CIA mentor, Bob McGee. It had been a bear trying to get that through the confirmation hearings. The CIA was highly protective of its turf, as well as its long-standing way of doing things. It didn’t like change and it had some key allies on the Hill. The unprecedented idea of two DCIs, especially one only in her early thirties, was more than the bureaucracy at Langley could abide.
It became clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to pass. To help the President save face, and also to save McGee’s candidacy for Director, Ryan had graciously stepped aside and agreed to accept the deputy directorship.
In her opinion, she had gotten the better end of the deal. For the most part, she’d be free from having to deal with the politicians on the Hill and could focus on day-to-day intelligence operations, as well as helping to clear out the deadwood at Langley that prevented the Agency from being the absolute best it could be. There was plenty of time left for her to become Director of Central Intelligence—if that was even what she wanted. Right now, she liked where she was. She believed in the CIA and its potential to be even better. She also liked serving a president who was determined to give those on the front lines anything and everything they needed to succeed.
Harvath had worked with Ryan before and he liked her. She was a tall, striking woman with dark hair and green eyes who was half Irish and half Greek. She had been a highly adept field operative who also knew how to navigate the Agency’s personalities and inner workings. “What do you have?” he asked.
“Khuram Pervez Hanjour, age fifty-seven, current base of operations Dubai. Suspected of recruiting for Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations. He’s also done recruiting for sundry criminal enterprises in Russia, South America, and Asia.”
“Where in Asia? China?” Harvath asked, hoping there was a connectable thread.
“No, Thailand mostly. Which doesn’t mean that he hasn’t done work for the Chinese, just that prima facie there isn’t any direct connection.”
“And his ties to Yaqub?”
“Based on the phone you took off Yaqub in Karachi, we were able to trace some calls back and forth to Dubai, but we don’t know yet if any of the numbers belong to Hanjour,” Ryan replied. “The NSA is working on it.”
“How about financials? Any indication that money has moved between them?”
“I wish we had something concrete, but you know how murky the transactions usually are with these guys.”
Harvath did know. Following the money used to be a surefire way to build relationship trees in order to see who was working with whom. The problem now was that traditional banking transfers had been abandoned in favor of what were known in the Muslim world as Hawalas.
Hawalas were networks of Muslim money brokers. Money was left with one Hawaladar somewhere in the world and it could be picked up from another anywhere else. It was based on the honor system and was described as money transfer without money movement. There weren’t even any promissory notes involved. It was all done via personal relationships, which made it virtually impossible to track. Only informal records were kept, and the Hawaladars settled up accounts between themselves, sometimes doing so by exchanging things other than cash, such as precious stones, property, even employees. The system was confounding for law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies.
“So nothing conclusive connecting Hanjour and Yaqub?” said Harvath.
“Not yet, but a week ago Emirati intelligence rolled up a Hawaladar in Dubai on a narcotics charge. He was having synthetic cannabis, also known as Spice, along with crystal meth, shipped to him from abroad. The UAE has a zero tolerance policy on drugs and he’s looking at anywhere from four years minimum to a max of fifteen in prison. The authorities haven’t rushed to get him a lawyer, but he’s been rushing to make a deal. He’s telling them anything they want to know. He’s already named all of his clients, legit or otherwise, including a Khuram Hanjour.”
“He listed Hanjour as a drug client?”
“No,” Ryan replied. “From what we understand, he ID’d Hanjour strictly as a Hawala client.”
“Do we know for sure if this is our Hanjour?”
“We’re talking to the Emiratis now.”
“Where is this Hawaladar being held?” Harvath asked. “Dubai?”
“We think so. We should have more information soon.”
“If his client is our guy and he’s in Dubai, how fast can you get eyes on him?”