“Good morning, Harry. What have you got for me?”
Jartmann held up a manila folder and wordlessly asked if he could lay it on the director’s desk. Powell gestured for him to do so. Jartmann unwound the cord holding the folder closed, took out a sheaf of photographs, and spread them on the desk.
“What am I looking at?” Powell asked.
“These are fresh from Fort Meade. That’s satellite imagery of the airfield at Zandery, Suriname,” Jartmann said, “at oh-seven-oh-five this morning. That’s probably the 727 we’re looking for.”
“Probably won’t cut it, Harry,” Powell said.
“There was early morning fog,” Jartmann said. “These have been enhanced, but, obviously, they’re not what we’d like to have.”
“Have to have, Harry,” Powell clarified. “What makes you think this is the airplane?”
“Well, it’s a 727, for one thing. We’re sure of that. And while we can’t read the registration numbers, we made out enough of the paint scheme to compare it with the known paint scheme of Air Suriname.”
He paused as Mrs. Leonard walked across the room to the director’s desk, picked up a telephone, and punched one of its buttons.
“Mary Leonard,” she said, softly. “The DCI would like to see you right now. Come in the back door.”
“And?” Powell said to Jartmann.
“Eighty percent probability that it’s the same.”
“If we don’t have the registration numbers, all that proves is that an Air Suriname 727 is on an airfield in Suriname,” Powell said, very softly.
He looked at Mary Leonard.
“He’s on his way,” she said.
Ten seconds later, the private door to the DCI’s office opened and a man who could have been Jartmann’s younger brother came in. He was J. Stanley Waters, the CIA’s deputy director for operations.
“What’s up?” Waters asked.
“Tell me about our assets in Suriname,” Powell said.
“Off the top of my head, not very much,” Waters said. “If memory serves, we have a guy just out of the Farm there, undercover as a vice-consul. Sort of first assignment, on-the-job training. What do we need?”
“There’s a 727 sitting on the airfield at . . . where, Harry?”
“Zandery,” Jartmann furnished. “Zandery, Suriname.”
“That 727?” Waters asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” Jartmann replied. “There was a ground fog this morning . . .”
“Through which we can’t see the registration numbers,” Waters said.
“Right.”
“How long before we can get another satellite over Zandery, Suriname?” Waters asked, pronouncing each syllable.
“Reprogramming has begun,” Jartmann said. “Probably an hour, hour and a half. Figure another thirty minutes to get the downloads here.”
“Can we get our man out there and get the numbers sooner than that?” Powell asked.
“How much will be compromised if I get on the telephone? ”
“Just tell him to get out to the airport and get us the registration numbers of any 727 on the field. We don’t have to tell him why.”