noticed Neal and the other members of his team flinch at the mention of the other Agent.
But John did not avoid the thought of his brother-in-arms for long, “A good question.” John eventually replied, “He was last seen helping the team that was trying to limit the spread of the virus we discussed earlier. They were shot down over the Middle East, a place we were unable to fully inoculate with our antigen.”
John looked at several of the military people in the room, and noted their stoic expressions. Finally he looked at Neal, and found in his intense stare the resolve he sought.
“I am assured we are doing everything we can to find him.” he said, and Neal nodded.
Chapter 5: Running Wild
In the late 1950s the first spy satellites were launched by the United States and Russia as they sought to peek over the iron curtain that hung between them. In the days before digital media , several interposed film cameras were used to capture images on film four times the size of our household standard. Used film reels were then ejected from the satellite in large, heat-resistant canisters to fall to back into the atmosphere, and were intercepted in midair by specially designed planes as they parachuted down. Each Corona spy satellite carried two film reels each, totaling more than six miles in length if unspooled.
In a stark demonstration of the evolution of our information age, a single iPod touch available in any of a thousand stores could easily store hundreds of times the information those reels held, and could transmit it wirelessly in less than an hour.
Just as our ability to record and transmit images has evolved exponentially, so has our ability to capture them. So it is an incredibly powerful camera, two hundred miles above the surface of the earth, looking through a four-meter-wide lens of astonishing acuity, that spots the unfolding chase far below.
It is one of many such eyes around the globe, and it reports back its images in near real-time to USSTRATCOM in Offutt, Nebraska. The images contain the answer to a vital question.
“Neal, this is Barrett,” came the voice over the phone. It was after 11pm, and as usual, Neal was in his new office.
“Barrett, what’s up?” came Neal’s distracted reply. He had spent the day after their conference at Camp David in teleconference meetings with a series of world leaders whose envoys had vigorously opined them to become involved personally.
Recognizing Neal’s distracted tone, Barrett changed his own in order to bring his friend around, “Neal, I have just gotten off the line with STRATCOM. They’ve found Shahim.”
Neal came to with a start, “Where?”
“He seems to be heading away from the crash sites we found yesterday, and he isn’t alone. But he has been pinned down near Mashhad by a platoon of Iranian Commandos. I have requested that they patch through the link to the SecCom in Conference Room 527, can you meet me there?”
“Immediately. What about John and the others?” Neal was already standing and grabbing his laptop.
“John’s already there, Madeline’s driving in as we speak.” said the general.
“Good. I’ll be there momentarily.”
- - -
Lord Mantil knelt in the center of a shabby, dank room, his senses on high alert, his every system primed and ready. He had made it as far through the desert as he could have hoped before being spotted. In the end, he couldn’t have known that a lone pair of army scouts in a jeep had stopped for a rest just beyond a ridge, out of his line of sight, or that one of them had stepped behind a rock to take a pee. Unbeknownst to a heavily burdened Lord Mantil as he sprinted at inhuman speed across the desert, the startled man had watched him from just behind that rock. The lowly infantryman’s brain had refused to register what he was seeing at first, squinting ever harder to make out the motorbike that his mind insisted must be there for the apparition to be moving so fast. Despairing at
But John did not avoid the thought of his brother-in-arms for long, “A good question.” John eventually replied, “He was last seen helping the team that was trying to limit the spread of the virus we discussed earlier. They were shot down over the Middle East, a place we were unable to fully inoculate with our antigen.”
John looked at several of the military people in the room, and noted their stoic expressions. Finally he looked at Neal, and found in his intense stare the resolve he sought.
“I am assured we are doing everything we can to find him.” he said, and Neal nodded.
Chapter 5: Running Wild
In the late 1950s the first spy satellites were launched by the United States and Russia as they sought to peek over the iron curtain that hung between them. In the days before digital media , several interposed film cameras were used to capture images on film four times the size of our household standard. Used film reels were then ejected from the satellite in large, heat-resistant canisters to fall to back into the atmosphere, and were intercepted in midair by specially designed planes as they parachuted down. Each Corona spy satellite carried two film reels each, totaling more than six miles in length if unspooled.
In a stark demonstration of the evolution of our information age, a single iPod touch available in any of a thousand stores could easily store hundreds of times the information those reels held, and could transmit it wirelessly in less than an hour.
Just as our ability to record and transmit images has evolved exponentially, so has our ability to capture them. So it is an incredibly powerful camera, two hundred miles above the surface of the earth, looking through a four-meter-wide lens of astonishing acuity, that spots the unfolding chase far below.
It is one of many such eyes around the globe, and it reports back its images in near real-time to USSTRATCOM in Offutt, Nebraska. The images contain the answer to a vital question.
“Neal, this is Barrett,” came the voice over the phone. It was after 11pm, and as usual, Neal was in his new office.
“Barrett, what’s up?” came Neal’s distracted reply. He had spent the day after their conference at Camp David in teleconference meetings with a series of world leaders whose envoys had vigorously opined them to become involved personally.
Recognizing Neal’s distracted tone, Barrett changed his own in order to bring his friend around, “Neal, I have just gotten off the line with STRATCOM. They’ve found Shahim.”
Neal came to with a start, “Where?”
“He seems to be heading away from the crash sites we found yesterday, and he isn’t alone. But he has been pinned down near Mashhad by a platoon of Iranian Commandos. I have requested that they patch through the link to the SecCom in Conference Room 527, can you meet me there?”
“Immediately. What about John and the others?” Neal was already standing and grabbing his laptop.
“John’s already there, Madeline’s driving in as we speak.” said the general.
“Good. I’ll be there momentarily.”
- - -
Lord Mantil knelt in the center of a shabby, dank room, his senses on high alert, his every system primed and ready. He had made it as far through the desert as he could have hoped before being spotted. In the end, he couldn’t have known that a lone pair of army scouts in a jeep had stopped for a rest just beyond a ridge, out of his line of sight, or that one of them had stepped behind a rock to take a pee. Unbeknownst to a heavily burdened Lord Mantil as he sprinted at inhuman speed across the desert, the startled man had watched him from just behind that rock. The lowly infantryman’s brain had refused to register what he was seeing at first, squinting ever harder to make out the motorbike that his mind insisted must be there for the apparition to be moving so fast. Despairing at
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