On her knees in the dense undergrowth, Frankie studied her brand-new drone, the one she’d named Iron Boy. The drone wasn’t the cheapest model but wasn’t too expensive either—because she knew she’d probably fly it into a tree.

It was all hooked up to the controller and her phone, calibrated, and ready to go. The streamlined white body, the rotors, the high-tech gizmo on the front made her feel as if she was in a science fiction movie.

Wouldn’t that be cool? Well, as long as she could be a heroine like the ever-so-competent Ripley from Aliens.

I don’t feel like Ripley.

That wasn’t who she was. She was no courageous kick-ass woman.

She was a city girl. She liked being a city girl. Still, no matter what it took, she’d get Kit and Aric out of that PZ compound. Because helping her 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 separatist 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.