“Okay, Chief,” the junior technician said. “I show a pos on the RPL. That’s a catch!”
“Stability?”
A look at another section of his display. “Set.”
The chief let out a breath. This rushed shit, especially the altitude dives, made him nervous, considering the bird was one of a kind. There were three of the originally planned four KH-12s in orbit, the fourth having suffered a rocket motor explosion as it climbed to its 550-mile area observation altitude. Right now it was tumbling away from earth. An expensive piece of space junk. One KH-12 ENCAP, three standard KH-12s, plus a handful of the older, less capable KH-11s in orbit was stretching the thin minimum needed. And none of the 11s or 12s had the capabilities of the 12 ENCAP, whose most important feature was its ability to ‘hover’ over the same point in low earth orbit, giving continuous surveillance of that spot.
“Hmm,” the bearded suit grunted. “Fuzzy.”
Just hang on. “It’ll clear up. We’re focusing down slowly. Got to, otherwise the lens motor might cause gyrorotation.”
“I see,” the suit lied. He had no idea what it meant. Hurry.
“Chet, start VDI and recorders. Do you guys need one copy or two?” the chief asked, turning to see the single finger in response from the colonel.
“VDI up and nominal. Recorders nominal. Running…now.” The junior technician engaged the two high-resolution recording devices. The Video Data Interface was another story. As the signal came down from a Milstar relay satellite in geosynchronous orbit it was broken down into microseconds of digitized information. These bits of imagery were then stored on computer disk for later enhancement and retrieval. It was basically a high-tech file cabinet, though the pictures could be pulled up on the data terminals, in their original form, at will.
The picture began to twist and roll as the optics oriented themselves and began to focus down. The ‘target’ was Benina International Airport, miles outside of Benghazi. It would be a low oblique shot from the south, approximately forty-three degrees above the horizon — not an ideal angle of view, but one necessitated by the moist air directly over the target.
“We have visual definition,” the junior tech announced. The picture became clearer. Objects took on a somewhat familiar appearance, at least to the techs: They were accustomed to overhead views.
“Okay, Chet, float the op-pac and sync with a three-point burst. Do you reconfirm reference lock with VDI?”
“Yep. Ready to synchronize.”
“Do it.” The chief saw the picture flutter, then appear to lock down solid. The optical package, a fancy name for the lens array, was ‘floating’ in a gel-encased bearing ring and was stabilized against minor shaking by a short burst of narrow radar beams directed at three points around the airport. The beams, fired every two seconds, gave precise information as to the satellite’s position in relation to the target, allowing the gyrostabilizer to precisely calibrate itself with the optics and compensate for unwanted motion.
“We have capture. Solid.” The young tech, thirty years the junior of his chief, always got excited at this point. “Ready for focus down.”
“Good. Take it down to a three-mile start.”
Now the NSA men were able to make out details, the most prominent being the ten-thousand-foot east/west runway. At the extreme west end, on the picture’s left, were the buildings and spacious surrounding tarmac. But…
The chief saw it, too, or rather didn’t see it. He shifted the glasses on his nose, scrunching his face in a conscious effort to better his vision. “Simple grid.”
A white line grid system overlay appeared on the screen, angled to the perspective of the lens and parallel with the ground features. Letters denoted columns; numbers were rows.
“Center on G-twelve,” the chief directed.
The junior tech placed a light dot on the grid and the lens moved smoothly, centering on that area.
“Grid off.” It disappeared. “Zoom down three-oh. No more.”
“Right.” The picture grew, and for the first time the aircraft they were looking for was visible, roughly in the screen’s center. “Strange, Chief. No other planes…anywhere.”
There was no response. The chief didn’t analyze like his young partner. It had been too many times early on that he’d spoken out of turn, or the wrong thing. Times were different then. Openness was supposedly promoted now, from what he’d heard.
“Okay, let’s move on in.” He was all business now. “Align west, Chet, say, point-five, and take it down another ten.”
“Right.” The picture went down farther. Now the aircraft filled half the screen, the tail at the left (west) and the nose at the right (east). A hundred feet or so to the front of the 747 was a building. Shadows from it were becoming shorter as the sun rose higher in the sky.
“Chet, what’s that structure?”
“Just a sec.” He typed something on his keyboard, calling up the data catalog on Benina from the VDI. The airfield had received a great deal of attention before the 1986 raid, resulting in over ten thousand stored views. The junior tech scrolled through the data, cross-referencing the known landmarks with the view before him. “Warehouse. Spares and stuff.”
The civilian NSA man scratched his beard. “Damn, that’s clear.”
“This? This is a wide view, mister. Snapshot stuff.” The junior tech was beaming. “Hell, we can take it down and look in a window, especially at this angle. We might get some glare, but that’s no prob. Minor adjustments.”
“Label those buildings,” the colonel said. “But don’t obscure anything.”
“Right.” Like I’m an idiot, suit.
The hint of sarcasm was apparent to the chief, who flashed his partner a warning look.
“Movement,” the junior tech announced. “We have movement.”
They watched for nearly two hours before the senior NSA official left with a recorded copy of the events and two Marine guards. Their destination was the White House.
A rough thud signaled the connection of a passenger ramp to the forward port cabin door.
Captain Hendrickson loosened his tie and sat ramrod straight in the seat to stretch his back. It was aching like hell. He couldn’t stand the lumbar supports, and the stress of the situation wasn’t helping. That was all right. He would make it home, and when he did the overstuffed armchair, neglected for so long, would find itself with a permanent user. He could fish and hunt in the stream and hills of his beloved Maine, and spend the rest of his quiet retirement with his even more beloved Anita. For now, though, he would endure the nightmare that was unfolding around him through the cockpit windows. Endure and conquer.
‘Tell them to open the door,” Hadad commanded from behind.
Buzz chewed on his lip. The captain saw this, knowing that it was hard for his first officer to accept what was happening. He was not a man who accepted the thought of captivity with glee, having evaded the Vietcong for weeks after his F-4 was downed.
“Cap-tan… The door. Now!”
Hendrickson lifted the cabin phone and waited for the buzz to be answered. “Who is… Millie? Open the port number one. I know. I know. Just go ahead. It’ll be okay.” He hung up.
Seconds later there was a minor vibration and an annunciator signal as the door was opened. Other than that it was quiet. The four engines were idle, the aircraft receiving system power from a GPU — Ground Power Unit — whose distant hum was negligible.