Skies were blessedly clear over the jungles of central Brazil. The first KH-11 D went over at nine-thirty in the night, local time. Its infrared cameras took a total of three hundred twenty frames, plus ninety-seven more in the visible spectrum. These images were immediately cross-loaded to a communications satellite, and from there beamed down to the antenna farm at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, near Washington. From there they went by landline to the National Reconnaissance Office building near Dulles Airport, and from there via another fiber-optic line to CIA headquarters."This looks pretty vanilla," the senior duty photoanalyst told them in Foley's office. "Buildings here, here, here, and this one here. Four airplanes on the ground, look like Gulfstream Vs-that one's got a longer wing. Private airfield, it's got lights but no ILS gear. I expect the fuel tanks are here. Power plant here. Probably a diesel generator system, by the look of this exhaust plume. This building looks residential from the window-light pattern. Somebody build a nature resort we're interested in?" the analyst asked.
"Something like that," Clark confirmed. "What else?"
"Nothing much for a ninety-mile radius. This here used to be a rubber-tree plantation, I'd say, but the buildings are not warmed up, and so I'd have to say it's inactive. Not much in the way of civilization. Fires down this way"he pointed-"campfires, maybe from indigenous people, Indian tribes or such-like. That's one lonely place, sir. Must have been a real pain in the ass to build this place, isolated as it is."
"Okay, send us the Lacrosse images, too, and when we get good visual-light images, I want to see those, too," Foley said."We'll have a direct-overhead pass on another bird at about zero-seven-twenty Lima," he said, meaning local time. "Weather forecast looks okay. Ought to get good frames from that pass."
"How wide is this runway?" Clark asked.
"Oh, looks like seven thousand feet long by three hundred or so wide, standard width, and they've cut the trees down another hundred yards-meters, probably, on both sides. So, you could get a fair-sized airplane in there if the concrete's thick enough. There's a dock here on the river, it's the Rio Negro, actually, not the Amazon itself, but no boats. I guess that's left over from the construction process."
"I don't see any telephone or power lines," Clark said next, looking closely at the photo.
"No, sir, there ain't none. I guess they depend on satellite and radio comms from this antenna farm." He paused. "Anything else you need?"
"No, and thanks," Clark told the technician.
"Yes, sir, you bet." The analyst walked out to take the elevator for his basement office.
"Learn anything?" Foley asked. He himself knew nothing about running around in jungles, but he knew that Clark did.
"Well, we know where they are, and we know about how many of 'em there are."
"What are you planning, John?"
"I'm not sure yet, Ed" was the honest reply. Clark wasn't planning much, but he was starting to think.
The C-17 thumped down rather hard at Travis Air Force Base in California. Chavez and his companions were rather seriously disoriented by all the travel, but the walk outside the aircraft was, at least, in pleasantly cool ail-. Chavez pulled out his cell phone and speed-dialed Hereford, then learned that John was in Langley. He had to dredge that number up from his memory, but remembered it after twenty seconds or so, and dialed.
"Director's office."
"This is Domingo Chavez calling for John Clark."
"Hold, please," Foley's receptionist replied.
"Where are you now, Ding?" John asked, when he got on the line.
"Travis Air Force base, north of 'Frisco.Now where the hell are we supposed to go?"
"There should be an Air Force VC-20 waiting for you at the DV terminal."
"Okay, I'll get over that way. We don't have any of our gear with us, John. We left Australia in a hurry."
"I'll have somebody take care of that. You get the hell back to D.C., okay?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. C," Ding acknowledged.
"Your guest, what's his name-Gearing?"
"That's right. Noonan sat with him most of the way. He sang like a fuckin' canary, John. This thing they planned to do, I mean if it's real-Jesuchristo, jefe."
"I know, Ding. They've bugged out, by the way."
"Where to, do we know?"
"Brazil. We know exactly where they are. I have Al bringing the team across to Fort Bragg. You get to Andrews, and we'll get organized."
"Roge-o, John. Let me go find my airplane. Out." Chavez killed the phone and waved for a blue USAF van that took them to the Distinguished Visitors' lounge, where they found yet another flight crew waiting for them. Soon thereafter, they boarded the VC-20, the Air Force version of the Gulfstream business jet, and aboard they found out what time it was from the food that the sergeant served them. Breakfast. It had to be early morning, Chavez decided. Then he asked the sergeant for the correct time and reset his watch.
CHAPTER 39
It struck Noonan as terribly odd that he was traveling with a confessed attempted-mass-murderer in an aircraft without the man's being in handcuffs or a straitjacket or some sort of restraint. But, as a practical matter, what was he going to do, and where was he going to go? It might be possible to open the door and jump out, but Gearing didn't strike the FBI agent as a suicide risk, and Noonan was damned sure he wasn't going to hijack this aircraft to Cuba. And so Tim Noonan just kept an eye on the prisoner, while considering that he'd arrested the mutt on another continent, in a different time zone and hemisphere. and on the far side of the International Dateline. He'd been in on the Fuad Yunis takedown in the Eastern-Mediterranean ten or eleven years before, but he figured this might be the FBI's all-time distance record for arresting a subject and bringing the mutt home. Close enough to twelve thousand miles. Damn. The price had been the air travel, which had his body thoroughly wrecked and crying out for exercise. He changed the time setting on his watch, then wondered if the day was the same-but, he decided, while you could ask the USAF sergeant flight attendant for the time, you'd look like a total fucking idiot to have to ask the date. Maybe he'd get it from a copy of USA Today back in the States, Noonan thought, pushing his seat back and locking his eyes on the back of Wil Gearing's head. Then he realized: He'd have to turn his prisoner in when they got to Washington, but to whom, and on what charge?
"Okay," Clark said. "They get into Andrews in two hours, and then we'll take a puddle jumper to Pope and figure out what to do."
"You've got a plan already, John," Foley observed. He'd known Clark long enough to recognize that look in his eyes.
"Ed, is this my case to run or isn't it?" he asked the DCI.
"Within reason, John. Let's try not to start a nuclear war or anything, shall we?"
"Ed, can this ever come to trial? What if Brightling ordered the destruction of all the evidence? It's not hard to do, is it? Hell, what are we talking about? A few buckets of bio-gunk and some computer records. There're commercial programs that destroy files thoroughly enough that you can't recover them ever, right?"
"True, but somebody might have printed stuff up, and a good search-"
"And then what do we have? A global panic when people realize what a bio-tech company can do if it wants. What good will that do?"
"Toss in a senior presidential advisor who violated security. Jesus, that would not be very helpful for Jack, would it?" Foley paused. "But we can't murder these people, John! They're U.S. citizens with rights, remember?"
"I know, Ed. But we can't let them go, and we probably can't prosecute them, can we? What's that leave?" Clark paused. "I'll try something creative."