October's Ghost

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  Senior Analyst Jenny MacNamara, while differing in anatomy from her ancestors in the field, had all the skills requisite in a top-notch interpreter, namely a good pair of peepers and an innate sense of curiosity. To look at an image and see trees was one thing, but to look at the trees and wonder what kind they were was another. To take that wonder one step farther and determine the last time a mountain alder in the rolling foothills west of the Rockies had received rain based upon the growth rate of its leaves was the type of self-enforced lunacy that made Jenny one of the best. It had also earned her a place of respect in the eyes of her colleagues, and the nickname Spot, which was representative not of her looks, which were above average by any standard, but of her ability to spot the incongruous. To some she saw what was not there. That was, of course, until she politely pointed it out to them.

  The data dump of images had come in a few hours before. Over fifty image “packages” were received, some containing a thousand separate pictures that had been assembled into larger, more telling representations of what was really there. While Jenny knew what sensors obtained the images, she was not supposed to know from where. The same way she wasn’t supposed to imagine a red elephant when her logic professor at MIT had suggested that one couldn’t help but do so when the mention of one was made. A big, fast bird.

  She pushed herself away from the workstation to the small refrigerator, retrieving a clear bottle of flavored seltzer that hissed open with a twist. The computer continued its task without its operator’s attention. Inside the four tower cases on a riser to the display’s right were parallel arrays of microprocessors, four hundred in all. The process was logically called parallel processing and took the simple analogy that two hands were better than one to a new exponent. Enough processing power was built into the system to allow image compilation that had only been possible in machines like the Cray some years before.

  Still, the process Jenny had initiated was complex and time-consuming. More than looking at the visible light images, which she had done an hour before and noted that which deserved noting, she was now feeding the data from the Synthetic Aperture Radar through the computer to build a picture. In reality she was building an island.

  The capability, which had revolutionized her job, was made possible by the SAR. Actually a grouping of thousands of small radar transceivers and receivers arrayed along a long, flat slab, the SAR took a radar picture of a target as it moved over its area of observation. What resulted were detailed pictures of a target from a variety of angles. These images were then combined to form a stereoscopic contour world consisting of billions of bits of digitized data, portions of which could then be called up for close analysis.

  A series of quick beeps signaled the end of the computer’s task. Jenny slid back to the workstation’s thirty-inch monitor. “Harry, it’s up.”

  Her assistant, Harrold Fastwater, moved to the adjacent identical display. Grandson of one of the famed Navajo codetalkers of World War II, he had come to NPIC after a stint in the Navy, following the same career path as his senior partner. The Navy, as was recognized by those not in the rival armed services, had a superior cadre of image analysts, and surprisingly allowed them to migrate to other government agencies quite easily. Spreading the blood around, the Navy brass quietly joked.

  “Jesus!” Fastwater exclaimed at the data count on his screen.

  “Ain’t nothing, Harry. Remember, you’re not playing with that real-time garbage anymore.” Jenny herself had graduated to the more complex assembly-and-analysis process eight months before. “You want to watch TV, tune in the soaps. This is big-time data.”

  Harry shook his head. He had only been on board with MacNamara for a week, but he still didn’t understand her disdain for real-time imagery. To him it was damn exhilarating watching things from a hundred or more miles up as they happened. But his enthusiasm for the former was about to be dampened.

  Jenny typed a command on the keyboard before switching her right hand to the mouse like digitizer. Upon the two-and-a-half-foot diagonal screen a jagged finger of green and brown appeared, a field of blue surrounding it. “Welcome to Cuba, Harry.”

  Harry noted that the detail was on a strategic scale. The topography looked as it would on a visible-light topographic plate, but this was done with radio waves? “Yeah, it’s good, but...”

  “But nothing,” Jenny said. “Watch.”

  She moved the digitizer to the right, a cursor appearing on the screen and mimicking the track of her hand. A click brought one corner of a box to the screen, somewhere in the central part of the island, and a drag expanded the area of its coverage. “Area one.”

