'I backed you up,' Herbert replied.
'Hell, we had no choice. But this is a price they should not have had to pay.'
Hood agreed but to say so seemed pathetic somehow.
They were crisis management professionals. Sometimes the only barrier between control and chaos was a human shield.
As iron-willed as that barricade could be, it was still just sinew and bone.
Hood moved behind the desk. He looked down at the computer.
Logic aside, he still felt hollow. Hood and the others had known going in that there were risks involved with this mission. What galled him was that an attack from allied ground forces was not supposed to be one of those risks. No one imagined that the Indian military would shoot at personnel jumping from one of their own aircraft, suspended from the parachutes clearly identified as those belonging to the Indian air force. This phase of the operation was only supposed to pit trained professionals against severe elements.
There was going to be a chance for most if not all the Strikers to survive. How did it go so wrong?
'Colonel August was right about us needing a backup plan,' Herbert said.
'We went off the play book We've got to get to work and give him--' 'Hold on,' Hood said.
'Something's not right.'
'Excuse me?' Herbert replied.
'Look at this satellite image,' Hood said.
Herbert did.
'The terrorist cell is still moving beneath the overhanging ledges, just as they've done since sunup,' Hood said.
'But they've also got a little elbow room now. They have these shadows to move in.' Hood pointed at the jagged areas of blackness on the monitor.
'See how the shadows are lengthening as the sun sets behind the Himalayas?'
'I see,' Herbert said.
'But I don't get your point.'
'Look at the direction of the shadows relative to the sun,' Hood told him.
'The cell is moving in a westerly direction.
Not northwesterly. That's different from before.'
Herbert stared for a moment.
'You're right,' he said.
'Why the hell would they be doing that?'
'Maybe there's a shortcut?' Hood suggested.
'A secret path through the glacier?'
Herbert brought up the detailed photographic overviews from NASA's Defense Mapping Agency. These photographic maps were marked with coordinates and were used to target satellites. Herbert asked the computer to mark the area that Viens was studying now. Hood leaned over Herbert's wheelchair and looked closely at the monitor as a faint red cursor began to pulse on the region the cell was crossing.
'There's no shortcut,' Herbert said.
'What the hell are they doing? They're actually taking a longer route to the line of control.'
'Will August still intercept them?' Hood asked.
'Yes,' Herbert said. The intelligence chief pointed to a region slightly north of where the cell was.
'Brett came down here. He's heading southeast. He'll just be meeting them a lot sooner than we expected.' Herbert studied the map.
'But this still doesn't make sense. This route isn't going to take the Pakistanis through more accessible terrain. It's farther from the LOC, it's not at a lower altitude, and it doesn't look easier to negotiate.'
'Maybe they've got a weapons cache or another hideout along the way,' Hood suggested.
'Possibly,' Herbert said. He went back to the live NRO image.
'But they were relatively close to the border where they were. Why would they want to give the Indians more time to catch them?'
The interagency phone line beeped. Herbert punched it on speakerphone.
'Yes?' Herbert said.
'Bob, it's Viens,' said the caller.
'It's getting dark in the target area. The light is now down enough for us to switch to heat-scan without being blinded. We'll be able to track the cell easier.' 'Go ahead,' Herbert said. He hit the mute button on the phone.
Herbert and Hood continued to look at the overhead map.
Hood was studying the area at the foot of the plateau.
