Deep Sleep (Devin Gray #1)(84)

He flipped his night vision goggles down over his face and took in the lake through new eyes. The distant lights burned bright white now, momentarily looking closer until the image adjusted. Graves had initially planned to make the run without night vision, but several floating tree stumps had convinced him otherwise. The Sea Ray wasn’t exactly a Coast Guard cutter. Hitting one of those trunks at maximum speed would likely rip through the hull and put the boat at the bottom of the lake.

Gupta tapped his shoulder twice, their prearranged signal that he was moments from pressing the button to autonomously launch the drone. Neither of them had attempted a running takeoff before, so they had no idea what to expect when he hit the button. In theory, the propeller blade would start spinning, the sensors would start sensing, and the eighteen-pound drone would instantly reach for the sky—as it did when it achieved takeoff speed during a normal launch. The trick would be letting go at the right time.

They’d conducted a dry run earlier today, the lift generated by a forty-miles-per-hour relative wind making the drone hard to hold on to. He would have preferred executing a full practice launch, but the attention that would have generated was guaranteed to put them on YouTube. Then they’d have to retrieve it. This would be a one-and-done deal. Either it worked or it didn’t. Three quick taps landed on his shoulder. The moment of truth. A high-pitched buzz competed with the engine and bow wash.

“Holy shit! Woo-hoo!” yelled Gupta. “It worked!”

He glanced over his shoulder to find Gupta staring almost straight up into the sky, the drone no longer in his raised hands. Graves slowed the boat and searched the sky, catching a glimpse of the drone’s sleek, nonreflective shape peeling away to the west. When he’d brought the boat back down to a more manageable cruising speed, he raised the night vision goggles.

“What happened?” asked Graves.

“Fucking took off like a rocket!” said Gupta. “Like it was pissed! If I had tried to hold on to it, I’d be in the drink right now.”

“Outstanding. Now we have another trick up our sleeve. We could do the same from a car,” said Graves.

“Damn! We’re like the drone master DJs,” said Gupta. “Add some motorcycle launches to the mix. Maybe a WaveRunner. Have drone, will launch, baby!”

“Okay. That’s enough,” said Graves. “Voices carry over water.”

“We’re still like two miles from the southern tip of the conservation area,” said Gupta.

“I don’t want to take any chances,” said Graves. “How does everything look on the laptop?”

Gupta grabbed the open laptop from the rear seat and sat down next to him in the cockpit. He clicked around the dimmed screen for a few seconds before answering.

“She’s climbing high on her way to the first waypoint, north of the conservation area. Everything looks good.”

The drone’s first glide track would take it due south, directly over the primary infiltration site, before turning left to search the dock area referenced by William Barber. If sentries had been posted in that area, they represented a threat to the team’s left flank while approaching the camp. Once that surveillance run was completed, the drone would fly east across the river and climb again, positioning itself for a long east-to-west glide over the suspected camp area. Their first glimpse behind the curtain.





CHAPTER 43


The western shoreline, a long darkened mass barely discernible from the night sky, passed down their port side, roughly five hundred feet away. They’d kept to the starboard side of the lake on the trip up, blending in with the scattered traffic on the water. Bull Shoal Lake felt more like a river, long and narrow as it wound through the Ozark Mountains, dipping in and out of Arkansas shortly after they departed the staging area. The hour-long trip had been unremarkable so far, the height of excitement coming from the powerboats that had burned past them at ungodly speeds, presumably headed toward the Branson area—and civilization. Devin still couldn’t get over how little existed out here. His earpiece chirped.

“RIFFRAFF. This is OVERWATCH. Primary infiltration site appears clear on IR and visual night vision scan. Dock site shows two heat signatures. Marked as hostile. We’ll check them on every pass to make sure they haven’t moved.”

“This is Rich. Copy your last. River looks clear. We’re headed in.”

The pontoon boat veered sharply to port and pointed directly at the shoreline. He adjusted his position on the couch to face forward, rifle still lying flat on the cushions behind him, next to a night vision–rigged ballistic helmet. Marnie did the same, settling into place within an arm’s reach beyond the aluminum gate that opened to the bow platform. A look behind him at the cockpit revealed Rich’s barely illuminated face, his eyes alternating from the muted map screen on the satellite phone in front of him to the rapidly approaching shoreline.

When Devin turned his head, Marnie had already donned her helmet and flipped the night vision goggles down into place over her face. He followed her lead, and they started scanning the brush along the shore. About a hundred feet from the tree-packed shoreline, Jared cut the speed to idle, and they glided quietly across the smooth water. He nudged the engine a few more times, until the front of the pontoon boat gently nestled into a snarl of thick scrub under a canopy of low-hanging branches.

As the boat floated back a few feet, Devin opened the gate and jumped down, landing in thigh-high water. He took the coiled line Marnie had tied to one of the bow cleats and slogged through the brush to reach the nearest tree trunk, where he secured it the best he knew how. Marnie joined him a few moments later, undoing and redoing his work without saying a word. Rich and Jared pushed past them once she was finished and disappeared into the bushes.