Can You See Me Now?
by Lubrican
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Chapter One
Bob Jeffers leaned back in his comfortable desk chair and stretched.
His
eyes flitted from screen to screen as he
reviewed the sixteen oversized monitors arrayed in a semi-circle around
his
work station.
A desk resembling a
recording studio mixer took up the space in front of him, with
instruments also
embedded in a curved structure.
His
hand went
without looking to find the coffee cup to his right.
It
was in its normal place, but was light enough
that he knew instantly it was empty. He
set the cup down as his eyes zeroed in on a blur of green on one
monitor.
Casually, he reached forward
and manipulated
a mouse, clicking once on the blob of green that his experience told
him might
be interesting.
Tapping a button and
turning two knobs caused the little green blob to swell on the screen,
until he
could see the serrated leaves of cannabis sativa. His
eyes told him the plants were in rows,
which meant they were cultivated, rather than wild.
Instruments
told him the plants were less
than a meter tall, and he changed his initial opinion, deciding these
plants
were of the cannabis indica species.
Rather than leaning forward,
he twisted a dial and the image grew even
larger.
Yes, very dense, wide leaves,
probably from some variety grown from seeds brought back by veterans of
the
Afghanistan war.
He
punched
another button and typed a short message.
Clicking the mouse on a small
icon in the lower right corner of the
screen, he pinned the latitude and longitude of the marijuana growing operation to the message
and hit
the send button.
The screen
automatically returned to its former size.
Within
sixty
seconds, he had noticed the anomaly, identified the issue, and sent it
to the
appropriate agency, in this case, the DEA.
They now had all the
information necessary, including close-ups of the
plants, which would generate a search and seizure warrant, as well as
the
identification of every structure within ten miles of the site, and
clear views
of all the avenues of entry and egress.
Including game trails.
Bob
worked for
one government agency, but his output went to dozens of others.
He
had an ultra-secret clearance, which
sounded more impressive than it was. He
had no access to classified materials, unless you included visual
information
relating to every highly classified "industrial location" in the
country.
In the entire world, for that
matter, though those other countries had no idea Bob could examine
their
facilities closely enough to read the headlines of the newspaper lying
on the
hood of a car, while they perused the same words from only a foot away.
Because
his
work was so secret, almost nobody knew that he did it.
He
wasn't married, and wasn't dating. Even if
he had been, he couldn't tell his spouse or girlfriend anything about
his
job.
He had a cover story as a
systems
analyst who did trouble shooting for government computer systems, but
he'd
never had to use it.
He worked seventy-two
hours on, and forty-eight off, in a rotating shift.
Within
his seventy-two hour shift, he worked
eight hours on and eight hours off. In
that way, when his seventy-two hours were finished, he would have
peered down
from space at every visible spot on the Earth's surface, at all hours
of the
day and night.
Not
that he was
in space.
He wasn't. But
his eyes were.
Bob
Jeffers
controlled sixteen satellites, half of which were in geosynchronous
orbit
around the Earth, and the other half of which crisscrossed the globe in
orbits
that, over time, would cover every square inch of the planet.
He
was good at his job, which was spotting
irregularities made visible by the satellites.
In addition, if some federal
agency needed intelligence on a particular
spot, anywhere in the world, a request to him, with sufficient detail
in it as
to what was required, almost always generated a report that solved
whatever
problem existed.
He had even tracked a carload of
bank robbers/kidnappers for the FBI, watching the getaway vehicle in real
time,
and pinpointing its location so the feds could raid the compound where
the
criminals were hiding. Such use of satellite time was rare, because it took a pretty important crime to be worth the expense, but it happened sometimes. In the case of the bank robbery, the hostages were two children taken from their mother in the bank, and the FBI knew how dangerous the robbers were because they had already killed three people during the commission of the crime.
Generally,
though, Bob's life on the job was pretty boring. One
of the natural assets he brought to the
job was a photographic memory, and he could tell you, without looking
at the
previous day's pictures, how many cars in a particular mall parking lot
had not
been moved since the day before. As
such, his primary responsibility was to simply look at as many of the
feeds as
possible during his shift, and then look at the same areas of interest
the next
day.
The differences could be
valuable.
On
this
particular day, the marihuana field had been the only thing of interest
he'd
noticed.
