Page 33 of Todd
Timothy’s room gave evidence of illness and a hasty departure. The bed was unmade with sheets twisted in a way that spoke of someone who’d been too sick to care about his usual meticulous standards. Towels lay crumpled on the bathroom floor.Jesus, Tim. You must have been in agony.
Todd pulled out his phone and typed another message to Sadie.Hotel.The single word felt inadequate for everything he wanted to say, but practicality was needed at this time.
Unable to sit still with nervous energy coursing through his veins, Todd rolled up his sleeves and began the methodical process of erasing the evidence of Timothy’s ordeal. He gathered the scattered towels into a neat pile by the door, stripped the bed, and bundled the linens together.
Through the window, he spotted one of the hotel’s service attendants making her rounds, her cart loaded with fresh supplies. When he waved her over, her weathered face creased into a smile. She was probably relieved to find a guest who wasn’t demanding or difficult in this small desert outpost.
“Fresh linens? Housekeeping?” she offered in accented English, her hands already reaching for crisp white sheets.
“Just the linens, thank you. I’ll handle the rest myself.” Todd gratefully accepted the bundle, along with packets of coffee and tea she pressed into his hands, with the generosity of someone who understood that small comforts mattered in a place like this.
He tipped her probably more than she usually saw in a week, but insisted on maintaining his privacy. No one needed to enter this room, lowering the potential security risks he had to worry about.
The next hour passed in a blur of methodical activity that helped calm his restless energy. He made the bed with military precision, scrubbed the bathroom until it gleamed, and then began the careful process of sweeping the room for surveillance devices. Timothy would have done a thorough check upon arrival, but twelve hours of an empty room was twelve hours of opportunity for someone with less-than-welcoming intentions.
His hands moved with practiced expertise, checking outlets, light fixtures, the underside of furniture, anywhere a listening device or camera might be concealed. The small electronic detector in his kit remained blessedly silent, but Todd’s dedication to safety had kept him and his teammates alive too many times to count.
His phone buzzed with a message from Cole.Timothy’s out of surgery, doing well, and pissed as hell.
Despite everything, Todd found himself chuckling. Of course, Timothy was pissed. Having to bug out in the middle ofa mission due to a medical emergency would rankle him worse than the physical pain. The Keepers lived and breathed for the work and for the sense of purpose that came with protecting people who couldn’t defend themselves.
Todd typed a return message.Good. No problems here.
Cole’s follow-up confirmed that Timothy would be discharged tomorrow, and Cole would fly him back to Montana for proper recovery.Now if I could just hear from Sadie…
Timothy had managed to secure his laptop before the ambulance arrived. Even in a medical crisis, the man was a professional, but all the relevant mission data had already been transferred to Todd’s systems. He pulled up the files now, reviewing surveillance reports, guest lists, facility layouts, anything that might give him insight into what Sadie was facing.
Timothy had planned on using the drone today to get a close-up of the cameras on the perimeter. Deciding he needed to do something now, he gathered the equipment Timothy had ready and headed back out to his SUV.
The Arizona sun beat down mercilessly on Todd’s shoulders as he carried his equipment bag across the desert scrub, the dry heat unlike anything Montana had ever thrown at him. Even at four in the afternoon, the temperature had to be pushing into the upper nineties, and sweat already darkened his shirt despite the arid climate that should have wicked moisture away instantly.
He’d driven his rental car as far as the rutted dirt road would allow, then hiked another half mile through a landscape that looked like the surface of Mars with red rock formations, scattered sage brush, and endless stretches of sand punctuated by cacti that seemed designed by nature to inflict maximum damage on unwary humans. His boots crunched against thehard soil with each step, the sound unnaturally loud in the vast silence.
This was reconnaissance at its most fundamental level—eyes on target, gathering intelligence that could mean the difference between mission success and catastrophic failure. More importantly, it could mean the difference between Sadie’s safety and her disappearance into whatever nightmare Serenity Dunes might be hiding behind its facade of luxury wellness.
Finding a position with clear sightlines to the spa’s perimeter while remaining invisible to their security apparatus had required careful study of topographical maps and satellite imagery. Todd settled behind a cluster of red sandstone boulders that rose from the desert floor, their weathered surfaces providing both concealment and elevation advantage.
From this vantage point, Serenity Dunes spread before him like a mirage of civilization in the hostile wilderness. The main complex gleamed white against the desert backdrop with a series of low, elegant buildings connected by covered walkways that created the illusion of flowing water across the landscape. Pavilions and gardens dotted the immediate grounds.
But it was the perimeter that demanded his attention. According to the facility’s marketing materials and building permits, Serenity Dunes spa sat in the middle of twenty acres. What those sanitized documents didn’t reveal was the true scope of their isolation—miles of empty desert in every direction, creating a natural prison where wealthy guests with no personal vehicles were limited in their ability to leave if they desired.
Todd unpacked his drone with methodical precision. The quadcopter was civilian grade on the surface, the kind of device any photography enthusiast might use for landscape shots, but Bert’s modifications had transformed it into a sophisticated surveillance platform. He added high-definition cameras, infrared capability, encrypted transmission that couldn’t beintercepted by casual eavesdropping, and most importantly, nearly silent operation that wouldn’t alert security personnel to its presence.
His laptop opened to display the control interface, and with a few keystrokes, he established the secure connection to LSIMT. Within seconds, Logan’s face appeared on screen, followed by the familiar forms of Dalton, Cory, and Casper clustered around the conference table.
“We’re receiving your signal clearly,” Logan confirmed. “Proceed when ready.”
Todd’s fingers moved across the drone’s controller with practiced expertise, sending the device spiraling upward into the sky. The machine climbed steadily, its cameras automatically adjusting to capture maximum detail while maintaining the illusion of casual aerial photography.
“Visual contact established,” he reported, watching the spa complex shrink to miniature proportions on his screen. From this height, Serenity Dunes looked even more like an island of artificial perfection in an ocean of desert.
The drone’s first pass traced the facility’s outer boundaries, revealing details that ground-level observation could never provide. The perimeter fence was more substantial than promotional materials suggested. It was eight feet of steel mesh. But more concerning was the gaps Todd’s trained eye immediately identified.
“I’m seeing camera coverage,” he announced, his voice steady despite the adrenaline flooding his system. “Motion sensors integrated into the lighting system, probably triggered by anything larger than desert wildlife.”
The drone continued its systematic survey, mapping blind spots with precision. Each camera position, each sensor cluster, each potential observation post was cataloged and transmittedback to Montana, where the team could analyze angles and coverage patterns.
But it was the western perimeter that offered hope. Here, where the fence line approached a dry creek bed carved by centuries of flash floods, the terrain created natural concealment. A maintenance shed squatted near the boundary, its position suggesting it serviced infrastructure that extended beyond the fence line.
