Act of War - Brad Thor Page 0,25
he has no idea where Hanjour lives. Whenever they meet, it’s at a restaurant called the Silk Route.”
She advanced to a surveillance photo of an outdoor restaurant and Harvath studied it. “Is that at some hotel?” he asked.
“It is. It’s called the Arabian Courtyard, but I want to show you something else, first.”
Harvath nodded his assent.
“The Emiratis let us examine Najam Fahad’s cell phone.”
“Did you get anything off of it?”
“We got everything,” said Levy. “His entire phone. We cloned it. That’s how the NSA was able to link him to Yaqub’s Hawaladar in Karachi.”
Harvath smiled. “Good job. What did you learn?”
“Fahad was using a quilt.”
“A quilt?”
“It’s a layer of perfectly legitimate apps like Google, Twitter, and Yelp that hide apps underneath you don’t want anyone else to see.”
“What apps was he hiding?”
“You want the whole list?”
Harvath shook his head. “Just the important stuff.”
Levy advanced to her next slide. It was a screen capture from Fahad’s phone. “Do you know what Snapchat is?”
“It’s an app used for sending nude pictures that self-destruct once viewed.”
“You must have teenage kids,” she said.
“No kids.”
When he didn’t elaborate beyond that, Levy let it go and continued. “Snapchat can send still photos, nude or otherwise, as well as video. The sender decides how long the photos or videos can be viewed before they’re deleted from the Snapchat server and hidden from the recipient’s device.”
“Meaning they remain on the sending device.”
“Yup. And our friend Fahad was fond of taking selfies.”
“Fully clothed, I’m sure,” Harvath joked.
“If only. I omitted them from the presentation, but we’ve brought the phone if you want to scroll through them.”
“No, thanks,” Harvath replied. “I’ll pass.”
“Smart choice,” said Levy. “Okay. You’re one for one with the Snapchat answer. How about Grindr? Do you know what that is?”
“No, and I can’t wait to find out.”
“You asked for it,” she said, advancing to her next slide, another shot from Fahad’s phone. “It’s a geolocating app. It allows gay and bisexual men to find sex partners in their area who are looking to hook up discreetly.”
Homosexuality was a death sentence in many places in the Middle East, so gay Muslim men had to operate in absolute secrecy. The lengths they went to in order to cover their activities rivaled—and in many cases necessarily so—the techniques of the law enforcement agencies in their countries.
Because of their expertise at covertly meeting, communicating, and transmitting illicit materials, many gay Muslims had actually excelled in the Hawala industry. That they were now learning this about Fahad didn’t surprise Harvath.
“What else did you find?” he asked.
“Do you know what the acronym PnP stands for?”
He shook his head.
“It stands for party and play, also known as a chemical session or chem for short. It’s when two or more people get together to do drugs before engaging in sexual activity.”
“And Fahad—our Hawaladar and part-time drug importer—liked to PnP,” Harvath stated.
“He did,” replied Levy, “and you’ll be quite interested with whom.” She advanced to a new slide that had the same picture of the outdoor restaurant at the Arabian Courtyard Hotel. “Remember, this is the Silk Route restaurant where Fahad said he and Hanjour would meet. Now,” she said, advancing to the next slide, “look at this.”
The slide showed a man’s body from the neck down, naked. His head had been cropped out of the shot. “This is the Grindr avatar for one of the men Fahad was communicating with. Do you see his handle?”
Harvath did. “1234KPH. Khuram Pervez Hanjour?” he said. “Not very creative.”
“It’s probably lazy and clever at the same time. The speed of sound is 1,234 kilometers per hour.”
Though Harvath knew better than to underestimate the people he hunted, he was still going to chalk the handle up to laziness. “We’ve got a headless body with our guy’s initials. That’s it?”
Levy shook her head. “He’s standing near a window.”
“With the curtains closed.”
“Let’s talk about the window first. Look at the shape, how it comes to a point.”
Harvath looked and then Levy went back a slide to the façade of the hotel with the restaurant.
“See how the hotel’s windows are all done in Arabian style, pointed at the top?”
“Unless these are the only pointed windows in Dubai, we’re going to need something more than that.”
Levy went back to the picture of the man standing in the room. “You mentioned the curtains are closed, but not completely. Look over the figure’s left shoulder, there’s a sliver of curtain open.”
Harvath leaned forward to get a better look.
Levy used a laser pointer. “Right here. This area.”
“You’re