The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [58]
The nature of the conversation was innocuous, so much so that one might wonder why the call had been placed. But some people just liked to chat on the phone. And, maybe, they were talking in code, discussing biological warfare, or a campaign to set bombs in Jerusalem. Perhaps. More likely they were just passing the time. There was a lot of that in Saudi Arabia. What impressed Jack was that the call had been picked up and read in real time.
"Well, you know how digital phones work, right? They're always broadcasting the HERE I AM signal to the local cell, and every phone has its unique addressing code. Once we identify that code, it's just a matter of listening in when the phone rings, or the phone holder makes a call. Similarly we can ID the number and phone of the inbound caller. The hard part is to get the identity in the first place. Now they have another phone ident for the computer to monitor."
"How many phones do they keep track of?" Jack asked.
"Just over a hundred thousand, and that's just in Southwest Asia. Nearly all of them are dry holes, except for the one in ten thousand that counts-and sometimes they can show real results," Wills told him.
"So, to bag a cold call, a computer listens in and keys on 'hot' words?"
"Hot words and hot names. Unfortunately, so many people are named Mohammed over there-it's the most popular given name in the world. A lot of them go by patronymics or nicknames. Another problem is that there's a big market in cloned phones-they clone them in Europe, mainly London, where most of the phones have the international software. Or a guy can get six or seven phones and use them once each before tossing them. They're not dumb. They can get overconfident, though. Some of them end up telling us a lot of things, and occasionally it's useful. It all goes in the big NSA/CIA book, to which we have access on our terminals."
"Okay, who's this guy?"
"His name is Uda bin Sali. Rich family, close friends of the king. The big daddy's a very senior Saudi banker. He has eleven sons and nine daughters. Four wives, a man of commendable vigor. Not a bad guy, supposedly, but he's a little too doting with his kids. Gives them money instead of attention, like a Hollywood big shot. Uda here discovered Allah in a big way back in his late teens, and he's on the extreme right of the Wahabi branch of Sunni Islam. Doesn't like us very much. This boy we keep track of. He might be a gateway into their banking arrangements. His CIA file has a picture. He's about twenty-seven, five-eight, slender build, neatly trimmed beard. Flies to London a lot. Likes the ladies he can purchase by the hour. Not married yet. That's unusual, but if he's gay he conceals it well. The Brits have gotten girls into his bed. They report that he's vigorous, about what you'd expect for his age, and fairly inventive."
"Hell of a thing for a trained intelligence officer to do," Jack observed.
"Lots of services enlist the help of hookers," Wills explained. "They don't mind talking, and for the right wad of cash they'll do just about anything. Uda here likes chicken-in-a-basket. Never tried that myself. Asian specialty. Know how to call up his dossier?"
"Nobody taught me," Jack replied.
"Okay." Wills frog-walked his swivel chair over and demonstrated. "This is the general index. Your access password is SOUTHWEST91."
Junior duly typed in the password, and the dossier came up as an Acrobat graphics file.
The first photo was probably from his passport, followed by six more, in a more informal format. Jack Jr. managed not to blush. He'd seen his share of Playboys while growing up, even in Catholic schools. Wills continued the day's lesson.
"You can learn a lot from how a guy does it with women. Langley has a shrink who analyzes that in great detail. It's probably one of the annexes on this file. At Langley, it's called 'Nuts and Sluts' information. The doc is named Stefan Pizniak. Harvard Medical School professor. As I recall, he says this kid is normal in his drives,