to the ops boss back at Bagram and explained the situation. A solution was reached in less than sixty seconds. That was one of the nice things about JSOC. There was so much practical experience involving missions that on the surface were very similar, but in the details were unique. The two Black Hawks that had delivered the assault team were standing by on the tarmac only a few miles away at the Jalalabad Air Base. JSOC had already arranged for three MRAPs to transport the assault team and their gear back to the airfield for linkup with their Black Hawks and transport back to Bagram. The interim solution was to have the Rangers close up their position on the house and run security until another force could be found to relieve them. Coleman also arranged to have their Little Bird come back in and pick them up for the return to Bagram. Five minutes after they were airborne, Coleman was asleep and Rapp was wide awake, trying to understand what was gnawing at the edges of his memory.
At this juncture Kennedy was less concerned about maintaining absolute secrecy and more interested in getting results, so Hayek requested access to the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility at Bagram. Kennedy explained her situation to the base commander, a two-star from Idaho, who had been an extremely gracious host. One quick phone call from the CO and Hayek had complete access to the lab and any help that the staff could offer.
Hayek was impressed with the facility, which was run by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command. As with all things to do with the Army, they had turned the name into an acronym. Rather than call it the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility they called it JEFF. Hayek laid her evidence bags out on a stainless-steel table and double-checked that she had a backup for each sample. She then took the extra bags, placed them in a larger evidence bag, and sealed them. If anything went wrong in the lab, she could rely on these samples and test them on familiar equipment back in the States. She had taken fingerprints and DNA samples from the two dead men. She turned those samples over to the lab's latent-print examiners and DNA analysts and told them which databases to check them against. The two women smiled and reassured her that they had done this more times than either of them could count.
The officer in charge of the lab was a Major Archer. Hayek showed him the clear evidence bag with the damaged camera. "Do you have anyone on staff who could check and see if there are any useful images on this?"
The major wasn't wearing gloves, so he made no attempt to touch the bag. "Yes, ma'am. We have an information technology analyst. This is just his kind of thing. I'll be back in a second."
When the major reappeared, he had a small black man with him who was wearing bulky black U.S. Army - issue eyeglasses. "Agent Hayek, this is Corporal Floyd. He's one of our best. If there's anything in there, he'll find it."
The corporal was wearing a white paper evidence suit. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and without saying a word he held out his hands. Hayek gave him the bag and watched him hold the camera up to the light and look at it from several angles.
When he finally spoke he asked, "Do you have a power cord?"
Hayek could have kicked herself. She could see the cord still sitting on the floor. The thought of bringing it with her never crossed her mind. "Sorry . . . no cord."
The corporal shrugged his small shoulders. "I should be able to find something. Canon cameras pretty much use the same power source." He looked at the bottom and then moved to open the bag asking, "Do you mind?"
"Go ahead."
He pulled the camcorder out of the bag and checked the SD card slot.
"No memory card," Hayek pointed out the obvious. "Any chance we can find something on there?"
The corporal nodded. "This is a Canon VIXIA HF R30 SDHC. Comes with an eight-gigabyte internal flash drive. Three hours of high-def recording. If the Wi-Fi is still working, it'll be a snap. If it isn't, I might have to take the flash drive out, which will take some time."
"How much?"
"Maybe a few hours."
Hayek wasn't happy. "Can't you just hook it up to a TV and play it back?"