What You See (Sons of the Survivalist #3) - Cherise Sinclair Page 0,26
friend was also who she was.
Why, oh why, couldn’t it have worked out that she could call in the police, FBI, or DEA. But Kit had been very vehement about not doing that.
After reading about Waco and Ruby Ridge’s disastrous shoot-outs, Frankie understood why. At Ruby Ridge, the white supremacist leader had survived the battle, but his poor wife and a fourteen-year-old boy were shot and killed. At Waco, the siege caused seventy-some deaths, including twenty-five children.
The PZs had that big fence and gate. If they refused entry to law enforcement, there could be a nightmare of guns and fighting. Bullets would go right through those flimsy houses—and kill children and women.
So, fence cutting was the plan of the day, which meant finding out where the women’s and children’s barracks were.
One drone flyover, coming up.
Thankfully, she’d found a good launch site.
Dall Road ran from Rescue to McNally’s ski resort high on the mountain and had a myriad of small dirt roads branching off to various houses and cabins. The PZ compound sat a third of the way up in a valley between two foothills.
On Thursday and Friday, she’d driven down all the tiny roads on each side of the compound, putting on an embarrassing I’m-a-stupid-female-tourist act whenever she ended up in someone’s front yard. Finally, she’d found a poorly maintained road that wound past several properties and dead-ended at an abandoned cabin. A strenuous hike through vicious underbrush brought her to this spot where she could…barely…see a corner of the compound far below.
Let’s not think about all the rules I’m going to break. Her drone wasn’t registered. Wouldn’t always be in her line of sight. Would fly directly over people. Would be snooping over an area where the residents had an expectation of privacy.
She grimaced. Since Kit said a PZ was one of the Rescue cops, if Frankie got caught, she’d probably be locked up forever.
If the PZs caught her, it would be worse than that.
Heart pounding hard, she powered on the drone, hovered it, and sent it off the cliff down to the target zone. A quick check ensured everything was being recorded to her phone.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
She watched the screen and kept the drone high up. Wasn’t it nice the PZs had all that cleared land and those big plastic greenhouses? It was easy to find the compound in the forest.
Iron Boy flew past the southern fence toward the rooftops.
Now, which building will have the children?
“Down, boy.” She worked the controls to decrease the elevation.
Iron Boy dropped low enough she could see people. Men with rifles. Women. A couple of big dogs. Right, mustn’t forget the guard dogs when planning.
There—there were the children. Kids were playing games between two houses near the east fence. One building had two ugly shrubs in front, the other one a flagpole.
Score! The children’s barracks must be one of those two houses.
The kids started pointing at the sky. At the drone. Uh-oh. The adults noticed. Suddenly, fireworks sounded. The snapping and crackling echoed off the mountains.
Her screen went blank.
She stared at her phone and shook it. The drone display was gone. That hadn’t been fireworks. Merda, it’d been gunfire.
They’d shot Iron Boy. Killed her little drone. Her hands went cold. Numb.
They’d come searching for the drone operator—for her.
Run.
She shoved her gear into the bag and sprinted through the thick underbrush. A branch scraped across her face in a flare of pain. Eyes tearing, she bounced off a tree.
Faster.
She leaped over a dead log and tripped on the uneven ground. A rock tore her palm open, and her ankle twisted with a blast of pain. She scrambled up and forward, shoving her way through the dense growth, collecting more stinging scratches and scrapes. Her arm bumped into the spine-covered stem of a tall, ugly plant. Ow, ow, ow.
Panting, heart trying to burst from her chest, she staggered into the open area around the cabin.
No one was there. Not yet. Move.
She jumped into her car and sped down the narrow dirt road. Branches lashed the sides of the vehicle. The bottom of the car scraped as the wheels dipped into the ruts.
Don’t get stuck, don’t get stuck.
At Dall Road, she started to turn north toward town. To go home. To hide.
No, no, she couldn’t. She’d have to drive past the turnoff to the PZ compound to get back to Rescue and her cabin. What if someone was watching the road?
She turned to the right and headed up the mountain. There was a