Patriot games - Tom Clancy [219]
"One appears to have shoulder-length hair," the photo expert agreed. He went on: "That doesn't necessarily mean it's a girl." Jack thought about that, looking at the figure's stance and posture.
"If we assume it's a girl, what does that tell us?" he asked Marty.
"You tell me."
"We have no indication that the ULA has female members, but we known that the PIRA does. This is the camp-remember that jeep that was driving from one to the other and was later seen parked at this camp?" Ryan paused before going on. 0h, what the hell He grabbed the photo of the six people on the gun range. "This is the one."
"And what the hell are you basing that on?" the photo-intel man asked.
"Call it a strong hunch," Ryan replied.
"That's fine. The next time I go to the track I'll bring you along to pick my horses for me. Listen, the thing about these photos is, what you see is all you got. If you read too much into these photos, you end up making mistakes. Big ones. What you have here is six people lined up, probably firing guns. That's all."
"Anything else?" Cantor asked.
"We'll have a night pass at about 2200 local time-this afternoon our time. I'll have the shots to you right after they come in."
"Very good. Thanks," Cantor said. The man left the room to go back to his beloved photo equipment.
"I believe you call that sort of person an empiricist," Ryan observed after a moment.
Cantor chuckled. "Something like that. He's been in the business since we had U-2s flying over Russia. He's a real expert. The important thing about that is, he doesn't say he's sure about something until he's really sure. What he said's true, you can easily read too much into these things."
"Fine, but you agree with me."
"Yeah." Cantor sat on the desk next to Ryan and examined the photo through a magnifying glass.
The six men lined up on the firing line were not totally clear. The hot air rising off the desert even in early morning was disturbed enough to ruin the clarity of the image. It was like looking through the shimmering mirage on a flat highway. The satellite camera had a very high "shutter" speed-actually the photoreceptors were totally electronic-that cancelled most of the distortion, but all they really had was a poorly focused, high-angle image that showed man-shapes. You could tell what they were wearing-tan short-sleeved shirts and long pants-and the color of their hair with total certainty. A glimmer off one man's wrist seemed to indicate a watch of bracelet. The face of one man was darker than it should have been-his uncovered forearm was quite pale-and that probably indicated a short beard Miller has a beard now, Ryan reminded himself.
"Damn, if this was only a little better "
"Yeah," Marty agreed. "But what you see here is the result of thirty years of work and God only knows how much money. In cold climates it comes out a little better, but you can't ever recognize a face."
"This is it, Marty. This is the one. We have to have something that confirms that, or at least confirms something."
" 'Fraid not. Our French colleagues asked the people they captured. The answer they got was that the camps are totally isolated from one another. When the groups meet, it's almost always on neutral ground. They didn't even know for sure that there was a camp here."
"That tells us something!"
"The thing about the car? It could have been somebody from the Army, you know. The guy who oversees the guards, maybe. It didn't have to be one of the players who drove from this one to the Provisionals' camp. In fact, there is ample reason to believe that it wasn't. Compartmentalization is a logical security measure. It makes sense for the camps to be isolated from one another. These people know about the importance of security, and even if they didn't before, the French op was a gilt-edge reminder."
Ryan hadn't thought about that. The raid on the Action-Directe camp had to have an effect on the others, didn't it?
"You mean we shot ourselves in the foot?"
"No, we sent a message that was worth sending. So far as we can determine,