The Archangel Project Read Online Free PDF

interpreter, not an intelligence analyst.
    It was one afternoon when Tobie was looking at some low-level Predator reconnaissance photos Lieutenant Costello had stuck up on the wall, that the images first came to her, like a daydream or a memory she held in her mind. Flashes of sights and sounds and smells that had nothing to do with the airless office where she spent her days .
    A laughing young woman braiding her hair. Gnarled hands kneading bread. A child spinning around, the gold coins on her ankle jangling as she danced before a Bedouin tent, its brown-striped camel hair sides stretched taut beneath the desert sky.
    At first Tobie tried to ignore what she had “seen.” She pushed it to the back of her mind, told herself it was just her overactive imagination. A daydream. But she knew it wasn’t. Once before, during her senior year in college, she had ignored the images her mind somehow plucked from the ether. As a result, her best friend had died. The guilt she still carried from her inaction that day had driven her to drop out of college and, ultimately, hide in the Navy. She didn’t understand why or how these images came to her, but they were powerful enough that she finally went to see Lieutenant Costello.
    â€œThis encampment,” she said, standing nervously before his desk, “the one in the western desert you think is a terrorist gathering? It’s not. It’s just two tribes who’ve come together for a wedding. Those tents are full of women and children.”
    The Lieutenant looked up from the papers spread across his desk. He was a Marine, with a rawboned face and a pronounced disdain for Naval personnel—especially female Naval personnel. “You got that out of some intercept, Guinness?”
    Tobie felt her cheeks heat. “No. I saw it.”
    His brows drew together in a frown. “Did we get some new photos?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen where did you see this, Guinness?”
    â€œI just…” She hesitated. “Sometimes I just know these things.”
    He stared at her for a long moment, his lips pressed together, not saying anything. Then he gave her a smile that wasn’t really a smile at all. “You just ‘know’ these things, do you? We’ve been watching this buildup for weeks, Guinness. This is what we do, and we’re good at it. There’s been no indication of any wedding. It’s a gathering of insurgents, and it’s huge. You think it’s something else, you’d better come to me with some solid evidence. This is an intel unit. We don’t operate on feelings.”
    â€œBut you’re wrong. There are all these children—”
    â€œThat’s the way these guys operate.” Lieutenant Costello stood up and assembled the papers on his desk. “They hide in with women and kids, and then cry when they get them blown to smithereens.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œThere’s no ‘buts’ about this, Guinness. A combined air strike and ground assault has already been called in for 0400 tomorrow morning.” He hesitated, then added gruffly, “We’ve all been under a lot of strain here lately. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
    He was being easy on her. She knew that. But she couldn’t let it go. “If you let this happen, our forces will kill dozens and dozens of innocent women and children. They’re—”
    His jaw tightened. “Listen, Petty Officer—you’re way out of line. I don’t want to hear any more about this. Now just go to your quarters.”
    Tobie went to her quarters—for half an hour. Then she grabbed her helmet and flak jacket and headed forthe helipad, where she talked her way onto a Blackhawk ferrying medical supplies out to forward headquarters. She wasn’t sure what she could do to stop the assault once she got there, but she knew she had to do something . She couldn’t just pace up