Synbat (27 page)

Chicago

_10:56 P.M._
Riley peeled off his mud and sweat-soaked combat vest and threw it down on the floor of the van. Lewis was sitting in front of a communications console, watching him without expression.
"Get some sleep," Riley ordered Doc Seay, who simply nodded and slipped out the back of the van. They'd spent the last thirty minutes briefing Lewis on the results  --  or more appropriately, lack of results  --  of their search today. The back door of the van rattled closed behind Seay, and Riley was left alone with the colonel and his night shift of DIA agents.
"Do you think Seay's man fired at a young Synbat?" Lewis asked.
Riley tugged his 9mm pistol out of the vest holster and started breaking it down, cleaning the parts. "I don't know, sir. It doesn't matter, does it? Bartlett didn't hit anything."
Lewis looked at a map. "As best as I can tell, you and your men covered about eight miles of tunnels."
"That leaves only fifty-two miles to go," Riley said. "And that doesn't count the fact that they could be hiding outside of the tunnel system and simply using it for traveling."
Lewis slapped the map down on the desk. "We've _got_ to get them tomorrow. We can't keep our cover come Monday."
"I know that, sir," Riley replied. "We need more people."
Lewis rubbed his eyes. "I know we need more people. I told General Trollers that not twenty minutes ago. But he insists that we keep this under wraps as much as possible."
Riley smoothly slipped the barrel back into the pistol. "If we don't get more bodies working on this, we'll keep it under wraps until it blows up in our faces. And then we'll have a panic. We have only about four or five days before the young are able to forage on their own. That's if Merrit is right, and at this point I'm not too sure about that anymore."
Lewis didn't respond.
Riley finished putting the gun together and slipped it into his shoulder holster under his shirt. "I need to get some sleep, sir. We'll go back in at first light. If you had more men you could have someone down there now searching," he added unnecessarily.
Riley pulled up the back door of the van and hopped out, closing it behind him. As he walked toward the rent-a-car, a figure appeared out of the dark shadows to his left. He twisted, hand snaking toward his holster before he recognized who it was.
"Not good news, I suppose," Giannini commented as she slipped a piece of gum into her mouth.
Riley relaxed slightly. "No."
"Let's get a cup of coffee," Giannini said as she led the way to her unmarked car.
Riley followed and slumped into the passenger seat. There were no words spoken as Giannini drove through the dark streets of downtown Chicago. She pulled up in front of an all-night cafe. "Wait here."
She went inside and reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of coffee. She handed one to Riley and pulled the lid off hers. "So what now?"
Riley blew on his coffee. "I don't know. We go back down in the morning after getting some sleep."
"Is there any way to maybe gas the tunnels to get these things?" Giannini asked.
"I've thought about that, but it's too dangerous. If we use some sort of chemical agent, it's going to get out of the system and into the buildings through the basements and onto the street through the interconnecting tunnels. The only answer I see is to get a whole lot of people down there and go through the entire system. Even then, there's a chance they could keep moving and stay out of sight."
"We've got thousands of police officers we could use," Giannini said.
"Trollers would rather see half the city dead before doing that," Riley responded. "I keep trying to tell you that security is the number-one priority for these people. I wouldn't even be surprised if my men and I were pulled out of here after tomorrow and Trollers let this be _your_ problem."
"But how would they explain away the Synbats?"
"They wouldn't have to. There'd be no connection between them and Trollers."
"They have your men's M16s."
"Lost on a training exercise," Riley answered.
"But how would the existence of the Synbats be explained?"
"It wouldn't be," Riley said. "Trollers doesn't care about all that. All he cares about is that he gets his slice of the budget pie and that his career stays unblemished."
"Christ, I can't believe this shit," Giannini grumbled.
"Yes, you can," Riley replied. "Don't tell me you don't have people in your department who aren't more concerned with covering their asses than the safety of those below them."
"Yeah, we got people like that. But not at this scale. We're talking a bunch of dead people already, and the body count's going to get higher."
"You'd be amazed at some of the things your government is capable of," Riley said with undisguised bitterness.
"I don't care," Giannini said. "What I care about is stopping these Synbats. If you don't get them tomorrow, I'm going to my chief."
Riley shrugged. "You can do that, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he isn't on Trollers's and Lewis's side."
"Then I'll go public," Giannini countered.
Riley sighed. "All right, let me tell you what's going on. I'm in contact with _my_ commander down at Fort Campbell. Lewis doesn't know that I am. And my commander has already alerted some troops in Wisconsin to be flown here to help in the search. So if we come up with nothing tomorrow, _I'll_ be the one to go public. I think when a dozen or so helicopter lifts of heavily armed Rangers land in Chicago and go into the tunnels, the story will be out pretty quickly."

