Hotel
The men from Shepherd Security sat back while it was fought out in Washington.
The FBI had already started to round up the militia members who were identified by the computer files, including scooping up Guy Passaglia at his own house. He was packing a duffel bag when they busted in at twenty-two hundred. Burke would have thought he would have been long gone by then.
Stacy Ramsey’s husband, Peter, had been notified of Stacy’s detainment by the FBI earlier in the evening, and he turned himself into the local Sheriff per the FBI’s direction. It was unlikely he, or any of the preppers who were not involved in the militia, would face any charges.
FBI agents and State Police also visited the home of Mark Ellison in Minneapolis and failed to acquire him there. A judge had signed a warrant, and an APB was out for him.
The team piled into their vehicle for the drive south and back to HQ. They got about five hours of sleep. Wilson sent a text to Ops to advise of their departure. His phone rang before he’d even shifted to drive. It was Shepherd.
“Good morning. We’re just getting ready to leave the motel, Shep,” Wilson said upon answering his phone.
“Put me on speaker so the entire team can hear,” Shepherd said.
“On speaker,” Wilson acknowledged.
“Good job yesterday, team. The FBI and ATF both extend their thanks. Many arrests have been made. I’ve agreed to send you on a side trip to help out the FBI, given you’re still in the area.
Mark Ellison has not been located. His son gave up several locations where his father might be hiding.
One is roughly on your way back, a slight detour.
There’s a campground near the Wisconsin Dells that is mostly abandoned this time of year.
Ellison says his unit’s done training there.
I’ll send the coordinates to your phones, and the Digital Team has put together a file on Mark Ellison.
They’ll push that through to you as well as info on the campground.
Proceed with caution. Mark Ellison is always armed, and his son doesn’t think he will go down without a fight.
Make sure you’re all wearing your vests and call into Ops prior to your arrival onsite. ”
“Roger that, Shep,” Jackson acknowledged.
“Good hunting,” Shepherd said. “Any questions?”
The five men exchanged glances.
“No, sir,” Wilson said.
“Shepherd out,” he said, and then terminated the call.
Everyone’s phones chimed with a new message, the coordinates of the campground from Ops. “I’ll plot our course,” Jackson volunteered. He sat in the front passenger seat.
“The Digital Team just sent the file,” Burke said, opening his email.
Mark Ellison’s photo was at the top of the file.
“So, this is the piece of shit that paid Valerie Butler’s father in drugs to repeatedly rape his fourteen-year-old daughter and then became a self-proclaimed militia leader who’s nothing more than a domestic terrorist.”
“He looks the part,” Tessman agreed. He too had his phone up to his face. “A military wannabe that didn’t have the stones to serve.”
“Let’s not forget this group has conducted hours of training. We’re going into territory he’s familiar with, and he’s probably heavily armed. Don’t underestimate him,” Wilson said.
“Looks like it will be about a two-hour drive to get there,” Jackson said.
“Memorize every detail in those files,” Wilson said. “And someone read me in as I drive.”
***
The thermometer was stuck at twenty-eight degrees when they reached their destination, Devlin Camp. The faded wooden sign pointed to the gravel driveway that wound its way through the leafless forest at the turnoff from the highway.
Wilson stopped the car after he’d turned into the driveway of the one hundred seventy-acre heavily wooded, rectangular-shaped property.
They had stopped up the road, and all donned their bulletproof vests.
This time, they adhered the three letter agency designations of the credentials they carried.
They’d also grabbed rifles and extra magazines of ammo, and they inserted their comms.
Jackson called into Ops to advise that they were onsite. “We’re going to launch the drone. Though I’m sure there’ll be many false-positive human-sized heat signatures with all the wildlife in the area,” he said. “Taco will fly the drone, and the rest of us will confront the heat signatures.”
“Roger that, Jax,” Yvette replied. “I’ll be watching from here as well. Xena is due in any minute and no other teams are scheduled to be engaged. We’ve got your back.”
“Thank you, Control,” Jackson said. He opened his car door and made eye contact with Burke. “Let’s get the drone in the air.”
They all got out of the car. Wilson stood with the portable controller and viewing monitor in his hand.
