Shadow Tyrants (Oregon Files 13)

The drone arrived at the beach, which was only a few yards wide before it surrendered to the dense jungle.

“The island is four miles across, so a grid search of the interior will take a while,” Gomez said. “I plan to do a perimeter survey and then work our way in. By the way, what are we looking for, exactly?”

“Anything that doesn’t belong,” Juan said.

“Sounds like we’ll know it when we see it,” Linc said.

“I still can’t guess why someone would want to come to this island,” Raven said. “According to the Indian government, there’s nothing of value here.”

“Except privacy,” Eddie said.

“There’s a whole lot of that,” MacD said. “It looks like the land that time forgot.”

“The natives are lucky they have nothing valuable to the outside world,” Juan said, “or they would have been driven out decades ago.”

The drone began circling the island. The jungle was so thick that they could only see a few yards into the trees before the view was blocked by foliage.

When the drone was halfway around the island, Juan spotted something out of place, so he had Gomez hover.

“What’s that?” he said. “Hold it there, Gomez.”

“Looks like a path,” Eddie said.

He was right. The underbrus

h was trampled, and they could even see some footprints in the sand.

A cluster of tiny white objects was visible at the edge of the jungle.

“Zoom in,” Juan said, pointing at them.

Gomez adjusted the high-resolution camera until it was at the maximum zoom. The white objects were still small, but the way they were haphazardly arranged looked familiar.

“Am I wrong,” Juan said, “or are those cigarette butts?”

“You think someone came ashore there and had a few smokes?” Linc asked.

“I doubt it,” Linda said. “There aren’t any openings in the reef near there.”

“And, I’d say those natives are wearing shoes.”

“I can fly down for a closer look,” Gomez said.

“Not yet,” Juan said. “In case there are people around, I don’t want to risk showing our hand until we need to. If we don’t see anything else during the perimeter survey, we’ll come back and follow that path into the jungle.”

“Aye, Chairman.” Gomez marked the coordinates on the map and kept flying. They didn’t see anything else unusual until the drone was three-quarters of the way around the island.

“Hold there,” Juan said. Something about the plants didn’t look right. “What do you make of that?”

Raven leaned in close to the screen. “The color is the same, but the fronds on the trees are too stiff. They should be waving in the breeze like all the others have been.”

“What is that thing?” MacD said, pointing at a sharp-edged object jutting up between the tops of the trees. It had to be man-made.

“Now I want to look more closely,” Juan said. “Let’s see what that is.”

“Closer view coming up,” Gomez said, and the drone whizzed toward its target.

As the drone approached, the size of the object became apparent. It was a huge vertical slab of metal painted verdant green to blend into the jungle and be undetectable to reconnaissance aircraft or satellites.