“All right, let’s move out. Those mercs are still back there somewhere, so everyone, stay frosty. If they found another way around our roadblock and humped it all night, we could be in for an unpleasant surprise.”
“You think they may have done that?” Joe asked.
“I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong about stuff before, so we take no chances. Reggie, want to take point for a while?”
“On it, Colt,” she said as she trotted some fifty feet ahead of me and the first mule, rifle in hand. Doc was behind with the second mule; Eduardo had the third, and O’Reilly had the fourth. Dimitri was covering our six, and Joe was with me watching our track appear on the little video screen of his tablet. As we moved, our GPS location was plotted on the map on the screen, and we could overlay a satellite image of the area on it—damn handy tool. With it, we were able to stay on track, and about three hours later, Reggie came over the Comms.
“Colt, I just came to the path.”
“Roger that, see anything?”
“Nope, all clear, nothing in sight.”
We arrived at a well-worn path some six feet wide, obviously regularly used. This had to be the path the drug runners used going into the village. We got all the animals on the road and secured. I said, “Okay, everybody, take a break. Reggie, keep an eye on the road coming from the village. I don’t think anyone got ahead of us, but they may have found the trail through the village and approach from behind, no surprises.”
“Roger that,” she said and moved down the trail a ways and blended into the brush.
Everybody gathered around and broke out canteens and beef jerky.
Doc said, “What next, Colt?”
“Pull out your notes from the interview with the elders and see what they said about leaving their village and coming to Tamara’s village. We need to find out if there was a path or trail they followed. We need something to help us identify the direction they came from and any details about their journey—anything that might help us. We can’t spend time beating around the jungle and hoping to find a trail. We need more than that.”
Joe said, “I think I can help with that,” as he pulled open the pack that had the drone in it. He took out the drone and then the new Toughbook laptop that Fitz had included. He opened it up and hit the on button.
As it was booting up, he said, “I read the manual on the LIDAR system the drone has, and I believe we can use it here.”
“Ahh, a man who reads the instructions; I love it,” O’Reilly quipped with a grin.
Joe said, “Yeah, I’m a regular renaissance man,” and pulled out his pad as the laptop continued its bootup.
He had pulled up the SAT map with our track overlaid. The original route in red stopped some distance from us to the southwest. Our current route, in yellow, showed our parallel course and our location further west. He was pointing to the screen now, “Here’s the village location, and here we are. With the drone's capability, I can draw a line image on the screen of the laptop, link the drone to that image, and fly any kind of pattern we want over the area on its own. When it’s done, it will move to a station, keeping the location that we set and wait for instructions.”
“So, we can designate an area, have the drone do a LIDAR scan of the whole area on its own, and we don’t have to monkey with it until it’s done?”
Dimitri let out a low whistle, “Now, that’s pretty slick.”
“And,” Joe continued, “once it’s done, the computer automatically runs the software to give us the LIDAR image of our target area, foliage removed.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Doc, did you find anything?” I asked.
“Yes, I believe so,” he said. He had been sitting there leafing through his notebook as we got the LIDAR briefing.
“Here, when I asked them where their old village was, they pointed to the jungle and said it was two days in that direction. I made a note here, and the direction they were pointing looked to be northwest from the village. They go on to say there is a small path that leads to a stream. Follow it upstream until you get to a large pool, then turn to the setting sun, and you will find a path that will lead you to our abandoned village. I am guessing that pool may have been the water source for their village. The only thing they gave me in terms of distance was two days or more walking to the village. No idea how far away the stream is from Tamara’s village or how far we must go upstream to find the pool. Sorry, I don’t have any more.”
“Don’t worry about it; that’s a start.”
Joe had started typing commands on the laptop and had the satellite map of the area up. We could just make out the village, and as he pulled back on the image, he drew a rectangle on the screen with the stylus. Using the GPS for the village, he oriented the rectangle to the northwest, making it 100 yards wide and 500 yards long.
“From what I read, the drone should be able to cover this area in thirty minutes; it’s pretty darn quick. I’m going to be looking for a path, someplace to start a real search. If we’re lucky and find it, I can then expand the search to follow the path and ultimately find the stream. It should show up clearly. But we need that starting point, so I’m going to put the drone in the air and get started. Are we going to be able to stay here for thirty minutes or so?”
“Check the trail cams.
