'Bob, if we move the satellite will we be able to look into this valley?' Hood asked, pointing at a grid marked '77.' 'I don't know,' Herbert told him. He glanced over at his boss.
'Paul, I want to find Mike too. But we only have the one satellite in the region. Do we want to tie it up looking for him?'
'Mike could have lost or damaged his radio in the fall,' Hood said.
'If he's alive there might be something he can do for Brett. We need every resource we can get over there.'
'Even if they're two thousand vertical miles and God knows how many as-the-crow-flies miles away?' Herbert asked.
'We don't know for certain where Mike is,' Hood pointed out.
'We need to find out.'
Before the intelligence chief could consider what Paul Hood had said, Viens came back on the line.
'Bob, are you looking at the new satellite photos?' Viens asked.
Herbert killed the mute function.
'No,' he replied and immediately jumped back to the feed from the Omni Com
'Is there a problem?' 'Maybe,' Viens said.
'Even when the cell was under the ledge we always caught a glimpse of a head or arm so we knew we still had them. What do you see now?'
Herbert and Hood both leaned closer to the monitor as the image formed.
The picture looked psychedelic, like something from the sixties. Hot, red shadows were spilling out along a field of green-colored rocks and snow.
The shadows of only three people.
'What the hell's going on there?' Herbert asked.
'I don't know,' Viens admitted.
'Some of the terrorists could have been lost along the way.'
'It's also possible they turned on Friday and the Indian officer,' Herbert thought aloud.
'Maybe there were casualties.
We should try and get them on the radio.'
'No,' Hood said.
'Contact August and let him know there are three individuals ahead.
Tell him they may be hostile and that he is to use discretion whether to shadow rather than engage. Stephen, can you get me a look at grid 77 on file map OP-1017.63?'
'I'll bring that map up, see if it's in the Omni Com focal range,' Viens replied.
'It'll only take a minute.'
'Thank you,' Hood said.
Herbert shook his head.
'What reason would the cell have for attacking Friday?' he asked.
'Maybe it was Friday who turned against the cell,' Hood said. Then he straightened.
'Wait a minute,' he said.
'It could be possible that none of the above happened.'
'What do you mean?' Herbert asked.
'Ron Friday must have told the cell that the Indian soldiers were coming toward them,' Hood said.
'Right,' Herbert said.
'The Pakistanis could not know there was a threat until Friday joined them,' Hood went on.
'They did not know that getting Nanda to Pakistan was the only way they might be able to stop a nuclear exchange. What would you do with that knowledge, especially if you were also told that an American strike force was coming to link up with you?' Hood said.
'If you were smart and bold and probably a little desperate you would try something unexpected.'
'Like splitting your forces and using one group to draw the Indian soldiers away,' Herbert said.
'Right. Which means that the other four people may be somewhere else, probably holding to the original course,' Hood said.
'If that's true, it means we don't want August and Musicant linking up with the splinter group, since they're probably going to want to draw fire from the Indians,' Herbert said.
'Correct. Bob, let August know what we're thinking,' Hood said. He leaned back over the computer and returned to the NASA map.
