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55
Miranda’s phonebuzzed with a message from Jeremy.Check the server. First-order approximations. Still working.And a smiley emoji that Miranda smiled back at. Emojis helped so much in understanding messages, she wished that people came with equipped with them.
Then she opened her computer and logged into the system. TheMahligai Bargehad excellent connectivity. That struck her as curious, the original fifteenth-century barge wouldn’t have had wi-fi. Of course, it also wouldn’t have been made of stone.
On the server was a list forwarded from Lizzy at the NRO.
“I’ve got something from your wife, Drake.”
The conversation, which had been hard to follow, collapsed. She only knew enough to know that it hadn’t been going well—mostly in ways that Susan Piazza seemed able to follow but utterly flummoxed Miranda.
Instead, she’d spent her time trying to draw conclusions from too little data. The shifting angle of sunlight on the mosque’s dome had made her realize that the laser-light attack hadn’t merely come fromabove.It had shone down from a specific point which should be identifiable if they could calculate the specific angle of attack. They already knew the precise time.
The list was long.
She dismissed all of the new internet constellation satellites that were being pushed into low-Earth orbit by the hundreds. They were too small and underpowered to deliver such a powerful laser strike.
The ones in high geosynchronous orbits were equally unlikely. Those were primarily communications satellites intended to remain over a specific point for television broadcasting and the like.
No, a weapon of this kind would be terribly expensive. It would be in an orbit where it could be constantly on the move.
“Miranda?” Drake asked, but thankfully Andi shushed him.
At the bottom of the list, Lizzy had listed six birds.
Four were American, though one was the Hubble telescope so she dismissed that.
One was Canadian, a known weather satellite.
None were Russian.
The last one was Chinese.
Lizzy had also attached a full write-up on the last one.
Miranda looked up, “You are a very bad man, General Zhang Ru.”
