Free Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters by Alex Archer

intensity of those fields up to a depth of 5,000 meters, which in turn helps us identify pockets of everything from oil and natural gas to precious metals.”
    Annja felt her excitement growing. “What about nonprecious metals like iron or steel? Can it pick those up, too?”
    “Absolutely.”
    Annja couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Using this technology would make the search for the aircraft so much easier, provided they could get the drone to operate properly in the high winds of the Alps. She turned to find Garin watching her.
    “You are a genius!” she told him. “I could almost kiss you.”
    He smiled and opened his arms. “Please do.”
    To her great surprise, she was actually tempted. Resisting the impulse, she flashed him a smile. “I said almost.”
    Garin waved his hand in a gesture that was meant to take in the whole command center. “When you told me about the project, I immediately thought of Reinhold. His technology is absolutely cutting-edge, so new that we haven’t even announced it publicly yet. I figured this would be an excellent test run for him and his team.”
    “And we’re looking forward to the task,” Reinhold said. “I was just going to check on the preparations for the drone’s flight. Care to join me?”
    Annja, Paul and Garin followed the German scientistas he went through the door at the far end of the command room and entered another large room just beyond where another team of men were currently prepping the drone for flight.
    The aerial vehicle looked very much like the well-publicized Predator drones used by the US Air Force and the CIA, but was probably a quarter of its size. Looking at it, Annja guessed it was roughly ten feet in length with a wingspan of something in the neighborhood of fifteen feet. It had the same bulbous nose as the Predator; in fact, Annja thought that this one might be even more pronounced. It was still big, but not the monstrosity that were the Predator and its ilk.
    One crew member had the nose open and was making adjustments to something—the imaging equipment was Annja’s guess—while a second was fueling the bird from a long hose attached to a tank in the far corner.
    Reinhold continued with his explanation. “Once we launch the drone, we’ll direct it to make systematic passes over the target area, mapping it in grid-like fashion similar to how you would handle a dig site, Annja. A few hours after that the computer will be finished crunching the data and will give us a three-dimensional model of the search area complete with its findings.” He grinned. “If the aircraft is there, I’m confident we will find it.”
    They returned to the control room, where Reinhold spent some time in conference with Annja, trying to identify the best section of the search area to start with. In the end, they chose an area a few kilometerswide by ten kilometers long moving southeast in a straight line from their current location. It matched the direction Captain Mitchell had reported last seeing the Junkers traveling, and it abutted a series of peaks that were, in Annja’s view, too high for the damaged aircraft to have navigated over. They also identified two additional portions of the search area to try in case the first search was unsuccessful.
    An hour after they had arrived they all stood in the control room watching the monitors. The oddly insectile-looking craft raced down the makeshift runway of hard-packed snow and took off into the cold mountain air with barely a sound. It was a clear day with little wind, for which Annja was deeply thankful. It would make the scanning much easier. Reinhold was quietly issuing commands to his team, and Annja was pleased to see that they worked like a well-oiled unit; these men knew their jobs and would perform to the best of their abilities. They sent the drone to the target altitude and got the search underway.
    At that point, there was nothing to do but wait.
    * * *
    T HE NEXT SEVERAL hours were