top the last time. It was a reasonable bet that if Hanjour was in town, he’d drop everything to come PnP with Fahad.
Based on Fahad’s Grindr account, as well as the questions Levy’s colleague had asked him in the prison, Fahad and Hanjour had had no contact for over a week. All Harvath had to do was properly bait the trap.
He and Levy studied the previous messages back and forth between the men. After a brief discussion, Levy crafted a short but seductive invitation. All they had to do was wait. Hours passed.
They had held off until after arriving in Dubai, sweeping the safe house, and checking into a room at the Arabian Courtyard, before attempting to contact Hanjour. If he was anxious to meet and they were still on the road from Abu Dhabi, they might have blown their opportunity. There was too great a chance that if Hanjour wanted to play, but Fahad was hours away, he’d simply scroll through Grindr and find someone else.
Despite that possibility, there was something about their communications that suggested the fifty-seven-year-old Hanjour had an affinity for the twenty-six-year-old-Fahad. Harvath assumed it was akin to older straight men who got their kicks dating women half their age. He couldn’t be sure, but he hoped that if there was something there, it would work to their advantage.
When the chime sounded on the cloned phone, Harvath and Levy immediately stopped what they were doing and read the message. Hanjour wanted to meet. “[email protected],” he typed.
“Silk Route at 1800?” asked Levy.
Harvath nodded, “Six p.m. at the Silk Route.”
It was on. Hanjour had taken the bait, but now the real work would begin. The biggest problem with Bur Dubai, next to the traffic, was the fact that there was no parking. The Arabian Courtyard offered a valet service, but there was no way Harvath was going to place his operation at the mercy of how quickly valets could bring a car around.
Being able to devote someone from their team to remain with a vehicle was a big advantage. Harvath was reminded once more of the advantages of not always going it alone. Levy and her resources were worth their weight in gold.
In addition to leaving a man with the BMW, she placed a couple of spotters outside the hotel on Al Fahidi Street to watch for Hanjour. Once they saw him, their job was to figure out whether he was alone. Levy also put a man and a woman in the restaurant to have a long, leisurely dinner at a table where they could observe everyone who came and went.
It wasn’t exactly the light footprint Harvath had envisioned, but it was the right thing to do and Levy more than knew her stuff.
Their biggest challenge was where and how to actually grab Hanjour. Bur Dubai was a lot like being in the French Quarter in New Orleans, but with three times the people. It was going to be impossible to pull up, stuff him in the trunk, and take off without anyone noticing. Even if they could slip him a drug like Rohypnol, it would be a tightrope act getting him out of the restaurant and through the hotel without attracting attention.
What they needed was for Hanjour to do their work for them. He needed to walk right into their arms, and that gave Harvath an idea.
When he presented it to Levy, the first thing she said was, “What’s Plan B?” It wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence.
But as Harvath explained how it could play out, Levy came around to his way of thinking. That didn’t mean they didn’t need a Plan B. Harvath and Levy assembled one, as well as Plans C, D, and E. If all else failed, they’d go to Plan F—universally known as Fuck it, we’ll do it live. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried to anticipate and plan for all eventualities, things just went south. When that happened, it usually happened fast. At that point, you relied upon your training and did everything possible to secure the objective. A lot of times it got messy. Very messy. Harvath was hoping this wouldn’t be one of those times.
• • •
At seven minutes to six, the call came in that a man fitting Khuram Hanjour’s description had just pulled up in front of the hotel. He valet-parked his white Mercedes and walked inside. There was no one else with him.
As the spotter relayed what the man was wearing, Anne Levy told the rest