The National Hurricane Center
had asked for some shots from two of his birds, but that had been
routine,
taking only a minute or two.
In fact, he
had programmed the satellite to send the agency a new photograph every
fifteen
minutes, which exceeded their request.
He knew they'd be happy,
though.
It wasn't the first time they
had needed satellites other than those
under their own control.
When
his shift
was over, he retired to the living quarters on site.
He
would relax for eight hours, and then
start all over again, reviewing any particular areas of interest, and
processing new requests as they came in, based on their priority.
He
fist bumped
Jerry Springman, who was relieving him, and opened the fridge, peering
inside
to see what leftovers there might be. He
preferred to heat something up, rather than actually cook.
He
had a new book to read, and would rather
do that than spend time at the stove. In
any case, reading usually put him to sleep.
Twenty
minutes
later, he was dreaming.
The
next time
Bob happened to be in a position to survey Wyoming was at 1315 the next afternoon.
Out
of curiosity, he input the latitude and
longitude of the marijuana field he had seen the previous day.
It
popped up on the screen, still verdant and
green.
Apparently the DEA hadn't
given
it a high priority.
He
zoomed in
again, and his sharp eyes caught blobs of color moving off to one side,
where
there was an old shack of some kind.
Toggling the camera, he moved
it and zoomed again.
There were three people on
the screen.
Something looked wrong about
them.
Two were standing side by
side, facing the
third, but it just didn't look natural.
He hit a button that began
recording what he was seeing.
He
zoomed
again, and saw the forearm of the lone person, the one wearing a black
hoody,
sticking out in front of the body.
Experience told him the elbow
was against that person's side.
He zoomed yet again, and saw
the black glint
of a handgun in the hand on the end of that forearm.
Just
as he
identified it was a gun, the business end spat yellow flames ... twice
... and
then twice more.
He zoomed back out
automatically.
The two who had been
standing side by side were down, lying with arms and legs akimbo.
He
had just
witnessed a double homicide.
He
tagged the
black hoody and instructed the computer to follow that signature.
Touching
his earpiece, he called the
switchboard and asked for 911 for Riverton, Wyoming, or the county that
serviced that location.
He waited
fifteen seconds, and heard a double ring that was picked up almost
immediately.
"Nine-one-one,
what is your emergency?"
"I
need to
report a shooting.
Two people were shot,
actually, at a remote pot growing site ten miles southwest of Riverton
on state
road 137.
From there, the location is
exactly
1,235 meters south. It's on the upper bend of a logging road west of
Arapahoe."
"Who
is
this?" asked the disembodied voice.
Bob
ignored the
question, looking at the feed, which was faithfully following black
hoody.
The computer was smart enough
that, when
black hoody entered a vehicle, it self tagged the vehicle and followed
it.
He zoomed, trying to gather
data on the
vehicle.
It was an SUV, but moving
like
it was, he couldn't tell what brand. It
was dark green, though, and it was driving east on the logging road.
"Hello?"
came the 911 operator.
Bob watched the
vehicle as he spoke.
"I
can't
tell if the victims are dead, but the shooter is in a dark green SUV
headed
eastbound on that logging road I told you about. By
my guess, he'll be in Arapahoe within ten
minutes.
The driver is wearing a black
hoody. I don't know if anybody else is in the vehicle."
"What
is
your name, sir?" asked the operator.
"I
can't
tell you that," said Bob.
"And
don't bother trying to trace the number, because you can't.
Just
trust me and get law enforcement after
that SUV.
You should probably get an
ambulance out to that pot field too, though I doubt those people are
alive."
"Where are you?" asked the 911 operator. "Who are you?"
"You're
wasting time," said Bob.
"Do
you really think finding out who I am is more important than catching a
murderer,
or saving a couple of lives?"
He
checked the feed again.
"Okay, your
perp is driving through Arapahoe now.
Not much there, is there? Looks
like he's going to keep going over to a road marked 138 on my screen.
I
can't tell if it's gravel or paved."
"We
have
someone on the way, Sir.
Can I get your
name, please?"
"No,
you
may not," said Bob, patiently.
He
was used to this.
They never were. But
he only called if it was life or death,
so he tried to be patient.
"Look, I
can't spend much more time on this. I
have other things to do.
If you want to
hold the line open, I can check my screen and give you updates on where
the bad
guy is."
