Over the previous twenty-four hours, Hawkeye-I had made a series of low-resolution passes over an area describing a radius of about three hundred klicks around the ISS installation in Matto Grosso do Sul, its field of reconnaissance determined by the results of a computerized vector analysis seeking those areas of highest probability from which the raid of April 17th might have been staged. Entered into these calculations were wind conditions on the night of the attack, approximations of the HAHO team's point of descent into the compound, estimates of their maximum range of travel, flight controller logs from known airfields, likely sites for concealed airfields, intelligence about regional criminal and political extremist enclaves, and a galaxy of other data deemed pertinent by Sword's electronic surveillance experts.

After reviewing the computer analysis and initial flyby imagery, the photo interpreters had systematically narrowed their interest to two geographic areas: the alluvial plains and savannah of the Pantanal, and an overlying region of rocky, semiarid escarpments called Chapada dos Guimaraes.

It was the highlands that came to attract their most intense scrutiny. Magnification of the images registered what appeared to be an ad hoc runway in a massive table formation at the Chapada's western edge--some fifty kilometers from the ISS facility, and well within the bounds of a radar-eluding aircraft launch and HAHO drop. Further examination revealed the snaking, deliberate track of a roadway winding up the precipitous sandstone walls of the plateau. Light reflection patterns in the visible spectrum showed the definite earmarks of mechanical objects on the formation's broad, flat top and in a narrow draw cut into the base of the slope--guessed to be fixed-wing aircraft and wheeled vehicles from their shapes and dimensions.

These initial evaluations, coupled with a studied look at infrared bandwidth patterns coming from the grotto that distinctly showed human heat signatures, the long-wave IR "hot spots" of motorized activity, and the contrasting emissions of camouflage and growing vegetation, led to a rapid decision to target the area for the high-res, full-spectrum scan now in progress.

Gordian watched as Hawkeye-I telescoped in on the flattened plateau and relayed its digital eye-in-the-sky shots from communications satellite to ground station at trillions of bits per second, a computer-generated map grid projected over the image on the display.

"Right over there, you see those planes?" a photo interpreter beside him said. He switched on his headset and mouthed a set of coordinates into it. "What's our res?"

"We're in at slightly under a meter," a tech replied in his earpiece.

"Get us in closer, we need to see what kind they--"

"One of them is a Lockheed L-100, same damn transports we use," Gordian interrupted. "The other's an old DC-3 workhorse."

"Lots of hustle and bustle around them. I'd say a total of thirty, forty individuals."

The analyst on Gordian's opposite side sat up straight and pointed. "The vehicles lined along the slope look like quarter-ton Jeep 'Mutts,' supply trucks ... some heavy-duty rigs."