narrowed their interest to two geographic areas: the alluvial plains and savannah of the Pantanal, and an overlying region of rocky, semiarid escarpments called Chapada dos Guimaraes.
It was the highlands that came to attract their most intense scrutiny. Magnification of the images registered what appeared to be an ad hoc runway in a massive table formation at the Chapada’s western edge — some fifty kilometers from the ISS facility, and well within the bounds of a radar-eluding aircraft launch and HAHO drop. Further examination revealed the snaking, deliberate track of a roadway winding up the precipitous sandstone walls of the plateau. Light reflection patterns in the visible spectrum showed the definite earmarks of mechanical objects on the formation’s broad, flat top and in a narrow draw cut into the base of the slope — guessed to be fixed-wing aircraft and wheeled vehicles from their shapes and dimensions.
These initial evaluations, coupled with a studied look at infrared bandwidth patterns coming from the grotto that distinctly showed human heat signatures, the long-wave IR “hot spots” of motorized activity, and the contrasting emissions of camouflage and growing vegetation, led to a rapid decision to target the area for the high- res, full-spectrum scan now in progress.
Gordian watched as Hawkeye-I telescoped in on the flattened plateau and relayed its digital eye-in-the-sky shots from communications satellite to ground station at trillions of bits per second, a computer-generated map grid projected over the image on the display.
“Right over there, you see those planes?” a photo interpreter beside him said. He switched on his headset and mouthed a set of coordinates into it. “What’s our res?”
“We’re in at slightly under a meter,” a tech replied in his earpiece.
“Get us in closer, we need to see what kind they—”
“One of them is a Lockheed L-100, same damn transports we use,” Gordian interrupted. “The other’s an old DC-3 workhorse.”
“Lots of hustle and bustle around them. I’d say a total of thirty, forty individuals.”
The analyst on Gordian’s opposite side sat up straight and pointed. “The vehicles lined along the slope look like quarter-ton Jeep ‘Mutts,’ supply trucks… some heavy-duty rigs.”
Gordian leaned toward the edge of his seat.
“They’re pulling up stakes,” he said.
“Those guys in desert fatigues around the plane, how close can you zoom in on them?” Ricci said into his computer’s mike.
“Give us a minute, you’ll know if any of them have acne scars,” a techie replied via his earphones.
He waited, his attention rapt on the screen.
It took less than a minute.
The man at the foot of the L-100’s boarding ramp had short-cropped hair, an angular face with a strong, square jut of chin, and wore aviator glasses and a drive-on rag-type headband. He was clearly calling out orders, directing the upload of personnel and cargo.
“You see that one?” Thibodeau said. Hands gripping the tubular safety rail of his bed, he hoisted himself painfully up from his pillow, leaning closer to the notebook computer on his hospital tray. “You
“Rollie, maybe you’d better take it easy—”
“What?”
“Got the look of a wildcat.” Thibodeau’s eyes were alight under the brim of his battered campaign hat. “He’s in command. An’ not just of gettin’ stuff onto the planes.”
Megan studied the screen from the chair beside his bed.
“You think we’ve got the top man in our sights?”
“Don’ know if he’s the brains… but combat leader,
Megan turned her attention back to the face on-screen.
“We better find out who he is,” she said.
Thibodeau looked at her.
“Cherie, I think it’s more important that we find out where he an’ his boys are goin’… an’ if we can, stop them from gettin’ there.”
“The question is
Ricci from across the globe: “Agreed. And if they’re mobilizing, what for?”
“How long before we have Hawkeye-II transmitting optical images from over Kazakhstan?” Gordian asked over the voice link.
“There’s some cloud cover over the region right now,” a tech said. “Weather readings indicate a slow-moving front.”
Listening in, Annie turned from the face being close-upped on the wall and stared at Nimec.
“Kaza—” she mouthed silently.
Nimec cut her off with a motion of his hand as the satellite techs gave Gordian his answer. Then he briefly switched off his headset.
“Sorry,” he said. “I wanted to hear what—”
It was Annie’s turn to interrupt. “You think those people are out to stop the Russian shuttle launch? Cause the same sort of thing that happened to
Nimec licked his lips.
“My feeling is they could be,” he said. “The satellite pictures will tell us more.”
She shook her head in anxious disbelief.
“What now?” she said. “We need to… are you going to contact the State Department?”
Nimec saw her hand trembling on her armrest, and took hold of her wrist.
“Annie—”
“It can’t be allowed to happen again, Pete,” she said. “It—”
“Annie.”
She looked at him.
“We’ll handle this,” he said. His grip was firm around her wrist. “I promise.”
TWENTY
Unmarked, ghost-gray, their prop/rotor wing-tip nacelles tilted at 90° angles to their fuselages in full vertical-takeoff-and-landing mode, the pair of Bell-Boeing V-22 Ospreys left their launch platforms in the ISS compound’s helipad area at 7:00 P.M Brazilian Daylight Time, rising straight and straightaway through layers of purple twilight at a speed of 1,000 feet per minute.
In the starboard pilot seat of the lead Osprey’s glass cockpit, Ed Graham glanced out his rearview mirror and saw his wingman slot into formation off his port side. He had on a modular integrated display and sight helmet that allowed for day-or-night heads-up flight and resembled nothing more than the headgear worn by rebel star-fighter jocks in
Although they had spent many hours training in the Osprey, and proven their skill and teamwork at handling the Skyhawk chopper under fire, this would be their first offensive mission in the tiltrotor craft.
Six minutes into their ascent, Graham used the thumb-wheel control on his thrust lever to graduate the nacelles down 45° to their horizontal positions — at which point the Allison T406-AD-400 turbines behind their rotor
