James Barrington - Pandemic

Project 467 began in the 1960s and culminated in the first long-lived surveillance satellite that included data transmission facilities. This was Big Bird, the first of which was launched in 1971. Compared to the early surveillance satellites, it was huge: forty-nine feet long, weighing nearly thirty thousand pounds, launched by a specially modified Titan 3D rocket, and with a design life of months.

Its on-board equipment included a general area survey scanner developed and manufactured by Eastman Kodak, and a Perkin-Elmer high-resolution camera designed for detailed analysis of specific areas of interest. Pictures taken by the area scanner went through onboard processing, and were then scanned and the data transmitted down to earth using a twenty-foot-diameter antenna located at the end of the satellite. To provide hard copy for the analysts, up to six recoverable film capsules were carried, which could be ejected at intervals and recovered by air-snatch using a converted C-130 Hercules transport aircraft.

Five years after the first Big Bird launch, an entirely new surveillance satellite was lifted into orbit. This was the KH-11, or Keyhole, vehicle. Only two-thirds the size of the Big Bird, at just over twenty thousand pounds, but with an operational life of about two years, the KH-11 was initially employed as a back-up to its larger cousin, following an identical orbital path and employing its higher-resolution cameras to take detailed pictures of areas identified by Big Bird as being of special interest. Unlike Big Bird, the KH-11 didn’t scan processed photographs: digital images were produced immediately and the data transmitted to earth in near real-time. The Keyhole could also provide television pictures from its normal orbital elevation of one hundred and twenty miles. In the late 1980s the more efficient KH-12 bird supplemented the KH-11.

Depending on the location of the satellite, digital images are beamed either directly, or via one of a number of dedicated communications satellites in geo-stationary orbit, to the Mission Ground Site at Fort Belvoir just outside Washington, DC. The pictures are then forwarded to Building 213 in the Washington Navy Yard, home of N-PIC – the National Photographic Interpretation Center – part of the Science and Technology Directorate of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Resolution, with particular respect to surveillance satellites, is defined as the minimum distance separating two point light sources so that it can clearly be determined whether those points are dots or a line. The first reconnaissance satellites had an optimum resolution of just over eight feet from their normal maximum elevation of one hundred and twenty-four miles. Big Bird was a huge improvement, and provided resolution of slightly under twenty-four inches from an orbital height of one hundred miles, and the KH-12 brought this figure down to a whisker under six inches from a maximum orbital elevation of two hundred and fifty miles, close to the theoretical limiting resolution of just under four inches.

What all this means in practical terms is that if a man is sitting outdoors reading a newspaper anywhere on the surface of the earth for more than about an hour, an analyst sitting at a purpose-built computer console in Washington will be able to identify which newspaper he’s reading, while he’s still reading it.

Surveillance satellites follow standard and pre-determined polar orbits. They can be manoeuvred to some extent to provide additional pictures of particular areas of interest, but this costs fuel and reduces the life of the bird, so most agencies simply study the ‘take’ obtained when the satellite passes over a particular location during its normal operations.

Frequently, the bird’s sensors are deactivated when it crosses large stretches of water, simply because there’s generally nothing much to see, but there are exceptions. One such exception, originating from the Intelligence Directorate of the CIA at Langley, Virginia, was somewhat unusual, for three reasons.

First, it was old now, having been initiated in the winter of 1972. Most satellite imagery requests have immediate and obvious relevance to whatever troubles are currently being fomented in the world. Second, the area specified was simply a ten-mile square of the eastern Mediterranean, of no obvious strategic or any other importance. Third, it asked for the simplest possible report – the identity and type of any vessel remaining in the same location within that square for more than three hours, or any vessel which returned to the area twice or more in any thirty-day period. No follow-up, no further action.

Since 1972, N-PIC had forwarded some two hundred and eighty reports to the Intelligence Directorate, had received an acknowledgement each time, and had heard nothing further. The report that morning was almost identical to every other one they had sent, with one exception – they hadn’t been able to identify the Nicos , simply because the vessel had no identification marks visible from above, but they had been able to state exactly what the boat was, because they could see the purpose-built racks for the aqualungs.

This time, they got the usual acknowledgement from Langley, but also an instruction for additional material on the next and all subsequent passes by the bird, and a request for the hard-copy pictures to be forwarded immediately.

Aeroporto di Brindisi, Papola-Casale, Puglia, Italy

‘So just what the hell is all this about, Simpson?’ Richter said, putting down his flying helmet and life vest, and sitting opposite his superior. ‘I don’t appreciate being told to pull stunts like this. Scrambling safety services raises pulse rates and costs money, not to mention the fact that the ship’s now going to have to send a team of maintainers all the way out here by helicopter to spend a couple of days examining a perfectly serviceable Sea Harrier.’

Simpson waved one small pink hand dismissively. ‘Your comments are noted, but this seemed the easiest way to get you into Italy without anyone knowing you’ve been here.’

‘And that’s important, is it?’

‘Yes,’ Simpson said flatly, ‘or it could be.’ He gestured towards a small brown suitcase standing upright against the wall. ‘You might be here for a day or two, so I brought you a change of clothes. You can hardly,’ he added, with a glance at the flying overalls and anti-g trousers Richter was wearing, ‘wander around wearing that outfit.’

‘I thought you had a sudden change of heart about my doing a bit of continuation training,’ Richter said. ‘And I suppose it also explains why I had to fly down at such short notice to join the ship at Gib. So what am I supposed to be doing in Italy? Are we working for the Mafia now?’

‘Not that I’m aware of, Richter,’ Simpson replied. ‘We have a little business to take care of here in Italy. I suppose it is faintly possible that the Mafia might be a beneficiary, but our real client is the SISDE – the Italian Secret Service.’

‘And what exactly does the Servizio per le Informazione e la Sicurezza Democratica want with us?’ Richter asked, in perfect Italian construction yet badly mangling the pronunciation. Simpson even looked impressed. ‘I do know my business, Simpson,’ Richter added.

‘I’ve no doubt you do. We – or to be more accurate you – have been sort of lent to them for a while.’

‘There’s a quid pro quo lurking here somewhere, I presume?’

‘You presume correctly, but it’s none of your business. You just do your bit and then you can fly your pretty little grey fighter back to the ship, and finish off your pleasure cruise in the Med.’

‘And my “bit” is what, exactly?’

Simpson looked at him steadily for a few moments before he replied. ‘We think Andrew Lomas has resurfaced, and we need you to finger him for us,’ he said.