He
didn't wait
to see what they were going to do. He'd
already spent almost ten minutes on this, and it wasn't on his list of
tasks to
complete.
He swiveled his head and
checked the screens he'd been ignoring.
His last assignment had been
to check a particular building and document
what cars and trucks were parked outside it. He
had planned to use RL384, a vehicle in low synchronous orbit. That vehicle, though, was in a non-equatorial and non elliptical synchronous orbit, which meant it would appear to oscillate in a figure 8 pattern to an observer on the planet. It was already moving off the target area.
Quickly
he cross haired the site from memory and hit the button that would take
a high
quality photograph.
He should be able to
blow that up and get the needed data. If not, he'd have to use a
different
bird. That would put him behind schedule.
A quick glance at his job
sheet showed he had no more specific tasks for
twenty-four minutes.
He touched his
earpiece again, taking it off hold.
"You
still
there?" he asked.
"Sir,
I
really must know who you are, and how you know all this information,"
said
the obviously harried 911 operator.
"No
you
don't.
All you have to know is how
to
catch the son of a bitch who's shooting people, and find their bodies.
Hang
on."
"Sir!
-"
Bob
put them on
hold again and checked the monitor that displayed Wyoming.
The
computer was still happily pinned on the
green SUV, but it wasn't moving any more.
It was sitting outside what
looked like a farm house, maybe. Bob
could still see the haze of dust left by
the vehicle's tires as it arrived.
Unconsicouly he reflected on
how it must not be a windy day,
there.
He clicked on the house to
get
the latitude and longitude, and then noticed flashing lights off to the
side.
He panned over and saw a
patrol
car turning off of 138 onto Little Wind River Bottom Road, headed for
the crime
scene. He touched the hold button again.
"You
there?"
"I'm
here." It was a different voice.
They'd probably called for a
supervisor.
That was the usual drill.
"Can
you
patch me through to your car that's approaching Arapahoe?
After
he checks the victims, I can tell him
how to get to where the shooter is. He's
no longer mobile.
He's in a farm house
not all that far away."
"Are
you
in a helicopter, Sir?" asked the operator, trying one more time.
"You
need to land, Sir.
You're a material witness in
a felony.
If you fail to cooperate you
can be arrested
and put in jail."
"Patch
me
through to your man on the ground," said Bob, calmly.
"Otherwise,
I'm going to hang up, and
you can do this on your own."
"One
moment, Sir," came the voice.
"I don't know how to do that,
but someone else here does."
Bob
went back
to the perp's camera.
He saw someone
walking around outside.
He watched that
person go behind what looked like a shed.
He zoomed. It
was black hoody,
who had pushed the hood back, exposing blond hair.
He
was burying something.
When he was done, he scraped
his foot over
the site and took the shovel he'd been using around the shed.
He
put it inside, and then returned to the
house.
"Hello?
This
is Sheriff Tom Rogers, Fremont County,
Wyoming? Who am I speaking to?"
"Just
call
me Frank," said Bob.
"You want
to snag yourself a murderer?"
"I
don't
know if I have a murderer to snag or not," said the voice.
"You
will
in about sixty seconds.
You're coming up
on a faint road to your right.
Take that
and follow it for about a mile.
It will lead
you to a field of pot. You'll see a shack there. There
are two bodies lying on the ground in
front of that shack. I
suspect they're
both dead. They got double tapped."
"Who
the
hell are you, Frank?"
"Just
a
friend of law enforcement, Sheriff. I'll
hold until you're ready for me to tell you where the shooter is."
At
least
Sheriff Rogers didn't badger him about laws and jail time.
Bob
watched him park his car and approach the
bodies.
He knelt, probably looking
for a
pulse, and then went back to the car.
"Where
do
I find this son of a bitch, Frank?"
"Go
back
to 138 and turn right.
About four or
five miles down the road, there is what looks like a farmhouse on the
right.
He ... or she ... was wearing
a
black hoody when the shooting took place.
That person has blond hair. Green
SUV parked outside, which was the getaway vehicle by the way.
Might
be some tire track evidence you can use
there. A semi automatic pistol was used, and I suspect it's buried in a
fresh
grave behind the shed that goes with the farmhouse.”
"You're
one of them drone people, aren't you, Frank?
You work for the Air Force?"
