by Bob Mayer
3D BATTALION, 5TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP (AIRBORNE)
7:35 A.M.
“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, CW02 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.”
BIOTECH ENGINEERING
7:46 A.M.
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.”
FORT CAMPBELL
7:51 A.M.
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 r
eadiness 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.
BIOTECH ENGINEERING
8:11 A.M.
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.
