Before they had left Virginia, Kathryn had arranged for a friend to leave a car at the diner. They would use it for the few hours needed to check out the property. Kathryn pulled out a license plate from the back of the cab. After looking around to see that no one was watching, she swapped the “extra” plate with the one on her friend’s car.

“Grab the road atlas,” she directed Yoko. “I’ll get my gear.” Her gear consisted of binoculars, several cameras, and a drone/camera kit. Fergus had shown her how to assemble the Wi-Fi-enabled drone/camera kit. The camera was equipped to send the photos to Kathryn’s tablet and to Charles. It was a backup in case they couldn’t get onto the property. Aerial photos would be perfect, provided they didn’t get caught and someone didn’t shoot the drone down.

Yoko opened the road atlas and began giving Kathryn directions. It took about thirty minutes before they came upon a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and a sign that said BEWARE. NO TRESPASSING.

Yoko said somberly, “This looks nasty. And scary.”

“Let’s drive around and see how far this fence goes.” Kathryn drove for almost a mile before they came to the end of the fence at an intersection. “With all the brush and overgrowth, I can barely make out a building in the distance.” She dragged binoculars from her gear bag. “Hard to tell what it is. Except it’s a big building.”

Yoko took the binoculars from Kathryn and looked. “Some kind of factory? Warehouse?”

“But which is it?” Kathryn looked at the photo from Google Earth. “I guess we need to launch our little friend.” She patted the box sitting between them. “Finally, my engineering degree will come in handy.” She opened the trunk to give herself some room to assemble the drone without it being in plain sight. She checked for security cameras. None this close to the road, but she suspected there would be several along the perimeter of the building.

In a few short minutes, she had the device ready for takeoff. “We’ll drive around a bit more to see if there is a better vantage point.” Kathryn shut the trunk and jumped back into the driver’s seat. They turned the corner and followed the fence for another mile. “This is like a compound.” They came upon a gate with the same warning: BEWARE. NO TRESPASSING.

Next to the gate was a camera and a single phone, protected in a box. “I guess they don’t get a lot of visitors. Let’s get away from any prying eyes,” Kathryn said.