The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [72]
"He's smart enough to ask a lot of questions. I have him reviewing known or suspected stringers for unaccountable money transfers."
"If he can stand doing that, God bless him," Bell observed. "That can drive a man crazy."
"Patience is a virtue," Gerry noted. "It's just a son of a bitch to acquire."
"We alert all of our people to this intercept?"
"Might as well," Bell responded.
"Done," Granger told them all.
"Shit," Jack observed fifteen minutes later. "What's it mean?"
"We might know tomorrow, next week-or never," Wills answered.
"Fa'ad I know that name " Jack turned back to his computer and keyed up some files. "Yeah! He's the guy in Bahrain. How come the local cops haven't sweated him some?"
"They don't know about him yet. Tracking him's an NSA gig so far, but maybe Langley will see if they can learn some more about him."
"Are they as good as the FBI for police work?"
"Actually, no, they're not. Different training, but it's not that removed from what a normal person can do-"
Ryan the Younger cut him off. "Bullshit. Reading people is something cops are good at. It's an acquired skill, and you also have to learn how to ask questions."
"Says who?" Wills demanded.
"Mike Brennan. He was my bodyguard. He taught me a lot."
"Well, a good spook has to read people, too. Their asses depend on it."
"Maybe, but if you want your eyes fixed, you talk to my mom. For ears, you talk to somebody else."
"Okay, maybe so. For now, check out our friend Fa'ad."
Jack turned back to his computer. He scrolled back to the first interesting conversation they'd intercepted. Then he thought better of it and went back to the very beginning, the first time he'd attracted notice. "Why doesn't he change phones?"
"Maybe he's lazy. These guys are smart, but they have blind spots, too. They fall into habits. They're clever, but they do not have formal training, like a trained spook, KGB or like that."
NSA had a large but covert listening post in Bahrain, covered in the American Embassy, and supplemented by U.S. Navy warships that called there on a regular basis, but were not seen as an electronic threat in that environment. The NSA teams that regularly sailed on them even intercepted people walking the waterfront with their cell phones.
"This guy is dirty," he observed a minute later. "This guy's a bad guy, sure as hell."
"He's been a good barometer, too. He says a lot of things we find interesting."
"So, somebody ought to pick him up."
"They're thinking about that at Langley."
"How big's the station in Bahrain?"
"Six people. Station Chief, two field spooks, and three sundry employees, signals and stuff. ''
"That's all? There? Just a handful?''
"That's right," Wills confirmed.
"Damn. I used to ask Dad about this. He usually shrugged and grumbled."
"He tried pretty hard to get CIA more funding and more employees. Congress wasn't always accommodating."
"Have we ever taken a guy up and, you know, 'talked' to him?"
"Not lately."
"Why not?"
"Manpower," Wills answered simply. "Funny thing about employees, they all expect to be paid. We're not that big."
"So why doesn't CIA ask the local cops to pick him up? Bahrain's a friendly country."
"Friendly, but not a vassal. They have their ideas about civil rights, too, just not the same as ours. Also, you can't pick a guy up for what he knows and what he thinks. Only for what he's done. As you can see, we don't know that he's actually done anything."
"So, put a tail on his ass."
"And how can CIA do that with only two field spooks?" Wills asked.
"Jesus!"
"Welcome to the real world, junior." The Agency ought to have recruited some agents, maybe cops in Bahrain, to help out with such tasks, but that hadn't happened yet. The Station Chief could also have requested more people, of course, but Arabic-speaking and -looking field officers were a little thin over at Langley, and those they had went to more obviously troublesome postings.
The rendezvous took