  A touch of the digitizer brought a zoom down to the bordered area, which now filled the screen with increased clarity.

  “Wow,” Harry commented. He had expected to see a degradation in detail, not enhancement.

  “Your first SAR shot, eh?” she asked, smiling at the image, which was taken down two more steps.

  “Uh-huh.” Fastwater stared wide-eyed at the image. “Incredible.”

  “You think this is something, wait till next year this time.” The image of the area north of Cienfuegos became the focus of Jenny’s attention. “Your clearance covers it, so no big deal in telling you, but once we get those stacked-parallel machines in here, we’ll be doing flybys just like that Grand Canyon stuff you’ve seen.”

  “No shit?”

  Jenny looked to her left. “No shit, buddy.”

  It was time for work. “Okay, let’s find out what’s there.”

  Harry, manipulating his own controls, started tagging objects as man-made that didn’t fit into the natural terrain. The anomalies were distinct from the usually smooth surrounding terrain because of their boxy shape. Most were buildings, but those showing a computer-enhanced motion distortion were obviously vehicles. Dimensions were extrapolated by their relation to known objects, a job the computer handled with a simple command.

  “Lots of trucks going somewhere. Zil models, looks like,” Jenny guessed, the computer unable to distinguish between the several models of the Russian-built transports. “Look at this.”

  “What?” Fastwater, his screen duplicating what the senior analyst’s showed, focused his attention on a group of dark rectangles in a line. A convoy.

  “See how the outlines are sharper on this—let’s see, that’s south—on the south side?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jenny swept the area with the bright dot, drawing an imaginary circle around the convoy. “Those are the front ends of the trucks. See, there’s more distortion at the other end, which means the SAR got fewer returns from the objects as it passed over. Just like a picture of a runner in motion. From a camera it’d be like the effect from a slow shutter speed.”

  “Or an IR image,” Fastwater added, catching on to Jenny’s explanation. “On that you have a ghost trail when there’s movement.”

  “Right. Same thing here. So what does it tell us?”

  “Other than the obvious?” Harry asked, aware of the senior analyst’s rep as a near photo-psychic.

  “All of it.” Jenny rotated the chair and faced her partner.

  “Well, they’re moving south. We can peg the road designation and tell where, more or less, they’re going.”

  “And...” Jenny knew what she wanted him to see.

  Harry looked back at the scene and shrugged his shoulders. “Correlate with the camera shots to peg the units involved.”

  “Harry, which is more important: going to the grocery store or coming from it?” Jenny drilled the question into her partner with her eyes. Come on.

  Fastwater knew there had to be more to the question than the obvious, but... “Coming home.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got... Because I’ve got the goodies!” Harry’s eyes lit up.

  “Do they have the goodies? Are they running full or empty?” Jenny turned back to the display, her point now ready to act on. “If they’re running south empty,
toward their supply bases around Cienfuegos, then it means they’re going back for more.”

  “Might make a nice artillery ambush,” Fastwater mused.

  “That’s up to the boys with the guns. But what if they’re running full?”

  “Why would they go back with supplies?” Harry couldn’t fathom that.

  “You don’t have to return with the same load you left with,” Jenny observed as she took the view down farther to a point just behind the lead truck in the convoy.

  “Troops.” It was said as both a realization and a hope. “You think they might be retreating?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.” Jenny manipulated the enhancement functions of the workstation on the SAR data. Besides being able to construct a photo-mosaic representation of the surface of a target, the SAR could also penetrate into the soil or water a few feet, depending on conditions. This function had such diverse abilities as determining subterranean structures helpful to oil exploration and also in detecting minute subsurface ocean displacements to aid in the hunt for submarines. But when in the hands of a skilled image analyst, it could do much more.

  “What are you doing?” Harry gave up trying to follow Jenny’s actions on his own display and rolled his chair next to hers.

