All of which had preceded his express shipment to Kazakhstan, a severe, inhospitable place populated with equally severe, inhospitable Russian military and scientific personnel whose antagonism toward him was more than a little reminiscent of his old friend Cobbs. They were indignant about his having taken command of site protection at their Baikonur Cosmodrome prior to the space launch. They had bristled at his front-line deployment of Sword patrol units and defensive systems. They viewed his assistance as gross interference, and had let him know it at every possible turn.

He wondered how much worse his reception would have been if they'd known this was, more or less, his first day on the job.

Fatigued and out of joint, his biological clock in jagged contention with the time displayed on his wristwatch, Ricci sat at an onboard vehicle computer in the trailer that was his mobile command center and logged onto UpLink's secure intranet server via cellular modem, waiting for pictures from space that his instincts told him were about to reveal complications that would make every problem he'd encountered since his arrival in Central Asia--if not since his farewell urchin run with Dex--seem piddling by comparison.

Soon after the transmission began, those instincts proved themselves to be right on the money.

"This ground station's part of our Geographic Information Service division," Nimec was explaining to Annie. "Our clients include real estate developers, urban planners, map and atlas publishers, companies involved in oil, natural gas, and mineral resource exploration ... a whole range of businesses that can benefit from high-res topographic imaging data. Essentially, though, the profits we earn from those contracts go toward defraying expenses the GIS piles up doing gratis work to satisfy Gord's altruistic drives."

They were alone in the first of several rows of theater-style seats climbing toward the rear of what could have been mistaken for a small movie screening room, but for the technical staffers at horseshoe-shaped computer workstations to their left and right. A large flat-screen display covered most of the wall in front of them.

"Spy-eye time as a charitable donation," she said. "That's a new one to me."

Nimec looked at her.

"You remember that child abduction in Yellowstone about six months ago? The little girl, Maureen Block, got snatched out of her parents' camper? The guy who did it was some survivalist nutcase, held her in a lean-to made of timber and leaves. She was found by park rangers after sweeps from Hawkeye-I penetrated his camouflage, captured infrared images of the girl and her kidnapper while they were in the shelter."

Annie put her hand up to her forehead.

"I think," she said, "I've just embarrassed myself."

"No reason you should feel that way," Nimec said. "Our involvement was never disclosed. We've worked with local police departments, the FBI, NSA, you name it. This isn't quite classified information, but it is for the most part held confidential by the various agencies."

"At whose preference?"