Sharon hit a button to superimpose grid coordinates over the image.

"A little less than a quarter mile," she said.

"Any movement near the other gates?"

She shook her head. "Not according to aerial IR scans, ground surveillance cameras, or reports from the guard posts."

Ricci thought a moment. Things just weren't making sense. Nimec's briefing had indicated the attack on the Brazilian ISS facility was a multi-pronged and precisely coordinated affair, planned around a detailed knowledge of the compound's layout. There had been airborne infiltration, scattered ambushes, the works. Though its objectives remained a question mark, there was no doubt that whoever had directed it was proficient in commando-style dispersal and distraction tactics. What he was seeing here, this column of jeeps coming at their guns, was a suicide run.

He expelled a breath. "The TRAP T-2s ... what's the max distance their operators can stay back from the firing line?"

Sharon leaned over toward a lean, bespectacled black man at the console to her immediate right.

"Ted, I need you to tell me--"

"Sixty meters," he said without looking up from his screen.

Ricci did an approximate mental conversion. Two hundred feet, give or take.

"Notify the men at the perimeter that they're to fire soon as the jeeps are in range," he said. "I want two thirds of the weapons on lethal settings ... we hit them with gas and fireworks first, give them a chance to back off. They keep coming, it's shoot to kill. The QR teams should be ready as our second line of defense."

Ted nodded.

"Sir," Sharon said, looking quickly over her shoulder at Ricci. "Something's happening here I don't understand."

He made a winding gesture with his hand.

"I'm getting an IR hot spot like nothing I've ever seen before from inside the center ... at the north end."

"We have pictures?"

" 'Manta's nanosensor range is far beyond its electro-optical--"

"In plain English, Sharon, please."

"It can detect heat and energy emissions from a distance, but video's limited to point of sight ... objects directly below it."

Ricci ran a hand back through his hair.

"North end's the industrial section," he said. "Bring up a map of the area. I want to see exactly what buildings are over there."

Computer keys clicked to his right. Ted gestured to a monitor in front of him.

"Done," he said.

"Sir." This from another man who had come rushing over from across the trailer a second earlier. "Don't know if it's relevant to what we're seeing here, but we just got word from north sector of some friction between our people and a couple of VKS guards at their checkpoint."

"Friction over what?"

"Russian with lieutenant's boards arrives in a truck, gets into a snit about showing us his documents, the VKS guards override our security procedures and wave him through. Same kind of thing we've been dealing with all week. We've already lodged a complaint with VKS command, but I thought you should know."