Obviously, they wanted to conserve both their flares and their ammunition. Though Rodgers kept his automatic trained on the entrance there was no further exchange of gunfire. The ice walls kept even the wind outside. An eerie stillness settled on the enclosure.

There was only the crunch of Samouel's boots on the ice and a deep, deep freeze that caused the exposed flesh around Rodgers's eyes to burn.

Samouel and Nanda reached the ice boulder. The Pakistani slid to his knees beside Rodgers. He was breathing heavily as he sat Nanda with her back to the ice. The young woman was no longer in the near-catatonic state she had been in earlier. Her eyes were red and tearing, though Rodgers did not know whether it was from sadness or the cold. Still, they were moving from side to side and she seemed to be registering some awareness of her surroundings.

Samouel moved toward Rodgers.

"General, I saw something when the flares went off," Samouel panted.

"What did you see?" Rodgers asked.

"It was directly behind the place where you and Mr. Friday were," the Pakistani said.

"On one of the lower ledges of the slopes, about nine or ten feet up.

It looked like a satellite dish."

An uplink, Rodgers thought. Of course.

"Maybe that has something to do with why we were sent to this place,"

Samouel continued.

"I'm pretty sure it does," Rodgers said.

"Was the dish out in the open?"

"Not really," Samouel said.

"It was set back, in a little cave. About five or six feet it seemed."

The Pakistani shook his head. He sighed.

"I can't say for sure that it was a dish.

There was white lattice, but it could have been icicles and a trick of the light."

"Would the site have been visible from the air?" Rodgers asked.

"Not from directly overhead," Samouel told him.

Rodgers glanced back. It was too dark to see the ice wall now. But what Samouel just said made sense. If there were a video setup somewhere inside the Pakistani missile silo, then there had to be an uplink somewhere on the outside. The dish or antenna did not have to be on the top of a peak.

All the dish needed was an unobstructed view of one area in the sky. A single spot where a communications satellite, possibly Russian or Chinese built-and-launched, was in geosynchronous orbit. The cables connecting the relay to the silo would probably be relatively deep inside the ice wall. Whoever designed an uplink for this area would not want the wiring too close to the surface. Melting ice might expose the cables to wind, sleet, or other corrosive forces, not to mention leaving it visible to passing recon aircraft.

"Tell me something, Samouel," Rodgers said.

"You wired some of the bombs and remote detonators for Sharab, didn't you?" "Yes," Samouel said softly.

"Do you have experience with radios?" Rodgers asked.