by Bob Mayer
Riley himself felt insecure trying to send and copy Morse. He seemed to have difficulty hearing and translating the dashes and dots. If push came to shove, he would have to write out the dashes and dots and then translate them on paper. It was a weakness in his Special Forces abilities, and he knew that it could be a critical one. His life had been saved three years ago on another mission by one of his old team members from DET-K (Special Forces Detachment Korea) who was able to send out a manual message requesting exfiltration from a dangerous situation in a country where they weren’t supposed to be.
For now, though, Riley was content to write out the encrypted messages and give them to his commo man to send. He had too many other things on his mind. He had just about finished the message when Captain Barret strode up.
“I’ve got bad news, chief. Just got the weather forecast over the FM from Campbell Army Airfield.” The pilot pointed to the towering black clouds that had been creeping ever closer during the past hour of gray daylight. “We got a whopper of a storm front headed this way. Should be here in about two hours. Once it hits we’re going to be grounded for the duration.”
Riley gestured toward the building behind him. “Have you passed the good news on to the colonel, sir?”
Barret shook his head. “Not yet. After last night I’m not too thrilled about talking to Colonel Lewis.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Riley considered the information. Before he went to advise the colonel, he figured that it was best to have an alternate plan to continue the search. With a maximum of two hours of blade time left, they had to make the most of it. Riley didn’t think the helicopters were all that much help anyway. They were going to have to catch the creatures from the ground. They’d already been outmaneuvered on foot once. It was time to use a little technology.
Meanwhile, inside the building on the basement level, Colonel Lewis had the misfortune of having to tell General Trailers that the search last night had turned up nothing.
“Goddamnit!” the general roared over the SATCOM net. “The Old Man isn’t going to like this. He wasn’t ever briefed on the Synbat project, and I have a feeling he’s going to be very upset about that, never mind the fact that we lost your little toys. I’ve got a 0930 meeting tomorrow with the national security advisor. I’m going to have to brief him on this.”
“We’ll get them today, sir. I’m sure of it. We’re sending the dogs across the river.”
“It’s getting close to being too late. Is this situation still secure on your end?”
“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 Trailers 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?”
LAND BETWEEN THE LAKES
7:14 A.M.
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 tree-tops. Both horses bolted and it took all of McClanahan’s skill to stay with Ginger.
Chapter Nine
LAND BETWEEN THE LAKES
7:23 A.M.
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.
Riley was sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the aircraft, toes a few inches above the skids. Behind him was the sheriff’s deputy, Lamb, holding tight onto his dog’s leash. Riley scanned the terrain flashing by beneath them.
As they flew over a small trail, something caught Riley’s eye. “Turn back,” Riley spoke into the headset he wore. “There was someone on that trail back there with two horses.”
“Roger,” Captain Barret acknowledged and pulled the Huey around in a steep right-hand bank, reducing airspeed at the same time. In a few seconds the helicopter was in a hover at fifty feet above the ground.
Riley leaned out the left side and peered down at the ground. He saw a man trying to control two runaway horses, and waving one arm as though he was signaling them to land. Riley looked around the immediate area.
“Sir, you think you could set us down in the small clearing about fifty meters off our left side? This guy looks like he wants to talk to us. Maybe he saw something. Radio Search Base and tell them we’ll be a few seconds late getting started.”
“Roger, no problem.”
Riley turned to the sheriff next to him and yelled in the man’s ear: “Doc and I will take a look and be right back.” Riley signaled to Caruso, Trustin, and Trovinsky to stay on board the helicopter.
The Huey sidled over and Barret lowered his collective, allowing the aircraft to settle straight down into the clearing. As soon as the skids touched, Riley jumped off, followed by Seay. He pushed through the undergrowth toward the trail, the whine of the helicopter behind them dropping down a notch as the pilot reduced throttle to idle.
Riley inspected the man on the horse as he got closer. The old fellow looked terrible; his face was pale and he was looking over his shoulder as if something were behind him.
“Thank God you’re here.” The man jumped off his jittery horse and tied it to a tree along with the other horse.
Riley looked around the immediate area. Nothing unusual that he could spot. “What’s the matter?”
“One of my men’s bodies is up there on the trail. Something tore the shit out of him. I don’t know what the hell could have done it. He was guiding for a family from Nashville and I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what the fuck happened. What could do that to a man?”
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Doc Seay asked.
