intersection. We’ll sweep east on Pomerado from there.”
“That’s barely a mile out,” Danny said. “Well within range. Stay put. I’ll send the Mavic out to Willow and bring it back,” He paused before announcing absently. “I’ll start with mile long swaths to the right and left of the road.”
Shit. He hadn’t thought about having to do narrow swaths. But the camera would need to be directly overhead to get a clear view around any trees or brush. There went a couple more batteries for sure…a couple more hours as well.
Tag shut the Dodge back down and took to waiting. At least it was a hell of a lot more tolerable waiting in San Diego’s eighty-degree weather than Kabul’s mid-nineties.
It took surprisingly long for the drone to work its way back to them. But then it was sweeping both sides of the road, a mile at a time. The muscles of his chest cinched again as frustrated impatience dug in.
Christ, at this rate it was going to take them forever.
Forever in this case took almost four and a half hours, and so many batteries he’d lost count. Mileage wise they were ten miles down Pomerado when Danny yelled into the cab that he had something.
Tag pulled to the side of the road, praying like a motherfucker that this time the white car the drone had located was their Impala. This wasn’t the first something the drone had picked up. It needed to be the last though, because they were running out of light. Sunset was headed in fast, and Christ only knew how long the drone could fly before it went blind. He estimated half an hour tops before they’d have to shut down and wait for dawn.
“Hang on,” Danny said through the window, as he bent over his phone. “White sedan surrounded by camouflage. Looks like the car’s parked in front of a house.
“You got a plate?” Tag asked.
“Too far up. I’ll drop for a closer look, grab a snapshot, and pull out.”
“If you lower to fifty feet, can you zoom in with the camera?” Dropping that low would expose the drone’s buzzing for a minute or two, but it would still be light. Not too noticeable behind walls.
“Not with the drone camera, but I can with my phone,” Danny said, “Hang on.”
The next few seconds seemed to take forever. Tag’s heart beat more violently with each moment that ticked past.
“I got it,” Danny finally said. The rustle of paper sounded as he checked the plate numbers on the paper Tram had passed through the window. “I’ll be damned.” He sounded surprised, as though he hadn’t really expected the drone search to work. “They match.”
Son of a bitch. Relief whooshed through Tag, lightening his load by at least a hundred pounds.
They’d found the Impala.
Chapter Seven
The kidnapper’s snores were sawing the air. And from what Sarah could see in the gloom, his body was limp as he sprawled out in the armchair, sound asleep.
Now was the time to launch her escape.
If she could move.
Her hands were numb, so were her feet—except for the periodic burst of excruciating tingling that swept through her fingers and toes. The upright—don’t touch anything—position of her spine added to the throbbing in her shoulders and back.
But the most distressing thing facing her was the lack of light. On the plus side, the darkness spreading across the room like a foreboding shadow meant she couldn’t see the scourge-infested denizens sharing the space with her. Which would have been great—except she could still hear their scurrying little feet and their creepy rustling as they pushed their way through the trash.
Somehow hearing them without seeing them was even worse.
Sarah stared at the biggest hole in the wall. The light leaking through had darkened from bright to dim. Before long, it would disappear completely.
Night was falling.
Which meant one of two things.
She was going to spend the pitch-black night in this bacterial and virus riddled atrocity of a house, all the while praying that her multi-legged companions didn’t decide that she would make a nice protein packed snack.
Or…she was going to have to force her frozen body to cooperate, lock down the pain, and find the strength to escape her captor…in the dark. And once she accomplished that, she’d have to find and release Langley…in the dark. And then the two of them would have to make their way to the closest road through the scrubby territory surrounding them, with only the light of the moon to ease their way.
Right—sure—piece of