The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [146]
"Thank you, Miss Davis. As always, you've been very helpful."
"Just doing my bit. You think he's a terrorist or something?" she had to ask.
"No. If you were in any danger, we'd give you fair warning."
Mandy reached into her Louis Vuitton purse and pulled out a knife with a five-inch blade. It wasn't legal for her to carry such a thing concealed, but in her line of work she needed one sure friend to accompany her, and the detectives understood. She probably knew how to make proper use of it, they surmised. "I can look after myself," she assured them both. "But Uda isn't like that. He's actually rather a gentle man. That's one thing you get to know in my business, reading men. Unless he's a bloody fine actor, he's not a dangerous sort. He plays with money, not guns."
Both cops took that pronouncement seriously. She was right-if there was anything a hooker was good at, it was reading men. Those who couldn't often died before reaching twenty.
After Mandy took a cab home, the two Special Branch detectives wrote up what she'd told them, and then e-mailed it to Thames House, where it became another entry in the Security Service files on the young Arab.
Brian and Dominic arrived at The Campus at 8:00 A.M. on the dot. Their newly issued security passes allowed them to take the elevator up to the top floor, where they sat and drank coffee for half an hour until Gerry Hendley showed up. Both of the twins sprang to attention, especially Brian. "Good morning," the former senator said on his way past, then he stopped. "You want to talk to Sam Granger first, I think. Rick Pasternak will be here at around nine-fifteen. Sam should be in any time now. I have to see to my desk right now, okay?"
"Yes, sir," Brian assured him. What the hell, the coffee wasn't bad.
Granger came out of the elevator just two minutes later. "Hey, guys. Follow me." And they did.
Granger's office was not as large as Hendley's, but it wasn't a trainee's cubbyhole, either. He pointed to the two visitors' chairs and hung up his coat.
"How soon will you be ready for an assignment?"
"How does today grab you?" Dominic asked in reply.
Granger smiled at the reply, but overly eager people could worry him. On the other hand, three days before maybe eagerness was not so bad a thing after all.
"Is there a plan?" Brian asked.
"Yeah. We worked on it over the weekend." Granger started with the operational concept: reconnaissance by fire.
"Makes sense," Brian observed. "Where do we do it?"
"On the street, probably. I'm not going to tell you how to perform a mission. I will tell you what we want done. How you do it is going to be up to you. Now, for your first target we have a good crib sheet on his location and habits. It will just be a matter of identifying the right target and deciding how to do the job."
Do the job, Dominic thought. Like something from The Godfather.
"Who is he and why?"
"His name is Uda bin Sali, he's twenty-six, he lives in London."
The twins exchanged amused looks. "I should have known," Dominic said. "Jack told us about him. He's the money puke who likes hookers right?"
Granger opened the manila file he'd picked up on the way in and handed it across. "Photos of Sali and his two girlfriends. Location and photos of his house in London. Here's one of him in his car."
"Aston Martin," Dominic observed. "Nice wheels."
"He works in the financial district, has an office at the Lloyd's insurance building." More photos. "One complication. He usually has a tail. The Security Service-MI5-keeps an eye on him, but the troop they have assigned seems to be a rookie, and there's only one. So, when you make your hit, keep that in mind."
"Not using a gun, are we?" Brian asked.
"No, we have something better. No noise, nice and covert. You'll see when Rick Pasternak gets here. No firearms for this mission. European countries