The old man was close to going into shock, but he hadn’t totally lost it. “I’ve seen dead people before in the war and Hapscomb is dead. He’s torn to pieces. Only way I recognized him was by the boots he was wearing. Snake skin. He loved those goddamn boots. Thought he looked good in them. Damn, I never — “
“How far away is the body?” Riley cut in.
“About three hundred feet down the trail. Round that bend there. I was taking his horse back out — came back on its own last night, you see — and I knew my man needed it and then the horses got spooked and wouldn’t go around — so I got off and walked around and then I saw him — and then I figured maybe I better get the hell out of there ‘cause the horses, they wouldn’t go that way anyway — so — “
Riley stopped the old man’s ramblings by grabbing his arm. “You stay here. We’ll go take a look. My friend here is a medic, so if your man isn’t dead we can take care of him.” He turned to Seay. “Let’s go.”
The old man wasn’t impressed. “Medic ain’t gonna do no good. He’s tore up bad. There’s blood all over the place, I tell you. There ain’t no way he’s alive.”
Riley left the old man behind. He flipped the selector lever on his M16A2 to semiautomatic. Seay slipped into place on the right side of the dirt road. They automatically adjusted the muzzles of their weapons to cover across each other’s front.
Riley rounded the bend and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the mangled body. He did a slow scan of the surrounding area — including the trees — before moving any closer. Satisfied that there was no threat in the immediate vicinity that he could see, he nodded for Doc Seay to follow him forward, up to the body.
“Well, he’s dead for sure,” Seay commented.
“Is that your expert medical opinion?” Riley returned, his words belying the surprise and shock he was feeling.
The sight was sickening, but Riley had seen similar ones. Most people were used to the clean killing shown on TV cop shows. In reality, the human body has a plethora of blood and guts packed into it, which tend to get thrown all over the place when hit with devastating physical trauma. The odor of emptied bowels competed with the sweet, sickly smell of blood and internal organs exposed to the air.
The man, if it was a man, had had his throat almost completely torn through. The chest and stomach cavity had been slashed to ribbons. The face was unidentifiable due to the cuts. If Riley didn’t know any better, he’d swear that something had been dining on the man, since there were large chunks of muscle missing.
Doc Seay squatted down next to the body and poked at it with his knife, lifting up the few scraps of clothes. “It’s a man. Looks like something wanted to make sure he was dead.”
“What could have done that? Bear?”
Seay looked at some of the wounds. “I don’t know. Possibly. Probably more than one of whatever it was.”
Riley checked the ground for tracks. His eyes narrowed as he spotted one clear print in the dirt. “Son of a bitch.” He pointed. “Check that out, Doc. Remind you of anything?”
“These are the same tracks we followed on the other side of the lake. Whatever we were tracking killed this guy. No monkey I ever heard of could do this.”
Several thoughts struck Riley in
a series of worsening implications. The old man had said something about this man guiding a family. Riley’s thoughts flitted to the encounter last night. This had to be the same man they’d run into at the campsite. Which meant that this guide had been killed sometime after 9 P.M. Which also meant that this fellow had been going somewhere in the dark running away from the campsite. Riley pulled his map out of his cargo pants pocket. The place they had landed the previous evening was less than half a klick away to the southeast.
Riley remembered the little girl he’d seen standing by the tent when he ran back toward the helicopter the previous evening. His face was drawn tight as he addressed Seay. “Doc, we need to get up to that campground ASAP.”
Riley started running back down the trail, Doc Seay in hot pursuit. McClanahan was still standing around the bend with his two horses.
“Follow us,” Riley yelled at the man as he sprinted by. Riley pushed through the trees into the small clearing where the Huey squatted, blades slowly turning. Riley halted short of the arc of the blades and signaled for Caruso and Trustin to get off the aircraft.
The two men responded to Riley’s summons and ran over. Riley yelled into Caruso’s ear. “Got the body of a man up the trail through those trees. I want you and Trustin to stay here with the old man. There’s a campground we’re going up to in the bird. You two hold in place here until someone comes back for you.”
Caruso nodded. Riley increased the pressure of his grip on Caruso’s arm. “Listen, Lou. I don’t know what killed that man, but whatever it is tore the shit out of him. I think it’s the same things we’ve been following the last two days. Whatever they are, they aren’t monkeys. Don’t hesitate if you see anything strange. Fire first.”