At the back of the vehicle, Jackson and Burke lifted the drone out of its box.
This model had a cylindrical body and four fixed-pitch wing propellers with two forward-facing cameras to give a one hundred eighty-degree view as it flew.
Additionally, there was a forward-facing thermal camera that registered heat signatures.
After they launched it, they took up positions behind Wilson to look over his shoulder and watch the feed from the cameras.
The drone soared high over the trees at speed as it headed towards the back of the property where there was a lake with rustic cabins clustered around it.
They’d start the search there. No heat signatures large enough to be human had been picked up as the drone made its way to the lake.
The beautiful blue lake came into view. Wilson reduced the speed so that a more detailed search could be made.
Starting at the northwest corner of the search grid, Wilson piloted the drone to the east, flying high over the widely spaced cabins, whose roofs could just barely be seen through the canopy of branches that hung over the cabins.
Had the leaves been on the trees, not a single cabin would have been visible.
Several large heat signatures in the woods lit up the screen.
Upon closer inspection, they were deer. After nearly twenty minutes of the drone flying over the cabins, the shiny reflection off something metal flashed across the screen.
Wilson brought the drone in for another pass at an even slower speed.
He angled it down and through the maze of bare branches, the source of the reflection became clear: the front bumper and grill of a dark blue pickup truck.
It was parked in front of a cabin in the center of the property, set back a good hundred yards from the lake.
“Got him,” Burke said before anyone else did. Mark Ellison drove a king cab, extended bed, dark blue Ford F-350.
“Got his vehicle,” Jackson said. “Don’t have any heat signatures in the immediate area.”
Wilson hovered the drone over the area and turned it in a slow three-hundred-degree circle.
Jackson was correct. There were no heat signatures in the immediate area.
He piloted the drone to expand the search, widening the circle in overlapping rings out from the pickup truck.
Finally, two heat signatures popped inside the cabin, which also showed warmth, to the south of the pickup truck. They were large enough to be human.
“We drive up and park as close to the cabins that we can without being detected. We’ll split into two teams and hike in,” Jackson said. “Wilson, keep the drone in the air, but widen the angle so you can see if anyone else is heading towards us or to our target cabin.”
“I want to disable the pickup before we engage,” Burke said. “Moe and I can take care of that and then circle back to approach the target cabin from the north, while you close in from the south.”
“I’ve notified Big Bear of the vehicle and heat signatures,” Yvette’s voice came through comms. “Proceed with caution.”
“Roger, Control,” Jackson replied.
The men piled back into the SUV, Jackson sliding behind the wheel. All five of the men knew that Ellison could have surveillance enacted on the driveway into the campgrounds or in the woods closer to the cabin. There could be cameras or motion sensors. Ellison very well could see them coming.
Wilson read off the coordinates of both the pickup truck and the cabin where the heat signatures were. The other men programmed the coordinates into their tactical smartwatches.
“We go in hot and hump it as fast as we can to where the heat signatures are,” Jackson said as he shifted to drive and stomped on the gas pedal.
“I’ll feed you new coordinates if they move,” Wilson said.
The interior of the vehicle was quiet as it sped along the gravel drive, the trees flying by on both sides.
Up ahead, the trees gave way to a clearing, and the driveway opened to a parking area in front of a building with a large wood sign that read ‘Devlin Camp General Store’.
It looked boarded up for the winter. Two gravel drives on each side of the building continued the driveway that gave access to the cabins and the lake beyond, the drone footage clearly showed.
Jackson took the drive that headed east. Rough wooden signs pointed to smaller gravel paths that led into the trees with the cabin numbers that could be accessed from each.
A few minutes later, Wilson spoke. “Okay, hold up, Jackson. We’re about due east of the cabin where the two heat signatures are holding steady. They’d just passed one of the cabin markers by a narrow dirt path that indicated cabins number thirty through thirty-three were located to the left.
“Looks like the cabin with the F-350 is just a bit north,” Burke said.
He grabbed his rifle, which stood on the buttstock on the floorboard by his feet.
He opened the car door and climbed out. Tessman followed.
“We’ll transmit after we’ve disabled the pickup and are heading towards the target cabin. ”