"Can't
tell you, Sheriff.
I'll stand by until
I'm sure you're not going to be killed yourself, okay?"
"You
got
any rockets on that drone you're flyin', Frank?
Cause if you do, you can just
blow that farmhouse all to hell if you
want."
"Due
process, sheriff," said Bob.
"Due process."
Ten minutes later Bob
watched as
the sheriff parked his car beside the green SUV. If
he knocked, it was on the way in. Within
a minute he was back outside with
black hoody, bending him over the hood of the squad car and putting
cuffs on
him.
He got in the car again and
called
Bob.
"Hey
bird
man, can you wait until my deputy gets here?
I don't want to leave the
suspect in the car alone while I go look for
that gun."
Bob
panned out,
and saw the tiny flashing red blip that represented the lights of the
deputy.
He had just turned onto 138
and
was no more than ten minutes from the sheriff's position.
He
checked his job sheet again.
His next task involved taking
photographs of
a specific area in Iran. He could program that while the deputy got
there.
"He's
five
or ten away," said Bob.
"I
have to program something, but I'll get back to you."
"Ten-four."
Bob
rolled to
the other side of his desk and tapped keys.
He clicked his mouse on a
predetermined spot on a map of Iran, typed
some more, and then pushed the execute button.
He rolled back to check on
Sheriff Rogers.
The deputy was just arriving.
"You
there,
Sheriff?"
"I'm
here."
"The
shovel the perp used to bury it is in the shed.
No sense getting your hands
dirty."
"You're
a
real hoot, Frank.
I'm gonna have to
leave the radio to go do this."
"I'll
be
gone when you get back," said Bob.
"Tell you what, though, I'll
send you some pictures.
Might help with the
prosecution, assuming the
judge will allow photographs with no known source."
"Push
come
to shove," said Rogers, "We'll get the state patrol to take the same
ones from a chopper.
I appreciate it,
Frank."
"No
problem, Sheriff.
Hate to see a bad guy
get away with it."
He
waited until
he saw Rogers dig up the gun, snapped a shot of that, and then hung up
the
phone.
Nobody could trace his call. It
had been routed through over a thousand
points.
He earmarked photos of the
marijuana field, the bodies lying on the ground, and the farmhouse,
with the
two squad cars parked there.
He couldn't
send them the video of the murders themselves.
That could give away too much
information.
He wasn't really supposed to
do this kind of
thing.
His job was to support
national
security, not local law enforcement. But
his work was so highly classified, that only his immediate supervisor
would
know what he'd done, and only then if he reviewed every minute of Bob's
shift
... which he never did.
As long as he
got his work done, and people were happy with his video and
photographs, nobody
ever bothered him.
He
made sure
all the shots were scrubbed of the electronic signatures that would
identify
them as having been taken by satellite.
It was child's play to find
Sheriff Rogers' email address.
He emailed the pictures,
routing them the
same way the phone call had been routed.
Then
he checked
to make sure the shots of Iran were in the can.
His
next shift
was one of those days he dreaded. His
job sheet had only two things on it, neither of which would take longer
than
ten minutes apiece, even if he dragged them out. That
meant more than seven hours of just
looking at the world, trying to find something interesting or dangerous
to pay
attention to.
It
was only
natural that he took a look at Riverton, Wyoming. He
thought he'd look at the crime scene
again, as an exercise in trying to tell what the sheriff had done while
processing the scene.
The
sheriff, as
it turned out, had been a busy man. The
marijuana was gone.
There were vehicle
tracks everywhere.
The place looked like
a war had been fought there, and everybody got tired of fighting and
just went
home.
He
started
panning outward, not really looking for anything in particular, just
seeing
what kind of terrain Sheriff Rogers and his men had to deal with each
day.
Eventually
he
got bored, and decided to look at Pueblo, Colorado. He had spent a year of his life there, while his parents took care of his grandmother, who had dementia. She required twenty-four hour monitoring, and it took them an entire year to find a facility that could care for her and which they could afford. It happened to be his senior year in high school, and he had lived with his aunt and uncle in Pueblo because "Gran" was living in his room. His parents lived in Iowa, but he thought of the little two bedroom bungalow south of Pueblo on Doyle Road as "where he grew up". Such can be the importance of the things that happen to a boy in a given year of his life.
