Observe

Our destination was a lightly developed area west of the airport. Unfortunately, there were no good vantage points to look down on the small estate listed as Gracie’s last location and any approach on foot had to be done in the open or dashing between rundown houses scattered twenty or fifty meters apart. Fortunately, we had Katja’s bugs to help us.

I parked my SUV at a tiny restaurant that made the hole-in-the-wall places of New York look nice. Thankfully, it wasn’t open yet as I, perhaps unfairly, dreaded the idea of eating at such a place. Likewise, David parked the other SUV at a tiny convenience store to the southwest, basically forming an equilateral triangle with the target and five hundred meters on a side.

As Maria had explained in the briefing, Katja dispatched a pair of dragonflies with tiny cameras toward the area. As they neared the half kilometer max range on the portable antennas we had, it was clear that MJ’s concern about jamming wasn’t going to be an issue.

The reason for that was visible on the cameras: the estate, where El Dominio and Gracie had been, showed obvious signs of combat. And, at Maria’s insistence, Katja somehow convinced the distant dragonflies to swoop in lower and show us some of the damage.

From what we saw on the video, it seemed that any fighting had taken place last night and was long over. Still, we surveyed the small estate and saw no movement.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was our marine who first spoke up, “Ma’am, permission to move in and secure the site?”

Maria looked down the road, almost able to see the estate from where we were, and responded, “Move up to the last house before the target and get eyes on the target location. Then provide overwatch as we advance from our side.”