Trollers laid out the facts, almost as if he were trying to convince himself. "We've checked the park. We're almost positive there are no live Synbats inside the boundaries. Our perimeter was secure and there's no way that any of the Synbats could have made it down to Route 79, or to one of the bridges, before we sealed them off. We'd have spotted them in the water from the air if they'd gone that way." He looked around the tent. "So where are they? Could they be dead and that's why we're not picking them up on the thermals? Or could they be hiding in a pond or a cave or somewhere that the thermals can't penetrate?"
Williams was looking at the map. "As far as we know there are no caves in the park. If they were in the water, they'd have to be breathing and we'd pick up some slight heat difference at the surface."
A fuel truck loaded with JP-4 lumbered by on the road heading for the FARP, where the helicopters were being refueled. Riley watched the truck roll out of sight. Then the idea came to him, as if it had been sitting there all along in his frontal lobe. He turned to the others. "They're not in the park anymore."
Trollers turned to him angrily. "How? How could they have gotten out, mister?"
Riley looked the general in the eye. "They rode out."
"They what?"
"The Civil War reenactors," Riley explained. "They had horse trailers. Did your people search them as they were leaving?"
General Williams blinked and then slowly shook his head. "No. We were in too much of a rush to get them out of the park. We never thought of that."
Riley wanted to kick himself for not realizing it earlier. He'd even been standing there while some of the reenactors had loaded, and he'd watched the cars and trucks drive away. If they had been looking for humans, they would have searched the trailers, but everyone had been thinking of the Synbats as nonreasoning animals. Riley vowed that this was the last time he would make that mistake.
"We need to contact the civilian authorities and try to track down those trucks."
Trollers wasn't buying into it. "You're saying they stowed away on one of those vehicles?"
Riley laid it on the line. "We have got to accept that these Synbats are intelligent and will do almost anything to survive. Whether you believe Doctor Merrit or not, they have capabilities we don't even know about. They're out of the park."
"How can you be sure of that?" Trollers demanded.
Riley stood his ground. "I'm not, but it's the only thing that makes sense. We have to listen to the evidence we do have. As far as we can tell, they aren't in the park. That means they got out somehow, and the most logical explanation is that they rode out. That would explain the attack on the reenactors. They forced our hand, making us move the Civil War people out quickly."
It was too much for Trollers. "You're saying that these things figured out that the park was surrounded and the only way they could get out was to sneak out in a vehicle? How could they have known that?"
"The same way they knew to attack Search Base," Riley replied. "The same way they split up and tried to lead us off in the wrong direction. We're dealing with something we don't understand, General."
Being talked to like that by a warrant officer wasn't high on General Trollers's list of favorite things. "Don't tell me what I have to do, mister. I've done — "
"Sir, I have a suggestion." Hossey tried calming everyone down. "We can still keep the perimeter around the park and continue the search here. If the three adult Synbats have managed to hide somewhere in the park, I think they'll have a much harder time staying hidden once the young ones are born. We'll find them then. But if they are out, we need to get on line with the civilian authorities and check it out."
"Do you know how hard it's going to be to find all those vehicles and then find out if the Synbats were in them?" General Williams looked at the glowing red numbers on the clock above the radios. "We have about six hours before the backpacks initiate. If the Synbats were on one of those trailers, they could have hopped off anywhere along the way. We'd need a miracle to find them now."
Trollers rubbed his forehead. "All right. I'll get my people in Virginia working on the vehicle angle. Everything else here stays in place and we keep looking."
Chapter 19
Ken Bradley was enthused about the new job waiting for him in Atlanta. He'd been out of work now for two months and things were finally looking up. He was less than enthused about this last task he had to accomplish before he and his family hit the road. In his old Ford LTD he cruised the roads to the west of Soldiers' Field, crisscrossing the numerous railroad tracks that ran through there, looking for the right location.
Ken had tried, ever since getting the job, to find someone who would take his daughter's dog, Holly, but there wasn't much demand for an eighty-pound mixed-breed mutt with a half-chewed ear. They'd picked her up as a pup at the pound and Ken had wanted to take her there to be put to sleep. When news of that plan had been overheard by Kristen, she'd thrown the tantrum to end all tantrums. He'd promised not to do it.
Ken randomly took a back alley between several warehouses, until he was out of sight of the traffic on South Indiana Avenue. Then he stopped, got out of the car, and opened the back door. He unbuckled the dog's collar and threw the strap onto the front passenger seat.
"Come on, girl."
Holly eyed him warily and didn't move.
"Come on, you dumb mutt." Ken reached in, grabbed her front paws, and pulled, but eighty pounds of reluctant black Labrador and German Shepherd can be very difficult to remove from a backseat. Finally he resorted to climbing in behind her, putting his back to the other door, and pushing her butt with his feet. Acknowledging defeat, Holly leapt out the door and stood in the garbage-strewn alley looking up at him.
Ken slammed the door and got into the driver's seat. Holly stood expectantly just outside, nose pressed up against the glass. He turned the car around and headed for South Indiana. In the rearview mirror he could see Holly following.
"Damn," he muttered, pressing harder on the accelerator. Holly disappeared as he sped around the corner.
Just before reaching his house he rolled down his window and threw her collar onto the street. Now at least he could honestly tell his daughter that he hadn't put her dog to sleep. He'd make up some story about a family with their own little girl who wanted the dog.
In the alley, Holly finally stopped and looked around. The shadows beckoned darkly on all sides. She raised her head and cautiously smelled the air. With a low whimper, she slunk off into a small opening in the wall of an abandoned warehouse.
Chicago police officer Billy Shields was driving down I-90 watching the rush-hour traffic start to pile up when he spotted the horse rig stopped on the side of the road. Shields pulled past the rig, noting that the back doors of the trailer were open slightly. He parked in front of the truck, called in the stop to dispatch, and got out.
The driver's door was open. Shields stepped up and poked his head in. There was no sign of anyone in the cab. He wondered if it had broken down and the driver had walked to the next exit to get assistance. Shields walked around back, boots crunching in the gravel. He grabbed the back door and swung it open.
The officer had seen more than his share of wrecks, some where the victims had to be scraped off the road, but he'd never seen anything like this. Two men lay in the straw on the floor of the rig, bodies literally torn apart. One man was completely disemboweled, his guts strewn about like strands of spaghetti. The other's neck was almost completely severed, the head lying cocked at an impossible angle.