Every three seconds the DSP system downloaded an infrared map of the Earth’s surface and surrounding airspace. Kincaid knew that most of the data was simply stored on tape in the Warning Center, unless, of course, the computer detected a missile launch, or something happened to one of the objects already in space that they were tracking. Right now, his computer screen showed the current DSP projection and nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
Kincaid looked like a burned-out New York City cop. He was one of the few left at JPL and NASA from the early, exciting days of the space program. He wasn’t a specialist, but a jack-of-all-trades. He had been mission head for all Mars launches, a job that had thrust him into the spotlight when the Airlia base on Mars had been uncovered in the Cydonia region.
Kincaid checked his watch. He’d been staring at the computer for the past three hours. He decided he’d give it another half hour — then he froze as a small red dot began flashing on the screen.
Kincaid used the mouse to put the point over the red dot and he clicked. A code came up on the screen:
TL-SAT-9-3//MISSI0N-CIVIL//ARIANE//KOUROU
The code told Kincaid several things: First that it was a man-made object — a satellite. Second that it was a contracted, privately financed, civilian project. Third, that it had been launched by the European Space Consortium, Ariane, from their launch site at Kourou in French Guiana. Kincaid searched deeper into the database.
He was surprised to discover that the satellite had been launched only two days before. And it was currently highlighted on the DSP because its orbit was decaying, a further surprise. No one put a satellite up for only two days unless they had a very specific mission for it, or something had gone wrong and the decay was the result of a mishap.
Kincaid checked the decay as DSP continually updated his screen. TL-SAT-9-3 was coming down into the Earth’s atmosphere in eight minutes. Kincaid stared at the red dot for a few seconds, then brought up a display underneath that showed its position relevant to the Earth below it. The satellite was currently passing over the eastern Pacific, heading toward South America.
Kincaid picked up a secure phone and called Space Command, asking for the officer in charge.
“Colonel Willis.” The voice on the other end was flat, a result of the phone’s scrambler.
“Colonel, this is Larry Kincaid from JPL. I’m currently following the data on a satellite you have decaying, TL-SAT-9-3. Do you a projected impact point?”
“Wait one,” Willis said. “I have my people plotting it.”
Kincaid knew that the staff at Space Command delineated four categories of objects in space. The first was a known object in stable orbit, such as a satellite or some of the debris from previous space missions. Each of those had a special code assigned to it and the data was stored in the computer at Cheyenne Mountain. There were presently more than 8,500 catalogued items orbiting the planet that Space Command tracked.
The second category was a known object whose orbit changed, such as when a country or corporation decided to reposition one of its satellites. The third was a known object whose orbit decayed, which was what Kincaid was looking at. When that happened Space Command put a TIP — tracking and impact prediction — team on the job to figure out where it would come down. TIP teams had been instituted as a result of the publicity after Skylab came down years before. The fourth category was an object that has just been launched and had yet to be assigned a code.
“Why’s it deteriorating so fast?” Kincaid asked.
“It must have been planned to be brought down now,” Willis said. “For recovery?”
“Why else would someone bring a satellite down?” Willis asked, to Kincaid’s irritation. Before he could retort, Willis had the information he’d originally asked for.
“She’s coming down in western Brazil. We’ll be able to narrow the location once it’s down, but it’s still under some flight control and the descent is being adjusted.”
Kincaid watched as the red dot crossed South America. It suddenly disappeared. “She’s down,” Willis said needlessly.
“At least it didn’t strike a city,” Willis said.
“It probably hit jungle,” Kincaid said, noting the location where the dot had disappeared, the western edge of the Amazon rain forest. “Can you backtrack the satellite’s orbit?” he asked. “I want to know if it passed close by either the mothership’s orbit or the sixth talon’s.”
“Wait one,” Willis said. He was back with the answer in less than a minute. “Negative. Closest it came to the mothership was over fifteen hundred kilometers. Farther for the talon.”
Kincaid frowned. “All right. Forward all data on this to me. Out here.”
He stared aimlessly at the computer screen for a long time. Then he cleared the screen and accessed the Interlink, the U.S. Department of Defense’s secure Internet.
He checked his electronic mailbox. It was empty. Opening his file cabinet, he retrieved an e-mail that had been sent to him three days before. It was a short message:
Watch DSP downlink 0900–1200 MST. Yakov
Kincaid hit the reply button on the e-mail. He typed:
Yakov
Watched DSP downlink. Saw TL-SAT-9-3 come down. Why is it important? Kincaid.
Kincaid sent the mail. He waited. Ten seconds later, his computer announced he had mail. He opened the box, only to find his message returned to him, undeliverable.
“Damn it,” Kincaid whispered as he signed off the Interlink. He sat back in his chair and pondered the map that was now on his screen. After several moments of thought, he went to work.
CHAPTER 3
“Where are we going?” the man taking the depth readings asked Ruiz. The expedition had been going up this overgrown river branch for most of the day, and the men were very nervous. Ruiz had watched the sun the entire time, troubled about the direction it told him the boat was going.
“I don’t know where the American is going,” Ruiz said. He was standing on the bow of a beat-up, flat-bottomed riverboat, about forty feet long by fifteen wide. Two fifty-horsepower engines, coughing occasional black clouds, powered the boat.
The man was a peasant, recruited out of the ghetto, like the others. Only Ruiz and Harrison, the American, had any education, but Ruiz also knew that meant little this far inland. What was most important was Ruiz was the only one who had any experience upriver on the Amazon.
The rest of the expedition — six men Ruiz recruited off the streets — were scattered about the deck. Ruiz’s dark scalp was covered with gray hair and his slight frame was tense, ready for action. He was a slight man with dark skin. He wore faded khaki shorts and no shirt, the muscles on his stomach and chest hard and flat. He wore a machete strapped to the left side of his waist, a short, double-edged dagger on the right. An automatic pistol was in a holster that hung off his belt, slapping his right thigh every time he took a step.
Ruiz had been upriver many times, but never on this particular tributary of the mighty Amazon. Given that there were more than 1,100 tributaries to the great river, 17 of them over 1,000 miles long, that wasn’t unexpected. What was unexpected was to be this far to the south and west of the main river. Ruiz knew that very soon they would be in the Chapada dos Parecis, the first of the eastern foothills leading to the mighty Andes. The boat would not be able to go any farther, as they would face rapids and waterfalls in front of them.