Chapter 143

"Hey guys. You're right on time. I'm just doing my preflight safety check." Russell welcomed the group.

"Wow! That thing is a monster! I've never seen a drone that big, and I work in law enforcement. We have drones we use for searching for suspects and stuff, and this thing is even bigger." Dylan was impressed.

"Hello again Miss Kelly!" Kate greeted the toddler as Grace got her out of the carseat.

"Look at Mr. Monkey!" Kelly held up the pink stuffed monkey for a proper introduction to Kate.

'G'day, Mr. Monkey!" Kate responded.

"We took Kelly along because we don't get to see our niece very often and also because we wanted Ben and Jaz to have a romantic morning after their second engagement yesterday." Regan explained.

"I think it's great, Kelly is adorable. It'll be good practice for us." Kate looked down at her belly as she said that.

And for us, thought Regan with a smile.

"Okay, so I'm about ready to launch," said Russell. "I just want to make sure someone is holding Kelly during takeoffs and landings for safety. These propellers spin really fast, and I don't want her anywhere near them. I don't want her to get hurt."

"No problem. Regan picked Kelly up into her arms and made funny faces at her. 'Are we ready to see the drone fly? Yes, the drone is going to fly through the air like a bird!"

"Righto, here we go." Russell maneuvered the remote and the drone flew into the air. "I set up a second monitor right there so you guys can see what the drone sees without having to look on the remote while I'm operating it."

"Nice. Thanks for inviting us along." They pulled the camping chairs out of the back of the ute and set them around the monitor that was on the tailgate. Grace laid out a blanket for Kelly and gave her a couple toys to help keep her busy.

"So Russell, I thought we could start by following the main road there, that was gated when we went there before. I figure that it'll be easy enough to follow and we can get a good look at all of the buildings to see what kind of shape they are in and if there is obvious damage or maintenance needed. I've made a database of all the buildings I could remember from when I was there, and I'll go through a checklist on each one to start preparing a potential budget for the university."

"Oh Kate, I've missed you and your plans," Grace admitted.

"Russell, this is pretty impressive stuff mate, the footage is really good quality, and the drone is going really fast." Dylan complimented.

"Thanks. I'll slow it down when we get to what we need to look at closely."

"It's really cool to get a bird's eye view of the land. When you're all done with your project, would you do a fly over of Wilgul for me? I'd love to have that for when I'm back in my office in Canberra and missing home," Regan asked.

"Yeah of course. We did an aerial selfie during the test run at Drovers. It came out really cute, Claire posted it on her Instagram. I could do a flyover with the four of you plus Jaz and Ben outside and add a family portrait too." Russell offered

"Aww, that would be awesome." Regan said.

"Yeah, I would love that," said Grace.

"Okay Russell, there's the road. Let's follow it towards the buildings." Kate asked. "At least the road looks to be in really good shape, like really really good shape, no potholes or anything."

"Wait is that, yeah. Why is there a big truck in there?" Dylan asked while making faces at his niece. "It's moving. I thought this place was abandoned."

"Jaz told us she hasn't seen anyone here in at least a year." Grace added.

"The real estate company told me it was uninhabited and the owners were in Asia somewhere." Kate said, confused.

"Can you zoom in on the back? I wonder if we could pull the plate off it." Dylan was getting into detective mode.

Russell positioned the drone to get a clear shot at the back of the truck. He then zoomed in on the license plate. "I took a snapshot of it as well. Now that I'm closer, it looks like one of the water trucks that delivered to Drovers the other day."

"It sure does. We were outside when Jaz got her delivery too." said Regan. "Why would an abandoned property need a water delivery?"

"Can you follow the truck? Could it be cutting through this property on it's way to somewhere else? Maybe the driver just knows a short cut or something." pondered Grace.

"I don't think so, I thought Kinsella's backed up onto the national park. It borders Killarney and Wilgul on the other sides and we know it's not going to either of those places because they just got their water two days ago," Kate said.

"I say we follow the truck for now and figure out where it's going. The driver could be lost or confused or just looking for somewhere to pull over and take a wee for all we know." said Dylan.

"But how did he get through that security gate? It was really thick and secure when we checked it out. That's why we had to build the drone in the first place." wondered Russell.

"I'm just saying innocent until proven guilty is all, but it's definitely weird. You know what, I can just look up that plate. Dylan looked at Kate. "Does your laptop have the internet out here?"

"Yeah, Russell set up a hotspot for me." replied Kate.

"I can access the AFP database online. I might be on holiday, but I'm still a cop." Dylan said.

Kate handed the laptop to Dylan. He logged in and then ran the plate.

"Well look at that. It's a dummy plate. That number is registered to a Subaru Legacy in Port Augusta. That's definitely not a Subaru, I reckon they either printed duplicates or possibly just stole the plates off that car, but I think it's more likely they duplicated it." said Dylan

"Russell, you're recording all of this video right? It could be evidence," said Regan.

"Yup, it's recording on a hard drive on the drone and onto the harddrive of this tablet. I also have GPS location tracking data of exactly where the video was taken and the time it was taken."

"I totally get the nickname now. Way to go Ironman." said Dylan. "I'm not going to call this in yet, but I am definitely very interested in finding out where this guy is going. Stay on him, but not too close, I don't want him to know we're watching."

"Wow, this road is longer than I was expecting it to be. We must be nearly across the whole property at this point, it's been nearly an hour." said Kate. They had long passed all of the buildings she had originally planned on inspecting in pursuit of the water truck.

'"This is starting to look more like the wildlife corridor rather than grazing land. I didn't realize Kinsella's had such a forested portion on it. It's quite ragged with hills and cliffs too " observed Regan.

"I'm going to have to raise my elevation, I don't want to hit a tree or any branches, the drone could be damaged, and we'd be left with no way to follow the truck, plus I don't want to hurt K2," Russell commented.

Russell brought the drone up and kept following the truck. All of a sudden, the truck disappeared in the trees. The tree cover had gotten extremely thick.

"What? Where did it go?" Kate exclaimed.

"Should I keep going as though it were still moving, or should I hover?"

"I'm not sure," said Dylan. "Actually, could you go back out to where there was less cover, and then get really low elevation, like just a couple meters off the ground. I'm thinking we need to stay on the road. With the tree cover, we can't see much of anything. That truck could have pulled off, or stopped or pulled into some crazy secret tunnel. I think we need to stick with the last place we saw it, and search for clues there," suggested Dylan.

"Keeping that kind of elevation will be really tough. If I have the slightest movement, it'll crash. I'll try it, but this is not an easy request," warned Russell.

"You're Ironman, you can do it," said Dylan

"I'm an engineer dammit, not a professional drone pilot." said Russell as he wondered if anyone else got the Star Trek reference and laughed to himself.