Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [180]
After two hours of crunching, one of the algorithms struck gold and an image began depixelating on his screen. It was a large file, almost six megabytes, so the decoding would take a few minutes. He picked up the phone and called Granger. Two minutes later Jack had an audience of eight standing over his shoulder, watching the monitor as the photo resolved.
“What the hell is that?” Brian asked, leaning in.
The photo was blurred and desaturated of color. Jack imported it into Photoshop and washed the file through some filters, working the contrast and brightness until the image came clear.
There was ten seconds of silence.
The 8×10 image was done in 1940s pinup style: a dark-haired woman in a white cotton peasant skirt, sitting on a bale of hay, her legs crossed demurely. She was naked from the waist up, her impossibly massive breasts drooping to her thighs.
“Tits,” Sam Granger said. “My God, Jack, you’ve discovered tits.”
“Oh, shit,” Jack muttered.
Everyone burst out laughing.
Dominic said, “Jack, you little pervert … I had no idea.”
Then Brian: “So, Jack, exactly how much ‘depixelation’ do you do in your spare time?”
More laughter.
“Very funny.” Jack groaned.
Once the laughter died down, Hendley said, “Okay, let’s break it up and let Mr. Hefner carry on. Nice work, Jack.”
At four o’ clock, Jack woke up Clark and Chavez. “Show-time, guys. Conference room in five minutes.”
They showed up in four minutes, both armed with an extra-large cup of coffee. Everyone else was already seated: Hendley, Granger, Bell, Rounds, Dominic, and Mary Pat. Clark and Chavez took their seats. Rounds took the lead. He looked up from the summary Biery had sent up a few minutes earlier.
“A lot of this is nuts-and-bolts stuff that may help us down the road. The big-picture items are three. He picked up the remote and aimed it at the forty-two-inch wide-screen TV. The frontspiece of a passport appeared on the screen. “That’s what our guy looked like at some point in the last six to nine months.”
There was ten seconds of silence around the table.
“Bears a resemblance to the few pics we’ve got of him,” Bell said.
Rounds said, “Forged French passport. High-quality work. The stamps, the backing, the threading—all perfect. According to Masood’s hard drive, the Emir used this three months ago. Peshawar to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, then to Ashgabat, Volgograd, then Saint Petersburg. Then nothing.”
“That’s as far as Masood took him,” Dominic added.
“Can’t be his final destination,” Jack replied. “Another mover took over, maybe?”
Clark said, “If you average out his hops, he was heading generally northwest. Extend that a little and you’re into Finland or Sweden.”
“Sweden,” Mary Pat said. “The plastic-surgery thing?”
“Maybe,” Granger said.
“The Hlasek Air thing?” Chavez wondered aloud.
“That, too, maybe. If Saint Petersburg was as far as Masood took him, that means he dumped the French passport for a new one. If he went into Sweden or Finland on a new one, he wouldn’t be able to land anywhere after that—at least not legitimately.”
“Explain that.” This from Hendley.
“He couldn’t use his old face for the next passport, and there’s no way he gets one all bandaged up, so he sits still until all the swelling and bruising are gone, then gets the passport.”
“Let’s back up a second,” Jack said. “Who took over as the mover in Saint Petersburg? That’s the question we need to ask.”
“Needle in a haystack,” Bell said.
“Maybe not,” Mary Pat came back. “Masood was ex-ISI. The URC chose him because he was a pro at it. They’d want the same thing in Russia. Maybe we’re looking for ex-SVR, or ex-KGB.”
“Or GRU,” Rounds added. “Military intelligence.”
“Right.”
“Any way to narrow down the list, Mary Pat?” Clark asked.
“Maybe. It’s a pretty specialized skill. Probably would take somebody who handled illegals. Lot of those still