  “Well, we’re going to do this by the numbers. See, behind the first truck. The tread impressions.”

  “Right,” Fastwater said. “We determine the depth, and we can extrapolate the load.”

  Jenny glanced at her partner. “Hey, I’m not a witch. It ain’t that easy, anyway. There’s been rain, so we won’t have a uniform depression depth. Just thank God they’re keeping off the paved roads.”

  “Guess they’re getting hit hard there,” Harry surmised correctly.

  “Yeah. So, we have to go with this first truck’s tracks before any of the ones behind it roll through them. Now, we’re going to take a subsurface reading on the depression and measure the lateral spread. Then we go to the soils book.

  “The what?”

  “You are new.” Jenny chuckled. “The Agency has soil data from just about anyplace you can imagine. Rate of percolation, etcetera. So we take that data and run a simple computer simulation on the load-distribution characteristics of the soil with the amount of rain received factored in. From that we get a PSI requirement. Bingo!”

  “Oh, I see. That easy, huh?”

  “Well, we’ll have to run variables for the different types of trucks those could be. But we’ll still find out if they’re running home full or empty. Ready to get started?”

  Fastwater laughed. “I thought you were done!”

  “Funny.”

  Harry moved back to his own workstation, amazed at the magic he was becoming part of. He knew that he’d like it here, especially working with the woman who was right about everything except possibly one mundane assertion she had made. To Harry Fastwater, his partner might just be a witch.

  * * *

  The six men stood outside the makeshift housing hurriedly set up for them in a secure area of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. They were waiting in the chill of the early evening, looking to the south as the Air Force security police assigned temporarily to protect them watched from several blue Humvees surrounding the crude accommodations. What the men were looking toward was beyond their vision, but people the world over gave reverence to unseen places of meaning. These six men, none younger than forty-eight, were doing something not dissimilar, imagining the place they knew they would soon be. A place they had once lived in. A country of unlimited opportunity. A nation they had been tasked to rule.

  But it was from the opposite direction that something approached and pulled their attention from the south. It was a sporadic, rhythmic thumping at first but grew in intensity and frequency as the seconds ticked by. Within a minute the sound was identifiable, intimately familiar to three of the men who had served their adopted country in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

  The craft descending from the darkness, however, was similar to the Bell Aircraft Hueys of Vietnam fame only in function, and that little more than partially. It was long and squat, with thick, stubby wings coming from each side below the main rotor shaft. From each wing there were suspended pontoon-like objects that gave the aircraft a wide, menacing appearance. And from the front there protruded a long tubular device that, if this were a mongrel insect of some kind, would be seen as a potent stinging weapon.

  But the weapons with which the MH-60K Pave Hawk was fitted were not of the mechanical, thunderous kind that would strike a foe from afar. Its weapons were of the quiet variety, like nocturnal hunters, whose approach was swift and silent, but whose strike was violent and precise.

  Delta had arrived.

  “Bux, check out the security, then form the squad up,” Major Sean Graber directed, pointing to the Humvee with its rack lights blazing. He followed the eight men of Charlie Squad, his old unit, out of the Pave Hawk, which lifted off immediately and headed for an out-of-the-way hangar in another area of the Cape.

  Graber peeled off from the line of Delta troopers and trotted over to the six men, his charges until the appointed hour of their delivery. They were dressed like any suburbanite middle-aged men out for a weekend visit to a distant relative, faces somber and impatience the dominant trait in their demeanor.

  “Gentlemen, I’m Major Sean Graber, United States Army.” Sean stood there momentarily, waiting for a response to his presence, or a question, or anything, but the disinterest he had detected while approaching continued. “Which one of you is Mr. Alvarez?”

  José-Ramón Alvarez shifted his rotund frame slightly. “I am President Alvarez, Major.”

