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 readiness 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.
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.
Riley did the introductions. "This is Master Sergeant Knutz. He's the operations NCO for the team."
Freeman shook the team sergeant's hand and then gestured for both men to follow him. "Let's go inside and I'll fill you in on what's going on. Your men can wait out here."
Riley and Knutz followed Freeman into the lobby. Riley had already noticed the sign on the front of the building that read Biotech Engineering. That, plus the man from the Defense Intelligence Agency, made for an interesting combination. Riley could see two other people waiting inside: A tall, distinguished-looking man in a white lab coat and a frumpy dark-haired woman seated at a large desk.
Riley had spotted the remote cameras on the roof of the building as they landed, so he assumed that the television screens here were the terminus for the cameras. That pointed to a pretty extensive security setup for a place in the middle of the woods. The only thing Riley could figure from this sketchy visual data was that some sort of security leak had occurred.
Freeman introduced the two groups to each other. "This is Doctor Ward, who is in charge of this lab, and his assistant, Doctor Merrit. This is Mister Riley and Sergeant Knutz. They're from the 5th Special Forces Group over at Fort Campbell and are here to help us with our little problem."
After all parties shook hands, the two Special Forces men pulled over some plastic chairs. Riley unbuckled his load bearing equipment (LBE) and laid his M16A2 across his knees. His first impression of the two doctors was that they were very upset by something, especially the woman, but trying hard not to show it. He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and prepared to take notes.
Freeman shook his head. "No notes. Everything that you do, hear, and see here is classified top secret. It shouldn't take us long to take care of things. You all should be back at Fort Campbell by dinner."
Riley shrugged and put the notebook away. He'd go along with them. He'd played the secret game longer, and in more real situations, than this DIA major had.
Freeman turned to Ward. "Doctor, perhaps you could give these men a quick rundown on what this lab does, without getting into anything too classified. Enough so they understand the background."
Ward turned and faced the two men. "Biotech Engineering conducts research into mutating various viruses in an attempt to find cures for the effects of the original viruses. We work mostly for the National Institutes of Health, doing some of their more sensitive projects. Right now, we're working on various forms of the known biological weapon viruses, hoping to find a mutated form that might act against the pure form as an antidote. We conduct live experiments on monkeys to stimulate the growth of the mutated viruses in a host organism and examine the results against the original virus."
Freeman cut in. "That's the reason you gentlemen are here. Four of the lab's monkeys escaped last night. These four were infected with a mutated form of the biological agent VX."
Riley frowned. VX was a biological agent that was in the Soviet inventory. What the man was saying was serious, but why was he using the past tense? The female doctor, Merrit, was curiously quiet and looked uncomfortable. Before Riley had a chance to ask a question, Knutz jumped in, anxious, Riley supposed, to show that he was still working for a living.
"How did they escape?"
Riley noticed a glance between Ward and his assistant as Freeman answered. "How they escaped isn't important. What is important is that we find their bodies as quickly as possible."
Knutz cut in again. "What do you mean 'bodies'?"
Freeman gestured at the portable computer. "The animals were wearing collars that contained both a homing beacon and an explosive charge. When we determined that they really had escaped, we electronically triggered the charges in the collars. The charge was more than sufficient to kill the animal. Prior to firing we got a direction fix on them."
These people were certainly serious about not letting those animals run free, thought Riley. Freeman slid a map over to the edge of the table. Riley and Knutz got up to look at it.
Freeman pointed at the penciled-in line. "The bodies must be somewhere along this line, which is the last azimuth we had prior to detonation. The range is less than five kilometers. What we need you and your men to do is move along this line and find the bodies for us."
Riley frowned. "Why'd you kill the monkeys? Why not just capture them?"
Freeman fielded that question. "We couldn't take the chance of their running into people. Even though the possibility was low, we didn't want to expose anyone to this new, mutated virus. We felt we had to kill them in order to stop them."