Waterkill (Dave Henson Series) by Mark Donovan Page B

the screen.
    “There’s the drone that found the potential target,” said Ron.
    Dave moused over the green dot and double clicked the right mouse button again. Immediately a bird’s eye view transmitted from the Hunter-Falcon came up on the screen. On the right side of the screen was a vertical altitude tape strip. The drone was nearly one thousand feet above ground level and looking straight down at a sparsely forested area that was blanketed in a deep layer of snow.  With a few keystrokes the Hunter-Falcon moved back towards the red dot. As it did, the altitude tape strip showed the drone descending. It was approximately at five hundred feet above ground level when the drone was directly over the red marker.
    “Do you see anything gentlemen?” asked the Chief.
    “I see several large mounds of snow penetrating up from the blanket of snow,” said Ron. “But, I can’t make out any details.”
    Dave tapped a few strokes on the keyboard and the Hunter-Falcon dropped down to an altitude of one hundred feet. As it did Chief Davis blurted out, “It’s just a hunter’s cabin with several large fuel cans and a small outbuilding situated near it.” 
    The cabin, fuel cans and outbuilding were covered in snow but there was no mistaking what they were. The Chief was right. Dave nodded his head in disappointed agreement.
    “We already radar mapped that cabin two days ago,” sighed Chief Davis in disgust. “It looks like your birds are redundant.”
    Just as the Chief completed his sentence another red light blinked at the top right hand side of the screen in a legend area. Dave immediately tapped in another command on the keyboard and the original screen image came up. Another Hunter-Falcon had detected a target in the south central part of the target search area.
    “We have another one,” said Ron.
    Dave again moused over the small drone which had detected the terrain anomaly and guided it back directly over the red marker displayed on the screen. Two keystrokes later the drone was hovering one hundred feet over the target and displaying a zoomed in view of the area.  The background view was of a rugged mountain wall. In between the trees, pointed upwards towards the sky, were bony rock outcroppings. Again, the initial image of the specific target area consisted of several humps in the unending blanket of snow below. However, this time the humps had a different consistency to them. An elongated bulge in the snow below was intersected by another bulge of similar size. To the right of the intersecting bulges was another more concentrated hump.
    “Take it down lower,” ordered the Chief. Dave could smell the Chief’s reeking cigar breath as the Chief moved his head closer to his and stared at the computer screen. 
    When the Hunter-Falcon descended to ten feet above the ground Dave placed it into a hover and slowly flew it over the bulges in the snow. From the side views of the humps it became instantly apparent that they were looking at the wreckage of a small aircraft. The two perpendicular raised bumps in the snow were of a mangled fuselage and wing.
    “I think we have found your missing aircraft,” commented Ron in a hushed tone.
    “Can you make out the tail number on the fuselage?” asked Davis.
    “The fuselage is an accordion mess, but we will take a look,” responded Dave.
    Dave slowly moved the Hunter-Falcon along the side of the heavily damaged fuselage.
    “There, stop there,” ordered Davis. “Can you zoom in to that area?” as he pointed to a spot on the computer screen.
    Dave typed a few key strokes into the computer and the image nearly doubled in size.
    Part of the tail number came into view. Five out of the six characters were visible. “N5453,” said Ron. “I cannot make out the last character.”
    “That’s our downed aircraft,” responded the Chief with excitement. “By God, your little toy actually found her.” Chief Davis slapped Dave so hard on the back he nearly slammed up