Waterkill (Dave Henson Series) by Mark Donovan Page A

would pull it back out as soon as they got to the operations headquarters tent. Ron closed up the empty boxes that contained the Hunter-Falcons. When the aircraft came to a stop Dave, Ron and the Border Patrol agent immediately disembarked from the aircraft’s cargo bay door and made a beeline for the operations tent. Dave wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a beat on the status of his squadron of miniature drones, even though their transmitted flight data was automatically being backed up on a server back at NSurv headquarters.
    Inside the warm operations tent, the three quickly shed their winter clothing. Dave then immediately walked over to a table, set his laptop down on it, flipped it open, and hit the ON button. While he did, Ron and the Border Patrol agent poured themselves steaming hot mugs of coffee. Chief Davis strode up to the three men red faced with anger.
    “According to a report from the pilot who jut flew your mission we have some visitors in the target search area.”
    “Yes, we saw them just before we landed,” responded Dave.
    “We have had a temporary no trespassing restriction on the target search area posted since we arrived on the scene last week,” returned the Chief. “No one should be in that area without our prior knowledge and authorization.”
    “Maybe it’s a group of locals who did not hear about the restriction or see the posted signs,” suggested Dave.
    “No. There may be some hermits living in this area, but all of them have radio communications,” replied the Chief tersely.
    “They didn’t look like locals,” commented Ron. “Those snow machines were all of the same make and color, and they looked new.”
    “Then most likely we have some competition Chief,” said Dave.
    “Affirmative. I had briefly considered sending out one of my teams to track them down and bring them back here for questioning. However, with night fall nearly upon us I decided to hold off until morning. They won’t get far this evening. Not in this rough mountainous terrain.”
    The chief looked down at Dave’s computer on the table. “So how did the release of your drones go?” asked the Chief.
    “Excellent,” responded Dave. “I was just about to sit down and check on their status.” Dave turned his attention to the laptop and pulled up a chair. “Let’s have a look.”
    The Chief, Ron and the other Border Patrol agent made their way to the table where Dave was sitting. Ron handed Dave a mug of hot coffee. Dave took a sip from it and then placed the steaming mug next to his computer. He then typed a few key strokes into the laptop. Five seconds later an aerial view of the target search area came up on the screen. From left to right across the display were horizontal dashed lines representing the prescribed flight paths of the released Hunter-Falcons. The first released device was already nearly two thirds of the way across the flight course. The last device still had about ninety percent to go.
    “So what happens when these birds complete their prescribed flight over the target area?” asked Chief Davis as he looked over Dave’s shoulder. “Do they self-destruct or just fall out of the sky?”
    While staring at the computer screen Dave responded dryly, “They have the GPS coordinates for this tent stored in their memory. They will fly a direct path back to us.”
    “We can also send them a self-destruct sequence if necessary,” chimed in Ron.
    “Impressive,” responded the Chief with a slight touch of sarcasm.
    A small red marker started blinking on the computer screen. One of the Hunter-Falcons had located a potential target.  It was in the northeast corner of the search area.
    “It looks like we might have a hot spot,” commented Dave in a clinical voice.
    Dave moused over the red marker and doubled-clicked the right button on the mouse. Immediately the screen zoomed into the target search area. Dave typed in the Hunter-Falcon ID number on the keyboard and a green dot lit up on