PAUL MOODY NOTES the closing distance to the target farmhouse when he spots something else: two figures racing down a dirt driveway.
Damn.
Members of the ISIS cell escaping?
His priority is striking the house, but he wants to get a good view of these two figures so he can supply a description later, help the Feds or whatever law enforcement agency is in charge, so these two can be scooped up later and maybe be sent to the tropical prison paradise that’s Gitmo.
There’s a small video screen in his instrument dashboard, and with the onboard surveillance equipment pod stored over the rotors, he instantly gets a good view of the two figures.
Women, he thinks.
How about that.
It doesn’t make much difference, for he has had sharp experience with old women, young women, girls who weren’t even into their teens yet, and all of them were capable of firing off an RPG-7 or an AK-47, or coming at you, smiling and holding up a cold bottle of Coca-Cola while hiding a suicide bomb vest under their robes.
But these women…
They’re no longer running.
They don’t look armed.
They’re waving at him.
Like they’re happy to see him!
He slows his approach to the farmhouse, part of him thinking it’s a trap, that they want him to hover so that somebody in the woods can fire off a rocket-propelled grenade and take out his main rotor, but the woman on the left…she looks…
Familiar?
He toggles another switch.
Zooms in the camera.
The military-grade technology is about a year or so out of date, but it’s still good enough that he can make out the facial features of both women, and the one to the right, the taller of them, is waving frantically and—
He recognizes the woman on the left.
Recognizes her really well.
Good God, what has he gotten himself into?