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Gravel and tar Manhattan rooftops crowded with air-conditioning equipment, ducts, and vents scrolled across the screen. A computer operator in the Naval Intelligence image-processing laboratory in Washington rolled the trackball, adjust the picture. The image stopped, centered on a penthouse garden. A woman was lying on a lounge sunning herself.

“She’s there every day.”

“Naked? Can’t tell,” a technician said.

“Watch,” the operator said. The image zoomed closer until the woman, young and shapely, nearly filled the screen. “Wow,” said the technician. “Definitely naked.”

“I’ll lock on her,” said the operator. The sunbather rotated on the screen as the satellite tracked her a hundred fifty miles above the city.

The technician laughed. “Natural blonde, that’s for sure,” he said. The woman picked up a glass beside her. She leaned forward to drink, put the glass back. She looked up into the sky at the invisible camera. “Wow. It’s almost like she sees us,” the technician said. “Gorgeous.”

The view shifted steadily, becoming oblique. “We’re about ready to lose her,” said the operator.

“Damn.”

“Don’t worry; I’ve got video.”

“This is what you guys do with billions of dollars worth of equipment?” a man said behind the technicians. “Make beaver movies?”

The operator quickly tapped a key and the image zoomed back, showing buildings moving slowly across the screen. He swiveled his chair around. “Admiral Finch, sir! Just testing the tracking, sir,” said the operator.

“Right.” Finch said. Tall, athletic, blond, Admiral Finch looked the part, except he was thirty-four years old. The look on his face made the operator nervous. As head of Computer Operations at Naval Intelligence, Finch was his boss. “Think you can get me a shot of the Costa Rican site?”

“Yessir,” the technician said. “We have a Keyhole coming into pos