“I don’t even know. But I brought anti-drone tech. If you don’t mind, I’ll grab my backpack and see if I can detect it out there.”

Jack slowly looked at him. “You have anti-drone tech? Alex, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean? Someone followed Mackenzie and shot at her. You know this. You have yet to find the shooter. I secured protective measures.”

Alex made his way to Nathan’s vehicle, opened the door, and opened his bag.

Jack stood behind him. “I wondered what you were carrying in that bag. Seemed kind of big.”

“It’s a radio frequency analyzer.” He pulled out a large case and opened it. Popped up the antennas on each side. He turned it on, and the screen indicated the drone icon along with the distance from their location. “Looks like it’s hovering.”

“So this detects the radio comms between the drone and its controller? Can we find the controller?”

“That’s what I’m working on. At least we know this isn’t an autonomous drone.”

“Say what?”

“This is being controlled by a human rather than AI.”

“What else you got in this bag?” Jack held up what looked like a small rocket launcher. “Whoa, what’s this?”

“An RF jammer to take out the drone.”

Jack aimed it at the sky. “I can’t see it. Point me in the right direction.”

“Hold off,” Alex said. “I want to see if I can find the home base where the controller is operating from.” Alex pounded his fist against the seat back. “I lost the signal. The UAV could have gone out of range.”

He ground his molars.

“Cool toys,” Jack said.

“This tech is just what I could get my hands on quickly.” Clearly, he needed something more sophisticated.

“The DSS provide you with the toys?”

Uh-oh. He wasn’t prepared for full disclosure. Not until his superior gave him the go-ahead to share with the locals regarding his activities. “Not directly, no. I have a tech friend who helped find what I needed to protect Mackenzie. But obviously, there’s more to it. It’s not so easy.”

“At least you can take out the drone if you need to. Maybe next time just pull out the RF jammer first thing.”

“Well, I did manage to get the drone’s model and digital fingerprint, or the MAC address. I’ll send the information to my tech.”

“The MAC address?”

“Hardware ID number. It should be associated with a specific Wi-Fi network. Not that we’ll learn much from that, but it’ll be useful if we need the information for prosecution later.”

“I knew it,” Jack said. “You’re working. This wasn’t a break for you at all. You came to Montana to work.”

“You have me all wrong. This has everything to do with Mackenzie.”