Over the years he'd seen the
changes in Pueblo, not by being there, but by looking down on it,
occasionally.
The construction was easy to
see.
Brown scars on the green land
always preceded
buildings going up.
He
found
"his" house.
Nothing had
changed.
His aunt had her garden
in.
He zoomed in, trying to see
if he
could tell what she'd planted.
Only the
tomatoes were grown enough to see well, though he thought he could see
two rows
of sweet corn.
He couldn't use the
really high resolution cameras without entering his special code.
That
would set things in motion he didn't
want set in motion.
Not about something
unofficial, like this, anyway.
Bob
panned back
out and scanned north towards Colorado Springs.
He aimed the camera west, to
take a look at NORAD. There wasn't much to
see.
That was good, because that
was intentional
on the part of DOD.
He looked at Pikes
Peak.
Clouds were rushing up the
mountain and across a parking lot full of cars.
He followed the road down the
mountain, through each twist and turn, all
the way to Manitou Springs.
It brought back memories of being able to simply look up and be soaked in the majesty of the mountains.
He
was trying
to think of someplace else to look at when something caught his eye.
It
was just a spot of white, but it looked
out of place.
He centered the camera on
what was probably a hunting cabin, except it was too close to town.
The
white was something square, right in the
middle of the roof, on one sloped side.
He
zoomed in.
He
stiffened,
and then leaned forward.
Zooming again,
he stared at the screen.
It
couldn't
be!
It
was almost
upside down, but the computer could spin the view if he needed it to.
The
sat didn't move, but the image could be
manipulated.
He twisted a dial.
Then
he
laughed.
He took a picture of the
white
bed sheet that had been affixed to the roof of the cabin, with black
letters
painted on it that said "HI NSA. CAN YOU SEE ME NOW?"
It
was written in two lines.
Whoever had thought of doing
this didn't know
much about the NSA's satellites. They
didn't need something as big as a bed sheet.
That was way
bigger than needed.
They could have done the same
thing on a sheet of poster board. Then
again, the sheet had caught
his
eye, and something as small as a sheet of poster board wouldn't draw
any
attention unless he was actually looking for it.
He
laughed
again.
Curiously, he started
examining
the building.
It was bigger than a
cabin, he decided, maybe a small house.
He zoomed back out. The
structure was
surrounded by trees.
There was another
building up the road, maybe half a mile. It looked like a house too.
Nothing on that roof. He
went
back to center the sign in the middle of the field of view, in
preparation for
taking another picture.
This would be a
hoot at the Christmas party.
As
he got it
centered saw the spot of color in the back yard. It
wasn't a propane tank.
He could see one of those,
further out from
the house.
But it was light colored,
against the darkness of the green grass around the house. He zoomed in.
It
was a woman, lying out in the sun on a
chaise lounge in the backyard. It was the white of her skin he had
noticed.
He increased the magnification for a closer look.
She
had black
hair, and was wearing sunglasses. He
panned down her body.
Nice! She
had on a black bikini that complimented
her hour glass shape.
The sun glinted
off her sunglasses and he realized she'd moved her head.
He
giggled as he reacted to that, his
subconscious fearing she could see him spying on her.
She
might suspect there was a satellite up
there, but there was no way she could know he was actively looking at
her.
Idly, he noticed the chaise
lounge she was
lying on was one of those old fashioned ones from the fifties and
sixties, made
of wide, interlocking strands of plastic strips that made the web upon
which
she was lounging.
He
zoomed back
out.
Other than the sheet, there
was
nothing about the house that called for attention.
There
was a sedan parked in the
driveway.
The grass had been mowed
recently.
He could see the marks the
tires had made, creating signature parallel lines across the dark green
of the
lawn.
He
panned in on
the girl again.
His imagination created
a scenario in which she had read an article about the NSA, or seen
something on
TV about satellite surveillance, and thought she was clever by making
the sign.
She
probably
didn't think it would be seen, but she had just done it for fun.
He
zoomed one more step, and ran the view
down her body again.
She had to be cute,
with that shape.
Too bad she wasn't
tanning topless.
He
leaned back,
his mind working.
He checked his job
sheet.
Only one job left, and it
wasn't
for an hour.
He looked back at the girl. She
was teasing him.
She might not know it, but
she was.
So
... what
could it hurt if he teased her back?
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