As Truscott topped a small rise, he spotted tire tracks rolling off the hard tar into mud on the right side of the road. He slowed and pulled to a halt, peering off to the left where the back side of a van was visible through the trees. He called in his location and the situation, grabbed his shotgun, and exited the patrol car.
The back doors of the van were shut and the windows blacked out, so he edged around the driver's side, muzzle of the shotgun leading. He stepped up, pointing the gun directly at the glass, and stared in. A woman was in the driver's seat, staring directly ahead, her hands gripping the wheel. Truscott would later tell his buddies over a few beers that it appeared she was still driving the van in her mind, because her hands were twitching on the steering wheel, trying to maneuver as if she saw a turn in the road.
Truscott tapped on the glass with the shotgun; the woman ignored him. He'd seen many victims in shock after accidents but never anything quite like this. Putting down the shotgun, he grabbed the panel door and slid it open. He lunged for his shotgun as the body of an overweight man rolled out the door onto the wet grass.
Williams Hollow ran northeast from Lake Barkley. After twenty minutes, the team had reached the end of the draw, where the tracks had turned north. They'd been following them in this direction for fifteen minutes.
Riley was impressed with the tracking job Trovinsky was doing. The wet ground obviously helped, but in places the trail traversed old leaves or rocky areas and Trovinsky was still able to stay on track.
They were walking along the edge of a ridge when Trovinsky halted. He turned and signaled for Riley to come up.
"What do you have?"
Trovinsky indicated some matted grass at the base of a tree. "They must have slept here for a while."
Trovinsky edged around the tree with Riley following. He pointed at some droppings. "Now we'll get an idea of how long ago they were here."
Trovinsky poked at the feces with his knife and the lumps broke apart. "I'd say they were here not more than two hours ago. This hasn't had a chance to harden much yet. I've followed deer when I bow hunt and use the same method to tell how far behind I am." Trovinsky cleaned his knife on some leaves and resheathed it. "I would assume that monkey shit works pretty much the same as deer shit."
Riley signaled for the team to come in. "Looks like they rested here. They're less than two hours ahead. Let's tighten it up a bit. I want to move in an inverted V with Trovinsky at the point. I'll be his swing man."
Riley pointed at Freeman. "You follow right behind me, about ten feet back."
Riley was a little nervous about his men having live ammunition. He trusted them, but he also knew from hard experience that it's just as easy to get killed by friendly fire as enemy. Bullets didn't care if you were a good guy or a bad guy. Riley was encouraged that eight of the men had seen duty during Operation Desert Storm and knew how to play the game for real.
Riley addressed the team before starting off again. "Make sure if you shoot that you have a clear field of fire. I don't want anyone firing on three-round burst. Semi only. I know I probably don't have to say this, but do not fire across the formation." He peered around the group. "Any questions? All right. Let's move out."
At that moment a distant chattering in the air grabbed his attention. Shit, Riley thought. Terrible timing. He gestured. "Philips and Carter. Head on back to the stream and follow it to the lake. There should be an open area there. Bring the bird down and then guide the doctor and T-bone up here. On the double."
The two men backtracked at a trot. Riley was now down to seven men, eight counting Freeman. He turned to the DIA agent. "You armed, sir?"
Freeman pulled a snub-nose Colt from under his jacket. Riley was tempted to tell the major to be careful not to shoot himself. He contemplated taking his 9mm automatic from its shoulder holster under his fatigue shirt and giving it to the agent but decided against it. Instead he simply signaled for the team to move out.
With Trovinsky in the lead, the team broke through the dense undergrowth. The great monkey hunt, Riley thought sarcastically. Riley had worked with some DIA people in Thailand in the early eighties on some so-called intelligence-gathering missions; he didn't have much respect for the military men in civilian clothes trying to play superspy.
The DIA was the Pentagon's pooper-scooper. Too many of the men and women in the DIA came from regular military intelligence circles and, in Riley's opinion, lacked the flexibility in thinking necessary to conduct intelligence operations. They might be good working a desk, but some were disasters out in the real world. Traditional army mentality didn't jive with the curvilinear, inductive thinking often required to do good intelligence work. Certainly the DIA must have many good people, but Riley had had the misfortune to work with some of the bad ones.
The DIA also tended to overemphasize security at the expense of operational necessity. This Freeman fellow wasn't giving them the whole story, and Riley didn't like that. Experience had taught him that uninformed people made mistakes.
Riley diverted his attention from Trovinsky to briefly scan the rest of the team's positioning. Doc Seay was a comforting presence on his right. Riley could make out Barret, the junior engineer, breaking brush to the right of Seay. On Riley's left, Knutz was moving solidly through the woods, bulling his way through the undergrowth rather than slipping through as Riley was. Beyond Knutz, out of sight, Sgt. Martie Trustin and SSgt. Lou Caruso finished out the left wing of the wedge.
Riley turned his attention back to Trovinsky in time to see the man stop abruptly and signal a halt. Riley raised his fist and passed the signal to the rest of the team. He patiently waited as Trovinsky quartered the ground in front, gradually increasing the radius of the search pattern. After ten minutes, Trovinsky turned to Riley.
"The trail ends here."
Riley looked around. "Then where are they?"
Trovinsky pointed up. "They took to the trees."
The party from the helicopter had tramped up from the beginning of Williams Hollow to the point where the monkeys had gone vertical. Ward seemed very subdued and Riley took an instant dislike to the DIA colonel. Lewis's first comment after Freeman's quick recount of events was to demand to know why they had stopped looking. Riley decided to step in at that point.
"Look where, sir? There's no trail to follow up in the trees, and none of my men are Tarzan qualified. We need to bring in a bunch more bodies if we're going to sweep this area. Those monkeys could have gone in any direction once they went up."
Lewis leveled his hard gaze at Riley. "You have any other brilliant observations to make, mister?"
Riley held his temper. From behind him, Freeman interceded. "What about thermal imagery from the helicopters?"
Lewis nodded. "That's a good idea. I'm sure some of the infantry units at Campbell have thermal sights that we'll be able to use."
Lewis obviously is going to do whatever he wants, Riley thought. He'd be damned if he'd get into an argument with the man. Warrant officers didn't win many pissing contests with full colonels.
Lewis made his command decision. "I'm going to have one of those helicopters go back and get some thermals. It's worth a shot."
Trovinsky offered another alternative. "If we could get some search-and-rescue dogs, we might be able to find them."
Lewis frowned. "If the monkeys are up in the trees, how can the dogs follow their trail?"