYS TO CALL FOR HELP IF NEEDED XXX
HE KNOWS AS MUCH AS I DO XXX
NOTHING MORE XXX
WILL TRY TO FIND OUT MORE XXX
BE CAREFUL XXX
COMPADRE
Too little, too late. Riley hoped that Kate and whoever had passed this information to her had not jeopardized themselves because of it. The fact that Colonel Hossey knew what was in the messages was dangerous for Kate, but Riley wasn't overly worried. Colonel Hossey had been the commander of Special Forces Detachment Korea (DET-K) when Riley had run the Dragon Sim mission into China three years ago. Hossey had stood by Riley's team when everyone else had abandoned them. Riley was willing to trust him now.
Riley slumped back in the cargo hatch behind his fifty and thought about what to do next. This whole thing sickened him. He had no doubt that those creatures had been designed by the Pentagon to attack and kill. The way they had returned to this campsite indicated a high degree of tactical sense. They had counterattacked their pursuers at the most vulnerable point and almost succeeded in wiping out everyone who had been left here, at the loss of only one of their own. The use of the M16, the tools, the bag to carry equipment — all were highly disturbing.
Riley felt drained and disappointed. He was well on his way to losing faith in the U.S. government and the military. This was the third time that he had run a classified mission where people had died. And what had been accomplished? The mission into China in 1989 had achieved nothing, as far as Riley could tell from watching the news over the subsequent years. The raids into Colombia had briefly hurt the cartel, but the drug trade seemed to be thriving, and there had been no follow-through on that effort. And now it was damage control for a military experiment that he didn't think should have been going on in the first place; it was probably illegal and most certainly morally wrong.
All these deaths for what? Riley could understand soldiers dying and the necessity to cover it up for security reasons — albeit poor ones — but the death of civilians was another matter entirely. He knew what would happen, though. There would be a lot of ass-covering and finger-pointing in classified circles about this incident and then it would be business as usual.
He could see the DIA men wrapping up Ward's body. The doctor's death would be very convenient for the others involved. They could all point fingers at a dead man.