Page 25 of Chasing Creed

Hank was frantic to help. Creed put a hand on the back of his neck and scratched behind the dog’s ears as he told him everything was okay, even if he knew that wasn’t true. Hank’s eyes rolled from Creed to Brodie and back to the object still whirring in the tall grass.

“Something hissed at us,” Brodie said through gritted teeth. “Is it a snake?”

Creed inched closer to the object as he held the three dogs at arm’s length on the other side. The mechanical wings glistened, black and pewter gray.

“It’s not a snake,” Creed told them. “I think it’s a drone.”

When Jason was certain Brodie could stand on her own, and only after she waved him away, he ventured closer to take a look. Creed handed him the leashes and gestured for him to stay back with Brodie.

“Why would Grace alert to a drone?” Brodie asked, her voice thick with pain.

Creed pulled his phone from his pocket and started taking pictures of the object. It had gotten caught in the same tangle of thicket that had snarled up Brodie. He couldn’t make out how long and wide it was or any other details.

A click and a whoosh made him jerk backward.

“You need to be careful,” Jason told him. “Sounds like it’s still active.”

“Motion sensors?” Creed suggested.

“Could be. We should get away from it,” Jason’s voice now became urgent.

Another click and hiss came out of the contraption.

“I think it just took my picture,” Creed said.

“Seriously, we need to get away from it,” Jason said. This time, he took Brodie’s arm and grabbed up all the leashes in his other hand, leading all of them away.

Creed caught up and took Grace’s and Hank’s leashes. He watched his dog and noticed Grace didn’t argue with him. Her breathing was back to normal, an ordinary panting. As he tried to get a sense of direction, he realized he could see their Jeeps in the distance. They had circled all the way around the woods. The pasture, the crashed car, the garbage heap…none of those were visible anymore.

“Do you think it had drugs on board?” Creed asked Jason.

He’d trained Grace for multiple scents. Sometimes she found and alerted to ones he hadn’t asked her to find.

“She’s trained for explosives, too, right?” Jason asked.

“Yes, but how is that—”

“Cartels have been weaponizing their drones. That’s why we needed to get out of there.”

“What do you mean, weaponized?”

“If one gets disabled, they’d just as soon blow it up than have law enforcement or a rival gang recover it.”

“Why do you think it’s cartel-related?”

“I got a good enough look at it to know it probably doesn’t belong to some backyard drone jockey.”

Creed knew Jason kept up on this stuff. He and his veteran buddies, especially Benny, were techno geeks.

“You heard the weird sound coming from it?” Creed asked. “It was still doing something.”

“It might have just gotten tangled up in those bushes. It would’ve been enough to deactivate it.”

“If the thing’s motion sensored, someone might still be controlling it, or at least have access, right? Checking in? I swear it sounded like it took my picture.”

“Yeah, that was strange. What the hell did we stumble across?”

“Hey, guys.” Brodie had been quiet the entire trek, even as they were approaching their vehicles.