Waterkill (Dave Henson Series) by Mark Donovan

already made it quite clear to me that they are getting impatient. No doubt, that’s why they sent the two of you.”
    Ron looked over at Dave and gave him a quick grin. As he did, the Chief looked up from the drone he was holding to see Ron’s smirk. “You have a lot of confidence in your little toy here buddy,” said the Chief as he pointed his cigar at Ron. “We shall soon see if it is warranted.”
    “You shall see Chief,” responded Ron smugly. “You shall see and learn.”
    Thirty minutes later Ron was on his knees in the back of one of the 208 Caravans, dropping out of the open cargo bay door of the aircraft the first Hunter-Falcon. He was bundled in a heavy winter parka coat and wearing a hat pulled low over his ears. Though it was technically spring, the outside air temperature was only twenty degrees Fahrenheit and icy cold air whipped through the interior of the aircraft’s fuselage due to the open cargo bay door.
    The aircraft flew along the upwind leg of the target search area. As it did, every twenty seconds a Border Patrol Special Ops agent kneeling beside Ron handed him another Hunter-Falcon from one of the shipping boxes that sat next to them. On Dave’s mark, Ron dropped the device from the aircraft. In between drops, Ron blew into his bare hands to warm them from the frigid air.
    They were flying at an altitude of seven thousand feet to avoid hitting any mountain peaks and to release the devices at a consistent altitude. However, as each Hunter-Falcon drone was released it descended downward and flew a flight path one thousand feet above the ground for its prescribed flight mission.
    Dave was seated in one of the back seats of the aircraft, next to Ron and the Border Patrol agent, with a laptop opened up and sitting on his knees. As each small drone was released he confirmed that it was operational and flying its prescribed vector course. In addition, he periodically switched to another screen on the laptop to see the entire field of deployed drones.
    It took them nearly an hour to release all of the required Hunter-Falcons along the upwind leg of the target search field area. After releasing the last one, Ron reported into the headset lip mic he was wearing that all the birds were deployed.
    The pilot of the Caravan made a wide arcing one hundred and eighty degree turn back over the target area to return to Chicken Airport. Ron put on his gloves to warm his nearly frozen hands and looked out at the mountainous terrain below. It was a vast snow draped wilderness void of any roads or villages. As he continued to look out of the aircraft’s open cargo bay door he saw the occasional hunter’s cabin, along with an elk herd and two moose, but little else of interest.
    The pilot announced over the intercom that they were ten minutes out from the airfield. As the pilot finished his sentence, Ron noticed four snow machines racing through the forest below him. The snow machines were all the same make and color. They were black and looked to be Polaris snowmobiles. A single person rode on each one of them and they were headed northwest, directly away from the airfield.
    Ron yelled out over his headset, “So where do you think those guys are headed?” as he pointed out to the Border Patrol agent the men and snow machines passing directly underneath them.
    “No idea,” responded the agent. “Those machines are not ours.”
    Dave overheard Ron’s transmission over his headset and looked out his window. He could see the four snow machines racing underneath the belly of their aircraft. He took a quick look at the GPS reading displayed on his computer screen and made a mental note of it. As he did, he felt a sudden chill run up his spine. He wondered to himself, was this the Al Qaeda competition that Eric McDonald and John Bates had warned him about.
    Five minutes later the 208 Caravan landed at the gravel Chicken field airstrip. Dave quickly closed up his laptop and packed it away in his knapsack. He