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Sang-O’s forward to aft,” Carolyn glanced cheekily at Dannielle at this point, “it isn’t.”
    â€œWhat do you think Dannielle?” asked Henry.
    â€œCarolyn’s probably right that it’s not a bunch of smaller subs in a line, on further inspection, but we seem to have reliable information that Russia has built only three Boreis so far, out of their planned ten, and they’re all accounted for. Two are in dock at the Vladivostok complex and the third one is on manoeuvres in the Sea of Japan. I conclude,” noted Dannielle, glancing back at Carolyn in a fashion that said I’m about to go one up, “that barring further information this isn’t a Borei.”
    â€œAt the risk of being simple,” interjected Henry, “can’t we just commission one of those drones to fly over and take a look?”
    â€œNo, we can’t,” responded Carolyn. “North Korean defence systems around naval bases are well capable of downing one of those drones before it gets a chance to take a decent photograph. In any event, there’s some kind of floating shed or roof over the sub to render that route pretty useless since the drone’s imaging capability, if obscured, is less than the satellite picture we already have.”
    Henry looked suitably chastised but, with Reynolds, he knew that it wouldn’t end there.
    â€œI’ve been in touch with one of my pals at Langley,” continued Carolyn. “He works in the Middle East section, specialising in crude oil movements. He says they regularly take satellite images of land based oil fields e.g. in Saudi Arabia, to gauge the depth of oil in any given fields and wells, just in case the Saudis try to pull any fast ones re oil quotas. It didn’t take me long to convince him to divert the CIA satellite for a quick tour over North Korea’s west coast. Here’s the image.” Carolyn handed it to Henry.
    â€œIt’s very colourful, Reynolds, but what does it mean? It looks like one of my daughter’s colouring in books.” Henry didn’t have the nerve, at this point, to ask how Carolyn managed to get a CIA satellite diverted.
    â€œAs you know, Henry,” said Carolyn giving her boss the benefit of the doubt, “satellite imagery is different from taking a photograph. A photo can only record what our eyes see. A satellite image can record infrared and ultraviolet light which we can’t see, as well as the visible spectrum. Our computers then assign colours to the invisible spectrum to produce a near photograph. Petroleum geologists sometimes use this type of analysis to see how much oil is in a well, something that can’t be seen from the surface. Sometimes, if the geologists really want to get the detail of what’s going on under the surface without digging, they use this imagery and computer models to build a 3-D seismic cube. This can then be pictorially sliced vertically or horizontally to measure exactly what’s going on underground. This is such an image taken from Langley’s satellite positioned over Haeju, south of Pyongyang.”
    Dannielle and Henry looked at the colourful picture intently.
    â€œAnd this tells us what?” asked Henry.
    Dannielle realised that this was the further information she needed. She interjected in an attempt to recover some standing on the matter. “It tells us, Henry, that there’s a Borei class nuclear submarine parked, I mean berthed, off the west coast of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
    Needless to say the conclusion of that meeting triggered significant activity among the intelligence agencies and the US military. Henry wasted no time in sharing Reynolds’ and Eagles’ report with his boss at the NGA who, in turn, got in touch with his counterparts in the CIA and Department of Defense. A mere two days later a high level meeting was scheduled at CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia, a few miles