Act of War - Brad Thor Page 0,26

being generous with the word ‘sliver.’ ”

“It doesn’t look like much until you enhance it. Like this,” she said, advancing to the next slide. “This is how we know the picture was taken from inside one of the rooms at the Arabian Courtyard.”

“What am I looking at?”

“Across the street from the hotel is the Dubai Museum. They have a traditional Arab dhow in the courtyard. What you’re looking at is the tip of the mast through the hotel room’s window.”

She advanced to her next and final slide. It was a split screen of the enhanced photo along with a photo of the ship across the street. There was no question. They were a match.

“So it looks like KPH uses the hotel for more than just the Silk Route restaurant.”

“And based on the texts we pulled from Fahad’s phone, they get together to PnP on a pretty regular basis.”

“Then the Brit and French files were correct about Hanjour’s extracurricular activities,” said Harvath. “Do we know if he travels with any security?”

“We don’t think so. And it wasn’t in any of the files. So we’re going with no.”

Harvath agreed with the assessment. Even if Hanjour did have a security detail, he couldn’t see him dragging them around for drugs and gay sex. Security details were also expensive. Hanjour did strike him as a big enough player to warrant that type of thing. Having some means of self-defense, though, was different. “Do we know if he’s armed?”

Levy shook her head. “We don’t know for sure, but the UAE has very strict laws against firearms. One year in prison for every bullet you’re caught with.”

“The UAE supposedly has strict drug laws, too, so we’ll assume he’s armed,” said Harvath. “What about prior military experience? Any arrest record or outstanding warrants?”

“Not that we know of. At this point, you know everything about Khuram Hanjour that we do.”

“Which leaves us with only one issue. How we’re going to break him.”

“Whenever you’re ready on that,” the operative named Cowles interjected, “we’ve got what you requested out back.”

Harvath looked at Levy. “Anything else I need to see? Or are we all done here?”

“We’re done,” she said and signaled for the lights to be turned back on.

Harvath took a bite of his sandwich and followed Cowles and Levy out the rear of the building to an adjacent Quonset hut. It had a large roll-up garage door. Cowles opened it up. Inside was a black 7 Series BMW. Producing a key fob, he depressed the trunk release button.

Harvath looked inside and studied the contents. Everything that he had asked for was there. “Excellent,” he said, shutting the lid and pocketing the fob. “Safe house?”

Levy removed a map and pointed to where it was and recited the address. “We plugged a bunch of decoy addresses into the car’s GPS system. One is for a Dubai temp agency that’s at the end of the block on the opposite side of the street.”

“What about the Emiratis and their intelligence division?” Harvath asked. “What do they think we’re up to?”

“They know we’ve begun looking into an Emirati suspect named Khuram Hanjour, but we told them it was in relation to a Russian organized crime ring.”

“And they bought that?”

“For the moment, yes. We’ve buried them with requests to run down a ton of leads. We also gave up two high-end Ukrainian call girls out of Dubai who we know are working for the FSB and who were sent here to seduce influential Emiratis. That alone should be enough smoke to keep them busy and cover us for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If we need more to throw at them, we have it.”

“Sounds like our bases are covered.”

“There’s one last thing,” said Levy. “The assistant DCI wants a countersurveillance team on you. Just in case.”

Harvath shook his head. “No way. We don’t want to spook Hanjour. If the wind even blows the wrong direction, he’s going to bolt.”

“I understand that, but there are too many unknowns here. We don’t know if he has a team of floaters that follow him. We don’t know if we’ve accidentally piqued the Emiratis’ interest in him, even though we’ve tried to downplay it. We don’t know if Al Qaeda is watching him to make sure no one else is. We don’t know much of anything, except that he’s the only lead we have and if he disappears, we’re all in trouble.”

“But if we flood the zone,” Harvath replied, “he’s going to pick up on it. That’s what matters.”

“We’re not

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