*Chapter 22*
_Sunday, 12 April_
_Chicago_
_7:04 A.M._
Appropriating a handful of Lewis's men, Riley had split the force into four three-man teams. The IR chem lights they'd used the previous day were already extinguished, so today each team had spray cans of IR-reflecting paint that they would use to put arrows on the tunnel walls to indicate their direction and what had been searched. The basic plan was to fan out at the first intersections, each team trying to keep a northerly direction. Using pace count, they would go north approximately two and a half miles, which should bring them to the vicinity of the Chicago River. Riley's best guess was that there would be only a limited number of crossings under the river; if they could search those, they might be able to tell if the Synbats were contained under the Loop or if they had moved into other parts of the city.
The most difficult part of the whole operation was the fact that they had no map of the system. They had passed numerous exits from the tunnel the previous day but most had been walled off  --  either in the tunnel or at the end of the exit tunnel where it entered a building. Seay had found two openings into building basements, but he couldn't tell exactly what building he was in without drawing attention to himself by going up to street level, so he'd moved on.
As Riley moved through the freight tunnel with Caruso and the DIA man, Killian, he considered the odds of success about fifty-fifty. Riley's greatest hope was that they would stumble upon the place where the elder Synbats had cached their young. Then the Synbats would stand and fight rather than flee.
The tunnels were cool  --  a constant fifty-five degrees  --  and uncomfortably damp. The small IR light on the front of the night vision goggles cast a glow that extended thirty feet ahead; beyond that was darkness. The tunnels were eerily quiet, making it difficult for Riley to imagine streets full of people just fifty feet above.
* * * *

10:12 A.M.

Holly's head snapped up and her nostrils flared as she sniffed the air. The dog's little den of ratty newspapers and cardboard boxes, tucked away in a corner of the deserted third subbasement of a warehouse building, had been her home for the last twenty-four hours, since leaving the area south of here where she'd seen the two strange creatures. Now, it appeared that this place was not safe either.
There was fear in the air; she could sense it, coming from more than one source, and the feeling writhed its way into her mind and along her spine. She rose and abandoned her position, heading for the rickety wooden stairs that led up to the daylight.
* * * *

11:30 A.M.

Giannini leafed through the bulging missing persons folder with little enthusiasm. From hard experience she knew that most were runaways  --  from young girls to harried husbands  --  people who wanted a new start even if it was up a dead-end alley. Some were victims  --  a disturbingly high number  --  but no one really knew how high. Even with all the entangling webs of modern society, the number of people who simply disappeared each day left little doubt in Giannini's mind that there were voracious hunters out in the world preying on humans. Up to now, though, all those hunters had been human themselves. The thought that a nonhuman predator was now under the streets of her own city chilled her.
The offices outside hers were mostly empty. Detective work was at a low on Sunday mornings. Helplessness made her physically ill; she was not used to being in a situation where she could do nothing. She fought the desire to go out onto the streets, tear off a manhole cover, and descend into the depths. If these Synbats were as dangerous as Riley had told her  --  and as confirmed by the bodies of the two cable company men  --  then she would be making a foolish move. On top of that was the possibility of running into Riley or his men. She had a feeling that they would shoot first and ask questions later.
There was nowhere else for her to go, no one waiting for her at home. She'd gone through her second divorce two years ago and decided not long afterward that she preferred being alone than with someone who added little to her life. Her job was enough  --  at least for now.
Giannini stood up and strode out of her office, heading up to the police communications center, where at least she could sit and watch, waiting for something to happen.
* * * *

1:30 P.M.

Merrit, seated in the back corner of the van, was ignored by Colonel Lewis and his men. Not that they had much to do. There was always the possibility that the Chicago PD might call with some news, but so far the Synbats had made only one mistake  --  killing the cable company crew. No other havoc had been discovered yet, and might not ever be discovered.
Merrit leaned forward and her low voice cut through the heavy silence of the van. "Colonel, what's happening back at the lab?"
Lewis was surprised. "What?"
"What's happening at Biotech?"
Lewis shrugged. "They're checking the computer records to see if they can make any more sense out of what happened Monday night, although from what the girl we found told us, it looks like the escaped prisoners were the cause of the Synbats getting out."
"What about the project records?"
Lewis's voice grew guarded. "They'll be taken care of."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that we spent a whole lot of money on this project and we're not going to throw it all away. It might serve some useful function in the future."
Merrit nodded and sat back in her folding chair, her blank expression masking the thoughts going through her head.
* * * *

3:00 P.M.