  Well, that’s the game then. “Sir, I have been instructed to have my men escort you to your country at the time the situation permits it. I am not, sir, allowed or required to offer any official representation of my government concerning your status. Once you reach your destination and assume the duties that will be bestowed upon you per the agreement, then I will treat you as a head of state. Until then, sir, I and my men will afford you the utmost respect...no less, no more.”

  The future leader of the nation of Cuba eyed the soldier who towered over him. He held his rifle casually one-handed at his side. Equipment pouches hung from his webbing, as did a helmet not of standard issue to infantry soldiers. This man was special.

  “What are you?” the executive secretary of the Cuban Freedom Society asked, acquiescing to the fact that he would not be referred to as “president” by this man.

  “An American soldier, sir,” Sean responded.

  From behind, the others of his kind approached. They formed a loose half-circle behind Delta’s XO.

  “Security’s set, Maj,” Buxton reported.

  “Mr. Alvarez, gentlemen, let me introduce you to the team that will escort you in.” Sean stepped to the side. “Captain Chris Buxton is the squad leader. Next is Lieutenant Michael Antonelli.” The CFS men looked with some awe at the huge blond Italian officer. “Sergeant Chuck Makowski. Sergeant Jerry Jones. Sergeant Bruce Goldfarb. Sergeant William Lewis. Sergeant Tony Quimpo. Sergeant Alfred Vincent.” The major moved back to the center. “These men are all highly qualified to protect you as you return to your country.”

  Alvarez looked over the men. Two were black, Jones and Vincent. One, Quimpo, was Asian, probably Filipino. The rest were Caucasian. “Tell me, Major, do you think it wise to provide escorts who cannot even speak the language of my people?”

  The major looked over his shoulder to Antonelli. “Miguel.”

  “Estoy a sus ordenes,” the lieutenant said. “Con muchisimo gusto.”

  Alvarez scoffed at the display with a snicker. “Very proper Spanish, but very simple.”

  Graber smiled, his head bowing momentarily as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We all have adequate language skills, and, with any luck, we won’t need to use them. Survival and escape, you know. But this shouldn’t be all that difficult, Mr. Alvarez, so I’m certain you will let us know if
we misinterpret anything.”

  The man said nothing in response to the mild jab. “Of course.” An electronic ringing interrupted the conversation, then a cell phone was passed to Alvarez from one of the others. “If you will excuse me, I have business to attend to with my cabinet.”

  Sean nodded, holding his words as the six men walked away.

  “It’s always a pleasure to watch over folks like that,” Buxton commented.

  “Real down-homers,” Jones added.

  “Well, we won’t be getting locked into any long conversations with them,” Sean pointed out. “All right, we make the best of this. Chris, set up a schedule. Twelve and twelve.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Major Sean Graber stood alone for a moment after the squad dispersed to be put into guard shifts by their leader. I get shot at so we can baby-sit these boneheads. It didn’t always make sense, but then it didn’t have to. There were orders to follow, and even the distasteful ones had to be carried out as if they were of the highest urgency. It was the mark of the professional.

  * * *

  “Thule, Fylingdales, and Clear all registered the cessation of signals from the Russian radar-warning system,” Bud told the President, referring to the three American BMEWS sites in Greenland, Great Britain, and Alaska respectively. They were in the privacy of the Oval Office, enjoying a relaxed late dinner. “Finally it’s here.”

  “Your hard work, Bud,” the President said honestly. His expression changed after the compliment. “What about the sub?”

  “No word,” the NSA said. “The Navy is starting an air search as we speak. The Coast Guard is going to help, also. Two attack boats will be on station in a few hours. The problem is—”

  “I know,” the President said, letting out a worried, exasperated breath. “They just disappear and go where they want.”

  “Within a patrol area,” Bud added. “A very big area. This one was Mid-Atlantic.”

  “Don’t our subs have some kind of emergency locator?” the President inquired. He poured himself a final cup of coffee—his personal physician would have had a fit at the number he’d had already this day—and finally undid his tie. Bud was still in a jacket.