Riley paused as a feeling he hadn't had in more than a year eased into his conscious mind. He was being watched. He didn't know how he knew it, but he had enough experience to trust the feeling. Sixth sense is one or more of the five senses that aren't being used primarily and are picking up something that swirls around in the subconscious. Only a truly alert person has that feeling move to the conscious mind.
Riley held up his hand and the other two men halted, Killian a little slower than he would have liked. Riley held still, his eyes shifting in short arcs through the goggles, searching the dripping concrete and the cables and pipes on the right side of the tunnel. Next he concentrated on his hearing and listened, tuning out the water plopping onto the floor, the slight fidgeting of the two men behind him. What had caused him to become alert?
A minute passed. Another. Still, Riley was motionless. He heard someone  --  Killian, he supposed  --  shift position with a rustle of clothing. Five minutes and Riley had not twitched. He knew that Caruso could appreciate the importance of patience. Riley had taken the team out to the Fort Campbell golf course one day and had them lie down among some bushes on the edge of the green. They'd spent the entire morning there, not moving. In that time none of the golfers that passed by had spotted them, despite the fact that they were in clear sight. One man had even gone after an errant ball less than twenty feet away from them and not realized that ten sets of eyeballs had watched him.
This tunnel, though, was no golf course, and Synbats weren't golfers. Riley slowly took a deep breath and exhaled it. If the Synbats were out there, and if they could see in the dark as well as, if not better than, he could, then they could see him and his two men standing here. So what were they waiting for? They had Knutz's and T-bones's M16s, unless, of course, they had used up the ammunition.
No, Riley corrected himself. They wouldn't shoot. Not if their lair was somewhere close by. They had to dispatch any potential threat quietly and not draw attention to themselves.
If he was one of them, what would he do? Riley asked himself. He spun around and dropped to one knee, startling Caruso and Killian. His M16 was at his shoulder and he scanned the top of the cable pipes on the right side behind them. A quick movement caught his eye and he fired, tracers streaking by barely two feet from Caruso's head. The other two men dove for the floor and Riley fired two more three-round bursts.
Red tracers roared from behind and Riley flattened himself as the Synbat that had been in front of him fired. A surprised yell told Riley that one of his men had been hit. He rolled on his stomach and returned the fire with a quick three-round burst. The bullets ricocheted off the concrete and whined into the darkness.
"Caruso?" Riley hissed.
"All right, chief. Killian's hit."
The silence was unsettling. Were the Synbats retreating, advancing, or holding position? "Caruso, you cover back down the way we came. If they come, they'll come along the pipes. I'll cover the other direction. Clear?"
"Yes, sir." There was a short pause. "Killian's bleeding bad, sir."
Riley edged back to the other two. Keeping his head pointed up, scanning the tunnel, he reached down with one hand to the DIA man's body. "Where's he hit?"
"Chest, as far as I can tell."
Killian was lying on his right side. Riley's hand slid into a mangled mess of blood and torn flesh on Killian's back. The high-velocity 5.56mm round must have entered in the front and then tumbled through the body, tearing bone and flesh as it exited. Riley moved his hand up to the neck to check for a pulse. It was barely there. With one hand Riley kept his rifle pointed up the tunnel and with the other he pressed down on the wound, trying to stop the blood. As he did so, he remembered his intense medical training; he was ignoring the entry wound, and blood was ebbing out there also, taking life with it.
To bandage both would require relaxing his security. Could the Synbats see him? Were they watching and waiting? He felt for the pulse again. Nothing. Shit, Riley cursed to himself, putting both hands on his weapon. His eyes searched the darkness  --  nothing that he could see. He flipped the selector switch on his weapon to semiautomatic and pulled the trigger. The bullet whined ineffectively down the tunnel.
"There," Doc Seay said. "Did you hear it?"
Trovinsky nodded. "Yeah. This way." He turned right and splashed down a tunnel, weapon at the ready.
* * * *